Chapter 14
Archer was still holding Ruby’s hand when they reached the front door of Pomeroy House. He ought to have dropped it. He should have let her go—oh hell, an hour ago in the cove. Weeks ago.
But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to. He was glad that, despite his very best attempts, she had not left Pomeroy House.
He couldn’t make himself regret their kiss.
In his memory, it was all sunset colors: the slow flush of desire like a red-hot tide inside his body, the peach-and-pink shades of Ruby’s mouth and skin.
It had been a struggle at times to overcome his smile in order to fit his mouth to hers.
Never, in all his life, could he remember a kiss that had made him so bloody happy.
I want it too, she’d said, and because it was Ruby, he knew it was the truth. She would not dissemble, would not pretend or flatter to get what she wanted.
She wanted him. She knew the truth, and still she wanted him.
Although—the thought came to him with a sudden uneasiness—perhaps she had not uncovered the Quenby scheme. She had not mentioned it. Surely she would not have left it out if she had known.
But his unease refused to unfold into something more powerful.
They were at the door, and her hand was in his, and when she looked up at him, she was smiling.
Bedraggled and barefoot and soaked to her skin, sand in her hair and on the curve of her ear.
And still, she was grinning, pleased with him and with herself.
How many times had she smiled like that at him? Once? Twice?
It wasn’t enough. He thought he could never have enough.
She appeared to ponder the state of his clothing—heavy with water and sand—and then her own, which was possibly worse. “Do you think we ought to sneak in the back?”
“Possibly. Though as I understand it, your ladies have wheedled their way into dining with my crew in the kitchen most nights.”
Her lips quirked in tacit acknowledgment, and it occurred to Archer that it had been some minutes—a month, perhaps—since he’d removed his gaze from her mouth. “They have,” she said, sounding far too smug for a woman garbed mostly in sand. “And I suspect it’s suppertime. The front, then.”
Archer set his hand to the door, pushing slowly to prevent the escape of a pack of rogue hounds. He scarcely had the door open, however, before he heard a small but decided clamor emanating from some nearby room.
He paused and looked down at Ruby. “Shall we try the back?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “but was that not—”
Lamentation burst around the corner, Gerry and Tamsin at his heels. He spotted Archer and Ruby at the door, and his mouth tightened into a sickly smile. “Cap,” he croaked. “Thank goodness you’re back.”
“Is everything all right?” Archer asked.
He was through the door now, and he’d let Ruby’s hand slip from his before anyone saw.
It felt far bigger a loss than it ought to have; he wanted to catch her around the shoulders and drag her up against his body.
He wanted to tangle his hand back in her wilted ribbons; he did not wish to let her go.
“It’s fine,” Lamentation said, still with that peculiar expression pinned to his mouth. “Everything’s just as it ought to be here at Pomeroy House. Don’t you think so, Estate Steward Captain Archer?”
This speech alarmed Archer extremely. “Ah,” he said, “yes?”
Tamsin pushed ahead of Lamentation. “Pull yourselves together,” she whispered. “They’re here.”
Ruby glanced from Lamentation to her friend and shoved helplessly at the damp, sandy mass of her hair. “Who’s here? What are you talking about?”
Tamsin’s wild-eyed gaze took in Ruby and Archer together, and then the wet trail they’d left behind them on the marble. “Oh God. Now is when you—” She broke off, flinging her hands in the air. “Never mind. Just . . . hide. Both of you should hide. Not together.”
“I don’t understand what I’m hiding from—”
Ruby’s whispered words cut off abruptly as Alice’s voice floated in from the corridor. Alice sounded inhumanly calm, her voice lilting and polite.
She sounded, Archer realized with a sense of rising horror, as if she were talking to a stranger. In their house.
“Right this way,” Alice’s disembodied voice said sweetly. “Allow me to show you into the blue parlor. We’ve only just finished outfitting it.”
“Tamsin,” Ruby hissed, “who is Alice talking to?”
But before Tamsin could reply, there was a crash from the blue parlor.
And then a clamor of raucous barking, followed by a pitchy wobble from Alice, not quite indecorous enough to be called a squeak.
“Oh! I had forgotten about the hounds in here. They’re—oh!
Oh goodness. If you could perhaps call her back, I would be most grateful. Oh—oh dear . . .”
Alice’s trailing words were drowned out by the sound of a reedy voice—an accent somewhere between French and Italian, oh hell, oh shit—wailing: “Zenobia! Zenobia, vieni qui!”
