Chapter 31
The darkness seemed to suck at Archer’s brain, towing him back down when he wanted to wake. His chest hurt. His head. When he forced his lids up, everything still seemed black.
He blinked. Lifted his hand to his face and rubbed at his eyes, which—ah fuck, that hurt too, everything hurt—where was he—
Memory struck him like a cannon blast. Panic.
He sat bolt-upright. “Ruby,” he tried to say. His voice was a soundless rasp, and the room revolved around him, a slow nauseous spin.
He threw himself to his feet. He was—Christ, he hadn’t been blinded, he was merely trapped in some tar-black enclosure. Was it a brig? A cell? There was almost no light, and his feet slipped against stone as he hurled himself forward.
He remembered the gun. He remembered Penney’s hands raising the pistol, the heat searing his cheek. But somehow . . . somehow he was alive.
Had Penney missed? Or—
His heart clutched. Fear drove into his bones like a spike.
Had Penney’s gunshot found Ruby?
The room came into vague focus around him as his eyes adjusted to the dark, though black spots still floated in his vision. His gaze landed on a door, and before he could think, he hurled himself at it. He yanked at the handle fruitlessly, then pounded at the rough wooden surface.
He was going to kill Penney. He would break down the door in his dumb animal terror, he would tear his fingers to shreds, he would die for her a hundred times, a thousand times, he had to get out—
“Penney!” he howled. “Jack Penney! Where the fuck is my wife?” He slammed his fist against the door, and it rattled beneath his hand. “If you’ve touched her—if you’ve hurt her—I’ll fucking kill you, do you hear me? You think this door can stop me? A goddamned grave couldn’t stop me!”
“Malcolm.”
It was Ruby’s voice. Low and familiar and soothing, and he—he couldn’t hear properly—he didn’t know where she was. He spun wildly toward the sound.
“For heaven’s sake,” she said, “calm down. I’m right here.”
He plunged through the dim interior, tripping over God knew what, half blinded by tears of pain and relief, until he had her in his arms.
“Oh God,” he mumbled into her hair. “Oh fuck. Ruby.”
There was a terrible sawed-off sound, a jagged breath, and he thought it was Ruby, weeping into his chest.
But no, he realized. He was the one who wept.
She held him hard, stroking his hair, and he gritted his teeth until he got himself under control. “You’re all right?” he rasped. “Penney’s shot went wide?”
“Yes—yes. I’m fine.” Her voice, muffled against his chest, shook. “He missed us both. And then his wretched batman came, and he—”
“Did he touch you?” he demanded. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away to check, so he ran his hand up her back, finding the bare skin of her neck.
“You absolute madman—you are the one the batman beat senseless, not me!”
Archer supposed that explained the agony in every muscle of his body. “But you’re all right?” he said. He was still swinging dizzily from rage to relief and back again. “If he hurt you, Ruby, I swear to God, he’s not going to survive the day. I’ll tear his heart out of his chest. I’ll—”
“I’m fine,” she said. She reached up and caught his throbbing face in her hands. “Malcolm. Listen to me. I’m perfectly well. No one hurt me.”
“Oh God,” he said. His vision dimmed once more. The room whirled.
It seemed prudent to sit down very hard on the stone floor and pull Ruby into his lap.
He held her for a long moment in the dark, breathing in her warm scent. Her cheek was wet where it pressed into his neck, and her fingers shook where she clutched at his shirt. She’s all right, he told himself. She’s all right. Calm down.
But he—
God. He couldn’t. His heart was still pounding with terror and fury, and he loosened his hold on her because he feared, suddenly, that he would hurt her.
But even as he relaxed his grip, she fisted her hand in his shirt and dragged him closer. “Malcolm,” she said. “You idiot. You—you—what were you thinking, to throw yourself at him so?”
His battered shoulders protested the ferocity of her grip, but he didn’t care. He relished it. “He had a pistol, Ruby. He could have—”
“I know what he could have done, Malcolm! I watched it happen. I think some—some chunk of plaster must have struck your face—your cheek was bleeding, all down your neck and your shirt, and I did not even know if you—if he—”
He pushed back her hair and made small soothing sounds against the tangled curls. “I’m fine. Everything’s all right.”
“Don’t lie.” Her voice broke. “Don’t lie to me, Malcolm. There’s still dried blood on your neck. I couldn’t get it all off.”
“Darling. Ruby-love. I’m not lying.” He tipped her face up and let himself indulge in the creaturely miracle of kissing her mouth. “I’ve the devil of a headache, but I’m fine. I’m right here. And . . . you’re all right. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”
“If you throw yourself in front of a firearm like that again,” she whispered, “I will kill you myself.”
