Rake Most Likely to Sin

by Bronwyn Scott

  The boat was a tiny speck on the horizon and Castor’s smile broadened. Brennan Carr was on the boat. Patra had done a neat job of it. They’d quarrelled in the agora, over what wasn’t quite clear, but it had happened in front of witnesses and news had spread. They had parted ways, their flirtation short lived, hardly having survived the month. Castor had seen the smug, knowing smiles on the faces of the young girls who might have fancied Carr for themselves. He knew that particular attitude very well. If they couldn’t have the handsome young Englishman, then they didn’t want anyone else to either. They were glad the older widow had failed. The older women had closed ranks and consoled Patra. It all went the way these things go in small villages where everyone’s lives are an open book.

  That was the problem. Patra had done too neat a job of it. And so had Carr. He’d been suitably mad, swearing loudly he was done here, imploring Zabros to take him in the boat to who knew where, anywhere but here, apparently. He said all the things a man said when his heart was broken, or his marriage was tormenting him. Castor had heard enough men complain about women in his lifetime to know the script. Carr was executing it flawlessly.

  Frankly, it made Castor suspicious. He knew why Patra had gone from lovesick sweetheart to disenchanted shrew in the matter of twenty-four hours. Patra was playing a part. But Carr? Carr, who had been on the verge of winning over the village? This about-face might have been executed with a perfection worthy of the stage, but that was just it. It was a performance only. How could it be otherwise? Castor knew from personal experience no one fell out of love with Patra that fast. If Patra was his, there was no way he’d leave her over one measly fight.

  There it was in a nutshell: he wasn’t entirely convinced Brennan Carr planned to be gone for good. What was that old folk wisdom about loving people? ‘If you love them, set them free. If they’re truly yours, they’ll come back.’ Fortunately, Castor had that contingency covered. That particular conclusion operated under certain assumptions. For instance, it assumed the newly freed could come back. It wasn’t always possible. When it became clear Zabros was taking the boat, there’d been enough time for Castor to make some arrangements of his own.

  Castor watched the boat disappear entirely from view. He took out his pocket watch. The possibility to return would diminish considerably in about two hours. Castor had a little something planned to ensure Carr’s departure was of a more permanent nature than what he might have otherwise intended. Of course, Carr was welcome to come back; that was if he didn’t drown first.

  He shut the watch and put it back in his pocket. Patra would be devastated; a second man gone off to his death with her hot words in his ears. She’d not wanted Dimitri to go and she had made no secret of her displeasure. But Castor would be on hand to console her and this time, perhaps she’d come to appreciate what he had to offer her. He would forgive her words last night. Perhaps this time, she would know better than to refuse.

  Castor let satisfaction fill him. He’d planned this brilliantly. He’d waited for her for twelve years. Just a few more minutes—and then she’d be his. His patience and ambitions were about to be rewarded. Patra would be his and with luck an outraged Britain would come to the Filiki’s aid once it was learned an innocent Englishman abroad had been killed, perhaps by those who refused to heed the London protocols. The Filiki would have what they wanted and he would have what he wanted. He began the countdown in his head. Five, four, three, two, one...

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The explosion caught Patra unawares in the marketplace, the sound of it tearing through the agora even from a distance. For a moment she was struck dumb with ignorance. What could that be? She’d been lost in her own thoughts. Her own drama had made the world recede. Then people around her began to scream. Above the din of sudden panic, she heard the words, ‘The harbour!’ Her next thought was Brennan. That was when she began to run.

  Running seemed to make her brain work better, too. Everyone was running, the street down to the harbour was crowded. Later, she would think how it made little sense to run towards trouble. People ought to have been running away from it. But at the time, they had no idea what it was. She wished it could have stayed that way.

  Patra pushed her way through the crowd out on to the pier. ‘What has happened?’ She found a man with a spyglass and tugged at his arm until he answered. Her voice rose in panic as her eyes caught sight of the smoke plume rising up over the water. How could something go wrong? He’d only just left. Konstantine and he had sailed away not even twenty minutes ago. The boat was still visible from shore. The boat... Her stomach tightened with sickening realisation.

