Scoundrel

by Zoë Archer

  Once the gunner was gone, Edgeworth wheeled on the captain. “That’s twice now we’ve lost the Blades.”

  “You can’t blame me for the boiler,” protested the captain. “It was that witch.”

  Edgeworth didn’t care about excuses. “But your men cost me the Blades at the strait. By the time we got through those damned shoals, they’d slipped away.” With London. Hell, she’d been so bloody close. He’d watched her from the safety of the wheelhouse, using a spyglass, and saw her not only helping the Blades but—and this made his gut twist and sicken—kissing Bennett Day just before Day leapt off the caique to the shoals. It hadn’t been a little peck, either. Edgeworth’s revulsion was two-pronged. No father liked considering his daughter as a woman. Even worse was knowing, seeing, that London was taking not just any man to her bed, but none other than Edgeworth’s most despised enemy.

  Yet that gave him some comfort. It was simple seduction, not deliberate betrayal. Day used his skill as a seducer to manipulate London. Women didn’t have men’s capacity for logical thought. They let their wombs think for them. Right now, London was too much in Day’s sensual thrall to understand what she was doing was wrong.

  As her father, Edgeworth must correct her, discipline her. It was his duty. And once she’d been properly punished, he’d welcome her back into the fold, as his position within the Heirs demanded. Wedded, of course. She had to have a husband to control her.

  “But we’ll catch them again, sir,” said Fraser, interrupting his thoughts. “The Bloodseeker takes us straight to the Blades.”

  Edgeworth cut his eyes to Fraser. Smart enough, but not too smart. Thomas Fraser could keep London well contained, but be easily manipulated by Edgeworth.

  “Would you like to kill Day?” Edgeworth asked him.

  Fraser’s face lit up like a boy offered an orange on Boxing Day. “Yes, sir!”

  “When you get a chance to kill him,” said Edgeworth, “do it. Do it, and London is yours.”

  “Thank you, sir!” Fraser practically skipped away, heading to his cabin to presumably sharpen his favorite knife. Fraser liked using knives.

  When Chernock emerged from the shadows in his silent, unctuous way, Edgeworth contained his urge to shudder. It was damned handy keeping a sorcerer, but sometimes using magic rather than outright force gave Edgeworth an oily, unclean feeling that slithered through him like pools of grease floating on the Thames. Chernock stirred that feeling often.

  “What the hell are the Heirs paying you for?” Edgeworth snapped to hide his unease.

  “Neville Gibbs and Albert Staunton are working on the Primal Source as we speak,” said Chernock. “Only fitting, since they were the ones who retrieved it from Africa.” And managed to kill a Blade, Michael Bramfield, in the process, an additional benefit.

  “But what about here and now? Every time we get close to the Blades, they find a way to slide away.”

  The sorcerer never blinked and barely ate, more uncanny than human. If Edgeworth didn’t have a file on Chernock, detailing his undistinguished birth in Norwich, his educational career at Oxford with frequent dabblings in dark magic and alchemy, and his subsequent recruitment to the Heirs, Edgeworth would have hardly believed Chernock was an ordinary man.

  “We will catch up to them,” intoned Chernock. “And when we do,” he gave his memento mori smile, “I have something particularly special planned. Something I believe you will greatly enjoy.”

  “What is it?”

  So Chernock showed him. Edgeworth emerged from the wheelhouse, his face pale but his mouth curved in triumph. The Heirs were lucky to have a sorcerer like Chernock on their side. He could produce and harness monstrosities from which even the gods would hide.

  Kallas’s promise held true. Here, in an obscure corner of the Aegean, sat a little pearl of an island, barely two hundred acres, white rocky shores sloping down to white beaches and aquamarine water. Small, tenacious phrygana scrub clung, dusty and green, to the rocks, and purple wildflowers nodded sleepily in the afternoon breeze. Further back, pines formed pockets of shade and seclusion.

  The seclusion, London understood, was brief and illusory. No matter the distance she put between herself and her father, he kept finding her. The danger he presented never vanished. But she would allow herself a literal island of calm for just this night, knowing that she and her friends had a moment only to catch their breaths before the chase began anew in the morning.

