put his forearm on the table, aware of the strain to the sleeve fabric of his coat that stretching his muscles could bring. He would wager his feathers were as bright as Stephanos’s.
Benjamin answered Thessa, but his eyes met Stephanos. ‘It is an old stone with a woman’s face and women can be so sentimental. My brother is besotted with Melina, who wants the stone as a memory of her homeland. My brother’s mind is not clear, so he thinks the folly of my retrieving it will endear him to his new wife. A quest of the heart, if you will.’
Benjamin might—might—have thought Stephanos didn’t understand him, but at the mention of the heart quest, Stephanos’s pupils ascended upwards in a quick dart to show his feelings of such a journey.
‘My brother,’ Benjamin continued, ‘near puts rose petals at his wife’s feet. Sings of his love to her standing under her window at night. Composes poetry for her at all hours of the day. It is the way a true man of my country treats his beloved.’
Well, Warrington had married Melina and he surely had time for the Byron-and-flowers nonsense since a man’s eyes didn’t always close when his head hit the pillow.
Thessa watched Benjamin. She opened her mouth to translate. He continued before she could speak.
‘In fact, she has complained of her fingertips being tired of his kisses. It is such a sincere love. Made all the sweeter by the flavour of her culture that Melina brings to the household. Having a mix of the two worlds makes her all the more fascinating. Even I would never have imagined how the English and Greek could blend to bring the best of each to life. A woman with such a history is a rare discovery, a treasure for an Englishman.’ Benjamin’s gaze flicked to Thessa and back to her Stephanos.
Benjamin knew diplomacy was more important than challenge, but something else had controlled him in that half second, and the primitive urge to taunt Stephanos kept rising up.
Stephanos’s eyes narrowed. Then he spoke slowly to Thessa, each word a sentence in meaning from the way he bit down on it.
She turned to Benjamin, her words slow. ‘The price on the statue just increased since it is so valuable to the English.’
Benjamin kept his tone soft. ‘It is of little consequence to me if I decide not to purchase it. I don’t need a basket of rocks.’ That wasn’t entirely true. But from watching Stephanos’s face, he had no doubt that the man could understand English quite well. ‘Rocks are nothing compared to the beauty of heaven-sent treasures around us.’ Benjamin had no trouble letting his gaze rest on Thessa when he said the words.
‘Since I will not leave quickly with the rocks,’ he continued, ‘I will stay longer and enjoy the natural beauty of the island.’ And no matter if he’d be surrounded by blades on all sides, Thessa did capture his eyes.
Stephanos stood and shouted out two names, and men from inside the new structure stepped outside.
Movement ignited around him.
One man stood no bigger than Benjamin’s shoulder and Benjamin estimated him to be all wiry muscle. The slighter ones could be asp-like in their movements and hard to grasp. His clothes, well patched, paired well with his face, which also had been mended a few times. The young one stood taller and wider, and he dressed more with the bloom of youthful pomp.
Benjamin would gauge the older one the most dangerous.
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