Scoundrel

by Zoë Archer

  With a soft groan, Athena struggled to raise herself. She gave another slight nod of gratitude when London helped her rise to sitting.

  “This is why I do not perform such powerful spells,” the witch grumbled. “It is awful to lose control of oneself.”

  “What can I get you?” London asked, dabbing at her friend’s damp forehead.

  Athena’s patrician brow creased with a small frown, as if finding something strange within her own mind. “I have a powerful craving for…quince spoon sweets.”

  “Then you’ll have some,” said Stathis. He turned to his sons, but Odysseas and Konstantinos were already jumping from one caique to the other. He beamed. “Good boys.”

  Brimming with irrepressible joy, London glanced at Bennett. Their eyes held, sharing in the moment. He took London’s free hand, his own large and warm and exactly what she needed. She felt her heart soar up toward the top of the mainsail mast. Nothing could stop her ascent into the silken night.

  Night was held back by lanterns and bottles of wine, dark as the sea, and apricots like little suns, passed from hand to hand. Everyone sat in a circle upon the deck of Kallas’s caique, joined in an unadorned feast. There were bowls of steaming, fragrant fish stew, handed out by Stathis, the magnanimous emperor. Cubes of salty feta. Tiny fried anchovies. No bread, but none was needed. And, as Athena had hoped, a thick glass jar of syrupy preserved quince, glyko kythoni, presented by one of the shy brothers. A small, dented spoon stuck into the rose-hued preserves, and everyone in turn ate a spoonful before handing it off to their neighbor. Ancient, timeless hospitality. The world united, if only for a moment, with a shared sweet.

  Athena sat propped against the quarterdeck house, wrapped in a blanket, her natural coloring gradually returning. When she stuck a spoon of preserves into her mouth, she closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure. Bennett nudged London sitting beside him. He directed her gaze to Kallas, at the brief longing that passed over the captain’s face before busying himself with packing tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.

  London saw and shared a small, secret smile with Bennett. Meeting the warmth of her eyes, he felt a kick of lust, pure and uncomplicated. Since Athena’s awakening, life returned to the caique, to everyone, and London especially.

  As Konstantinos and Odysseas, at their father’s urging, produced stringed bouzouki and played the wild, spinning music of the islands, everyone clapping along accompaniment, Bennett watched London. In the soft evening breeze, her unbound hair became dark gold satin, the strands already lightening from the sun. Her ladylike pallor, too, was disappearing. Throughout her skin and gleaming in her eyes, vitality bloomed.

  Who the hell would shut her away, lock her in a cabinet like a waxwork figure kept from the sunlight? This is where she belonged, sitting on the deck of a Greek cargo caique, singing along to songs about dashing pirates and dark-eyed girls.

  Bennett didn’t try to hide his grin. Why should he? Athena was well. The Heirs’ ship was debilitated. It was night on the Aegean, his belly was full, and a beautiful woman sat beside him, lifting her voice in song. A beautiful woman who would soon share his bed. He wanted her. Badly. He could wait. He liked the waiting. It was part of the dance, and he loved to dance.

  Metaphorically, anyway. Stathis pulled Kallas to his feet, and the two sailors stood side by side, resting their arms on each other’s shoulders. They waved to Bennett as the music turned almost manic.

  “The pentozali,” Kallas said. “The dance of men.” He puffed out his chest, knocking a fist into it.

  “Don’t know the steps,” said Bennett.

  “We’ll show you.”

  He glanced over at London. Wreathed in a smile, she motioned him forward with a wave of her fingertips. “Show me your manly dancing.”

  With a cheerful shrug, Bennett got to his feet and joined Kallas and the old fisherman. Kallas clapped a hand on Bennett’s shoulder, and he did the same, so they formed a line. Several minutes were spent trying to decode the hieroglyphics of their feet, intricate steps in beats of five. He was clumsy at first, but laughed and, after several more gulps of wine, felt himself move into the dance. It was lusty and muscular, leaps and footwork, and soon Bennett had thrown off his jacket and waistcoat, a healthy and wonderful mist of perspiration covering him. Kallas and Stathis tried to outdo each other, jumping like stags. No wonder it was the dance of men. Only someone as reckless, or ridiculous, as a man would attempt it.

