Chapter 23
They had assembled in the kitchen: Ruby and Archer, Alice, Signor Neri, Gerry and Lamentation, Eugénie and Wall.
No Princess Serafina. No Zenobia. And no Tamsin.
“They went back down to St. Petroc’s,” Alice said. Her voice was shaking, and she held Vanessa against her chest despite the way the puppy’s nails raked across her muslin morning dress. “Last night. After supper. And they did not come back.”
“I was not aware that she had gone.” Neri was wringing his hands. His face was drawn, his thin mouth stiff with misery. “She did not tell me that she meant to go.”
“I was outside with Vanessa. It was dark—I heard them arguing behind the kitchen. The princess was ordering Tamsin back inside, and Tamsin kept telling her not to, erm, be so stupid. And then Zenobia started to bark and they set off together.” Alice’s blue-green eyes seemed huge beneath the black fringe of her lashes.
“I should have waited up for them. I assumed they would be back—I never dreamed—”
Ruby touched Alice’s shoulder. “It’s all right. It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” Alice said miserably. “I should have told someone right away that they’d gone, only I didn’t wish to anger them. I was afraid that if . . . that if I told anyone, they would see it as a betrayal.”
“Alice,” Ruby murmured.
But before she could say anything else, Archer cut in. “You raised the alarm as soon as you realized they were gone. You’ve done well. We’ll find them.”
Alice lifted her lashes to fix upon him, and Ruby realized that she had done so as well. All of them had.
If he said he could turn the ocean into wine, Ruby thought, everyone here would believe him. And not because of his charm or his assurance in himself or his exquisite smile. But because he had proven, again and again, that he was a man worthy of their trust.
“What do we do, Cap?” Lamentation asked.
Archer took a breath. He looked like a pirate in truth: his face dark with his morning whiskers, his jacket thrown over a shirt open at the neck.
His chest gleamed gold beneath the white cotton—gold but for the places touched with white scars.
“First,” he said, “we go down to the village and see what we can learn.”
* * *
They went to the apothecary, the milliner, the colorman’s stall: all the shops the princess had frequented.
They divided their forces and looked in alleys and carts, checked the harbor, talked to everyone they could find.
Ruby found it almost impossibly difficult to engage strangers in conversation that way—to interrogate them without explicitly mentioning the Monfalcone princess.
They reunited in Floss Enys’s public room. Neri was too fretful to eat or drink; he merely paced in circles around their table, polishing his spectacles and straightening his velvet cuffs.
“I’m sorry,” Floss said. “I’ve been asking around for you all day—quiet-like. Subtle, as you said.” She broke off, and her eyes darted to the edge of the room. “Benji!” she shouted. “Don’t you let that cat eat from your plate again—curse you, Benji Woon, to the pits of hell—”
She strode over, her apron flapping at her legs.
Benji laughed. “Flossie, my love, grant mercy.”
“Mercy!” She plucked the kitten from Benji’s lap and set it on the ground, where it immediately sank its claws into his trousers and started to climb back up.
“Not likely. You’re not the one left chasing this poultry-mad she-devil off your pillow every night.
Listening to her wail near to dawn this morning because of that damned barking dog! ”
Ruby tensed.
At her side, Archer came to attention—easily, gracefully, the way he did everything. “What dog, Floss?” he asked. His voice was casual.
“I don’t know. Some mad thing down in the harbor. Barking and barking to raise the dead.”
“I heard it too,” Benji said. “Went down to check if it was trapped somewhere, but I couldn’t find hide nor hair of it. Must’ve been on one of the ships. Wanted free, poor lamb.”
Ruby’s heart beat hard.
A dog trapped on one of the ships? Could it have been Zenobia?
“When did the barking stop?” she asked breathlessly. “Is the ship still there?”
She was betraying her urgency, she realized. Everyone in the room would know that this was important to her—that she cared far more than she ought about a little dog. If whoever had tried to assassinate the princess had watchers in the tavern, their gaze would inevitably turn to Ruby.
But Archer did not seem to mind her outburst. His fingers brushed her hand beneath the table, drawing her to her feet, bringing her with him as he moved toward Benji.
“Before dawn, I think,” Floss said. Her eyes met Ruby’s. “A few hours before dawn.”
“Strange,” Archer said. “You don’t often hear a dog on a ship. Cats, maybe.”
“I heard it too,” put in another man, a stout fellow in a neat suit who blushed when he spoke. “Down in the harbor near midnight.”
“Oh, did you now?” said Benji, laughing again. “And what were you doing down by the docks at midnight, Mr. Polkinghorne?” He glanced conspiratorially at Archer. “’Tis always the quiet ones who surprise you.”
