No good. It was no good. She failed.
She was glad. And bitterly disappointed. It freed her conscience, but not her pride. For years, she nursed her secret love, believing with quiet arrogance that few men and no women possessed her linguistic knowledge. All those volumes on her bookshelves at home, the sheaves of paper upon which she’d transcribed translations of little-known texts—they meant nothing. She was in the world, at last, in the ruins at Delos, and all she had produced was nonsense.
London, squinting in the unrelenting light, studied the inscriptions on the columns for the hundredth time. She glanced down at the papers she held, shuffled them. Yet it did not matter in what order she placed the inscriptions. She’d tried every combination. None worked.
The ruins stood on the southern tip of the island, centered in an excavated pit roughly thirty feet wide. A tumble of gneiss and granite surrounded the pit where members of the Heirs’ archaeological team had uncovered a series of flat-sided columns. The columns lined up in three rows of three, forming a square. Each side of the Parian marble columns bore inscriptions in an ancient dialect, and, at first, London felt she would have no trouble deciphering them. That belief did not last beyond her first few hours on Delos.
“Any progress?”
She turned as her father and Fraser climbed down into the pit. Both men’s faces shone with perspiration. Even the armed Greek sailor who guarded her had stained his shirt with sweat. A rocky, barren dot of land, Delos offered no shade, no relief from the blazing sun of its patron god, as if Apollo leveled any and all things that distracted from his presence. It did not matter that it was late afternoon. Everything roasted. The scouring northern wind offered no solace.
“I am still working on it,” she answered, which was true enough.
“Make sure you get out of the sun,” her father cautioned. “We don’t want you getting overheated or fainting.”
Fraser quickly took off his hat and began fanning her with it.
She waved him off. “I’m fine, thank you. And I have never fainted in my life. I doubt I will begin now.” In her white cotton shirtwaist and navy blue serge skirt, she felt the heat radiating from the sky above and the granite below, yet her wide-brimmed straw hat kept most of the glare from burning too harshly.
“You are a long way from the comforts of home,” her father pointed out. “And we do not want you overtaxing yourself and falling ill. Fraser, take her back to her tent so she can get some relief.”
“That really is not necessary,” London objected, but her father refused to hear her. Her father and the guard remained behind, while she found herself being lifted out of the pit and escorted across the stark island. Fraser corralled her to the Heirs’ encampment.
For that’s what it was: an encampment of the Heirs of Albion. Now that London knew their name, their purpose, her father, Fraser, and Chernock all spoke more candidly about their organization. Not full disclosure, of course. They still withheld the identity of the Source they sought—what it was, the power it contained. She was fed carefully worded explanations, certain details elided or eliminated, to protect either her delicate feminine sensibilities or the Heirs’ agenda. It mattered little. London sensed the men’s prevarication in the slight pauses, and the shared, knowing looks. She might not have noticed, before.
Now her eyes were open, and she saw more than she wanted.
“A pretty dreary place, don’t you think?” Fraser asked her. “Nothing but rocks, weeds, and half-buried ruins.”
They picked their way over uneven ground. Wild thistles and barley grass brushed at the hem of London’s skirt, and the hard northern wind tugged at her hat. The only shelter was to be found in the lee of Mount Cynthus, the island’s lone geographical feature. Once, Delos had been a place of pilgrimage and wealth. Now, it was harsh and lifeless, blasted by sun and time into a ghost of former glory.
“We share a kinship, this island and I,” she murmured.
“What’s that?” Fraser blinked at her.
“I rather like it here,” London said. “It has a kind of sterile elegance that strips away everything extraneous and false.”
He dabbed at his forehead with a linen pocket square. “Uh. Yes. Quite.” He tucked the square back into his jacket pocket. “Nearly there. Then you can cool off, get some rest. And when you’re feeling better, you can try again with the inscriptions.”