  London and Athena clapped when the pentozali was done. Bennett took his bow, grabbed a bottle of wine, then drifted toward the rail at the boat’s stern to watch the evening sea and cool off a little. He’d barely been able to stop himself from hauling London up, savaging her mouth with his, then dragging her below deck and fucking them both senseless, waiting be damned. His blood was high. He’d skirted danger today, found a clue to a Source, seen London deliciously wet and eyeing him with desire. All inducements to a good, strong shag. But, even though she had separated herself from the world of English society, she was a lady, and deserved better.

  For now, anyway, he thought to himself with a smile. If she wanted to treat him like a trollop, well, he had no complaints with that.

  Even with the sounds of music and talk at his back, he heard London approaching. Or rather, he felt it, felt her nearing, a subtle shift within his body that was aware of her at all times.

  She leaned against the railing beside him, bracing her elbows upon it and staring out at the liquid ebony water. The sky was a lighter indigo, scattered with stars.

  He rested his hip against the rail and faced her. She held his interest a hell of a lot more than the view. He drew a swallow of wine from the bottle, then pressed it into her hand when she reached for it.

  There was something profoundly wonderful about watching a genteel young woman take a lusty swig of wine directly from the bottle, putting her mouth exactly where his had been. A princess in the vineyards, the hem of her silk gown stained with grapes and mud. He liked to watch her draw from the bottle, her lips at the opening, the movements of her slim throat as she swallowed.

  In companionable, but charged, silence, they shared the wine. It tasted of the blood of titans, rich with earth, heating and cooling at the same time. He let it roll over his tongue as he stared at London’s lips, full and red.

  He continued to watch those delectable lips as she said, “Wonderful dancing.”

  “My Greek ancestors are stomping their feet with approval,” he murmured.

  She raised her brow in surprise. “And here I thought you were English through and through.”

  “One-eighth Greek, on my mother’s side.”

  “Ah.” She nodded sagely. “That explains it. I believe there are women in England who would pay fortunes to see you dance.”

  “Only England?”

  “The Continent, too. Including Greece. Oh, probably the Americas, as well.”

  “But not Asia or Africa.”

  “We can’t let them know about you. Otherwise there would be global anarchy. Nations of screaming, rampaging women.”

  He reached for her, needing her mouth, but she edged back.

  She shook her head. “No—I’m a little drunk. I want my mind clear when I kiss you.” He saw that she swayed a bit more than the rocking of the boat.

  Bennett took the bottle from her. “Start sobering up. Quickly.”

  London stared out at the undulating water, the reflection of the waxing moon, drawing evening air into her lungs in a slow, sensual inhalation. “If we were alone, I’d say we should throw off our clothes and go for a night swim.”

  “Chemise?”

  “No chemise.”

  “Jesus.” His cock felt like a hungry beast, heavy and insistent as it pulsed against the front of his trousers. “Don’t say things like that then tell me not to kiss you or touch you. Bloody unfair.”

  “Sorry,” she said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. The little witch.

  He tried to distract himself. “How�
��d you learn to swim? Most well-bred young ladies don’t know how. Indecorous.”

  “Oh, yes. Too much improper motion.” She reached up and pushed her hair back from her face, the movement causing her breasts to rise and press against the bodice of her dress.

  He gripped the neck of the bottle tightly. Was she driving him mad on purpose? “So—how?” he gritted.

  “My family has a country home in Somerset. Spent my summers there. There was a pond. Jonas could bathe there, but I wasn’t allowed. One day, I must have been about ten, my governess fell asleep under a tree and I snuck off and taught myself how to swim.”

