Passenger (Passenger, #1)(105)

Or that I’d want to.

“Rest assured,” he said, when he managed to find his voice, “there will always be a position for you on my ship.”

Her face brightened with her clever, beautiful smile. “Will you let me climb up into the rigging? Reef the sails?”

A burst of thunder rolled through him. “Absolutely not.”

She laughed again. “As if you could stop me.”

In spite of all of the voices in his head demanding that he be reasonable, that he listen to his own damned advice and not make more of this than it could be, he reached over to smooth the hair away from her face.

And holy God, when she looked at him the way she did now…he felt like he’d stepped into the blue-white heart of a flame. The dark centers of her bright eyes expanded as her teeth caught the corner of her lip, and he had the extraordinarily unhelpful thought that if anyone should be biting those lips, it should be him.

Nicholas fought his scowl and stepped back, feeling as if he were surfacing from underwater. “What…what precisely are we meant to be doing?”

“I don’t know,” Etta said, with a cheeky little smile. “You’re so handsome that sometimes I completely lose my train of thought.”

He turned to assess the room, struggling to suppress his own grin.

“There’s a desk over there. There might be something useful inside to tell us where we are,” he said. “I’ll have a look through the chest.”

She nodded, turning back to the piles with new urgency. The heavy wood-and-iron chest was unlocked, but save for some sachets of lavender still releasing their fragrance, there were only a few blankets tucked inside. Nicholas turned at the sharp thunk behind him, and watched as Etta fought with the stubborn bottom drawer of the desk.

She blew a loose strand of hair from her eyes. “It’s locked.”

Nicholas tested it for himself; even with his full weight and strength, the only thing he accomplished was to break off its metal knob.

“Did you think I didn’t know how to work a drawer?” she asked, taking the thing out of his hand with a shake of her head. “Why keep all of this out in the open for anyone to find and question, but lock this one drawer? What’s the point?”

“Because,” came a silky voice from the shadows. “You were not given the key.”





ETTA JUMPED BACK IN ALARM, knocking against the desk in surprise. Instinctively, her hands scrambled for something to protect herself, fingers rummaging in the paper until they brushed up against the letter opener she’d seen only a moment before.

When she looked over at him, Nicholas had gone as rigid as a blade, his expression sharpening with the kind of lethal intent she’d seen only once before—when he’d launched himself at the man who had grabbed her in London. He made his way around the furniture between them.

“Do not move.” The accent was heavy, the words formal and stilted. “I will feel no guilt in killing thieves.”

Nicholas seemed to believe those words, stopping exactly where he was, a few feet behind her.

“Who are you?” Etta asked, brandishing the letter opener in front of her. Whatever good that would do.

“The one who should be asking this question is I,” the man said, stepping out from where he had managed to slip through the doorway unnoticed.

He was hardly a man at all; his deep voice was at odds with a soft, rounded face that seemed to indicate his age was close to their own. His skin was a dusky brown, his eyes dark and severe beneath generous brows. His long, white robe rustled as he took a step toward them, bare feet padding across one of the room’s many patterned rugs. Etta recognized the style of his dress—it was a close, luxurious approximation to what you might see in her time, in the Middle East.

Bare feet. Even with a haze of exhaustion drooping over her, that small fact stuck in the front of her mind, forcing her to think it through. I will feel no guilt in killing thieves.… meaning, this house—or apartment, or whatever it was—belonged to him? Now that he was closer, Etta saw red lines marring his cheeks from pillows or sheets; the glazed look of someone still half-asleep.

But…didn’t this house belong to the Lindens?

Nicholas reached into the interior pocket of his jacket, and the young man raised the wickedly curved blade at his side.

This was about to go exactly one way, and that way involved bloodstains on the beautiful rugs.

“We were told to come here,” Etta said, halting both of their movements. “By Rose Linden.”

The young man exploded with movement, launching himself forward at her.

“Duck!” Nicholas called.

Etta dropped to her knees and Nicholas’s fist sailed over her head. By the time she climbed back onto her feet, the two men had fallen to the floor in a rolling pile of limbs, crashing through chair legs as they tried to batter each other with their fists. The sword was knocked away, spinning toward the door.

“Stop!” Etta cried out. “Stop it!”

It was like breaking up the worst kind of dogfight, when you know the only way to separate the animals is to risk getting bitten yourself. She gripped the back of Nicholas’s jacket with both hands, muscles burning as she hauled him away.

“Nicholas!” she said. “Stop!”

He shuddered, the breath steaming in and out of him as he pressed his bruised, bleeding knuckles against his mouth. When Etta moved toward the other young man, Nicholas jerked forward as if to stop her. She gave a sharp shake of her head. With some reluctance Nicholas backed off, understanding, and instead went to pick up the discarded sword from the floor.