“But—but that must have taken years!”
“I can assure you, this operation has been years in the making. Devos and Sylvia had to learn something about antiquities, then Sylvia had to recreate herself as a French-woman and find a wealthy man to seduce—”
“And having lost his wife years earlier, Mr. Grimes was ripe for the attentions of an attractive woman,” I concluded. Mr. Grimes had never pretended Sylvia was the love of his life, but I found myself hoping he would never know to what extent he’d been taken in. “He knew she was interested in him for his money, but I’ll bet he never guessed the half of it. I hope not, anyway. I suppose it’s a mercy, as far as Mr. Grimes is concerned, that she died before the whole thing blew up in her face.”
“It’s certainly blowing up in Devos’s, even as we speak. The port authorities have searched his stateroom, where they found some very interesting items that you won’t see in any of the souvenir shops.” He laid his hand over mine, where I held onto the railing. “I would have been here sooner to see about you—God, I was never so scared in my life as when I saw you being brought in!—but I was called in to identify Devos’s little trinkets.”
“And?”
“And they were—what is the word?—the real McCoy? Is that it?” Receiving a nod from me, he continued. “The two larger vases and the statue you described to me are Greek, from the first or second century before Christ; the rest are Etruscan, and are even older—I would put the pieces at the fifth through the sixth centuries B.C., although that is just a guess. An expert in Etruscan art will be able to date them more exactly.”
“So you were right about everything!”
“Not just me,” he demurred hastily. “A great many people have been working on this for a very long time—although we might never have been able to prove it, had you not decided to wander about the deck at midnight.” Turning away from me, he gazed out over the lagoon and added diffidently, “This habit of wandering about on your own is going to get you in trouble someday—even more than it has already. If that fiancé of yours is wise, he will put a stop to it once you are married.”
“Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson.” Following his example, I looked away, staring with great intensity at the lights dotting the far side of the lagoon. “In fact, I’ve learned a lot on this voyage.”
He turned back to me abruptly, with an arrested expression lighting his dark eyes. “Like what?”
“Like trusting my instincts. If something seems a bit ‘off’ to me, then it probably is—whether it’s one man throwing a log overboard, or another man refusing to set a wedding date.”
“Meaning?” prompted Markos, moving nearer.
I took a deep breath. “Meaning I’ve come to realize that the reason Gene won’t set a date is that deep down inside, he really doesn’t want to marry me. And the reason I’ve let him get away with it for so long is that deep down inside, I don’t really want to marry him either.” I gave a shaky little laugh. “A very educational trip, wouldn’t you say? My only regret is that I lost all the photos I’d taken of Venice.”
Markos grinned. “You can take new ones on your honeymoon.”
Suddenly it was all too much, and his laughing at my broken engagement was the last straw. Tears welled up in my eyes, although I couldn’t have said exactly why I was crying. “What honeymoon? I just said I’m not going to marry Gene!”
“I’m not talking about Gene,” Markos said, and pulled me into his arms.
“Well?” he said when at last we broke apart, breathless. “Do you think you could bring yourself to marry a minor bureaucrat who dabbles in art and photography on the side? What do your instincts say to that?”
I started to protest that we hadn’t known each other long enough, but the words stuck in my throat. I’d known Gene forever, had dated him for almost ten years, but as Maggie had said, long acquaintance hadn’t been enough. On the other hand, I’d met Markos only a couple of weeks earlier, and yet when Devos had pointed out the seemingly indisputable evidence against him, I’d known—known—that I could trust Markos with my life. I could put that knowledge to the test and marry him, or I could play it safe, could walk down the gangway of the Oceanus in the morning and out of his life forever—and, perhaps, could spend the rest of my life regretting the opportunity I’d lost. I remembered what my aunt had said about seizing the day, and suddenly there was only one answer.
“My instincts say I’d better start learning Greek,” I said, and we kissed again.
Author’s Note
As a teenager in the mid-1970s, I was a voracious reader of the romantic suspense novels of Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and others who wrote in a similar vein. To this day, I attribute my love of travel to a steady diet of these tales of love and danger set in exotic locales. When my husband and I went on a Mediterranean cruise in 2015, I decided to try my hand at writing such a book as a way of sharing my experience with readers, and as a tribute to the women whose works brought so many hours of enjoyment and served as a window on the wider world to a girl growing up in rural Alabama.
So, how much was real and how much was a product of my imagination? First of all, if there was any sort of skullduggery going on amongst our fellow passengers, I never knew of it. There was a couple onboard that I dubbed the Mistress and the Sugar Daddy, however, who looked very much as I’ve described them here. We caught glimpses of them on the ship from time to time, as well as ashore in Pompeii—so like any good fiction writer, I came up with several wholly speculative explanations as to the nature of their relationship. When I decided to write a book based on some of the places we’d seen, it seemed only natural to include them.
Speaking of Pompeii, it was hot the day we visited, so I bought a cheap plastic fan from a vendor just outside the ruins, a purchase I’ve attributed to Mrs. Hollis here. (It was the best five euros I ever spent, and more than one of my fellow passengers expressed envy.) Like Robin, I found the aggressive salesmen in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar too over-whelming to do much shopping there—and unlike Robin, I had my six-foot five-inch husband along to discourage them. (It didn’t seem to make much difference; they simply tried to sell him a “genuine leather jacket.” Whether it was genuine leather or not, I have no idea, but thirty-five years of experience in buying his clothes has taught me that the sleeves would almost certainly have been two inches too short.)
I was the one who bought a pair of shoes in Rome at a shop near the Spanish Steps when the sandals I was wearing rubbed blisters on my feet (probably the only thing Sylvia and I have in common), and I awoke one night to choppy seas and the soft clicking of the unused hangers in my closet—an incident I decided would make a spooky “false alarm” for Robin, thus making her less likely to trust her own judgment even when she had good reason to be concerned.
Of course, not all of the real-life incidents I borrowed for this book took place on the cruise. The “tuna fish” episode Robin recounts from her college days actually took place in my own French class at the University of South Alabama.
As for the other ports of call described in this book, my husband and I visited every one of them, although we didn’t necessarily have as much time to spend in each one as Robin did. (We didn’t get to climb the Leaning Tower while we were in Pisa, for instance; the line there, as well as the ones at St. Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace in Venice and at Rome’s Sistine Chapel, made those at Walt Disney World look short by comparison!) I’ve tried to draw word pictures for you, but if you’d like to see actual photographs from my trip, as well as pictures of early 1960s fashions and a real caga tió, you can find them on the Pinterest board I created just to go along with this book, https://www.pinterest.com/ cobbsouth/moon-over-the-mediterranean.
About the Author
Sheri Cobb South is the author of more than twenty books, including the critically acclaimed Regency romance The Weaver Takes a Wife and a historical mystery series featuring idealistic young Bow Street Runner John Pickett. The latter was r
ecently included in a USA Today book blog piece on historical mysteries with strong romantic elements. Her works have also been released in large-print and audiobook editions, translated into half a dozen languages, and recorded by the Library of Congress as part of its Books for the Blind program.
For more information on Sheri and her books, visit her website at www.shericobbsouth.com, or “Like” her author page at https://www.facebook.com/SheriCobbSouth.
MOON OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN
©2017 by Sheri Cobb South. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Moon over the Mediterranean Page 21