Oh, this was bad, she didn’t want to be curious about him. Curiosity led to questions and questions led to answers and answers to familiarity. The less she knew about him, the better for them both.
The ground smoothed out and the shrubbery gave way, the path expanding to a wide, flat area. Brennan gave an exultant crow, ‘We made it! Just look at that!’
She had to concede the view was spectacular, well worth every pebble in her shoes. The sky seemed close enough to touch, the stars near enough to pluck with her fingers, while down below, she could make out the dark shape of boats bobbing in the harbour and the faint glow from Konstantine’s party. Down there, the crowd would be noisy, but up here, it was quiet and peaceful. There was no music other than the crickets and the night birds. Behind her, she could hear Brennan rustling in the bushes.
‘Here it is,’ he announced, pulling out a blanket. He shook it free of little pieces of twigs and dried leaves before spreading it on the hill. He patted the spot beside him. ‘Come and sit, Patra, and enjoy our view.’
She sat and he worked the cork loose on the bottle, pulling it the last bit of the way with his teeth. ‘I don’t suppose you have any glasses under a bush, too?’ she teased.
He gave a perplexed glance. ‘No, why would I?’
Patra shrugged, feeling silly for having asked. ‘I just thought, since you were so prepared...’
He grinned, unfazed by her implication. ‘I come up here almost every night to watch the sunset and sometimes to think.’ He jostled her with a friendly elbow. ‘You’re surprised. You thought I brought girls up here all the time.’ He passed her the bottle, letting her drink first. ‘You’re the only one and I wasn’t even sure you would come. It seemed presumptuous of me to bring glasses.’
‘Maybe you say that to all the girls,’ she pressed, testing only partly in jest. There wasn’t a girl in the village who wouldn’t climb this hill with him.
‘Well, I don’t.’ Brennan gave her a firm look. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’ She’d like to, Patra realised. She supposed it was the inviting openness of his face. Women probably confided in him all the time. It had been a long time since she’d trusted anyone, confided in anyone. Her secrets were too dark for that. There was no one she could tell, no one she could burden with the evil that hovered on the fringes of her life. But hope hovered on those fringes, too. Maybe the evil was gone now. It had been four years since Castor Apollonius had last pressed his wicked suit. Perhaps this time he was gone for good, finally convinced she would never be his. Maybe, she could risk just a little.
‘Can you do without them? The glasses?’ Brennan asked.
During the war, she’d done without a lot more than glasses. Patra shot him a daring look and tipped the bottle back, taking a deep swallow of the rich red wine, feeling adventurous and decadent—for a moment, free. The wine tasted good after the dancing and the climbing. She passed the bottle back, watching him drink deeply and run his sleeve around the rim before giving it back.
Brennan stretched out, propping his head on one arm as he pointed to the sky. ‘Tell me what you know about the stars. There’s Cassiopeia, there’s Orion’s Belt.’ He gestured to the familiar arrangements.
‘There’s Gemini, the twins, there’s Draco,’ Patra added, scanning the sky. It was better to focus on the stars than to think too much about the very masculine body stretched out beside her in a pose of rather shocking familiarity, as if they were old friends or something more, two people used to one another’s bodies instead of strangers who had shared a dance and an escape. But he was not at all concerned about the intimacy of his pose or their proximity to one another.
‘You know a lot of them. I’m impressed.’ Brennan’s gaze shifted from the stars to her and she met his eyes, a most dangerous challenge.
‘When you grow up around boats and sailors you learn the stars early. Can’t afford not to.’ She reached for the bottle.
‘Have you lived here all your life?’ Brennan’s tone was soft, his fingers gentle as they closed around hers, taking back the bottle.
‘All of my married life. Kardamyli is my husband’s home. I came here as his bride.’ As an innocent eighteen-year-old, flushed with love, looking forward to the life she and Dimitri would make in his town. She did not volunteer where she was from. It would make for more questions. Did she miss her home? Did she ever think of going back there? Did she have family? Those answers dug up memories she didn’t want tonight, reminders of all she’d lost instead of focusing on all that she still had. ‘What about you? Where do you live?’ Perhaps if he talked about himself, he’d be less inclined to want to talk about her.
‘I’m from a place called Sussex, south-east of London.’ He seemed reluctant to say more. She understood. Places carried memories. She hadn’t meant to pry, only to distract. ‘I’m sorry, you don’t like to talk about it.’
Brennan shook his head. ‘No, it’s just that I’ve been gone for two years. It doesn’t seem like I’m from there any more. I’ve been travelling with friends. We’ve seen a lot of places and now I suppose I feel a little rootless.’
She’d not heard of the friends before. ‘Where are your friends now? Will they be joining you?’
‘No.’ Brennan chuckled, his eyes starting to spark again. ‘The funny thing is, they all got married. Haviland married in Paris, Archer in Siena and Nolan in Verona, although Nolan met his bride in Venice. They all asked me to stay with them, but I just wanted to keep moving.’
Patra played with the fringe of the blanket, twisting it between her fingers, daring herself to ask more personal questions, daring herself to satisfy her selfish curiosity. ‘So here you are. Kardamyli isn’t exactly a tourist destination.’
Brennan shrugged again, unbothered by her probing. How wonderful to be such an open book. ‘I like it here, though. I like being some place where there’s no other Englishmen, no one who might know me. Here, I can just be me.’ He let out a sound that was half groan, half laugh as if he was remembering something unpleasant. ‘You should have seen Rome. It was crawling with English. I could go days without seeing any Italians. It was awful.’
She laughed with him because his laughter was infectious and his stories heartfelt. One couldn’t help but be taken in by his sincerity. He was different than her, his life was different. He’d seen so much of the world while she had seen Kardamyli and the town she’d been born in. To her, the fifteen-mile journey between her town and Dimitri’s had been significant, important.
He gave her a lopsided grin. ‘If I wanted to see Englishmen, I would have stayed home.’
‘I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been more than twenty miles from here my entire life,’ Patra said softly. The disparity in their ages seemed to flip. She was thirty-five and yet, in some ways, she lacked his worldly experiences.
He considered her for a long moment, his eyes quieting, his gaze turning serious. His smile faded to be replaced by a small, almost rueful grin. His hand came up to stroke her hair, to cup her cheek. All she had to do was turn her head and kiss his palm. That was the wine talking. The bottle was nearly empty now and she knew she’d been responsible for a significant portion of it. If she kissed his palm, it would invite other kisses, kisses she’d promised herself to avoid.
His voice was soft when he spoke, too. ‘That’s a good sign. You mustn’t have anything to run from.’
How she wanted to argue! It wasn’t true. She had plenty to run from: memories of Dimitri, memories of the war, memories of the man who’d led Dimitri and other patriots to their deaths, who’d coaxed her into believing such sacrifice was worth it. But to argue would mean she’d have to prove it, she’d have to tell her stories, to expose herself.
Brennan tugged at her hand. ‘Come...lie down, Patra.’ And she did, because it was the lesser of two evils to lie down beside him and