“Ben?”I called, starting after him.
He made no reply.
SIXTY
The Red Tempest
MARY
Aknock came at the door.I sat up in my hammock, muscles aching in protest, and dropped my bare feet to the deck.My lantern was lit, but the candle inside burned low and the cabin was riddled with shadows.
“Who is it?”I called, pulling my blanket more tightly around my shoulders and making no move towards the door.
“Me, Mary,” Samuel’s voice replied, just loud enough to be heard.He sounded tired and overburdened, and my caution slipped into concern.
I briefly considered my state of undress, then let the blanket slip farther down from my shoulders and lifted the latch.
Samuel paused, his gaze dragging to my exposed collarbones and the curve of one shoulder.Then he rallied and looked back to my face.“Would… would you prefer a moment to dress?”
I considered myself, adjusting my arms to give my breasts a more satisfying plump.“No.What’s wrong?You should sit.”
“Mary…” He closed the door and took up station beside it, watching as I moved to the table and sat on the bench.“I came on a rather important matter.”
I patted the bench beside me.“Then please sit, Captain.You’re pale and hardly recovered.”
He perched on the other end of the bench, his focus somewhereelse.“I was offered a new commission today.Not just for myself, but forHart.I turned it down.”
All my coyness fled.I jerked the blanket up.“You what?Sam.Samuel.This is what you wanted.”
For a stretch, he wouldn’t meet my eyes.But when he finally did, the determination in his expression sent a curl of heat through my belly.
“They took you.They ignored our warnings.Theytook you.”The repetition seemed to cut out of him, compulsive and jagged.“I cannot… Mary.”
His voice broke, and my composure with it.I closed the space between us and wrapped my arms around him, careful of his wound but caring nothing for the awkwardness of the moment—one knee on the bench, one bare foot on the deck.His arms locked around me in return and we hovered there, his breath warm on my skin, I stroking his hair.
When some of his tension eased, I sat back on the bench, hands still lingering on his arm and thigh.
“So, what do we do?”I asked, trying to sound factual, even as my heart hammered in my chest.“Are we willing to go back to the Usti?”
“I must speak to Jessin Faucher, first.These allegations… I must put them to rest before I return to Hesten.”Sam took one of my hands between his and anchored it there, on his thigh.“With Enisca Alamay missing, I am not bound to return any time soon.”
Missing, not dead.I wasn’t sure I shared his hope for the Usti spy, but that was a matter for another time.
I slowly nodded, searching my own conscience and gradually giving voice to my thoughts.“If the Usti are responsible for rekindling the war, my mother might never have had to leave the Wold.So many years of conflict could have been avoided.So many people would still be alive.We can’t even know how many, or how long this has been going on.”
“I agree.”He let out a long breath and turned to face me more directly.“I feel as though… I know what I should want to do.I should want to investigate this thoroughly and reveal the truth to the world.”He laughed.“Saint, that would have been easier as an officer.”
I gave a wry smile and waited for him to go on.If anything, his choice made my affection for him all the stronger.It was an ache in my chest, a tightness in my throat, and a smoldering coal in my belly that refused to cool.
“You should want that, but you don’t?”I eventually prompted.
He considered me.“What doyouwant?”
“I don’t want anything to do with Faucher or uncovering truths.It would be… it would be right, the proper thing to do, I’m sure.But I’m tired.I’m tired of running and being afraid.Until we’re out of this harbor, I feel that at any moment they’ll come to take me away.Or some Black Tide zealot will murder us and sinkHart.”
His grip tightened on my hand, and, for another long moment, he sat sequestered in his thoughts.
“Shall we visit your mother?”He asked the question so suddenly, it took me a moment to register his words.“I will still speak to Jessin Faucher, but, regardless of what I learn, we can go to Demery in the Mereish South Isles.We heal.We rest.Decide what to do, safe from the world.”
