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Lure of the Mummy Hollow House Spying The Other half of Your Heart Land of Heart's Delight

 

Passion Choice   Dark Music Echoes in the Dark Second Chance Forever Yours The Fair Amazon

Inheritance of Shadows

“Which door did you use out of the house?” Corwin asked in a voice no louder than a breath.

The cold air had started me thinking again. Why was Corwin afraid of being caught by the security guard? He was a guest here, after all.

And what was a guest doing in a dark garage after midnight?

“The front one.”

“Did you leave it unlocked?”

“Yes.”

“Lucky for us there’s no alarm system,” he muttered and again my curiosity arose. I hadn’t learned that there was no alarm until it was necessary for me to go around it.

When had Corwin found out?

And why?

“Corwin, I want to know—”

“Keep it down, will you? If we have any luck at all we can get back in before someone discovers the door is open.”

“Why—”

He ignored me and slid out the door for another careful look around before grabbing my hand again and dragging me out. We took a circuitous route around the yard, going from deep shadow to deeper shadow as if the faint starlight would advertise our presence. In truth, I was glad he had my hand, for as close as Corwin was I could barely see him.

It must be very late, because the stars were getting brighter. I wondered muzzily how strange it was that the bright stars were just along the horizon. Stranger still, they were moving…

“Corwin, look.”

Corwin’s hand muffled my mouth and not very gently. “Hush, dammit!” he hissed softly. “Keep your mouth shut. Maybe they didn’t hear.”

If they had, they gave no sign. Now even I could see that the line of sparkling lights were not stars at all, but torches. Real, burning torches, not flashlights or plastic facsimiles. They weren’t bright enough to push back the night well, but gave enough light to show that those who carried them were nothing human.

His hand still tightly over my mouth, Corwin dragged me into the deep shade of a tree. His encircling arms were like steel bands. Whispering directly into my ear, he ordered me to silence.

I didn’t have to be told twice. Now I could see that the marchers were costumed as creatures from the Land of the Two Suns and were probably nothing more than conventioneers living out some sort of role-playing fantasy instead of signboards to my madness. I could see the Racontraneux, ever the eternal politicians in their elegant multi-colored flowing robes and several triads of Eisfodea, the unpredictable mountain creatures who were covered with long silky hair that eddied in the breeze like a cloud. There were a band of soldierly Melphs, looking more like martial teddy-bears in brown fur and shiny armor than vicious mercenaries, and even several short round Ghrones, their traditional red and blue outfits making them appear to be some kind of squashy beach ball. And lastly…

I caught my breath as a supernatural fear gripped my throat.

At the tail end of this eerie procession came a Shining One, all in white. The torchlight danced off his tiny wings and golden horns, making it look as if he were surrounded by a cloud of fireflies. His suit was so white that it seemed to glow a pale blue. His face was dead white, too, and from this distance looked as featureless as an egg.

James?

What would James be doing with this group?

Then rationality set in. This imposter was visibly shorter than James, and much chunkier, with a definite pot belly. James was quite muscular in spite of his lean frame. I had learned that when we danced.

The group turned and trod off into the trees, moving with the precision of a military drill. I watched, holding my breath, until they were swallowed by the dark woods.

“Did you recognize any of them?” Corwin whispered in my ear.

I shook my head. Not one face had been recognizable even as human, let alone as an individual. They must, I decided with painful slowness, have worn masks.

Still, there was something uncanny about the whole procession. In spite of its size and number the crowd had been so very silent. Even their feet made no sounds. There was no talking, no singing. I would have expected some jollity, some laughter, perhaps even some song from such a group. Instead there was a solemnity and sense of purpose that was frightening in its intensity. Apart from the wild diversity of their costumes, they could have been a procession of spectral monks from some raped and dissolved abbey in England, treading across the land as they had for centuries.

Lure of the Mummy

In a daze Bert went straight back to his rooms and collapsed at his desk, elbows propped on his wonderful new translation of the stele.

A translation he could never use.

The scholarly world was small. If he suddenly came up with a translation on something no one knew he had been working on right after the official translator was murdered and his papers stolen… It would be regarded as concrete evidence of guilt, whether he had done it or not.

Tears poured down Bert’s pudgy face as he slowly ripped all his work sheets lengthwise into strips, then crosswise into confetti. Three nights without sleep to translate this son of a bitch, a work that could have made him noticed… and once again Rick spoiled everything for him by getting himself killed.

“I didn’t want him dead…” Bert muttered, which was not altogether true, “just out of my way. Nothing ever goes right for me. Nothing!”

Digging out his trusty lighter Bert burned every scrap of paper in the enormous ashtray, then crushed the ashes and flushed them before leaving the silent building for home. He wasn’t guilty of anything except ambition and skill, but no one would ever believe that.

Egypt was a Muslim country and liquor wasn’t allowed… unless one knew where to find it. Bert had always thought that ridiculous. The ancients had enjoyed both beer and wine and they had ruled the world of their time. This modern world made no sense. Bert knew where to find liquor and kept a bottle of decent Scotch around at all times. He was an infrequent drinker, mainly because the stuff cost so bloody much.

Today, however, was an exception. It was a wake of sorts, in spite of it still being a while before noon, a wake of his hopes, and like all good wakes it deserved to be celebrated. He had one glass quickly, then another which he sipped and then a third, which he took time to enjoy slowly.

Maybe all wasn’t lost. Maybe – after a decent amount of mourning for ‘dear old Rick’ he could talk to old Thornberry about having the stele assigned to him. He should have had it to begin with, anyway; he was senior on staff and the best hieroglyph man the WALRC had. He could recreate the translation easily and amaze everyone… But not too easily. He didn’t want any possible connection between his translation and Rick’s death.

Damn Rick! Even dead he was still messing Bert’s life up!

The heat of the day was at its worst; Bert seldom spent any daylight hours in the flat and he always forgot how hellishly hot it could become. He staggered around, still sober enough to realize how much he was staggering, opening the windows to their widest and turning on fans, even though neither really helped all that much.

Then he noticed the fallout of dried linen on the floor. Maybe the fans were more powerful than he thought, to be able to scatter wrappings off a mummy…

The mummy was lying face down on the desk, its body covering the center of his workspace. It was surrounded with a drift of linen dust.

Carefully avoiding the painful claws and teeth, Bert set the mummy upright, then jumped backwards in shock as the mummy looked back at him. The glass toppled over, spilling the precious Scotch onto the desktop where it puddled before the mummy as if it were an offering.

The last few wrappings over the head had gone and the indisputably feline skull was now almost bare. The crown was clean bone, but a film of leathery skin surrounded the empty eye sockets and the closed mouth which, combined with a tilt of the skull, gave the remains a quizzical expression.

It was chilling, Bert thought.

Worse still was that from the depths of the empty eye sockets came a gleam of triumph.

Hollow House

I decided to use the name Geraldine Brunton. It is not the name I was born with, nor the name I married, but it would do, being as good a name to hide in as any other.

I wish I were pretty. Pretty women can get away with so much that we, their plainer sisters, cannot. I was fairly good-looking as a girl, but now I am best called ‘interesting’ or ‘distinguished’—epithets that more often than not wound in their clumsy kindness. It comes more from my remote and shuttered expression, I believe, than from the deformity of my broken and ill-healed nose. Whatever it is, though, it sets me apart not only from others but from the me I used to be, as much as my carefully concealed scars.

I had been in Denver for over a week, seeking a job, which so far had turned out to be a futile search. I was not fussy. I needed to work, but only two days ago one of the city’s moderate hotels had refused me for the position of chambermaid. There was a time I would have disdained to stay in such a place, but now I was not considered capable of cleaning up its inhabitants’ dirt.

The day had not yet turned hot, so it was a pleasure to sit in the park, to feel the strengthening sun on my face and maybe for a moment forget the problems that beset me.

For one thing, there was money. I possessed enough for the next few months at least, especially if I lived as frugally—and as uncomfortably—as I had been. After that, though, there would be no more. However much right I had to the fortune I left behind there was no way I could access it, so for all practical purposes it had ceased to exist.

It was essential I find work and so I perused the newspaper every day.

With so many men returned from the Great War there were few positions available. There were fewer for women, especially women with no skills. Again I wondered if I dared take the time and the money to take a course in typewriting. If I did, though, there was no guarantee of employment, as there didn’t seem to be many positions open even for those with such a modern skill.

WANTED – Companion to a semi-invalid lady.

Live in. Must be cultured, quiet and willing to

please. References required. Apply in person at….

