Chapter 9
It seemed possible that his crew had grown too good at smuggling.
Honestly, they’d only been at it for a handful of months. They did not have the excuse of a lifetime of piracy to explain their actions. Archer would have supposed that—upon finding several boxes of anonymous luxury items on their doorstep—Lamentation and Gerry would have at least asked.
But no. They’d leapt into action and secured the goods in a variety of obscure and ludicrous hiding places all over the house, most of which they couldn’t entirely recall when interrogated.
Only when Archer had confronted them after his encounter with Lady Ruby had they admitted that they’d thought the parcels were Archer’s and thus needed to be promptly concealed.
Bloody Christ. It had taken him six days to track down all the items, which was approximately ten times as long as it had taken for Lamentation and Gerry to hide them in the first place.
To be fair—to himself—he’d not had an easy time of it. Every time he’d turned around, Lady Ruby seemed to be peering around a corner, or popping into whichever room he was in, or inventing an errand that involved nosing into every nook and cranny.
She was clever. Canny. She was the only person in the world who had ever seemed to see right through him, a fact that made him increasingly uneasy.
Had it been one of her ladies outside the window that night?
She had said it wasn’t, and, somehow, he believed her. He recalled her blunt honesty from Gravesmuir’s party. Even when it had not served her, she’d spoken the truth.
He shifted the last bulky, waxed-paper-wrapped parcel beneath his arm and headed downstairs.
If it had not been one of the ladies-in-waiting slinking furtively past the window, who could it have been?
There had been something—some anonymous figure—out there in the dark.
He was certain of it. One minute he’d been attempting to hide a crate full of illicit Spanish oranges, and the next he’d been pressed full-length against Lady Ruby, trying desperately to shield her against what he’d believed beyond all shadow of a doubt to be an armed intruder.
He could’ve sworn that was what he’d seen. The flash of moonlight off steel—he knew that cold metallic gleam by heart.
But when he’d peeled himself away from her—all soft, ruffled temptation—he had found nothing at all. No trace of an intruder; no sign of danger. If there had been a stranger outside the house, the fellow had vanished into the cliffs.
Could it have been one of Gill Oliphant’s men? Some rival smuggler, looking for contraband?
The Scourge, his brain helpfully suggested, a notion he quashed.
There was no Scourge, for God’s sake. Lamentation had made it up.
When he arrived in the kitchen, he discovered most of the house’s occupants arrayed around the wooden table.
Tamsin appeared to have maneuvered Lamentation and Gerry into a game of cards, which she was winning handily.
Ruby and Alice were seated together, their heads bent over a tray of sugared currants.
The food deprivation scheme had met its demise days ago. Wall was a pitifully soft touch—when he’d discovered how much the ladies-in-waiting had liked his macaroni, he’d folded immediately.
Archer set the parcel down and cleared his throat.
Ruby looked up.
All of them looked up, probably, but Archer couldn’t say for certain.
God above, he was an atrocious fool. His eyes had gone straight for her face, and his mind had wheeled instantly back to that tense dawn: sea wind, and her unnamable scent, and his sudden, mad arousal as he’d shielded her against the wall.
Each dip and curve of her body was engraved upon his mind—was right there before him every night when he closed his eyes.
A pair of black puppies tumbled drunkenly toward him, and he had to pretend to be very interested in picking them up and setting them on their feet. He cleared his throat again and handed one of the puppies to Lady Alice. “I believe this is yours.”
She smiled winningly up at him from her chair. “Why yes. Thank you.”
He gestured to the paper-wrapped bundle, which he’d deposited just inside the door. “I’ve also located the last of your purchases.”
“Have you?” said Tamsin dryly. “Strange, how they were all mislaid like that.”
“Baffling,” he agreed. “Perhaps the Scourge is to blame.”
“Oh indeed.”
Ruby got to her feet and moved toward the door. Archer backed hastily away.
“Wait,” she commanded.
He attempted to ignore her directive, but the remaining puppy seemed to be entangled in his bootlaces. He tried to dislodge her while also smiling innocently at Ruby. “So sorry. Can’t stay. I have a prior engagement.”
