All the rogue really wanted to do in that moment - well, besides run after Jax and Nicolette, to either confirm or dispel her ugly suspicions - was burst into loud, raucous laughter. 

[i]Oh Thomas[/i]... Dear sweet, merciful heavens above but her lovely man was, quite simply,[i] mad.[/i] Stark raving out-of-his-mind, but of course only in the [i]very[/i] best way. Only her unshakeable, professional discipline kept the facade of Antoinette in place as she watched Thomas mince so prettily about the suddenly revolting [i]Capitaine[/i] Poutreau, and then the Commander. Oh yes, the rogue was undeniably entertained! As far as she was concerned, her lovely man might have gone on and on with his little act - the horrified visages of both targets for Thomas' erstwhile attentions were eminently delightful. 

On and on indeed, but for the fact she was not here tonight to be amused. Antonia had a job to do, and apparently she was making quite the hash of it thus far. To hell with the stylish hair, the resplendent jewels, the elegant gowns and the haughty airs that were the very lifeblood of the backwater 'aristocracy' of Port Royal. Not a jot of this mattered - not a single thing she had accomplished this past day - if the information she gleaned from the [i]Plume's[/i] hapless captain had been compromised, or if Commander Murray somehow suddenly deserved some of her more brazenly roguish attentions. 

And no matter her suspicions, she honestly had nothing to pin them on when it came to Nicolette's sudden break from their company. For the first time in some years, Antonia found herself at a complete loss - and she enjoyed this feeling not at [i]all.[/i] She felt very much like a spider knocked from her web, without a grasp on those precious thrumming threads she so desperately needed to make sense of her world.

She needed an out as well, a breather, almost as desperately as it seemed the First Mate did.

It was the gentlewoman's tremulous hand that clapped to her mouth, those matchless grey eyes wide, horrified and brimming with glistening tears that had yet to fall as her gaze darted between Captain Lightfoot and her beloved Commander Murray. 

"Saint Kitts?" she finally managed, shaking her head as if by this act she might somehow erase the words she had only just heard. "Robert? Is this... This man saying what I [i]think[/i] he is saying?"

Her full, rose petal pink lower lip quivered with emotion as she peered up into those dark, thunderstruck eyes. "My father might be an Englishman, but in my heart of hearts, I am a Frenchwoman!" she began to wail, softly at first though her voice began to raise precipitously toward a heartbroken croak.

"And I will thank [i]you,[/i] pretty man, to remember we French do not [i]all[/i] carry a [i]puanteur![/i]" she hissed at Thomas, wagging her finger at him furiously before she turned on the Commander again.

"But being French, well... There may have been something we might have worked out together Robert, if you had only been up front with me from the start! Your [i]bon ami[/i] certainly is lovely enough - we might have shared, or come to some mutually pleasing arrangement? A night with me, a night with your pretty man - communal weekends, perhaps? Why, we French are [i]certainly[/i] not so bound by your silly English Puritanical notions as all that!"

"But to discover such a thing here, like [i]this?[/i] That you would keep this from me? The [i]humiliation[/i], Robert!" Mortified tears began to course down her cheeks - a rather nice touch really, Antonia thought with some small satisfaction. 

"You just keep your pretty Thomas then, and your... Your... Your nights in Saint Kitts as well, you [i]duplicitous[/i] man!" The gentlewoman's hand shot out, delivering a stinging, openhanded slap across the Commander's cheek.

And with no further ado, Antonia turned on her heel to dart through the thronging guests, using every last grace in her impressive arsenal of shadowy moves to lose herself in the ball-goers and guests and servants. She bolted past the golden lights of the torches on the periphery, and made for the deepest gloom of the surrounding forest. 

There had only ever been one man in all the world, after all, who could find Antonia when she went to hiding, and she desperately needed to speak with her beloved Captain Silverfish - almost as much as she needed her next breath.