Читать книгу Scoundrel: - Zoe Archer - Страница 8

“I expected you a half an hour ago,” Athena Galanos said as Bennett entered the study. She sat at a heavy table, books and papers strewn about in an abstruse system only she could understand. A servant entered the room with Bennett, lighting lamps against the oncoming dusk.

Bennett went to the large pedestal globe in the corner of the room and spun it on its axis. Continents and countries whirled. When the servant came forward with a glass of Muscat, he murmured his thanks and sipped at the wine. Dry and clear, it slid down his throat. Athena always had a fine cellar, but it was to be expected. Her family was one of the oldest and most esteemed in Athens, with a large and elegant house at the base of the southern slope of Lycabettus Hill. The Galanos women had been active as Blades in Greece, well before the country won its independence, in a tradition of honor that passed from mother to daughter. The name Galanos was passed on the female side, since they never gave birth to sons, and saw men merely as means by which the line could continue. Their lovers seldom lasted more than the time it took for the getting of a child. A sophisticated, matriarchal coven on the shores of the Aegean, which Bennett appreciated, being enamored of the whole female race.

“Got a little caught up in something,” he said.

Athena raised one dark brow. “And how did the husband feel about that?”

“The usual histrionics. Had a nice little chase through Plaka. Very bracing.”

She peered closer at him. “I don’t see any wounds.”

Bennett placed a hand over his chest. “Just my heart, dear lady.”

“Of all your organs,” she said, “it is perhaps the most resilient.”

“But I did get this,” he continued, taking the manifest from his pocket and tossing it to her.

Athena grabbed it from the air, and began to rifle through the pages. “So your appetite for information was satisfied, at least.”

He grinned, but decided not to mention the English lady from the marketplace. He wasn’t sure what he would tell Athena, anyway. That he’d met an exceptionally pretty, intelligent woman whose simple touch affected him, in more ways than the physical? Athena knew Bennett well and would likely laugh at his description of the encounter. He did give his heart easily—though it was nothing compared to the freedom with which he gave his body—yet his heart was boundless and nigh incapable of tapping its supply of affection and desire. He never feared exhausting himself on one woman. True, this meant that he hadn’t the capacity for longer, more serious commitments, but this proved no impediment. His lovers always knew he would leave. He was open about this, and they accepted him as he was. Would the English lady from Monastiraki feel the same way?

He found himself revisiting the delicate precision of her face, her musical, slightly husky voice, the combination of freshness and experience that shone in her coffee-colored eyes. Mostly, he was struck by her intense hunger for experience. She was probably a widow, and, if so, then her poor, dead husband was to be pitied for leaving behind so delicious a wife who wanted to devour the banquet of the world.

He grew serious as he focused on more immediate concerns. “Saw Fraser in Monastiraki.”

Athena looked up from the manifest. “Who was with him?”

“He was alone, or so it seemed.” He leaned against the bookshelves, one booted foot over the other. His and Athena’s work as Blades was to protect magic and keep it safe from those sodding Heirs of Albion, who thieved magical Sources from around the world for a nefarious, empire-building agenda. Blades were always vigilant where Heirs were concerned, always dogging their steps to keep the Sources safe.

“And did he see you?”

“No, I got out before he spotted me.” Bennett held his glass of wine up to the light, watched it shimmer and glow, before draining it and setting it on a shelf. The spine of one book read, in Greek, The Practical Art of Spellcasting, or, a Woman’s Guide to Thaumaturgy. Typical reading for Athena.

She nodded. “That is fortunate. We need to keep our presence from the Heirs hidden for as long as possible.”

“Wasn’t able to follow him, though. The owner of the manifest popped by for a chat.”

“And?”

“I let my fist do the talking. That shut him up. But by then, Fraser was gone.” And the delectable Englishwoman was gone, as well.

Taking the manifest, Athena pushed back from the table and walked toward the window, with its magnificent view of the Parthenon and the city that shared her name. All women in the Galanos family were named Athena, possessing an aristocratic and dark Greek beauty that rivaled the Caryatides, but to Bennett and the other Blades, this Athena was foremost a capable colleague that should never be underestimated.

“Divine for us, goddess,” he said to her. “Urgent matters are afoot.”

She peered at the manifest. “I see Fraser’s name here. And Joseph Edgeworth.”

Bennett swore softly as his eyes met Athena’s. “Joseph Edgeworth isn’t a field man. He’s too high up, too important.”

“But now the Heirs have the Primal Source,” Athena noted. “With it in their power, all other Sources will be under their control.”

