Libba blinked.
Not a servant, then. A companion, perhaps? An equal.
That was something.
“There you are!” hissed Jasper, right in her ear.
This time, the rose oil fell from her fingers, through the wharf planks, and into the English Channel.
“Oh, look what you’ve done.” She sighed, turning and giving him a light shove. “Oh!”
She blinked several times, taking him in.
Half his face was still purple and puffy, but it looked oddly… well,artisticagainst the bright red of his hair.
He was wearing Errol’s shirt and his navy-blue jacket from last night, but he’d somehow commandeered a dark-golden waistcoat in heavy tweed fabric to go between them. The effect was striking.
“You look like a dandy in a penny novel,” she said, baffled, reaching up to smooth the fabric at his collar. “Just escaped from the monster.”
“Oh, Lib,” he sighed, chuckling and patting the waistcoat. “Iamthe monster.”
She gave him a look, which only made him grin wider, pushing the bruises around his eye into a crescent of vibrant blue and purple. It made her sag a little, her heart sinking.
He’d risen to the occasion, just as she’d asked. He was here. He looked the part. He lookedtoomuch the part!
She had expected him to fumble a little more, and she couldn’t tell if she liked or didn’t like that he hadn’t.
“Whose waistcoat is that?” she demanded. “Not Malcolm’s.”
“No, of course not,” he replied, looking down at himself. “Elias lent it. Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Shut up,” she said, her voice gone a little grainy. But only because it did. She spun on her heel and nodded toward the dock. “There are the Templeton-Raths.”
“Indeed?” he said, his voice also thinning. He stepped closer to her, his chest bumping against her shoulder, the heat from hisbody radiating out through her costume. It warmed her back, his body steady and hot behind her, like she could forget it all and simply fall back against him instead of pushing forward.
Like she could stop and find warmth and anchor.
Like that were a possibility here, when she knew that it wasn’t.
She shivered, frowning, and took a brisk step away. “Yes. I’ve just seen your bride-to-be, in fact. At least, I expect that I did.”
“Oh?” he answered, and she could hear the hesitation in his voice. “And?”
She narrowed her eyes but still didn’t turn. “She was running up and down the wharf shouting, ‘Mutiny!’”
There was a pause. The harbormaster’s bell rang.
“What?”
“Go!” she said, finally turning and giving him both a tug and a shove in the direction of the dock. “Before it’s too late.”
He stared at her for a moment, something like hesitation in his face, his hands working at the lapels of his jacket as he glanced once, nervously, at the boat, and then back at her.
He was looking at her like he wanted her to tell him he didn’t have to do it.
And good.
One or two more pushes and he’d abandon this nonsense entirely.
