Special dispensation from Parliament to acquire them, I heard—half his brand-new fortune—
Is he gone? That professor? Did someone stop him, for God’s sake? Can’t theycatchhim—
Ruby Ballimore—yes, Hangleton’s elder daughter, the strange one—
Her father gripped her arm. His voice was low, whispered beneath the clamor of the crowd. “I’ll have them call the carriage. Damn it, Ruby—do you understand what you’vedone?”
And, with a swell of horror, Ruby did.
* * *
Malcolm Archer flung himself onto the deck of his sloop. “Time to go,” he gasped. “Quenby’s dead.”
Gerry and Lamentation, who’d been playing a hand of cards beneath the mast, leapt to their feet. Wall, who’d already been on his feet, put his hands on his substantial waist and glared at Archer. “What do you mean, ‘Quenby’s dead’?”
Archer swiped water out of his face. He’d dropped Quenby’s spectacles in the mews behind Gravesmuir’s townhouse and found a trough to dunk his head to rid himself of the hair powder, but he was still dripping despite the lengthy sprint back to the docks.
“Slain. Extinguished. Sent to his watery demise in a puddle of slime.” Archer shrugged, ducked around Wall’s bulk, and threw himself at the line that held the anchor.
“Tell me you at least got Gravesmuir’s money,” Wall said. His voice was pleading, but he too had begun to make theDelphiniumready.
Archer paused, one hand on the line.
“Don’t,” Wall groaned. “Don’t say it.”
“I got some of Gravesmuir’s money.”
“Don’tlieeither!”
Archer grimaced and went back to work on the anchor.
He hadn’t got even half the money that he and Gravesmuir had agreed upon for the marbles. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised—the marquess had been perfectly willing to carve the friezes right off the bloody Acropolis. Archer shouldn’t have supposed that that variety of thieving blackguard would be eager to pay the debts he owed, even to his dear friend, the now-departed Professor Quenby.
When Gravesmuir had invited Archer to his dinner party—well, invited Professor Quenby, who also happened to be a privateer-turned-confidence-artist named Malcolm Archer—it had seemed a fine opportunity to make another delicate play for the funds. Gravesmuir had wanted Quenby to show off, to brag about how difficult it had been to acquire the sculptures and how precious and important they were.
Archer had wanted his money.
He and Lamentation and Gerry and Wall and Eugénie down below—theyneededthe money.
So Archer had put on the Quenby disguise and prepared to make up another pack of lies about the marbles, which had actually come from a devious little sculptor in Dorset who apparently wasn’t as tricky as she thought she was.
Archer was good at talking. The lies were always the easy part—easier than the Quenby costume or the sail from Cornwall to the London Docks.
Easier than keeping his crew together and fed, and making them believe that everything would be all right.
He’d been lying through his teeth and happy as a clam—though he still hadn’t secured any coin from Gravesmuir—when he’d heard the little blond say that the sculptures were fakes.
For the briefest of moments, Archer had supposed he’d be able to talk his way out of the situation, spin shit-covered straw into golden thread and weave a dream out of it. The story about the sea crossing—Gravesmuir had always liked that one, and it had the benefit of springing from Archer’s very real days under the rear admiral during the wars. He could tell that one, and Gravesmuir’s guests would squeal and sigh and laugh, and everything would be fine.
He’d get his money. His crew would be safe. They would all go home together.
But then the girl had kept going. She’d been undeterred by Gravesmuir’s growing outrage, by the other man’s hissed order to keep quiet.
She knew what she was about. For all she looked like a confection—short, plump, pink-cheeked in her sparkling frock—she’d been grim and stubborn as she’d spoken. As ruthless as a knife.
Ten sentences. It had taken her all of ten sentences to demolish six months’ investment and the security of Archer’s precarious, half-built life.
Lamentation’s curly blond head popped in front of Archer’s face, where he’d been staring blindly at the water. “Captain? We can’t set the sails until we know our heading.”
