Chapter Seven
Briar waited for horror to choke her.
Regret, shame, nausea. Something.
Not a giggle.
But there it was, sticking in her throat like honey.
A giggle.
Surely she ought to be weeping. Swooning. Ladies did not stab people in the back. Ladies from Haven did not stab people, ever. For any reason. It was simply too déclassé. A pointed remark, a discreet hex, a cut direct—these were acceptable reactions. Civilized reactions.
Briar did not feel particularly civilized.
It was kind of nice.
The strange out-of-real-life feeling intensified when Ethan froze and then glanced calmly over his shoulder as though being skewered like crudité for a fancy nuncheon was perfectly reasonable.
“I can’t say I didn’t deserve that.” He raised an eyebrow.
“But in the back, sweetheart? I didn’t know you had it in you. ”
Why did he sound mildly affectionate? It slid over her like sweetened cream, like those whiskey rose custards her mother had said were too risqué to sell at the shop counter.
Fear and something much sweeter coursed through her.
He was touching her everywhere and he had not moved from where he stood, except to pluck the gold fork from his shoulder.
She felt a tiny bit bad when blood seeped into his shirt.
Just a bit.
“It’s a clean fork,” she offered. She’d made too many comfrey and honey tonics for cuts that had festered.
Needless to say, festering wounds were not quite the tone Haven wished to convey.
Even farmers and fishermen could not escape expectations.
Vinegar rinses were handed out, ointments donated by earl’s daughters and duchesses.
The smell of lavender hung over the fish docks, and fishing boats were often garlanded with flowers when they came close to the village.
Why was she thinking about flower garlands?
Oh, right. Because she had just stabbed a man and she had no idea what the next step was.
It hadn’t brought her any closer to freedom. In fact, she was fairly certain there was a musket trained on her. Maybe three. “Stand down, Anais,” Ethan said wearily, confirming her speculation.
She couldn’t run, even if there was somewhere to run to. Her hip had had quite enough excitement for one day, thank you very much. If she tried to jump overboard, she was trading drowning for whatever other fate awaited her on board.
She eyed the waves anyway.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ethan growled, suddenly right there beside her. “You’ve caused quite enough trouble already.”
“I have?” she shot back incredulously. “You abducted me.”
He smiled slowly. “You practically begged me to.” His smile died and he leaned down closer, invading her space. He smelled like salt and wood smoke. “Why is that, I wonder?”
“I have no idea what you mean.” As a statement, it would have sounded so much more convincing if she hadn’t squeaked it.
His eyes kept her pressed to the mast just as effectively as the ropes had. “Hmm.”
She didn’t know how to interpret that sound. Not a growl, not a grunt, but somewhere between the two. Did it mean he believed her? Why would he, when she’d just stabbed him? With a fork.
“You do look proud of yourself,” he said, wryly.
She tried not to. It probably wouldn’t help matters.
“Come on,” he added. He paused when she did not immediately move, then pressed a hand to his wound. A shot of darkness ran through his voice. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
She followed him because there was an entire ship’s crew between her and the sea, between her and the docks. Between her and home.
Her hip snagged, freezing the way it sometimes did.
She should have asked to be abducted with her driftwood cane.
She limped, gritting her teeth. Please let me stay upright.
For some reason the idea of falling into a heap was worse than everything else.
She knew the looks she’d get in Haven; she could only imagine how much worse it would be on a ship packed with Iron Crows who already did not think particularly well of her.
They’d see it as a weakness, and she could not afford that.
Ethan narrowed his eyes in her direction when she faltered.
“I don’t have my sea legs,” she lied.
“Hmm.” That sound again.
He pressed his palm to her lower back, and she knew it must look as though he was shoving her forward, but in reality it felt very much as though he was steadying her.
The silence of the captain’s cabin welcomed them, the water whispering below.
Ethan peeled his bloody shirt away from the punctures. She tried not to care.
Instead, she muttered, “I need water and comfrey. And honey if you have it.”
He looked amused. “It’s barely a wound.”
Affronted, she made her own sound in the back of her throat. Let him decipher it this time.
His grin, while fleeting, suggested he had no trouble whatsoever. “The apothecary chest is in that corner.”
It was a heavy wooden chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl and abalone-studded handles. It was beautiful and very well stocked. He rose slightly higher in her estimation. She nearly said as much. And then she turned around.
He’d pulled his lawn shirt over his head, revealing a sculpted chest, thick with muscles.