  The man beside her lowered the spyglass and gave a slow, shocked shake of his head, his words confirming her fear. ‘Zabros’s boat has exploded.’

  The plume of smoke took on new meaning for her. The boat was destroyed, blown to bits. ‘Survivors?’ she asked desperately. But she already knew. How could there be? She’d heard the force of that explosion all the way in the market. She didn’t wait for an answer. She snatched the spyglass from his hand and held it to her eye. She wished she hadn’t, but Patra forced herself to look anyway; forced herself to look at the splintered planks of wood, at the sailcloth limp and heavy in the water; forced herself to search the water for the only thing that mattered—a body, proof.

  She swung the spyglass wildly over the waters, seeking horrible confirmation, or horrible hope that, somehow, Brennan had managed to escape. She needed to see him, needed to know. She’d not seen Dimitri again even in death. He’d been buried at Modon. The helplessness she’d felt when she’d learned of his death crept over her, determined to claim her. He’d been dead weeks before she’d known it. But not this time. Brennan’s death would not go unmarked as his had. She would bear witness to it.

  The first piece of proof lay near the sails. A shirt, white like the sails. Perhaps it was only sails. She let the spyglass linger on it until she was disappointingly sure. It was indeed a shirt and Brennan was always so fond of not wearing his. Of course it would have been off. An image of him in those last unsuspecting moments filled her mind: Brennan shirtless, his auburn hair messy from the breeze, his muscles flexing as he hoisted a sail, the sun on his skin, his laughter on the wind. He would be laughing, somehow she just knew he would have been. And maybe he’d been thinking of her, thinking of them being together again. ‘In two short days, we’ll be together always.’ Those had been his last words. They weren’t supposed to be his last words to her for ever. He was supposed to double back and meet her at St Spyridon’s. He would, he promised, she told herself fiercely.

  It was only a shirt, some part of her tried to argue. Shirts weren’t bodies. Hope was indeed a resilient thing. Her fingers had the spyglass in a death grip. The man beside her attempted to pry it from her, but she wouldn’t let go. Brennan had to be out there somewhere, she would not let go until she found him. Panic, grief, guilt made her wild and strong. By God, she’d swim out there and drag his body back herself if she had to. It was the least she could do, to atone for her failings both past and present. She should never have let Brennan put himself in the middle of this. She should have turned him away from the beginning. The old guilt, the old arguments swamped her and she started to tremble. She’d known how this would end, she could have stopped it by not starting it.

  Her jerky sweeping motions slowed. She could have stopped a boat from exploding? Did she truly believe that? Her hand stilled on the spyglass as she realised what that thought meant, what conclusions it led to. If she could stop it, it meant she had caused it, had somehow been responsible for it. There was only one way she could have caused such a thing to happen. Castor had done this.

  A new type of grief overtook her. This wasn’t about an accident claiming Brennan and Kon. This was about one man’s diabolical, covetous revenge. The thought made her sick. She felt her stomach roil and clench, then she was on her knees, r
etching on the wharf, the spyglass rolling out of her grip. She didn’t need it any more. She knew. While everyone around her speculated their fears about what had happened, she knew. Oh, God, she knew. She went to pieces then: retching, sobbing, gasping her grief and her anger in incoherent sounds. Somewhere in her mind, there was an errant thought that she should go to Lydia. Konstantine had been on that boat, too. But she couldn’t get to her feet. She was incapable of anything but making terrible sounds.

  A cry went up near her and she rallied the last of her sanity. The man with the spyglass knelt beside her, gentle hands at her back. ‘There’s a body floating in the water. I’m sorry.’

  Patra yanked on his lapels, holding him close in her wild misery. ‘Only one? Not two?’ Brennan was a good swimmer. But the next moment she hated her thoughts. What kind of a friend was she to hope that body was Kon’s and not Brennan’s?

