Page 79 of Tempest

She was useless in every sense, she knew that. But she would not bear Valerian telling her so.

Her teeth clenched, her mouth remaining resolutely shut.

The captain of the Covenant did not seem to enjoy silence. He shifted against the desk, crossing and recrossing his arms.

“What of you?” he prodded, eyeing her again.

Cat knew what a sight she was. Her eyes were probably red from seawater and tears, her hair frizzing and knotted. Her shift had finally dried, now stiff with salt. She despaired at the thought of her face, freckled after six months in the Lyrian, without rouge or lipstick or powder to look decent.

The captain was still staring, a little line appearing between his brows. As if she was a puzzle he was trying to put together.

A puzzle with missing pieces, Cat mused. Good luck.

“We own Rosby Island and an estate upon it,” she said stiffly, tossing her head. A curl fell across her forehead and she brushed it away as if it were a feather in an ornate headdress. “There are farms, orchards, fresh water. We have made ourselves quite the living here.”

Cat did not enjoy lying, but she was good at it. Lies were easy to spin and far easier to look at than the truth.

The line between Valerian’s eyebrows deepened.

“On Rosby?” he scoffed in disbelief. “I do not recall such things on that rock you call an island.”

“Then you have not seen what Meridian engineers can do,” Cat answered without hesitation, though her mind whirled.

If he knows even a little of Rosby, then he will know I’m lying.

Valerian uncrossed his arms and leaned, bending at the waist to close the distance between them. It was starting to annoy her, the intensity of his stare, as if she were a horizon, a storm, or another ship. Something to overcome or conquer. She steeled herself against the swirl of a tempest in his eyes, refusing to be pulled under.

“I do not recall an engineer with you on the crossing.”

“Perhaps your recall is not entirely perfect,” she said imperiously, her voice laced with annoyance. And desperation. “I do not keep my husband’s accounts, but I am privy to them. There is a great deal of money for Lord Rose, both on the island and in Archenport. Not to mention back home in a bank on Bristol Street.”

At the mention of the glittering financial heart of Brycam City, the seat of the Empire’s wealth and center of her economic power, Valerian’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. It felt like a point scored in a game Cat did not know how to play, but she celebrated anyway. Valerian Kane was a pirate before anything else, and valued money above all things. It was good to know what made people move, and clearly, Valerian Kane moved for greed.

She smiled at him, triumphant.

“Deliver us to Archenport,” Cat said, “and I will make you a wealthy man, Valerian Kane.”

He grinned at her in return, the corners of his mouth curling in a dangerous way.

“I already am a wealthy man,” he replied, but she saw the hunger in him still.

Not just for greed but glory too.

Cat raised her chin. “Then I will make you known and feared. Tales of you will echo through the fine homes of Archenport and beyond when I am free.”

It felt like waving a strip of meat in front of a predator with too many teeth, who might forgo the meal to swallow her instead.

But Cat would not relent. Her bluff depended on it.

“Let’s start with the gold,” Valerian finally said, satisfied with her for now. The sun caught the windows behind him, turning his hair into a halo. “One thousand crowns, Imperial mint.”

Cat sputtered, her head going light. One thousand crowns was enough to buy a fine house in Brycam City, and everything in it. It was a ridiculous figure, especially for someone as ridiculous as Ryman Rose.

“One hundred,” she shot back through gritted teeth.

“Three.”

She forced herself to look Valerian in the eye. The too-bright light put his face in shadow, blurring his features, but his eyes remained steady as a beacon, storm-green and stunning.