Chapter 33
It was Alice, in the end, who found Tamsin and the princess.
When Signor Neri had broken from their crew, his clandestine tasks had included the hunt for one dreadful Italian greyhound.
He had done it—he and Lamentation and half a dozen other Monfalcone representatives in London had scoured the city until they’d located Zenobia, barking furiously at the London Docks near where the Delphinium floated at anchor.
They had taken the dog to the ambassador, in search of Ruby and Archer—and, outside Ruby’s former home, they’d come face-to-face with Cassandra instead.
It was Cass who’d brought them to Penney’s townhouse. And it was Alice, cautiously petting Zenobia where she nestled in Gerry’s arms, who had figured out where to go next.
Very slowly, Alice had lifted her hand from Zenobia’s muddy coat. She’d gazed incredulously at her fingers and blinked two or three times in quick succession.
And then she’d looked up. She’d turned the force of her immense cerulean eyes on Ruby and Archer and said, very deliberately: “Surrey.”
“Surrey?” Ruby repeated.
“Yes,” Alice said. “They’re in Surrey. I know they are.”
Ruby had stared at Alice in astonishment. And Cassandra had said, instantly: “I’ll bring the carriage round.”
They piled hastily into the viscountess’s barouche—the Enys boys excepted, who gleefully elected to remain with Penney and ensure his continued state of insensibility. Alice had, with some reluctance, relinquished her carving knife.
The moment they set off, Ruby leaned forward. “Alice,” she demanded, “what do you mean, ‘They’re in Surrey’? How do you know?”
Alice looked somehow both modest and enormously pleased with herself. “Well,” she said, “it was not so difficult to figure out. It was the eggs, you see.”
Ruby wondered if she’d run mad. “The eggs?”
“The butterfly eggs,” Alice clarified. “On Zenobia’s coat.
They were Camberwell Beauty eggs. I recognized them.
” She looked proudly around the carriage and then deflated slightly at their looks of befuddled consternation.
“The Camberwell Beauty does not lay its eggs in England,” she explained.
“It’s not native to our shores. They arrive sometimes on ships in the harbor, but they cannot lay in this climate except under very specific conditions. ”
They stared at her.
“Conditions,” Alice said, “that have been re-created at the Aurelian Society’s butterfly house in Surrey.”
There was a general silence in the carriage.
Alice regarded them calmly. And then, very slowly, her mouth curled into a grin.
“You three,” Gerry said fervently, “are the best ladies-in-waiting.”
* * *
Ruby’s heart was in her throat the whole of the carriage ride down to Surrey. It wasn’t far from the docks where they’d found Zenobia—it seemed possible that a determined and vindictive little dog could have made the trip on her own.
They’d been in the carriage perhaps a quarter of an hour before Lamentation spoke. “Cap,” he said, “I’m so sorry.”
Archer shook his head. His arms were wrapped around Ruby, who’d been forced by virtue of the crowded coach to nestle in his lap. “There’s nothing to apologize for. You were right about the admiral. All this time, you were right.”
Regret carved itself in little lines around Lamentation’s mouth. “I was right about the admiral,” he acknowledged. “But—Cap—” He looked at Gerry beside him, and then back to Archer. “I was wrong about you.”
“You weren’t wrong.” Archer’s voice went rough, and his grip on Ruby’s waist tightened. “I should never have lied to you. To any of you. I’m sorry, Lamentation.”
Lamentation’s throat bobbed as he swallowed.
Gerry’s arm had come to rest across his shoulders, and Lamentation’s body fit against his beloved’s as though he belonged there.
“You shouldn’t have lied,” he agreed. “But Penney—and your wife—it’s not the same.
The two situations were never alike, and I shouldn’t have pretended they were.
It was only that I was angry, Cap, and hurt. And—scared, I think. Of losing you.”
“I know,” Archer said thickly. “I understand. But Lamentation, the fault—” His voice cracked. “The fault was in me, all this time. Not in you. Not ever.”
Lamentation lifted his chin and looked his captain in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have left,” he said. “I should have had your back. I would follow you straight into Hell, Cap. You know I would.”
“Oh God.” Archer laughed—a hoarse torn-off breath, very like a sob. “I can’t think what I’ve done to deserve that kind of faith.”
Gerry made a deep wordless sound in his chest. His eyes said more of devotion and restraint than any speech Ruby had ever heard. “We know you’d bring us back out,” he said. “You never let us go, Cap. That’s what matters.”
Ruby pressed her palm to Archer’s knee, and he covered her hand with his own. She suspected he was on the verge of weeping. She wanted, if she could, to give him something to hold fast to.
There was, after that, a long stretch of quiet. And when they arrived at the Aurelian Society’s Surrey estate, the first to make a sound was Zenobia.
The greyhound put her front paws to the barouche’s window, barking furiously. As the vehicle rolled to a halt, Zenobia threw herself at the door, a wriggling dynamo that snarled and growled until the door came open and she sprang free.
When she was on the ground, she ran. Her small body made a gray blur against the leaf-littered ground.
The rest of them ran after her. They chased Zenobia past the main building, the conservatory, the orchid-strewn glasshouse where the butterflies were kept. They followed her down a slope and through a pasture and, finally, into a tumbledown dairy barn.
