Part 9 (1/2)
She lay on her back, her hair loose about her shoulders in waves of silk, one arm upraised and curved around her head in a gesture of unconscious grace. Upon her stomach curled her other hand, rising and falling with her breath. The forms of her legs s.h.i.+fted underneath the fabric of her skirt. In the quiet of the tent, the intimate sound sent excruciating pleasure shooting through him.
Her s.h.i.+rtwaist had been cast off. Above the waist, she wore only her chemise and a lightweight corset. His mouth watered. He wanted fiercely to lick the skin of her bare, pale shoulders, the honeyed expanse of flesh above the chemise's neckline, delve his tongue into the shadowed valley between the small, perfect rounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His fingers twitched, desperate to finish unfastening her corset, peel it away to reveal the woman underneath. She would be warm and pliant yet firm.
He could take her, now, as she slept in this tent. Slip his hands up her skirt, between her legs, tease her into slick readiness before he slid his aching c.o.c.k into her. Her o.r.g.a.s.m would wake her just in time for his release.
You're a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and a cad, Ben, he thought. And you picked the worst time to cultivate scruples. Idiot. And you picked the worst time to cultivate scruples. Idiot.
Instead of putting his lips to hers, he covered her mouth with his hand. Her eyes opened immediately, her body tensing.
”They're just outside,” he whispered.
When she nodded, he removed his hand and craved the feel of her lips against his palm again. He moved back slightly as she swung her legs around, sat up, and looked at him. For a moment, they each did nothing but stare at the other.
”I am surprised to see you here.” Her words were barely audible.
”You thought I'd toss the world's problems into your lap and skip away to my next seduction.”
When she did not answer, he knew she entertained that very possibility.
”Think what you like of me as a man.” He eased from kneeling into a ready crouch. ”But I'm also a Blade. We have codes and honor.”
”Honor enough to kill.”
So. She knew. He refused to look away. ”If we must. The Blades hold life sacred, but there are times when we've no choice.”
”The needs of the many, et cetera.” Even in a whisper, her voice cut. There was a new hardness in her that hadn't been there a few days ago. ”When did you know?” she asked. ”Was it in the marketplace in Monastiraki? The garden of the hotel? Did it amuse you to flirt with the widow of the enemy you had slain?”
”After I left you in the garden,” he said. ”I heard you with your father and Fraser. That's when I knew.”
She tipped up her chin. ”On the caique. You said nothing about it. You...kissed me, knowing.” She neared a shattering point, her words were so brittle.
”We made the G.o.ds jealous with such a kiss.” And carved him apart, but he hadn't minded the sacrifice, not at all, and that surprised him.
”You killed Lawrence.”
He nodded.
”Why do you not defend yourself?”
”Because it's done. And it had to be done.”
London glanced down and noticed she wore no s.h.i.+rt. She quickly stood and grabbed the s.h.i.+rtwaist. She tightened the fastenings of her corset, then slid her arms into the sleeves, saying, ”What a wonderful thing it must be, to be a man. To act and d.a.m.n the consequences.” She began to b.u.t.ton the s.h.i.+rt with quick, precise fingers.
He also rose to his full height and stalked to her. ”Every day I live with the consequences.”
”While women like me live without their husbands, their fathers and brothers.” Finished b.u.t.toning, she tucked the s.h.i.+rt in, sealing herself off.
”That's right,” he answered, clipped. His anger surprised him. He never got angry. ”And you're right in the middle of them, giving them a soft place to lay their heads after a hard day of thievery and subjugation and murder.”
She turned away. A palpable hit. Yet he took no pleasure from it.
He saw, draped over a corner of the desk, the gold scarf he'd tied around her waist in Monastiraki. She'd kept it, and kept it close.
She saw the direction of his gaze, and flushed.
”London,” he said.
”They were wrong, you know.” She fiddled with the books on the desk, aligning them. ”They believed I could translate the ruins, brought me all the way to Greece. But I can make no sense of them.” She waved at the laid-out papers. ”The words have come, yet they tell me nothing.” She gave a harsh rasp that might have been a laugh. ”So the joke is on everyone, especially me.”
