Читать книгу Scoundrel: - Zoe Archer - Страница 7

Athens, Greece. 1875.

The bloody problem with magic was that he wasn’t allowed to use it.

Bennett Day ducked as a heavy marble bust of Plato flew toward his head. It smashed into the wall behind him, leaving a sizable hole that could have easily served as the philosopher’s allegorical cave.

Bennett tutted. “Not very enlightened of you, Captain. What would Plato say?”

“English swine! I kill you!”

“How un-Platonic.” He dodged as the German ship captain, graceful as a drunken bear, lunged for him. Somewhere, Elena screamed. Bennett sighed. She proved herself to be all too typical with her theatricalities, a woman who loved show more than substance.

Bennett easily avoided the German’s paws. Yes, things would have been much simpler if Bennett could use an immobilization spell—that one from the Maldives that had been used on him once before and stung like the devil. But he couldn’t use that spell or any other. He was a Blade of the Rose. He could only use magic that was either a gift or naturally belonged to him. Which left him with precisely nothing.

Yet, when it came to eluding angry husbands catching him in their wives’ bedrooms, Bennett needed no magic. He was well versed in extricating himself from this very situation. He avoided such entanglements, generally, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped, especially on assignment.

“Stand still!” roared the captain. “Fight like a man!”

“Like this?” asked Bennett with a neat jab to the German’s chin. The heavy captain stumbled back but did not, alas, go down as smaller men would.

Business for the Blades had brought Bennett to Athens, and following a lead brought him to Elena. Her seafaring husband was known as an ally of the damnable Heirs of Albion, and thus a likely wellspring of information as to what the Heirs were doing in Greece, what magical Source they sought. Bennett needed the German’s last manifest to know if those pilfering buggers were here, and, if so, which ones had come. Two choices: break into the German’s house and steal the manifest; or, and here was the possibility Bennett favored, seduce the captain’s wife and nab the manifest along the way. He did so enjoy combining business with pleasure.

She proved herself ripe and eager for seduction. But no sooner had she and Bennett sequestered themselves in her bedroom than her husband had returned at a most infelicitous moment. Ah, well. At least Bennett was still dressed. He didn’t want to run through the streets of Athens without any trousers.

Sadly, the captain blocked Bennett’s path to the door. Which left him with only one option. Out the window.

“I am English,” he said to the German, judging the distance. “A little known fact—I’m also one-eighth Greek, on my mother’s side. From Olympia. Home of the ancient athletic games.”

“Why do you tell me this when I will tear off your handsome, smirking face?”

“One of the events of the pentathlon is—” and here he ran for the window, Elena shrieking, and vaulted over the railing before coming to land lightly in a crouch a story below, “jumping.”

He stood and dusted off his palms, grimy from the cobbled street, while the captain shouted the most ungentlemanly epithets from the window above. Elena wept and tugged at her husband’s coat. She seemed to be enjoying herself, delighting in the theatrics like a melodrama heroine.

“Come now, sir,” Bennett called back to her husband, “you’ve never met my sister, so I strongly disbelieve your assertions about her.”

“And your mother is a goat!” With that witty salvo, the captain disappeared from the window, but Bennett knew that, in such situations, husbands seldom retreated to their libraries to indulge in a revivifying and reflective glass of brandy. Sure enough, Bennett heard the captain’s pounding steps as he barreled down the stairs. Bennett decided not to wait for the man to make his appearance on the street, even if it was the polite thing to do.

“Another event in the pentathlon: running,” Bennett added before sprinting away. He patted his inside jacket pocket, where the manifest rested safe and secure.

Elena and her husband lived in Plaka, one of the oldest parts of Athens, as attested by its narrow, winding streets that seemed to have no reason to exist other than to drive foreigners to madness. White buildings stacked one atop the other like demented sugar cubes. As Bennett sped down these cramped and twisted streets, he deftly sidestepped donkeys laden with baskets of pistachios. The German captain bellowed behind him. Women and men shouted from windows and doorsteps, eager to join in the fun.

This wasn’t exactly what the Blades had in mind when dispatching him to Greece. A cable had reached Bennett in Bucharest, where he had been returning a Source to its homeland. The Star of David medallion had been used in Mongolia to summon a Golem in a pitched battle between Blades and Heirs. Bennett and several other Blades, including a now-initiated Thalia Huntley and her husband Gabriel, had defended an ancient Asian Source against the Heirs. It had been a tight, tough fight, but the Blades had been successful in their mission. That camel’s turd and Heirs operative Henry Lamb had been killed, and his crony Jonas Edgeworth fled back to England and his father. The Mongolian Source was now well protected in a monastery deep in the Gobi Desert.

