Chapter Five
Ethan was in hell.
And it turned out that hell was ruled by a tiny woman with more guts than brains and pink flowers in her hair.
Ethan had not been surprised in a very long time. He’d done too much, seen too much.
But he had never seen anyone like Miss Foxglove, with her pert nose and her stubborn but shaky courage.
She ought to have been plain, just another gentlewoman on an island filled with gentlewomen, but instead she was the most alarmingly intriguing creature he had ever met.
Her voice was soft and throaty. She was a little teacake, sweet and surprisingly tart. He wanted to take a large bite.
Hell.
He wanted to devour her.
Almost as much as he wanted off this damned island.
The etiquette and the rules made him itchy—you never knew what anyone actually meant when they said anything, and they always, always said too much.
Except for Miss Foxglove, apparently.
She was incongruous in his gleaming, simple quarters. She wore a striped dress that should have made her look silly, but again only put him in mind of teacakes and pretty frosting. Of presents begging to be unwrapped.
Kraken’s balls, this damned island was already getting to him.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting from a witch bold enough and clever enough to nick a fabled moon charm from the museum, but it wasn’t this small, slightly bewildering woman who smelled like mint leaves and honey.
She didn’t wear gloves, and he’d forgotten how much he liked that.
It was one of the only good things about Haven and its never-ending frills.
No one wore gloves; no one hid their witch knot from each other.
Her knuckles were faintly laced with scars, the kind gathered from thorns and prickly blackberry bushes.
Her nails were clipped short, and he knew just how they’d feel raking down his back.
He narrowed his eyes at her. Was this part of her magic? To befuddle and confuse? The faint trembling in her fingers didn’t sit well with him, though. Even though that was what he did. That was how he got what he wanted, every time. He scared people.
He didn’t just want to devour her—he wanted to comfort her.
The Dragon hunted, he stole, he pushed men into the sea. He didn’t comfort.
And yet he found himself reaching for a strawberry and popping it in his mouth, holding her gaze the entire time. “See?” he said. “No poison.”
She nibbled on the edge of a scone, her tongue darting out to catch a crumb, and he nearly groaned out loud. She added a hunk of cheese to her plate. Some spells left you drained, some thirsty, some starving.
“Try the conserve of roses,” he suggested. Boiled roses preserved in sugar and jelly never made much sense to him. It was like eating perfume. Someone tell that to his cook, Matthias.
She glanced at the pretty pink conserve. “No, thank you.”
He didn’t know exactly what was going on behind those gray eyes, but he’d poked some inner wound. He wanted to know every detail. Who had put that glimmer of bleakness, or wry weariness, in her face?
He wanted a name.
Vengeance.
Instead, he offered her something saltier, something with backbone. Something hearty, as far from eating flowers as he could get without offering her salt cod and a dry sailor’s biscuit. “How about a scotch egg?”
There were bowls of roasted quail, pigeon pies, salmon cakes with lemon.
Sugar-dusted grapes, plum cakes, and gods knew what else.
They didn’t eat like sailors. Especially not since they’d made landfall in order to replenish stock and sell some bones to the Iron Witches of Holdfast. They’d come to Haven for other supplies—Holdfast might be more comfortable for someone like him, but they already had enough hard tack and salt cod and whiskey to supply a small kingdom.
And Matthias wanted fiddleheads. Or was it rampion?
Matthias made a wonderful galley cook but a terrible Iron Crow. Ethan wasn’t sure why he kept him on, except that at this point he might well be eaten alive anywhere else. The world didn’t forget a Crow, even if he stopped being a Crow. Besides, he’d made promises. Matthias would be looked after.
Petal reached for an egg even as she glared at him. It was adorable.
It couldn’t stand.
He couldn’t be Ethan to get the job done. He had to be the Dragon.
His voice changed, without conscious thought, deepening, darkening.
“Get up, little flower.”