Chapter 14 #2
But her eyes had gone huge and tragic, and she swiped at the salt on her cheekbone before she spoke. “My father is the Earl of Hangleton, ambassador to Monfalcone. I am . . . not acquainted with the princess. I am only visiting.”
Only then did it dawn on Archer what was happening. Damned plainspoken impossible woman—she meant to tell the truth.
He wanted to shake her. He wanted to clap his hand across her mouth. Just like that, she was going to give herself up. Abandon her dream of independence when she’d only now begun to live it.
Why would she do it? Did she fear that Signor Neri might report her presence to her father?
But no. She had spoken first—had chosen to reveal herself to Neri. The signore would not have known her if she had not admitted her identity.
Archer looked at the ivory heart of her face. Her mouth. Her storm-tossed eyes, all raw courage and tenacity.
If she was afraid, he realized, it was not for herself. It was for him.
These gentlemen are the staff of Pomeroy House, she’d said. The first thing—the very first words out of her mouth had been meant to protect his crew. She was poised to get herself sent home to take suspicion off him.
And even as he realized what she’d intended, he also knew that he could not let her do it.
“Hangleton sent the ladies from London at my request,” Archer heard himself say. “His daughter and two of her companions.”
There was a moment of startled silence and Archer tried very hard to think what to say next.
Ruby’s lips parted. “I—”
“No, no,” Archer cut in. “Please, my lady, allow me.” He did not under any circumstances mean to let her keep talking.
“Lady Ruby Ballimore, may I present to you Signor Urbano Neri, majordomo of House di Sangro?” He turned back to Neri.
“Or—I beg your pardon, signore. Perhaps you have already been introduced to her ladyship?”
Neri squinted through his spectacles at Ruby, who did not look especially like anyone’s ladyship in her current state. “Hangleton’s daughter?”
“The . . . elder,” she said faintly. “Yes.”
Archer let the lies spool out from his lips. “I asked for the ambassador’s assistance in the renovation of the house. And he, knowing his daughter’s exceptional taste and talent, sent her to Cornwall. She has been the one to select the drapings and the wall coverings and—and—”
Here his imagination stumbled. He could not say rugs. Or silks. Or, God forbid, wine.
But Ruby had marshaled her forces. “All the ornamentation,” she said through white lips. “The entablatures and pediments are done in the Erecthean style. I thought it would appeal to the princess.”
“There, do you see?” By God, he almost wanted to cheer. “The Erecthean style. Naturally.” Neri still looked incredulous, so Archer lowered his voice and said confidentially, “Lady Ruby is known as something of a genius in certain circles. Hangleton does not like to boast.”
Neri blinked. And Ruby went pink to her hairline.
“It’s unfortunate that we have not finished the project in time for your arrival, signore,” Archer continued, “but we shall carry on undeterred. I don’t doubt that with Lady Ruby’s excellent guidance, we can have the lower floors at least prepared within the week.”
Neri appeared mostly mollified, and his gaze went to Gerry again. “Your man will take over? With the dog?”
Gerry offered a pained sort of smile. “Most assuredly.”
“I will help,” Alice said. She’d crept closer and, as she spoke, she reached out to gently stroke Zenobia’s enormous ear.
Zenobia responded to the soft entreaty with a low growl. Alice blinked and withdrew her hand.
Archer’s smile widened as he looked at Neri. “Fortuitous, isn’t it, that ladies of the princess’s own age and standing should be here in time for her arrival. Why, it’s almost as if—”
He glanced at Ruby then, who was flushed and warm and edible, exactly as he most liked.
God above, he couldn’t help himself.
“It’s almost as if they are her ladies-in-waiting,” he said cheerfully.
And then he winked.
She was staring back at him. Her face was flecked with salt and sand, and her ribbons hung in a tangled mass at her waist. She looked flustered and disheveled and—
Well. There was some bit of hope written on her face, flaring back to life like an ember, and Archer felt at once terrified and hideously smug to have engendered it.
Tamsin stepped forward. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Signor Neri. I am Miss Tamsin Drake, daughter of Leopold, Lord Drake, and niece to the Countess of Bridestowe.” She paused as if to let the grandiosity of her rank distract from the sight of her trousers.
“Perhaps you will allow me to escort you down to St. Petroc’s while the maid prepares your chamber. ”
Neri attempted to protest, but Tamsin overrode him.
“There is a very fine public house. Excellent wine. And”—she had linked her arm with his and was now leading him to the door—“not a single dog to be found there.”
“It has been a very long journey,” Neri said. “By ship. By carriage. And . . . you say there are no dogs?”
She had marched him almost fully outside as he spoke, but she tossed a harried glance back over her shoulder, mouthing a hasty sentence before she disappeared from sight.
“What was that?” Lamentation asked. “What did she say?”
Archer too had been unable to make out Tamsin’s words.
But Ruby had. Her fingers fisted and then released, and she moistened her lips before she spoke. “She says . . . we should prepare. In case my father decides to come to Pomeroy House as well.”
Alice, who’d been once again rebuffed by Zenobia, turned abruptly. “Oh, Ruby! Do you think he will?”
“I . . . don’t know,” Ruby said. She swallowed. “If Signor Neri writes—and tells him that the princess is coming—I think he might. I know he has long wished to meet her.”
Her father. The Earl of Hangleton. Here at Pomeroy House.
The notion struck Archer like a blow. Hangleton had been at Gravesmuir’s dinner party. Hangleton might know him as Quenby.
His eyes flew to Lamentation. To Gerry, who was still cradling Zenobia.
“Cap?” Lamentation said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Archer lied. “Go . . . fetch the silks, will you? Put them in your chamber, if they’ll fit.”
Lamentation offered him a hasty smile and a slapdash salute, and Archer’s stomach twisted.
He was still lying to them. He didn’t know how to stop it.
What had he done? What events had he set into motion, here in the parlor with his easy deceptions? He had told Neri that he kept up a correspondence with Hangleton. His lies might bring Hangleton’s attention to Pomeroy House.
Archer had rescued Ruby’s dream. But in so doing, he had also thrown his own crew squarely in the path of disaster.
It felt like the Swallow all over again—every turn tangling him further in the net of his conflicted loyalties, every twist tightening the rope about his neck. There was no right play—no words that might spin him free.
In the parlor—in the cove—he had not thought of anything but Ruby.
His whole world had been Cornwall, and the beach, the soft curve of Ruby’s cheek and the deeper curve of her mouth.
There had been no past to haunt him nor impossible future—only the present as he held her to him, as he drowned himself happily in the bright horizon of her laugh.
For so much of his life, he had lived in the present moment. Dodging fancy coves in the streets after he’d fleeced them of their coin. Charging ships twice the size of his Swallow but half her speed.
Even when he’d sat beside his mother in her bed, a handful of flowers balanced on her palm, he’d known it would not last forever.
But not anymore. He had his crew now. There would be no easy vanishing, no quick departure if he failed them.
And Ruby—
Ah God. She was no dalliance. No temporary madness. She was not a woman for whom affairs came and went like candied fruit, bits of sweetness to be cast aside and forgotten. She took things seriously; she took them to heart.
Already—already he was letting her down, and she did not even know it. She did not even know that he was Quenby.
“I’ll clear the chambers,” he said roughly. He could not quite look at her. He couldn’t look at any of them. “I’ll have it done before Neri comes back.”