The souroko had blown out the day before and temperate spring was restored to the village. Caroline leaned on the balcony railing and tried not to let England wedge its way into her thoughts. Departure was just days away. She and Pen had tickets on the steamship to Malta, and the girl, in her excitement, had already started packing. Soon enough Caroline would be home, but she wanted to taste every last drop of her time on Crete. Strange how it had become so sweet when at first she had wanted nothing more than to leave the island. Yet even then there had been something indefinable that had drawn her to Alex.
Alex.
Her heart curled around his name. Even now she was watching for him to ride down out of the hills. Today would be their last adventure. Although, to be fair, the last outing had been adventure enough.
But she could not turn down an excursion to the Cave of Zeus, the one place she had wanted to see. This was her last chance—and another day to share with Alex, before the inevitable parting.
She had hoped he would offer to come with them, back to London. Surely his exile must have an end. Yet every time she mentioned England he stiffened, and if she pressed, the haunted look would return to his eyes. She had learned not to speak of it, tried to bury the hope that he would pack his bags, give up his cottage, and come with her back to London.
Whatever lay between the two of them, she could not name it. Only that it was new, and fleeting, and glorious in its brief burning.
And afterward?
The world would be flavored with ashes—but she could not stay. Alex had made her no promises, and what did this quiet village in Crete offer her? A life as a restless foreigner? She thought of the children at the school in London. She knew many of them by name. They needed her. Crete would be a life wasted when she could be helping others.
She shook her head. There was today, tomorrow, the last handfuls of her time here, and she would not taint those days by thinking on what might have been. On what was impossible.
There he was.
She leaned forward and could not help the easing of her heart, the smile that opened like a flower inside her as she watched him ride down the track, sitting easily on his chestnut horse.
“Mr. Trentham is coming,” she called behind her, to where Pen was packing away the contents of the desk. Still, she lingered on the balcony. This would be the last time she would see him riding into the village, the last time she would feel that curious rush of nerves and joy at the sight of him coming ever closer.
“Good,” Pen said. “Let’s get ready to meet him.” After a long moment she added, “Are you coming in, Caro?”
“Yes.” Caroline watched Alex a heartbeat longer and then, trailing her fingers along the railing, went to join Pen inside.
Her room. Her cell, her haven. She would miss it, she realized with a sudden pang. The bed with its bright blankets, the soft wool rug that greeted her feet each day, the windows open wide to the blue Mediterranean morning.
Her companion turned from the wardrobe. “Pelisse. Bonnet. Do you need anything more?”
“You seem eager to be off.” Caroline fastened the bonnet beneath her chin. What a pleasure that was, to be able to dress herself. How quickly one took such things for granted.
“Two days of being shut up inside, listening to the wind blow and the landlady bicker with her husband—aren’t you eager, too?” Pen swept up her own bonnet and hurried to the door.
“When you put it that way…”
They stepped out of the villa to find Alex in conversation with two young fishermen, each leading a pair of horses. He glanced up to greet the ladies, and it seemed to Caroline that the expression in his eyes deepened when he looked at her, though his face remained somber.
“I have news from Agia Galini. An Englishman matching Simms’s description hired a trawler to take him to Italy. We have sent word to the authorities there.”
Caroline was glad to hear that the sportsman was off the island—and even gladder that Alex would not be going after the man. The danger had gone.
“Good riddance,” Pen said, swinging up on her horse and glancing at the others. “I see Caro gets a real mount today.”
“It’s a long ride. Agalma would not be up to it. Niko and Young Georgios are coming, too.” He nodded to where the two men waited, now mounted on their sturdy horses. The shorter of the two men gave an enthusiastic wave.
“Young Georgios?” Pen groaned. “The most attentive young man on the coast. Once he even offered me his best fish.”
The corner of Alex’s mouth twitched up. “None of the older men could be enticed from their work today. There is too much to repair after the wind’s damage. These two see it as an adventure—and a chance to avoid the extra labor.”
