“No,” Bronwyn replied aghast. “I’m not. I’m only trying to do my part to right the wrongs of the past. Is it wrong to want the world to be better? I might be limited in my own power, but I still have a voice and the agency to act. The value of being an ally is ceding the space to the oppressed. You taught me that.” She sucked in a breath. “Isn’t that what you’re doing, too? Providing funds and information to the Union cause?”

His nod was short and he regarded her seriously.

“This is dangerous, Bee.”

“No more dangerous than Mary Richards surviving in an unsafe space,” she shot back and then bit her lip hard. “My life shouldn’t carry more weight than hers. I had to do this, Rawley. People were at risk.” One important person in particular, not that she could admit that to him. Oh, Rawley, putting myself in danger might have saved the life of the American president.

He didn’t speak for a few moments. “In a perfect world, the value of human life would be the same, but we’re not in a perfect world, are we? We’re in one that makes race a reductive device, used on the oppressed by oppressors, for profit.”

“That’s why I want to help,” she said fiercely. “That kind of thinking has to end.”

“It does, but power is never given,” he murmured. “It’s always taken, by strife and by blood.” When she didn’t speak, he exhaled and ran his palm over his short hair. “Your decisions are your own and I respect that. However, your brother wants you safe, and while I understand your motivations, those men at the tavern are out for blood. Your blood. Last I heard, there was a bounty on your head for your capture along with a list of names you carry.”

She flinched. “On my head? I assure you, Rawley, I am not carrying—” She broke off at the vexed look on his face and swallowed the rest of her protest. She’d had the damn thing in her bosom the night of the dancing in the lower decks. Thornbury wasn’t the only smart man with a pair of eyes.

“Keep your secrets, if you must,” he said. “I wanted to take you home to Antigua, but it was impossible to get you away from Thornbury without drawing suspicion to us both before the ship left port. And he knows I am from there, which meant it would have been the first place he looked.” His face tightened with frustration. “And so now we have to divert the ship for an alternate plan.”

“Divert the ship?” she asked, matching his frown. “We’re a day to England, if that.”

He nodded. “Hours. The captain has directions to stop at Brest in France, citing emergency engine repairs.”

“Thornbury will know something’s amiss.”