Sabine thought of Stoker out of the bed, accompanying her to Marylebone or wherever else the investigation might take her. She had not considered the possibility of this. Surely, when he healed, he would not devote time or energy to her. That had never been the nature of their relationship. He was here now, because he was convalescing. She tolerated this, she told herself, because he was hobbled and dozing.
He went on, “Today I cannot even wear a shirt.”
Sabine looked at his chest again. He was not dozing. In no way did he appear to be dozing.
He finished, “I am of little help to you. But I am still curious.”
“Nothing happened,” she repeated, “but I did overhear a very pointed conversation from the suspected associate, our Mr. Toose, and he used Dryden’s name in particular.”
Sabine began to read off the transcribed conversation, drifting closer. When she reached the mattress, she sat at the foot of the bed near Bridget and began to stroke the dog.
“What do you make of it?” she asked, looking up. “Clearly, Toose’s wagons are used to transport the smuggled goods from the Isle of Portland and the coast of Dorset to... whomever buys them. But why send some of the barrels with goods to sell in Dorset—making them effectively empty after they arrive—and some filled? Filled with what? So many barrels. Will the smuggled goods not arrive in their own barrels?”
“It’s true,” he mused. “Most goods, whether they come illegally or through proper channels, arrive in barrels or sacks or crates or trunks. We sailed with the guano in barrels. It’s odd that Dryden is dealing in something that requires a fresh barrel when he makes landfall...”
Sabine nodded and flipped through her notes for their growing list of possible smuggled items. “Clearly, he does not requirecleanbarrels if his man is going to fill some of them with something else before they are met with the smuggled cargo. You don’t suppose they intend to wash them between usages, do you?”
Stoker chuckled. “Smugglers are not overly concerned with how pure or clean or unblemished their cargo may be. They work quickly, under the cover of darkness, with anonymity and stealth.”
Sabine made a note and looked up in time to see Stoker raise his right hand to scratch the back of his head. His chest broadened and the muscled knot of his biceps bulged, expanding a link of his serpent tattoo. Sabine stared, openly marveling at the beauty of his body. She wondered if all naked male bodies were this fascinating. Was it the bareness or... was it him? She thought of the scrawny footman Harley or middle-aged Arthur Boyd without a shirt and tried immediately to erase the image from her brain. She peeked at him again and he caught her gaze.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, lowering his arm. “I know the tattoo is... alarming.”
“I quite like the tattoo,” Sabine heard herself say. Her voice was too loud and she cleared her throat. She tried again, “I am fond of serpents from an artistic standpoint. They can be frequently found on maps. I’ve never seen a nautical map without one, in fact.”
He narrowed his eyes and considered her, almost as if she had offended him and he dreaded the next thing she might say.
“That is,” she went on, “I was able to make the snap decision to marry you because of the tattoo.”Did I just say that?she wondered idly, looking again at the ink on his arm.
“Because of the tattoo?” he repeated. “The tattoo is designed to traumatize respectable women.”
“That’s not what you told me on the day we met. When I asked about it.”
“One thing that was very clear to me the day we met was that you were not easily traumatized.”
“Perhaps I was simply not respectable.”
“No,” he said softly. “My respect for you was—is—very great.”
Sabine felt her eyes go big, much larger than when she looked at his chest or his arms or his tattoo. She glanced down at her notes again and saw nothing. “Well,” she said softly, “you alone would feel that way, especially considering the condition in which you found me.” She thought back to her blackened eye and bloody lip. Her hair loose down her back, her dress a sweaty tangle.
He said, “Why did the tattoo influence you?” His voice was low.
Sabine’s mind raced for some joke, some way to change the topic, but his face was so very serious. She glanced at the serpent on his arm again. Bridget lay nearby and she snatched her up, holding the dog close.
She shrugged. “It was in the chapel, before the ceremony. My commitment to our snap decision was wavering. I noticed the serpentine head poking out of the sleeve of your jacket, and I asked you about it. Do you remember?”
He nodded slowly.
“Well,” she said, “you answered honestly, didn’t you? And you were so matter-of-fact. You did not try to deny it or explain it away. You did not try to shield me from it.Thatappealed to me. And you had just the slightest touch of... chagrin? Almost as if you’d outgrown your choice.”
She glanced at him. He was still staring. Had the room grown overwarm?
Stoker waited, and Sabine heard herself continue. “You said that after your first windfall as a shipping captain, you’d wanted to squander a large purse of money on something foolhardy—something that took the shine off any unwanted respectability that might come with success.”
His expression softened just a little. “Surely not.”
She chuckled. “That’s what you said.”
