His family would be safe, though. He’d just never be able to see them. At least he’d made Isabel’s dowry, and George was bringing home money—albeit from a questionable source.

Even if their future didn’t have that security, he might still make this same decision.

Because if he didn’t, she would die and that would be on his head.

Forever.

It wouldn’t be an almost wrong, like when he’d almost killed those men who’d surrendered. It would be a thing he’d done and had to live with, like Billy’s hand. But this time it wouldn’t only be a limb he was responsible for the loss of—it would be a life.

Eyes shut, he pressed his forehead into the wall until the brick almost broke the skin, a rough, low-level pain. It would be nothing compared to the pain of allowing this to happen to Vee.

“Focus,” he whispered to himself. This is what’s at stake.

Somehow, he needed to orchestrate a breakout from a public gibbet for the Navy’s most prized captive. From the side of a castle. In the middle of a city that had built up around their biggest dockyard. And then he had to get her out of that city. Hells, out of Albion would be preferable.

A shape weaved around his ankles, rumbling in a low purr. He crouched and picked Barnacle up, holding her close, scratching under her chin.

In the east, the sky lightened, hazed with the golden threat of dawn.

And he had a day to do it all.

The Plan

The fresh morning air, the waves’ lulling song, and the sight of ships soothed Knigh’s churning stomach and mind a little. The gulls screaming overhead, though—he winced. They weren’t helping the headache throbbing across his brow.

His palms were slick with sweat. This next task …

He grimaced. It was one he’d been putting off far too long and somehow, amid all this mess, it had found him. Shoulders squared, he brushed his hands down the front of his coat—civilian, not uniform—and strode along the wharves.

After speaking to Vee, he’d spent the remaining hour or so of darkness in his rooms. With his thoughts turning over and over, sleep was a distant impossibility. Instead, he brewed a strong pot of coffee and went through his belongings and made a mental audit of all resources available to him.

There weren’t many.

FitzRoy wouldn’t help and neither would Bricus—the way he’d spoken about Vee, it was clear that behind his cheery smiles, he’d harboured resentment towards her for three long years.

No one in the Navy would help break the law and even if they would, he couldn’t ask it of them. Besides, it would be too difficult to sneak a woman on a Naval vessel to escape.