“Not right this minute you don’t.” She was already upon the parcel, her fingers searching out the paper seams. “I mean to ensure that all our purchases are accounted for. There were several items remaining we had yet to locate, and I require—oh.” She paused in the act of unfolding the waxed paper. “Alice, did you order this for me?”
Oh hell. Now Gerry and Lamentation were looking up as well, and the puppy was still fastened to the toe of his boot. He crouched down to try to pry her free and got a needle-like fang embedded in his finger for his trouble.
Alice glanced over at the items in Ruby’s hand. “What is it?”
“A book. The Polychromatic Ornament of Italy. I’ve been longing to read it—however did you know?”
“I didn’t.” Alice’s long black lashes fluttered. “Does it say where it came from? Perhaps it got mixed up in our things?”
Ruby riffled through the book’s glossy pages. “It says . . . Kneebone’s Circulating Library.”
“That’s in Penzance,” Lamentation said, blithely unaware of the betrayal he was executing. “You ladies didn’t go all that way, did you?”
“No, of course not,” Alice said.
“You were in Penzance,” Gerry rumbled. “Weren’t you, Cap? Two weeks back?”
Archer stared at the recalcitrant, traitorous puppy and attempted to become invisible.
Ruby’s brows drew together. She looked at the book in her hands. At the paper parcel she’d just unwrapped.
And then she looked at Archer.
He had not, evidently, succeeded in vanishing. He smiled weakly at her, and—bloody hell. The puppy sank several more teeth into the tip of his finger, and he tried to pretend that was why his face felt hot.
“Do you know how this book got in here?” she asked.
“I’ve no idea.” Through sheer will and iron fortitude, he managed to outmaneuver a dog the size of a turnip. He stood, deposited the creature into Alice’s waiting arms, and then turned to the door.
Ruby was blocking his path of escape. The waxed paper had slipped to the floor, and she clutched the book to her chest. “You have no suspicion as to where it came from?”
“Not a one.”
It had been an absurd notion. He had been in Penzance for the day with Oliphant, making plans for the next shipment of wine casks, which they meant to tie to the Delphinium’s stern and then drag underwater to avoid detection.
Archer had taken a turn about the circulating library as he always did, his mind flickering helplessly back to his childhood and the room he’d shared with his mother, her hands tracing the crisp leaves of a new book.
When he’d seen the Italy volume, lying open on a shelf, he’d thought of Ruby instantly. It was brilliant. Vivid. Eye-catching and unapologetic. Like she was.
It was about classical art and decoration, which he knew well enough that she fancied.
For some terrible reason that he refused to contemplate, he’d bought the thing before he could think the better of it.
He’d meant to slip the volume onto the Pomeroy House shelves and let her discover it on her own, but she and her ladies had scarcely left the library during the room’s extended refurbishment.
Hiding the book in the ladies’ parcels had seemed a perfectly plausible alternative.
Only—damn it to hell. He hadn’t expected he’d be there when she opened it.
He blamed the situation entirely upon the dogs.
Ruby was still holding the colorful volume tight, as though someone might try to tear it from her hands. “Perhaps the book traversed the cliffs of Cornwall on its own, and then wrapped itself in my parcel.”
“Maybe it was the Scourge,” put in Lamentation brightly.
Alice perked up. “Is the creature known for its interest in milled paper?”
Archer attempted to sidle past Ruby in the threshold. She placed a hand on his arm, and—despite every one of his intentions—he went still. Her gloves were some filmy lace; he could see a single golden freckle above the knob of her wrist.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet. Her eyes were sweet and hopeful and earnest. “Did you procure this book for me?”
Archer tried to marshal a lie.
And for the first time in a very long time, he found he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Of course not would hurt her feelings. I just happened to see it in a shop would admit his culpability.
I hope you like it would be both true and—God help him—downright catastrophic.
He mumbled something unintelligible, relocated Ruby’s hand from his arm to her book, and shifted around her to make his escape.
At the table, Alice sighed dreamily. Tamsin groaned and put her head in her hands.
And Ruby kept her eyes on him. As he slipped past her, two of his fingers tangled—not quite on purpose, not quite by mistake—in one of the ribbons on her frock. The pale creamy length spooled out between them, a slow, silky glide.
He had to make himself let go.