  They had made anchor and waded onto the beach, even Kallas, lured away from his beloved boat by the miniature pleasures of the island. For the first time in nearly a week, London stood on dry land, her bare feet curling into the warm sand, Bennett tall and comfortable beside her. A rifle was slung over his broad shoulder. While her eye was drawn to the island, she could not stop watching him as he strode, long-legged and masculine, through the tall grasses that sprouted over the sand and rocks.

  He had never been pale, but life on the sea turned his skin golden, so in the contrast, his eyes were as clear and blue and warm as the waves that lapped at the beach. It was easy to see his Greek blood now in his gilded skin and dark hair curling and ruffled in the wind. She watched as he scaled a small, rocky hill, his body sleek, never showy in its motion, but possessing both economy and art. Only today, she had seen the beauty of him, the efficiency of his strength, running like a myth across the surface of the water, and his skill with a rifle—never bloodthirsty, but precise and sure.

  Now she watched the firm muscles of his legs as he climbed, and every so often, a fortuitous breeze came along and lifted the tails of his jacket so she was treated to a view of his edible backside. She had, during their nighttime trysts, felt those muscles tighten under her hands as he plunged into her hungry body, and their slickness as sweat covered both London and Bennett in their frenzy. The vivid memory sent a fast stab of need blazing through her. Last night felt very long ago.

  When he reached the top of the hill, he looked back, and, at London’s wave, smiled and waved before striding off to scout the island.

  “You look at him as if he is the last bottle of wine left in the world,” Athena said dryly, standing beside her.

  London barely blushed. She was now very familiar with her desire for Bennett. “I am a woman of exceptional thirst.”

  “And will it be quenched, that thirst?”

  London glanced over at her friend, considering. Her body still hummed with unallayed need for Bennett. It knew him now, and wanted him always. He’d been the match to her tinder. She could not douse the fire he had lit. How long would it last, this flame of need? She almost prayed it was soon, so, when the time came for their inevitable parting, the pain would not be too great. But she knew, deep within herself, that this hope was futile.

  Athena saw her answer in London’s face, and sympathy softened the witch’s expression. “Perhaps you are sorry.”

  “Not at all,” London said immediately. “I’m glad I was given this chance and I took it, no matter what happens after.” She looked over at Kallas, who had made himself comfortable on a large rock farther down the beach and was smoking his pipe in the afternoon sun, his eyes closed. He was a handsome man, rough like the coast, but possessing his own craggy charms.

  Athena followed London’s gaze, then frowned. “That man,” she said darkly. “I should push him overboard.”

  “I’m sure he can swim.”

  “But I cannot.”

  “If you want to get wet,” London said, with a smile, “take the plunge.”

  A glimmer of humor sparkled in the witch’s dark eyes, then rare uncertainty creased her brow. “And if I drown?”

  London understood that uncertainty. “Galanos women won’t drown. They always learn to swim.”

  Before Athena could respond, Bennett reappeared at the crest of the hill, his teeth white as he grinned with excitement. “Come and see,” he called down to them. “Kallas, you, too. Stop sunning yourself like a lizard.”

  The captain grumbled, but soon ev
eryone climbed the hill and was following Bennett through the shaded forest carpeting the island. Sharp and clean, pine needles scented the air. Even though Bennett had only just scouted the terrain, he held the lead as if born to do so, assured in his stride, never once hesitating or stumbling.

  “A little treat for us weary travelers,” he said, coming to a stop in a clearing. He waved toward a small, bubbling pool. The water was so clear, London could number each and every pebble lining the pond.

  Bennett smoothly knelt on one knee beside the pool and dipped a hand into it. He drank the water cupped in his palm, droplets escaping between his fingers to sparkle in the light. He resembled some forest god, a creature of darkness and sunshine.

  “Sweet and cold,” he said with a laugh.

