had barely started digging when she noticed something odd, something that hadn’t been there before. An indentation in the dirt, maybe. An old trench someone else had once dug. She pushed her spectacles atop her head, tangling them in her hair, and leaned in to peer closer…
Just then she heard a rumbling noise overhead, like the thunder except it persisted, growing ever louder. She froze, sitting back on her heels, tense, as she realised what it was.
Hoofbeats.
Her skin turned suddenly cold, the back of her neck prickling. The blood quickened in her veins, as it had not since she had left the Lily Thief behind for good. No one ever came out here; the old farm site was too isolated, too insignificant for tourists. She had been warned about bandits, of course, and thieves—Sicily could be a wild, dangerous place. But she had never seen any.
Was that about to change?
Clio carefully laid down the spade, and reached under her skirt for the sheath strapped to her leg just above the boot. In one smooth, silent movement, she drew out her dagger.
It was no dainty, ornamental little antique, but a well-honed, sturdy knife, forged to razor sharpness in the Santa Lucia smithy. Their Sicilian cook and her husband had given it to her when she kept insisting on wandering off by herself. At first they were utterly scandalised. Upper-class Sicilian girls were even more strictly chaperoned and protected than English girls! But when she had persisted, they had given her the dagger, certain that any lady as strangely independent as Clio would know how to use it.
Their kind confidence was not misplaced. Clio had once been the most famous thief in London. She could use a dagger if she had to. But she hoped she would not.
Surely the hoofbeats, which came ever closer, were only those of a traveller who would quickly pass by on the way to more elaborate sites. Still, she had to be careful. Clio silently crept up a few of the crumbling stone steps, poised on her toes, until she could ease back the corner of the tarpaulin and peer out on to the world.
The rain had finally ceased, leaving behind a damp, rich scent, a land that sparkled with waterdrops on flowers and treetops. The sky was still grey, but a few chalky sunbeams broke through. The horse was coming from behind the farmhouse, along the old, overgrown roadway.
Balancing the dagger hilt in one hand, Clio folded back the tarpaulin a bit more, until she could see past the canvas edge. ‘Blast it all,’ she muttered, wondering if she had fallen asleep on the dirt floor and was dreaming—or having a nightmare.
A glossy black horse, much like the ones that had probably drawn Hades’ chariot as he had born down on hapless Persephone, galloped along the road where it skirted around the farm site. And riding it was the very man she believed, or hoped, to be hundreds of miles away. Averton. It could be no other. His bright, Viking hair was loose in the breeze, even longer than when she had last seen him in Yorkshire, falling to his shoulders. His black riding clothes and high leather boots stood in stark contrast to its glow, making him seem one with the horse.
A marauding centaur, then, as well as Hades. A dangerously handsome lord who took what he wanted, regardless of the consequences.
He drew up the horse just beyond the rim of the foundation, so near she could see the sheen of his bronzed skin, shining with rain and sweat. His face, all hard, sharp angles, was expressionless as he gazed around the site. She could feel the fire of his eyes, even across the distance.
White-hot anger burned away her icy poise, her calm wariness. How dare he come here, after all that had happened in England! How dare he invade her farmhouse, her one special place? All her old feelings—her fright, her fury, her fascination—boiled over, and she could be silent no longer.
She threw back the tarpaulin, rushing up the last of the old steps with her blade in hand, as if charging into battle.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘You, Averton, are on private property, and I will thank you to depart immediately!’
He gazed down at her. His expression did not change—it so seldom did, remaining in its cool lines of ducal contempt even when he confronted thieves in his house. Only a very few times had she seen it alter, that veil of handsome privilege falling away to reveal seething passions and needs that were fearsome to behold.
But his eyes widened a bit as he saw her, the green as bright as sea glass, and she noticed the jagged white scar on his forehead.
‘Oh, so you are suddenly the protector of private property, are you now, Clio Chase?’ he said mockingly. ‘That makes a fascinating change.’
‘What do you want?’ Clio said. She planted her booted feet solidly in the dirt, tightening her fingers on the dagger hilt even as she longed to flee back to her safe, hidden cellar. Back to an hour ago, when she thought him so far away.
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said, in a soft, steady voice. A coaxing voice. ‘That is all, I swear.’
‘So talk.’
His horse pawed at the ground, restless at standing still, and Averton’s black-gloved hands tightened on the reins. ‘If I dismount, will I be in danger of being disembowelled by that rather efficient-looking blade in your hand?’
Clio studied him carefully, eye to eye for one long, tense moment. She had seldom met anyone in her life quite as determined as she was herself. That stubbornness meant she usually got her own way, even in a big family. But she knew, just by looking at him now, just by remembering their past encounters, that here was someone of determination to match her own. He wouldn’t go away easily, and if she tried to run he would just mow her down with his fearsome steed.
She gave a brusque nod. ‘Very well. But stay over there. Don’t come near my house.’
His brow arched sardonically. ‘Your house, is it?’ But he followed her instructions, swinging down from his horse yet staying several feet away, holding loosely to the reins as his horse began to crop at the clover. ‘Is this far enough?’
Clio nodded again. ‘You said you wanted to talk, Averton. It must be something important indeed to bring you all this way.’
‘It is,’ he answered. Yet then he fell silent, just watching her as if he had never seen her before in his life. As if she were some strange creature, a unicorn or phoenix, maybe, that he could not understand.
Clio shifted on her feet. ‘Did someone snatch away your precious Alabaster Goddess? It was not me, I vow. I have been in Sicily for weeks. Or perhaps it was—’
‘Clio,’ he said, in a voice that was quiet, soft, but full of steely command. ‘I have come here because you are in danger.’
Chapter Four
Clio could scarcely understand what she was hearing. Could this just be a dream after all? Every moment she had ever spent with Averton had been bizarre, to be sure, but this…
‘Did you just say I am in danger?’ she asked, studying his face for signs of—what? Joking? Subterfuge? It was not the Duke’s way to make jests, nor hers.
There was no hint of humour or deception in his face, though. No change in those Viking-warrior features at all, except for a tiny tic in the muscle along his jaw as he stared at her.
Clio stared back, hardly daring to move, to breathe.
