Scoundrel

by Zoë Archer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “But what can we do?” Athena asked.

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

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

  “I’ll find a way.”

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

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

  “All the impulsive ones are dead.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “And then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “No. Visiting someone at the hotel.”

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

  “Not a friend.”

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

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

  “What disreputable company you must keep, sir.”

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