“So they’re pulling out all the stops. They’re even sending one of their most valuable and respected men out in search of more Sources.” He shook his head at the implications.

Athena looked back down at the manifest. “I see here that Edgeworth and Fraser are not alone here in Greece. There is another name listed with theirs. L. Harcourt.”

“Harcourt,” Bennett repeated in surprise, straightening. Harcourt was most definitely dead. Bennett knew that for an indisputable fact.

Athena met his gaze over the top of the manifest. “His brother, perhaps?”

“Better watch my back.”

“I think we can find out more.” Athena returned to her desk and shoved some books and papers aside to clear some room. From a drawer, she pulled a purple silk scarf, then laid it across the top of the desk. She opened the manifest to the page with the Heirs’ names and set it onto the scarf. Then she closed her eyes.

“Need me to do anything?” Bennett asked.

“Just keep quiet.”

“Impossible.”

She opened one eye to let him know that his humor was not appreciated. Closing her eye, she held her hands above the manifest. “Virgin Mother,” she chanted, hushed, “gray-eyed bringer of wisdom and war. Grant your daughter eyes to see and lips to speak. Give life to words, so humbly asks your namesake child.”

At first, nothing happened. Then the writing upon the pages of the manifest began to shimmer and sway upon the page. The words twisted like tiny vines. Bennett stepped closer to watch. As a Blade, he had seen much magic, yet it never failed to make his breath hitch with the wonder of it.

He stepped back as the words shivered, then danced up from the page, snaking into the air to hover in the middle of the room. In the lamplight, the writing cast spidery shadows, pulsing, waiting.

Opening her eyes, her hands still outstretched, Athena said in a high, clear voice, “Words, giver of knowledge, we seek your guidance. These men mean to steal magic, and we stand to defy them. What do they seek? Where shall they proceed?”

The writing trembled, then broke apart like a host of moths, fluttering. Bennett kept his arms at his sides as letters flitted across his face and through the room. He could hear them softly beating against each other and the fabric of the curtains. Then they found order, rearranging themselves into sentences in Greek that floated in midair.

The Source is hidden in riddles. To the birthplace of the Sun and Moon, the Heirs advance. Words they possess yet cannot read. One amongst their number shall play Oracle. The words will have meaning.

No sooner had Bennett read this than the words shivered and fell in a cascade back into the manifest. Bennett blinked, and the writing was as it had appeared minutes earlier in some clerk’s careful hand.

“My boundless thanks, Chaste Mother,” Athena chanted before lowering her hands. The magic-working had drained her, and she sat down heavily in a chair.

Bennett poured her a glass of wine. Handing it to her, he said, “I’ve a birthday coming up. Will you provide the entertainment at the party?”

“You need a muzzle,” Athena replied after taking a sip. She repeated the words, mulling them over. “So, the Heirs are going to Delos.”

“An island in the Cyclades.”

“Just so.” Athena waved a refined hand toward the table. A scroll of paper rose up from it, unrolling itself and revealing it was an ancient map of the Cyclades Islands, which lay past Cape Sounion to the east.

Bennett leaned forward to examine the map as it floated before him. It was true that Blades could not use magic, but only if it was not theirs by right or gift. The Galanos women were not only one of Athens’s finest families, they were also witches by birth. Family legend held that the first Athena Galanos, centuries earlier, wielded tremendous power, enough to safeguard the family against the occupying Turks. The centuries, however, had worn gently away at this power, as the city of Athens became more modern and turned from the old ways, leaving the Galanos witches capable of small parlor spells but not much else. The current Athena spent much of her time researching how she and her future descendants might reclaim that which time had taken from them. One had only to look at Athena’s library to see her dedication to this cause. Bennett doubted a larger collection of magical texts existed anywhere.

Athena now used her birthright magic to illuminate a small dot of an island on the map.

“This is Delos, the center of the Cyclades,” she explained. “The islands are called that because they spiral out from Delos. It is a tiny place, three miles long and hardly a mile wide, but few other sites hold such mystical power or significance. Even Delphi. The god Apollo and his twin sister Artemis were born on Delos.”

“Birthplace of the Sun and Moon. Whatever is there could be very powerful, especially when combined with the Primal Source.” Bennett recalled the myths of Artemis and Apollo from his early education, tales told in his boyhood of Greek gods and heroes. At the time, he had believed them to be merely stories, but years with the Blades taught him that a good deal more truth lived in old myths than the ordinary world would have one believe. “Who lives there now?”

