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She tapped the tip of her spade against the ground. ‘I don’t remember just where the statue is buried. I helped my sister dig so many places and there were so many bits of chipped rock. It didn’t seem possible we’d need to dig up such rubble again.’
‘What do you think was once here?’ Benjamin asked.
Thessa turned a half circle, examining the area as if she tried to see through his eyes. ‘A site to speak to the heavens?’ Laughter bubbled in her voice. ‘A place to hide from your mother who wishes you to weave when you do not wish to?’
When he saw her humour, he watched her again, eyes speculative. His mouth opened, then he chuckled. ‘I would have thought you would hide at the shore or in the water.’
She frowned and shrugged. ‘It would be the first place she looked... I think she was half spirit herself sometimes, always knowing where to find us.’
‘Just a mother’s way.’
She studied him. ‘Do you not believe in things you cannot touch? On voyages, you do not think some unseen spirit creates the wind?’
He shook his head. ‘I think there are things unexplained, but that doesn’t make them magical. It just makes them not understood. Men used to say a ship could sail off the end of the earth. But I think that was a tale started by seafaring men to make them appear brave. A man gets a little ale in him, a woman sitting on his knee and he’s likely to spout nonsense just to watch her eyes widen or hear her gasp.’
‘And she’s likely to pretend her awe just to see if she can convince him she believes his nonsense.’
‘So, do you believe in mermaids?’
She pressed her lips together before shaking her head. ‘Mermaids all died out because they couldn’t find a mate worthy of their esteem.’
He looked at her and then laughed. ‘We have to be thankful women are not so particular.’
‘True. We aren’t.’
He looked around. ‘So where is the treasure?’
She knelt, using the spade for balance, and picked up a shard of marble. ‘As a child I heard the stories of spirits roaming here.’ She turned the rock in her hands over, examining. ‘My mother must have said that to keep us from roaming too far. When the sun is overhead, I do not believe in the spirits, but in the dark...’ she met his gaze, and smiled—almost laughing at her next words ‘...I would not want to trip over one and discover myself wrong.’
‘Any bones ever found?’ he asked.
She shuddered. ‘No. We would not disturb a final sleep. But this is not a burial ground.’
‘Why do you not think so?’ He walked beside her.
She turned, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I would know. Burial grounds are remembered.’ She handed him the rock. ‘This wasn’t a place to bury, but perhaps a chance to gather and be merry. Boats float easily in our harbour now. I think it could have been the same years ago.’
She took the stone from his hand, brushing her fingers against his, feeling the roughened skin, his touch jolting her as if he had some magic about him. He examined the rock she gave him, running his fingers along the straight side. One of his ringed fingers, and the one next, didn’t bend with the others. So the man and his boots were marred. She wondered if it happened in the same fray, but she didn’t want to think about death.
She looked around. ‘If I were a spirit, I would be at the shore, my toes in warm water and the sun on my face. Not rumbling around sharp-edged stones.’
‘Swimming?’ he asked, his eyes intense.
She nodded. ‘The water cleanses my mind.’ She looked off in the distance. ‘If there was another life before this one, I lived it in the sea.’
When she turned to him, he stood immobile. Immersed in something in his mind. ‘Captain?’ she asked.
He breathed in, dragging air inside himself, and then he barely smiled, tilting his head to one side. ‘My pardon. I think one of your imaginary spirits is standing too close to me.’ He put a hand to the back of his neck. ‘Breathing against my skin.’ He turned. ‘I have to get the stone and leave.’
He walked to her and took the spade from her hand and tapped the ground with the tip of the tool. ‘Where should I begin?’ He gave a testing thrust of the tool into the dirt, jammed his foot on to it and a twinge of pain flashed across his face. ‘Blasted knee,’ he mumbled.
He was just as ravaged as the men on her island, only it was covered better.
‘How did you hurt your knee?’
‘Just fell into a spar on the last voyage. It’s still healing.’ He stopped digging. ‘But I don’t want to start sounding like I should be sitting at a hearth, wearing a cap on my head and a nightshirt.’
‘I imagine you’d not mind that if you had someone sitting on your knee who you could tell stories of bravery.’
A lock of hair fell over his forehead when he looked down, but he hadn’t moved fast enough to cover the smile in his eyes. ‘I’d only tell the truth.’
‘And I’m a mermaid.’
He raised his gaze and she saw the tiniest crinkles at his eyes, but he wasn’t smiling. ‘You’re better than a sea goddess. They evaporate in the early morning light when a man wakes.’