London kept silent. The Heirs grew restive, but would not speak to her of their impatience. Instead, both her father and Fraser danced in attendance, proffering folding camp chairs, canteens of water, even peeled apricots. They brought her offerings as if she were a temperamental, sulky goddess in need of appeasement. The Heirs waited with barely contained eagerness for her to divulge the ruins’ secrets.
They had arrived at Delos yesterday morning, and, while the camp was being set up, her father and Fraser took her to the ruins located far from the French archaeological team’s explorations on the western side of the island.
“No one else knows of this site, yet,” her father had informed her. “Only the Heirs, who discovered this place just a few months ago. We’ve taken pains to keep those Frenchmen away and ignorant.”
She could only speculate what those “pains” might have entailed. Bribes, perhaps. Threats of violence. Everything seemed possible to her.
She’d spent the whole of that day and this at the ruins, studying the inscriptions. And as the words revealed themselves to her, everything became less and less clear. Now, on this sun and wind-scoured speck of an island, she was trapped in a miasma of uncertainty and doubt. Loneliness assailed her, as cutting as the wind.
“Here we are,” Fraser said. The Heirs’ encampment clustered on the southwest edge of Delos, a group of a dozen canvas tents and three wooden tables that all seemed pitifully temporary compared to the worn marble dotting the island. From their camp they could sometimes see the islands Paros and Naxos to the south, depending on the clarity of the air.
At the approach of London and Fraser, armed men from the ship halted in their patrols of the encampment, brandishing their rifles. “It’s Fraser and Mrs. Harcourt,” Fraser announced in English.
The guards were satisfied, and resumed their sentinel. London’s gaze danced toward the weapons. The men held them with confidence and familiarity. They were there to protect her, or so Father and Fraser claimed. But to her, they were prison guards.
And Fraser was taking her back to her cell. London shared her tent with Sally, and, as she and Fraser neared, the maid darted out. A worried frown nestled between Sally’s eyebrows.
“Is everything all right, madam?” she asked nervously. Sally had recovered from her seasickness long enough to receive a blistering lecture from London’s father about dereliction of duty, and now the maid was as much London’s guard as the rifle-toting men.
“Everything is fine,” London began, but Fraser cut her off.
“Mrs. Harcourt is overheated. She needs refreshment and rest.”
Sally immediately produced a canteen of drinking water and gave it to London with a curtsey. London took a small sip, clearing the dust from her mouth. There was no water on Delos, and if they ran out, the steamship would have to be dispatched to Mykanos to the east to get more. Aside from the weeds, the only life on Delos were the lizards scuttling over rocks and staring with blank, knowing eyes.
“I’ve got your cot all ready for you, madam,” Sally trilled, waving London inside. London stepped across the threshold, pulling the hat from her head.
Fraser stopped at the front flap of her tent. “This is as far as propriety will allow me.” He grimaced apologetically.
London nearly laughed. This large, pink-faced man spoke of propriety when he had no compunction robbing magical Sources from across the globe. He killed those who stood in his way.
So did Bennett Day.
“Sally is tending to me,” London said, suddenly weary. “Thank you for your consideration, Mr. Fraser.”
“Will you…” He cleared his throat. “I would like it if you called me by my Christian name, Mrs. Harcourt. London.” His skin flushed deeper.
Oh, God. Here was a complication she did not want. She smiled weakly. “That’s very…sweet of you. It is a little soon, however.”
He nodded. “Of course. Of course. Forgive me if I over-stepped my bounds.”
“There is nothing to forgive. However, if you do not mind, I need a bit of solitude. The heat, you know, makes my head pound.” As she said the words, an actual headache began to throb behind her eyes.
“I’ll be with your father at the ruins, if you need anything.” Then he lumbered off, as quickly as a man his size could manage. He had none of the grace and economy of motion that Bennett Day possessed. Thomas Fraser would be a clumsy lover, too. Unlike Day.
