Scoundrel:. Zoe Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ sister. Harcourt’s widow. The Heirs’ expert on ancient languages. The enticing woman from the marketplace. All the same. All the bloody same person.

      If he’d been at liberty, Bennett would have laughed at the irony of it. But he needed to remain hidden, so he kept his rueful chuckle to himself. Even though he knew magic was real, he wasn’t always sure that there was such things as Fate or Destiny. Yet this was proof that the universe had a sense of humor. A very black sense of humor.

      Chapter 3

      Agendas

      “And you are sure?” Athena asked. “Quite, quite sure?”

      “Yes. Again, yes. She’s Edgeworth’s daughter.” Bennett walked beside her as they made their way down to the quay at Piraeus, the Athenian harbor town, the following morning. Unlike Athens, Piraeus was laid out with paved, orderly streets that did not drive innocent pedestrians mad with confusion. But that did not make the busy port any less congested. Bennett carefully guided Athena past loaded drays and groups of merchant seamen coming to and from the waterfront.

      “And Harcourt’s widow. Does she know who you are?”

      “Not yet.”

      “Theos ka panagea.” Athena sidestepped around a wagon loaded with currants just shipped in from Zante. “But it cannot be possible. The Heirs are very set against having women in their ranks.”

      “This one is. In a fashion.”

      “What do you mean?”

      Bennett dodged a crowd of German tourists disgorged from a steamer ship and wagons bearing piles of luggage. “Edgeworth’s daughter knows nothing of the Heirs.”

      “If she is here to translate the ruins, surely she knows what cause she serves.”

      Bennett shook his head as the scent of seawater washed over him. They had finally reached the harbor itself, where rows of ships of every variety bobbed in the water while gulls shrieked overhead. Fishing boats swayed next to small yachts, pleasure boats for the Athenian elite. Steam-powered freighters and tall-masted clippers were anchored out in the bay, with rowboats going back and forth between the large ships and the quay. Even with such hectic traffic, the water gleamed azure and gold in the morning sun. Bennett breathed deeply and could not stop a grin from forming. He had served the Blades for many years, yet he never tired of the beginning of a mission, the possibility of harbors and ships.

      Yet he sobered when he answered Athena. “It was obvious that she’d no idea what I spoke of when I asked about the Heirs.”

      “You know women, that I’ll allow,” Athena said. “However, even you can be played false by a pretty face and lovely bosom, Day.”

      “No doubt I’ve been lied to,” he agreed cheerfully. “‘You’re only the second man I’ve ever been with, Bennett,’ ‘My husband’s not at all jealous, Bennett,’ ‘I like it gentle, Bennett’—the usual games and tricks. Sometimes, I even believe them. But London Edgeworth is as beautiful as she is innocent.”

      “No woman is truly innocent,” Athena said. “Especially not the beautiful ones.”

      “That’s why I love them.”

      He and Athena skirted along the edge of the harbor, hearing the rough shouts of the fishermen as they called to one another, the ship captains bearing cargoes of figs and olive oil cursing at their crews lazing on deck. It did not matter if Bennett accompanied Athena or not, she was still the object of much male attention, yet she breezed past as serene and aloof as a falcon, not even acknowledging the sailors with so much as a blink.

      “I wish we did not have to trust an outsider for this mission,” she said to Bennett. “It leaves us vulnerable.”

      “I sure as hell can’t sail a boat,” he pointed out. “Neither can you. We’ve got to get to Delos. Likely beyond, too. Besides,” he added, “your contact assured us that this man is trustworthy.”

      “Or, at the least, is willing to be paid for silence.”

      “We’ve abundant coin, if it comes to that. This is it,” he said, stopping by a boat tied to the pier. It was a cargo caique, a typical boat of the region, roughly seventy feet long, with a rounded fore and aft and two triangular lateen sails, now furled. Portholes attested to below-deck cabins, though they would not be very large. A loving hand had painted the hull bright emerald, the tiller a vivid yellow, and kept the whole of the boat a sparkling gem, especially compared to some of the shabbier maritime specimens in the harbor.

      “You!” Athena called out to one of two seamen coiling rope on deck. “Are you Nikos Kallas?”

      “No, captain’s below,” the man grunted back.

      “Then get him,” she ordered imperiously. When the man just stared at her, she added coldly, “Now.”

      Muttering, the sailor slouched off to the quarterdeck house to find his captain.

      “Consider being a bit more…diplomatic,” Bennett suggested wryly.

      “Why?” shrugged Athena. “These are rough men. They do not care for social niceties.”

      After a moment, a man emerged from the quarterdeck house with the first sailor trailing behind him. The captain. He wore the loose blue trousers of a mariner, and a full white shirt with a dark sash wound about his waist. A small, powerfully built man, he squinted at Bennett and Athena from behind the smoke of his pipe. “I’m Kallas,” he called in a gravelly voice. “Who wants me?” He looked at Bennett with sharp, assessing eyes. Sensing a possible threat, he changed his stance slightly, a shifting of position onto the balls of his feet to ready for a fight. This one, Bennett understood, missed nothing.

      “Petros Spirtos sent us,” Athena answered.

      The sea captain turned his gaze from Bennett to Athena. For a moment, the two simply stared at each other, each seemingly unmoved, but Bennett heard Athena’s soft inhalation and saw Kallas’s hands curl as though trying to grasp something. Oho, Bennett thought. What have we here?

      “No shouting across the marina,” Bennett said. “We’re coming aboard.”

      “As you like.” Kallas shrugged.

      In a moment, Bennett was hopping over the railing of the boat, then turned to help Athena gracefully descend onto the top deck. The two crewmen gaped at Athena in her elegant bronze silk dress and matching parasol, until Kallas shouted something at them in a dialect Bennett could not understand. Even though the crewmen were several inches taller than their captain, they hastened to obey and scuttled off.

      “Bennett Day,” he introduced himself, “and Athena Galanos.”

      “Spirtos told me about you,” Kallas said, shaking Bennett’s hand, “about what you need.”

      “So you know everything,” Bennett said. When the captain nodded, Bennett said, “Speed and discretion. That’s what we need.”

      Kallas stroked his full, dark mustache. “If it keeps more foreigners out of Greece, then my ship and my crew are yours. No offense to you, Englishman.”

      “All СКАЧАТЬ