Thessa shook away the thoughts his words conjured and pointed to an area at the centre of the clearing.
‘There. That is the first place to dig.’
He moved and began scraping the earth from the stones—the rasps quickly disturbing the straggly vegetation, but hardly marring the surface. When he finally pushed aside a bit of the earth, a breeze passed over her, the scent of mouldering dust hitting her nostrils and she tasted the dirt.
She brushed at the shawl, not wanting the fabric soiled. ‘My sister was so excited when she found the statue. She pretended to nudge us with the arm when she brought it home. And then she brought us to help her dig again, but we refused to help for long. A person cannot eat rocks.’
She gave a small shake of her head and clenched her fists at her side. ‘I did not yet ask. Did Melina find our father?’
He nodded. He again took the shovel and ground it against the earth.
‘Is he dead?’ she asked. That would be the only reason she could forgive him for not returning.
‘No.’
‘Married?’
The captain watched the ground. ‘He has a wife.’
Thessa’s teeth clamped together. She had suspected as much. The only true fight she’d ever seen her parents have was when her father had suggested a man must have a woman to be inspired to paint. And they all knew he painted wherever he went.
‘What did my sister think of the woman?’
He moved earth as he talked—and used the tip of the shovel to pry loose other stones. ‘My brother told me Melina has nice thoughts of her. I am not certain when Melina met her, but it was before the ship was ready to sail back to Melos. I was to make the trip to return your sister to Melos earlier, but I delayed it after she decided to wed.’
‘She chose...’ her words were choked with disbelief ‘...marriage to your brother when she didn’t have to wed?’ Traitor. Melina was a traitor.
How many times had they sat in the night and said how mistaken their mother had been to marry a foreign man? If Melina was to do such a foolish thing as marry, why had she not stayed on Melos with them and simply married Stephanos? At least the sisters would be together then, and only one would have had to be trapped.
Thessa turned away from the man, not wanting him to be able to read her thoughts. She would have to go through with the marriage to Stephanos. She’d at least be able to provide for her younger sister and Bellona wouldn’t have to marry anyone she didn’t wish to. One of them would be saved.
‘I cannot believe she married willingly,’ Thessa said.
His hands paused. He looked at her. ‘My brother has the title. He’s not poverty-stricken. His house is near as big as this whole island. And woe to anyone who might stand in the way of a breeze of air that would cool Melina if the day is warm.’ He lowered his voice, speaking more to himself than her. ‘He is whipped by her skirts.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean. Men are not...like that.’
‘No. Well, most aren’t. But he’s always had a weakness of sorts. I’ve never understood it.’ He shrugged, but then grinned at her. ‘Sometimes, it is humorous to watch, though.’
‘And she is fond of him?’
‘Doesn’t matter much if she is, or isn’t. He’s at her feet.’
Her brow furrowed. ‘I cannot think that is true.’
‘If you say so.’ He lowered his chin. ‘And you? Are you fond of this Stephanos?’
‘I don’t have to be. He is of my home. He is a sturdy Greek. He will have fine children. They will eat well. His mother and I speak pleasantly.’
He turned his head from her. ‘So you’re not particularly fond of this man?’
She tried not to think of what she really thought of Stephanos and hoped she never found out what he did when he was away from the island.
‘I didn’t say I am not fond of him. I will grow close to him after we are wed.’ She hoped to teach him to bathe.
‘Yes.’ His words were overly innocent. ‘That’s how I’ve heard it works.’
She gripped the shawl. Her voice rose. ‘You know nothing of this island. Of the world I live in.’
‘No.’ He stared at her. ‘In truth, I know very little of England either. My world is the sea. My home the ship. My family the crew.’
‘In England, did you meet my father?’ she asked.
‘Once. Only briefly, years ago. I looked at his art. We talked concerning a painting I thought he might create for me. I’d seen his seafaring landscapes and portraits from his travels and liked them.’
‘He did not wish to finish something for you. Did he?’
Benjamin shook his head.
She tugged the ends of her shawl into a thick knot. ‘My father only paints what he is directed to paint from within himself. Otherwise he believes it is not truly inspired work. He believes no one can see the world as he does. And it is true. He did not see our mother cry each time he left for his home—he called London his home—and when she sickened, he did not see her die. He sees only himself in his world.’
She looked at the rubble they’d moved. ‘After the death, Melina wrote him many times. She sent letters with the ships leaving. He never answered. Only what is at the end of a paintbrush has meaning 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.