No. She shoved him and hot, vivid memories of his kiss from her mind as she set down the stack of papers she carried. They, and her white cotton gloves, went onto a portable desk that held several books, a lantern, and a letter to her mother that London couldn’t finish. What could she say? Having a wonderful time in Greece. Father is responsible for the deaths of thousands. I’m besotted by a man who killed my husband. Wish you were here.
London sank down into the folding chair set up in front of the desk. She spread out the papers and stared at them, her head cradled in her hands. Behind her, Sally fretted and fussed. A dreadful rock, this Delos, she clucked. Rough men with guns all around. Not a drop of water or life anywhere, and it wasn’t fit for ladies to be in such a place. How’s she to arrange for a bath for her mistress?
“Sally, where is my edition of Covington’s Dialogues on Hellenic Morphology? I can’t find it in any of these books.”
The maid stopped her monologue and looked alarmed. “Perhaps in your luggage, madam.” She hurried to the trunk and rifled through it.
London knew Sally wouldn’t find the book there.
“It’s not here, madam,” the maid said, wringing her hands.
A stab of guilt pierced London for what she was about to do. “I really need that book. And I think I left it on the ship. Will you fetch it for me?”
“But,” Sally stammered, “that means I’ll have to get someone to row me out to where the ship’s anchored. Then I have to find the book. And then I have to be rowed back. It could take hours.”
“I am sorry,” London said sincerely. Then she said with less sincerity, “But you know what a terrible time I’ve been having with these inscriptions, and I’m certain the Covington will help. It’s very important to my father.”
“Mr. Edgeworth said I wasn’t to leave you alone, not for a moment!”
“There are armed guards everywhere. Not even Zeus himself could harm me.”
Sally twisted her apron in her hands, wavering. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll go. But, please, don’t leave the tent, madam,” she pleaded.
“I will stay right here.” Which was the truth.
With another nod, Sally hurried from the tent. London heard her yelling in English at one of the guards, and the man’s answering grumble, then their receding footsteps as they walked toward the beach.
Alone, at last. Somewhat. There were still guards outside. London marked their boots on the rocky soil as they patrolled. At least she had some moments of privacy in her tent. Ever since her abduction, London hadn’t a second to herself. Someone always stood nearby. Sally. Father. Fraser. And the guards. Her only relief was that Chernock made himself absent, spending hours in his tent, muttering about things that London did not care to know, though she was fairly certain he was chanting spells in Ammonite.
In her solitude, London took the pins from her hair and let it tumble down over her shoulders. She rubbed her tight scalp with her fingertips. Looking around, she made sure that the tent flap was down and she was truly alone before unfastening her shirtwaist and revealing her lightweight traveling corset. She slackened the front fastenings, then took a deep breath, as deep as she could allow. Even with her corset loosened, she was still being squeezed.
London picked up one of the sheets of paper and considered the writing upon it. Technically, she had already translated it. But the words themselves made no sense.
Her headache grew like a titan struggling to be born from her skull. She was trapped. If she did manage to decipher the ruins and passed her knowledge on to her father and the Heirs, she colluded with men whose goals she despised. She could try to feed them false information, but eventually they would learn she deliberately led them on a fruitless quest. Then her life was in their hands, and she could only pray that her blood ties to her father would prevent harsh retribution. Up to now, he shepherded her around as if she were a soap bubble, liable at any moment to pop. But the Heirs’ agenda might take precedence, and her actions perceived as treason.
She could, as Bennett Day offered, join the Blades, join him. That was outright betrayal. Everything in her life would be lost. She had no idea where he was, anyway, not having seen a trace of him since the night of her abduction. Perhaps it was enough for him to plant the idea of her defection and leave her to play the saboteur, his own hands remaining unsullied.
If she could, she would run away. There was no way off Delos without a boat. Even though London knew how to swim, she hadn’t the strength to get far enough to the nearest islands. She would drown, or the Heirs would get to her before she made land. She could go to the French archaeologists. But they either could not or would not help her.
