Her shoulders squared, and she cocked her head. “For yourself?”

“Yes.”

She nodded once, the gesture so final it snapped shut the padlock upon his steel hull. “Good.”

“Excuse me,” he muttered and strode from the room, steps far calmer than the stuttering pace of his heart.

Lords and Ladies, gods, Wild Hunt—all of them take him because he’d been a damned fool.

His hands shook, fire licking through his veins as he approached the companionway, the world a blur of doors and timber and the dark of belowdecks. He threw open the hatch, ran upstairs, and gasped air that seared his lungs with its freshness and salt tang.

The sun slanted through him, tipping the world, sending his stomach roiling and bile burning the back of his throat. He ran for the side and vomited, belly spasming, knuckles cracking on the rail.

She’d deceived him. With that easy smile, that sharp tongue, that seductive body, she’d made him believe …

He heaved again, sweat chilling his brow, his back, his arms.

It had been a trick at the Governor’s ball and at Kayracou Port when she’d sabotaged his sails and again when she’d hidden on the Veritas and caught him by surprise.

It had all been a trick. Their sordid relationship included.

And he’d been so ready to believe that maybe he could trust himself, that he could trust anyone, that he wasn’t broken. That maybe giving into feeling, just once, wouldn’t be so bad. That relaxing might be better than the constant vigilance, the rigidity, the control he’d lived by these past two years.

Wrong on all counts.

So very wrong.

He swallowed the bitterness.

Well, she wasn’t the only one with a trick up her sleeve.

Once he’d discovered the kind of person Mercia really was, he’d had no power to bring him to justice—a queen’s son was untouchable, it seemed.

But she wasn’t.

And hadn’t it always been the plan?

Fool that he was, he’d stopped carrying her warrant weeks ago, but he still had it. Arresting her was the right thing to do. The warrant said so in black and white. True, the law might not be perfect, but it was made by better men than him.

Hands running over his face, he nodded. He would go to FitzRoy and Bricus, confirm their scheme, then send a message back to Albion. That swift ship was leaving on the morning’s tide. Instead of the report asking them to grant Vice a genuine letter of marque and a vessel, he’d write a new report alerting the Admiralty to their departure date and to expect their arrival in Portsmouth approximately five to six weeks later.

He drew a long breath, fingers running through his hair, pushing it off his face. Yes, they’d be ready to capture her as soon as The Morrigan docked.

No chance to escape.