Peter had no choice: he could either let Damon go about this business alone, or he could follow along to pick up the pieces. "May God be with us all, then," he said, defeatedly. The two men swiftly made their way down into the depths of the ship. If the lower deck was hot, the orlop deck was a humid, stifling hell. Nothing had changed since the last visit he'd made to this wretched place, Damon thought sourly. The heat, the stench, the stygian gloom — it was all here. Bent nearly double to fit beneath the overhead beams, he pressed his arm against his nose, trying to strain the foul air through his shirt sleeve. It did little good. The prisoners milled around them, trailing them like bubbles after a passing ship. Damon brushed past them and tried to ignore the nagging press of his own conscience, which had been damnably active lately. Yes, he'd deliberately shunned Lady Simms's silly party after he'd accepted her invitation; yes, what he was about to do was going to hurt Toby. But he could not jeopardize things — the least of which was his life — on what trust he dared place in young Toby Ashton. Peter was a godly man but, at times, hopelessly naive, and Damon had learned long ago that to survive in this rotten world, you couldn't be naive — nor, trusting. Be that way, and you'd damn well end up dead.
