Epilogue
The palazzo faced the sea, no doubt built by an architect who understood that happiness required windows.
Every morning, light came over the Bay of Naples in sheets of gold, slipped across the marble floors, touched the painted ceilings, the blue-and-white tiles, the vases of lemon blossoms, and finally reached the bed where her husband waited for her to wake.
This morning, however, Tristan had risen before her.
A suspicious development in any marriage.
By the time Marguerite stepped onto the balcony, dressed for travel, he stood below in the courtyard, speaking to two sailors with the implacable authority of a man who had once commanded storms and now applied the same seriousness to luggage.
Their household moved around him in cheerful disorder.
Footmen carried trunks. Elsie scolded a groom for placing a hatbox beneath a case of books.
Lorenzo, who had arrived an hour early and done nothing useful since, lounged against the fountain in a coat the exact shade of ripe pomegranates, eating sugared almonds and offering advice no one had requested.
They were leaving for Sicily on an official visit.
The phrase should have produced seriousness in a diplomat’s wife.
Indeed, Marguerite had prepared several serious thoughts for the occasion.
She had selected the proper gowns, reviewed the names of every significant Sicilian noble family, memorized three political grievances, two commercial concerns, and one regrettable hunting accident that ought not to be mentioned before the Prince of Butera unless one wished to watch dinner collapse into hereditary bitterness.
She was ready. She was also so happy that the very air seemed to have entered into conspiracy with her heart.
Naples in the late morning smelled of lemon flowers, warm stone, and coffee, and the scent was so good that, as a side enterprise, they should consider exporting it back to England.
From the balcony, she could see the water glittering beyond the terraced gardens, while gulls wheeled and cried above the masts.
She had wanted, for weeks now, to bathe in that impossible water.
It looked less like sea than liquefied sky, and yet every time she had neared it, her bones had lodged a formal protest. The Mediterranean was far colder than its beauty suggested.
Tristan looked up.
That still undid her.
After months of marriage, after a wedding in Naples, another in the English chapel for the benefit of British legality, and a private ceremony conducted by Lorenzo under what he claimed was an ancient pirate rite but which Marguerite suspected he had composed over breakfast, her husband could still look at her and make her feel as if she had stepped into sunlight.
“Ready, Duchess?” he called.
She rested her gloved hands on the balcony rail. “For Sicily, yes. For whatever you are concealing, no.”
His mouth tilted. There. The expression of a man with a secret.
In diplomacy, her husband remained a wild card.
It had worked so far because the Sea Wolf was wildly respected, King Joachim found him entertaining, Queen Caroline found him useful, and every admiral in Naples seemed to believe that a man who could turn a ship through hostile shoals could probably turn a treaty through worse.
Still, he had a habit of making decisions with the private confidence of a cannon being loaded.
He informed people after the fuse was lit.
She descended to the courtyard and accepted his hand into the carriage.
“You are smiling like a man who has hidden something in state papers,” she said as they rattled toward the harbor.
“I am wounded by your distrust.”
“You are married to a diplomat. Distrust is one of my love languages.”
He laughed under his breath and brought her gloved hand to his mouth.
That, too, was suspicious. Tristan generally kissed her hand when he wished to disarm her, claim her, distract her, or avoid answering a direct question. As these purposes frequently overlapped, she narrowed her eyes at him and resolved to remain vigilant.
At the harbor, the felucca waited in the sun, its lateen sail loose and pale against the sky.
Beyond it, HMS Resolute rode at anchor, sterner than the Neapolitan vessels around her, and yet dear to Marguerite now in a way that surprised her.
The ship had once seemed a floating scandal, then a battlefield, then a home between homes.
Its worn decks had held the worst of her fear and the best of her dreams.
She stepped into the felucca with Tristan’s hand firm at her waist.
“Careful,” he said.
“I am always careful.”
“No.”
She smiled despite herself. “I am often careful.”
“Also no.”
“On selected occasions, when properly motivated, I have demonstrated excellent balance.”
“That I will allow.”
The sailors pushed off. Oars dipped into the blue water, and the felucca slid away from the quay.
Warmth shimmered over the bay. The palace receded behind them, pale and grand above the waterfront, and ahead, the frigate waited, prepared to carry the Duke and Duchess of Stormhaven on their official journey to Sicily.
Marguerite lifted one hand to shade her eyes.