I read the ad again. I was cultured, I suppose. My father had seen to that with a ruthless succession of governesses and private academies. Companionable? I didn’t know. I certainly was quiet, having been hard schooled in its necessity. Willing to please? Oh, yes, I possessed a great deal of experience in trying to please. What a pity I couldn’t tell anyone about it.

References.

They were the sticking point. I knew no one, and no one knew Geraldine Brunton existed, let alone would write a reference for her. For me.

I read the ad again, sighed and moved on to the next, and the next, and the next. Either the job required skills I did not possess, or I would be disqualified immediately, as I had been for the chambermaid’s position.

A slither of steel crept up my spine, giving it an unaccustomed stiffness. I could not simply sit around waiting for the perfect position to appear. I had to do something. Maybe references were something I could talk my way around. If not, what was the worst that could happen to me?

The worst? That they would recognize me, that they would send word…

But surely no one out here would know me. Even back East the scandal had died down months ago. Out here in the West they looked forward, not back. No one would care who I had once been.

Or what I had done.

Spying

He shrugged and to my relief let the subject drop. Picking up the bottle, he scrutinized the level and then poured. “One more glass apiece.”

“And then magic time is over?”

“Magic time?”
“This.” My gesture could have encompassed the world instead of just the view from the Old City wall. “Don’t you think it’s magic?”

“This time it’s my turn to toast. To magic. To shared magic.”

We clinked glasses ceremonially. There was more said, of course, but it was as if the magic of the evening ended there. Grey chatted on in his best tour-guide manner as we finished the last of the champagne.

One thing had begun to bother me; I could get almost no personal information on Greystoke Hamilton-ffoulkes. The man seemed to talk incessantly, but on every subject except himself. Since we had met I had found out only that he had been born in Hampshire, that he spoke Arabic, French and German, and that he had a brother two years older than he. Also, he was allergic to peanuts. And that was it. All of it. A small thing, but one I found very bothersome. In my limited experience every man loved to talk about himself and one who didn’t was different enough to be suspect. Refreshing, but suspect.

“All done? I suppose we’d best be getting on.”

Wordlessly I handed over my empty glass and wished that there were some way to be transported down from this lofty height. As we had been sitting the memory of those horrid stairs had risen again to haunt me.

We didn’t go down the same staircase, but the one we did was just about as bad. This time Grey sensed my terror and insisted on going down ahead of me and holding my hand. I appreciated the thought, but he had to carry the basket and that

left him no hand to balance himself. Then in a fit of heroic self-sacrifice he offered to take my purse. I declined that, too, remembering what lay wrapped in newspaper and dark cloth in the bottom. Despite the basket he was able to descent the hollowed steps with an easy grace. I finally abandoned all pride and finished the last few yards sitting down.

“My dear girl, I do apologize. I had no idea you were so… so… susceptible.”

“It’s the steps, mainly,” I said, valiantly brushing off the seat of my dress and hoping that the dust of ages was not permanently ingrained. “But I wouldn’t have missed up there for anything.”

To expiate my cowardice once we were outside I insisted on holding the empty basket while Grey locked the thick wooden door. This stairway had no corresponding grille and it took me a minute to figure out where we had come down. When I did I felt foolish for even wondering. We were in the zigzag corridor of Damascus Gate, now a tunnel of darkness barely relieved by a few streetlights at each end, and just a few yards from where our car and driver waited. Grey had indeed worked everything out to perfection. I just wondered…

“Isn’t Damascus Gate locked at this time of night?”

There was a grin in Grey’s voice. “Indeed it is. I see you’ve been reading your guidebooks.”

“Does this mean we’re going to have to walk around to Jaffa Gate?”

This time he chuckled, then swore at the recalcitrant key. “Damn this thing! Do they never oil these locks? To answer your question, Robin, yes, Damascus Gate is locked. There is also a small portal which, with the application of a little folding grease, can be opened on appointment.”

The Other Half of Your Heart

            Cara hurt all over. Like the rest of her, the bandage on her injured foot was soaked with sweat, which burned her abraded skin like fire. That was the worst, but her entire body ached as if she had been beaten with a stick. Being flung bodily into the nearest ditch both times a vehicle had rumbled down the road had left her feeling bruised from head to toe. The thing that infuriated her the most, however, was that she was once more tied up like an untrained dog.

            “Come on!”

            The original rope was gone, left somewhere on Arvisu property, but there had been a substitute in the jeep. He had rescued it before sending the jeep bouncing noisily down a rock-strewn ravine. This rope was coarser than the other and chafed the delicate skin of her wrist every time Dave yanked on it.

            “I’m going as fast as I can!”

             Scowling, Dave jerked the rope once more, this time more strongly. “We’ve discussed this, Miss Waters...”

            “If you wanted to make time, you shouldn’t have ditched the jeep!” Cara stood her ground, then angrily grabbed the rope in both hands and yanked as hard as she could, not caring if it made him angry or not. She was childishly disappointed that not only did he not fall over, he hardly seemed to notice it.

            He glared at her. “After the Arvisus have reported it stolen? Every cop between here and the border will be looking for that jeep, and they won’t be friendly to American tourists!”

            “So what’s your grand plan now? Do you intend to walk me to death?”

            “Don’t tempt me! You must be some sort of bad luck charm, Miss Waters. I can only hope that you affect Tarrant the same way!”

            Cara stared at him with unconcealed loathing. How could she ever have thought him attractive, let alone allow him to touch her?

            “No.”

            “What?” Dave asked. “What are you talking about?”

            “I am hot, I am tired, I am hungry and thirsty, and I am not going another step until you tell me exactly what is going on here. Who are you? Why do you hate Buck so much? Why are you doing this to me?” Cara made herself stop talking. She was starting to sound hysterical and, worse, she could feel herself starting to become hysterical.

            “Oh, give it over, Miss Waters! Now come on!”

            Cara held fast to the rope. “No.”

            This time Dave really looked at her, then slowly started walking toward her, pulling hand over hand along the rope, cautiously, as if approaching a wild and unpredictable animal. “Now listen to me...”

            “No! Not until you explain to me!”

            He was standing in front of her now, so close that only a breath separated them. In spite of the heat and her own discomfort and the complete bizarreness of the entire situation, Cara was amazed to find herself still drawn to him by a force as inevitable as gravity. She had to force herself to remember that this man was a dangerous criminal no matter what kind of magnetic aura he exuded.

            “I don’t understand you...”

            “Well, then,” Cara snapped, “we’re even, because I haven’t understood anything about you since you kidnapped me!”

            The gaze from his blue eyes seemed to caress her face like cool water. His expression was quizzical, almost as if he had never seen her before.  Her heart began to thud from an emotion that she quickly classified as fear.

            “Don’t you hit me!” she squealed, cringing in spite of herself.

            “I have no intention of hitting you, Miss Waters...”

            He would have said more, but Cara stepped backwards, breaking the moment. She must be getting heatstroke; she felt hot and cold and swimmy-headed all at the same time. “Then tell me,” she said with a mouth that felt stiff and dry, “what is going on here?”

            Dave’s attention shifted abruptly. Cara knew what that sudden, tense alertness meant even before she heard the clattering roar of a motor not far beyond the bend of the road. She also knew what was coming next and planted her feet firmly on the asphalt.

            “No! That’s a ride out of here! You are not going to throw me in that ditch again!”

            Her captor’s suddenly harsh expression spoke eloquently of what he would like to do with her. His voice, though, was mild. “It’s too late anyway. I just hope they’re friendly. The Arvisus aren’t likely to let us out of their hands again.”

            His very restraint made Cara shiver. Even though she would have gladly run then, there was no time. The rattletrap truck was in view and then screeching to a halt beside them.

            Cara was amazed that it ran at all. It had started life a couple of generations ago as a common American pickup; now it seemed to be little more than a collection of rust spots and paint chips propelled down the highway on next to transparent tires.

            “Hola!” said the chubby driver with a gap-toothed grin. “Quieren ayuda?”

             “Yes, we do need help, I mean, si...” Dave answered with obvious relief and then said something in hesitant Spanish.

            The man grinned, nodded, then gestured toward the door. His wife smiled and nodded as well, scooting closer to her husband on the cracked plastic seat.

            Dave’s hand closed painfully around Cara’s as he solicitously walked her around to the other side of the truck. “Stay quiet if you want to get out of this alive,” he whispered in her ear, then began to chatter to their hosts in his marginal Spanish.