The girl sighed but lifted her hand in reply to the young man’s salute. “There. Greetings completed. Now can we go? Caro, I expect you to ride beside me and keep Young Georgios at bay.”
Despite Pen’s predictions, it seemed the young man was content to make eyes at her from afar. As they rode out of the village, Alex bent his head in conversation with the two young men. They nodded, and then the escort split, Niko riding ahead while Young Georgios took the rear, throwing Pen a lovelorn glance as he passed.
She smothered her giggles. “Really, I know it’s not funny, but I can’t help it.”
“Smitten swains—yes, what can one do?” Caroline smiled, letting Pen draw her into conversation about London. It was impossible to withstand the girl’s enthusiasm, despite her own resolve not to think of England.
The sun was well into the sky by the time Alex called a halt. The rough path had taken them from the Mediterranean up through folded hills and at last onto a windy plateau presided over by a mountain dusted with white. As they rode closer it began to loom over them. They passed into the shadow of the mountain and Caroline felt anticipation prick her skin.
Alex glanced at her. “The Cave of Zeus is just ahead.”
“Yes,” Pen said, her voice hushed, “we’re approaching the birthplace of gods. Perhaps we’ll hear their voices speaking to us from ages past.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” Caroline drew in a deep breath. “It’s so quiet here—as though our human lives make very little difference.”
Another few minutes of riding brought them to a rough cliff face where a huge cleft in the base beckoned, full of shadows and mystery.
“Here we are.” Pen slid off her mount and handed the reins to the ever-attentive Young Georgios. “Oh, hurry and come see.”
“We have all afternoon to explore,” Alex said, a smile in his voice. “Care to dismount, Miss Huntington?”
Caroline blinked at him, abruptly aware she had been sitting her horse and staring, transfixed, at the cavern mouth.
“Yes, of course.” She took his offered hand and let him catch her as she slid off the horse. A fleeting sense of rightness as he steadied her. She tried not to lean into his warmth, his solidity.
He stepped back but kept her hand in his. “The going’s rough. Shall we catch up to Pen?”
She nodded and they ventured forward. Loose stones shifted under their feet and cool air brushed her cheek, the shadowy exhalation of the cave. The arch of the entrance rose above them until they could peer into the dimness of a huge cavern disappearing into the depths of shadow. The silvery walls shone faintly where moisture trickled, and farther back, just where the light faded, there seemed to be fantastical rock shapes, formed in natural homage to the place a young god was reared.
Alex’s hand was warm in hers. “The floor of the main cavern is level, once we get down.” He turned and beckoned to one of the lads. “Bring the lanterns. And Pen, wait for Nikos before you go any farther. No exploring on your own.”
The girl raised her brows. “What about Young Georgios?”
“He’s staying with the horses—and preparing our lunch.” Alex accepted one of the lanterns, the warm glow making the cave’s interior seem even darker, and they began the descent.
It was a scramble down into another world. The light began to close away from them, like a door swinging shut on an empty room. At the bottom Caroline turned to see Pen and Nikos silhouetted at the entrance, the sky a fierce blue behind them. For a moment she could not quite believe she was here, in the Cave of Zeus. She let go of Alex’s hand and took a few careful steps deeper in. Darkness pushed back against the daylight, the shadows nearly tangible, thicker than the questing light.
“It’s amazing,” she said, voice hushed. “So vast.”
It was impossible not to feel as though they were in a great cathedral. In place of votive figures of saints were rock formations, sinuously formed of water and time. The filtered light falling from above did not pass through bits of colored glass, but still there was something holy about it, a sense of quiet presence rooted deep in the earth.
As they stood there, it was easy to imagine countless ages of worship—the uncomfortable powers of nature wrapped in the myths of generations. Here the untamed god Zeus had sprung up, in story if not in fact. Caroline shivered and stepped closer to Alex.
Pen’s voice echoed eerily as the girl clambered down. Her words were hushed as she spoke to her escort, the syllables stretched and unintelligible.
