Scoundrel

by Zoë Archer

  “Exactly,” said Kallas. “She was several sails short of a clipper.”

  Athena made a noise of outrage.

  London smothered her laugh, then asked, “Where is Bennett?”

  With the stem of his pipe, Kallas pointed toward the stern of the boat.

  Leaving the witch and the sailor locked in their dispute, London picked her way toward the back of the caique. As she neared, she glanced around with a frown. Bennett wasn’t there.

  But he was. London got closer and saw him. Sprawled on his back along the decking, his head propped on a coil of rope, Bennett lay across the stern. His chest rose and fell in gentle swells. He was asleep.

  For a few moments, she watched him. He’d had the opportunity to watch her sleep back on Delos, and she seized her chance for reversal.

  His long legs stretched out, the fabric of his trousers outlining the clean shapes of his muscles. An athlete at rest, the subject for sculpture. His fingers interlaced over the breadth of his chest—she shivered, remembering how, last night, those deft fingers felt as they trailed along her spine, over the curve of her behind, and down her legs in a whisper caress. In sleep, his face was as beautiful as a night full of stars over the sea. Long, dark eyelashes that trembled slightly with dreams. His mouth, delectable, full, turned in a half smile, for even asleep there was lightness in his heart. A surge of tenderness swept through her.

  London realized that they never actually slept together. She always had to return to her cabin, so that, when Kallas’s shift at the helm was over, he had a bed to himself. She and Bennett might doze, briefly, but then it was time for her to struggle into her clothing and stagger across the passageway, and for him to go above. To wake beside him in the glow of morning, both of them warm and naked, talking of half-remembered dreams as they surfaced into wakefulness, it was a pleasure she might never experience.

  A pain tightened within her, but she struggled to banish it. No demands, she reminded herself. Nothing but now.

  She could watch him all day. Yet she didn’t want to wake him. Perhaps she would join Kallas and Athena’s disputation, even though she felt as though her presence was not necessary. The two Greeks always had some variety of argument brewing.

  London turned to go back, but at the faint sound of her skirts, Bennett opened his eyes. He saw her and smiled, stretching like a cat.

  “Don’t go,” he rumbled.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she said.

  “I’m already disturbed.” He reached out a hand toward her. “Sit with me.”

  She came forward and took his hand, reveling in the feel of his skin against hers. When he drew her down, she readily acquiesced, sitting cross-legged and cradling his head in her lap.

  “Mm,” he murmured, nuzzling her thigh. “Much better.”

  Even this turned her blood tropic. Her hands ran through his dark hair. Here was another of those moments, she realized, that she would return to many times over in the course of her life. “Poor beast,” she said, soft, “have I been wearing you out these past few nights?”

  “Worn down to the bone.” He took one of her hands and rubbed it against his cheek. Slight bristles prickled against her palm, and she adored the masculinity of it, of him.

  “Perhaps I should let you sleep at night instead of demanding ravishment.”

  His bright aqua eyes held hers, sharp and intense. “I’m not giving you up. Not even for a night. Either you come to my cabin or I go to yours.”

  “Athena might not appreciate that,” she said placidly, yet inside, she rioted, knowing that he needed her as much as she needed him.

  “She’s a grown woman,” he said with a shrug. “God knows she’s seen me doing worse.”

  London raised a brow. “So, you and she were lovers.” Try as she did, it was impossible to keep the edge from her voice.

  “A long time ago. Briefly.” He gripped London’s hand tighter. “But that means nothing. We’re friends now. Only friends.”

  London said, “I’m not quite as…sophisticated as you. I wonder how you’d feel if one of my former amours was on this boat. Not that I had any, but if I did.”

  “I’d tie raw steaks to him and throw him overboard. But not before beating him into a paste.”

  “Very bloodthirsty.”

  He flashed a vicious grin. “Love, where you’re concerned, you have no idea.”

  She bent forward and kissed him, mouths upside down. Then, for some time, they were quiet. She continued to stroke his hair, and he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, almost purring.

