Rhys might, but who knew what he might do with the information.
She sighed and rubbed her brows.
Maybe she should ambush Elias with the information just to see how he’d react. With confused horror, she imagined.
They barely knew each other.
She gave a dry, exhausted laugh and pushed forward.
She had Jasper, after all. And she had Lem.
Why did she need another confidant? Why did she need someone who was not actually involved?
She didn’t. She didn’t.
And there, in the misty haze of dawn, she could see the Templeton-Rath ship bobbing on the water.
Shade of Port Royalread the side.
She grimaced.
Why would anyone name a ship that? After something that had sunk?
Bizarrely, the two tugs on either side of it had much more winsome names.
Mongoose of the Crossroadsthe first one read.Lucky Spiderthe other read.
They both appeared to have come in with the main ship from Ceylon.
The gangplank was down fromThe Shade, balanced on the dock as several people buzzed around to take advantage of the early hour and the mostly-empty wharf. Just as she’d known they would.
She couldn’t hear much from where she was standing, just out of view, but she could see a clutch of upright people near the harbormaster’s office and felt her heart speed up a little. The Templeton-Raths would not trust initial disembarking to happen without oversight.
So they were here.
Maybe not the daughter. The plain heiress.
But the others. And that was all they’d need for this day.
“Mutiny!” cried a feminine voice, startling Libba so badly, she almost dropped her rose oil tin.
A second woman’s voice joined the cry. “Mutiny! Come now, where are you?”
What a thing to be shouting on a ship harbor! And in such a singsong, lovely tone as well.
Two young women darted through the mist, coming toward Libba directly. One was tall and slender, pale skinned and slower than the other. The second was petite, dark skinned, and shaped like the most ostentatious hourglass.
The second’s voice was louder.
“Have you seen a cat?” the shorter young woman asked a passing porter. “White with circle patterns on its coat? One ’round each eye?”
“It’s a wharf,” the porter replied, baffled and blinking at such an early onslaught. “We’ve got bushels of cats.”
“Ayo, she might still be on the ship!” the thinner woman called. “Oh, blast! Papa will gloat.”
“Maybe she hopped to one of the tugs,” the one called ‘Ayo’ replied, turning and skipping off toward her friend. “She tried to do it often enough while we were at sea.”
“Oh, Mutiny,” sighed the other woman, shaking her head and slinging an arm around Ayo’s shoulders.