“Oh!” Caroline started as a rush of wings eddied overhead, the sound amplified into a flurry of feathered beating.
“Wild pigeons,” Alex said, “frightened from their nests. But come, the inner sanctum is a little farther.”
The lamp thrust handfuls of light into the darkness as they went, illuminating scattered dark hollows along the walls of the gallery they now traversed.
“Are there more caves opening from this larger chamber?” Caroline kept her voice low, as one would in a church.
“We’re going in one now. This is the altar.” For a moment the light was blocked by his body as he entered a smaller chamber. Then he turned and the steady lamplight fell over the stone walls, illuminating a small cave nestled within the larger one.
It was a sanctum indeed, and comforting to have the roof closer and fewer shadows collecting at the edges of the light. A slab of smoothed stone ran parallel to the back wall, and it was difficult to tell in the flickering illumination, but Caroline thought she saw symbols inscribed on the rocks above.
“How did you find this place, the Cave of Zeus?”
“It’s been part of the local knowledge for centuries. The villagers’ ancestors worshipped here, or perhaps the people their ancestors displaced. After I’d been on Crete nearly a year, the villagers entrusted me with the location. I had to make solemn promises to help protect the place from harm, which I think includes forbidding Legault to dig about in here.”
“I’d imagine it would.”
“Still, I’ve found…” Alex set the lantern on a corner of the altar and knelt, scraping aside pebbles at the base. “Look here.”
He offered his hand, palm up, and Caroline set her fingers to the ancient bronze coin cupped there.
“How splendid.” She traced the coin, feeling the marks made by a long-ago craftsman. “How old, do you think?”
“Before the Caesars, maybe even longer.” He tucked the coin back at the base of the plinth, smoothing the loose pebbles. “Let’s make sure Pen and Nikos haven’t gone astray.”
He rose, gave a cursory brush to the knees of his trousers, then led the way back into the dim outer cathedral.
“Did you feel that?” Caroline stopped short, apprehension a cold breath on the back of her neck. “The floor shifted. Do you think—”
The rest of her words were lost in a deep, rising rumble of earth, a clatter of stone as the cave moved again. She let out a cry and Alex grabbed her shoulder and pushed her toward the cavern wall. She stumbled, the noise of falling rock terrifyingly loud around them, the lantern swinging crazily in his hold, rock dust hanging like smoke in air that seemed too solid to breathe.
“Shelter—go in!” He pushed her forward into a crevice that pierced the wall of the main cavern, one of the small, mysterious openings she had noted earlier.
Blindly thankful, she pressed into it. Stone walls on either side of her, but ahead the way was open. She held out her hands and stepped forward. Let there not be spiders. They did not like the cold, did they? She shuddered and kept going, Alex close behind. The earth shivered again. One strong arm looped about her waist and he drew her against him, shielding her from the wild stones tumbling and clattering outside their small refuge. His lips against her hair, the comforting solidity of him in the semidarkness as they waited for the world to be still. Her heart clamored with fear.
A tremendous, earth-thudding crash shook through her body and she flinched in his embrace. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his chest. No matter what happened, she would be safe with him. Her breath escaped in little, frantic bursts.
“Shh,” he breathed, arm tightening around her.
With a last grumble and grind of stone, the quake subsided. She forced her breathing to smooth. “Was that…I knew Crete suffered mild tremors…but that!”
“That was more than a mild tremor.” Concern etched his voice. “Are you unharmed?”
“Yes.” Shaken but—“Pen!” She pivoted in his embrace. “We must find her!” Her mind offered up a dreadful image of the girl lying beneath tumbled stones, bruised and bleeding, or worse….
He released her and turned, leading the way back up the tunnel. The lantern cast a circle of dusky light around them.
“Bloody hell.” Alex stopped and she craned, trying to see past.
“What? What is it?” Not Pen, please not Pen.
