Chapter 10 #2
Astonishingly, his throat went pink at her words. “I told you. It’s dangerous to be alone. Especially here in St. Petroc’s. I will escort you home.”
“I have Alice and Tamsin—”
He yanked open the door and thrust her back out into the corridor. “I’ll escort all three of you then. You should not be in the village at all.”
“I don’t know how else you expect me to acquire beeswax tapers for the candelabra, Captain Archer. I assure you, they do not come buzzing in on tiny bee-drawn carts. May I remind you that I am not a prisoner at Pomeroy House?”
“You ought to be,” he muttered.
He marched her down the stairs with his hand still wrapped around her upper arm. His palm was callused; his grip felt warm and rough and strong. Tiny shivers of arousal raced along her skin, and she tried very hard to ignore everything about her current situation. Including Captain Archer.
They were confronted at the bottom of the stairs by a tall handsome woman in a ruthlessly clean apron.
She put her hands on her hips and glared at Archer and Ruby both. “Caught her red-handed, did you?”
Ruby blinked. Was “her” . . . her?
Archer removed his grip from her person—she quashed the part of herself that wanted to sigh a little at the loss—only to sling an arm companionably about her shoulders. “Something wrong, Floss?” he said easily.
“To be sure there is. This one”—she gestured at Ruby, who had no idea what she’d done wrong—“has run off with my best wine and hasn’t paid for it.”
Ruby glanced down at the bottle, and the sticky red stains on her glove. Surely “best” could not be right. “I beg your pardon,” she began. “My companions—”
“I ejected them ten minutes ago. I don’t allow dogs in my establishment. They drank nothing and paid for nothing and it was only when I went to clear the table that I noticed the wine gone and no coin left.”
“Oh,” Ruby said, “well—let me—” She fumbled for her reticule, at which point it occurred to her that Tamsin had taken charge of the financial aspect of their visit to St. Petroc’s and she, Ruby, had no money with her at all. “Ah”—she swallowed—“if you’ll give me a bit of time to—”
“To what?” demanded Floss Enys. “Run off, and with half my wine on your frock and the other half on Captain Archer’s shirtfront?”
Ruby felt herself wilt. Patrons were starting to look up; she thought she heard someone laugh behind his hand.
She felt a familiar hot rush of embarrassment, and she refused to look up at Captain Archer. She’d told him weeks ago that she was a failed debutante, but that was altogether different from standing beside him as he watched her blunder.
“I—perhaps I could work the debt off in the kitchen,” she said. “I am quite good at scrubbing. Captain Archer can vouch for that.”
When he jostled her closer, she did not see it coming.
She felt the hard press of his chest as he tucked her more firmly beneath his arm, and she could hear in his voice that he was smiling.
“She’s a dab hand at cleaning,” he confirmed.
“You can take her at her word. Used to be a barmaid in Nether Bishop, our Ruby.”
Mrs. Enys was still scowling, but she had softened under the force of Captain Malcolm Archer. “At her word, is it? Is that as reliable as yours, fancy lad?”
“Come now,” he said cheerfully. “When have I ever let you down, Floss?”
Mrs. Enys pursed her lips. “Does that mean you’ve finished your preposterous project upstairs?”
“Not yet. I scoured the hammocks last night and laid them out, and I’ll be back later on to hang them.
I’ll have William and George and Sidney and Alfie in their own beds before the sun goes down tonight.
I swear it.” He produced a coin and flipped it through the air toward Mrs. Enys.
“For the wine. She doesn’t need to scrub. ”
Ruby felt herself flush from head to toe.
Mrs. Enys caught the coin out of the air, and at his words, her mouth crooked up. “Keeping her hands as pretty as your face, love?”
“As pretty as yours, maybe.”
When Ruby looked up, she saw that he was grinning at Mrs. Enys, all dimples and ease. Her skin burned hotter.
He had . . .
Oh God. He had rescued her. He had directed the force of his considerable personality at Mrs. Enys to save Ruby from a contretemps of her own making.
He had no reason to do it. She had accused him of all manner of deceit and duplicity; she had tracked him down here and confronted him in what might well have been flagrante delicto. And still, despite it all, he’d come to her aid.
No one, so far as she could recall, had ever rescued her in her life. She felt feverish and prickly: shame and gratitude and resentment all tangled inside her. Captain Archer’s fresh salt scent seemed to have fuddled her brain.
“I beg your pardon,” she got out. “Thank you for the wine, Mrs. Enys.”
Mrs. Enys waved her off. “Get on with you then. Before I change my mind and put you to work.”
The dismissal was clear, but Ruby found herself hesitating. She forced herself to recollect that she was no dewy-eyed miss, easily swayed by a comely ship’s captain who laughed and paid for her wine and smelled of the sea.
She had entered this inn for a reason. She tried to recall it.
“Tell me,” she said, before she could lose her nerve, “have you heard of any new sightings these last days?”
Mrs. Enys’s brows rose. “Sightings?”
“Yes,” Ruby said. “Of the Scourge of St. Petroc’s.”
Archer’s arm around her shoulders went from cozy familiarity to iron bar. He spun her about, pointing her toward the door. “Time to be off!” he said. “I’ll be back later, Flossie.”
Ruby tried to look back to ascertain Mrs. Enys’s response and caught Captain Archer as he mouthed some words over her head.
Drunk as a lord, she thought it might have been.
She hopped a little, trying to catch his gaze. “What did you say?”
He grinned down at her, his face all unrepentant dimples and plaster dust. “Nothing, my darling little barmaid. Come now. Let me take you home and I’ll fetch you another bottle of wine.”
She stopped dead, and he hauled her back into motion, the implacable strength of his arm keeping her on her feet. “If you call me darling again I shall—”
“Farewell!” he called over his shoulder to Mrs. Enys, drowning out Ruby’s protest.
“You are a scoundrel,” she muttered into his shirt as he dragged her down the street. “A rogue and a liar. I don’t believe a word you’ve ever said to me.”
For just a moment, his steps faltered.
Ruby looked up.
“That’s probably wise,” he said. For the space of a heartbeat, he looked almost pained. But then his summer-blue eyes fell back to her, and they crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “Though if we’re cataloging crimes, pet, you’re the one who stole the wine. Not me.”
And then—horrid, horrid man. He winked.