Bennett wasn’t so well protected. The German neared and lunged for him. Nimbly, Bennett ducked under the man’s arms, falling behind the captain. Momentum carried the German forward, nicely helped by Bennett’s boot planted square in the middle of the man’s arse.

Bennett raced past a group of men gathered in a square. One of them held a long walking stick to aid in traversing Athens’s uneven streets. Without breaking stride, Bennett grabbed the stick from the man’s hand and raced on, ignoring the man’s outraged yelp.

Down a set of steep stairs. He paused at the bottom, pivoting on the balls of his feet. The captain ran toward him, panting. With a smooth and easy motion, Bennett hurled the walking stick like a spear at the furious husband, and it smacked the man straight in the chest. The German bent over, gasping, as he lost his air.

“Javelin,” Bennett said with a grin. “That’s event number three.”

But the captain was determined, and, even as he turned purple, forced himself to straighten up and continue his pursuit. Bollocks. Bennett sped on.

He was a good agent for the Blades, serving as their resident cryptographer. Bennett could unlock nearly any code or cipher, but when he had to, was more than willing to get into a scrap or two. There was something so deeply satisfying about going toe-to-toe against a man, rather than an encoded Aztec manuscript.

If he didn’t shake this German, there’d be one hell of a fight. He doubted any of the Orthodox churches he passed would offer him sanctuary. A black-clad priest on a church step shook his head and beard at him. Clearly, the holy man knew that Bennett had broken nearly all of the Ten Commandments. At least Bennett honored his father and mother. He didn’t make too many graven images, either. Two out of ten wasn’t so bad.

The cheerful din of a daytime taverna announced itself before Bennett saw it. Men sat at tables outside, drinking ouzo and nibbling on plates of octopus, palavering. Deftly, Bennett seized one of the empty plates and, glancing quickly over his shoulder, launched the plate at the German’s head. It was sheer bad luck that the captain stumbled over a basket in the street, and the plate missed him by a bare inch to shatter on the wall behind him.

“Opa!” shouted the men at the taverna.

“Discus, that’s four,” Bennett muttered. “Damn it. It’ll be a complete pentathlon after all.”

He rounded a sharp corner, then quickly sprang up to grab the lower bars of a balcony’s railing. Bennett pulled himself up, but did not climb inside. Instead, he turned around, heels balanced on the edge of the balcony, hands gripping the railing behind him. Not a soft-bellied, weak-armed nob or an Heir, hiding behind a gun or hired muscle. Working for the Blades kept his body strong. Thirty-two years old, and as fit as he’d been during those two years he spent at Cambridge, before he found his true calling as a Blade.

Judging by the smile of the young woman who was currently sitting on the balcony, she also appreciated his athleticism. She started to speak, but Bennett shook his head and winked. She adjusted her kerchief, giving him a better view of her bosom.

The German stormed down the street, then stopped, looking about in confusion. He didn’t see Bennett hovering above him. Then came another lilting melody of Teutonic swearing, a delightful combination of seafaring and Germanic oaths, as the man whirled around, searching for Bennett.

Light as a cat, Bennett launched himself from the balcony and onto the back of the persistent captain. A less bull-like man would have fallen to the cobblestones, but the German only staggered under Bennett’s weight. Bennett looped one arm around the captain’s neck and held it fast, bracing one arm with the other. The German snarled and choked, spinning around and pawing frantically at the strong arm pressed tight against his throat. Bennett did not relinquish his hold. The captain ran backward and slammed him into a wall. Stars swam in Bennett’s eyes, but he didn’t let go. Another slam. And another. Bennett held tight. Surely Hercules had an easier time of things with that Erymantian boar.

The captain’s movements began to slow, his fingers weakening as they tried to pry Bennett loose. Then the German stumbled and sank to his knees before, at last, growing limp. Carefully, Bennett released his hold. The captain slid in a soundless heap to the ground. Turning him over, Bennett contemplated the man’s red face before pressing his ear to the captain’s chest.

“And that’s wrestling,” Bennett murmured. “A true pentathlon. Mother would be so proud.”

“Is he dead?” asked the young woman from the balcony in Greek.

“A beauty sleep,” Bennett answered, also in Greek.

Standing, Bennett dragged the captain’s limp body into an alley. He took a wash line and used it to quickly truss the German up like a chicken. Ready for Sunday dinner. Once the captain woke, it would take a goodly bit of maneuvering before he got free.

