He’d felt absolutely wretched when she’d handed him the ring, eyes full of hurt. He still had it in his pocket, hadn’t been able to place it back in the safe in the bedchamber.
Now here he was at her door in their inn at Calais, prepared to say whatever he had to in order to make her happy again. She’d been so aloof and distant from everyone at the table but for her sister. She’d reminded him of a butterfly in a cocoon then. Carefully protecting herself from the dangers outside. Guarding her papery wings from the things that would tear her apart.
And Evan’s secrets had been the blades she’d had to hide from.
“She’s not here,” Amaranta said defiantly.
“What do you mean, she’s not here?”
“I thought she’d gone off to talk to you,” she told him, now looking a bit more concerned.
“No,” he said, surprised at Amaranta’s tone. “I haven’t seen her since dinner.” Luz Alana’s cousin considered this for a moment, but before she could answer, Clarita stepped into the small sitting room.
“You should check the docks.”
“The docks?”
“She’s likely making sure the rum is stowed properly in the ferry. She worries about it a lot.” Clarita spoke with alarming sobriety. “If I’m sorted, the rum is the other thing she would make sure was safe for the night. She did the same thing at Le Havre.”
“She’s been on a knife’s edge about the cargo,” Amaranta concurred. “Until she’s reached her final destination, she will be excessive in her care.”
“She’s gone to the dockyards on her own, at almost ten in the evening?” Modulating his voice so as not to frighten the child in his presence was a battle. “The docks are not a place for a lady during the day, much less in the dead of night!”
Amaranta sent him a warning look when Clarita’s face darkened with worry. He was making things worse. “Why didn’t she tell me?” he asked, despite knowing what the answer would be. “I would’ve taken her.”
“Luz Alana doesn’t believe she has anyone to do these things for or with her, and I can’t say I see that changing based on today.”
Amaranta’s words struck true, and regret flooded Evan. “I’m going to find her.”
He was pinned with a dour look. “She won’t appreciate you coming to fetch her like she’s an errant child,” Amaranta said without prevarication. Whatever she saw on Evan’s countenance softened her somewhat, though not by much. “Perhaps by the time you get to her, you’ll devise a plan to make her feel as though help has arrived and not that she’s being collected. Good night, my lord,” she said before softly but firmly closing the door in his face.
Evan pondered that last directive from Amaranta for a moment, before spinning on his heels and heading for the stairs. With every step his worry for Luz Alana’s safety was replaced with annoyance. Of all the reckless things to do! Evan could understand her being angry at him, but placing herself in harm’s way only to make a point was completely unnecessary. After a hasty stop in his rooms to acquire his pistol and blade, he scribbled a message to be delivered to Murdoch in the event he was not back with Luz Alana by midnight.
By the time the fiacre driver dropped Evan on a well-lit corner at the top of a cobblestone street, he’d worked himself into a proper rage. He walked at a purposeful clip, staying under the light of the electrified streetlamps. The area, which during the day bustled with longshoremen and sailors, was practically deserted. He was dressed too elegantly to be walking alone in an area like this so late at night. Evan almost wished one of the men likely lurking in the shadows would start some trouble, just to have an excuse to purge the sickening worry that seemed to worsen with every step he took with a round of fisticuffs. He was halfway to the water and still didn’t see any sign of Luz Alana. If anything happened to the stubborn, insufferable woman... No, he couldn’t think about that.
By the time he reached the street where the spirits were being kept, he could feel rivulets of sweat running down his back. And that’s when he heard it: a shriek and then an eruption of sound. He couldn’t know for sure if what he’d heard were sounds of distress, but he was certain it was Luz Alana. He took off at a run, his heart in his throat as ice seeped into his bones. The only thought in his head, as he hurried toward the knot of people huddled at the opening of an alleyway, was that he’d gut anyone who’d laid a finger on her. As he reached the source of the noise he saw movement within a cluster of bodies huddled by a streetlamp, and then he spotted her. She was standing in the periphery of the group, head bowed as if trying to get a better look at something. At a distance she didn’t seem to be in distress—and then she laughed.
Luz Alana didn’t giggle in a girlish manner or emit graceful, delicate sounds when she found something amusing: she rumbled with it. And that intoxicating rolling thunder, when it reached him, made him stumble, his elegant formal shoes slipping on the wet cobblestones.
And what in the devil was the woman doing? Was shecarousingwith a group of sailors?
“Luz Alana Heith-Benzan, are ye trying to put me in the ground?” Evan bellowed at his betrothed, who was now happily pointing at a plank four men seemed to be using as table to play...dominoes?
The moment she heard his voice the smile slid from her lips and her expression shuttered. It was like catching a sliver of a perfect blue sky, only to have it obscured by gray clouds.
He was the gray cloud.
“What are you doing here, Evan?” She was still dressed in the emerald green walking suit he’d threatened to tear off her that afternoon after he’d given her the ring. Instinctively his eyes went to her hand, regret twisting in his gut again.
“I am here to ensure that you don’t get yourself killed. What in the world do you think you’re doing traipsing around the Calais dockyards?”
“I spent my childhood helping my parents oversee rum shipments. I can handle myself perfectly fine.” She thrust her chin in his direction. The men—who at least had the sense not to provoke him—were all gawking at them. They all had weathered brown skin and appeared to be seamen. They were also standing much too close to her.
“Luz Alana—” it was a miracle he managed to get the words out with his jaw as tightly clenched as it was “—you aredangerouslyclose to obliterating the very last thread holding my temper together.”
“Then go,” she said with pugnacious finality.
“For God’s sake, woman! You couldn’t have told me you wanted to come here?”
