LITMIR.BIZ

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to him. Our mother’s dying meant nothing.’

      He turned his gaze from the dislodged earth, watching her, and spoke softly. ‘By the time he found out about your mother’s death, it would have been too late to do anything for her.’

      Her face changed, eyes narrowing.

      ‘It was not too late when he left.’ Her words were quick. ‘He’d only been here days. When he saw she was not well, he began to look for a vessel to take him away. He left on the first one that would carry him and it wasn’t to England. I asked at the harbour to see where the ship went.’

      ‘Sometimes...a man does things he should regret, whether he does or not.’ His movements stopped. He watched the end of the shovel. ‘My father died. I was there. But had my cargo been ready earlier...I don’t know.’

      * * *

      Benjamin sailed every voyage with the knowledge that when he returned home—if he returned—he would visit a different family than the one he left behind. And if he died at sea, he would be buried in the deep. His final resting place would be alone. Fitting.

      He’d never truly thought he saw the world the same as his brothers, and after the first voyage he knew he did not. In two years, or more, at sea, much more changed than the people living their lives on shore realised. He’d never told anyone how unsettling it could be to walk back into the family estate and see the different fabrics and furniture moved in a room so much that it was almost unrecognisable. They thought they’d made no changes. But the world he’d left behind never was the same one he returned to.

      Only the shades of the sea never changed.

      Thessa turned away. She found a bit of the broken structure to sit on.

      ‘You do not have to marry Stephanos.’ He glanced away, planning to tell her of the dowry his ship carried for her. ‘Thessa, in England many men thinking of taking a wife would only have to look at you and would want to marry you. And with my brother’s help, you could find many suitable men to choose from. And if your younger sister is only half as comely as you, she would have no trouble finding a man who would wish to wed her. And then, there is also—’

      She interrupted before he could get the words out about the funds.

      ‘Words so sweet.’ She laughed, moving her head back and tilting her chin to the sky. When she lowered her head, her voice became soft. ‘But Stephanos will do for me. He is of my country. I do not want to make the same mistake my mother did. Stephanos will stay here. His family is here and he loves Melos. I will have a home that I know.’

      He let out a breath and turned to look at the island, so different from his birthplace. The trees weren’t even the same—more like aged fingers reaching up to the leaves. The ground was hard to till. Even when the air didn’t have the taint of sulphur, it didn’t smell the same as the English countryside.

      ‘Think hard about what you want.’ He looked at the horizon, wishing he could see the Ascalon. ‘Your sister, Melina, chose a different path.’

      And then she stood and stepped beside him. She shut her eyes and shook her head gently before she viewed his face. ‘She thinks English.’ Thessa smiled apologetically. ‘She has the tainted blood.’

      He forced a glare into his eyes and she chuckled in response.

      ‘Our father made her learn to write,’ she said. ‘She is like him—art fascinates her—or what she thinks is art. I am different. Even my bones know what I must have. This land, where I can speak my mother’s language and see my mother’s people, and know every one of my true family. To me, painting is a lie. It is beauty that someone imagined.’

      Then she turned and, with the grace of an empress, picked up one of the small stones he’d tossed aside and threw it against one of the broken archways jutting from the earth. ‘I will wed Stephanos. Then when Melina is forgotten by the Englishman, I will have a home for her.’

      When she mentioned marriage to Stephanos the image of her in another man’s bed stopped him. This was not an English society woman with constant chaperones. Her sister had given her body to his brother, Warrington, for ship passage.

      He turned, anger gripping him as the knowledge of how likely it was that this Stephanos was already rutting with her. Benjamin knew if he were betrothed to Thessa, in a remote location, not a night would go by without her in his arms. And he’d swim with her and they would be like two sea creatures floating in the waves. He’d throw out every piece of nautical artwork he’d left in London if she’d just shed her clothes and bathe in a warm sea with him.

      ‘Your face is angry. Why?’ she asked.

      ‘I told you. My knee. It pains me.’

      Her face tilted to the side, studying him, and her mouth opened slightly. Her eyes didn’t leave his and she nodded. ‘My father said that castor oil was medicine for his complaints. He left some. We can return to my house for it.’

      He frowned. ‘No need for any bitter mixtures. I have a bad enough taste in my mouth from being on land.’

      * * *

      Thessa took a step back to escape the dirt from the shovel. The captain’s coat pulled across his shoulders, and his hair curled different directions at the ends. Never before had a man’s movements interested her so, but she supposed she’d never really watched a man work—unless she counted watching her father paint and she would have called that torture. This was not.

      She spoke, afraid if she didn’t, he’d somehow be able to sense her watching him. ‘When the man from the museum in France visited, he asked if anyone had seen anything of value. Anything of history? After the man left Melina began secret trips to the highest part of the island, searching. Mana was sick, but Melina would not stop hunting the island.’

      She’d dug and discovered the woman. ‘She didn’t want Stephanos to know we’d found something which might be worth coins, so we covered the marble—deeper.’ She tossed the rock to the ground. Thessa had been as certain that statue was worthless as Melina had been certain it was valuable.

      But the one time Thessa had looked into the stone face, she’d refused to look at it again. Stone and cold and beneath the ground and resembling her sick mother.

      And when she’d returned home and looked at her mother, shivers took over her body. She’d had to leave the room so her mother would not see her tears.

      ‘My mother always welcomed my father home,’ she said. ‘She was like the statue...waiting. Not complaining.’

      Thessa tried to push her memories away. She’d wanted her mother to tell him never to come back. And then, when her mother was dying, her wish happened, but then her mother needed him more than ever. She was dying and he didn’t care as long as he could escape. How could he have not wanted to spend every moment with someone as wondrous as Mana? Thessa kicked some of the dirt in the direction of the shovel.

      Her mother was buried, just as alone, on another part of the island. Deserted in life and death.

      The captain never looked her way, intent on the mixture of dirt and broken bits of an archway.

      The movement of his shoulders kept her attention and took her mind from the past, and she watched him, reminded of the water currents just before they broke into waves.

      In a fair fight with Stephanos, she could not guess who would best the other. Their bodies were similar in size, but Stephanos... Everyone on the island knew of his temper and he did not fight fair. No one would have expected it of him.

      Grumbling, the captain used the end of the tool to scrape dirt from the white mound he uncovered—a rock.

      He put the shovel on the ground and dropped to his knees, pushing aside the dirt with his hands. Rough hands, comfortable with the soil now sticking to them. He pulled aside a section of the wall which had been trapped under stones, unearthing in moments what would have taken her half a day to uncover.

      ‘Nothing,’

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