  “What kind of name is London?” he asked suddenly. “I’ve never met anybody with that name before.”

  Who knew what directions his clever mind would take? “My full name is Victoria Regina Gloriana London Edgeworth Harcourt.”

  “Great God, how cumbersome to embroider.”

  London chuckled. “Yes, well, my father is possessed of a rather overdeveloped patriotic fervor. When I was very small, everyone called me Victoria, but as soon as I learned to read—”

  “At the age of two.”

  “Four, Clever Britches,” she said, tugging hard on his hair. He grimaced comically. “When I was four,” she continued, loosening her hold, “I saw that everywhere we went in the city, my middle name kept popping up. On everything. Signs. Newspapers. Painted on the sides of wagons. And I thought that, if my name was everywhere, then everything belonged to me.”

  “A greedy little imp.”

  “Not greedy,” she defended. “I thought that our Queen could rule the country, and I would rule the city.”

  “Power mad,” he said sagely. “I knew it. Not so meek and mild, after all.”

  She shook her head at him, torn between amusement and exasperation. “So I insisted on being called ‘London.’ Miraculously, even my father agreed. And that is what I have gone by ever since.” Even speaking of her father cast a pall over what had been a lovely afternoon. She tried to turn the conversation to more pleasant topics. “And what about you? I’ve never met anyone named Bennett.”

  “My mother was, is, a great admirer of the novels of Miss Austen. Pride and Prejudice is one of her favorites.”

  “Lucky that you weren’t named Fitzwilliam.”

  “Tell that to my brother.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Fitzwilliam Darcy Day. Couldn’t even take refuge in his middle name. I believe it shaped him into the venal man he is today.” He sighed mournfully. “A barrister.”

  “My condolences,” she murmured, but a smile curved her mouth.

  They were smiling together in the Aegean sunlight when Kallas’s shout had them both leaping to their feet and running to the helm, hand in hand.

  “What’s wrong?” Bennett demanded, awake and alert.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Kallas answered. “But I thought you should know, we have been guided properly by your mirror. And me. Look.”

  He pointed off the portside bow, and London squeezed Bennett’s hand tightly. There, lined up in groups of seven, then three, and then nine, were tiny islands, more like the jagged peaks of a dragon’s teeth above water than true islands, but they were there just the same, as the mirror had directed. Her heart pounded. They were getting closer to the Source.

  London thought she saw something else. She darted into the quarterdeck house and returned with the spyglass, which she trained closer to the horizon. She observed dim, low shapes of two more islands, a narrow strait between them. It was precisely what Kallas and the mirror said they would find.

  “Are we going to have to sail through that?” London asked, pointing at the strait. The spyglass was passed around, each of them taking a turn to peer through it. “It seems hardly wide enough to fit a stout man, let alone a boat.”

  Everyone fell silent, considering this.

  “Now is the time for worrying,” Athena said.

  The caucus was brief and didn’t soothe anybody’s nerves. Bennett paced as they debated their options. A
s they neared the strait, it showed itself to be lined with spiked rocks, a tight squeeze for even the most adept seaman. Surely Scylla presented less of a threat.

  “What about sailing around it?” asked London.

  “Can’t,” Kallas answered. “The shoals are wide and treacherous. If we skirt them, the wind catches us and throws us far off course. We’d be halfway to Constantinople before we got our direction back.”

  “How are we supposed to sail through the shoals to get to the strait?” Athena asked.

  “Day, take the helm,” Kallas said. Bennett, knowing it was best to trust the knowledgeable captain, did as instructed, even though the strait approached quickly.

  Kallas ran to the bow of the boat and peered closely at the nearing shoals. He returned and took the wheel from Bennett.

  “There’s a narrow dip in the sands of the shoals. It’s deep enough to sail through.” His tone left no doubt that the captain, who had saltwater running through his veins, could do just that. Bennett was damned grateful that the captain hadn’t called upon him to perform the nigh-impossible task.

  The wind gathered in strength as the caique reached the edge of the shoals, as though pushing them toward it, toward the possibility of running aground. And beyond that, there loomed the dangerous rocks of the strait, and the likelihood of being smashed against them.

