My Lord and Spymaster

Thirty-three

WHEN HE OPENED THE DOOR, JESS CAME OUT kicking and clawing. She knocked them sprawling on the deck, with her on top.

His Jess. He fended her off, getting clawed up. His wonderful Jess.

She lifted her head. “Sebastian?”

Her hair straggled over her face. Somebody had given her a bloody nose at some point. She was filthy. She was infinitely beautiful. He said, “I’m glad to see you, too.”

She let her breath out, miles and miles of it, slowly deflating till she was limp on top of him. She lay her head down on his chest and began to cry.

“It’s all right.” He held her. He could have held her for a hundred years. “Shhh. It’s over. It’s all right now.”

“I knew you’d come for me.”

“Of course.”

“I knew you’d come. I left because I had to get Pitney away. Pitney is . . .” She shuddered and held on to him harder.

“I saw.” Had she watched Pitney die? She had blood all down her front, so probably she’d been there. He would have given a lot to change the world and spare her that.

He lay on the dirty planking and closed his arms around Jess and pulled her in and let her cry. She was safe. She was alive. Everything else he could fix. He’d get her off this filthy scumbelly of a ship and into the sun. He’d take her to bed and kiss every sweet inch of her. But first he’d let her cry.

Something small and sneaky brushed his arm. Kedger, smelling to high Hades and soaking wet, nosed in between them.

“Kedger?” She pushed herself up. “You brought Kedger here?”

Ten thousand words would not be enough to explain. “Yes.”

“He coulda been hurt. He coulda got ’imself lost. Are you out of your sodding mind?”

Kedger—he’d swear this—made himself look hangdog and orphaned and pitiful. Jess fell for it at once. She got to her knees and swept the vermin in and cuddled the smug bugger of a weasel. If the ferret thought he was sleeping with them after they got married, he could forget it. Maybe they’d find a lady ferret for him.

“Let’s get out of here.” She scrambled ahead of him along the black corridor, heading topside. “All this dark, I’m going to break my fool neck.”

Adrian had drafted Lazarus’s men to cart away trunks and boxes of Quentin’s ill-gotten gains. Agents from the British Service were guarding prisoners and checking the dead. Somebody—Adrian—had put a coat over Pitney’s dead face. Trevor was helping move the bodies, pale but not getting sick.

Quentin, and his gun, were gone.

“Overboard.” Adrian tossed the news as he walked by. “I’ve sent my men searching the wharf. I told them to find him dead.”

Nothing could save Quentin from the gallows. If he died in the Thames today, Claudia wouldn’t see her brother stand trial. “Good.”

“I’ll go home and kick Josiah out of Meeks Street. What we save in hemp alone on this operation . . .” Adrian wandered off.

He followed Jess and found her near the wheelhouse, sitting on the railing, her feet tucked in to keep her balance. She was at home on a ship. She’d look good on the Flighty Dancer.

“There’s blood on you.” She jumped down and let the ferret plop to the decking and walked toward him. Always the same simplicity about her. The same directness. “I didn’t notice before. They told me Quentin’s gone. Oh, Sebastian—the Reverend.” Her face was suddenly stricken. “He was with me at the warehouse—”

“Eunice has him. He was awake and talking when I left him.”

She sighed, and the clutch on his arm loosened. “I’m filthy. You would not believe how dirty that locker was. All this water around, you’d think they’d wash the place.” She tapped the rail. “I’m going to scuttle this pig. I’m going to haul it out into mid-Channel and set it on fire and burn it down to the waterline. It’s an evil ship.” She gazed soberly across the deck, across the dead men, to Pitney’s body. “And it’s full of ghosts. Sebastian, I have to tell you something. I don’t think it’ll make any difference, but I have to tell you.”

Somebody had hurt her. Maybe raped her. If he... “Whatever happened—”

“My father probably won’t like you much,” she said soberly.

The sun brightened up again. He didn’t laugh. She was being serious. “I don’t suppose he will, much. Jess, you’re going to be my wife. I don’t give a damn what your father thinks. You better not either.”

“I don’t. Anyway, he’ll be so glad to have grandchildren he’d put up with you if you were a Bactrian snake charmer. What I’m saying is, I’m going to deed everything I have of Whitby’s back to him before I get married. If I don’t, I’ll get ground to pieces between the two of you. So if you want me, you’re going to have to take me without a farthing piece, because that’s how I’m coming.”

A woman of magnificent gestures. He and Whitby were going to have some grand battles over her before they got the two companies consolidated. Afterward, too, probably. He’d take Jess out to sea when he and Whitby were disagreeing, so she wouldn’t be bothered. He foresaw lots of time at sea for Jess. “I’ll give you Kennett Shipping to run. You can reorganize my bookkeeping in your spare time . . . when we’re not in bed.”

Jess grinned up at him. “You would not believe how much I’m looking forward to that.”

It felt like it was about time to kiss her, so he started doing that some. “Which one, Jess?”

“Both.”