  ‘No one survives an explosion like that.’ He was trying to loosen her fingers, but she held on. Someone was screaming. Was that her? Hands closed about her, arms pulled her away, strong arms, a man’s arms.

  ‘Patra, it’s awful, I came as soon as I could. Come with me, let me take you somewhere quiet.’ She should not trust those tones meant to soothe and cajole her into peace. She should fight, but her strength was gone.

  Castor knelt beside her, his face close to hers. She did fight then, the sight of him summoning her anger, giving it power over her grief. ‘You did this!’ She struck out at him with a fist, catching him across the jaw. He fell backwards from his crouch. Her mind was too full of thoughts to pick one; she had to get away. She had to make Castor pay. She had to find Brennan. In her anger, she flung herself at Castor, fists pounding, nails scratching. She cursed him with every suitable word she knew. ‘You killed him, you killed him! You whoreson! Murderer!’

  In her anger and her fear, she was no match for him with his cool logic and playacting. ‘Patra, you don’t know what you’re saying.’ He let her pound him once more with her fists before catching her wrists in his grip. ‘You’re in shock.’

  ‘You killed him!’ She struggled to get free and couldn’t. He was too strong and she was too spent. Would no one help her? Couldn’t anyone see he was murderer twice over?

  ‘Patra, let me help you,’ he coaxed. But she would not be helped. He wanted to lead her away from the crowd, but she couldn’t allow that. Brennan would never find her if she did that. Patra dug in her heels, refusing to budge. ‘I can’t leave. He might be out there, Brennan might be out there.’ Her voice broke.

  Castor’s voice was low at her ear, her body crushed to his in an attempt to restrain her. ‘He is out there, Patra. I assure you. But he is not alive. Let someone else find him.’

  She felt the strength of his grip on her shoulder where shoulder meets neck. It was too tight, too painful. She was starting to see black in her vision. ‘You killed him,’ she managed to say once more before her body became impossibly heavy and everything went dark. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more. Everything that mattered had been on that boat. It was over.

  * * *

  It wasn’t over. Patra was somewhat surprised by the realisation, her mind waking up before she risked opening her eyes. What wasn’t over? Now her mind was waking up too fast. She would have preferred the blissful fog of half-sleep. Now it came back to her. Brennan was dead. Was that true? There was no body. Correction, there was one body. There was a shirt, his shirt. Where there was one body, there was bound to be another. She’d seen the debris. If she could have looked longer, if she’d had more time, she would have found him. She knew it. Perhaps she should be glad she hadn’t found him, hadn’t seen the physical perfection of him ruined, his body torn apart.

  Her stomach started to churn again, nauseated at the thought of Brennan destroyed. She fought back the urge to vomit. It would require movement, sitting up, rolling to her side. Too much effort. She didn’t want to make any effort ever again for anything...

  * * *

  Brennan threw the tavern door open, bellowing and wet, followed by a dripping Konstantine.

  ‘Where’s Patra?’

  He strode through the taproom, underestimating the effect the appearance of a dead man can have on a crowd, let alone two. The room fell silent. He hadn’t the patience for it. The moment he and Konstantine had made the shore, he’d run to the house only to find it empty. He’d even chanced a visit to the hill, but there’d been no sign of her. Fears had started to ignite. The tavern was his last hope.

  ‘Apollonius!’ Brennan yelled, his foot smashing open the parlour door, his knife drawn. He wanted to find her here and Apollonius with her. He wanted to end it. But the parlour was deserted. There was no sign she’d ever been there. Brennan lowered his knife and faced the taproom. ‘Where is he? Where is the murdering bastard?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ a man called out. ‘Our guess is that he left while we were still preoccupied with the boat explosion.’ And Brennan’s guess was that Patra was with him.

  ‘How is it you’re still alive?’ another called out. Brennan left the explanations to Konstantine, how a last-minute shipment of barrels needing transport had been rolled aboard. But Brennan and Kon had been on the alert for some trickery and it hadn’t taken them long to row out far enough to vacate the boat without being noticed. They’d evacuated just in time and watched Kon’s boat explode at a safe distance.