He stepped forward over the rubble littering the floor and lifted the lantern. “The way is blocked,” he said, voice tight. Where there had been an opening back to the main cave now was only a tumbled matrix of rock.
“But—we have to get back.” Her throat was dry, and she tasted dust on her lips.
“Too much stone has fallen from the wall in the main cavern. Here.” He thrust the lantern at her. “Maybe I can clear enough at the top to get through.”
Taking the light, she retreated, giving him room to throw down the stones he was dislodging. Twice he had to leap clear as his prying released larger rocks. But for every stone he threw down, another took its place. At length he stopped. Caroline saw his hands were dusty and nicked, a long scrape tracing redly down the back of one wrist.
He looked at her, expression set. “Caroline, I don’t think we can get through. It’s packed solid, and there’s a great boulder wedged in the way.”
The growing seriousness of their situation was beginning to constrict her, darker even than the shadows cast by their sole lantern. She fought a rising sense of panic and made herself take long, even breaths. They had to get out. Her mind skittered away from the thought they might be trapped. Her hands were cold.
“Do you think yelling will help?”
They tried, but the earth muffled their voices—and who knew if there was anyone to hear? Pen. Fear for the girl lodged in her chest and she redoubled her cries. But variations of We’re in here! and Help! and Can you hear us?! could go on only so long.
“I don’t think that worked.” Hoarse and weary, she slumped against the wall.
“We can’t know that.” He slid down beside her. “Let’s wait a bit and see if there’s any response.”
He set his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, resting her head over his heartbeat and closing her eyes, closing out the sight of stone, stone, stone. The enormity of their predicament seeped like ice into her bones. Even his presence could not warm her.
“Will this be our grave?” She opened her eyes, vision blurred by tears.
“No!” He spoke as if by will alone he could hold back their fate. “No. There’s a chance the passage opens up, connects back to the main cavern. If we can’t go back, we will go forward.”
She nodded and felt his lips brush her cheek.
“Don’t lose hope,” he said.
No—it was not in her nature. She sat and gave him a wavering smile. “Wandering the labyrinth? But…I didn’t bring any string.”
A brief spark of humor lit his eyes, despite the strain at the corners of his mouth. “If we find the main cavern we won’t need string. And if we don’t…” His voice trailed off.
“We won’t need string then, either,” she said, filling the pause.
He stood and picked up the lantern. “Let’s go, while we still have light to see by.”
She shook out her skirts, then followed him. The rough corridor continued a few dozen yards, stone walls close on either side, then began sloping down. What was that ahead? Her heart jolted. Another light? Were they found? She peered around Alex’s shoulder.
No. It was no rescue. Only their own light, mirrored in the still surface of an underground pool. She wrapped her arms about herself.
Alex stopped at the edge, the black water silently spreading before them, and lifted the lantern high. The passageway they stood in opened into a larger cave—she could sense the expanse more than see it, but there were no stars reflected in the pool that covered the floor. Only a blind and sightless sky, a roof of stone arching over them.
“Is it very deep?” Dread stirred in her again, woken by the dark, nameless water. Remember to breathe. In. Out.
Think of Hyde Park on a sunny afternoon. The neatly kept rosebushes in her uncle’s garden. The wind off the sea, blowing her hair back from her face.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Alex removed his coat, then began stripping off his shirt.
Her eyes widened at the sight of his chest bared in the lamplight. Shadows in the hollow of his collarbone, tracing the firm lines of his muscled shoulders. He bent to his boots and she took a step forward.
“Alex. Are you sure…?”
He kicked the footwear off and set his hands to his belt. “We don’t know how deep it is. And I prefer my clothing dry.” His voice was serious as he unfastened his trousers. She turned her eyes away but could not help looking a moment later.
Half illuminated, half shadowed as he set the light at the water’s edge, he was naked. He was perfect. She stared at him, this primal creature who had shed his skin of linen and wool to emerge wild and beautiful in the ancient darkness.
“You’re not taking the lantern?”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t risk sinking over my head and losing the light.”