Two swallows were tattooed on his pectorals, with dark hair curling between them.
He was sun-kissed, suggesting that shirts were not generally required.
His pants hung low, exposing more muscles, more sun-browned skin.
She almost forgot she was trapped. Almost. Just for a moment.
She struggled not to blush. She had no business blushing.
Doctors did not blush. Nor did women who found themselves taken by pirates and then stabbed them.
As they deserved. His smile was slow, knowing.
She deserved it, really. Who let themselves be distracted by a bare chest, by corded arm muscles, by—
Briar Foxglove, get yourself sorted.
“Turn around,” she ordered him briskly. Not at all breathily.
He turned, still smirking. The fork had left three deep holes, bleeding sluggishly. She pressed her lips together.
“Don’t apologize,” Ethan said. How was it he saw her so clearly when he did not even know her? “You’ll ruin the effect.”
“Well, I am from Haven,” she allowed. “And we do like an effect.”
He smiled faintly and it was different, softer.
More real, somehow. She slapped a wet cloth over his punctures with more force than was strictly necessary.
It took no time to wash them clean. She added the comfrey and then a layer of honey.
“You’ll need a bandage,” she said. “Or your shirt will stick.”
“Then I suppose I won’t wear one.”
Of course not. There was another tattoo, just below where she’d stabbed him.
A nautical star, carefully shaded. She resisted the urge to brush her fingertips over it.
Tattoos were not uncommon among witches, however rare they might be among mundane society.
They held magic, sometimes in the ink itself, sometimes in the symbolism.
“What does the star mean?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
“The star guides a sailor home no matter where they might be,” he explained, facing her again. “Although not through Lyonesse’s bleeding shields, apparently.”
She smiled weakly. “And the swallows?”
“Every swallow marks five thousand miles traveled.”
She couldn’t help a wistful little sigh. “This is as far from Lyonesse as I’ve ever been.” She’d never made her curtsy to the queen—she was a shopgirl, after all, not a lord’s daughter.
He raised an eyebrow. “How do you like it so far?”
She raised her eyebrow right back. “It needs work.”
His laugh was quick and rusty. “I’ll bet it does, at that.”
She wiped her hands on her skirt to rub away the honey. “Now what will you do with me?”
“I was just wondering the same thing.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I suppose it was too much to hope there would be an easy solution. I forgot how this island can pack a punch.” His dark eyes pierced her. “We’ll need that charm after all.”
“I don’t know where it is.” That was mostly the truth. She didn’t know where Petal was. Had she made it back to the cottage? Had Bramble found her? Were they even now hiding somewhere? There was no one better suited to hiding than a rabbit witch. That was a comfort, at the very least.
And really, at this point, why bother keeping up the subterfuge? It had worked for the moment in which it needed to work, but now she knew more. She couldn’t break the shields and it would take two minutes in Haven for someone to tell Ethan that she was not Petal. She was the other sister.
“I’m not Petal,” she mumbled. “I’m Briar.”
“Ah.” Why did he seem oddly vindicated? Pleased, even? “That’s better.”
She blinked. “It is?”
“It suits.”
She sighed. “Of course it does.”
So her mother had thought when Petal was born perfect and pink and glowing like a rose, followed immediately by Briar, whose right leg had stuck out at an odd angle. Like a little thorn, their mother had said. Petal, Rose, and Thorn—we shall be a little garden.
“What’s that expression?” Ethan asked softly.
“Nothing.” She tried to make her face calm, cheerful. Anything but whatever it was doing that made him arrow in on her that way. Like he would pluck the secrets from her as easily as treasures from a ship run aground. “Petal is my twin sister,” she said finally.
A pause. “Ah.”
“But I don’t know where she is,” she rushed to add.
“And you would tell me, if you did?”
“Absolutely not.”
“That’s my girl.”
Everything about that was deeply inappropriate, up to and including the heat that it kindled in her belly.
“But we’re still going to need her, little thorn,” he said. “Though I suppose it can wait until morning.” He stepped aside, bowing with a flourish like a gentleman in a London ballroom. With that hint of mockery, of course. The bite of a certain kind of darkness.
“You’re letting me go?”
“Do you want to stay?”
Absolutely not.
Maybe.
Briar Foxglove, stop being such a goose.
She had no business feeling safe with him. He’d tied her to a mast. She’d stabbed him.
“Go home, little thorn.” His voice was a promise and a threat. He really was very good at that. “It’s not like any of us are going anywhere.”