“Don’t tease the reverend, Benji,” Floss said stoutly. Her eyes softened as she turned to the blushing vicar. “Did you discern the ship, Mr. Polkinghorne?”
“That bore the dog? To be sure. A big black sloop by the name of Vulcano.”
The rest of their party had crowded up behind them, and at this, Signor Neri drew in a sharp breath.
Archer turned. “You know it?”
“Madonna mia,” the signore said. He swallowed. Pressed his hands together. “I know the name, yes. Verdura’s ship.”
Ruby felt a pulse of terror, stronger than anything that had come before.
She had believed the princess’s story of pirates and assassins, and yet it had seemed distant.
The princess had been whole and safe; she had not troubled to hide herself unduly, with her fine frocks and her air of command.
The Duca di Verdura had seemed a distant ghostly almost-threat, while the princess had been flesh and blood and vivid life.
But this—this was confirmation beyond all doubt. Verdura had taken the princess. Had taken, somehow, Tamsin as well.
What desperation was this? To attack the princess on her ship and then—when that failed—steal her straight off the docks?
He had taken Princess Serafina. He had taken Tam.
Ruby was at the door before she realized she had moved. She turned back in sudden hesitation, but Archer was already beside her, letting her lead, tossing a parting mention of bills to be paid to Floss as he kept pace with Ruby.
“Go,” Floss said. “I know you’re good for it.”
They raced down to the wharf. Ruby’s heart was in her throat as they scanned the ships, hoping even as she knew it was useless.
A few hours before dawn, Floss had said, but it was full afternoon now.
The sun had long since burned off the mist that rose over the water, and there was no black sloop in the harbor.
They trod the docks, and Ruby’s eyes devoured every ship, every name.
No Vulcano. Tamsin and Serafina were gone.
They were all breathing hard by the time they reached the farthest edge of the small harbor. Signor Neri twisted his fingers together, and Alice put a delicate hand over his, a silent gesture of reassurance.
“What do we do?” Ruby asked. Her face felt sun-flushed; she was thirsty and hot and desperate to move, to act. “We’ll need to track the ship, but I don’t—” She looked helplessly up at Archer. “I don’t know how to track a ship, for heaven’s sake! It leaves no trace.”
His throat worked as he looked down at her.
“The captain will know what to do,” Gerry said. His voice was so deep that it vibrated, despite how softly he’d spoken. “He always does.”
The words seemed to take Archer in the chest. He flinched a little; his gaze flicked from Ruby to Gerry and then out to the sea. He swallowed again.
“Aye,” he said finally. “I know what to do.” He fixed his gaze on the assembled company.
“Wall, come with me. I want to make the Delphinium ready. Lamentation, I’ll need you too, and Eugénie.
And”—he hesitated, his voice dragging across the words like a rasp—“Gerry. Will you take the ladies back to the house?”
Ruby’s mouth came open, words tumbling free before she could stop them. “Back to the house? You cannot . . . Surely you don’t mean to leave without me.”
He looked down at her. His eyes burned terribly blue in the afternoon light. “I’ll come back to the house. I won’t—go. Without speaking to you.”
She reached up and touched his chest. Her gloves and his shirt made a thin, distinct barrier between their bodies, but the gesture was clear. Her hand lay over his heart.
“All right,” she said. I trust you.
* * *
Archer had thought about lying. Even as he’d made the vow to Ruby, he’d considered breaking it.
It was a reflex. A habit. Lying would be easier—lying might keep her safe. It would be to her own benefit as well as his.
He had sent Wall, Eugénie, and Lamentation off to ready the Delphinium while he hastily secured provisions and called in favors.
He needed someone to carry messages, to ride ahead on the mail coach to the ports he meant to search for the Vulcano.
He needed, if it came down to it, to storm Verdura’s townhouse and search for Princess Serafina there himself—which meant he needed someone to find out for him where the hell Verdura lived.
He’d tracked down Gill Oliphant, sipping ale in the warm dusk, and had only just related the first of his many requirements to the old smuggler when he’d noticed Alfie Enys wiping the same table over and over, eavesdropping shamelessly.
“Here now,” he said, “Alfie, don’t—”
But Alfie had taken off, and within ten minutes, more Enys boys had appeared, and then Benji Woon’s equally mischievous sister Deborah, and then the apothecary’s assistant, and the hawk-nosed shipwright, and even Mr. Polkinghorne, the vicar.
Ready with maps and ropes and tinctures, with cousins in Portsmouth and ships in Southampton, with advice and provisions and stout hearts.