“No one. For a time, none could be born nor die on the island. It has been deserted for almost two millennia. Once, it was a thriving center of trade, a holy place for pilgrimage. But no treasure is left, all carried off by pirates. Turks come now to take ancient marble for headstones. There is nothing of what some might call value. Only ruins, most of them buried beneath the rocky soil.” With another wave of her hand, the scroll rolled up and replaced itself on the table.

Bennett rubbed his chin thoughtfully, considering this. “So the Heirs have found something on Delos, something they need translated. An Oracle.”

“It is the ‘who’ that we do not know.”

“Harcourt’s brother, perhaps,” Bennett mused.

“We shall see. I’ve informants on the street to learn where the Heirs are staying whilst in Athens. I am hoping that will help us gather more intelligence.”

“You couldn’t be more intelligent, my dear Pallas.”

Athena dismissed Bennett’s easy compliment with a wave of her hand. Yes, they knew each other quite well, enough to render his blandishments nothing more than pretty coins thrown from an abundant pocket. “Even though there is no Blade more capable than you for deciphering and decoding”—she accepted his slight bow of gratitude with a regal nod—“it is very likely that you and I will be unable to read these ruins, whatever they are. You know nearly every code that has been created, but—”

“But I’ve only the typical Englishman’s knowledge of language. Latin, Greek, and French.” He smiled. “Such a wastrel.”

“None worse,” Athena agreed. “Perhaps we can follow the Heirs at a safe distance as they pursue the Source, let them do the work for us.”

Bennett paced. His legs were long, and the study was not a large room, so he watched his reflection as he caromed from bookshelf to window and back again.

“I hate the idea of trailing after them like guppies in the wake of a whale,” he said. “We should take charge of the situation. God knows what they’re after, but whatever it is, once they get their hands on it, hell’s going to break loose.”

“But what can we do?” Athena asked.

“Find the ruins before they do, translate them ourselves. There isn’t much time.”

“Even if we got to the ruins before they did, we haven’t our own linguistic expert to translate them.”

“I’ll find a way.”

She rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a man. Plow on ahead and damn the details. I need specifics, Bennett.”

It was his turn to be exasperated. “You’re the most circumspect witch I’ve ever met.”

“All the impulsive ones are dead.”

A quiet tap on the study door broke the discussion. At Athena’s word, the door opened. Standing there was her mother. A most striking woman, as her daughter was. Generations of strong-featured, genteel women who could slay a man with a look.

“Ah, Athena the Greater,” Bennett said, coming forward and taking her cool hands. He kissed her proffered cheek, her skin olive marble. “Your daughter’s trying to convince me I’m too impetuous.”

“Athena the Lesser can be overly cautious,” her mother sighed. “It seems she did not inherit the hot blood of her foremothers.”

“Simply because I do not advocate recklessly stumbling around Delos without a plan does not mean I am overly cautious, Mother,” Athena ground out.

“And you rein in your powers,” Athena the Greater continued. “It is as if you fear them.”

“I do not fear them,” her daughter said through gritted teeth. “But I will not cede control to anything or,” she added pointedly, “anyone.”

Her mother started to speak, but Bennett decided it would be prudent to avoid a familial contretemps, which could last well into the small hours of the following morning. He had a feeling their squabble would be heard throughout the house, disrupting his sleep. Lord knew Bennett and his mother could argue until neither had a voice. Their arguments always centered around her favorite topic, which was also his least favorite: when he planned on marrying. There was something about mothers that brought out the petulant child in everyone, no matter one’s age or station. How depressing.

“Much as I revel in your exquisite beauty, Athena the Greater,” he interrupted, “was there something you wanted?”

Mother and daughter broke their loving glare. “Indeed, yes. One of the informants is here.” She turned to the door and motioned someone in. A barefoot boy, somewhere around ten years old, in clean but threadbare clothing. The child seemed a little awed to be in the presence of not one, but two Galanos women, torn between terror and adoration. Bennett well understood the feeling.

“What is it, Yannis?” Athena the Lesser asked.

It took a moment for the boy to find his voice. “The Hotel Andromeda,” he gulped. “That is where the Englishmen are staying. And they leave Athens tomorrow.”

The witches looked pleased, a sentiment Bennett shared. “Very good, Yannis,” Athena the Greater said. She took a two-drachma coin from a small beaded purse at her waist and placed it in the boy’s hand. His eyes widened at the sight, but he recovered himself enough to pocket the coin quickly. At a nod from Athena the Greater, the boy dashed from the room, his bare feet slapping the tiled floor.

Bennett began to follow before Athena the Lesser’s voice stopped him. “Going to the hotel?”

