He’d bent and kissed her hard. “I’ll be back.” When he drew away, he was smiling at her—a flash of steely confidence, of charm so sweet it singed her skin. “You own me, Ruby Ballimore. My body. My soul. Don’t think I won’t come back for it.”
She’d watched as the three men had rowed away, watched until they’d vanished into the dark. She had not moved from the deck—would not, she vowed, until they returned.
The night seemed to stretch interminably as she waited on the deck, her fingers tangled with Alice’s. She thought of Tamsin and the princess, missing a week now. She thought of Malcolm: a brace of pistols strapped across his chest, a sword at his hip, a knife in his boot. Smiling at her.
She waited and hoped and prayed—nonsense prayers, all bargain and plea—and when she finally saw the rowboat in the distance, she almost thought she was imagining the sight.
But she wasn’t. She freed her hand from Alice’s to clutch at the ship’s low rail, leaning out as far as she dared. Together, they strained to see what soon became plain, even in the clouded dark.
It was only Archer, Gerry, and Lamentation in the dinghy. No Princess Serafina. No Tamsin.
The men’s faces were grim as they hauled themselves back onto the deck of theDelphinium.
“What happened?” Ruby asked breathlessly. The rest of the crew crowded forward, Signor Neri at the front.
Archer shoved his fingers through his spray-damp hair, and oh, she longed to run her hands across his face, his chest—anything to reassure herself that he was safe and whole.
But she didn’t. He stood a handful of feet away, self-contained, radiating unhappiness like cold phosphorescence. He had something clutched in his fist—some white glitter in the night.
“They weren’t there,” he said shortly. “No one was.”
“TheVulcanowas empty?” Neri demanded.
“Stripped bare. The cabins, the gunport—there’s no one and nothing left aboard.”
Ruby’s heart lurched.Tamsin.“Are you certain? Did you check the cargo hold? Could they have been trapped somewhere?”
He exhaled hard and met her gaze. The sapphire blue of his eyes looked shadowed. Dark. “I’m a smuggler, Ruby. I know where to look.” He opened his hand, and in it she saw a thin jeweled collar she recognized from Zenobia’s delicate neck. “I found this, shoved between two planks in the companionway. Theywerethere. But not anymore.”
Ruby felt sick. Helpless. TheVulcanohad been their only tangible connection to Serafina and Tamsin, and she couldn’t seem to force herself to let it go. She tried to make herself quit demanding, for heaven’s sake, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Perhaps some false wall or—or casks with secret compartments, or—”
“He shouted,” Lamentation said.
She broke Archer’s gaze and turned to his former bosun. Lamentation’s exquisite face was strained, and his palm twisted helplessly along the hilt at his side.
“He shouted,” Lamentation said again, “even when Gerry and I told him to keep quiet. He shouted for them as soon as we were aboard, before we even knew that the crew was gone.”
“I knew,” Malcolm said roughly. “The ship felt empty.”
“What would you have done?” Lamentation said. His voice rose. “If the ship had been manned? If they’d started firing at you before you could even draw your first pistol?”
“I knew it wasn’t manned.” Archer sounded confident and steady, all certainty.Everything was under control, his voice seemed to say.You were safe with me.“There might have been one or two sleeping sailors, but I could have fought my way past two men. I wanted—” He broke off. Looked to Ruby. Tried again. “I wanted them to know we were there. Tamsin and the princess. If they were on board, I wanted them to know we’d come for them.”
Her heart felt like a live thing, the way it twisted at his words. Her whole chest ached as though she’d taken a blow.
He’d wanted them to know. He’d risked himself—his own life—so that they would know someone had come.
It was what his own crew had done, she thought. Gerry and Lamentation, Wall and Eugénie. When Malcolm had been sent down from the navy, the four of them had given up everything they had so that he need not be alone.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice wobbled. “Thank you for trying.”
He’d been fretting over the ropes that held the dinghy, checking and rechecking his knots, but at her words, his hands stilled. He looked up, and the brilliant forced smile on his face was a hundred times worse than naked anguish for the way it stabbed between her ribs.
“A delay,” he said. “Nothing but a delay. I’ll find them, Ruby. I’ll turn over a thousand rocks to see what crawls out. I’ll—” His smile wavered, a candle almost blown out, and then recovered. “I won’t let you down.”
“Malcolm.” She touched her fingers to his, still frozen on the rough knots. “You’re not. You couldn’t.”
His smile faded as he looked at her—dimmed into something less brilliant. More true. “I could,” he said.