Bennett dusted himself off before slipping from the alley. With a wave for the woman on the balcony, he headed west, toward the old market in Monastiraki. He had the manifest, but there was more investigation to be done.

A pity that the captain had to return before Bennett could savor the fruits of his seduction of the man’s wife. Elena had held such gymnastic potential.

Cuckolded husbands and thrilling chases aside, he was here in Athens for serious business, and he meant to succeed in his objective. As much as he enjoyed female company, his true purpose was and always would be to find and protect the magical Sources. But when the two coincided, well, that was just good fortune.

To Victoria Regina Gloriana London Edgeworth Harcourt, more familiarly known as London Harcourt, it was a wonderful chaos. After Lawrence died, she had spent her requisite year in full mourning, and then gone through the gradual steps through second and half mourning, which meant that, almost three years later, she was finally free of her somber prison. Now she was out into the larger world. And what a marvelous world it was. Not once in her whole life, not even on her bridal journey, had she left England, but now, to find herself in Athens, in the magnificent anarchy of the Monastiraki marketplace—she felt alive with every part of her being.

Vendors in booths and tents sold every item imaginable. Walnuts, olives, embroidered waistcoats, incense, icons, chips of marble from ancient columns, miniature plaster replicas of the Parthenon, postcards. The hot afternoon air swirled in the square, scented with roasted lamb and frank-incense, and filled with a patois of Greek, English, and German. Someone plucked on a bouzouki and wailed a love song. Amidst the mix of traditional Greek dress and more modern Western fashion, English tourists were easily distinguishable by their white cotton parasols, London among them. A lady, she was constantly reminded by her mother, protected her complexion, especially from the burning Attic sun. Certainly, her chic straw hat provided no shelter.

“We should be getting back to the hotel.”

London looked back at her exhausted maid, Sally, with a small measure of pity. The whole of the day, London had been dragging the poor woman back and forth across Athens. Already, they had visited the Gate of Hadrian, the Olympium, and the Pnyx, true birthplace of democracy. London and Sally had climbed up the steep mountain to see the Acropolis and marveled at the decayed symmetry of the Parthenon. Or, at least, London had marveled while Sally grumbled about rotten old temples, and why did they have to stomp all over some dirty heathen town when all they had to do was go to the museum back home and see lots of silly pieces of marble, thanks to Lord Elgin.

It stunned London that she truly walked the streets and visited the temples of Theseus, of Pericles. She had read so much about the ancient world, its heroes and tragedies, and to be here now, no longer reading but to stand and breathe the air, dusty as it was, seemed a splendid gift she was determined not to squander. After visiting the site of the Ancient Agora, London wanted to see its modern incarnation, and so she and Sally found themselves in the colorful cacophony of Monastiraki, which was, sadly, thronged with British and German tourists in their white linen suits. At the least, London could purchase a few souvenirs for friends back home, and perhaps something for herself, as well. Once she and Father left Athens tomorrow, he assured her they would be far from anyplace that might sell mementos to travelers. London tamped down her disappointment. They had only arrived in Athens the day before, and too soon they would have to leave.

Yet, she would not complain. It was rather miraculous that she was even in Greece at all, had it not been for circumstance. And her own disobedience.

“Just a little bit longer, Sally,” London said. “I promise. And then we’ll go straight back to the hotel.”

“Your father wouldn’t want you out by yourself for too long.”

“But I’m not by myself. I have you.”

Sally lapsed into another round of muttering, which London decided to disregard. As she wandered between the rows of booths, tempted by bushels of currants and finely woven silk shawls, vendors hailed her.

“Lovely necklace for a lovely lady!” someone shouted in German.

“Wonderful grapes as sweet as your beauty!” another yelled in English.

Everything intrigued her. She didn’t know where to begin, her head a whirl from the visual and aural bounty around her. Until something caught her eye. London approached a booth where a vendor, dressed traditionally in a white kilt and short jacket, presided over his wares. Rows of black and red urns, amphorae, kraters, and plates were lined up on tables, all of the pottery depicting classical scenes from mythology.

“Wonderful, ancient vases for you, sir,” the vendor said in English to a French tourist. He pushed back his fez. “Each one, priceless relic.”

“Priceless, you say?” asked the Frenchman, intrigued.

“All beyond value. All taken with utmost care from earth, where they sleep for centuries, for millennia.”

Standing nearby, London considered the amphorae and other pieces of pottery. Some dirt had been rubbed into their surfaces, or a small abrasive pad taken to their paint to give them an antiqued appearance. Though she was no expert in archaeology, even a laywoman such as herself recognized such fraud. “I am surprised there is no paint on your hands,” she said, also in English. “For these were made no later than a week ago.”

