Watching them leave, Knigh kept his body taut, so Mercia didn’t see his relief at getting her away from his menace.

Mercia cleared his throat, eyes narrow on Vee’s back. “Well done for getting rid of them.” Despite the praise, he didn’t smile. “Alone at last.”

Knigh swallowed. At least this was the better of two evils. Who knew what Vee might say in front of the Duke?

Mercia lifted his chin and lowered his voice. “My uncle told me you had an unusual assignment but didn’t explain anything more than that in his letter. I can understand him not wanting to commit anything to writing, but now you’re here in person, you can tell me about your mission. Report.”

With a deep breath, Knigh rebalanced his weight between his feet, straightened his back, lifted his chin.

This was just an officer reporting to his senior—he could do that calmly. There didn’t need to be any reminders of that day.

He cleared his throat. “The Admiralty received an offer some months ago from a member of The Morrigan’s crew,” he said softly enough that only Mercia would hear. “The man was working with FitzRoy and said that in exchange for a pardon, land, and a sum of money, they would help deliver Lady Vice to the authorities.”

Mercia chuckled, a cruel light in his eyes as they turned back towards Vee. “So, he’s betraying her, and she doesn’t even know? Oh, that’s simply delicious.” He sipped his wine. “And your involvement?”

Knigh swallowed the lump in his throat. That Mercia loved this idea only added to the doubts that had needled the back of his mind since he’d joined The Morrigan. “I worked with the Admiral of the Fleet to draw up a plan to secure her capture and ensure she’d stand trial in Albion without any chance of escape.”

Mercia nodded slowly, thumb resting in the dimple on his chin. “Indeed, I’ve heard she’s a cunning one.”

“Your Highness heard correctly.” On that front, anyway. The rest of the reports on Vee …

Well, the way the Navy had described her, he’d expected Lady Vice to be a monster like l’Olonnais or Ned Low. They delighted in torture and cruelty and employed those strategies liberally to fill their victims with fear and their own holds with riches.

Vee, though? The battle on the Veritas, the way the ordinary folk of Nassau loved her, even the way she’d helped him in the town and with FitzRoy … None of it sounded like the work of the notorious Lady Vice. Certainly not the work of a senseless killer.

Hells, taking that slave ship, freeing the people, and marooning the surviving crew was more the sort of thing the heroic Pirate Queen of the song would do.

Mercia raised his eyebrows.