“Pet.” He kissed her again, helplessly. “I can’t make any promises. I would throw myself in front of a bullet a thousand times to keep you safe.”
“That’s not—”
“I told you.” He caught her palm, pressed it against his chest. Felt the tiny indentation of her ring through his shirt. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Malcolm,” she whispered.
He held her hand against his heart. He wanted some gilded declaration, wanted words like a liturgy. Wanted to spool out promises like golden thread. But instead, when he opened his mouth, his voice came out hoarse. Abrupt. Unsteady.
“I love you,” he said.
In the shadowed dark, he watched her lips part.
“I love you,” he said again. “I can’t—God, Ruby.
I keep thinking I’ll get it right. I’ll do everything perfectly and prove to you that I can be more than what I’ve always been.
But I—” He broke off. He wrapped his fingers around her hand and kept it pressed against his chest. Holding on.
Powerless to let her go. “But the truth is, Ruby-love, this is who I am.”
“I like who you are,” she said softly.
“Sweetheart.” He gripped her fingers and fought the hot burn at the backs of his eyes.
“I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t importune you until I’d proven myself.
That I wouldn’t ask you to be with me, to take my name, until my name meant something.
And then—oh hell. Ruby. And then somehow I was leaping across a goddamned desk at Penney, and all I could think was, I’d die for her, and I still haven’t told her that I love her. ”
She was closer now—so close he almost spoke the words against her mouth.
“I love you, Ruby Ballimore,” he said. “Of course I’d take a bullet for you. I’d take it and be goddamned grateful for the chance. There is no world for me if you’re not in it. No sunrise—no sun—without you.”
She put her fingers to his lips, silencing him.
“Archer,” she said. “Not Ballimore.”
And then she moved her hand to his hair and pulled him down to her mouth.
He closed his eyes and drank in the taste of her: sweet and cool and safe.
Still here. Still his own.
He kissed her for a long time, there in the dark. He kissed her until his pulse calmed, until he’d touched and soothed every inch of her he could reach. Until his body seemed, finally, to believe that she was safe.
When she pulled back, it still didn’t feel like enough.
She stroked his hair off his brow. “I love you too,” she said.
“I told you about a hundred times when you were unconscious on the floor with your head in my lap. But in case you don’t remember—” The low ferocious intent in her voice went directly to his heart.
“I love you, Malcolm. I chose to be your wife because I know who you are. Not in spite of it.”
He swallowed hard.
She did know him. She had always seen him clear—even from the first.
“I have made enough mistakes to fill an ocean,” he said. “But I’m going to keep trying. I’m not going to fail you. I could be a week-dead corpse, Ruby-love, and I’d climb out of the ground to keep you safe.”
“That,” she said, “sounds horrifying.”
Very slowly, like a tree toppling, he leaned against her. He pressed his forehead to hers, and then he laughed until tears came to his eyes.
He loved her. He loved her so much.
She held him, all sturdy patience, until he got hold of himself again. After a long moment, he pulled back to stroke her cheek. He couldn’t see the precise color of her eyes in the dim interior, but it didn’t matter. He knew it even in the dark.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he said. “I’ll claw the door down with my nails if I have to.” His head still wanted to spin when he moved too quickly, but he tried to ignore that pertinent fact. “Do you, erm, know where we are?”
“Penney’s wine cellar, I think.”
“Jesus.” He winced, a small movement which still somehow hurt like hell. “I don’t understand why we’re still alive. Why didn’t Penney kill us when he had the chance?”
“Ah,” his wife said primly. “Well.” She looked up at him from under her lashes. “I lied.”
“You—lied?”
“To Penney. I told him that my father knew precisely where we had gone, and if we did not reappear from Penney’s house, my father would know exactly whom to blame.” Her mouth tipped up. “It seems my father was useful for something after all.”
“Ruby.” He kissed her again—his brilliant, quick-thinking pirate queen. “Thank Christ for your brain.”
She kissed him back, hard, then pulled away.
“We’re not precisely out of the sauce. Penney tossed us both down here and went, I presume, to make some alternative arrangement for our untimely demise.
I was growing a trifle concerned, I must admit, that I would not be able to rouse you in time to escape. ”
“Right.” He heaved himself to his feet, closing his eyes against the wave of dizziness. “Let’s get out of here, pet, before the admiral realizes how clever you are.”
She stood as well and dusted off her skirts. “As to that,” she said, “if you’re up to some exertion, Malcolm . . .” She bit her lip, considering, then met his gaze straight on. “I believe I have an idea.”