He turned to face her. “As you said, I’ll grab us more information.”

“And then?”

“And then, we’ll know what we’re up against.” He sent Athena and her mother a wink. “Don’t wait up.”

“I’m going out to the garden before dinner,” London said to her father as they sat in the hotel parlor. People were gathering in their evening dress for aperitifs, murmuring pleasantries in English. London had dressed for dinner as well, in a low-shouldered Worth gown of violet gauze over cream satin, her hair pinned up and adorned with silk flowers. She had, in fact, worn that same toilette when having dinner at her parents’ house a week before she and her father left for Greece. She had known everyone at the table. Wearing that same gown now, everything in the hotel so proper and ordinary, London half-believed she was back in England rather than thousands of miles from home. “The night is quite lovely and warm. It would be a shame to waste our final evening in Athens inside.”

Her father glanced up from a handful of correspondence. His dark hair and mustache had turned silver over the course of her lifetime, but his eyes were as clear and cutting as ever as he moved his attention from his letters to her. She often thought that Joseph Edgeworth had been born clutching sheaves of letters and reports, for she almost never saw him without bundles of paper in his hands. When she was small, she had asked her father what all those letters meant, why men were constantly writing to him and petitioning him and showing up at his study at all hours with yet more sheaves of paper. He had said he was a very important man of government business and society, which meant others came to him often for direction. When she asked what he did for the government, he patted her on the head and told her to play with her dolls in the nursery, for such things were not the polite affairs of young ladies.

For years, that was all she knew of her father and brother’s work—that they, and the men of their circle, did valuable work on behalf of their nation’s government. Father refused to tell her more, and Jonas was a dutiful son, keeping silent on that point, at least. Mother was no help, either, insisting that she was just as uninformed as London in the matter, but it was for the best, as her only concern was the home, not what went on past the gate of their house or in the halls of power. And when London asked the wives and daughters of her father’s associates, they all said the same thing. Was it not indelicate, they asked, for a woman to ask such questions, to embroil herself in the activities of men?

As a new bride, she waited, seeking the right moment to ask her husband. She had hoped the shared intimacies of the bedroom might form a bond of closeness between her and Lawrence. But what happened in their bed led only to awkwardness, followed by a cold cordiality. When she finally gathered her courage to ask Lawrence about his work with her father, he refused to talk of it. It became, in time, another source of yet more arguments between them.

Whatever it was, it could be perilous, as witnessed recently when her brother had returned from several months abroad. His traveling companion, Henry Lamb, had disappeared. And as for Jonas…perhaps it would have been kinder if he hadn’t survived. He had been a hale and handsome man. Shortly before leaving, he’d become engaged to Cecily Cole. Then he came home. The burns were terrible, the scars they left behind across half his face almost as bad. Cecily broke the engagement, and Jonas now never left the house, becoming bitter and even more volatile than before. Not a day went by without him smashing some innocent piece of furniture or porcelain to bits. He terrified the servants.

Her dead husband Lawrence had also paid a high price for his governmental work abroad. Paid with his life. But the circumstances of his death were obscure, and her father would not provide specifics. To protect her delicate female constitution from the ugliness of the world.

So, London stopped asking. She would have gone on in complete ignorance, had it not been circumstance that brought her to greater understanding. Father at last revealed more about his work for their government, though grudgingly, and now she was here, in Athens, to finally assist and make herself useful. She hoped she was so useful that she could be a part of his work when they returned home. It sounded far better than endless rounds of paying calls, social breakfasts, regattas and balls, and charity work that did no help at all. And she could apply her knowledge of languages practically, rather than only in theory.

Now she waited for her father’s permission to go outside and escape the stifling atmosphere of the hotel parlor.

“Very well,” said Father, after a pause, “but take Sally with you.”

“It’s the hotel garden,” London pointed out. “Not a public street. I’ll be perfectly safe. You can even see me from the window.”

Her father looked over at Fraser, sitting close by in a cane-backed chair. The two men exchanged obvious speaking glances, communicating silently about the frivolity and foolishness of women. London clutched her fan tightly to keep hold of her patience.

“Very well,” Father said at last. He actually shook his finger at her. “But, mind, stay within sight of the window.”

London dipped into a small curtsey before gliding from the parlor. Honestly, her father and his friends treated women like overgrown infants. It was exceptionally infuriating. But would it be different with other men? She had no basis of comparison, outside of what she read.

