Page 24 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
"Miss d'Ailes,” the duke said, “allow me to present Don Lorenzo della Rocca, Count of Brianza. My youngest brother."
The new gentleman swept into a bow so magnificent it required music.
“Incantato, signorina. I am just the penniless brother with the faultless pedigree."
Marguerite looked more closely at Lorenzo. There had been della Roccas around Milan, Monza, perhaps Como, old enough to matter and complicated enough to survive by marrying well and reappearing whenever Europe rearranged itself. She had never heard of a penniless della Rocca.
"What branch of the della Rocca family?" she asked.
Lorenzo's gaze flicked, quick as a pickpocket, toward Tristan.
"The poor one," he said at once.
Tristan's expression did not change. Marguerite had the sudden sense of having stepped near a covered hatch.
"How precise," she murmured.
"Poverty makes a man direct." Lorenzo offered his arm with a flourish. "Now, allow me to escort our passenger to her cabin before she decides we have terrible manners. We are working very hard against our natural gifts. Right, Captain?"
"Yes," the duke said. "Escort Miss d'Ailes below."
The word should not have sounded ominous. Ships had lower decks. Houses had upstairs. Coaches had interiors. Everything possessed a where-one-must-go-next. Still, the thought of descending into the frigate, into narrow passages and enclosed cabins and a voyage from which she could not simply walk away, drew a cold thread through her excitement. It slipped beneathher stays, fine as wire, and tightened around her ribs. Her fingers had begun to chill inside her gloves. Do not shiver, she told herself sternly. One did not negotiate passage to Naples and then tremble because a staircase had appeared.
And now she was entirely on the duke's ship, under his command, at his mercy. She did not really know him. She knew he could be arrogant, reckless, startlingly gentle, and far too adept at making her body forget its alliances.
But what did he do with power when no one watched? Her shoulders drew in despite herself. The deck seemed suddenly too wide behind her and the hatch too narrow ahead, as if the ship had become a throat preparing to swallow her whole.
Before she could follow Lorenzo, the duke pressed something into her gloved hand. "The key to your cabin, Miss d'Ailes."
It was plain brass, warm from his hand. The key to her door. A door she could lock. Against him. Marguerite stared at it. Her fingers closed around it, and the cold wire around her ribs loosened by one notch, then another.
He had given her the choice.
Her shoulders lowered, and she took the first real breath inside the frigate. The key rested in her palm like a little coal wrapped in cloth. Not safety, perhaps. Not yet. But the beginning of it.
She had almost kissed the pirate in a moonlit garden. She had negotiated with the duke. And now, she felt she knew the captain.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Chapter ten
Lorenzo della Rocca escorted Marguerite below by the worst possible route. This became clear after the second steep companionway, the third narrow passage, and the fourth obstacle he pointed out cheerfully.
“You must duck here,” he said, indicating a beam placed at precisely the height required to test feminine dignity. “My brother says the ship was built for war, not comfort. Of course, war is often more comfortable.”
“How reassuring.”
“And mind this step. It has murdered three midshipmen and one very fine boot.”
Elsie, following behind with a small bag clutched to her chest, muttered, “I knew Italy was too far.”
Marguerite kept her gloved hand against the wall.
“You will notice,” Lorenzo continued, “that the overheads are low, the air is stale, the floors are rude, and the walls have the elegance of a moldy crate.”
“I see,” Marguerite said. “In Italy, do gentlemen always criticize a man’s ship while he is absent, or is this a courtesy reserved for brothers?”
He looked back at her, blue eyes bright. “Ah, but Captain Blackmere is everywhere on this ship. If I criticize with sufficient feeling, perhaps he will materialize and throw me overboard.”
