Page 80 of Inconvenient Honor
“I thought you were dead,” he murmured.
She looked up, startled. “I feared for you, too,” she whispered through a throat thick with unshed tears.
The shadow of a grin flitted across his face. “Perhaps my lie had one benefit. At least they put us together.”
He looked around. Their cell had nothing but rough wooden walls and a foul-smelling bucket, for relieving themselves he presumed. “Not exactly the Brighton Pavilion, but better than the hold.”
“Better?”How could this hole be better?
“No warmer though,” he said. Lily felt him begin to shiver spasmodically.
“Maybe this will help.” Lily picked up the pile of rags and shook it out to find it was a tunic of some sort, like the garment a laborer or nomad might wear. It looked as if it had once been blue but had faded to dirty gray. It smelled vaguely of animal, showed patchesworn thin with wear, and sported ragged tears across the hem. She held it out to him.
His look of distaste might have amused her under other circumstances.
“Your choice is this or parading in front of those men in your smalls,” she said tartly. She looked fully at his state of undress, which she had ignored in her terror in front of Hamidou, and felt her face grow hot. “They treated you horribly.”
“They weren’t gentle,” Richard said, pulling the offensive garment over his head. “But I fared better than Volkov.” He winced when it slid down his back.
“Volkov? Is he alive?”
“Barely. They beat him badly. He’s tied up in the hold in his own filth without so much as the dignity of his smallclothes.”
“I can’t feel pity,” Lily said, but she looked as if she regretted that. “Let me look at your back.”
“Not now, love. I will keep.”
Did he really call me love? In her heart she knew it to be a figure of speech, but an unusual one for the Marquess of Glenaire.
“You don’t need to fuss over some scratches,” he went on. “We are together and will be fed—or so Hamidou promised. Let that be enough for now.”
Hamidou! In spite of her best efforts, Lily crumpled. “He threatened to sell my baby!” She grabbed the front of his robe and wailed, “You have to protect her. Pay him whatever he asks. Tell him he can sell me, but protect our baby.”
“Don’t even think about making such an offer!” he shouted and quickly lowered his voice. “I won’t have it.”
“You don’t order my life,” she sobbed. “I will do whatever I have to.”
Richard took both her hands in his. “Hush, Love. Hamidou is no fool. He knows exactly who I am. Negotiation may be touchy, but I can persuade him to let you and the baby go. I’m certain of it.”
“Negotiation?”
“He’ll want to haggle, once he’s done terrifying us, but yes. I’ve been worthless so far on this adventure, but negotiating with hostile parties is one skill I can use to protect you.” He held on to her hands; bitterness gave his words a hard edge.
“You are not worthless,” Lily said.
“Am I not? My wife and baby are locked in a Barbary cell, a pirate has terrified you so badly you’re willing to die for your child, and I did nothing to prevent any of it,” he snapped.
“Foolish man,” Lily said. She removed her hands from his, slid them up his chest, and looked up at him. “If you hadn’t charged down that hill, I would be in this alone, with no ‘negotiating’ skills and no hope of ransom.”
Blue eyes bore into hers, warm with intense emotion.Why did I ever think them icy?
He stood a little straighter. “I’ll need help,” he said.
“Help?”
“For one thing, you must not show fear. You did well when we were taken. Your courage made me proud. Keep it up. Save your tears for when we’re alone.”
Lily doubted she had done so well, but his pride lay like balm on her flagging spirits.