London abruptly rose from the desk and went to her cot. She sat down upon it, her shoulders slumping. How tired she was. She hadn’t slept much since her abduction, and when she did manage to sleep, dreams of Bennett Day tormented her. In dreams, he seduced her with honeyed words and caressed her with hands stained in Lawrence’s blood. And in those dreams, she laughed at the red prints his hands left on her nude body, laughed because she was free, he had freed her from her marriage. Then guilt and horror and desire woke her and she would lay in bed, shivering.
The headache and heat pressed down on her. She could barely keep her eyes open. London stretched out on the cot, slipping off her shirtwaist. Only Sally would come in, and Sally had seen London in all states of undress. The minimal air in the closed tent cooled the skin of her arms, her upper chest. If only she had true privacy, she’d strip off her clothes entirely and feel the afternoon heat on her bare skin. She saw herself clambering naked over the rocks of Delos, an Oread, free from everything but her connection to the earth.
London watched the roof of the tent bellow and collapse in the wind. How wonderful to be blown away, blown out to sea, lost like a windflower upon the waves, leaving behind Heirs and Blades and shame and responsibility and desire. A small, rueful smile curved her mouth. Back home in England, she had wanted to experience the world, to come out from the protective cocoon that had been spun around her. Now she was exposed and buffeted on all sides, even from within.
When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers.
He’d snuck into better-guarded places. Even though the Heirs had a dozen men patrolling their camp, they were only mercenaries, taking whatever coin offered them to perform a multitude of crimes. No one had any expertise. No pride in their work. Pitiful, really.
All Bennett had to do was wait until dark. From his vantage behind a granite boulder, he watched, learning the guards’ patterns. The maid left the tent for the first time since he’d begun his surveillance. He wondered how London had managed that. It was clear London was precious cargo to the Heirs. At all times she was watched. And his eyes were yet another that followed her wherever she went.
As difficult as it had been to put London on that boat and send her back to her father, having her so close by but unreachable systematically drove him mad. It wasn’t like him. He generally enjoyed prolonging his gratification. Not indefinitely, but enough to make the consummation that much sweeter.
Ever since he’d kissed her—and, holy God, did she kiss him back—he’d become a man on the verge of obsession. He wanted her mouth again, to touch her beneath the fabric of her clothing. He needed to hear her voice, low and melodious. Even stranger, he wanted to talk with her. He enjoyed pillow talk and flirtation as much as the next libertine, but nothing communicated so well as two bodies. Yet, the times he’d conversed with London Harcourt brought him a kind of pleasure he had never experienced, not from talk alone.
By now, she would have learned the truth from Edgeworth.
He’d concern himself with that later. Night fell. No lantern went on inside London’s tent, but she did not leave. She must be asleep. The maid hadn’t yet returned when Edgeworth and Fraser came into the camp. After Edgeworth poked his head into London’s tent and was assured she was still in there, the Heirs, including their loathsome sorcerer, gathered around a table for their evening meal. Their voices drifted up to him over the sounds of cutlery on enameled tin plates. He heard his own name, the names of several other Blades, but little he could distinguish, not without help. Catullus Graves was tinkering on a listening device back in Southampton, and Athena’s magical skills were in use camouflaging their boat as it lay in anchor nearby. So there was nothing for him to do but wait for the perfect moment.
Bennett deciphered both codes and darkness. He had a way with shadows, ever since he was a boy, completely at home within them, while most others embraced bright daylight. In darkness, he found pockets of space, niches through which he fit himself like a key into a lock. Perhaps it was its own form of magic. He didn’t question it. When the time was ripe, he moved forward, dissolving into the night.
His boots made no sound as he edged closer to London’s tent. The guards paced back and forth, rifles ready, eyes piercing the darkness. Only a breath of a moment, the smallest lacuna as the guards passed, and Bennett crept past them. Under the heavy canvas of the tent. He slid inside, exhaling, then smiled. Almost as delicious as easing into a woman.
The close air inside the tent smelled of sleeping woman, of London. Sweet and spicy. His body tightened, knowing she was near.
