Page 31 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
“Who—who are you?” Veronica whimpered. “What do you want?”
He leaned forward, dark and sinister as death himself, and bowed his head in a strangely cultured mockery of tradition. “Allow me to properly present myself, Lady Southbourne. In the Orient, they call me the Black Dragon. In Africa, I am known as the Sea Panther. A warlord along the Persian coast once granted me the title the Djinn of Darkness. I have many names, and even more titles, but first I am captain of theDevil’s Dirge,more commonly known in this part of the world simply as… the Rook.”
CHAPTERSIX
“They’ll come looking for us, won’t they?” Veronica reasoned as she and Lorelai clutched at each other in the captain’s quarters of the selfsame dark steamship she’d admired not an hour prior. “I mean, wewereabducted from your wedding after he stabbed… after Mortimer…” She swallowed as a visible shudder ran through her. “Several people witnessed the murder and would have contacted the authorities by now. Probably the whole British Navy is after us. The Rook has been a quarry of theirs for ages. They’ll rescue us and hang him for a pirate. And we can go home.”
Lorelai knew Veronica meant well. She did nothing without the best of intentions, but the desperate words tripping on Veronica’s shallow breaths did more to keep herself calm than anything.
“They’ll be looking for us, but I don’t think anyone can identify our captor by sight,” Lorelai said gravely. “He wore that cowl and large coat, if you remember, and noone has had much of a chance to recognize him. He’s not known to leave witnesses… alive.”
“He seemed to knowyou.” Veronica narrowed a questioning glance in her direction.
“Yes,” Lorelai murmured through lips blanched entirely numb. “But he wasn’t the Rook when I knew him.”When I loved him… she finished silently.
Veronica’s mind tended to work quickly, especially in times of crisis. During her tenure as the Countess Southbourne, she’d learned to deftly manage danger, as well as establish and implement evasion and problem-solving techniques learned through painstaking trial and error.
Lorelai fancied she could see the gears of her sister-in-law’s mind whirring like a timepiece wound too tightly. Veronica had yet to cease trembling, though she hadn’t shed a tear for her dead husband.
And why should she?
The ship lurched, chugged, and shuddered with a fantastic effort as they gathered strength and speed. Crystal tinkled from the shades of several hanging electric lamps, and exotic tassels swayed from the canopy of the monstrous bed upon which they huddled. A book slid off the table by the widest porthole, startling them both.
The ship had only two masts, and they’d not been unfurled when they’d boarded. But even a steamship was rarely so nimble as this one.
“You can swim, can’t you?” Veronica asked. “If we hurry, we might be able to fit through these windows before they come back. Without the weight of our skirts, there’s a chance we could make it to the estuary in time.” Standing, she used the furniture to steady herself as she stumbled for the surprisingly wide window.
“We’re too far out. We’d never make it, especially notin a storm like this.” Lorelai’s arms itched where rain still dried on her skin. Her torn, soiled gloves had disappeared, though she couldn’t remember where she’d discarded them now. Funny, that she’d worry about such trifles at a time like this. She’d rather think of anything, she supposed, than the dangerous pirate who’d come for her. Distantly, she wondered if this was all a dream. A nightmare caused by extreme prewedding anxiety. Would she wake back at Southbourne and be forced to relive the tedium and terror of her wedding day all over again?
This time, without murder.
Without Ash.
If he’d come for her… did she want to wake?
She dug her nails against her palm, wincing when the pain lanced her. No, she was fully conscious.
But unconvinced that the man who’d kidnapped her was the boy she’d loved.
Veronica grappled with the porthole latch. “I think I’d rather drown than endure what awaits us on this pirate ship.” Hysteria edged out the reason in her voice. “How can you be so calm?”
Calm? Is that what she was?Calm.She supposed her inability to move must seem tranquil, but in truth Lorelai attributed her behavior to terrified paralysis more than anything.
Shock. Astonishment. Distress. Any similar word she summoned to describe her current state seemed woefully inadequate to the task. Traumatized, perhaps?
Ash? The Rook?How?
Reality had just collided with a nightmare, and she and Veronica were the reluctant debris left in the aftermath.
“Dash it, Lorelai,helpme open this!” Veronica cried. “We’ve heard the stories of the Rook, read the news articles. Youwitnessedwhat that man did to Mortimer. TheRook has a crew of men with rocks for hearts andhe’sthe deadliest of the lot.”
“Which is why it would behoove you both to behave.” The air in the room cooled several degrees, and even the storm shadows deepened as the Rook ducked into the cabin. It was as though he brought the darkness with him. He wore it about his wide shoulders like a regal mantle tailored for the devil, himself.
Suddenly very aware that she sat upon his bed, Lorelai stood, her hand searching for Veronica, who instantly returned to her side. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed easier to address the most infamous and lethal pirate in centuries—one who wore the features of her first love—whilst clinging to her only friend in the world.
His cool, detached manner stung more than it should as he assessed her with distressing thoroughness.
Veronica probably assumed she tightened her grip out of a similar terror, but in reality, she did it to stay the impulse to smooth her bedraggled hair or fiddle with the veil that hung damp and limp from her crown.