Stepping outside from the hotel and walking down into the terraced garden, her exasperation dissipated like mist. Anger and frustration could not stand amidst such loveliness. Abundant oleander glowed in the darkness as it tumbled over walls, and the air carried the richness of its perfume. Little purple cyclamens lined the gravel pathways where torches had been set, should any guest decide to wander out to enjoy the nighttime pastoral. But she was alone, and had the garden entirely to herself. London took advantage of the paths, her dainty satin slippers crunching on the gravel, and wandered slowly down a walkway, always careful to keep herself in sight of the large parlor window spilling its light into the evening. London could even see her father and Fraser in animated discussion, both gesturing toward the papers in Father’s hand. Perhaps they were discussing what was to happen once they reached Delos. Neither spoke to her of detailed plans. She had but one function. Beyond that, she needed no other information, so she watched them through the glass, eternally on the outside.

She was mindful of them, but they not of her. They both stood and strode from the parlor, and disappeared somewhere else in the hotel. She blinked. Well. Clearly, Father was not as concerned about her welfare as he professed, or the threat of an evening stroll in a garden was less dire than he would have her believe.

Feeling liberated, London pressed farther into the garden, taking one of the paths off into a pretty little alcove, fragrant with rosemary. It was darker here, and she took a moment to look up at the sky, wanting to see constellations. Now that she was truly in Greece, she might feel more connected to the ancient myths that gave the stars their names. But the city was too bright. Only a crescent moon shone, and a glimmer here and there of a star. It had been better out at sea.

She would be at sea soon enough. And then taken to a completely uninhabited island; according to her father, its only occupants a small team of French archaeologists at a distance from the camp where she and the rest of their party would be based. Though the island lacked for all facilities and comforts, London eagerly anticipated her work on Delos. A little dust and some lizards did not bother her, not when the true experiences of life awaited.

London bent to sniff at the tiny pink blossoms on the rosemary bushes, but a strange awareness prickled along her neck. She straightened and looked around. Everything was silent, save for the chatter of the hotel guests inside, the slight rustle of the tall cypresses in the breeze. The distant nighttime sounds of Athens, too: carts in the street, voices in Greek bidding each other a pleasant evening. Despite this, she could not shake the notion that she was not alone.

“Hello?” she called out. “Father?” Then, “Sally?”

“Never would’ve forgiven my mother if she’d named me Sally.”

London stifled a gasp as a familiar, deep voice rumbled from the darkness. Then the lean, agile form of Ben Drayton half-emerged from the shadows.

“Mr. Drayton,” she breathed, pressing a hand to her pounding heart, “you quite startled me.”

“My apologies,” he said, still keeping largely to the shelter of night. In the dimness, she was just able to make out certain details about him. He wore the clothes he’d had on in the marketplace, definitely not dressed for dinner. Not with those tall boots that had seen much wear, the serviceable fabric of his coat. But London hardly attended to his clothing. She had told herself, in the intervening hours since seeing Mr. Drayton, that she must have embellished her memory. No man was truly that beautifully formed in face and body. A romantic fancy brought about by an exotic setting and too much time reading books at home.

Ah, but no. Her recollection had not played her false. Here, in this perfumed evening garden, he was just as athletic, just as seductively handsome, perhaps even more so. Nighttime felt appropriate, a milieu that suited him, with its promises of dalliance and danger.

She found her voice. “I did not hear you.”

He came closer, skirting the edges of light. “Rotten habit of mine, sneaking around. Used it to great effect taking strawberry tarts from the buttery when I was supposed to be in bed.”

“So I am the strawberry tart, in this analogy.”

He chuckled, warming her. “I’d never call you a tart, my lady.”

London wanted to be a little daring, almost as daring as he was. “But if I was a berry, I wonder what kind I’d be,” she said with a teasing smile.

“Something sweet and wild,” he said, voice low and husky.

London had only just mastered her breath, and his words made it catch again. Her gaze strayed toward his mouth, the mouth that said such wicked things. She made herself turn away, play with her ebony-handled fan. What was wrong with her? All she wanted to do was cross the small distance that separated her from this veritable stranger and pull his mouth down to hers, learning what he tasted like. She never even did such a thing when married. She would not now, of course, but the impulse was strong, stronger than she would have suspected in herself.

She had to turn her mind in a less…wanton direction. “Are you a guest of the hotel, Mr. Drayton?” she asked.

“No. Visiting someone at the hotel.”

She turned back and started. He stood closer so that only a few feet separated them. She did not know any man could move so silently. Perhaps he was part feline, after all. Would his body have the warmth of a large cat, as well? It seemed likely. “A friend?”