  “Taught yourself,” he repeated, trying to understand. His father taught Bennett and his brother during trips to the Cornish coast. As he recalled, there had been a lot of swallowed seawater and near disasters before the skill was learned.

  “I’d read about it,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “Some Latin treatise on swimming.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Not a bit.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t a deep pond. But my governess caught me and threatened to go to my parents.”

  “So, no more swimming.”

  A slow smile spread across her face. “There was swimming. I threatened her right back. Said if she told my parents, I’d tell them that she fell asleep reading French novels when she was supposed to be watching me. After that, I could swim whenever I wanted.”

  A startled laugh from Bennett. Damned impressive, that will of hers, the early seeds of defiance. “A child Machiavelli.”

  “Ruthless,” she agreed, then turned somber. “Must run in the family.”

  Her pain echoed in him. He didn’t know what to do, how to help her.

  “I wonder how they found us,” she murmured. “At the dolphin island.”

  “That needs pondering,” he said. “I haven’t seen any birds following us, so that’s one thing to cross off an endless list.”

  London turned and leaned against the rail. “Does this sort of thing happen to you often? Being chased by Heirs? Running for your life?”

  “All the time.” He smiled.

  Her laugh was part exasperation, part respect. He was glad to hear it after the darkness that had overtaken her. “You Blades are mad. And you, Bennett, are the Hatter at the tea party, presiding over the madness.”

  “And you’re Alice,” he answered, “struggling to make sense of it all here in Wonderland. Don’t try.”

  “Nothing makes sense anymore.” Her look clouded once more, and her hand drifted up to rub absently on her chest, which sent a peculiar pain through his own.

  “Admit it,” he said, trying to draw her back from the shadows within her, “some part of you liked that.” He nodded back toward where they had sailed from, the dolphin-shaped island. “The search. The thrill of discovery. Even the chase.”

  “Not what happened to Athena. I didn’t like that. But everything else…” A tiny smile curved her lips, but she didn’t deny what he said. “I suppose that makes me mad, too.”

  “As much as the March Hare.”

  Though her smile was small, it didn’t fade. Such surprises she held, a continual unfolding mystery that he wasn’t sure he could ever weary of. Even the other female Blades he knew—including Athena, Thalia Huntley, and Astrid Bramfield—didn’t quite have the hunger for experience as London did, perhaps because they had known about the world and Sources for so much longer, yet he wasn’t entirely certain that was the only reason. There was something in London, an inner fire, that kept drawing him toward her, like a moth to light. The question was whether or not he’d burn up in this woman’s flame. For the first time in his life, he truly believed it might be so.

  Chapter 11

  The New World

  Though it had its moments of darkness, the day had unfolded in a series of small pleasures. She’d swam in a stream. Heard a genuine example of the Samalian-Thracian dialect. Felt the sun on her bare skin. Shared a meal with fishermen as their boats swayed at anchor, sung with them their songs. Watched Bennett dance, movements so potently masculine she was surprised she hadn’t simply climaxed on the spot from merely observing him.

  She had wanted to experience the world, and here she was, deeply enmeshed in life. It wasn’t all joy. Her father was out there, searching for her. The Heirs chased the Source, wanting to claim it for their own ruthless agenda. She still had no idea, if she should survive this mission, what would become of her afterward. Without a man controlling her life, away from the rules and structure of society, London was entirely free. Which meant there was nothing between her and the sheer drop into disaster. Nothing but herself.

  She alone guided her toward whatever she wanted. And what she wanted was Bennett.

  London pressed a hand to her chest as if her heart threatened to spring forth. It might. Beside her, Athena slept, still recovering. After the meal and music, the witch’s energy flagged, and London had taken her below to rest, then stayed with her to ensure her friend’s comfort. Athena quickly fell into a hard but honest sleep, but London, full of the day, could not find her slumber.

  London heard Bennett, Kallas, and the fishermen above deck, their voices low and masculine, as they boasted and told jokes that women shouldn’t hear. She heard their laughter, Bennett’s especially, and at the sound of him, slick heat gathered between her legs.

