But more potent than his relief by far was his fear. Fear that she might use her knowledge against them all, that she would put an end to their living as quickly as she’d eviscerated the Quenby scheme—and as ruthlessly.
And Quenby. Bloody hell. Surely she’d not put that together as well?
Perhaps she had. She wasn’t done talking. Her voice was low and desperately, painfully earnest. “I brought you down here because I wanted to tell you that it doesn’t matter to me—to any of us—how you came to be here. We’re not going to reveal your secrets to House di Sangro or my... my father.”
His chest hurt. Her words seemed to have hit him directly in his solar plexus, as solid as cannon fire, and he couldn’t sort out how to respond.
She knew about his smuggling, and she knew about his crew, and it seemed to him that she held their future in her small gloved hand. Four months ago, he had stood at the side of a room andwatchedher put his carefully crafted scheme to the flames. And now she was asking for his trust—asking him to believe that she would not do it again.
It doesn’t matter to me how you came to be here, she’d said.
Somehow, he wanted to believe that she meant it. He wanted to believe that it did not matter where he had come from, but only that he was here, on the beach, with her.
Slowly, her gaze dipped to where their hands were entangled, and she closed her fingers around his. Gently, as though she thought he might flee.
And then she looked up. “Tam and Alice and I are no more meant to be here than your crew. We arenotladies-in-waiting to Princess Serafina. It is a scheme of my own devising because I wished for freedom. For a different life.”
His heart beat hard against his ribs. Surprise rocked him, bright and sharp as an electric shock.
She moistened her lips. “If you asked for our letters from the Princess Serafina,” she said, “I could not give them to you. No one knows we are here. Not even my father.”
He stood motionless, off balance, staggered by the percussive force of her words. Not by the revelation of her scheme—that much did not startle him—but by the way she had given the information up.
If you asked for our letters, I could not give them to you.
If he wrote to Signor Neri, he could have her evicted from the house. If he told her father, her dream of a different life would vanish like so much smoke.
What mad impulse had led her to trust him this way? Through what insane store of courage and fortitude could she put her faith in him so utterly?
“Ruby,” he got out. His voice was hoarse, and he found that he was gripping her hand.
“I don’t want you to be afraid,” she said. “That’s why I’m telling you all of this. We won’t use the truth against you. We will not harm your crew.”
He had to force his jaw to loosen. Had to push the words out, all grit and rasp. “You think I’m not afraid of you?”
She blinked. Her lips parted. “I’m—sorry?”
“You terrify me.” He put his free hand to her cheek. His thumb just touched the corner of her mouth. “You and your damned honesty. Your stupid reckless courage.”
Her chin came up. Blood rushed to her cheeks, warm beneath his hand. “I did not come down here to be insulted.”
“I’m not insulting you.” He reached down to pull off her gloves, first one and then the other, and she let him bare her warm, amber-scented skin. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m afraid of your damned gloves. Your interfering ways. Your eyes, all big and blue and stubborn as hell.”
“My eyes,” she snapped, “are not blue.Youreyes are blue. Honestly, if this is the best you can do, I find—”
“I know what color your eyes are,” he said. “I’ve spent half my life in love with the goddamned sea. I recognize it when I see it.”
He let go of her hand, but only to tangle his fingers in the ribbon at her waist.
Some idiocy, this was, to try to hold her to him. Not to let her go.
“A thousand different shades,” he murmured. “Cool and warm and glorious and wild. I’ve thought from the first that your eyes were as dangerous as the ocean.” This was perilous ground, he knew it was, and he could not make himself stop. “Gray when you’re being clever. When you’re seeing too much.”
She was staring at him. Her every indrawn breath brought their bodies closer, her breasts almost touching his chest.
“But blue now,” he said. “Like the sky reflecting off the ocean when you’re three months at sea and you’ve forgotten the feel of land beneath your feet. A blue that pierces down to the heart of you. So blue you forget how to breathe.”
She licked her lips, and Jesus, it was hell to hold himself apart from her. Nearly impossible to keep from pressing her back against the rock.