At first, the vendor scowled, but he quickly smoothed over a smile. “My lady is clever. Clever as she is beautiful. Yes, these pieces not old. To weed out ignorants, you understand. I save good pieces, ancient ones, for the sharp-witted, such as yourself and this esteemed gentleman.”

“Naturally,” London said dryly.

The Frenchman glanced over at her quickly, then took a second, slower look. He was rather handsome and very neatly dressed in a traveling suit. He smiled at London, and she gave him a polite nod.

“Here, I show you.” The vendor dove down underneath one of the tables, then reemerged with a small wooden chest. He cleared space between some kraters, shunting the ceramic vessels aside with little care, then opened the box. On the rusty velvet lining lay several shards of pottery. “These are too valuable to simply lay out for any fool to grab. But my lady is wise like goddess Athena, and so I give her this privilege. You both may look, if you like.”

London tugged off her cream kidskin glove, which Sally took, and picked up one of the shards. Some writing, faded almost to obscurity, decorated its surface, along with traditional palm-leaf motifs. If it was a fake, it was a kind not so obvious as the vendor’s other wares. “What can you tell me about this?” she asked.

The vendor beamed, believing he had an interested customer. “Old, yes, very old. I have on most high authority the piece you hold is from time of Darius the Great.”

“Darius the Great!” exclaimed the Frenchman, impressed.

“Are you sure?” London asked.

“Quite, my lady. Papers I have, somewhere, to prove it.”

“Sir,” she said after a moment, “you are not being honest with me or this gentleman.”

The vendor looked offended. “You doubt?”

“I do, sir, very much.”

“How do you know he is not speaking the truth, Mademoiselle?” the Frenchman asked with a trace of condescension. London did not bother telling him that she was most definitely a madame and not a mademoiselle.

“Look here,” she said, pointing to the writing. “This form of Greek wasn’t in use during the reign of Darius the Great. Here, and here, the wording isn’t correct. The vowels, you see. They shifted. It’s clear that this piece of pottery came from the era of no earlier than Darius the Third.”

The Frenchman gaped at her in disbelief. Sally also looked shocked. But then, Sally had never truly comprehended the depths of London’s study of language. London had taken the years of enforced seclusion following Lawrence’s death to rigorously apply herself to studying more ancient languages than she already knew, sending servants out to buy dusty, nearly forgotten tomes from the booksellers in Covent Garden and poring over them late into the night. Yet, despite herself and the years of wisdom she had gained since the time of her blighted marriage, London felt her cheeks grow hot. Even here, in Athens, an educated woman was a freakish anomaly.

The vendor scowled. “What do you do? You say I lie and you chase off my customers?”

“No, no,” London said quickly. “I merely pointed out that the dates weren’t quite—”

“You the one who lies!” the vendor shouted. “No lady knows this language! You make trouble!”

Dozens of eyes turned toward them, drawn by the commotion. People craned their necks to watch as the vendor grew more and more angry. He switched to speaking Greek, a fast barrage of words that questioned London’s upbringing and why some rich Englishwoman must ruin his business when he had a wife and dozens of children at home who only wanted a morsel of bread, the pitiful creatures.

The Frenchman slunk away, leaving London alone to face the vendor’s verbal bombardment. This was certainly something that etiquette training never addressed. She wondered how to extricate herself without getting arrested.

“Save those slurs for your grandmother,” said a deep, masculine voice to the vendor. He spoke Greek with an English accent.

London turned to the voice. And nearly lost her own.

She knew she was still, in many ways, a sheltered woman. Her society in England was limited to a select few families and assorted hangers-on, her father’s business associates, their retainers and servants. At events and parties, she often saw the same people again and again. And yet, she knew with absolute clarity, that men who looked like the one standing beside her were a rare and altogether miraculous phenomenon.

There were taller men, to be sure, but it was difficult to consider this a flaw when presented with this man’s lean muscularity. He wonderfully filled out the shoulders of his English coat, not bulky, but definitively capable. She understood at once that his arms, his long legs, held a leashed strength that even his negligent pose could not disguise. He called to mind the boxers that her brother, Jonas, had admired in his youth. The stranger was bareheaded, which was odd in this heat, but it allowed her to see that his hair was dark with just the faintest curl, ever so slightly mussed, as if he’d recently come from bed. She suddenly imagined herself tangling her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer.