  She bit down on her lip, stifling commingled excitement and trepidation. London hadn’t even made love with Bennett yet, but she would. Even this agonizing anticipation filled her entire being with acute sensitivity, a reckless, giddy joy. London Edgeworth Harcourt, ornament of polite society, was no longer. A new woman was taking her place, one who chose her own path and took men of her own selecting.

  After she and Bennett had rejoined the company, there had been more music and stories and camaraderie, but there was anything but simple platonic friendship between her and Bennett. No one said anything about it. Yet, despite the tact shown by all, there was no denying the atmosphere of sensual possibility that turned the air thick and tangible. Bennett did not help matters. He stared at her all through the evening as if she were the dessert he planned to savor. London sported a continual blush, knowing she was flushed everywhere, even beneath her clothing.

  There was no room for fear or embarrassment, only a ready willingness to embrace sensation and experience. She would touch Bennett and he would touch her, and she would enter a new world.

  A brief consultation with Athena before that voyage. The witch had given London a foul-tasting tonic, the Galanos women’s secret to preventing conception. London was to drink it daily. She did so, and gladly, despite its noxious taste, for her world was too uncertain to risk bringing a child into it.

  She probably would not need the drink for some time, but London wanted to be certain, ready for any possibility. She needed to rest. The day, wonderful as it had been, was also long and draining. Sleep was what she needed, not fevered imaginings of what she wanted to do with, and to, Bennett.

  Sleep. How could she? She was tingling with life and felt ready to single-handedly row the caique to Spain and back.

  The sound of Bennett’s boots in the companionway nearly made London leap out of her bunk. She forced herself to lie still as she listened to his steps in the passageway, then he entered his cabin, closing the door behind him. Instead of jumping up and rushing to him immediately, as she wanted, London made herself wait a little longer. Perhaps he had things he needed to attend to, personal things. Maybe he would like a few minutes of solitude. And she wanted to prove to herself that she could wait, that she was strong enough to bide her time and think of other matters. For example, if she returned to Athens, she would make time to visit the antiquarian booksellers to see if she could find rare and arcane volumes on linguistics. Why, there could be books in and about languages she hardly knew, such as Phrygian, Volscian, Marrucinian, Illyrian, and—

  Oh, the hell with it.

  In a moment, London was up, across the passageway, in
to Bennett’s cabin and in his arms.

  “You took your time,” Bennett said, after surfacing from a long, deep kiss.

  London grabbed the back of his head and brought it down to her again. “I’ll have you know,” she said, breaking away for a moment, “that I waited, I believe, an agonizing five minutes before coming over here.”

  “Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds too long.” He enfolded her, kissing her with a burning need, his mouth hot, demanding, but she also had demands, and so they gave and took in a liquid fever. His hands were in her hair, along her sides, cupping her breasts, her waist, her bottom. Only that day she had seen the glory of his unclothed body, the sculpture and power of his muscles, and so what she felt beneath her own hands now had images, pictures of him branded into her mind.

  “What about Kallas?” she gasped between kisses.

  “He’s still up there with Stathis. They’ll be gossiping for hours.”

  “He won’t come down?”

  “Not for a long time. He knows.”

  She couldn’t even feel embarrassment that the captain knew exactly what was going to happen in his cabin. “Good.”

  “Still a little drunk?”

  “Not from wine.” London tugged at Bennett’s jacket, pulled at the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, even fumbled with the fastenings of his trousers. She had to feel his skin. She had to have him inside her.

  “There’s no rush, sweetheart.” He chuckled, low. He took hold of her hands, capturing them with his own. He kissed her fingertips.

  “I shall explode.”

  “When I let you.”

  London raised a brow. “Let me? So my pleasure is yours to bestow when you feel like it?”

  His grin flashed in the darkness. “Ah, there’s that fire I love.”

  “I shall see to my own pleasure, thank you,” she said. “Starting now. Take off your jacket and shirt.”