            He continued long after they were squeezed into the front seat with the driver and his equally ample wife. About the same age as the Arvisus, the couple was almost an exact opposite to that sleek pair in every other way. Overweight, shabbily dressed and apparently unconcerned that their grey hair showed, they were unquestionably middle-aged farmers who were not too well off. Without knowing why Cara immediately felt a trust toward them that she had never felt toward the Arvisus.

            At least, she did until they started to give her pitying glances. Apparently her kidnapper had not been shy about giving them the ‘jeep accident and crazy wife’ story. Or maybe he had made up a fresh one for the occasion. What she wouldn’t give to speak Spanish!

            Cara choked back a hard bubble of laughter. On the plane Buck had assured her that in Puerto Vallarta everyone spoke English!

            “Are you all right?” Dave asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

            Of course, Cara thought; even if these people didn’t speak English they could hear. He would want to appear kind and concerned toward his poor crazy wife!

            “Yes. I’m just hot and thirsty and tired... and I want to go home!” Cara replied, squeezing off the words as much from the fear of incipient tears as from the sudden and insistent pressure of his hand on her shoulder.

            The truck was a small one; Cara had to sit on Dave’s bony lap. Spitefully she hoped her weight was putting his legs to sleep.

            “That’s why I’m here,” he said softly in a curiously sad voice.

            “Pobrecita,” said the woman and gave Cara a tender pat.

            If only she could speak English! Cara thought despairingly. This woman she could talk to, this kind-eyed woman would help her, she knew it! If only one of them spoke the same language as the other...

            Buck, Cara’s heart cried, where are you?

            With a tenderness Cara would never have believed, Dave extended a fingertip and lifted one of two sparkling tears from her cheeks. “You’re worn out,” he murmured.

            “I am not,” Cara lied valiantly. “I’m angry...”

            Dave pulled her head down to his shoulder and wrapped both arms around her in a gesture that, despite the skyrocketing heat and humidity, Cara found oddly comforting. He smelled of sweat and greenery and oil from the jeep and something else that must be simply him. Although he had to be as tired as she, he felt solid beneath Cara’s weary body and the cage of his arms was somehow protective. Two more tears oozed from her eyes as she fought to keep a legion of their duplicates under control.

            “Well, then, you can be just as angry when you’re rested...”

            The older couple was saying something in soft Spanish, but Cara didn’t even bother to listen. She just reclined in the gentle embrace of the man who had kidnapped her and simply existed without thinking.

            “Wake up... we’re here.” Dave’s voice was soft in her ear.

            With a start Cara realized she must have dozed, for suddenly they were stopped in a large open area. Sleepily she made herself look around. A small shed-like affair of sticks at one end, a square building made of cinderblocks at the other and the pervading scent of animals over all.

            “Where,” she asked muzzily, “is here?”

            “Apparently the Fonsecas - our rescuers - are people of some standing in this part of the country. This is their ranch.”

            It took some contortions, but finally they were out of the truck. Cara was stiff and cramped while Dave hobbled about like a crippled old man. Cara was now enough recovered to wish spitefully that his legs were completely numb and that his recovery would be long and uncomfortable.

            Apparently what passed for ‘standing’ and ‘ranch’ were quite different from what Cara was used to. She almost said so, too, until she decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. It didn’t move and she didn’t have to walk through the jungle any more...

            Cara stared down at her wrist. Once more the rope had vanished, but now Buck’s big silver bracelet completely covered the chafed red area. That annoyed Cara; she wanted it to stand out, so she could wave it under Dave Burkhart’s nose. Maybe these people didn’t understand English, but surely they could understand abuse...

            Señora Fonseca whirled into action the moment her fat little feet touched the ground. Shouting a great deal of machine-gun fast Spanish, the plump little lady wrapped surprisingly strong arms around Cara and whisked her toward the house.

            The stolid cinderblock house was much less grand than the Arvisus’, but it was much more welcoming. Once again Cara found herself stripped and whisked into a tub, this time an enormous tin basin in a stark, unfurnished room. The señora herself lifted off Cara’s soiled and torn dress and then poured water over her as she stood in the tub. If she had been asked, Cara would have said the first thing she wanted was a meal, but the splash of coolish water over her hot, sun-kissed skin was seductively pleasurable.

            Despite her experience in the Arvisu household Cara couldn’t feel comfortable about taking a semi-public bath. She was grateful for the señora’s help - bucket bathing seemed to be an art in itself - but the way the señora kept shouting for things and the way young women, presumably (hopefully!) her daughters repeatedly popped in and out, bearing soap and water and towels, both alarmed and annoyed her.

            “Ay, pobrecita!” the señora said as she at last swathed Cara in a large thin towel. “You are bitten bad.”

            “Yes, it seems the local bugs... You speak English!”

            The señora’s dark, deep-set eyes twinkled. “Yes, I do.”

            “But in the truck... you and your husband spoke only Spanish...” Frantically Cara tried to remember what she and Dave had said in English and, if so, how it could affect things.

            “Ay, it is true.” She shrugged ample shoulders, then smiled secretively. “My Alejandro does not like me to speak English.”

            Cara felt as if she were going down the rabbit hole again. “Why on earth not?”

            The señora took another towel and roughly dried Cara’s hair, exclaiming over its shining coppery color. “Because he cannot. You see, I worked as a housekeeper in Puerto Vallarta before I met Alejandro. I learned English there. Alejandro was here, working the land. He had no opportunity to learn.”

            “But why does it bother him if you do? If it’s that important, why don’t you teach him?”

            “You are American.” The señora shrugged again, then tossed the towel into the corner as a little girl ran in with a smallish jar and had to be physically shooed out. “Gracias, hijita... Your men think different from ours. Our men are very proud, very ...”

            “Silly? Insecure?” a very tired Cara supplied, but her frivolity was silenced by the other woman’s dignified frown.

            “It may seem so to you, but for us it is very important to keep our men happy.”

            “But does that mean he has to take away your identity and your accomplishments?” Cara tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. Fatigue washed over her and it was all she could do to stay upright as the señora generously applied salve to her bug bites. The salve smelled vaguely of swamps and dark, moist places, but at first touch it stopped the horrendous itching which had plagued her and that made Cara very happy.

            “Alejandro takes nothing away from me. He gives me so much more than I can ever do him.” The plump olive face, wrinkled as much from a hard life as from age, suddenly became as soft and radiant as a girl’s. “When you find the man who is the other half of your heart, you will understand. He will be more important than anything to you, just as you will be more important than anything to him.”

            “The other half of your heart?”

            “When I was working in Puerto Vallarta a very smart man, a professor, once told me a legend of some old people in a faraway land. They believed that before you are born, you are two people in one body - you and your love. Then, when one of you is to be born, you are torn apart and made into two, so you spend your time on earth trying to find the one who is the other half of your heart.”

            Something quivered in Cara’s soul with a sound of chimes. “What a lovely legend.”

            “Of course, the priest said it is just pagan silliness and no child of the Church should listen to it, but...” she smiled again. “Even so, when it happens to you, you will know.”

            Cara would have asked more, but the door flew open and in popped another daughter. Señora Fonseca thanked her, took the cloth she carried and draped it over Cara’s head.

            “My eldest daughter’s nightgown,” she said proudly.

            “Oh, I couldn’t...”

            “Carmela herself suggested it. It is clean,” the señora added in sudden anxiety.

            “Of course! I didn’t mean to suggest...” Cara flushed with sudden horror. “I just meant... it’s so pretty.”

            There was no mirror in the stark cinderblock room, but Cara could tell the delicate cotton nightgown was more than pretty. Tucked and ruffled, it was undeniably modest yet still it carried an innocent air of sensuality. It fit as if it had been made for her. The lace edged neck and sleeves suggested an earlier century while the neat hem floated just above her ankles.

            “Thank you. I made it. It is for her...” Her plump face contorted as the señora struggled for the word. “... for her wedding box.”

            “Her trousseau?”

            “Yes! Her trousseau!” The elusive word finally caught, the señora repeated it several times to imprison it in her memory.

            “But I can’t wear this!” Carefully Cara started to skin out of the soft fabric, only to be stopped by her hostess’ frantic hands. “It’s for her trousseau... it’s something special.”

            “But it will hurt Carmela if you do not! It is for good luck, you see... She and Alfonso are to be married after the harvest. She wants to be as happy as you and your husband are.”

            “But we’re not...” Cara managed to stutter.

