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 wifebecauseI 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.”
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 ofThe Polychromatic Ornament of Italy, except more colorful andfarmore 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.