His eyes had already adjusted to the dimness, so he could see everything plainly in the tent. The desk, the trunks and books. Two cots. One empty. London lay across the other.
Soft and low, she breathed in the rhythm of slumber. Bennett stole his way to stand beside her, gazing down at her. She dreamt, the fans of her eyelashes gently flickering as she moved through the space of dreams. Her mouth pursed, released. His throat constricted. He was a lucky, lucky son of a bitch. He’d done nothing in his life to earn the privilege of seeing London Harcourt sleep, for she was as lovely and seductive as a sylph.
Bennett sank down to his knees.
She lay on her back, her hair loose about her shoulders in waves of silk, one arm upraised and curved around her head in a gesture of unconscious grace. Upon her stomach curled her other hand, rising and falling with her breath. The forms of her legs shifted underneath the fabric of her skirt. In the quiet of the tent, the intimate sound sent excruciating pleasure shooting through him.
Her shirtwaist had been cast off. Above the waist, she wore only her chemise and a lightweight corset. His mouth watered. He wanted fiercely to lick the skin of her bare, pale shoulders, the honeyed expanse of flesh above the chemise’s neckline, delve his tongue into the shadowed valley between the small, perfect rounds of her breasts. His fingers twitched, desperate to finish unfastening her corset, peel it away to reveal the woman underneath. She would be warm and pliant yet firm.
He could take her, now, as she slept in this tent. Slip his hands up her skirt, between her legs, tease her into slick readiness before he slid his aching cock into her. Her orgasm would wake her just in time for his release.
You’re a bastard and a cad, Ben, he thought. And you picked the worst time to cultivate scruples. Idiot.
Instead of putting his lips to hers, he covered her mouth with his hand. Her eyes opened immediately, her body tensing.
“They’re just outside,” he whispered.
When she nodded, he removed his hand and craved the feel of her lips against his palm again. He moved back slightly as she swung her legs around, sat up, and looked at him. For a moment, they each did nothing but stare at the other.
“I am surprised to see you here.” Her words were barely audible.
“You thought I’d toss the world’s problems into your lap and skip away to my next seduction.”
When she did not answer, he knew she entertained that very possibility.
“Think what you like of me as a man.” He eased from kneeling into a ready crouch. “But I’m also a Blade. We have codes and honor.”
“Honor enough to kill.”
So. She knew. He refused to look away. “If we must. The Blades hold life sacred, but there are times when we’ve no choice.”
“The needs of the many, et cetera.” Even in a whisper, her voice cut. There was a new hardness in her that hadn’t been there a few days ago. “When did you know?” she asked. “Was it in the marketplace in Monastiraki? The garden of the hotel? Did it amuse you to flirt with the widow of the enemy you had slain?”
“After I left you in the garden,” he said. “I heard you with your father and Fraser. That’s when I knew.”
She tipped up her chin. “On the caique. You said nothing about it. You…kissed me, knowing.” She neared a shattering point, her words were so brittle.
“We made the gods jealous with such a kiss.” And carved him apart, but he hadn’t minded the sacrifice, not at all, and that surprised him.
“You killed Lawrence.”
He nodded.
“Why do you not defend yourself?”
“Because it’s done. And it had to be done.”
London glanced down and noticed she wore no shirt. She quickly stood and grabbed the shirtwaist. She tightened the fastenings of her corset, then slid her arms into the sleeves, saying, “What a wonderful thing it must be, to be a man. To act and damn the consequences.” She began to button the shirt with quick, precise fingers.
He also rose to his full height and stalked to her. “Every day I live with the consequences.”
“While women like me live without their husbands, their fathers and brothers.” Finished buttoning, she tucked the shirt in, sealing herself off.
“That’s right,” he answered, clipped. His anger surprised him. He never got angry. “And you’re right in the middle of them, giving them a soft place to lay their heads after a hard day of thievery and subjugation and murder.”