            “Oh, I know you are a little upset with him now, and who would not be after he manages to wreck your car in the jungle? Men are such little boys, always seeking adventure and wanting to show off to the women they love, and with no more thought of the consequences than a child.” The señora laughed indulgently. “I could tell you about Alejandro and some of the things our boys have done... It is a woman’s duty to overlook and to love, and do not tell me there is not love between you. I have seen the way you look at each other.”

            The matter settled, she pulled the gown back into place. Cara could only stare. The woman was either blind or a raving lunatic. For one frightening, insubstantial moment it seemed that the cinderblock walls were falling in on her. She was still trapped. If this woman believed that Dave Burkhart was her loving husband, there would be no way Cara could get her help in escaping. Señora Fonseca would treat the whole thing as a highly romantic lovers’ quarrel.

            She was no closer to getting away than she had been out in the jungle.

            Cara began to tremble. Would this nightmare never end?

            “Ay, pobrecita! You are too tired. Come and lie down.”

            Lie down? Asleep she would be defenseless. She had to think of a way to get away, to get back to Buck...

            Without really knowing how she got there, Cara found herself lying in a big brass bed. There were soft sheets of real linen, and their fresh scent indicated that they had been just put on. A big glass of milky liquid was placed into her hand and she was urged to drink.

            She had never tasted anything like it before. Sweetish and vaguely alcoholic, it went down easily, cleansing her throat of dust and taking the worst edge off her hunger.

            “That’s good, but I’m awfully hungry... We haven’t eaten...” The words were thick and uncomfortable in her mouth.

            “We are fixing food now,” the señora said maternally. “Why don’t you rest until it is done?”

            “There’s something I have to tell you...” Cara said, but at the moment her sleep-befuddled mind couldn’t think of what.

            Cara wasn’t aware of having slept, but she was jerked into sudden, heart-stopping wakefulness by the creaking of the bedsprings and the tilting of the mattress. The señora was gone and there was... The nerve of that creature!

            Grabbing the sheet and holding it high in a gesture worthy of any outraged Victorian maiden, Cara snapped, “Get out of here!”

            Jumping up, Dave swore a mild oath. “You scared the hell out of me! I thought you were asleep. Sorry I disturbed you.”

            “What do you think you’re doing?”

            At any other time, under any other circumstances, Cara would have been amused at the sight of Dave Burkhart. He was scrubbed and shiny, his hair still damp, and clad most improbably in a gentleman’s nightshirt of a design popular for most of the 19^th century. It was long-sleeved and high-necked and fell in voluminous folds to just above his knees.

            In spite of herself Cara could feel a bubble of laughter swelling in her throat. She would not succumb to hysteria again, she simply would not!

            “It’s Señor Fonseca’s,” Dave said almost apologetically. “His good one.”

            “So good he never wore it,” Cara couldn’t help saying, giving a critical eye to the stiff, yellowed folds.

            “Apparently. Now scoot over.”

            Tension snapped back into Cara’s body and she clenched the sheet tighter. “I will not! Get out of here or I’ll scream!”

            Dave seemed disinclined to answer. He simply lay down beside her, sending Cara scuttling to the far side of the bed.

            “I will, I’ll scream!”

            “Go ahead,” Dave said around a yawn so big it stretched his face.

            “I suppose you told them I’m crazy, too!”

            “Look, Miss Waters, they’re decent people and they think we’re married, so of course they gave us their bed. Now I’m tired and I know you are, so let’s be adult about this and get some rest.”

            His proposal was so straightforward Cara almost believed him.

            “I don’t want to sleep with you,” she snapped, then realizing what she had said, stammered on, “I - I mean, I don’t want to go to bed with you.... I mean...”

            “I know what you mean,” Dave said wearily, wiggling into the pillow. “And believe me, you’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m just saying we both need some sleep and I for one intend to get some. I suggest you do the same.”

            He wasn’t moving, so Cara relaxed a bit. She was so tired even keeping her eyes open took concentrated effort. It wasn’t as if he were a complete stranger. She had slept in his arms in the jeep...

            Yes, jeered her mind, and what did he do then? He kissed you and held you and you...

            Cara flopped down on her pillow, forbidding her thoughts to go any further.

            “Very wise, Miss Waters.”

            “Just don’t get the idea that you can do anything...”

            Dave yawned again, then looked over at her with a sardonic expression. “And what makes you think I would want to?”

            “That’s an insulting thing to say!” was out of Cara’s mouth before she knew she was thinking it.

            Dave turned his head on the pillow and regarded her dispassionately. “Another tactic, Miss Waters?”

            “No! I - I just... Oh, this is all so horrible! Why did you snatch me off the street? What do you want with me?”

            He moved so swiftly Cara was crushed breathless in his arms. A fire flashed over her body, sparkling and sensual and absolutely overwhelming. “What do you want me to want with you? Something like this?” Ruthlessly his lips descended on hers, soft and warm and plundering.

            To Cara the touch of his mouth on hers felt like an electric shock. At first all she knew was an overwhelming wave of outrage, but her body betrayed her. It responded to the passion of his kiss, the delicious sensation of his tongue insistently probing her mouth, melting against the tenseness of his slim musculature

            “Please,” she managed to whisper in a barely audible voice, “don’t.”

            “What?” he asked in a hoarse and shaking voice. He did stop kissing her, but his mouth was so close Cara could feel his lips brushing hers. “Why? Don’t you like it?”

            Cara struggled ineffectually in his imprisoning arms. “You’re a monster!” she hissed breathlessly, then was shocked into silence as Dave Burkhart’s hand began a gentle circuit around the middle of her back.

            “Stop it,” she whimpered. She would have called him names, screamed for help, anything, had she been able to get her breath. He was using only one arm to hold her, but it was enough to keep her immobile against him. Too late she thought of kicking; his leg was thrown over both hers in a gesture that might look affectionate but was as immobilizing as a wrestler’s.

            “Stop acting, Miss Waters!” he snarled, as angry as she had ever heard him.  “You’re willing to give yourself to Buck Tarrant, so why not to me?”

            “Buck’s a gentleman,” Cara gasped. She was beginning to get dizzy. “And I love him! We’ve waited...”

            “Tarnation!” Suddenly Dave released her, leaning back to study her with the bemused expression of someone who has just found a totally new species. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

            Had she been more able to breathe properly, Cara would have been mortified at the sudden, incriminating blush which stained her cheeks.

            “That’s none of your business,” she snapped, trying not to whoop for air. She still felt dizzy. Even though he now held her as loosely as a tame bird, her exhausted limbs refused to move.

            “Of course... the romance, the whole bit! I knew... No wonder you’re such a defender of Tarrant.”

            “What are you talking about?” Cara tried to sound fierce and logical, but she could feel her eyes beginning to cross from fatigue.

            “Nothing, my dear Miss Waters, nothing that can’t wait until we’ve had some rest. Lie still and sleep...”

            It was the best advice Cara had heard in a long time. Her body ached for sleep and it didn’t seem to matter that his arm was still around her or that her head was nestled into the smooth hollow of his shoulder. Bonelessly she melted against him, her own breathing rapidly synchronizing to the measured rise and fall of his lean, muscled chest.

            Cara’s mind perversely struggled against oblivion. Even as her body relaxed it played and replayed Señora Fonseca’s definition of ‘the other half of your heart’ and it nagged at her. More than just an old legend, it seemed to her sleep-soggy mind to contain an essential truth that was just beyond her comprehension.

            Was Buck the other half of her heart?

            She was attracted to him, she thought him handsome, she enjoyed being with him, she thought he was sexy, she loved him - thought she loved him - so that had to make him the other half of her heart, didn’t it?

            If so, why did she feel so empty when she put her feelings for him against that measure?

            Was her love so shallow that out of sight meant out of mind and out of love? Their romance had been such an intense, whirlwind affair. Three months ago she hadn’t even known him. Then he had entered her life and taken over, filling it with his laughter and his hugs and his presence until she had forgotten that there had ever been anything before.

            Right now he was probably out running around frantically trying to find and rescue her. If he burst in here and swept her up in his arms...

            Even in her semi-comatose state Cara’s mind rejected that as nothing more than a scenario from a bad television episode. Buck was a sensible man; he would have mobilized the local police and the American ambassador or consul or someone like that. He would be waiting at headquarters for word of her, not chasing out looking for her himself. Besides, even if he were, the odds of him being the one to find her in all these millions of square miles of jungle and beach would be minuscule.

            But he would find her.

            He would.

            He had to.

