When he found Ruby in the north tower—at the top of 197 individual stairs, with a crate of fake Greek statues in his arms—it was entirely by accident. A misfortune so great he went briefly lightheaded.
He’d nudged open the door with his toe. His arms were otherwise occupied with the statues, which he still vaguely hoped to sell someday, ideally to someone with fewer knowledgeable dinner guests than the Marquess of Gravesmuir.
He hadn’t been expecting her. There was no reason for her to be there—the tower room was used for nothing besides storage, and the journey up the stairs was protracted.
But she’d found a different use for the room, it seemed. She was painting. Not canvas—of course not, she was too busy with practical things just now—but rather a trio of decorative screens a head taller than she was.
Archer was fairly certain that, two weeks prior, the same screens had been located in the music room and had functioned as trellises for a variety of intrusive plant species. But now they were soft, dreamy seascapes, pale and luminous with Ruby’s delicate brushstrokes.
The tower had large windows, and the glass opened onto the sea. The room was half drowned in liquid gold from the setting sun. Everything smelled of walnut oil and turpentine, and Ruby was—
She was—
She had stripped out of her pretty flounced frock and hung it on a peg on the wall. In its stead, she’d wrapped herself in some sort of... of hellborn painting smock. It was made of a stiff, heavy fabric, splotched with blue and white. It tied at the front—a deep vee that revealed a stupefying display of Ruby’s paint-spattered bosom.
Her tongue peeked out at the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on her work. Her skin was pink from the sun and slightly damp with sweat. She had a streak of blue paint in her hair, and one on her cheek, and he could nearly see her areolae, for Christ’s sake, if he looked hard enough, which he most certainly was.
Dear God.Shewas the Scourge of St. Petroc’s.
He needed to sit down. There was a battered chaise longue in the corner, but in his current state of extremity the floor seemed preferable to furniture. When he let his eyes linger on the chaise, his mind instantly furnished a vision of—
He dropped the crate, which crashed notably, and Ruby looked up with a start.
“Oh! Captain Archer.” She did not adjust the Torture Smock, possibly because she had no idea what she looked like, or else because she was a demon sent from hell to make Archer pay for his sins.
God grant him mercy. He was paying.
“Ruby.” He cleared his throat. “LadyRuby.”
She looked curiously at him, nosy hellion that she was, and then down at the ground. “You’ve brought... something? All the way up here?”
Oh Jesus, the statues. He shoved the crate as hard as he could with his boot, into the corner where the sunlight did not reach. “Nothing. Empty crate. Getting it out of the way.”
She looked at the crate, which had groaned its way across the floor as he’d shoved it. “Empty?”
“Mm.”
“Is it... made of lead?”
“Lead-lined walnut.” His mouth wanted to curve up at the expression on her face, and—because he could not stop it—he let himself smile at her. “A new device—all the crack in Cornish crate-making.”
She laughed, and he felt so damned smug he added it to his catalog of sins.
But then she sobered. “Do you need this room? To prepare the house for the princess? I can leave you to your privacy.”
“No,” he said quickly. “You needn’t go.Ican go.”
“You don’t have to.” She plucked up her brushes and some small jars of pigment and oils, shoving them haphazardly into a wooden box. “I’m done anyway. If you’ll only give me a moment to clean up—”
“Ruby.”
He’d barely touched her, only brushed his fingers against her upper arm. But she froze anyway, her eyes on him, her mouth clamped down tight.
“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say.
He had not meant to say it. It was...
Hell and damnation. It was not a good apology. He was sorry for the expression on her face, sorry he’d had a hand in putting it there. But he was not sorry for what he’d done.
