Page 29 of Traitor in Her Arms (The Scarlet Chronicle 2)

“What are you doing?”

“Saving you. You can thank me later.”

Behind them Pin’s men clomped up the gangplank. Gabrielle imagined she felt the board bow from the weight.

Sedgwick, still carrying her, jumped aboard the ship and confronted the startled sailor at the plank. “Shove it off,” Sedgwick ordered. “Now!”

“But, sir—“

“Do it!” And then he set her aside, lifted the plank, and did it himself. Gabrielle watched in horror as Pin and his men wobbled, attempted to keep their balance, and then fell unceremoniously into the water below.

Gabrielle drew in a sharp breath. She could never return to England now. Pin would kill her.

She looked at Sedgwick. She couldn’t go to Paris either, not with Sedgwick aboard the packet. He’d ruin everything.

The schooner began to move as the tugs pulled it out into the open water.

Gabrielle buried her face in her hands. She was doomed.

Chapter 7

Once Ramsey and Lady McCullough had dealt with the necessary shipboard procedures and been assigned cabins for the voyage, Ramsey took her aside. “What the devil is this about?”

She wrapped her shawl close around her shoulders, her eyes flicking everywhere but his face. They were still standing on deck, but they’d moved toward the bow of the ship. The coast at night was alive with lights from ships and Dover businesses as well as the sounds echoing from lively inns like The Fisherman’s Rest. The ship’s creak and the lap of the waves were oddly peaceful as theFugitivegot under way. Gabrielle’s hair blew about her face in the light breeze. Sections had tumbled down to rest on her shoulders at some point in the melee.

“I might ask you the very same, my lord. What are you doing here?”

“I should think the answer to that question obvious. Traveling to France.” He watched as her glossy hair coiled about her neck then snaked back again. He almost reached for the dark, curly ribbon before checking his impulses. “Your turn.”

She looked away from him. “Traveling to France.”

He grasped her chin, raising it until her eyes met his. “Why the—excuse my language—devil would you want to do that?”

She jerked free of his grip. “I have my reasons. Why do you want to go to France?”

Ramsey ignored her question. “Is that thug and his henchman the reason you want out of England? If you need money to pay off George’s creditors, why don’t you ask Exeter’s daughter? She’d help you. Hell, why don’t you do the sensible thing and marry again?”

“Really, this is none of your affair.” She turned to stalk away, then rounded on him. “No. Wait. It is your affair. In fact, it’s your fault!”

Ramsey stared at her. “My fault, madam? I just saved you.”

“Saved me?” She poked him in the chest with two fingers. “How have you saved me, pray tell? Don’t you think Pin will be waiting, and intent on revenge, when I return? If anything, you made the bad situation you created even worse.”

The woman made absolutely no sense. That was to be expected of women, but Ramsey had always thought Gabrielle more sensible than most. “Until a quarter of an hour ago, I had no idea of your predicament. I did not create it.”

“Oh really?” Her hands were on her hips and her gaze burned into him. He took a cautious step back from the ship’s rails in case she was entertaining ideas of throwing him overboard. Not that she could manage such a feat.

At least he didn’t think she could…

“Allow me to ask you one question, my lord. Are you or are you not in possession of Cleopatra’s necklace?” She’d been yelling, but she had the foresight to lower her voice on the last two words.

Ramsey merely stared at her. “So that’s why you stole the necklace. To pay off…?”

“Mr. Pin.”

He understood completely now and was sorry he had been correct in his initial assumptions about her. George, the blundering idiot, had left her in financial straits—quite dire ones if the actions of one Mr. Pin were any indication. And now she was on her way to Paris. Another scheme to acquire the funds George owed? But if that was the case, Paris seemed the wrong city at the moment. Half the population there was starving and the other half was running around killing anyone who looked at them crossly.

“So you see,” she continued, “my current predicament with Mr. Pin is all your fault.”

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