            Bleakly comforted by that thought, Cara’s mind finally went into a sleep as deep as her body was already enjoying cradled in the embrace of her kidnapper, a sleep so deep that she was not even conscious of the rumble of personnel trucks not a hundred yards away.

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The Land of Hearts Delight

As much as I disliked them, snakes were an integral part of that sandy country and prone to pop up in the most unexpected places. Once, when I had been on the job long enough to become regrettably complacent about them, I took my Girl Scout troop on a field trip out to some ranch for a lesson in the proper way to transplant a shrub.
We chose a small manzanita bush about twelve inches high that was just right for the chosen spot on the school grounds. The girls clustered around me watching as I dug the shovel into the sandy soil, isolated the main roots and lifted the whole thing onto the waiting sheet of burlap. I should have been suspicious when it came out of the ground so easily.
Beneath where the shallow root system had been was a ragged hole no larger than a football. At the bottom was a lively layer of finger-sized, whitish, almost transparent... things. They were wiggling until the hole looked almost like a boiling pot. Leaning over, I peered curiously at them, then gave the pulsating mass an experimental touch with the shovel's edge. In response the writhing knot broke apart instantly, with individual creatures slithering off in every direction, including towards my lightly-shod feet.
I had never seen anything like them. Were they some peculiar variety of desert earthworm? It wouldn't be surprising; so far nothing down here in this oddly alien land had seemed exactly like its counterpart back home. I bent down for a closer look.
"Miss! Miss!" shrilled the little girls of my Girl Scout troop.
Startled, I looked up. In the half-second or so since I had uncovered the oddity the girls had magically transported themselves a good twenty yards away. Now jumping up and down in the grip of some fervent emotion, they were making a variety of unintelligible and somewhat hysterical signals. Their words, however, were crystal clear.
"Run, Miss, run!" they screamed. Then as a body they uttered the one word guaranteed to make me move no matter the situation.
"Rattlesnakes!"
Being tall, I quite naturally have long legs and at that time could run extremely fast. It is not true, as was occasionally whispered later, that I jumped from the side of that hole all the way to the car parked out on the ranch road some quarter mile away. If I could have, though, I would have.
That was an invaluable lesson. Newly hatched rattlesnakes are small and translucent and, in their own way, interesting to look at. They also carry just as deadly a bite as their adult counterparts.
By mutual consent the girls and I abandoned the bush and simply went back to town. I never felt quite the same about transplanting shrubs again.

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Passion Choice

            “Is the duck not to your liking?”
“It’s fine,” Elissa said.
“But you are not eating. You need to keep up your strength...” The words were concerned, but his lean face was alight with erotic mischief. Ripping the drumstick from the duck, he pointed it at her mouth, gently drawing it over her closed lips.
Almost mesmerized by the fathomless depth of those sea-green eyes, Elissa formed her lips into a soft ‘o,’ allowing the bulbous leg to slide deeply into her mouth. The crisp skin had been roasted in a kind of spiced honey sauce and as the drumstick slid even further beyond her lips, stretching them almost painfully, it filled her mouth with a tangy sweetness that piqued her hunger even more. When Nakht made to withdraw it, she leaned forward, tightening her lips so as not to loose so tasty a morsel...
Only when she realized the sexual innuendo of their actions and that Nakht knew exactly what he was doing did Elissa return to her senses. She leapt back so suddenly the tray of dishes rattled dangerously and saved only by the general’s quick action. The honey sauce was now cloying on her lips; she would have licked it away, except to do so probably would have only enflamed that sneaky, sex-mad autocrat further. Grabbing the cloth which had covered the tray, she scrubbed at her mouth as if she could erase thoughts and unbidden reactions as easily as sticky honey sauce.
“You were not so fastidious last night,” he said without rancor, stripping a piece of flesh from the bone and placing it directly on his tongue.
“Last night I had no choice,” Elissa snapped, flushing with the memory of some of the previous evening’s more exotic moments. They were burned forever into both her brain and her body, erotic memories which scalded her not so much because of what had happened, but because she had enjoyed it so much.
She grabbed at the plate he had fixed for her, snatching it so suddenly she almost sloshed the soupy beans over the edge. Nothing more than a flat circle of the same yellowish alabaster, the plate had only the tiniest of rims to hold its contents in place.
Accustomed to sturdier utensils, Elissa stabbed at the beans and then cried with dismay as the fragile ivory spoon shattered in her fingers. Just because she was angry with him and with herself was no need to destroy beauty, she thought and fought the sudden tears springing to her eyes. Aunt Suzy would have given anything for that spoon - a genuine artifact from Ancient Egypt - and she had thoughtlessly destroyed it.
Where was Aunt Suzy now? Was she all right? Did she miss her? Or - Elissa gulped at the sudden specter of a new fear - had her aunt gone into another, different time, becoming as lost and at risk there as she was here?
“Hold there!” Reaching across, Nakht snatched the plate from her hands. “Are there no eating utensils where you come from, my beautiful barbarian?”
“Not like this,” Elissa replied in perfect truth.
“Then we must train you in the ways of civilized eating,” Nakht said with a smile. Picking up his own spoon he filled it with beans and extended it to her as one would to a recalcitrant toddler. “Open your mouth...”
“I will...” Elissa began angrily, stopping only as he tenderly filled her mouth with beans.
How humiliating! Did he expect her just to sit there and allow him to feed her like a baby? Elissa could have screamed with anger, but her mouth was full of beans; not only that, but delicious tasting beans. She could either spit them out - and in doing so lose all pretense at dignity - or obey his implicit order and eat them. This round she lost no matter which way she went.
Glaring at him, she savagely chewed and then gulped down the spicy mixture.
“There now, Isis! Is that not simple?” Nakht asked, dragging the bottom of the refilled spoon on the plate edge to catch any errant drops of sauce before extending it to her.
Elissa leaned back and before she spoke put her hand up as a protective screen against further intrusions. “You need not put yourself out. I am quite capable of feeding myself.”
“Perhaps, but you are a trifle hard on the cutlery. Besides, it pleases me to feed you.” Smiling indulgently, he gently bumped the full spoon against her tightly locked lips.
“Do you intend to feed me every meal?”
Nakht shrugged. “For as long as it pleases me.”
Just like a pet, Elissa thought resentfully. And when he’s tired of me, do I get sent back to the pound?
In a pig’s eye!
Two could play at this game, she decided; if he wanted to make a fool of himself, she was more than willing to help him. Keeping her eyes modestly lowered she obediently opened her mouth, accepting his dominance - and the beans - with all the meekness he could have desired.
“Now is this not much more pleasant?” Nakht asked, hiding a smile. Once again old Esamenope, his one-time master, had been proven right. All it took was a little kindness and sharply defined parameters to ensure contented obedience. He had never yet met a dog, a horse or a woman on whom it didn’t eventually work; it did seem, however, that this beautiful blonde barbarian had capitulated with unexpected suddenness.
Perhaps, he thought complacently, she had never before encountered a man so accustomed to handling difficult... situations.
Elissa chewed slowly, watching him from beneath her lashes. Arrogant pig! He thought she was ready to cave in and admit his superiority just because he was charming and put on a sweetly macho stance. If only he weren’t so good looking... if only her heart didn’t thud with happy betrayal at the sight of him... if only he could see her as a human being instead of as just a temporary toy!
Well, she thought, that was at best a severe improbability! If nothing else she’d make sure that he knew she was not a toy!
“May I have a bite of duck, please?” she asked in a small, femininely submissive voice.
It never failed, Nakht thought with vague content. They really all wanted a man to take over, to make all the decisions. It made their little lives so much easier... and how quickly they learned to take advantage of it!
He ripped off a long strip of pale duck breast and held it out in his fingers. Once any creature was gentled, it should be rewarded to ensure further obedience; then, with continued kindness and - if necessary - occasional firm but gentle discipline, order was maintained. It was the way it should be, the way it always had been, the way it always would be.
What a desirable creature she is, he thought.
He’s such a bastard, Elissa thought.
She opened her mouth wide, moving forward so that not only the strip of meat but his fingers were deep in her mouth. She sucked languidly for a fraction of a moment, milking his fingers with her tongue, enjoying the sudden glow of triumphant pleasure in his eyes before sinking her teeth right through the soft duck meat and into his flesh. Then she enjoyed the shock and fury which leapt into his eyes much more than she had the pleasure.
“Bitch!” he shouted, snatching back his hand, his body reacting with the training of years to jump into a posture of readiness.
The tray slithered to the floor, sending food and shards of alabaster splattering over the rough stone. Though his lacerated fingers throbbed, Nakht’s pride hurt much more. How dare she? He could have her flogged, have her thrown to the men, have her quartered...
A dozen other equally unpleasant forms of death flitted through his mind in less than an instant, but his body did not pause. He seized her, twisting her into a painfully submissive posture even before the scream of protest could leave her lips.
“You will learn that you are my property, barbarian!” he snarled through gritted teeth. In her distorted posture the woman’s firm breasts were thrust tightly against the thin linen of her gown. Nakht’s desire for this wild, strange creature burst over him in a thunderclap of physical need. The ways of devising her death were instantly replaced with twice that number of ways of pleasure, and when he spoke again his voice was husky with dangerous arousal. “You are mine to do with as I will.”
Elissa could not speak. Tears leapt to her eyes as he tightened his grip on her flowing blonde mane. Even in her pain she felt a queer vindication; his sort would always resort to violence in the end, and that alone proved their basic and undesirable instability.
“It would behoove you to learn to obey me...”
“In your dreams...” Elissa gasped, twisting helplessly in the tight cage of his grasp.
“Sir...”
The soldier, his eyes alight with vicarious pleasure, stood in the door. It was not often that anyone saw the famed General Amunnakht in any but the most flattering of lights. A common soldier would have been less than human to not be curious about seeing his vaunted superior battling with a woman... and what a woman! Hair the color of the sun... This soldier would have given ten years of his life to lie with this one, even though she did appear to be as wild as one of the fabled desert lions.
“What is it?” Nakht barked. He had to ask twice, the last time in a tone of imminent danger all the soldiers had learned to fear.
“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir, but the pharaoh demands your immediate presence.”
Nakht swore long and fluently, then released Elissa so suddenly that she fell bonelessly to the floor. He looked down at her, his emotions boiling with angry contradictions.
“Remember what I said, woman. We are not done with this.”
Long after the heavy door slammed shut, Elissa pulled herself up on the bed. Her face was hard and set.
“No, my great General Amunnakht, we are not done with this...” she finally breathed. Her eyes glittered. “We are not done with this at all, and you would do well to remember that!”