She turned away. A palpable hit. Yet he took no pleasure from it.
He saw, draped over a corner of the desk, the gold scarf he’d tied around her waist in Monastiraki. She’d kept it, and kept it close.
She saw the direction of his gaze, and flushed.
“London,” he said.
“They were wrong, you know.” She fiddled with the books on the desk, aligning them. “They believed I could translate the ruins, brought me all the way to Greece. But I can make no sense of them.” She waved at the laid-out papers. “The words have come, yet they tell me nothing.” She gave a harsh rasp that might have been a laugh. “So the joke is on everyone, especially me.”
He suppressed the urge to put his hands on her shoulders, comfort her. Instead, he said, “Show me.”
She pushed the papers into his hands, then crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the desk, facing him.
For some moments, the only sounds came from outside the tent as his most hated enemies ate their supper of roast lamb, laughed, and talked of astronomy. A revolver was holstered on Bennett’s belt. He could simply walk outside and start shooting. The guards would kill him, of course, but not before he took out at least Edgeworth and Fraser. Without them, especially Edgeworth, the Heirs would be crippled, giving the Blades a much-needed advantage.
But he’d spoken the truth to London. Blades had a code. And it did not condone deliberate, callous murder. No matter what London Harcourt believed.
He studied the papers and her feminine but purposeful handwriting. What she had translated created sentences, yet they were as opaque as ebony. Voices split cypress. Old chorus grasps water. The dolphin pathway sings.
“A riddle,” he said. He handed her the papers. “Blades see them often, searching for Sources. Damn ancients loved their riddles. Nothing better to do with their time.”
“Then perhaps the Blades can solve this riddle, for I cannot.” She set the papers down, and her expression was closed off as she turned her eyes to Bennett. “You can’t stay. Sally will be back any moment. She’ll alert my father if she finds you here.”
“Take me to the ruins,” he said.
Her eyes flew to his. “Why? You’ve seen everything.”
“I need to see the ruins, themselves.”
She stared at him, shuttered and unreachable. He suspected she would refuse him. Then, after a pause, she said, “Guards are everywhere. I don’t know how you got here, but it’s impossible for two of us to get by unnoticed.”
“I accept your challenge.” His smile had no warmth, but it proved to him that he was still himself, the man who smiled at impossibilities.
He was confident, she less so. London donned her dark gray jacket to hide the whiteness of her shirtwaist. She denied him the intimacy of watching her put up her hair, leaving it loose around her shoulders and down her back. She had long passed the point of decorous behavior—it mattered not at all, not out on this lonely scrap of rock, surrounded by murderers and scoundrels.
They hunkered together in the darkness of her tent. Day turned his head to the side, as if listening to the night, his eyes far off but focused. To signal readiness, he held up a hand. She remembered the feel of it against her mouth, the rough palm to her lips as she woke. She had not been afraid, for she knew his smell and taste at once, and thought herself a fool for the comfort his presence brought. Now she crouched with him, waiting to spring from her prison, waiting for a moment of opportunity that only he could sense.
Something changed. London could not tell the difference from one second to the next, but suddenly Day nodded at her and held up the canvas wall, ushering her out. Her father, Fraser, and Chernock sat around a campfire, smoking cigars. The fire flickered gold and red light over the rocks, casting long, demonic shadows. A nightmare landscape in which she would surely be caught, if not by her father, then by the men with rifles who never seemed to tire. But Day took her hand, lacing his long fingers with her own, and drew her away into the night like Hades claiming Persephone as his netherworld bride. No one heard them leave. She let out the breath she held.
A crust of moon turned the rocky plains of Delos into the bottom of the sea. She and Day swam quickly through the silvered air, and he held her tight when she misjudged a distance and stumbled in her dainty, useless lady’s boots. His grip was strong, sure, deceptively trustworthy. Without him, she felt sure she would drift into the current, but she wanted her own ballast.