  Ordinarily, such prospects gave him a thrill, another chance for him to flirt with and escape from death. But there were other people to consider besides himself.

  “Either we sail through or turn back,” said Athena. “Those are our choices.”

  “I cannot turn back,” London answered.

  “Nor I,” Bennett seconded. “And you?” he asked both Kallas and Athena.

  Athena drew herself up, proud. “Galanos women never shy from danger.”

  “I’m going to forget you asked me that,” the captain growled to Bennett.

  Bennett nodded, satisfied, but couldn’t entirely smash a niggling fear that poked and jabbed at his heart. He realized it wasn’t his own skin he worried about. He glanced at London, watching, grave and courageous. The fear spiked. Bennett swore softly, and it didn’t help a damn. So he strode to her and took her mouth in a brief, demanding kiss. Her hands barely had time to cup his jaw before he moved away.

  Action removed doubt. They were at the shoals.

  “Man your stations,” Kallas barked, and Bennett was again all too glad to obey the order. He took the mainsail, with London at the jib and Athena at the foresail. They would all have to work quickly—the wind rammed them onward, giving no quarter or possibility of a sane, calm navigation. Both London and Athena struggled against their long hair blowing in their faces, and skirts tangling in their legs. Even Bennett felt the invisible, pitiless hands of the wind shoving at him, forcing him to anchor his legs to the deck to keep from being blown about like so much flotsam. Everyone crouched low, shielding themselves. They fought the wind, battling it.

  Kallas stood at the helm, his pipe stem held tight between his teeth as he threaded the caique through the tight confines of the shoals’ passage. But the captain grinned, his eyes burning bright. Bennett chuckled to himself. Kallas was breaching the shoals’ maidenhead, and felt a proprietary, feral pleasure in taking its innocence. He caught Bennett’s chuckle and laughed, as well. Athena and London stared at them in confusion. Bennett wasn’t about to tell the women why he and Kallas exulted. Only men knew the pleasure of breaching a narrow opening, sliding through the wet to find home.

  There wasn’t time for triumph. No sooner had the caique navigated the shoals than they were at the mouth of the strait, its red rock walls stretching steep and ominous against the perfect blue of the sky.

  Nowhere to go but onward. The end of the strait wasn’t far, but to Bennett’s eyes, it seemed leagues away.

  “We take the middle,” Kallas shouted above the wind. “Keep the sails close-hauled. London, don’t pull the jib flat. Keep a slot between the jib and the main. Day, trim the main. No one make them fast—we need them at hand.” He wrestled with the wheel as the steep, pitted faces of rock towered over them on both sides.

  They raced forward. Bennett kept his station, following Kallas’s yelled commands, as did Athena and London. Both women squinted in the harsh wind but stayed rooted to their posts. The sheer faces of rock crowded the boat on both sides, looming, close. It would take nerves of steel, and close cooperation between everyone on board, to make it through without tearing the hull to matchsticks.

  Beneath the wind, Bennett felt it. A rumble. Growing in depth and strength.

  He looked up.

  “Bollocks,” he muttered to himself, then shouted, “Watch your heads!”

  Everyone gazed upward, eyes wide.

  Kallas said something in Greek that Bennett couldn’t translate, but no doubt it was a filthy curse. London didn’t mind. She said the exact same thing a heartbeat later.

  A boulder came plummeting down the face of the cliff, bouncing off rocks. It skipped off an outcropping and headed for the bow of the boat. Exactly where London stood.

  Bennett ran and threw himself at London, sending them both slamming to the deck as the boulder shot across the bow. It shattered on the other cliff, spraying them with gravel.

  Seeing her close call, London turned shocked and grateful eyes to Bennett.

  “Stay at your posts!” bellowed Kallas. “There’s more!”

  Rocks of every size rained down on them. The smaller ones struck the hull and deck of the caique, splintering wood, and peppering everyone on board with bruises. Despite Kallas’s command, Bennett continued to shield London with his body.