Dark Music

             “Every six weeks,” Bernie rumbled sonorously from the window.
“What?”
“Every six weeks. She could turn out a novel every six weeks, just like clockwork. I’ve got my printing schedule set up on that basis for the next year.” He sounded stricken.
“Miss Hall was one of your better writers, then,” Sergeant Hunter asked and was rewarded with a glare from Bernie. “I - I’m not familiar with the name.”
“Jane Hall never used her own name...” Anita began helpfully, but Bernie began to list her pseudonyms solemnly, as if intoning a roll call of the dead.
“Pauline Marshall, Marsha Paulson, LaWanda Tate, Clarissa Heatherington, Heather Clairmont, Annalise Bernard... that was the one she used for the first book she published with us. In honor of me...”
The Mountie looked rather stunned. “All those names?”
“Jane had at least fifteen names,” Anita said primly. “I don’t know if even she remembered them all. I’m sure our office will get you a list...”
“In that case, I wonder who the killer was killing,” he said slowly. “Miss Hall or one of her alter egos...” Poor man. He looked out of his depth. “Did Miss Hall have any jewelry?”
Anita shook her head. “I’ve never seen her wear anything of note.”
“She had on a pin last night,” I said. “It was a funny, old-fashioned bar pin... filigree, I think.”
“We found that on her body,” Sergeant Hunter said, consulting his notes. “as well as a small gold pinkie ring and a gold neck chain.”
“Poor Jane never did have much of a sense of style,” mourned Anita. “She could have afforded the crown jewels, but she seldom wore anything.”
“Her purse was undisturbed, so I think we can rule out robbery. My partner is making an inventory of the place now, but I don’t think we’ll find anything missing.”
Bernie turned in from the window. His face was ghastly. “I thought you couldn’t disturb a crime scene.”
“We do what we can. We’ve taken photographs of everything.” The Mountie cleared his throat; he was obviously uncomfortable. “I mean, we couldn’t just leave the poor woman lying there...”
There was a small sound of pain, as if from a wounded animal, and I realized I was making it.
“Please!” Anita hissed, her grip on my arm tightening. “Elizabeth is a very sensitive girl!”
“I’m all right, really I am. What... what killed her? There was so much blood...”
“A knife. One of the hotel knives.”
“That means it had to be one of the staff, doesn’t it?” I asked, grasping at straws. Anything to distance this horrible crime from people like me. “I mean, to have had access to the kitchen knives...”
“No, ma’am. It was a regular table knife.”
“You mean...” Anita’s voice went tight with horror. She raised a dainty handkerchief to her mouth. “One like we eat with?”
The sergeant nodded. “A wooden handled steak knife. We’ve got it bagged, but I doubt there’ll be any prints on it. There must be at least a thousand like it here in the hotel. There’s even a set-up chest full of them just outside the Empress dining room.”
Now Anita was clinging to me as much to be comforted as to comfort. “But we used some like that just last night!”
I thought I might be sick. A lot has been written about how most of a queasy stomach is all in the mind and now I believe it. One moment all I could think of was getting to a bathroom where I could throw up in peace and the next I had forgotten all about it.
We were all startled when the door flew open with a crash. Even the steadfast Sergeant Hunter jumped.
“Elizabeth!”
It was Jared, a wild-eyed, distraught Jared I had never seen before. In the comparative warmth of the room the snow was melting off his flapping parka and dripping like tears onto the carpet.
My response was instinctual and immediate. Without a word he held out his arms to me and, all thoughts of my queasy stomach forgotten, I flew into them, burrowing against him as I had so many other, happier times. My head still just fit in the hollow of his neck. His arms closed around me, wrapping me inside the parka with him. The warmth of him seemed to melt something deep within me and the tears I had held back for so long began to ooze from under my eyelids.
“Elizabeth!” Anita’s shocked voice was like a cold shower. Next to it Sergeant Hunter’s growling, “Jerry, what the heck is this?” carried no weight at all.
We ignored them. Jared cradled me close and our bodies fit together as if the bitter years had never been.
“I heard that one of the Wingate writers had been killed... a woman... I had to know it wasn’t you,” he crooned, one hand doing a slow circle in the middle of my back. He hadn’t forgotten how much I loved that. His lips pressed against my hair. “I had to know you were all right.”
“It was Jane Hall. I found her. Oh, Jared, she was right next door to me! While I was sleeping she was dead like that...” I began to shake again and he held even closer.
“You couldn’t help that! Just so you’re all right...”
“Jerry!” This time everyone heard the sergeant. “What is going on?”
“I had to make sure Miss MacAllister was all right.”
“I was not aware you knew any of the staff here,” Anita said repressively. “Elizabeth, who is this?”
Jared and I looked at each other. Even after all this time we could still sense each other’s thoughts. Somehow he had managed to skin out of his parka without ever letting go of me. He tossed it into the corner while the ever-helpful Sergeant Hunter answered Anita’s question.
“He’s Jerry Grant. He plays piano in the lobby bar.”
I nodded and Jared gave me a crooked smile. There was nothing to be lost by telling the truth.
“Not really. I’ve just been going by the name of Jerry Grant.”
“It’s not your real name?” Sergeant Hunter’s eyes bulged.
“No. My real name is Jared Granville.”
“The concert pianist?” Now it was Anita’s turn to be startled.
“Yes. And,” I said, burrowing my head into his chest to avoid her penetrating gaze, “he’s also my ex-husband.”

