A Captain and a Rogue. Liz Tyner
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‘You can return with me. I’ll take you to England. Your sister, too. My brother will make a home for you both. We have a town house in London we hardly ever use. You could stay there.’
‘No. Never.’ She turned her head and, to show her distaste at his words, spat on the ground. ‘My father left us for England. A painter who valued paintings more than the people in them.’
Even in the darkness, when she turned back to him, she could see his lowered jaw. ‘You... Women don’t...’
She reached down, grasped the sides of her skirt and lifted. His eyes locked on her legs. She took two large steps to close the distance between him. His gaze never left her calves and he stared.
She kicked his shin hard and then let her hem flutter down.
He jumped back, raising his eyes to her face.
She asked, ‘Women don’t spit and they don’t kick. Are you cured of wanting to swim with me now?’
He half frowned, and half smiled. ‘I doubt I will ever be cured of that. But you can kick me again if the next time you raise your skirt another inch.’
Storm-like currents of air exploded inside her body, but the air pressing into her touched nothing else on the island. She wondered if his gaze had somehow brought spirits alive and they danced around her. He wasn’t the only one with senseless thoughts. Now he was making them explode in her head. She had to make him hate her and to make herself dislike him. That would be the only way she could have a haven from his presence and make sure she didn’t do something foolish.
‘You senseless man,’ she said.
He raised his shoulders and held a palm up. ‘My pardon, Sweet. I wasn’t made to be a vicar.’
She raised her chin and stared at him. He truly didn’t seem offended by her actions. ‘I would say you chose well.’
‘I agree.’
The smile he gave her near took her legs out from under her. Her jaw lowered.
‘Are you certain you won’t just step into the water with me?’ he asked.
Something inside her screamed to say yes. ‘No.’
‘Uncertain?’ he asked and his eyes widened for a heartbeat with too much innocence, but then they changed again and he seemed to look into her. And his gaze promised her something she could not name.
Thunder that only she could hear pounded in her ears. She could even feel the lightning flashes burning into her skin from the inside out. She knew the lore of mermaids being able to create weather. But he was the unsafe one. He was the one who could call up storms.
Thessa turned and started on the trail back to her home, leaving him to dig or not. It didn’t matter to her. She had to leave his presence and return to her home so she could shut the door behind her.
The captain unsettled her.
In the night, she kept dreaming of storms, full of violence and thunder, and waking into a world of silence.
She dressed, not wanting to be alone, and went into the other room of the house where her sister slept. Thessa lit the lamp and began to sew, trying to forget that they’d never see their eldest sister again.
* * *
As morning closed in, someone rapped three precise times on the door. Bellona didn’t wake, but Thessa rose. The captain would be outside. No one of Melos would rap so gently and with such purpose.
‘You didn’t bring more men?’ she asked, opening the doorway.
He nodded. ‘They’re at the longboat. I can get them if I need them. I’ve asked them to wait.’
Lips shut, she let out a long breath, then spoke. ‘It will go faster with more men.’
‘I can get them later,’ he said, turning, taking a quick step down the stairway. ‘We can’t sail anyway until the tide is right and there is wind.’ He spoke over his shoulder. ‘And I don’t want you having them dig up half the island because you don’t want to part with a statue that you’ve let stay under the ground.’
He grabbed the shovel at the base of the house and moved towards the trail.
She followed him. ‘You will need help.’
He stopped and let the tip of the shovel clunk against the ground. He leaned on the shovel. ‘You can stay here if you wish. At least if I start digging on my own, I’ll know there’s a chance I might find it.’ He trudged along, in front of her, ducking olive branches.
‘Englishman,’ she muttered to his back and her feet made rushed sounds on the earth behind him.
‘Woman,’ he responded in kind.
‘Thank you for the kind word.’ She kept her voice overly sweet.
He pushed aside a small limb and couldn’t let it go quickly because it might slap her, so he settled it back into place, but he didn’t turn to her. Instead he kept his eyes forward.
‘Only an Englishman would sail so far for a few broken rocks,’ she said.
‘Only a Greek woman would not take him straight to the place, show it to him and not go back to her home to leave him to dig in peace.’
‘I am Greek and I am woman.’
‘So, are you going to show me where the statue lies?’ he asked as they stepped into the clearing.
She sighed. ‘Of course. I know my sister wants her. I suppose I was angry and not wanting to give the statue away because I wanted to punish my sister for not returning to us.’
His eyebrows slanted to a V and he shook his head. ‘If the rocks are as you say they are, I think the most punishment would be to give them to her. I wouldn’t like to receive a crate of broken rocks. By the time I get them to her, she might realise her mistake.’
She shook her head. ‘Not Melina. These rocks... She whispered of them day and night.’
Thessa walked the rubble, looking, kicking aside smaller stones. Finally she stopped. ‘I really am not certain, but I think it is under where I stand now.’ She pointed to a boulder. ‘The three of us rolled that as her headstone.’
Stepping so close he could scent the spiced air that flowed around her, he thrust the shovel into the dirt.
‘Careful,’ she said, her hand shooting out, resting on his arm. Even through the coarse cloth of his shirt, she could feel the muscles. Quickly, she pulled her hand away. ‘She’s near the surface.’
He used the shovel more to push earth aside than to dig and in seconds he revealed a torso.
‘She’s...not wearing a dress?’
‘No.’
He turned to her, tilting up one side of his lips. ‘She might be worth more than I thought.’
‘Dig,’ she said.
The shovel slipped. He gave a shake of his head and looked up at her, apology in his eyes. ‘I broke off a sliver of nose.’
‘I would not care at all, except she does look like our mother.’ Thessa knelt beside him and used her hand to clean more dirt from the face. She pulled her hand away and stared. ‘I know Mana was beyond others in good appearance. Father loves beauty. He would never, ever marry a woman who didn’t appeal to an artist’s eyes. Art. Not one piece of it is worth one moment of my mother’s sadness.’ She looked at Benjamin. ‘If the stone in the ground did not have my mother’s face, I would take a chisel to it myself if I thought my father wanted it. But I cannot destroy my mother’s face.’ She looked