Zenobia’s frantic barking had drawn out a petite black-haired woman. At the sight of Zenobia, the woman’s lips parted. She stepped forward and opened her arms to the little dog.
Zenobia launched herself into the air.
Serafina Fiammetta Paxe Maria, Princess of Monfalcone, caught the dog to her chest. She went down on her knees.
And for the first time since she’d stepped foot on English shores, the princess buried her face in Zenobia’s mud-covered flank and wept.
Within moments, they had all converged upon the dairy barn. Signor Neri, who appeared to have lost the power of speech, arrived first. He dabbed at the princess’s face with his handkerchief and stroked Zenobia’s enormous ears with outright abandon. His wig had fallen down over his left ear.
“Tam,” Ruby said breathlessly. “Where’s Tamsin?”
“Inside.” The princess gestured to the stone dairy. “She’s there—she’s well—”
And indeed, when Ruby and Alice hurled themselves across the threshold, Tamsin was upright and waiting for them. Her face was pale, her copper hair streaked with dirt. She leaned heavily against the low stone wall, balanced precariously on one leg.
“Oh thank Christ,” she said when she saw Ruby and Alice. “One more day alone with the princess, and I’d have assassinated her myself.”
The princess, who’d turned to watch the reunion, only looked smug. She held Zenobia against her chest. “I told you. Did I not predict this? Zenobia is a little heroine.”
“Zenobia,” Tamsin said, “is a hellhound.”
What followed was a not inconsiderable clamor, particularly when the head of the Aurelian Society noticed Cassandra’s carriage and came down to the dairy barn to investigate.
It took a very long time to die down.
Upon interrogation, Tamsin revealed that she and the princess had been hidden in the dairy barn for roughly forty-eight hours.
After an abortive escape from Verdura’s thugs halfway between Southampton and London, they had reunited with Zenobia on the road and then made their slow and painful way to a nearby farm.
A day later, they’d escaped via hay wain and begun a meandering trek toward London.
They had stopped at the dairy barn for a night’s rest when Zenobia had suddenly vanished without a trace.
“Her Highness insisted on remaining,” Tamsin explained through white lips. The head of the Aurelian Society, a natural philosopher by training, was applying a splint to her ankle, and Tamsin’s face had taken on a greenish cast.
“For Zenobia,” the princess explained. “I paused merely to await her return. Not because you travel so poorly and require so very much assistance.”
“I have,” Tamsin growled, “a broken leg.”
The head of the Aurelian Society patted her freckled knee. “Ankle, my duck. But it’s healing very well.”
Signor Neri stepped forward. He had restored his wig, though he still looked rather overset. “Captain Archer,” he said formally, “the royal family thanks you for your service. House di Sangro will not forget the aid you have rendered its eldest daughter.”
Archer blinked. He looked at Neri, and then at Ruby and Alice and Tamsin and Lamentation. “To be honest,” he said, “I’m not certain I did anything.”
From her place atop the dairy’s low stone wall, which she’d perched upon as though it were a throne, Princess Serafina gestured for Neri to attend her.
They bent their heads together, whispering in hasty Italian, for several minutes.
Ruby could make out only a handful of words—Verdura and alive and escape.
No one, as far as she had been able to work out, had any idea where Verdura had fled to. He was still alive. Still, Ruby feared, a threat to the princess.
His attempts on my life grow increasingly bold, Serafina had told them. This was not his first attack.
And perhaps not the last either.
Finally, the conversation between Neri and the princess seemed to come to some conclusion. Serafina had a sour expression on her face, and she flung her hand out in a sweeping arc. “Give it to him,” she said in English.
Neri nodded. He turned to Archer and began to unfasten his satin waistcoat.
“Sorry,” Archer said. “Give me what?”
A frown line had appeared between the princess’s winged black brows.
“When he arrived in London, Neri went to his residence to retrieve a large fortune in gold coins, in the event a ransom was required to secure my freedom.” She glanced briefly at Tamsin and then back to Archer.
“Thanks to you and your companions, such a stratagem was not required.”
“Ah,” Archer said. “Right. What?”
“I intend to give it to you,” the princess said. “And in return, you will hunt down Verdura.”
Archer made a choking sound.
“I would like to hire you,” she clarified, “as my personal pirate.”
Archer’s mouth opened, then closed again. He blinked and seemed to sway slightly on his feet. It occurred to Ruby that they had not slept in some days.
Finally, he managed to summon words.
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
Lamentation gave a deflated sort of sigh. Princess Serafina opened her mouth to argue.
“Not that I’m not honored by your offer,” Archer said hastily. “In fact, I know someone with a small armada who’ll be your privateer with pleasure.”
The princess gave him a peevish look. “I presume you want only the ransom, then?”
Archer laughed, a warm breath that ruffled Ruby’s hair. He slung an arm across her shoulders; his hand spread warm at the base of her throat. “I’m probably going to regret saying this, but—no. Keep your gold. What I’d like . . . What I truly wish for . . .”
He paused. He looked down at Ruby. His eyes were sun-streaked blue. His dimples made tiny joyful arcs beneath the blood and bruises on his face.
And then he looked back up at the princess. “What I’d truly like, Your Highness,” he said, “is a job.”