He suppressed the urge to put his hands on her shoulders, comfort her. Instead, he said, ”Show me.”
She pushed the papers into his hands, then crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the desk, facing him.
For some moments, the only sounds came from outside the tent as his most hated enemies ate their supper of roast lamb, laughed, and talked of astronomy. A revolver was holstered on Bennett's belt. He could simply walk outside and start shooting. The guards would kill him, of course, but not before he took out at least Edgeworth and Fraser. Without them, especially Edgeworth, the Heirs would be crippled, giving the Blades a much-needed advantage.
But he'd spoken the truth to London. Blades had a code. And it did not condone deliberate, callous murder. No matter what London Harcourt believed.
He studied the papers and her feminine but purposeful handwriting. What she had translated created sentences, yet they were as opaque as ebony. Voices split cypress. Old chorus grasps water. The dolphin pathway sings. Voices split cypress. Old chorus grasps water. The dolphin pathway sings.
”A riddle,” he said. He handed her the papers. ”Blades see them often, searching for Sources. d.a.m.n ancients loved their riddles. Nothing better to do with their time.”
”Then perhaps the Blades can solve this riddle, for I cannot.” She set the papers down, and her expression was closed off as she turned her eyes to Bennett. ”You can't stay. Sally will be back any moment. She'll alert my father if she finds you here.”
”Take me to the ruins,” he said.
Her eyes flew to his. ”Why? You've seen everything.”
”I need to see the ruins, themselves.”
She stared at him, shuttered and unreachable. He suspected she would refuse him. Then, after a pause, she said, ”Guards are everywhere. I don't know how you got here, but it's impossible for two of us to get by unnoticed.”
”I accept your challenge.” His smile had no warmth, but it proved to him that he was still himself, the man who smiled at impossibilities.
He was confident, she less so. London donned her dark gray jacket to hide the whiteness of her s.h.i.+rtwaist. She denied him the intimacy of watching her put up her hair, leaving it loose around her shoulders and down her back. She had long pa.s.sed the point of decorous behavior-it mattered not at all, not out on this lonely sc.r.a.p of rock, surrounded by murderers and scoundrels.
They hunkered together in the darkness of her tent. Day turned his head to the side, as if listening to the night, his eyes far off but focused. To signal readiness, he held up a hand. She remembered the feel of it against her mouth, the rough palm to her lips as she woke. She had not been afraid, for she knew his smell and taste at once, and thought herself a fool for the comfort his presence brought. Now she crouched with him, waiting to spring from her prison, waiting for a moment of opportunity that only he could sense.
Something changed. London could not tell the difference from one second to the next, but suddenly Day nodded at her and held up the canvas wall, ushering her out. Her father, Fraser, and Chernock sat around a campfire, smoking cigars. The fire flickered gold and red light over the rocks, casting long, demonic shadows. A nightmare landscape in which she would surely be caught, if not by her father, then by the men with rifles who never seemed to tire. But Day took her hand, lacing his long fingers with her own, and drew her away into the night like Hades claiming Persephone as his netherworld bride. No one heard them leave. She let out the breath she held.
A crust of moon turned the rocky plains of Delos into the bottom of the sea. She and Day swam quickly through the silvered air, and he held her tight when she misjudged a distance and stumbled in her dainty, useless lady's boots. His grip was strong, sure, deceptively trustworthy. Without him, she felt sure she would drift into the current, but she wanted her own ballast.
She whispered direction, expecting at any moment the sounds of the Heirs shouting, gunfire, pursuit. Yet Day had taken the night for his own, possessed it, and they slipped through hollows of time toward the ruins. Here and there lay scattered relics of ancient holy temples, a statue's dismembered torso, a cl.u.s.ter of stones marking a long-vanished road.
”This is it,” she whispered when they reached the ruins.
Within the excavated pit, the columns gleamed white as bones. Day leapt down into it, then reached up to help her. His hands clasped her waist as he easily bore her weight. Her body slid against his on her descent. He was as solid and lean as she remembered, yet she felt as though she'd barely comprehended its potential. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, fastening onto hers.
She pulled away when her feet touched the ground. Every s.p.a.ce felt too close, even this one.