Hunched near the gangplank leading to the quarterdeck, Sarani had glimpsed said mean bastard standing on the poop deck, shouting orders, hands clasped behind his back, legs apart, shoulders proud and strong, and didn’t doubt Red’s boast for a second.

Rhystan’s face had been grim, his expression deadly. Power and danger emanated from him in spades, making her shiver. And yet the sight had also made a scalding heat distill through her body like ink through water.

Cabbageheaded was clearly too weak a description for her.

Despite his promises, Sarani forced herself to keep his letter etched in her memory. His words had been succinct, with the precision of a dagger set to remove a heart from its prey, and the letter had done its job, even if it’d been written in anger. Years later, those cruel words still bit like blades in her memory.

It didn’t matter that he’d changed his tune.

Sarani wasn’t so naive that she didn’t know Rhystan had some other motive and that this sham betrothal would benefit him in another hidden way at her expense. The hard, intractable man he’d become didn’t forgive or forget slights. So what did he want from her? Every instinct in her brain screamed not to trust him. But she’d had no choice then, and she had none now.

Like Odysseus, she was stuck between a monster and a whirlpool. Or like the boatswains said when they hung in the precarious bosun’s chair to caulk the long seam that ran from bow to stern—that they were hanging between the devil and the deep. Neither scenario presented pleasing odds. With Rhystan in front of her and a killer behind her, the duke was obviously the lesser of two evils.

Or is he?

Sarani suppressed the clench of warning that gripped her spine. Now was not the time for doubts. She would use him to get settled in England, see Tej and Asha safe, and accept his help in determining the identity of the assassin if he tracked her to London.

Sarani repeated her mantras.

The betrothal is a means to an end.

The Duke of Embry is a means to an end.

* * *

Rhystan watched with a narrowed eye as Gideon expertly navigated the crowded Thames, the putrid stench of its riverbed climbing into his nostrils. He trusted his quartermaster’s skill as they steered toward the fairly newly constructed six-year-old Victoria Dock. Collisions happened frequently given the volume of movement on the river, but pillaging by thieves was more predominant, which was why he and several of his men kept a keen eye out as they sailed past nearby vessels.