  ‘But what about the body in the water? We saw it,’ another put in.

  ‘His secretary,’ Kon supplied grimly. ‘The body was already dead and stuffed in one of the barrels.’ That had nearly made Brennan retch.

  ‘And now he has Patra,’ Brennan put in, bringing everyone’s attention back to what mattered most. There could be no doubt now that Patra had told the truth last night. She was gone and the bastard hadn’t even blinked about murdering his secretary just to have a body floating in the water to convince everyone Kon and Brennan were dead on the off-chance they weren’t. The more Brennan thought about it, the more he believed the body had been put there for Patra’s sake—to persuade her instantly there was no hope of survivors. Such proof would break her.

  Brennan shoved his knife into its sheath. She must be terrified and she would be destroyed with guilt. She’d been in the marketplace, she would have seen the explosion, even the body at a distance. She would think he was dead, that there was nothing to fight for. She would blame herself. It was a nightmare come to life for her again. ‘I am going after her. When I find her, I am going to kill Apollonius.’ Never mind, he didn’t know where to look. He hadn’t the faintest idea of the direction Castor had headed.

  A man rose from a table—Alexei Katsaro. ‘He would have headed overland. The harbour was too crowded, too busy. He would have been noticed trying to put out in the boat.’

  Brennan nodded and turned to go. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Wait,’ Alexei called out. ‘I’ll go with you. You said some things last night that have needed saying for a long time. We won’t be pawns any more.’

  ‘I’ll go, too.’ Spiro Anastas stood. ‘You’ve taken care of my old mother when we’ve sent her to the market with few coins. This is the least I can do for a friend.’

  Another man rose. ‘You fed my children when my wife was sick and I was gone for months for work.’

  ‘You helped me with my olive harvest when my son was hurt.’

  ‘You gave my son a job mending nets.’

  ‘You played with my children.’

  Men rose, voices filled the tavern; their kindness overwhelmed Brennan. ‘Those were simple acts,’ he protested. He didn’t warrant praise for them. Old women didn’t deserve to starve, boys needed their pride as they became men. He’d only done what was right.

  ‘They still needed doing and you did them,’ Spiro Anastas said solemnly. ‘We’re coming with you. We’ve all lost so much to Captain Apol
lonius, we aren’t going to lose you, too.’

  The innkeeper brought him a leather bag and a canteen. The barmaids were already distributing canteens to the others. Kon slapped him on the back with a grin. ‘Haven’t you learned you can’t do anything in this village alone?’ Then he sobered. ‘You’re one of us, Brennan. You don’t need to marry for it, you don’t need to take up a cause for it. You’ve already proven it just by being you.’

  ‘We have to find her, Kon,’ Brennan murmured, slinging the leather satchel over his shoulder bandolier-style.

  Kon put an arm around him. ‘We will.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She was waking up, remembering the rest of it: why she hadn’t had more time to find Brennan. Castor. He’d been there, dragging her to her feet, resisting her meagre attempts at annihilation, imprisoning her in his arms. The world had gone black.

  She didn’t have a choice. She had to open her eyes. Had to figure out where Castor had taken her. She was surprised to note that apparently something did still matter. A little flame of life still flickered inside her. She had to avenge Brennan. She had to stop Castor from killing innocents again.

  Patra pushed herself up, eyes opening, her body physically aware of her surroundings for the first time. This was no bed she was on, but a stone slab, a ledge cut from the side of a wall. It was dark except for the light of a lantern. A cave, perhaps? She swung her feet over the edge of her makeshift bed and found floor. It wasn’t a high ledge, then. There was something liberating in the knowledge. She was free to move around. The ledge wasn’t meant to be her prison.

  It was a silly reassurance. What did that mean? What could she do with her freedom? She was in a cave with no idea of her location. How far from Kardamyli had Castor brought her? Were they close to the sea? Up in the hills?