And then a small, springy gray dog bounded into the room and launched herself six feet in the air, directly at Gerry’s chest.
Helplessly, Gerry caught her.
The dog—Zenobia, Archer presumed—was an outrageous-looking creature, all spindly legs and narrow face and absurd bat ears. She wore a thin bejeweled collar around her arched neck, and she was digging aggressively in Gerry’s shirtfront with her snout and her paws.
Zenobia was an Italian greyhound, if Archer did not miss his guess.
And Archer was—quite spectacularly—fucked.
Before he could move or speak, a short, spare man barreled around the corner. His velvet frock coat was bottle green and spotless, though his wig and spectacles were possessed of a slightly drunken tilt.
He was, indubitably, Signor Urbano Neri. The majordomo to the princess of Monfalcone.
“Zenobia,” he moaned, “scendi!”
Zenobia did not come down. Instead, she nestled more snugly into Gerry’s arms and sent the signore a look that could most accurately be described as smug.
Archer’s limited Italian could not quite follow the series of salty imprecations that followed, but they seemed to be directed toward the dog’s character, lineage, and obstreperous conduct on the sea journey from Monfalcone to Cornwall.
Gerry looked pitifully from Archer to the signore as Zenobia began to lick his chest.
Archer swallowed very hard. And then he put on his most blinding smile—perhaps it would distract from the sand liberally coating his entire body—and strode forward.
“Signor Neri—” His voice cracked, and he had to swallow again.
Dear God, he wanted to cover his eyes and sprint in the opposite direction.
“What a pleasure to welcome you to Pomeroy House. And the . . . princess?”
It came out a question. Archer looked to the threshold through which Alice had emerged—sans Monfalcone princess—and tried to project an air of confidence, rather than the sense of doom he actually felt.
“The princess is not here,” Neri said.
Archer’s head went light with relief. “What a shame,” he got out. “And here we were so eager to welcome her. Perhaps in time. How might I best serve you in her stead?”
Neri was still not looking at him, only aiming an expression of dark betrayal at Gerry and the dog as he straightened his wig. “I have come to make the house ready for Her Highness.”
“Ah.” Archer’s voice cracked again. “She is coming soon, then?”
“She follows in a fortnight,” Neri said, “in an armed ship for her protection. She has commanded me to precede her and to make comfortable her dog.”
“A fortnight,” Archer repeated. “To make comfortable her dog.”
Neri adjusted his spectacles and looked sourly at Gerry. “I have tried everything. Everything! But the beast does not wish to be made comfortable by me.” He turned back to Archer. “You have received my correspondence? You have prepared the canine chamber?”
“The . . .” Archer could not think how to respond. The correspondence? The canine chamber? “If you have sent advance notice, Signor Neri, I fear it went astray. But we can certainly—ah—make ready. Make . . . something . . . ready.”
Neri glanced around at the house. The front parlor was in relatively good repair, thanks to Ruby and her companions, but the hounds in the blue parlor were still barking raucously as Wall attempted, in a muffled voice, to quiet them. “This house does not appear ready.”
Archer swallowed. His throat was very tight, but he kept on smiling, like a puppet with a single painted-on expression.
“To be sure. We have recently been in the process of some renovations to the lower chambers.” He thought of the piles of smuggled rugs in the upper tower, and the lace stockings in the stables, and—oh God—the absolute masses of extremely illicit and brightly colored silk in six separate wardrobes spread out across the house.
“Perhaps you might tour the grounds while we air out your chamber.”
If Archer were very lucky, perhaps Signor Neri would fall off a cliff.
“Just so,” Neri said, and then he paused. His gaze traveled over the assembled company, from Alice behind him to Tamsin and Lamentation and Ruby and then to the place where canine sounds still echoed. “You are . . . hosting guests? At the princess’s home?”
Archer’s belly pitched. Disaster loomed.
But he could do this—surely he could do this. He could invent some tale, allow the story to embroider itself as it passed his lips. This was what he did: talked and talked and somehow made people believe him.
But Ruby spoke first.
Her bare hands locked together beneath her breastbone. Her hair was honey-dark from seawater, curling up in wild sandy tangles as it dried. All the distracting pink had faded from her cheeks; she was pale, eyes dark, lips pressed into a line.
“Signor Neri.” Her voice wobbled. “These gentlemen are the staff of Pomeroy House. And I am . . .” She licked at her lips, then tried again. “My father is . . .”
For the space of a moment, Archer thought she too meant to dissemble. To convince Neri that she was where she ought to be.