Chapter 32
It was just past dawn when they got the door open. Ruby felt faint with relief and exhaustion together.
From the moment they had entered Penney’s house, she’d noted its elaborate millwork.
The decoration had reminded her of The Polychromatic Ornament of Italy, except more colorful and far more ostentatious: Penney, it appeared, had dreadful taste.
The cornices did not match the architraves, and the faux Grecian plinths were far too large for the doors they framed.
Which meant, she’d realized, that the doors did not fit properly in their jambs. From deep inside the cellar’s Stygian blackness, with Malcolm’s head in her lap, it had dawned on her that there was a gap around the door fully large enough to put a crowbar in.
They didn’t have a crowbar. They had, however, managed to pry two iron staves off a barrel of port, and that had been enough.
When they had the door forced open—fragments of cheap, ugly molding scattered across the floor—she put her hand to her husband’s upper arm, holding him back before he plunged through.
As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out the dried blood dotting his shirt, mingling with stains left by a minor flood of tawny port.
It occurred to her that she hated Jack Penney with every fiber of her being.
“Jesus,” he growled as he looked down at her. He appeared to be having some revelations of his own. “Your face.”
She put a hand to her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
“You have a black eye, for Christ’s sake. Your cheek is purple. I couldn’t see it in the dark.”
“I do?” She had not been treated delicately as she’d been thrown into the wine cellar behind Malcolm’s unconscious body. She supposed her face had connected rather firmly with a shelf of wine bottles.
“I’m going to enjoy killing the admiral,” he said. His voice sounded pleasant and terrifying.
“Ah.” She blinked. “About that. Do we have . . . some sort of plan?”
“I don’t need a plan.” His teeth flashed, an expression more a snarl than a smile. His face was bruised black. “I have a very large piece of metal.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m sure that’s an excellent beginning. Perhaps—”
She broke off abruptly as a crash resounded from deep inside the house. She froze, her hand still on his arm. In the distance, something shattered.
Her eyes flew up to lock with his.
“I suppose I can’t convince you to stay here?” he rasped.
“Not by any means short of insensibility.”
“All right,” he muttered. “Get the other stave. And stay behind me.”
She snatched up the stave and followed him in the direction of the clamor.
It seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Outside the door, he paused and put a finger to his lips for silence. She nodded, and then, cautiously, he eased open the door, stave at the ready.
Inside the kitchen, amid a tumbled array of crockery and flatware, Ruby beheld—
She blinked hard. Twice.
“Alice?” she said.
It was Alice. She looked beautiful and ferocious in an ebony frock, a carving knife in her hand. She brandished it threateningly in the direction of Penney’s batman, who was bound hand and foot to a kitchen chair.
Alice’s gaze flew toward them, then just as quickly darted back to the batman. “Good Lord!” she exclaimed. “They’ve found you already?”
“Alice,” Ruby repeated incredulously. “What in heaven’s name is going on?”
“Cap?”
Ruby and Archer spun away from Alice and toward the voice that had emerged from the corridor behind them.
It was Gerry—and Eugénie and the Enys boys.
And, in front of them, prodded forward by the barrel of a rifle, was Jack Penney.
“Cap!” Gerry said again. “Thank—Christ—” His voice cracked.
“Gerry—” Malcolm broke off, staring in stupefaction at his crew. “What the devil are you—”
Gerry’s deep voice stuttered over the words. “He said—he said he’d killed you. He said—” Speechless, his words overcome by the depth of his emotions, Gerry jabbed Penney in the back with the rifle’s barrel instead.
Ruby was so thunderstruck by the appearance of their crew that she almost did not see it happen. In one graceful motion, Penney spun, tore the rifle out of Gerry’s hand, and lifted it to point at Archer.
Or at least, he would have lifted it. He was halfway through the motion when Archer stepped forward and slammed his fist into Penney’s face.
Penney dropped like a stone. Archer yanked the rifle out of his grip, leaned down, and smashed it deliberately across Penney’s windpipe.
“That,” he said, very low, “is for my wife.”
Penney didn’t even struggle. He blinked once up at Archer, his face going purple and then, slowly, white. Archer held the rifle’s barrel across the admiral’s throat for a long, long moment, until Penney’s supine body relaxed into unconsciousness.
And then he held it there awhile longer.
“Good heavens,” Alice said finally from the kitchen. “Do you need a knife as well?”
Archer cleared his throat. His eyes found Ruby, lingered on her cheek, then shifted back to Alice. Carefully, he raised the rifle and set it beside Penney’s limp figure. “Don’t tempt me.”
As if his words had lifted whatever force had kept them still, Gerry and Eugénie rushed into action. They hastily bound the admiral hand and foot and tossed him unceremoniously into the kitchen beside his batman.
And Ruby, seeing that her husband’s hands were free, seized the opportunity to throw herself headlong in his direction.
He caught her. He wrapped his arms around her and held on.
His heart beat loud and steady beneath her ear. His shirt was dotted with bloodstains, and her cheek ached where she pressed against him, and she didn’t care—only gripped him tighter.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured.
“Pet,” he said. He reached down to catch her chin, turning her face up to his battered one. “You’ve no idea what I would do for you.”
He looked like he’d been three days in drink. His left eye had a starburst of blood in it, and they both smelled horribly of port, and her knuckles were raw, she realized, where her hand was fisted in his shirtfront.
It didn’t matter. He was safe. Somehow, despite the admiral’s very best efforts, Malcolm was here, in her arms, and he was all right.
She went up on her toes and kissed his mouth.
He kissed her back for an endless moment, until, belatedly, he seemed to remember their circumstances.
His arms still wrapped around her waist, he lifted his head and addressed his crew. “Eugénie,” he said, “is there anyone else in this house who might be poised to sneak up on us with a weapon?”
“The house is safe,” Eugénie said firmly. “There were a handful of servants, but they didn’t seem particularly loyal—they all fled around the time Lady Alice started brandishing cutlery.”
Alice blushed charmingly and waved the carving knife.
“Good,” he said. “That’s very good. And now if you’ll forgive me for asking—what the devil are all of you doing here?”
It was Gerry who answered his captain—quiet, steadfast Gerry. “We waited. You two never came back out. Surely you didn’t think we’d leave you here alone.”
When Archer spoke, his voice was uneven. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I never did.”
Ruby was pondering whether she could use her port-soaked frock as a handkerchief when a polite knock sounded at Rear Admiral Lord Penney’s back door.
She froze. Her eyes went to Archer. Who could it be, here at Penney’s house at dawn? Could it possibly be Verdura?
Very slowly, with his eyes still resting on the unconscious admiral, Archer moved to answer the knock. His crew turned as one to guard his back; Ruby located her stave and held it carefully at the level of her chest.
But the stave, it turned out, was not required.
At the back door stood Cassandra, Signor Neri, and Lamentation. And in Lamentation’s arms was a filthy, flower-dotted, snarling Zenobia.
With a bark of pure canine glee, Zenobia wriggled out of Lamentation’s arms and hurled herself at Gerry.