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Echoes in the Dark

 The knock on the door startled me.
“Professor Payne, I told you not to bother me while I’m in the darkroom!” I snarled, all thought of beauty and peace instantly evaporating.
“I’m not the professor and I’m not going to bother you; at least, I’m going to try not to. Can I come in?”
Pushing aside the safety drape, I opened the door. Zach reached inward, extending a tall icy glass like a white flag. A gust of air swirled in like a wave, cool in the close warmth of the darkroom. After I took the drink from his hand the rest of Zach followed in lanky sections as he maneuvered around me, Rosinante and the alterations Connell had wrought.
“What’s this?” I asked. Under the red glare of the safety light the icy liquid looked downright lethal.
“One of your Irish Sunrises. We started the cocktail hour early. After today I figured you deserved a drink as soon as possible.”
I sipped and enjoyed. “Thank you.”
“Is there some place I can sit without destroying anything?” he asked plaintively, looking at the collection of bottles and jugs and boxes and trays with alarm. He was screamingly persnickety with his own lab equipment and always offered other professionals the same courtesy he demanded... unless, of course, the professional was his wife. Then it didn’t matter. But I wasn’t his wife any more...
“Connell didn’t leave much provision for guests... Just a sec...” I shoved aside some boxes of paper and gestured toward the sturdy table the caretaker had built over the tub. “Here. It’s probably strong enough.”
“And I get to test it for you,” Zach said with a singularly charming crooked smile. How well I remembered that smile! I don’t think Zach ever realized just how potent it was. The table groaned a little when he hopped up, but didn’t sag. “I never could get used to these red lights.”
Admittedly the safety light’s lurid glow took some getting used to; when I had first started darkroom work I had found it almost spooky, as if the room had been washed in blood, but now it was warm and friendly... a part of my work and my life.
“Shall I turn on the white?”
“No... I don’t want to spoil anything.”
It wouldn’t have spoiled anything, as the film had already been processed and hung to dry, but I left him in ignorance. Perhaps it was small-minded, but I liked the symbolism of the safety light; it left no doubt that I was in my own world and that here he was alien.
“All right. What do you want, Zach?”
“Why do I have to want something?” he asked almost sadly. “I mean, can’t I just come see you because I want to see how you’re doing? Must I have some underhanded motive?”
“Zach, this is Alix, remember? Don’t go all sophomoric and innocent on me.”
He took a pull from his own drink and carefully looked away. The silence grew thick. Finally Zach pulled off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I never could put anything over on you, could I?” he asked at last in a very small voice. “I’d forgotten. All right, Alixandra, you always seem to want it straight to the chin, so here it is. I came to apologize.”
Now I wished I had turned on the white light. The red made his face into little more than a mask of shadows and highlights in which no subtleties could be read.
“Apologize? For what?”
“For bringing you here. I knew when it started out, when this whole thing began, that it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant experience in the world. I didn’t know it was going to be so rough.”
No matter how old we get, we still have our fantasies ... Zach’s words weren’t anywhere near what I had been thinking; I would have been shocked had they been. He was, after all, engaged to marry someone else! The simple sincerity in his voice touched me. Zach was a very decent man; I’d always known that, even in the midst of our divorce.
“It’s not that bad... I’ve been through worse.” I hoped he wouldn’t ask for chapter and verse.
“But you shouldn’t have to go through this.” He sighed. He was still rubbing his nose and now his eyes too. The darkroom chemicals were probably bothering him. I should turn on the white light, open the door, suggest that we leave, but I didn’t want to destroy this fragile moment of communication.
“Zach...”
“Look, I made a mistake in bringing you here.” He clawed at his hair and studied the scuffed tips of his cowboy boots. “I realized that when I saw you floundering around at the dig this morning. You’re supposed to be resting and you could be doing yourself some real damage instead. What if you had slipped and hit your head?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you could have. I know we split on kind of a sour note, but I... I wish you no harm.”
“Thank you.” It wasn’t what I had halfway hoped to hear. I tried to keep the irony in my voice down to a reasonable level; involved in his own thought processes, he didn’t seem to notice any.
“I think it might be better if you left, Alixandra.”
“Left!”
“Yes. I know how we talked about everything when I was trying to convince you to come here, but I didn’t know then how nasty it was going to get.”
His concern touched me... almost as much as it aroused my suspicions. Never trust anyone who does something without a personal motive, my father had said repeatedly; everyone is always out for something, whether they tell you what it is or not.
“It’s not precisely...”
Zach looked me squarely in the face and even in the ghastly red light his face was taut with concern. I stifled a resurrected impulse to stroke the tension from that stony cheek.
“Look, Alixandra, I called a nice nursing home down in Hot Springs...”
“A nursing home! So I can sit on the porch and rock all day long surrounded by a bunch of doddering pensioners? Really, Zach!” I snapped, all flickers of latent tenderness gone. In his own inimitable way Zach was as transparent as ever; he was up to something and for some reason or another he wanted me out of the way. What better way to accomplish it than to try to convince me it’s for my own good?
“Well, you shouldn’t be out running around and doing all the work you’re doing! You were damn sick, Alixandra, and being in this place isn’t going to help you get better any faster!”
Whatever he wanted must be something important, I decided. It had to be or he wouldn’t be getting so worked up about it.
“And don’t worry about money. I’m not rich, but I can take care of the bills until you get on your feet again,” he said with painful clarity. His gaze never left his booted toes.
Was Deborah getting a little testy about my presence? Had she somehow divined our former relationship? Hmmm...
“That’s most generous of you, Zach,” I said slowly, “but I must say no. First of all, I’m recuperating very nicely. If all I had to do was sit and think about myself I’d probably have a relapse! Secondly, this is turning out to be an interesting job.”
“Sure it is, with you being hauled around out at the dig like a sack of meal and fainting in your darkroom and hallucinating a Confederate soldier and...”
“Except that he was real.”
“What?”
“Whatever I saw in the basement last night was real... and I don’t mean a real ghost. I knew it when I saw the snake this afternoon.”
“Snake?” Zach yelped and looked around in sudden panic as if expecting a serpent to materialize from the depths of the red shadows. For a grown man he has always had the most irrational reaction to snakes. “What snake? Where?”
“In my bed. And spare me the comments on Freudian symbolism, if you please. It was an hallucination, Zach, a real live hallucination, if that’s not too much of a contradiction in terms. It was just like the camel and the mermaid and all the others... no matter how real it looked, I knew it was an hallucination.”
“But a snake! If you had been wrong...” He reached out to grab my upper arm, then just as he touched it drew back, as if I burned him.
“I’m not a complete idiot, Zach. I shook out the linen and looked for it quite thoroughly just on the wildest off chance I could have been wrong, but I wasn’t! That snake was an hallucination and it was just as clear as anything I ever saw. I could have counted the scales on its head!”
“Ugh!”
“Don’t be such a baby. It’s in my mind, not yours. Anyway, that’s what convinced me that what I saw last night was not an hallucination. I don’t know what it was, but that Confederate soldier did not come from inside my head.”
Zach took a hearty gulp of his drink and thought a minute. Watching Zach think was always a fascinating process. His eyes went blank and glazed and he started gnawing methodically on his lower lip. It was almost possible to see the wheels turning in his head.
“All right, Alixandra,” he said gravely after a moment’s thought, “assuming that you’re right, exactly what did you see? And what was it doing there?”

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Second Chance

    