And if that thought didn’t make her blush all the harder, then his face was the coup de grace. What wicked promises must he have made, and made good on, with such a face. A sharp, clean jaw, a mouth of impossible sensuality. A naughty, thoroughly masculine smile tugged at the corners of that mouth. Crystalline eyes full of intelligent humor, the color intensely blue. Even the small bump on the bridge of his nose—had it been broken?—merely added to the overall impression of profound male beauty. He was clean shaven, too, so that there could be no mistaking how outrageously handsome this stranger was.

She may as well get on the boat back to England immediately. Surely nothing she could ever see in Greece could eclipse the marvel of this man.

“Who are you?” the vendor shouted in Greek to the newcomer. “You defend this woman and her lies?”

“I don’t care what she said,” the Englishman answered calmly, also in Greek. “Keep insulting her and I’ll jam my fist into your throat.” The vendor goggled at him, but wisely kept silent. Whoever this man was, he certainly looked capable of throwing a good punch.

Yet gently, he put a hand on London’s waist and began to guide her away. Stunned by the strange turn of events, she let him steer her from the booth.

“All right?” he asked her in English. A concerned, warm smile gilded his features. “That apoplectic huckster didn’t hurt you, did he?”

London shook her head, still somewhat dazed by what had just happened, but more so by the attractiveness of the man walking at her side. She felt the warmth of his hand at her back and knew it was improper, but she couldn’t move away or even regret the impertinence. “His insults weren’t very creative.”

He chuckled at this, and the sound curled like fragrant smoke low in her belly. “I’ll go back and show him how it’s done.”

“Oh, no,” she answered at once. “I think you educated him enough for one day.”

Even as he smiled at her, he sent hard warning glances at whomever stared at her. “So what had his fez in a pinch?”

She held up and unfolded her hand, which still held the shard of pottery. “We were disputing this, but, gracious, I forgot I still had it. Maybe I should give it back.”

He plucked the piece of pottery from her hand. As he did this, the tips of his fingers brushed her bare palm. A hot current sparked to life where he touched. She could not prevent the shiver of awareness that ran through her body. She met his gaze, and sank into their cool aquatic depths as he stared back. This felt stronger than attraction. Something that resounded through the innermost recesses of herself, in deep, liquid notes, like a melody or song one might sing to bring the world into being. And it seemed he felt it, too, in the slight breath he drew in, the straightening of his posture. Breaking away from his gaze, London snatched her glove from Sally, who trailed behind them with a look of severe disapproval. London tugged on the glove.

He cleared his throat, then gave her back the pottery. “Keep it. Consider it his tribute.”

She put it into her reticule, though it felt strange to take something she did not pay for.

“Thank you for coming to my aid,” she said as they continued to walk. “I admit that getting into arguments with vendors in Monastiraki wasn’t at the top of my list of Greek adventures.”

“The best part about adventures is that you can’t plan them.”

She laughed. “Spoken like a true adventurer.”

“Done my share.” He grinned. “Ambushing bandits by the Khaznah temple in the cliffs of Petra. Climbing volcanoes in the steam-shrouded interior of Iceland.”

“Sounds wonderful,” admitted London with a candor that surprised herself. She felt, oddly, that she could trust this English stranger with her most prized secrets. “Even what happened back there at that booth was marvelous, in its way. I don’t want to get into a fight, but it’s such a delight to finally be out here, in the world, truly experiencing things.”

“Including hot, dusty, crowded Athens.”

“Especially hot, dusty, crowded Athens.”

“My, my,” he murmured, looking down at her with approval. “A swashbuckling lady. Such a rare treasure.”

Wryly, she asked, “Treasure, or aberration?”

He stopped walking and gazed at her with an intensity that caught in her chest. “Treasure. Most definitely.”

Again, he left her stunned. She was nearly certain that any man would find a woman’s desire for experience and adventure to be at best ridiculous, at worst, offensive. Yet here was this stranger who not only didn’t dismiss her feelings, but actually approved and, yes, admired them. What a city of wonders was this Athens! Although, London suspected, it was not the city so much as the man standing in front of her that proved wondrous.

“So tell me, fellow adventurer,” she said, finding her voice, “from whence do you come? What exotic port of call?” She smiled. “Dover? Plymouth? Southampton?”

A glint of wariness cooled his eyes. “I don’t see why it matters.”

Strange, the abrupt change in him. “I thought that’s what one did when meeting a fellow countryman abroad,” she said. “Find out where they come from. If you know the same people.” When he continued to look at her guardedly, she demonstrated, “‘Oh, you’re from Manchester? Do you know Jane?’”

The chill in his blue eyes thawed, and he smiled. “Of course, Jane! Makes the worst meat pies. Dresses like a Anglican bishop.”

