“I can be found at the dock as soon as you’re ready to leave,” Slate was saying. “The sooner the better. I would hate for your colleagues to have time to suspect anything. Perhaps even tonight, after the ball?”
“I will need time to pack and to put my affairs in order. Oh, what am I saying?” Mr. Hart’s voice was elated, thrumming with impending freedom. “It’s a new life. I needn’t bring a thing!”
“Except for the map,” Slate said.
“Yes, the map. The map . . .”
I met Kashmir’s wide eyes. “Go,” I whispered, but he put his finger to my lips. Then he took me by the wrist and pulled me toward the door. It opened as we approached; there, silhouetted in the light from the hall, stood Blake.
We froze, all of us, as he took in the scene: Kashmir hauling on my arm, my torn dress. Everything was still, for one long, dreadful moment.
And then Blake rushed toward us, shoving Kashmir. “Release her!”
Kashmir stumbled against the chaise, dropping the map, which I grabbed up reflexively, pulling it away from Blake’s trampling feet. I flung out my hand between them as Kashmir bounced back upright. “Blake, it’s not what—”
But Blake bulled forward, half enraged, half disbelieving. “Is that all you are? A common cad?”
“Just what are you implying, boy?”
“Stop it, both of you!”
And then the door behind me flew open. “By God, Nix, what the hell are you doing?”
I turned to meet my father’s wrath and Mr. Hart’s panic. The man’s eyes were as round as coins, on a face pale as death. “What is this?” he whispered, and his eyes lit upon the map in my hand. He rounded on Slate. “Thievery?”
Blake pointed a furious finger at Kashmir. “I don’t know what your game is, but—”
“Blake, get out!” Mr. Hart shouted. Kashmir took Blake by the shoulders and pushed him out into the hall, slamming the door shut behind him.
Slate’s face was inches from mine. “What were you thinking?” He wasted no more time on me, though. Instead, he took the map out of my hands, and his own hands trembled to touch it. He held it so delicately, as though it was the most precious thing in the world to him, and he seemed hardly to breathe.
Then Mr. Hart plucked it right out of his hands and dashed away to the fireplace.
“No!” Slate reached toward him, hands high, palms out. Mr. Hart stood on the hearth, towering over the captain, his feet apart and his face a mask of wrath, a Colossus of Barletta, and in that moment, I could not imagine ever seeing weakness in his maddened eyes. He raised his hand as though to strike the captain across the face, and his arm shook with the effort of holding back the blow. But then anger cooled to cruelty, and instead he dipped the map toward the flames.
“Please.” Slate clasped his hands in supplication, and Mr. Hart stopped, the paper a handspan above the hungry blaze. I held my own breath to see this spectacle, to watch my father beg. Maybe it was the last map, just as my father had said, and if Mr. Hart would only lower his hand, my worries would burn with the paper into smoke and fire, heat and light.
“Please, believe me,” Slate said, imploring. “This was not my plan.” Mr. Hart did not move, and sudden rage rose in my father’s eyes. “Burn the map, and lose your chance of erasing your debts.”
“Debt is the least of my worry if he catches me double-dealing.” Mr. Hart’s voice was a frosty contrast to the fire.
“Not a word.” Slate wrung his hands; all the fight had fled. “I won’t breathe a word to him, I swear. Let me honor our agreement. Please.”
Mr. Hart pulled the map back slightly, but he shook his head. “You will. You will honor the original agreement of the evening.”
“Whatever you say.”
But Mr. Hart twisted as if in agony, reconsidering his own demands, weighing riches to ruin, and his own fury ebbed in the struggle. Finally he spoke again, almost pleading. “You must understand, I cannot risk it!”
“I do, I understand,” Slate said, his voice soft as mercy.
“Yes,” Mr. Hart said, as though agreeing with him. “Yes. And not a word about our little . . . discussion to the others, or—”
“Not a word!”
Mr. Hart lifted the map away from the flame, and my own wild hope turned to ashes on my tongue.
Mr. Hart shut the door between the study and the drawing room, and after a long silence, Slate turned to Kashmir.
“Get the coach.”
Without a word, Kash opened the door to the hall, where he found himself face-to-face with Blake. Neither spoke, but Kashmir took the opportunity to brush past him with a stiff shoulder.
Blake’s eyes were on me as the captain took my arm, gripping my wrist like he gripped the wheel in bad weather, but I avoided Blake’s gaze. Humiliation flamed on my cheeks.