“Not a friend.”

“An acquaintance, then? Who? Perhaps I know them. We may have a friend in common.”

“Doubt it. I sincerely hope you don’t know them.”

“What disreputable company you must keep, sir.”

“Those I consider my friends are disreputable in the best ways.” He surveyed her with a long, slow perusal that lingered boldly on the exposed flesh of her arms, her shoulders. It was a look like a caress, and her skin responded in kind. No gentleman looked at a woman in such a fashion. But this Mr. Drayton, she was beginning to understand, only spoke and dressed like a gentleman. Underneath the polish he was all rogue. “Sweet and wild, indeed,” he murmured. He eyed her formal dinner gown. “A little too much splendor, though.”

“Not so splendid that I can’t cause a bit of trouble in Monastiraki,” she answered with an impish smile. “See what a scoundrel you have turned me into. I still have that piece of pottery.” She poked into the small evening reticule that dangled from her wrist, until she produced the shard and held it out to him. “My ill-gotten gains.” When he bent closer to peer at the fragment, she said, “Take it. I’ve had enough of Darius the Third.”

He plucked it from her hand, his fingers brushing hers as their eyes held. She felt a hunger low in her belly stir to life.

He held the shard up to read it better in the soft light. “Darius the Third,” he repeated. “Really?”

She wondered whether he would dismiss her linguistic skills or condemn them. “I hope you don’t question me, too,” London said with a lightness she did not quite feel. “That’s what got me into trouble at the marketplace. I dated it based on the inscription. But,” she added quickly, “if someone claims that an antiquity comes from the era of Darius the Great, they oughtn’t sell something from Darius the Third’s reign.”

He lowered the piece of pottery and looked at her, speculative. “You know the difference.”

London debated whether or not to prevaricate. She could pretend she knew less than she did, or make light of what was her greatest passion and accomplishment. But the encounter with Drayton in the market square had convinced her that she could free herself, that she had the strength to own herself with pride. And if he did laugh at her or find her unnatural, then she could weather that, too.

“I do,” she answered, direct and clear. “I’ve studied languages my whole life. The more ancient, the better, but I know dozens of modern ones, as well.”

“The vendor in Monastiraki insulted you in Greek.”

“I understood every word he said, and what you said to him. Do not doubt me, handsome rogue,” she added in accentless modern Greek. Then, in an ancient dialect he would never know, she said, “I want to kiss you and see your skin in the moonlight.”

He stared at her, narrowing his eyes. Not contemptuous or patronizing, but something else, as if she were the missing piece to a puzzle he assembled in his mind.

She felt a new kind of unease under that keen scrutiny. “What is it, Mr. Drayton?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me why you’re in Greece.”

“I shall not, sir,” she answered at once. Father had been explicit in his instructions to her. She could not speak to anyone of their purpose. No matter what attraction drew her to Ben Drayton, he wasn’t to be let in to her confidence, not about this.

The teasing rogue was gone, and a new hardness entered his voice, his posture. “No husband with you here. A relative, then. Father. Brother.”

London stiffened, growing more alarmed. “This conversation is over, Mr. Drayton.” She tried to brush past him, but his large hand clamped onto her arm, holding her fast. London’s temper and fear spiked. “Release me, immediately.”

“What do you know about the Heirs?” he demanded.

“The airs?”

“Heirs,” he repeated, positively menacing.

“Whatever you are talking about, it is lost on me. If you do not release me at once, I shall scream.” She wished she could do more than scream, but London knew nothing about how to physically protect herself. Now that she faced real danger, she fervently wished she knew how to throw a punch. She very much doubted her feeble efforts would have any effect on the exceptionally strong Drayton.

“London?”

“Mrs. Harcourt?”

The voices of her father and Fraser cut through the heavy garden air, coming toward her. Before London could utter a single word, Ben Drayton was gone, vanishing into darkness noiselessly. She gulped and shivered, feeling the hot imprint of his hand on her arm.

“Here,” she called, walking out of the darkness and toward Father with hurried steps. “Did you see him?”

“Who?”

“He said his name was Ben Drayton….” She looked from her father to Fraser.

“A Blade?” Fraser murmured to her father, but Father shook his head slightly.

“Investigate, Fraser,” her father barked. Fraser trotted off into the darkness. London could have sworn she saw him take a revolver from his jacket.

