A thousand decisions in his past, one after another after another, had made all of that impossible.
“What do you mean?” she asked. Her eyes looked like smoked glass in the sunshine reflected off the sea.
“This plan. Your scheme to have your father investigate while we hide the princess.”
She flushed a little and straightened the ribbon at her waist. “I do not think it bound to fail. My father is knowledgeable and well connected. He—”
“I don’t mean that it’s going to fail. Of course it won’t. Your father will find out everything.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to—”
“I am Quenby.” His voice came out low and furious. “That is what your father will find out. I was Quenby, and I am a confidence artist and a smuggler and a goddamned professional liar, and your fathersawme at Gravesmuir’s dinner, and so did you.”
It felt like relief and ruination at the same time. He wanted to cup her face in his palm. Tangle his fingers in her ribbons and beg her to pretend she hadn’t heard.
He didn’t.
“I’m a bastard,” he said. “A spinner of tales and a peddler of horse shit. If your father pulls the wrong thread in his investigation of Verdura, the fabric of our lives here at Pomeroy House will unravel. And I cannot”—he had to force the words out past the tight knot of his jaw—“I will not ask you not to write to him. I won’t make you lie on my behalf. Not to your father. Not for me.”
Her pointed chin tipped up, her mouth firm, her eyes cool. “I know,” she said. “I already knew that you were Quenby.”
“You...” He stared at her. “You—what?”
“I suspected it the very first day. I recognized you, do you not recall? I knew for certain in the inn when you had plaster dust all in your hair, and even if I hadn’t sorted it out on my own, you told me yourself.”
“I never said a single thing—”
“This morning,” she said. “On the stairs. You said the first time you saw me, I was sparkling all over. You remembered me from Gravesmuir’s dinner party.” She touched his arm, and the brush of her fingers made his head spin. “I’ve known this whole time.”
He tried to make sense of what she was saying. The breeze off the sea was cool on his skin, and he could hear the birds as they cried and wheeled above the waves.
Ruby knew. She’d known all along.
She’d known he was Quenby when she’d pulled his mouth down to hers in the cove. When she’d slept, velvet-soft and vulnerable, all night in his arms.
She’d known when she’d spoken to the princess.
We will not let you down.
“I knew,” she said. “My father—” She paused for the briefest moment on an unsteady breath. Her mouth crimped a little as she wrestled down the tiny hesitation. “He will not recognize you. I will not reveal your secret identity, and he will not suspect it. You are Captain Malcolm Archer andonlyCaptain Malcolm Archer when it comes to my father.”
His chest hurt. “I don’t think—”
“No,” she said, “itwillwork. I’ll make it work. I will burnish your reputation and praise your stalwart protection of the princess. I will make certain that my father sees you as nothing less than a hero.”
“Ah God,” he said, and he couldn’t help himself. He put his hand to her cheek and brushed back the tangled buttery curls that the wind had pushed across her mouth. “Ruby.”
“I can protect you,” she said stoutly, “and the princess. I can manage it. I candothis.”
“Oh pet,” he said, and bloody Christ, she was so radiant in the light that she hurt his eyes to look at. So bright he thought he might weep. “It won’t work. It’s not”—she’d opened her mouth to speak, and he forestalled her—“it’s not you. You could do anything you set your mind to, of that I have no doubt. But I’m not—” His throat wanted to close. He didn’t want to say what had to come next. “I’m not Captain Archer. I’m no more a naval captain than you are.”
Her lips parted beneath the seeking touch of his hand. “You’re—what?”
“I used to be. I—”
Oh Jesus, he was going to tell her everything, wasn’t he? He was going to open his mouth and pour out every scrap of his stupid, stupid heart.
“Come here,” he said instead. “Come with me.”