  “Kallas needs you on the mainsail,” she said, her voice muffled. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  A rock clipped his right shoulder. Bennett swore. It would have hit London if he hadn’t been covering her.

  When he didn’t move, she shoved at him. “I’m not made of porcelain. And the boat needs you. Needs us,” she added, glancing up at the unattended jib, clattering in the wind.

  He reluctantly peeled himself away, knowing she was right. He took up the mainsail and saw London return to manning the jib. Small rocks pelted her. She winced from the impact but didn’t leave her post, holding the jib tight. Bennett cursed, hating to think of her hurt.

  Kallas grappled with the wheel as heavy boulders crashed into the waters just off the starboard bow. Water splashed up, soaking London and Bennett.

  More boulders tumbled into the water along the starboard side of the boat. Even in the chaos, Bennett wondered why the rocks were coming down only on one side, and not both. The ancients always protected their Sources well. They were leaving too much of an opening on the port side.

  “I’m taking her port!” Kallas yelled. He began to turn the wheel to make the adjustment.

  No, something wasn’t quite right.

  “Hold, Kallas!” Bennett shouted back. “Keep us starboard!”

  “We’ll be flattened,” the captain growled, still turning the wheel.

  Bennett dove from his post by the mainsail to wrestle the wheel back. The two men grappled while London and Athena could only look on in horrified confusion.

  “Give me back my damned wheel,” Kallas snarled. He punched Bennett in the ribs, not hard enough to break anything, but enough to hurt like hell. A punch like that would have finished most men, but Bennett held on.

  He gritted, “No—Kallas, you ass—that’s what they want.” Bennett dug his heels into the deck and held fast. Kallas was as strong as men nearly twice the captain’s size. He had to be part minotaur.

  “Who?” demanded Kallas.

  “Just…trust me,” Bennett said, panting with effort. “I know how…these things…work.” He gripped the wheel, keeping them to the right.

  Just as the last rocks and boulders tumbled down, the boat rocked, listing starboard. An ungodly roar. From the sea floor, giant stone pillars three feet wide and tall as trees, shot up on the left.

  K
allas’s curse and Athena’s prayers split the air. London hunkered beneath the jibsheets as displaced seawater washed over the bow. The hull of the boat just grazed the pillars as Bennett and Kallas both steered the caique away from them.

  If they had sailed away from the rocks, they and the boat would have been mercilessly shattered on the pillars. This was plainly written on everyone’s faces, including a pale but steady London, who looked at Bennett with wide eyes.

  “How did you know?” the captain asked. “About the rocks and those pillars?”

  “Counterbalance mechanism. Boulders tip the weight, pillars come up.”

  There wasn’t time to discuss matters further. The pillars lined the port side of the rest of the strait, cutting their maneuvering room in half. Bennett strode back to the mainsail as Kallas issued more orders for the boat to tack.

  The hull of the caique scraped against the spikes, gouging the wooden planks. Kallas guided the boat away from them. On the starboard side, the rocky cliffs grated the hull before their course was corrected. Everyone shuddered at the sounds, knowing that it could have been much, much worse.

  And then it did get worse.

  Cannon fire thundered over the wind. The boat shook with the percussion as pebbles clattered down, rattled loose from the cliffs. Bennett glanced back.

  “Set another place at the table!” he shouted.

  Everyone followed his gaze.

  “Oh, hell,” said London.

  The Heirs’ ship was just entering the strait. Their sails were down, instead using steam to power their way. Which meant they weren’t at the mercy of the wind, like the caique.

  “Maybe the fallen boulders will stop them,” said Athena.

  Bennett shook his head. “Not so easy to lose those bastards. Look where their guns are aimed.”

  The steamship’s cannons pointed at the boulders piled up along the starboard side. Then, with a tremendous boom, the guns fired.

  Boulders exploded into gravel. One moment, giant rocks blocked the strait, and then, with a roar, they turned to dust. Kallas had guided the caique carefully around the boulders, but the Heirs took their usual subtle approach by blowing the huge rocks straight to Hades.