“So you do know her!”

They shared a laugh, two English strangers in the chaos of an Athenian market, and London felt within her a swell of happiness rising like a spring tide. As if in silent agreement, they continued to stroll together in a companionable silence. With a long-limbed, loose stride, he walked beside her. He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his simple, well-cut waistcoat, the picture of a healthy young man completely comfortable with himself. And why shouldn’t he be? No man had been so favored by Nature’s hand. She realized that he hadn’t told her where he was from, but she wouldn’t press the issue, enjoying the glamour of the unknown.

His presence beside her was tangible, a continuous pulse of uncivilized living energy, as though being escorted by a large and untamed mountain cat that vacillated between eating her and dragging her off to its lair.

“How did you know I was from England?” she asked. “The vendor was speaking English to everyone.”

“Your posture. English ladies have a particular way of holding themselves, as though a disapproving governess was glaring at them.”

“Different than, say, a French or Greek lady?”

“There’s bundles more self-imposed Anglican morality in an Englishwoman’s stance. I am,” he added, with a slow, suggestive smile, “an avid connoisseur of the language of the body.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” she said, dry.

His chuckle was low and velvet and very, very carnal. If he was unleashed on polite British society, virgin debutantes and genteel matrons would turn into Bacchae, tearing at their clothes and ripping apart anyone foolish enough to stand between themselves and the object of their desire. She felt much the same uncharacteristic urge.

London busied herself with pretending to admire a gold silk scarf at a booth. As she did this, she sent a cautious glance toward the beautiful English stranger. With a small, internal start, she realized that his stance only appeared to be negligent and easy. He was, in fact, vigilant, ready as if poised for movement. And his eyes, though glittering with a secret amusement, were never at rest. He watched the marketplace, keen as a blade. He was looking for someone.

But who? She dared not ask such an impertinent question, and didn’t know if she wanted the answer. There was something, the edge of a darkness, in him, or, at the least, a potential for danger. She wondered if he was armed. Travelers to Greece were advised to bring at least a revolver if they planned on leaving Athens. But this man’s strong body would be weapon enough.

“Is it within the rules to ask what brings you to Greece?” London asked.

“Never said there were any rules.” A small dimple appeared in the corner of his mouth. London wanted to touch it. Or, better yet, feel it with her lips.

“If there were,” she said, “you don’t play by them.”

He gave an unapologetic shrug. “Following rules means there’s no fun or pleasure in life.”

She was certain he had both in abundance. “And decorum? Responsibility?”

“Decorum stifles. Women, especially.”

London picked up the scarf and draped it around her shoulders, as a lady might at the ballet. “That sounds like a libertine’s well-practiced speech to lure women into dalliance.”

“There’s always truth in seduction. That’s why it works.” He stepped closer and loosened the scarf from her shoulders, then he gently wrapped it around her waist like a sash. She felt it like an embrace. His deft, long fingers tied the fabric into a decorative knot. “Much better. More Greek,” he murmured in approval.

London’s pulse sped at his nearness, yet she did not step away. “But what of responsibility?”

He gazed at her levelly, and in his clear aquatic eyes, she saw a steadiness of purpose that she had not anticipated. “I take my responsibilities seriously.”

“They must be the only things you take seriously,” she answered.

No mistaking the way he looked at her, how his gaze flicked down to her mouth and held there for more than a moment. “Try me, little troublemaker.”

She felt herself standing above the sea, the warm water beckoning her to plunge into its wet, welcoming depths, frolic in its waves. She wanted to jump. She was afraid of the height. “Sir, you are more dangerous than a Barbary pirate,” she said, after a breathless pause.

Again, he laughed, something he seemed to do readily. A bedroom laugh. Teasing. Intimate. And such a laugh made her body respond without thought. Her skin felt sensitive, and a molten heat gathered in her core. Oh, it had been a long time since a man touched her, and not a single half-hearted caress from Lawrence affected her as one laugh from this stranger did. She recalled how, moments earlier, his fingers had brushed her hand, and the strange, intense response even that minor contact had engendered.

“Know many Barbary pirates?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I do, now.”

It was then that she realized something. All this time, he had been speaking to her as his equal. Granted, he was a devil of a flirt, but he did not seem to consider her female sex a liability. He talked truthfully, openly, without the polite phrases or evasions so common to the speech of every other man she knew. And when she answered him, it was as if she’d unlatched a little door inside herself and could meet him on the level ground, confident in herself.

“I think you are the dangerous one,” he said, “but you don’t know it yet.”