She whispered direction, expecting at any moment the sounds of the Heirs shouting, gunfire, pursuit. Yet Day had taken the night for his own, possessed it, and they slipped through hollows of time toward the ruins. Here and there lay scattered relics of ancient holy temples, a statue’s dismembered torso, a cluster of stones marking a long-vanished road.
“This is it,” she whispered when they reached the ruins.
Within the excavated pit, the columns gleamed white as bones. Day leapt down into it, then reached up to help her. His hands clasped her waist as he easily bore her weight. Her body slid against his on her descent. He was as solid and lean as she remembered, yet she felt as though she’d barely comprehended its potential. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, fastening onto hers.
She pulled away when her feet touched the ground. Every space felt too close, even this one.
“Have you a lantern?” she asked.
“Better,” he said.
From inside his jacket, he produced a small brass cylinder. In the dimness, London saw two little glass compartments within the cylinder, and a tiny knob between them. The glass compartments held some kind of liquid, and, when Day turned the knob, a few drops from one compartment dripped into the other. He tightened the knob, then shook the cylinder. The liquid within one glass compartment began to glow an eerie green.
London marveled. “Magic?” she asked quietly.
“All science. I can’t claim ownership of the idea. It’s the work of Catullus Graves.”
“Another Blade?”
“Our genius in residence.”
In the cylinder’s light, the pit gleamed acidic green, otherworldly, and the columns seemed luminescent. Spectral light turned the precise planes of Day’s face into a warrior’s mask. She felt herself in some faerie king’s derelict palace, and Day the deposed ruler come to claim his birthright. She shivered, then reminded herself he was only a man.
He stepped toward the columns, holding the brass cylinder aloft. “The writing’s on every side.” His hands gently touched the marble, feeling the inscriptions.
“Yes, but no matter how I’ve arranged the sentences, they make no sense.”
Day stepped back, his eyebrows in thoughtful downward angles. Backing farther away, he slowly circled the columns, edging sideways in a clockwise direction. His movements held an animal fluidity that was impossible not to watch. She almost believed he had been created as a torment just for her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Finding the viewing point.”
“The what?”
His words punctuated his movements. “Damned ancients.” He edged farther. “Always putting in some little catch. Can’t make it”—another shift to the side—“easy on a fellow. They especially loved. Tricks of the eye. Wait. Yes. There!” He stopped, standing on the other side of the columns. “Come and see.”
London hurried over to him. She stood beside him and stared at the columns. She expected revelation, but was disappointed. “They look the same as before.”
He put his hands upon her shoulders and pulled her closer. She stiffened. “Easy,” he murmured. “I’m not going to ravish you.” Then he added in an undertone, “Yet.” He positioned her so she stood in front of him, though he kept his hands upon her shoulders, and his body warmed hers through the layers of her cotton clothing. “Now, look.”
She did. And could not stop her slight gasp.
The words had arranged themselves.
“I didn’t think you could read this dialect,” she said.
“I can’t. But I know a deciphered code when I see one. Tell me what it says.”
She read, “Upon the island in the form of a dolphin, find there the stream that sings. Its voice will guide you farther to the terrible waterborne gift of the golden god.”
“‘Terrible gift,’” he echoed, wry. “Of course. They’re never happy little trinkets.”
“It was there the whole time,” she said in wonderment. She turned slightly to consider him and knew she looked reluctantly impressed. “You’re much cleverer than you look.”
“I hear that often.” He chuckled, then grew more contemplative. “But it was you who unlocked the words. A capital partnership, you and I.”
That was true. Even beyond him discovering the ruins’ viewing point and her translation, they shared an even exchange of ideas, neither in command of more than the other. Unlike her father and Fraser, Day did not treat her like a breakable bauble, nor did he consider her gift with language to be an unearned aberration. But she did not feel he respected her. He hoarded knowledge. He’d known the truth about Lawrence’s death and had said nothing to her. And, there was no way around it: he was a killer. A man who killed other men.
“Sometimes,” was all she allowed him.
