The words hung in the air. Even the dogs had gone hushed, sensitive to the sudden crackle of tension in the room.
Ruby stared.
Had the woman said... “assassination”?
It appeared she had. Neri had found himself a place on the ground near the princess’s feet, and at her words, he found his handkerchief again. This time he dabbed at his own brow. “Ah,sua maestá,” he whispered. “Not Verdura? Not again?”
“Sí,” she said coolly. “Verdura.”
And then she explained.
She had been, it seemed, visiting a cousin in Sardinia and had set out from there by ship to meet Signor Neri at the holiday house in Cornwall. She had been three-quarters of the way through the ship journey when her schooner had been set upon by what she had at first taken to be pirates.
The first mate—her own man, a servant of House di Sangro—had hustled her into a dinghy and begun the slow process of rowing them to shore. But to her astonishment, three of the pirates had left the schooner and given chase.
“I was the target,” she said. The words were flat. If Ruby had not seen the way her hands trembled on Zenobia’s diamond-studded collar, she might have thought the princess emotionless. “The men were not after the ship. They were after me. They meant to see me dead.”
She had plunged from the dinghy into the water, and the mate had charged the pursuing pirates, brandishing his pistols. He had led them away from her—had let her slip away unscathed.
“House di Sangro will not forget,” she said. Her voice sounded like acid-etched glass, but her hands on Zenobia’s collar shook harder. “His family will be rewarded for the service he rendered me.”
“Maestá,” Neri said. He looked sick. “How did you make it to shore?”
She lifted her chin, and if Ruby had not known she was royalty, the self-possessed gesture alone would have revealed it. “I swam,” she said. “All night. And when I was close enough to the cliffs, I recognized the silhouette of my own house.”
Ruby’s heart lurched. She could imagine it all—the violence, the angry noise of steel and gunpowder, the cold seawater and heavy weight of a sodden gown. The princess’s feet had been bare, and the walk up the cliffs was steep and cragged. She could imagine the princess’s terror, the stark relief at the sight of Pomeroy House, turreted and looming at the top of the cliffs.
But Serafina did not look terrified now. She looked angry and cold with it, down to her bones. “My cousin the duke,” she said, “has long plotted to remove me from the line of succession. His attempts on my life grow increasingly bold. Verdura is the reason I departed for Cornwall in the first place.”
There was another brief clamor as the assembled company demanded answers, explanations, but Ruby didn’t hear it. She knew the Duca di Verdura—knewofhim, at least. As ambassador to Monfalcone, her father had been in contact with Verdura on numerous occasions; the royal duke frequently traveled to England to represent the Monfalcone nation’s interests. Once, like Liverpool, Verdura had dined at their house.
“This was not his first attack,” Princess Serafina said. “But it was certainly the closest he has come to success.” Her jaw tightened, sharp as a stiletto, and she looked out at the company assembled in her chamber. “Someone has schemed with him. Someone who knew my ship, the time and date of my travel. Someone who, perhaps, waited here in Cornwall and reported to the duke when I was meant to arrive.”
Ruby felt a sharp shock go through her as the import of the princess’s words registered. Serafina believed that one ofthemwas a traitor—had played a role in this attempted assassination.
The dark shadow she and Malcolm had seen outside the kitchen window—could it have been someone looking for the princess in her home? Perhaps even preparing for this very attack?
Very likely it had been. And yet even if she told Princess Serafina what they’d seen, she did not know if the woman would trust her. The very fact of their presence in the house, Ruby realized, was desperately suspicious. None of them was meant to be here—no one except for Malcolm. His crew’s presence in the house would never stand up to any sort of scrutiny. And neither would—
Ruby’s skin went cold. Her gaze flew to Alice, who had shrunk back into the shadows.
Betrayal. Treason.
It had been an accusation of treason, never proven, that had brought down Alice’s father. That had destroyed Alice’s life. If the princess’s suspicion were to fall on one of them, it would turn, first and quickest, to Alice.
“Let me make myself clear,” Princess Serafina said. “If one of you has put my people in harm’s way, there will be no end to the devastation I will wreak upon you and your house. I will have justice by my own hand. I will flay your skin from your body. I will—”
“We didn’t,” Ruby heard herself say.
The princess’s black-marble gaze swung to her.
Ruby swallowed. She remembered the fire, slowly creeping up the drapes behind the prime minister’s chair. She remembered this, too: the frantic, tearing knowledge that disaster loomed and that to stop it meant her own ruin.
She had leapt out of her seat and flung herself at the fire anyway. She could never have done anything differently.
“We didn’t scheme with Verdura. Lady Alice and Miss Drake—they don’t even know who that is. But... I do.”
Serafina’s gaze sharpened.
