The Sicilian Duke's Demand
ISOBEL was trying to remember that line of poetry. Something about a glassy, cool, translucent wave. So appropriate for this beautiful, hot Sicilian day. Cobalt sky, flat sea, ripples of lacy foam around her pale skin.
From the indigo horizon, a cone rose up against the sky: Etna, just tipped with snow now that it was summer, and with the customary feather of white smoke drifting from the peak. A well-behaved volcano, doing its best not to frighten away the tourists. But she was not a tourist; she was here to work.
Yesterday's storm had stirred up the sand on the bottom, making the water opaque, but it had settled overnight, and today the turquoise water was wonderfully translucent again. She could go back to the team and tell them to get ready to dive again this morning, with excellent visibility and calm seas.
She was floating past the rocks, right over what they had dubbed 'Vector Alpha', the line they believed corresponded to the keel of the wrecked ancient Greek galley, when the movement caught her eye.
Despite the blazing sun on her back, her heart seemed to freeze for a moment.
There it was. Or rather, there< ... read full excerpt from: The Sicilian Duke's Demand ebook