  London had not realized how thirsty she was until she saw shimmering drops of water cling to Bennett’s neck and slide beneath the open collar of his shirt. She came forward, then sank to her knees to also drink from the pool. Just as Bennett had said, the water’s icy sweetness rolled down her throat, sending bright clarity into her belly. She scooped up handfuls of water and drank deeply, also letting the water run along her neck as some spilled from her hands.

  Her hands stopped in midair as she caught Bennett’s hot, hungry gaze on her.

  “Woodland nymph,” he rumbled for her ears alone.

  She only smiled at him, but it was a smile of wicked invitation. Even though it had been many hours since the danger at the strait, her still body held a shuddering hunger for release, release that only Bennett could provide.

  But that release would have to be delayed, for a little while longer. London made herself look away, at the pool, the trees, anything but Bennett, otherwise she’d launch herself at him right here and now, in front of Kallas and Athena. She felt much more free, that was true, but not so free that she wanted to make love with Bennett with an audience watching.

  After Kallas and Athena had also drank their fill from the pool, Bennett rose gracefully. London did notice, however, him slightly adjusting his trousers, and she bit down her smile. At least she wasn’t alone in this enormous, unshakable desire. “There’s more to see,” he said, and disappeared into the woods.

  When she, Kallas, and Athena caught up with him, they all stood and marveled. Set in another clearing, ruins glowed like ivory in the pine-shaded enclave. Several Doric columns lined up in varying states of erosion, forming the supports of what had been the roof. Lichen and years wore at the marble columns’ fluting. But the ruins’ isolation had been its boon, for one of the pediments still stood, supported by the columns, though the figures carved into it were barely visible.

  Stones set into the ground formed the ruins’ floor, and resting heavily upon it was a large marble block, waist-high, and wide around as a dining table. Some grasses sprouted between cracks in the block. Nearby, the remains of a statue of a woman lay half buried.

  “What is this place?” London breathed.

  “A temple,” said Athena. She examined the pediment. “Dedicated to the pool. A sacred spring.”

  “Like Bath in England,” Bennett murmured.

  Athena waved a hand. “That is Roman,” she said, dismissive of the entire empire. “This is Greek, and much older. For the goddess Demeter.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t disturb it,” ventured Kallas. He seemed slightly less in command on land than on the sea, glancing around with caution.

  “The goddess wants people to make use of her temple and her spring,” said Athena. “It pleases her.”

  “Then, by all means,” said Bennett, his eyes blue fire as he gazed at London, “let’s please the goddess.”

  Many things sharpened one’s appetite. Obviously, going without food was one of them. But there was also the aftermath of danger which could hone one’s hunger until sharp and keen. Bennett, in his work for the Blades, often found this to be the case. Most missions would have him face death, and he always emerged from those battles famished in more ways than one. That time near Tripoli, after he and Catullus Graves had gone up against a sand djinn under the Heirs’ control, Bennett had eaten platters of chicken stewed with dates, piles of fragrant couscous, and mountains of sweet almond biscuits, all washed down with many glasses of mint tea. After that substantial meal, Bennett had spent the rest of his evening disporting himself in a house of pleasure, exhausting several highly appreciative dancing girls before he finally succumbed to satiety.

  A sybarite, Catullus had called him, but not without a little admiration. Poor Catullus, a man of abstemious inclinations save where his inventions and his wardrobe were concerned. Food and women did not much capture Graves’s interest, not when there were so many ideas for diabolical devices rattling around in his brain, and so few truly fascinating women who could genuinely capture his interest long enough to look up from his workbench. And the man was addicted to waistcoats.

  Bennett was most definitely not Catullus. His needs were not complicated. He was a cryptographer for the Blades, but found his greatest pleasures not in papyri or codices but in the flesh. Action. Movement. Food. Sex.

  Today, he’d sailed through a strait riddled with traps, then played sniper at an advancing Heirs’ gunboat. Even if London hadn’t been nearby, his body would have been demanding gratification. But having her beside him, seeing how close she had come to danger, turned him into a beast he could hardly control. His need for her went far beyond his usual inclinations. If he’d had to, back in Tripoli, Bennett would have been able to suffice with a small meal and going straight to a solitary bed.