Day suddenly frowned. He took a piece of heavy cloth from his pocket and wrapped it around the brass cylinder, cutting off its light. London’s eyes could not adjust fast enough. Darkness swallowed them. She felt his hand on her wrist, pulling her somewhere, and she had no idea what was happening.
Then she heard it. A man’s footsteps running in their direction. The glow of a torch dawned over the lip of the pit, and then there was Thomas Fraser, a burning torch in one hand, a revolver in the other.
“London! We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Fraser glared at Bennett Day. “So it’s you, Day,” he sneered. “Might’ve known if there was a woman involved you’d come sniffing around.” He aimed the gun at Day.
London tried to pull Day toward the nearest wall of the pit so he might climb to safety, but he abruptly released her wrist. She lunged for him and grabbed only air. He wove through the columns toward Fraser. Fraser fired at him, and chips of marble from the columns and granite from the pit flew into the air. She clapped her hands over her ears from the awful sound of the gunshots, so different from the muffled pops of hunting rifles she’d heard before on her family’s Somerset property. A whiz and pop next to her head had her crouching low, shielding herself. Gravel rained down on her.
“Watch the ricochet, idiot,” snarled Day. He drew his revolver and fired back, causing Fraser to duck and hold off his own gunfire. Day ran straight for the pit wall at Fraser’s feet, and, in motion too quick for her to see, leapt up the wall and grabbed Fraser’s ankles. Before Fraser could kick him away, Day pulled on his legs and the other man tumbled into the pit. His torch and gun followed.
Flickering torchlight revealed the forms of Day and Fraser locked in combat. They struggled for Day’s revolver, and it went spinning away. Each man threw punches, drove elbows into stomachs, and struggled for dominance. London gaped. She’d never before seen two men fight, not like this. Once, she’d spied upon her brother training in pugilism, but that seemed genteel compared to what she saw now. This meant death. Vicious, deliberate death. And Fraser and Day knew what they were doing, both were skilled fighters. Clothing ripped. They swore. They drew blood.
Fraser was bigger than Day, but Day had speed and precision. They pummeled each other without mercy, scrabbling in the dirt, grunting in pain and anger. One of them would die if something wasn’t done.
Locked together in combat, both men froze when they heard the sound of a revolver’s hammer being cocked. Looking up, they saw London with the gun in her hands, pointing it in their direction. She’d never held a firearm in her life, and hadn’t counted on how heavy it was. She struggled to keep her hands steady. The heaviest thing she’d ever held was a huge seventeenth-century tome on Parthian.
“Stop,” she said.
Fraser smirked, while Day looked grim and taut, knowing it was very likely she might shoot him, her husband’s killer.
“Very good, London,” Fraser said. “Your father should be here in a moment. We’ll hold this bastard until he gets here.”
Yet when Fraser pushed away from Day, London kept the revolver trained on Fraser.
A minute easing of Day’s expression, but something black and horrible twisted Fraser’s face as realization dawned.
“You little bitch,” he spat.
Day’s fist into Fraser’s face stopped the words and sent Fraser sprawling back into the dust. Fraser flopped back, motionless, while blood from his mouth spattered onto his grimy shirtfront.
London lowered the revolver, shaking. Day found his gun and holstered it. He kicked dirt onto the torch, extinguishing it, then appeared at her side. It took him a moment to pry her fingers loose from the handle of the weapon. He tucked it into the other side of his belt. Before she could breathe, he pressed a hard, fast kiss to her mouth.
“Brave Amazon,” he murmured.
Sounds of more footsteps and voices shouting sliced the air. Men from the ship. Her father.
“Come on,” Day said. He sprang up the side of the pit and quickly pulled her up after him. As soon as her feet touched the ground, he took her hand, and they ran.
“London!” her father roared behind them.
She did not stop. That volume of her life was over, the covers closed and the book burnt. An unknown fate yawned before her in the darkness. With Bennett Day at her side, she kept running into the blank, unwritten future.