Where There's a Duke, There's a Way (Dukes in Danger Book 7) by Emily E K Murdoch

Author:Emily E K Murdoch [Murdoch, Emily E K]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, romance, Historical
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

9 February, 1811

Arthur awoke doing what he had promised himself he would never do.

Reaching out for her.

Pulling back his hand as if he had been scalded, Arthur blinked in the darkness and hoped to goodness Jojo hadn’t noticed. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable.

As though sharing a bed with a man wasn’t making her uncomfortable enough.

As his hazy sight grew accustomed to the gloom of the night, something was wrong. Something just out of the corner of his understanding.

He blinked. Jojo was gone.

Arthur sat up in bed hurriedly, the bed linens falling from him. He was alone. Not only in the bed—in the room. Jojo was not there.

Perhaps if they had been in an inn, he would have panicked. It was certainly not like Jojo to wander off. She was not the sort to pick her way through the darkness. And she had been abducted in Paris, hadn’t she, by French soldiers?

But they were not in an inn. The Liberté gently swayed as it soared through the waves. There was nowhere Jojo could go that would be dangerous, Arthur was sure.

Which did not explain why his chest was growing tight at her absence.

“Jojo?” he breathed, in case his eyes were deceiving him.

No, he was alone.

Arthur fell back against the head of the bed. He should take advantage of this moment. Perhaps a few days ago, he would have. The entire bed, all to himself? Luxury.

But a creeping, twisting anxiety about Jojo’s safety was tying itself around his heart and he could not ignore it. He had to ensure she was safe. Even if it meant leaving the cozy warmth of the bed.

The ship Liberté was strange in the darkness of night. Or rather, in the brilliance of the moonlight that shone through the window as Arthur rose and pulled back the curtain.

Moonlight shimmered on the waves beneath him. It was a bright night, not a cloud in the sky. The stars shone, pinpricks of light that glimmered. If Arthur concentrated, he could almost see them reflected on the ever-shifting waves.

It would be light enough for him to wander the corridors, Arthur thought, glancing at his pocket watch. Three o’clock in the morning. What on earth could she be doing out of bed at this time?

His footsteps were soft as he padded along the corridor. The ship appeared quiet. Oh, there was probably a sailor or three still awake, he was sure. Someone to navigate, someone to . . . well, he wasn’t entirely certain. What did sailors do on ships, anyway?

But he did not encounter a soul as he slowly stepped up the staircase to the deck.

Arthur’s gaze flickered about the wide empty expanse. From this angle, it was easy to forget one was on a ship. It was almost like the theatre, a stage—

There. A heap of woman lying on the deck.

His heart went cold as Arthur’s heart skipped a beat. What was she doing, lying on the deck—had she been injured? That was surely the only reason she was lying there, alone in the dark, in the dead of night.

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