Again, their eyes caught and held. No, she was not imagining it. Something hot and knowing in their shared look. And that other thing, that tie that bound them in ways she did not understand.

“We should get back to the hotel, madam.” Sally’s voice was sharp. Ah, blast, London had almost forgotten about the chaperoning maid. But it truly was a marvelous thing to flirt with a devastatingly handsome man far from home. To pretend, for a moment or two, that she wasn’t esteemed gentleman and governmental adviser Joseph Edgeworth’s daughter, a paragon of English virtue.

London sighed and stepped back. As intoxicating as this stranger’s company was, she did have to go to the hotel. Father expected her. “All right. We’ll go.”

“Tell me the name of your hotel,” the stranger said. “I’ll call later tonight. We’ll share some hot…tea.”

“You know I can’t,” London said with reluctance. Probably no woman ever refused him. She could not blame them, but London’s careful deportment won out. “That would be most indecorous. I don’t even know your name.”

“Ben Drayton.” He took her hand and, like a man at an elegant assembly, pressed a kiss to its back. Even though her glove covered her skin, London felt the warmth of his lips through the thin leather. “Now you give me your name.”

She tugged her hand free, though she had an impulse to turn it over so she might feel his lips on the more sensitive flesh of her palm. “I have to disappoint you.”

“I’m a man who loves to unlock mysteries.”

London was about to say more, when she caught sight of a familiar figure at the other end of the market square. She gritted her teeth. How like Father to send Thomas Fraser out to find her. It was bad enough that Fraser was going to be accompanying them on their journey to Delos, as she had learned to her dismay yesterday when they docked, but now her father’s associate was being made to police her. As if London could not be trusted to take care of herself. For goodness sake, she was twenty-six, not sixteen, the naïve days of her youth long passed. At least the English stranger recognized she was a grown woman.

London did not wave to Fraser to alert him to her presence. If he was so determined to monitor her whereabouts, let him earn his duty. It would give her the opportunity to say good-bye to Mr. Drayton.

But when London turned back to speak to him, she found only air. He had vanished.

She blinked in confusion. “Where did he go?” she asked Sally.

The maid shrugged, and sniffed, “I’m sure I don’t know, madam. One moment he was here, and the next, gone. Like some kind of phantom.”

A chill trickled down London’s spine. Mr. Drayton’s exit had been positively eerie—soundless and immediate. What kind of man could disappear into the air itself? Certainly no one of good character. Perhaps it had been for the best that London had been so circumspect. Maybe he was a thief, or one of those men who preyed upon traveling women of fortune. Or…a mercenary? As she had suspected, a dangerous man. Yet one who attracted her powerfully. Not just for his seductive handsomeness, but the way he made her recognize the capability of herself. She had the feeling that if she had revealed to him her linguistic abilities, he would have accepted and perhaps even admired them. Or were those feelings of trust part of his nefarious arsenal?

Feeling a lingering trace of unease, London turned and waved to Fraser. At once, he began to make his way toward her, showing his usual lack of concern for those around him. A big man, he jostled through the marketplace in his white linen suit, his mildly handsome face looking cross, his pale complexion flushed. Of course, he didn’t look cross when he reached her. She was his superior’s daughter. London was not unaware of the fact that, as soon as her mourning for Lawrence had been finished, Thomas Fraser had been one of a number of men who paid her particular attention. She did not think they were drawn by her personal charms, but rather by her being Joseph Edgeworth’s daughter.

“There you are, Mrs. Harcourt.” He took off his hat and fanned himself, strands of wheat-colored hair sticking damply to his forehead. “What an awful din in this beastly market. And deuced hot, too.”

“I find it rather comfortable, especially after a gloomy English spring.”

“Ah, well.” He replaced his hat. “That’s a pretty sash you’ve got there. Quite dashing.”

London had forgotten about the scarf Ben Drayton had tied around her waist. She started to untie it, but then stopped. She would keep it as a souvenir of the strange and exhilarating day. Reaching into her reticule, she found a silver fifty-lepta coin with which to pay the vendor, but not before her fingers brushed the pottery shard Drayton had urged upon her. A wicked man, she thought.

After she paid, the very un-wicked Fraser asked, “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the hotel? Your father would like you to dress for dinner.”

Of course he would, London thought. “Thank you, you’re very kind, Mr. Fraser.” She took Fraser’s offered arm, and they left the marketplace, with Sally behind them. London made herself look straight ahead, as much as she wanted to glance back and see what had become of the mysterious Mr. Drayton. It didn’t signify. She doubted she would ever see him again. But she wasn’t sure if that should raise or lower her spirits.

