Perhaps the Italian husband, if she found him, would discover what Tristan had discovered. That she was weight. That she carried too much hunger inside her. That she could not be kept without costing more than she was worth.
The felucca drew closer.
“Well,” she said, though she was not certain to whom she spoke, “when one has given everything one has, one arrives at the next negotiation with the power of the reckless who have nothing to lose.”
Lorenzo glanced at her.
Marguerite tried to smile and found the expression too heavy to lift properly.
“A pity,” she added, “that I feel neither powerful nor reckless.”
The felucca came alongside at last before she could make any other unseemly confessions. A ladder was lowered, men shouted in Italian, and soon the Neapolitan envoy climbed aboard with the air of a man doing a favor to inferior wood. He was short, round, and magnificently overdressed for a ship, with a waistcoat embroidered beyond reason, a hat tucked beneath one arm, and a lace neckcloth arranged so elaborately that itmight have been attempting independent diplomacy. Behind him scrambled a thin secretary carrying a leather folio, several rolled papers, and the expression of a nervous puppy entrusted with state secrets and prone to damp paws.
The envoy’s gaze traveled over the deck, and his mouth tightened.
Marguerite felt the insult in the slight lift of his nostrils. It didn’t require much insight to realize the envoy thought the frigate was shabby.
Marguerite’s spine straightened. The ship was old. Yes. Harsh. Often rude. Occasionally murderous to footwear. But it had carried them. It had outrun danger. It had held hot water, hidden cushions, moonlight, fear, laughter, and the unbearable intimacy of being cared for. No perfumed court minion with embroidery migrating up his chest had the right to sneer at it.
The envoy said something in Italian.
Lorenzo stiffened beside her. The easy humor left his face, and color rose along his cheekbones.
Marguerite turned to him. “What did he just say?”
He looked at the envoy, then at Tristan, then back at her. His jaw worked. He said, “What a decrepit old tub. This new ambassador must be another nameless fool sent south by mistake.”
Heat replaced the cold inside her. Lorenzo moved as if to advance on the envoy and give him a very well deserved lesson in politeness.
Marguerite caught his arm. “No.”
His eyes flashed. “He insulted my brother. And you would have me do nothing?”
“I would have you do nothing useless.” Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. “Insults will not change how he thinks. They will only allow him to think it louder.”
Lorenzo’s mouth parted, then closed.
Across the deck, Vale conducted the envoy toward Tristan, who stood waiting on the quarterdeck with the unsmiling patience of a man prepared to accept discourtesy because he had already survived worse forms of enemy fire. The envoy bowed just enough to be correct and not enough to be gracious. The secretary fumbled with papers. Tristan inclined his head, formal, contained, and horribly alone.
Lorenzo’s voice dropped. “It will be just like the Admiralty.”
Marguerite did not look away from Tristan.
“They will give him the cold shoulder,” Lorenzo said, “and he will be miserable and angry for the rest of his life.”
She could see it too clearly. Tristan entering that court as a nameless foreigner. They would hear one slight, repeat it in three drawing rooms, embroider it by supper, and by morning, he would not be the Sea Wolf or the Duke of Stormhaven. He would be the nameless Englishman with the old ship.
And Tristan, who had learned to survive by cutting away softness before others could mock it, would harden. He would meet disdain with silence, pride with iron, insult with contempt. He would be miserable. Worse, he would call that misery strength.
The thought struck some place inside her that had not yet gone numb. Well, then. It was not as if she could do anything. She had her own arrival to consider. She needed to send a courier to the marchesa, dress properly, discover which doors had closed since her last letter, and reopen them without seeming to knock. She needed to step into Naples not as a woman fleeing England, not as a discarded mistress, not as cargo from a frigate, but as Marguerite d’Ailes, who had friends, knowledge, poise, and a future. She had to conserve what remained of herself because what remained was not much.
Her gaze moved back to Tristan, all alone . . .
If Elsie could see what her mind was doing right now, she would say that only Marguerite could stand before the city of her dreams, hollow as a blown egg, and still begin calculating how to spend herself for someone else.
Marguerite looked back toward the coast. Some version of herself might still be made from sunlight, introductions, and enough determination. Yet the idea of stepping ashore and leaving Tristan to be received badly, wounded in the place he pretended not to possess, made the emptiness inside her shift.
Her breath deepened by a fraction. Her hand loosened on Lorenzo’s sleeve. What she was about to give him had not been negotiated. There was no clause for it. No promise. No return. No midnight, no key, no whispered vow against her skin, no guarantee that he would know, or even thank her.
