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Vassilis smiled but his eyelids looked heavy, and within minutes, not only was he snoring lightly in his wingback chair, Pen dozed in hers opposite him, her face tucked into the forest-green velvet side.
“If I blink, she looks like the babe in that portrait. But looking closely, she is a woman.” Both pride and wistfulness resonated in Sirena’s maternal observation.
“We’ve stayed so late that we bored half the family to sleep,” Elijah joked softly.
Nicholas countered this with a smile, though his eyes remained on Helen. “Only the oldest and youngest. The other half remains quite intrigued.”
“Don’t go—not yet.” Sirena cocked her head. “Captain Miller, would you make the time tonight to tour myatelier?”
“Though I am a captain at sea, this evening I am yours to command, madam.”
“Nicholas, while the captain and I visit upstairs, would you accompany Helen to the music room? I’d like her to see the piano.”
It was brief, but he hesitated before offering his arm to Helen, and she wondered why. Not to be outdone, Elijah scraped a dramatic bow and presented his elbow to Sirena.
Before parting ways outside of the music room, Elijah caught sight of the model ship displayed on a long table in the cavernous hallway.
Nicholas tapped the smooth tabletop next to the replica with a deft finger. “Hydra.We fled to England on that ship. Part of the family fleet.”
“Come, Helen.” Sirena guided her into the room, leaving the two men in the hallway. She pointed to a painting, which Helen recognized to be in her style. “Anne. A loyal friend who saw my special light.”
“She looks like a goddess, yet her eyes are so kind.”
Laughing softly, the woman nodded. “I shall tell her daughter, Clara, for that is the perfect description of her mother. Of Clara, as well.” Her gaze shifted to Helen. “I should like to paintyourportrait one day, eh?”
Eyes wide, she shook her head, glad when Nicholas entered the room. Perhaps he would distract his mother from this frightful line of thinking!
Sirena continued to peer at her, however, lifting her candlestick and casting a warm, flickering light over Helen’s face and bare shoulders. “Wearingthiscolor, I think. From a distance, you look delicate. Shoulders and neck as soft and white as cream. But your eyes! How could I ever capture everything? The suffering? Humor? Fear? Hope?” The woman took a step back. “Nikolaos, she is the equal of Helen of Troy in beauty, no?”
Helen wanted to believe that his eyes, shining golden in the candlelight, were adoring, that they fixed on her not as a curiosity but because she was beautiful to him. As embarrassing as it was for his mother to set up the compliment—he had no choice but to agree out of politeness—she glowed under his admiration.
But Nicholas shook his head slowly. Resolutely. “You are no Helen of Troy.”
Like the harshest, cruelest words ever spoken about her worth, these were uttered quietly and fervently rather than screamed. Hurt closed in from all around, and she stilled her breath before it could quiver in her throat and give her away.
Sirena clucked her tongue. “Nikolaos!You are not one to have no sense to you! To say such a thing!” Looking as if she wished to say a great deal more, she set the candlestick down and marched out of the music room.
Heart in her throat, Helen swallowed, still smarting from his rejection—even as she couldn’t break away from his gaze. She blinked, confused about his words, so at odds with his incandescent regard.
He stepped closer. “Helen of Troy…the face that launched a thousand ships. The most beautiful woman in the world.” His eyes roamed down the line of her neck, and when he stared at the blush-colored fabric covering her breasts, rising and falling rapidly now, his face tightened.
Air rushed past his lips. Without thinking, she stared at his mouth, fascinated with his lack of reserve at last. His next step brought him so close his legs dented into her satin skirts and the petticoats underneath.
“In literature, Helen of Troy has been blamed for causing war, as if she’s at fault for men wanting to possess her. No, I don’t want you to be Helen of Troy. Stolen away. Cursed by others for who you are.”
He stroked down the soft skin of her neck, his blunt thumb gentle as it grazed over the hollow of her throat. When she captured his wrist, his eyes moved back up to hers.
“If I’m not beautiful…not to be stolen or possessed…?”
He shook his head and cupped her face.
“You aresobeautiful. But not to be taken. You are to be held up. Worshipped. Protected.”
She closed her eyes, hiding her raging thoughts—even if she couldn’t control the small sob evoked by his words. It wasn’t only Helen’s face he held in his hands, not truly; her vulnerable, aching heart lay bare in his palms.
The sentiments were dazzling, but Helen knew the temptation was nothing more than a siren song. She wouldn’t be lured in. It didn’t take a captain to realize what happened when a vessel ventured where it shouldn’t. It would be shipwrecked—broken to bits or trapped.
“Holding me ascollateral—is that not possession? For all your words, aren’t you trying to possess me?”