That was bloody close. Fortunately, Fraser hadn’t spotted Bennett, or else the bastard would have set the usual thugs after him, and that wasn’t something Bennett particularly wanted to experience again. Heirs always hired local muscle to do their dirty work. Lucky for the Heirs, greed was universal, so they had a ready supply of desperate, amoral men wherever their searches took them.

As Bennett slid into a nearby alley off the market square, an old enmity seethed back to life. Thomas bloody Fraser. Here in Greece. De-sodding-lightful. Bennett didn’t care for any of the Heirs, but Fraser was a particular bane. Especially after Fraser’s involvement with the Norway debacle years ago that cost Bennett a piece of his small toe, and nearly his life. Fraser’s appearance in the market had made Bennett pull his signature disappearing act. He didn’t know what Fraser was doing in the market. Probably the git was performing reconnaissance. Heirs traveled in packs of no less than two, so somewhere out in Athens was at least one other thieving Heir bastard. Who made up the rest of their raiding party, Bennett didn’t know.

He would find out soon enough. He’d tail Fraser, maybe find out where he and the other Heirs were staying in Athens.

Bennett took a step from the alley, but a familiar Teutonic voice stopped him. “English dog! Now I break your neck!”

Bennett groaned in exasperation. The captain was awake and untied. And headed straight for him.

No help for it. As soon as the German came within striking distance, Bennett threw out a left jab, connecting solidly with the captain’s face and snapping the man’s head back from the impact. Quick and sharp, Bennett followed with a hard straight right to the chin. The captain hadn’t even the time to make a sound. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Confident that the captain would stay down this time, Bennett ducked back into the marketplace. And swore in several languages. Fraser was gone. With no way to know where he’d gone. The labyrinth of Athens had swallowed up the Heir.

The lady was gone, too.

A damned shame that Bennett hadn’t been able to spend more time with that delicious woman. It wasn’t a boast that Bennett considered himself something of an expert and a gourmet where females were concerned. And the nameless English lady was indeed a fine specimen that he wished he could explore at leisure. She was beautiful, of that there could be no debate. Thick hair the color of golden brown silk, and eyes the kind of rich chocolate in which a man could lose himself. A wide mouth, ripe and rosy. Her modish light blue day gown set off her slim figure. Not exactly voluptuous, but her curves were honest, her waist small—he knew this from tying the scarf there. He had no trouble picturing his hands at that waist, holding her to a wall as he plunged into her, her moans in his ear. The picture was so vivid, he clenched his jaw and forced himself to walk slowly through the market to cool his heated blood.

The sun began to set. Time to head back to his home base and reconnoiter with his fellow Blade. There was still the manifest to study. Bennett headed north, away from the market, but his thoughts remained behind, lingering over the Englishwoman.

She’d been more than beautiful to look upon. She had a sharp mind, and that was something Bennett truly appreciated in a lover. There wasn’t anything more arousing than a woman applying her intelligence to lovemaking. Such mouth-watering possibility. He’d known many other intelligent women, but something more than her intellect kept Bennett thinking of his unnamed Englishwoman in Monastiraki. Many clever females were satisfied with only their books, preferring a path of the mind.

Lady Troublemaker wanted life, she hungered for it, embraced its messiness and chaos. The world was new to her, and she stood ready to receive it.

How many men had she known? How many lovers? Not many, he’d wager. She had an air of untapped carnal potential, an eager student of sensuality. She could, with the proper guidance, surpass her teacher. And then, what a better world this would be, with such a woman in it.

His cock, disappointed by the interruption at Elena’s, appreciated these images and stirred. Go back to your napping, Bennett ordered. Still, it was hard to forget her, even harder to ignore that strange, vivid moment when his fingers had touched her hand. In all his years, after countless encounters with a vast array of women, Bennett couldn’t recall ever having so visceral, so immediate a reaction to touching a woman. And it had gone beyond the physical, too. A sudden, profound connection with no known origin other than something in his body that recognized her, knew and needed her.

Rot. He simply wanted a fuck, but he wasn’t going to get one. Not for a while. He was there for the Blades, which meant carnal appetites would have to go unsatisfied until the mission was complete. That clumsy bull Fraser showing in the marketplace proved that the Heirs were truly in Greece.

Bennett reached into a hidden pocket in his jacket. He pulled out a heavy, old compass and considered its face, four blades marking each direction, a rose at the center. More than a means of finding direction, it resonated with ancient secrets and sacred promises. All Blades knew one another by this Compass. He used it to guide him back to his home base in Athens. It was time to get down to business. There was dangerous work to be done.