He was. Gods knew how, but he’d said it, and he might not have thought it through first, and he might not have the slightest idea how, but he would do this thing. Somehow.

“Go away, Knighton.” Her voice was flat, her eyes dark.

She had to believe in him. He would do whatever it took to right his wrong. “You won’t be hanged. I promise you.”

Snorting, she waved him off. “I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s not as if I’m going anywhere, is it?”

With a last look at her, he climbed down from the terrible iron cage without a single misstep. Stone cold sober.

Was it any wonder? This was …

Lords, it was beyond imagining. Beyond his worst nightmares or wildest dreams. The woman he’d travelled halfway across the globe to hunt was the girl his parents had arranged for him to marry. The woman he’d made love to, laughed with, held close as she’d slept was the young woman who’d eloped with another man. Vee was the same woman he and everyone else had thought dead for the past three years.

Once his feet were back on the ground, he rested his forehead against the wall’s rough brick. Blessedly solid.

Did her family have the faintest idea? Her parents? Her sister? Had she ever written to them? Maybe they knew and kept the secret.

If they didn’t know, should he tell them? No—that was her decision, but what if she …

No. She wasn’t going to be hanged. That was non-negotiable. Nothing else was important right now.

The problem—one of so very many—was that the Admiralty had refused him a meeting with her. There was no way they were going to free her on his say-so or even agree to a re-trial. As far as they were concerned, thanks to FitzRoy’s sudden love of the truth, Knigh was just another young man who’d let his loins lead him on a merry dance to a beautiful woman’s tune. Captain Knigh Blackwood had been hopelessly compromised by Lady Vice.

And, to them, she was the villain they’d always claimed. It didn’t matter a bit whether she was Lady Avice Ferrers or whether she’d killed the girl three years ago. She was the notorious Lady Vice and they had her in chains to be hanged the day after tomorrow.

That meant the only way was to break her out. To break the law.

He took a heavy breath. In this, the law was wrong. A wrong that he’d helped cause with schemes and lies. He’d used those things against her, and now he would have to use them for her.

It would cost him … He winced—Wild Hunt it would cost him—his career, his family, his chance to set foot on Albion as a free, law-abiding man ever again …