“We’ve been waiting for you to rise for half the morning,” Tamsin said. “We have news.”
Ruby looked up. “News?”
“Tam has made a discovery,” Alice said. “She’s been sneaking about.”
Tamsin patted Alice’s hand. “You helped, dearest. And Vanessa.” She fixed her gaze back on Ruby, who was attempting to restore her brain to its usual functioning with a hearty application of warmish tea. “You know that I’ve been trying to get into the captain’s office ever since we arrived.”
“I am aware of that, yes. It’s always either locked or occupied by Eugénie.”
Tamsin seemed to be trying and failing to suppress a grin. “Well. Captain Archer is nowhere to be found this morning, and so I thought I’d mount another attempt.”
Ruby did not wonder where Archer was. Shedid not.
“Eugénie was in there as usual, attending to her secretarial duties,” Tamsin went on, “but Alice and Vanessa happened to discover a small family of stoats living in one of the upper chambers.”
“Vanessa discovered them,” Alice said modestly. “I merely accompanied her.”
“And then all the dogs somehow became involved. There was quite a lot of noise and baying—really, Ruby, I am astonished that this did not wake you—and Eugénie and I sprinted for the staircase to find out what the devil was going on.” Tamsin’s eyes gleamed. “But then, while she was distracted, I doubled back and found myself alone with all of Captain Archer’s papers.”
Ruby felt an odd sensation in her belly. She knew that Captain Archer was lying about something. Though he was clearly familiar with the Monfalcone royal family—his declarations in the library and the cove had determined that much—there was still a great deal about the man and his staff that did not make sense.
And yet...
Some part of her shrank back from the idea of Tamsin rifling through his ledgers and records. She did not want to hurt him, somehow. Even if what endangered him was simple truth.
But she bit her lip and thrust back the notion. He would be fine.Shewas the one who stood to lose everything if the truth of her circumstances came out.
“And?” she prompted. “What did you discover?”
“Quite a lot,” Tamsin said. “Heisthe steward of Pomeroy House. There were years of letters from Signor Neri attesting to Captain Archer’s employment.”
An absurd wave of relief swamped Ruby, and she had to take another sip of tea to recover herself.
“But as far as I can tell, most of the rest of the staff arenot. Employed here, I mean. There’s a budget—a modest budget—for a steward and a groundskeeper. Nothing for footmen or a cook or a secretary. Gerry and Lamentation and Wall and Eugénie—if those are their real names—” Tamsin hesitated, then forged on. “They’re not meant to be here, Ruby. They’re frauds. Fakes. They’re no more employed by House di Sangro than we are. And if I do not miss my guess, they are funding their continued residence with a side of casual smuggling.”
Ruby’s brain called up the vivid image of Archer in the cove—a play of light and shadow, a chiaroscuro portrait in the fading light. The sand on his angular cheekbone, the heat of his gaze. The easy line of his mouth gone deathly serious.
Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
The stars incline us, but they do not bind us.
“I know,” Ruby murmured. “I already knew.”
Somehow, she had. In the library, he had answered her queries smoothly until the moment her questions had shifted fromhisrole in the house to Lamentation’s. Only then had he lost control of the encounter and launched into his outrageous tale of the Scourge.
She could recall with vivid clarity the moment in the kitchen when Lamentation had mentioned an attack and Archer had gone instantly, ferociously alert. She remembered how he’d covered her with his body outside the kitchen at dawn, and the way he’d rescued her, without thought or hesitation, at the inn.
He could not hide his nature. His first thought—the first instinctive leap of his body—was to protect. To keep the people around him safe.
If he was lying, he was doing it for his staff. Not for himself.
She looked up. Tamsin had her arms crossed over her chest. “You already knew?” she said. “Are you telling me that I nearly had an apoplexy when I thought someone had discovered me in the office—it was a bat, if you’re wondering, not a person—and youalready knewwhat I was in there risking my life over?”
Ruby couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Had you died of a bat-induced apoplexy, please know we would have left that out of your eulogy.”
Tamsin scowled.
“Ruby’s right,” Alice said. “Your eulogy will be filled with only the most dignified of encomia. You can trust us.”
