His glass passed over the table covered in a dozen plates. Roast pheasant. Baked cod. Oysters covered in flecks of parsley. A golden pie oozing gravy where a quarter had been cut out. Crusty bread and a pat of golden butter. Cheeses from pale yellow cheddar to a veined green-blue Stilton. An array of vegetables, steam rising from their bowls.

Knigh stared at it all, the savoury smell turning his stomach. He shook his head.

FitzRoy gulped his wine, raising an eyebrow. “Ah, but, don’t tell me, you’ve come back to watch her hang? It’s the first time I’ll watch a woman I’ve bedded die, and while I must admit I’m curious what that will feel like, I wouldn’t have ridden halfway across the country to see it.” Laughing, he raised his glass. “I didn’t have you down as such a sick bastard, Blackwood.”

His words stole Knigh’s breath, and it took a moment before he could gather the air to speak. “You—how can you talk about her like that?” He’d betrayed a member of his crew and clearly felt not even the slightest shadow of guilt. He was the monster.

“You’re not going to join me, then?” He gestured at the chair opposite.

“Of course I’m not going to bloody join you.”

Chuckling, FitzRoy put his glass on the table. “You’re upset about the harlot’s fate.”

“Aren’t you?” Knigh’s nostrils flared. The man was unbelievable. What did Vee ever see in him? “And don’t call her a harlot. You know she’s more than that even to you.”

FitzRoy snorted and broke off a morsel of cheese. “She wasn’t my wife. I owed her nothing.” He threw it in his mouth and chewed, unruffled.

But he did owe her. As a member of his crew, she’d placed her safety in his hands.

And as a lover, she’d placed herself in Knigh’s hands, too.

Gritting his teeth, he shut out the thought. He pressed his hands into the varnished table, glaring at FitzRoy. He was the one in the wrong here. “At least I always told her not to trust me, but she trusted you, she was part of your crew for how many years?”

FitzRoy’s amusement faded as he drew a long breath. He took his time wiping his hands on a napkin, then stood, lifting his chin. “Don’t lecture me, Blackwood,” he said, voice gravelly, “you were as much a part of this as I was.”

“But you owed her, I didn’t.”

FitzRoy raised an eyebrow, mouth set in a straight line. “So you don’t believe you owe a lady you let in your bed anything?”

Legs tense, Knigh almost took a step back, but years of practice kept the reaction in check.