Now truly frightened, she turned to her father, hoping to find a measure of comfort in his familiar face. All she saw there was a cold glitter in his eyes, the same look he had given her when he’d discovered her in his study a month ago, rearranging a series of rubbings taken from stone. Her father’s jaw clenched. Even though he was a man nearing sixty, regular exercise kept him as hale as a man half his age. Riding, fencing, hunting. Gentlemanly sport. But there was nothing genteel about his sudden and intimidating anger.

“What is it, Father? Do you know Drayton?”

“Not that name. But who knows, maybe he’s new,” he muttered to himself. Then he directed his attention back to his daughter. “Did he say anything to you?”

“He demanded to know why I was in Greece, who I was traveling with. And he said something about heirs, if I knew about them. What does that mean?”

“Damn and hell,” Father growled, shocking London. She’d only heard her father swear in front of her once before. “I knew those bastards would come tailing us.”

She gripped the sleeve of his dark evening jacket. “Please, Father, who are you talking about? What is going on?”

“Gone,” Fraser said, returning. “Not a sign of him anywhere. Must have jumped the wall.”

Her father snarled, “He spoke to her, the bloody rogue. Asked about us.”

Now Fraser looked at her with icy eyes. “And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” Fear was burning away in the wake of growing anger. No one was giving her any real answers, even though it was clear something was afoot, something that her father and his associate knew about. It had to be about his governmental work. “Please, Father, I’m not a child. You must tell me what is happening. Tell me who that man was.”

After sending Fraser a warning glare, her father captured her hand with his and began to lead her toward the hotel. “Some fortune-hunter,” he said quickly. “Seeking an heiress to ransom. Do not trouble yourself over it.” He patted her hand. “Fraser and I will protect you.”

“You must think me a tremendous idiot,” London said, halting in her steps. “I want the truth.”

Father started, clearly unused to having anyone, especially his dutiful daughter, make demands of him. But she was older now, not as willing to be led where her father wanted her to go. Seeing that she would not be dissuaded, he said, “The work that I do, that Fraser does—it generates its share of enemies.”

“What kind of enemies?”

“Enemies against England.”

“But Drayton is English.”

Her father smiled, but it wasn’t at all comforting. “London, I’ll not have you upset or overwrought. Go inside now. And believe me when I say that the less you know, the better it is for everyone.”

“But—”

“Now, London,” he said. He spoke as if he were sending her to the nursery to play, out of the way of the adults.

She looked to Thomas Fraser, but he gave her the same bland smile her father handed out like sweetmeats to placate her. Trapped between two men. London had thought, after Lawrence died, that she would have a kind of freedom she’d never experienced before, as a woman of means without a man to whom she must answer. But now, now that dream was slipping away, being lost in the murk of someone else’s agenda. What had brought her to this point?

A month earlier, she had been visiting her parents, one of her typical midweek calls. She often saw her mother for luncheon, especially after Lawrence’s death, and, though Jonas kept to his rooms, occasionally their father joined them for a meal. He was to eat with them on that day, a rather dreary Thursday in April. London and her mother sat at the table in the dining room, as they did when Father planned to join them. They waited and waited, but Father’s seat remained empty. Mother refused to eat until he arrived, but she was too circumspect to send a servant after him. She had even looked longingly at the creamed lobster on toast, yet would not take the smallest bite.

Finally, famished, tired of her mother’s unnecessary self-sacrifice, London rose from the table to find her father, herself. She went straight to his study, as he was usually there. Pausing outside the closed door, she had tapped lightly. When there wasn’t an answer, she knocked, a little more loudly. Still nothing. London had tried the door, expecting to find it locked as it always was, but this time it wasn’t. Slowly, London opened the door and peered inside. It seemed empty. London felt herself drawn into the room. Despite the fact that she was a grown woman, she held her breath as she crossed the Turkish carpet, seeing the shelves of bound volumes, the large maps upon the walls. Britain. India. Africa. A fire burned in the grate. The smell of tobacco and significance. The Forbidden Kingdom.

The study was the realm of men. At hours early and late, a steady parade of sober-suited men went in and out its door. Jonas had permission to enter. London did not. Even the parlor maids were barred from entrance. Only Slyfield, the butler, had leave to clean the room at Father’s explicit order. London never knew what would happen to her if she ever went into her father’s study, only that, if she did, something terrible would happen to her. She should not be there. Yet she could not make herself leave.

