Ruby was still holding the colorful volume tight, as though someone might try to tear it from her hands. “Perhaps the book traversed the cliffs of Cornwall on its own, and then wrapped itself in my parcel.”
“Maybe it was the Scourge,” put in Lamentation brightly.
Alice perked up. “Is the creature known for its interest in milled paper?”
Archer attempted to sidle past Ruby in the threshold. She placed a hand on his arm, and—despite every one of his intentions—he went still. Her gloves were some filmy lace; he could see a single golden freckle above the knob of her wrist.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet. Her eyes were sweet and hopeful and earnest. “Did you procure this book for me?”
Archer tried to marshal a lie.
And for the first time in a very long time, he found he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Of course notwould hurt her feelings.I just happened to see it in a shopwould admit his culpability.
I hope you like itwould be both true and—God help him—downright catastrophic.
He mumbled something unintelligible, relocated Ruby’s hand from his arm to her book, and shifted around her to make his escape.
At the table, Alice sighed dreamily. Tamsin groaned and put her head in her hands.
And Ruby kept her eyes on him. As he slipped past her, two of his fingers tangled—not quite on purpose, not quite by mistake—in one of the ribbons on her frock. The pale creamy length spooled out between them, a slow, silky glide.
He had to make himself let go.
Chapter 10
Plastered to the wall of an inn in St. Petroc’s, half hidden in the shadows and clutching a bottle of sour wine, Ruby considered at what point her life had canted so abruptly into deceit and subterfuge.
Could it, perhaps, have been when she’d decided to forge a letter from her father and pretend to be a lady-in-waiting to a princess?
No, she decided. That wasn’t it.
Her life had taken a sharp left turn on the day she’d first met Captain Malcolm Archer.
It had been four days since she’d found the book on Italian architecture. Four days since he’d...
Hadhe given her the book? She did not know. Her body went hot and flushed and unsettled every time she considered the notion.
Was it some new misdirection? Some bizarre sideways sort of charm?
She forced herself to recall the many ways he’d tried to coax and flatter her. He was a rake. A liar. He was, she had begun to suspect, some sort of pirate king who’d taken over Pomeroy House and had disposed of its proper staff, though hopefully not through means of outright murder.
She could not trust him. But she—
Oh heaven help her. She wanted to. Some part of her—some small, foolish,absurdpart—wanted to believe that he’d bought the book to please her. Because he’d known she would wish to have it.
It was dreadful. A nightmare. She refused to admit his duplicitous charm might be working.
Under no circumstances, she’d told herself,are you to let Captain Archer get the better of you.
She’d persuaded Tamsin and Alice to walk with her down to St. Petroc’s despite Captain Archer’s warnings. She’d made vague reference to the acquisition of more candles, but in truth, she meant to find out what the villagers knew about the Scourge and, beyond that, the true nature of the staff of Pomeroy House.
They’d been in the village for roughly a quarter of an hour when Ruby had seen Captain Archer duck into a bustling public house. With a hissed word to Tamsin and Alice, she’d followed him. She watched his familiar broad-shouldered form sweep right up the stairs and into the connected inn, and she promptly ordered her friends to stay in the pub, collect whatever gossip they could find, and wait for her to return.
Alice had blinked. “Do you mean to confront him again?”
“No! No. I’m going to follow silently. Watch from the shadows. Unravel whatever scheme he is currently about.”