  Watching London sit, bare feet dangling over the deck of the caique as Kallas taught her to fish, Bennett knew that if he didn’t make love to her that night, if not sooner, he would lose his mind. He’d been hard and hot as newly forged iron since they’d left the strait, a condition that had not diminished one iota in the intervening hours. And it was because of her. Lovely, courageous, fiendishly clever, and open to the world’s experiences.

  He needed inside of her. Physically. Mentally. However he could. Right now, he would be satisfied only by everything.

  Dinner on the beach at sunset. Roast fish caught by Kallas and London. Wild greens picked by Athena. The meal could not go fast enough. Bennett wolfed down his food like a man breaking a fast. He hardly tasted anything. His mouth wanted only her flavors. He could barely speak during the evening conversation, reduced to monosyllabic replies. In the light of dusk, her hair golden, her eyes dark, laughing and talking, London could not be more beautiful, more desirable.

  And when her gaze caught his, the responding fire he saw there, Bennett felt sure he’d go up in flames and burn the island around him.

  Finally, finally, when the meal was done and the last drops of wine drunk, London rose from their gathering. Bennett leapt to his feet, not caring if Athena laughed at him or Kallas scowled at how readily he showed his need for London.

  He held out a hand to her as they moved away from Kallas and Athena. “Let’s walk.” His voice was no more than a growl, sounding from somewhere low in his chest.

  “A walk sounds perfect,” she said. “I want to explore the island some more.”

  “Don’t want to explore,” he rumbled. “Not the island, anyway.”

  With a small, timeless woman’s smile, she danced up the beach, toward the hill that led into the interior of the island. “But I do. There’s still that treasure to find.”

  “It’ll be there in the morning.”

  “This can’t wait.” She climbed up the hill quickly, far faster than she would have a week earlier, but he wasn’t much in the mood to appreciate her growing physical strength.

  Bennett muttered, “Neither can I,” yet he followed her, just the same.

  She truly was a nymph, and he a satyr, as she skipped ahead of him, flitting between the trees, humming bits of an old sea tune Stathis the fisherman had sung. Bennett stalked after her, intent, drawn forward by invisible hands. He caught glimpses of her dress, a gleam of her hair, as s
he darted around the pines, letting her rich, soft voice torment him.

  Had he wanted to, he could have caught her. Yet, even though he desperately wanted to touch her, he enjoyed this game, the playfulness of it, of her, and so, as she continued her dance, he followed, unhurried, steady.

  The sound of water bubbling reached him, and he stepped into the clearing that held the sacred spring. But London was already on the other side of the clearing, and she smiled at him as she slipped back into the forest. He paused for a few moments, helping himself to a cooling handful of water, then continued his steady pursuit.

  “Holy God,” he growled when he arrived at the ruined temple.

  London stood in the middle of the temple, next to the remains of the altar. She had already stripped off her clothing so she was quite, quite naked.

  “No,” she corrected him with a devilish smile. “Holy goddess.”

  Chapter 14

  The White Temple

  Bennett had been accused of being many things before: scoundrel, rogue, charmer, cheat, libertine—one of his favorites—and bastard. Most of those allegations were true. But no one ever accused him of being stupid.

  As soon as he saw London standing without a scrap of clothing in the middle of the temple ruins, her body a soft glow in the twilight, he immediately began to shuck his own clothes. Jacket first, thrown onto the ground. Then he started working on his waistcoat. The bloody buttons felt tiny under his shaking hands.

  “Slow a little,” said London, walking toward him. His hands stilled, and he stared, utterly mesmerized by the sight.

  Even though she was completely nude, she walked with absolute feminine confidence, the curves of her hips swaying with each step she took. His eyes roamed everywhere—the full roundness of her breasts, tipped with pale coral, the narrowing of her waist, the smooth satin of her arms and legs, the golden down between her thighs. In this sacred place, she was the embodiment of Woman, lush and alluring and so very, very powerful. He loved to see it in her, how much she had changed from the tethered lady he’d met in Monastiraki.