The massive desk had drawn her like a lodestone. This was the place where her father conducted his business, where he made momentous decisions and shaped lives. London touched her fingers to the surface of the desk, trying to absorb some of its power. She could use more of that in her own life. As she had done this, her gaze fell to some pieces of foolscap arranged in a row. Someone had done rubbings in charcoal on the paper, taken from some stone source. Ancient writings. She frowned. Laid out as they were, they made no sense. London could not stop herself. She rearranged the papers.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

London had whirled around at the sound of her father’s outraged voice. He stormed into the study, and, for a moment, she actually feared he might use physical violence on her. He had never spoken to her or looked at her this way before, preferring, instead to treat her as if she were made of spun sugar. She didn’t care for either form of interaction.

“I’m sorry, Father,” London had blurted. She tried to back up, but the desk blocked her. “I was only trying to help.”

“Did you touch anything? Read anything?”

“Just these.” She gestured to the row of papers. “They were out of order.”

“Out of order?” her father had repeated, his eyes straying to the rubbings. Confusion flickered across his face. “You can read this?”

Not knowing whether she was damning herself further by revealing her linguistic knowledge, London decided it was better to openly admit her expertise than revert to a cowering, ignorant girl. “Yes, Father. It is a form of ancient Greek that was only known in the Cyclades Islands. Only a few scholars are even aware of its existence. And me,” she had added, trying to keep the pride from her words.

He had scowled, but his temper seemed to be cooling at this revelation. “You?”

“Yes, me.”

“Are those other scholars English?”

“One is French, another is German, and the other is Russian. I am the only person in England who knows this form of Greek.”

After a moment, he said, almost grudging, “So, what does it say?”

She fought against the fillip of happiness his acceptance brought her. “That’s what’s odd about it,” she had said, turning back to the papers. “Even properly ordered, the words make no sense. There is more, I assume?”

“Yes, much more.”

“I would have to see it all, put it in context. Then, I believe, it would become clear.”

Her father had paced away from her, then, and finally took a cigar from a rosewood humidor on his desk. Mother didn’t like him to smoke in the house, but this was his study and he could do as he pleased in here. After trimming the cigar and lighting it, he had taken a few meditative puffs whilst contemplating the maps. London stood in an agony of worry. What would he do? Disown her? Forbid her from coming back to his house?

“Do you know what I do for the British government?” he had asked, at last.

She had shaken her head numbly.

Carefully, as if he were explaining a complicated scientific principle to a child, he said, “I, and Jonas, and Lawrence and all our associates, are archaeologists. We find ancient objects around the world and bring them back to England, for the glory of England.”

That was a surprise. London never would have considered her father nor his colleagues to be men of science or academic learning. But she did not voice this, letting her father continue.

“The rubbings you see here”—he waved toward his desk—“were part of a much larger set taken from a ruin in Greece. Not a man on my team could decipher them. Not a single university professor in the whole of the country could, either. But you”—and here he turned back to her—“a woman, my daughter, were able to do what no one else had been capable of.”

“I wasn’t able to understand it, though,” London felt compelled to add. “Not fully. I would have to see the complete writings to make sense of them.”

“Yes,” Father had agreed. “It is imperative, for the good of England, that we decipher these writings. Under normal circumstances, I would seek out a British scholar with the proper expertise, but there isn’t one. There’s only you.” He ground out his cigar with a deliberate motion, and watched it smolder for a moment before looking up at her.

“And that’s why,” he continued, “for the first time in the history of my organization, I must involve a woman in our work, though it pains me greatly to do so.” He took from his waistcoat pocket a heavy gold pocketwatch inscribed with symbols London did not recognize. “Today is the twelfth of April. I expect you to have your bags packed and ready for travel by the sixteenth.”

London had blinked. “I’m sorry—what do you mean?”

“It means, my daughter, that you are coming with me to Greece.”

And so it had begun. Now she was in Greece, being led across a nighttime garden by her father. Enemies, he’d said. Enemies of England. Something else much bigger than simple archeology was happening, and London was in the middle of it, whether she wanted to be or not.

Bennett watched from the shadows of a nearby parapet as London Edgeworth Harcourt was escorted from the hotel garden by none other than the vicious, ruthless, and cold-hearted Joseph Edgeworth, and his blond, hulking toady, Thomas “Never Met a Native I Wouldn’t Shoot” Fraser.

Hellfire. And damn. Edgeworth’s daughter. Jonas Edgeworth’s sister. Harcourt’s widow. The Heirs’ expert on ancient languages. The enticing woman from the marketplace. All the same. All the bloody same person.

If he’d been at liberty, Bennett would have laughed at the irony of it. But he needed to remain hidden, so he kept his rueful chuckle to himself. Even though he knew magic was real, he wasn’t always sure that there was such things as Fate or Destiny. Yet this was proof that the universe had a sense of humor. A very black sense of humor.