Then the felucca veered from its course.
Marguerite lowered her hand slowly. “Tristan.”
“Yes?”
“The frigate is in the other direction.”
“I noticed.”
“Did you?”
“I have an excellent sense of direction.”
“You once told me your sailor’s heart knew no north star.”
“That was poetry.”
His expression remained infuriatingly serene.
The felucca slipped along the coast, away from the busy harbor and into clearer water.
The color changed as they entered the small bay, deep blue giving way to a brightness so pure it seemed lit from beneath.
Azzurre, the Neapolitans called such waters, and for once the word was not an exaggeration.
The sea shone turquoise over pale sand and stone, transparent enough that Marguerite could see shadows of fish below, quick silver flashes vanishing beneath the hull.
A small wooden pier jutted from the shore, weathered and sun-bleached, and beyond it lay a strip of sand hidden from the sea road by rocks.
“What have you done?”
He helped her from the felucca onto the pier. “Nothing unlawful.”
“That is an unhelpfully narrow reassurance.”
“Nothing diplomatically catastrophic.”
“Better, but not sufficient.”
“Nothing that will prevent us from reaching the frigate in time.”
She glanced toward the open bay, then back at the sailors, who were suddenly very occupied with rope, sail, and not looking at the Duke and Duchess of Stormhaven. Lorenzo’s influence, no doubt. The man had infected an entire navy with theatrical timing.
Tristan removed his coat.
Marguerite blinked. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing.”
“Yes, I observe the fact. I object to its context.”
“You once told me you wanted warmth.”
“I believe I was speaking of Italy, not public indecency beside a pier.”
“There is no public.”
“There are sailors.”
Tristan turned to the sailors. “Take the felucca beyond the rocks. Wait there until I signal.”
Oars dipped. The little vessel drew away from the pier, slipped around the curve of sun-warmed stone, and vanished behind the sheltering rocks.
He smiled and held out his hand. “Swim with me.”
The bay glittered shamelessly, all blue invitation and golden ripples. But water had a way of pretending to be friendly from a distance, only to become knives upon contact. She remembered the English sea, the cold shock of it.
“I am dressed for an official visit.”
“You are overdressed for a swim.”
“I am adequately dressed for diplomacy.”
“The Sicilians can wait. They are islanders. They understand tides.”
She gave him a look.
He removed his waistcoat.
Marguerite’s mouth went dry, which was inconvenient, because she needed it for protest. “Tristan, that water will be cold.”
He stepped close enough that his warmth reached her through her muslin gown. “Trust me.”
There had been a time when those words from a man would have required twenty-seven conditions, three witnesses, and a clear route to the door.
Now she simply placed her hand in his.
“If I perish before reaching Sicily, you will have to explain to the king that British diplomacy has been delayed by shivers.”
“I will accept the consequences.”
He helped her out of her gown with an attention so reverent that even the practical business of buttons became dangerous.
Her stays followed, then stockings, then the last layers of civilized womanhood, until she stood in only her shift at the edge of the pier, sunlight on her shoulders, heart beating hard enough to frighten the fish.
Tristan plunged headfirst. The sea took him with scarcely a sound, closing over his shoulders.
He looked up at her from the water, smiling, not the pirate now, not the ambassador, not the duke making speeches before kings, but her husband in a hidden bay, asking her to be brave for no audience at all.
“Well?” he called. “Are you drafting a treaty, or are you joining me?”
She did not move.
“I am,” she said firmly, “in preliminary negotiations.”
He ducked under the water—and then resurfaced directly beneath her, close enough that she yelped and staggered back a step.
“I can’t. My legs won’t move.” She sighed, mortified.
Before she could open her eyes, Tristan was there—dry no longer, water darkening his trousers, skin still gleaming. He scooped her up with such ease that it stole her breath entirely, one arm behind her back, the other under her knees.
“Tristan!” she protested, clutching his shoulder.
“You froze,” he said mildly. “I’m merely assisting negotiations.”
She found herself seated on his lap, perched at the edge of the pier, his warmth a solid, undeniable fact beneath her. Her heart began behaving most undiplomatically.
“This is highly irregular,” she said.
He shifted them closer to the edge. Her toes hovered above the blue.
“Count to three,” he said.
She inhaled. “One.”
The world narrowed to the sound of water lapping below them.
“Two.”