as if snapping tendrils snaked out from the grey sky, wrapping ever tighter around her, binding her closer and closer to him.
It was like a myth, a tale of jealous gods and enchanted spells that bound mortals to them against their every sensible inclination. Every shred of sense.
Clio shook her head, trying to clear it of such dark fancies. It was just this place making her feel so, that web of myth and fantasy that had been woven around her ever since she was a child. And being faced with Averton, of all people, when she least expected him! Was least prepared for him, and the effect he always had on her.
As if she ever could be prepared for him. Every single time she saw him, it was like a lightning storm all over again. Beautiful, treacherous and so completely disorienting.
She took a step back. ‘I know of no dangers here except you. You needn’t have gone to all this trouble to warn me of that.’
His brow creased, as if in a flash of pain, yet that spasm was gone in an instant, banished under a mocking smile. ‘Did I not prove to you in Yorkshire that you are never in danger from me? I sent you and your friend—Marco, was it?—on your merry way, with scarcely a scolding word. Even though you were in the midst of stealing from me. I am the last person you need fear, Clio.’
She swallowed hard, remembering another night, that gallery at Acropolis House. ‘Indeed?’
‘Indeed. I want to be your friend, if you will let me.’
‘My friend, is it?’ she said, nearly choking on a humourless laugh. ‘So, that is why you are here? To offer friendship, along with cryptic warnings of danger? I think it more likely you are here to see what my father has found in his Greek villa. To see what you can snatch to add to your vaunted collections, hidden away in the darkness so no one else can ever see them.’
‘Clio!’ he growled, his icy calm cracking at last. He dropped the reins, his hands curling into fists.
And Clio felt a stirring of some strange satisfaction.
‘You are the most obstinate woman I have ever met,’ he muttered. ‘Why can you not just listen to me for once in your life?’
‘Just listen to you? Quietly do what you want, just as everyone does with the exalted duke? Well, I’m sorry, your Grace, but I am too busy to stand here arguing with you any longer.’ She strode past him, not sure where she was going, only knowing that she had to get away. Had to escape from those crackling bonds before she exploded!
She gave Averton a wide berth, yet not quite wide enough. Before she had even seen him move, he had caught her by the wrists, pulling her close to him. Startled, she dropped her dagger. It landed mere inches from his booted foot, yet he did not glance at it at all. He only watched her.
As she stared up into his face, into the glow of his eyes, those bonds grew tighter and tighter. She could not breathe, could not move at all. She flexed her wrists in his grasp, the fingers of her right hand splayed out until she touched the very edge of his sleeve. The hot, smooth skin of his wrist. She felt the thrum of his pulse there, the tumbling rush of his life’s blood, and his heartbeat seemed to meld with her own.
She heard the quick rush of his breath in her ear, smelled the clean, spicy scent of his skin. He was all around her, a part of her she could not escape, for truly he was not something outside, not a separate being she could run from, deny. He was inside her, part of her very breath and blood.
She arched in his grasp, her head thrown back like Persephone’s as she tried to escape, tried to leap from the speeding chariot to safety. Escape, even as she longed to stay.
‘Then tell me what it is you want here,’ she whispered. ‘Why you came here to find me.’
‘Will you listen, then?’ he said hoarsely. ‘For once?’
‘I…’ she answered. ‘It depends on what you say, I suppose.’
He gave a bark of laughter, his clasp loosening on her wrists. ‘Of course. Always conditions. Always wanting things your own way.’
‘Muses are as spoiled as dukes when it comes to that,’ she said. She raised her hand, still caught in that dream where she was not herself. She lightly touched the white scar with her fingertips, feeling the uneven ridge of it under her touch.
He tensed, as taut as a bowstring, but he did not move away. Perhaps he was as enchanted as she was. She trailed her touch over his temple, the pulse that thrummed there; over his sharp cheekbone, the crooked nose Cam de Vere had once broken in some unspecified brawl. A loose strand of his hair, bright silk, brushed against her hand, clinging. She traced its wave until she found the curve of his lips.
Her fingers hovered over them as they parted, and she felt his very life’s breath. How close, how very close…
‘Clio,’ he groaned. His arms came around her waist, dragging her against him until there was not even a whisper between them. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as he, but she felt fragile as his hot strength wrapped around her and she was surrounded by only him. She looped her arms about his neck, making him her captive just as she was his.
Their lips met, and there was nothing tentative or shy about the caress. It was quick, hot, desperate. A fervent need to be as one, to fall down into the dark myth and be lost for ever. That was what it was like when she kissed him—like being lost in the corridors of the underworld among all the shades, the misty illusions. She was a fool, an utter fool, to give in again. To reach for something that could only do her ill in the end.
But neither could she turn away, any more than she could tear her own soul out.
She dug her fingers into the fall of his hair, holding him to her as she felt the smooth leather of his gloved caress slide across her shoulders, skimming along her bare skin until she shivered. She leaned deeper into him, losing herself, losing everything…
‘Clio!’ he said, tearing his lips from hers. His hands tightened on her shoulders, pressing her back from him. ‘Clio, what am I doing? I did not come here to…’
And the spell was broken, like one of those invisible cords that bound her to him. She stumbled away, still intoxicated with the smell and taste of him. With the bizarre alchemy that happened whenever they were close.
She glanced away from him, covering her mouth with her trembling hands. She had to get away from him, now! ‘No, you came here to warn me. Well, Averton, consider me warned.’
She snatched up her dagger from the dirt, in the process losing the spectacles she had pushed atop her head while she was digging. She scarcely noticed, though. She was too busy running away, dashing for the footpath along the hills that she knew his horse could not follow.
‘Fool, fool,’ she muttered, scrubbing at her aching eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Bloody fool! How dare you?’
Yet she did not know if she talked to him—or herself.
‘Damn it all!’ Edward cursed, kicking violently at the dirt. This was not what he had planned!
He meant to gently alert Clio to his presence in Sicily, to be polite and calm, and make her see he meant her no harm before he revealed his true purpose. Or part of it, anyway. He had not even known she would be here today. The rain would have kept away any other would-be antiquities hunter. He should have known that
