“To rescue me?”
“Of course.And if I couldn’t rescue you, I would have gone down with you.”
My blood ran cold and I sat up, splaying a hand on his chest.
“No, Dinesh, no.Never.You must swear to me you won’t do such a thing.”
He gazed at me with a desolate expression that conveyed everything he must have felt when he thought he might lose me.
I shook my head, refusing to be soft.
“I need to know whatever happens to me—because we can’t know what the future may hold for us—that you will go on living.And, eventually, go on loving.And go on fucking.And go on tying up pretty men.”My voice quavered, but I meant every word.
A single tear flowed from the corner of his eye, alongside his nose.I reached out and caught the moisture, then lifted my fingertip to my lips, my tongue lapping at the salty drop.
“Because you and I know that’s what life is all about,” I finished.
He nodded, his forehead creasing as he succumbed to his emotions and let himself utter a ragged sob.Only one.But tears streaked down his cheeks as he laughed at his own vulnerability and nodded his agreement.Then he pulled me into his arms and kissed my neck like his love for me had saved him.LikeIhad saved him.
When the circumstance had always been the other way around.
Chapter Nineteen
The Penny Whistle
Thenextdaydawnedwith clouded skies, but the rain held off whilst we took the skiff to Port Royal with the carpenter and his men, who had spent their time making numerous repairs to theArrowand were ready to cut loose.We had different destinations, as they were after playing at cards, and we only wanted to eat and drink in the tavern that had first brought us together.
The Penny Whistle sat next to the docks exactly as I remembered her.Dinesh reached for my hand as the rain began to fall and pulled me along after him into the shelter of the familiar tavern.The weather made the day all the more reminiscent of our first meeting, when I’d been soaked to the skin and starving besides.Since that time Dinesh had fattened me up, nourishing me with food as well as spiritual comfort and the confidence of finding one’s place in the world.
My dog, Pearl, trotted at my heels as if attached to me by an invisible leash.The malicious intentions of the Leviathan had failed, and she was a testament to our triumph.
Dinesh let go of my hand when we went through the door, and I followed him to a booth in the corner.The tables he and his crew had occupied on that fateful evening were already taken by sundry small groups who laughed and drank and picked at plates of potatoes and what looked like mutton.
Pearl lay at my feet, as she’d recently learned to do, as if to make sure I stayed nearby.
“You sat right there, with all your crew around you.And you regaled them with tall tales.I recall the scene vividly,” I said, nodding toward the spot.
“Never,” he said, with a shy smile.“Doesn’t sound like me.”
“Right.They so obviously adored you.Respected you.”I sat back.“But I was terrified.”
“Bollocks.You came right up to me, told me your name, and asked for a place on my ship.I respected that attitude of yours from the start.”
I narrowed my eyes.“You pulled a pistol on me!”
“Was that before or after you threw a tankard of ale at me?”
“Never mind.Doesn’t matter.We were plainly meant to be together.”
“Plainly.”
A strange feeling prickled the skin at the back of my neck, like the sensation you get when someone is watching you but you can’t actually see them.I looked behind me.
Two cloaked individuals sat on stools at the bar, as if they didn’t want to be recognized.The sensation was coming from one of them.I was positive.I felt a niggle in my head, like someone was tickling my very brain, as the figure on the right turned and stared right at me.
The sensation was gone in a moment, and the person’s pale hands rose up and lifted the hood back from a strikingly handsome face, surrounded by shoulder-length hair that looked like a fall of snow.I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
They looked at me with recognition and fascination.
