Gerry was standing behind Lamentation, his hand on Lamentation’s shoulder. “We can set the sails, Cap. What’s our heading?”
Archer looked from Ruby to his crew. There was some struggle on his face; his throat worked. “London,” he said. “I want to talk to Admiral Penney.”
Gerry nodded and made to turn, but Lamentation gave a stiff jerk, as though he’d been struck. “Penney?” he said. “Why?”
“He’s a baronet now. Well connected. He may know something of Verdura’s whereabouts. He... owes me a favor.”
“He owes you a hell of a lot more than a favor,” Lamentation said. His voice scratched on the words, and he looked suddenly, terribly young. “He owes you his career. He owes you that goddamned baronetcy for the way you saved his neck.”
“Enough.” Archer’s voice was quiet, his eyes steady on Lamentation’s face. “You’ve made your opinions on the matter known.”
“It seems I haven’t. You wouldn’t consider going to him if you’d heard a thing I’d said since we lost the goddamnedSwallow!”
“I have heard. I heard you then, and still I made my choice, Lamentation. Even if it’s not the one you would have made.”
Lamentation took a breath, shakily, and he angled his chin up as if to hold back whatever emotion had tangled in his throat. “I don’t understand why you’d turn to Penney after what he did. I don’t understand why we can’t do it on our own, Cap! Why we’re not—enough.”
Archer’s face was pale and carved beneath the clouded moon. “We need help.”
“Not fromhim.”
Ruby’s eyes burned as she watched them. In truth, she felt the same as Lamentation did. Penney had put his hand in the net of Archer’s life and twisted—in some places pulling him free, and in other places warping him so that he could not see himself clearly.
Penney was no hero. Archer was. But Archer had made his decision, and he had chosen loyalty. Ruby could understand that, just as she could understand the painful self-consciousness written on Lamentation’s face.
I don’t understand, he’d said,why we’re not enough.
“We should go to London,” she said abruptly. “But not for Penney.” Half a dozen pairs of eyes came to rest on her, and she swallowed hard. Hoped this was not a mistake. “I think we should go to my father.”
Above them, the moon broke through the stand of clouds, washing the deck in cool translucent blue.
“I know he has not supported our efforts in the past,” she said quickly. Almost desperately. “But I believe I know how to make him aid us. We’re more than halfway back to London now. It would not take so long for us to get there if—if the wind is right.”
She hesitated on the words as she looked up into Archer’s face.Please, she thought.Please let this be the right thing to do.
“My father can get us into Verdura’s townhouse,” she said. “He could procure an invitation through diplomatic means, use his connections to help broaden the search for Tamsin and the princess. This time, I know I can persuade him.”
Her father had let her down before. But sheknewthat he cared about Monfalcone, if nothing else. This time he would not think her story false. They had Zenobia’s collar to convince him. They had Signor Neri.
Archer shook his head. Opened his mouth to speak.
But Ruby cut him off. She fisted her hands at her sides, trying to project confidence the way that Archer always did. Trying to persuade him through sheer force of her own hope that everything would be all right.
“I know you’re worried that my father might recognize you as Quenby,” she said. The words had come out almost a whisper, and she made her voice louder, carrying, so that he would know she meant it. “But he won’t. He saw you only once, and he was paying far more attention to my debacle than to your face. I will tell him who you are and swear upon my life that I never met you before Pomeroy House.”
Archer’s eyes were locked on hers, his fingers knotted around the rope. He swallowed. She watched the bob of his throat, pale in the moonlight.
And then Lamentation spoke.
“I’m sorry?” he said. “What? You—knew the captain? Before Pomeroy House?”
Ruby turned to him, hastening to explain. “I did not know him. Not in truth. I only saw him at a dinner party, posing as Professor Quenby. And—and my father saw him too, but he looked so unlike himself. I don’t believe my father would draw the same conclusion I did. I think—”
She stumbled to a halt. Lamentation’s face had gone stricken, his cheekbones growing tauter and sharper with every word she spoke, and somehow—
Somehow she was doing this. Somehow she was making it worse.
Lamentation’s gaze shifted from her to Archer. “She knew?” he demanded. “She knew all this time? And you didn’t tell us?”