“Be careful.” She wet her lips, watching as he waded into the still water. Fire-sparked ripples spread before him as he went deeper, his footsteps wary.
The outrageousness of his undressing had distracted her, but as he went farther into the shadows her fear returned. Darkness crouched at the edge of the small circle of light. Trapped, a mountain of stone between her and the world of the living. What if they did not find a way out? What if Alex slipped under the water and did not return? She could not bear this alone.
A splash, he let out a sound.
“Alex! Are you all right?” Her voice trembled, echoing off invisible walls.
His reply was distant. “There’s a deep spot here, but the rest of the pool is not so bad. We’ll avoid it next time.”
“Next time?” Caroline twisted her hands in her skirts.
For the space of a long minute, perhaps two, she could hear nothing. Then his voice came to her again from over the water.
“Courage. I’ve found the other side. It’s a smooth shore—we’ll need the light to see more. I’m coming back now.”
At least there was another side—a place to go to. It was enough to keep the dread from overtaking her. She leaned forward, watching for him, listening to him moving through the still water as he returned. Ripples preceded him, the motion drawing her eye until she could see him, striding waist deep in the inky pool. He emerged like some dark god, naked and streaming with water. The lamplight cast a warm glow over him, sparkled off the rivulets and drops. He was a creature of fire and night, so magnificent she could not take her eyes from him.
Without a word he bundled his clothes, secured them with the belt. Then he faced her.
“Your turn.”
“I…I beg your pardon?”
She could think of nothing else to say. Until that moment she had not thought—had not been able to think—that she would have to cross as well. But there was no way back, only forward, and to cross that water required becoming a different creature altogether.
Her hands went to the buttons of her blouse, paused. She glanced up at him, but he did not turn away to shield her modesty, just as she had not done the same for him. He simply waited for her to shed her clothes and stand beside him in the lamplight, every bit as naked and exposed as he was now.
Caroline swallowed. They were lost in a different world, governed by different rules. It seemed somehow fitting that he should stand there, glorious and bold in his own skin, and watch her with dark and shining eyes. She pushed the top button through, then the next, letting the fabric fall open over the thin cloth of her chemise.
A shrug and the blouse slithered off her shoulders, drifted to the floor. Her skirts were easy enough. Four buttons and they, too, slid down to pool at her feet. Nothing now but the thin slip of her undergarment. No corset—she had never favored them, and here on Crete no one cared if she was laced into a fortress of clothing.
His eyes shone as he watched her, his shoulders back, his black hair gleaming, his body hard and aroused. There was invitation and challenge in his gaze.
Grasping the fabric with both hands, she drew her chemise up, the slide of thin cotton giving way to cool air against her skin. Up, and over her head. Caroline shook her hair free and stood, half defiant, holding the garment in one hand.
The look in his eyes brought heat rushing through her, and a curious sense of freedom. She saw herself suddenly as he did, a goddess made manifest, surrounded by a sphere of light within a sphere of darkness. Persephone to his Hades, light to his shadow.
He knelt and gathered her discarded garments. Without a word she handed him the chemise and he bundled her clothing with his, then stood and held out his hand. She took it, lifted the lantern with her free hand, and let him lead her to the edge of the pool.
In that moment before stepping into the mirror-flat water she caught her own pale reflection. The curve of her hips, her round breasts, the triangle of hair above her sex—and him beside her, a darker shadow on the water. Then they waded forward and the image fractured into ripples.
He led her through the midnight water, avoiding the depths. Her heart was racing, her breath deep and shaky, but not from cold. From the heat of his touch, from the heat within her. Something primal unfurled within her, something called to life by the flickering light, the water-marked quiet. The perfection of her own self inside her own body, the perfection of the man beside her.
When they emerged on the far shore she felt transformed by the passage. A different creature, filled with nameless yearning. Her body hummed with awareness of Alex, naked and magnificent beside her. The ground was softer under her feet, not unyielding stone, as he drew her out of the water.