The gentle pressure on her fingers spoke volumes of comfort to the rogue's soul, giving her every ounce of reassurance as the captain might have taken for himself. Antonia smiled tenderly as she looked back up into those copper eyes, the backs of her evergreen-gloved fingertips just barely grazing the still magnificently bruised cheek. 

"I will be content if this is the absolute worst mess I ever see made of your face, Silverfish," she quipped with a small smirk, though the tease in her words was belied by the tears still drying on her cheeks. Antonia sighed, a weight she had not even realized she carried eased from her chest by some small increment. "And we can continue to confound the Devil. Tonight then, yes? I have matters to tend to still this day, and well into the evening I imagine. But the night - as always - is yours." 

Antonia stepped away, turning toward the gangplank to finally make her way back to Admiral Sir Greene's estate at a slightly more sedate pace than she had arrived, far more in keeping with the elegant, pale green silk dress she wore beneath the cloak. She could not resist one last, lingering look over her shoulder to Thomas - 

- And very nearly wound up in a most undignified heap of silks, petticoats and crewmate on the deck. Hill's dark, laughing eyes giggled silently as the rogue extricated herself swiftly, looking her up and down and then back to his captain - and then back to her - his eyebrows waggling with an unspoken, good-natured teasing. 

"Shut up, Hill," Antonia hissed with a roll of her eyes, shoving the grinning man hard - but not too hard - in the shoulder, just enough to set him off-balance and guffawing with delight into the [i]Skate[/i]'s railing.

Jax's raucous, distinctive laughter bounded over the deck and, though he had slid to the floor boards, Antonia felt sure no one could feel such mirth and be [i]too[/i] much hurt. She had a moment of concern when she saw Nicolette hovering over him as she passed toward the gangplank, pausing to see if she had been horribly wrong...

[i]The book.[/i] Antonia remembered well, the way Jax had lifted that precious book high overhead, preferring to take pounding of the cobbles with his own body than let even the smallest harm befall his tome. Yet now it seemed this Jesuit book of the stars had shown him no less devotion, taking Cooper's musket shot full in the cover. After what he and the First Mate had done for Thomas, Antonia's relief was instant, genuine and intense - but still she understood (or [i]thought[/i] she did at the least), the undercurrent of genuine despair hidden behind the smile Jax managed to give to Nicolette. 

The rogue knew she had nothing to give for the moment, that Mademoiselle Beauchamp was far better equipped to tend to any lingering bruises and hurts than she. Still, Antonia's hand reached for the helmsman's head, an affectionate caress of those long, sun-bleached tendrils of hair as she passed in a whirl of precious verdant silks. 

She did not linger, heading down the gangplank swiftly toward the waiting black stallion. A wide swath of respectful space all around him by the dockhands, just beyond a nasty bite or a vicious kick, though he nickered softly at his Spider's approach. Antonia smiled, guiding Faustus closer to some boxes so she could mount his back in a [i]far[/i] more dignified, ladylike manner than she had arrived. 

She pulled the hood of her cloak back over her head nonetheless, leaning over the stallion's neck to whisper a few words, setting off at a graceful canter from the docks. Oh yes, Antoinette would be a touch late this afternoon, without any doubt. But Commander Murray would be patient and gracious as ever, she was sure. Timing was entirely a lady's prerogative, after all.