is at stake.”
“And the fact that our intended abductee is, by your own admission, an exceptionally beautiful young woman has no influence on your decision,” Athena noted dryly.
Bennett flashed her a grin. “I’m hurt and offended you doubt the purity of my motives.”
“Where Bennett Day is concerned, there are no such things as pure motives. But Harcourt’s widow will learn, at some point, who you truly are.”
“I know,” he said flatly. If he had his way, he’d postpone that unpleasantness for as long as possible.
She drew an unsteady breath. “I am going to see if there is a spell for seasickness. I brought several books along for reference.”
What would Athena be without her books? “That’s what made your baggage so deuced heavy. Here I was thinking you’d been kind enough to pack a millstone. Should we need to grind wheat.”
Athena made a face at him, which wasn’t difficult, considering her infirm state, before picking her way back down below the deck. Kallas had ceded the helm to one of his men as he adjusted a sail. She forced herself to walk steadily past him, as genteel as if promenading the elegant Plateia Kolonaki square rather than the tilting deck of a humble cargo caique. Kallas pretended not to notice her, but Bennett saw with a smile the way the captain gnawed on the stem of his pipe once she had passed. Even on the supposed freedom of the sea, one couldn’t escape the eternal dance between men and women.
Kallas was a born mariner, that Bennett understood. The captain had kept pace with the Heirs’ sleek steamship, staying just out of sight so that none but the most eagle-eyed lookout might detect even a trace of the caique. Athena’s spell would—should—take care of the rest.
Bennett turned his face into the wind, watching as the cloak of dusk descended upon the sky and water. Soon, the stars would emerge. He hoped it wasn’t a bright night. They would need the shelter of darkness for the plan to run smoothly.
Maybe Athena was right. Bennett would probably be much less likely to abduct the Heirs’ linguistic expert if the linguist was a man, particularly a fat man. Hefting such bulk could prove difficult, and on cold nights, Bennett’s knees sometimes troubled him. But his interest in London Harcourt troubled him more. He wanted to believe that only her lovely face and slim body drew his attention. She was a woman exceedingly pleasant to look upon. Touching her, learning the secrets of her body with his own—those would be pleasures he greatly anticipated, as he might with any enticing female.
Yet there was something more to her, the fire of intelligence, the gleam of yearning for independence, that drew him in, even in the few minutes they had spent in each other’s company. She wasn’t a sheltered virgin seeking to lose her innocence. She wasn’t a bored, house-bound wife searching for shallow thrills. London Harcourt burned with desire for the world, for visceral experience. As he did. But he had the good fortune to be born male, and so the world opened to him like a feast, while London Harcourt could only look on and starve. What a pleasure it would be to feed her.
If she ever discovered his identity, he would be doing nothing with her.
He shook his head, made himself chuckle as if what he felt were merely pangs of unsatisfied lust. It had been a long, long time since he mooned over a woman. Those he wanted, he got. He could only give his lovers provisional affection, which they accepted, and so he moved on to the next. There was always a next.
Now here was a woman he couldn’t, shouldn’t have. No wonder he thought himself intrigued. There were more pressing concerns. Foremost was how to sneak aboard the Heirs’ ship, past armed guards, the father, and the deuced Fraser, and then steal a whole woman from under their noses.
Thinking of this, Bennett hummed an old sea shanty.
“Considering the certain hell we’re going to catch tonight,” one of the sailors muttered at him, “you’re a calm and cheerful son of a bitch.”
Bennett grinned. “I do so enjoy life’s little challenges.”
“Is there anything else you’ll be wanting, madam?” asked Sally.
London looked at her maid’s reflection in the mirror propped against a tin cup, a brush midway to her unbound hair. Sally had conquered her seasickness long enough to help London out of her gown before bed, but it seemed, alas, a losing battle for the poor maid.
“I’m all right for the rest of the night, Sally,” London answered. “But is there anything I can get you? I’ve heard plain water biscuits can help. Perhaps the ship’s cook has some.”
Sally gulped and gave her head a feeble shake, which made her moan. “I couldn’t possibly…eat anything, madam. Just a little lie down, I think, and I’ll be…fresh as Easter morning.” That seemed doubtful, considering the waxen, greenish cast to Sally’s face.
“Please,” London implored, “get to bed. I can put my clothes away.”
“Thank…thank you, madam.” Then Sally dashed from London’s cabin to her own across the passageway, slamming her door behind her, but leaving the door to London’s cabin hanging open. London rose from the small desk she used as a vanity and gently closed the door, but not before hearing the miserable sounds of Sally surrendering her dinner to a chamber pot. London winced in sympathy, grateful that, landlubber that she was, she somehow escaped the blight of seasickness. Well, it should not last too long for poor Sally. They would reach Delos by late tomorrow morning.
Remembering her father’s warnings, London locked the cabin door. She needed to be vigilant. Though it seemed unlikely that anyone could get aboard the steamship. Aside from the cannons that could blast away at any ship foolish enough to get within firing range, armed men patrolled the top deck. London had seen the rifles slung across the men’s backs, but the firearms weren’t nearly as intimidating as the hard faces and large bodies of the men themselves. They seemed more like hired mercenaries than sailors.
If her father thought them necessary, she could only imagine what kind of threat loomed. Though he often treated her like some fragile hothouse orchid, London knew that in everything else Joseph Edgeworth was exacting and precise, not the kind of man given to wild and fanciful elaboration.
Soon, they would reach Delos, where London’s work would begin. Despite the shadowy threat that loomed somewhere out in the world, her excitement could not be tamped down. The mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. And all those writings upon the ruins for her to decipher. How marvelous it was to be.
She turned her attention to the gown laid across her narrow berth and readied it to be put away. London fussed with the hooks, knowing that Sally liked to keep her gowns tidy. It seemed rather unnecessary to maintain fashion out here. This was not a holiday jaunt, and this ship most definitely was not intended for anything but the most rudimentary services besides transportation and, dear Lord, warfare. Though the steamship had cabins for passengers, they were all small and plain. Perhaps the captain’s quarters held a little more luxury.
London carefully packed her gown into her trunk, wedged into a corner of the cabin, before returning to her nighttime toilette. She drew her wrapper close over her nightgown and sat back down at the desk. Her dark flaxen hair required thorough brushing, or else it ran the risk of looking like the inside of a mattress. And, as much as she did not want to draw attention to herself as one of two women aboard the ship, she didn’t want to resemble bedding.
She drew the boar bristles through her hair, idly watching her