Bradford Pemberton was less than pleased. He had barely stepped inside the great formal drawing room when a brilliant vision in gaudy garnet and silver flew to his side. He gave a scant bow and asked in a cool tone, “Lady Conover, is it not?”
“Bradford! You are here! How wonderful...” Catherine cooed, taking firm hold of his arm as if it were her property. “Come with me.”
Knowing of old that Catherine was perfectly capable of creating a scene in public if crossed Bradford reluctantly gave in to the insistent pressure of her soft hands and followed her docilely to a settee discreetly shielded by potted palms.
The years had not been kind to Catherine, he decided, though just in what way he couldn’t quite define. There was a brittleness about her that was alien to the Catherine Morrison he had known as a child. Then she had been a supremely assured, arrogant creature, a sparkling wisp of a potential beauty who was confident that Life could deny her nothing she wanted. What could have happened to make that enchanting girl into such a tightly drawn edge of a woman?
“We meet again, Lady Conover,” Bradford said coolly. “Will I have the pleasure of meeting your husband tonight?” He could feel the warmth of her nervous, clutching hands even through his coat sleeves. The contact gave him a distasteful feeling of intimacy.
Catherine laughed huskily. “Surely you can call me Catherine as you used to, dear, dear Bradford! I could not bear it if you felt you had to stand on ceremony with me. As for poor, dear Ephraim, he absolutely loathes Town. Nothing I say or do will pry him away from Highroyd.”
“You must miss him a great deal,” Bradford replied conventionally, but his companion put her own interpretation on his words and allowed her lower lip to tremble with gentle artistry.
“I’m afraid Ephraim can see no further than the boundaries of his farms. Perhaps people were right when they said we were ill-matched.”
Pemberton shrugged uncomfortably; intimate revelations had always been distasteful to him. “Is your family well? Your parents?” he added, unable to form the one name he really wanted to know about.
“Mother passed away five years ago. Father looked well the last time I visited Foxworth,” Catherine answered in perfect truth, feeling it unnecessary to add that her last trip home had been three years previously. Her hand massaged his arm with an unwonted passion. “Percy does most of the work of the estate now, but Father still has the last word.”
“I heard that John became a bishop,” Bradford said when it became obvious that his companion was not going to elaborate further on the subject of her relatives.
“Yes, some time ago. He was one of the youngest bishops ever consecrated, a fact of which Father was inordinately proud. Of course, we are all proud of him. Percy says John may well become an Archbishop someday.”
Finally. “And Verity?”
Catherine heard the subtle change in his voice and was flooded with sudden rage. Verity! After all these years it was still Verity! Her fingers tightened like wire around his arm. Since Bradford could all too easily learn the truth she dared not tell him a direct lie, but if she were ever going to have a chance with him it was imperative that the spectre of Verity be gently and permanently laid to rest. Catherine chose her words carefully.
“Verity? She... lives in the country... with her family. She is quite happy, I believe. We are not close, but I believe her to be entirely satisfied with her life.”
Despite the fact she had not really told an untruth Catherine could not bear to look directly at him. The throng was beginning to drift toward the music room. The entertainment would be starting in a few minutes. Catherine thought furiously about her next step; she could not let this opportunity slip past her! Bradford had to be hers!
And just what did you expect, Bradford asked himself savagely as Catherine’s words echoed in his head. For Verity to wait quietly, sitting at home until you felt powerful enough and wealthy enough to come back and throw your money in the Morrisons’ faces?
“I am happy to hear that,” he murmured in the dull tone usually reserved for speaking of the dead. Already his mind was working ahead, toying with the idea of checking the shipping schedules for a southbound ship. Suddenly the swirl of Society seemed very flat.
Catherine exulted. Perhaps now the irritating presence of Verity had finally been banished. “Are you going about much? I have looked for you at every party.” Her voice was bright.
Bradford pulled himself back from the black morass of his thoughts and strove to answer civilly. “Edgar Howland invited Charlie and me to Watier’s, and eventually we ended up invited here. Against my better judgement, I might add.”
“Do you still fear repercussions of the old scandal?” Catherine gushed, firming her hold on his arm once again. “Please, you must not. It was all so long ago. No one cares about such things any longer.”
Gently Bradford tried once more to disengage her grip without success. Was she planning to attach herself to him all night? “Amazing how eager people are to forget that they once called you a liar and a cheat and a murderer.”
“But I heard the man lived.”
“If I had not been so befuddled with drink he would not have.”
“No matter now. It is so good to have you back, Bradford!” Catherine purred. “You do not know how I’ve missed you...”
Bradford shifted. Her proximity was uncomfortable. “The entertainment is about to begin. Let us go in and find our seats...”
“Who cares about the silly entertainment?” Catherine asked heatedly, her eyes glittering feverishly. “You are back home at last, Bradford, and we are finally together! That is all that matters, is it not?”
Unwilling to make a scene by peeling her away from him physically, Bradford gave in with as good a grace as possible. What did it matter? He would be leaving London as soon as he could.
Mrs. Drummond-Burrell’s footmen were very well trained; although they had been ordered to shepherd everyone towards the music room, they passed the striking-looking couple huddled together in the alcove behind the potted palms without disturbing them. The gossip about The Prodigal and the lady love he had left behind had filtered down even to the servants’ hall.
Inside the music room Verity was only half listening to her escort’s description of his Suffolk estate as she strained to see the giggling bevy of white-clad young ladies waiting their turn to perform.
“I cannot see Lisbet.”
Man-like, Sir Rodney disliked the recital of his possessions - with which he hoped to lure his chosen lady’s attentions toward matrimony - interrupted, especially for a badly-behaved young woman whom he thought most tiresome. “I am sure she will be along in a moment,” he replied testily. He was all too aware that since the unhappy moment they had encountered the younger Miss Morrison he had possessed only a marginal portion of the elder’s attention.
“She should be there now. She knows how important this is... I must go see about her.”
“Surely it is no worry of yours, Verity!” Sir Rodney harrumphed. “Let her other aunt worry about it. After all, she is her chaperone, not you. You are here to enjoy the evening.” And my company, he might as well have added.
Dismissing him with a cool glance that was more wounding than any glare, Verity rose and swept from the room. Grimacing, Sir Rodney followed, hoping soon to lure Verity away from all her tiresome relations.
Lisbet was nowhere to be seen in either the with drawing room or the Gallery. No matter how assiduous Verity was, though, the sight of the tableau behind the discreet palm drove all thoughts of her niece and almost everything else out of her mind.
Bradford had begun to think that he would be trapped by this predatory female until he could finally dare fight free from her at the docks on his way home. As he dreamed with an unexpected nostalgia of his jungle home Catherine’s monologue was interrupted by a gasp so pained that Bradford looked about quickly for any source of danger... only to have his own being stop for what seemed forever. It could not be...
At first he almost failed to recognize her. The memories he had carried so long in his heart were those of a wild, laughing girl - on horseback, in the garden, even thinly disguised as a sedate churchgoer - all only faintly gilded with the bitter memory of her tearful renunciation. There was nothing to connect that untamed young creature with the beautiful goddess of ivory and amethyst who now stood before him. Bradford’s very being twisted as he saw her stiffen and pale as she recognized him; with pain he watched her reach out blindly to the Friday-faced creature at her side and the man’s tender response.
Of course! Had not Charlie said something about Lisbet coming to stay with a married aunt? If only he had listened to his nephew’s prattle about the girl he could have figured it out for himself much earlier. He could not recall the name, but Bradford recognized the man; he had been a devilish ugly creature when he had hung around Verity all during her Season and Time had not improved him. Bradford remembered how he and Verity had laughed at his determined suit... who would have thought she might accept him?
More realization; it must be Verity and her husband with whom Lisbet was staying, for certainly no one in his right mind and especially not that stuffed shirt Percy would let an innocent and impressionable girl stay with a woman like Catherine Conover. Bradford felt betrayed; idiot he might be not to have seen the whole earlier, but still Charlie might have told him! That unfortunate young man’s uncle selected a number of words to convey to his nephew at the next private opportunity.
The tableau seemed as frozen as if all the participants had been encased in ice. Verity felt as if she might be dying, yet conversely as if her heart were pounding hard enough to be heard across the room.
Bradford! Here!
There was no doubt about it; he was older, heavier, darker, but still unquestionably Bradford... and here, in London, with Catherine. Catherine, who had always wanted him.
Could it be that he had never really left London, that all the time she had been buried alive down in the country, still waiting for him in her heart of hearts, he had been in Town desporting himself with the very willing Catherine?
The world heaved and buckled beneath Verity’s suddenly unstable feet. Were it not for the steadying pressure of Sir Rodney’s arm at her waist she might have fallen.
Rescue approached from two quarters. Annabelle Bellthorpe swept in from the music room and, fastening a displeased gaze on Verity, flew directly to her side. “My dear, we must get inside... You do not wish to miss the entertainment, do you?”
Her eyes widened as she saw Catherine and then her mouth gaped as her mind leapt the intervening years to recognise the man at her side as Bradford Pemberton. She quickly reached the same conclusion as Verity, but uncluttered by old emotion she could also see beyond it. There had been rumours about The Prodigal returning, rumours which she had been very careful to keep from Verity’s ears.
“Come, Verity!” she said almost as she would have to a recalcitrant housemaid, only with difficulty restraining herself from physically hauling her friend away. “You don’t want to miss hearing Lisbet sing, do you? There’s no need to discuss the girl’s change of custody now...”
The words ‘change of custody’ soaked into the fevered brain of Catherine Conover like a death sentence and she clung even more tightly to Bradford’s unwilling arm. Those same words, however, went totally unheard by Verity. By sheer luck Annabelle had said the only thing that could penetrate the sick shock which surrounded her... Lisbet.
“Yes...” she murmured woodenly. “We must find Lisbet...”
Once in the jungle Bradford had been bitten by a particularly poisonous viper. Though his native workers had done their best to save him, for hours his life had been in the balance and he could have died much more easily than he could have lived. Then the image of Verity, a fever dream that sat beside him and held his hand during his delirium, had saved his life. Now he felt much the same - lightheaded and queerly disassociated from his body - but there was no loving touch (fantasy or otherwise) to bring him back to sanity.
Catherine ground her teeth, her face a mask of horror. Verity had not come to Town in years! How spiteful of her to come now, just when all was going so well! Well, she wasn’t going to give in! Bradford was hers now, and she wouldn’t give him up!
Clementina Drummond-Burrell did not believe in leaving things to chance. When she gave an entertainment she expected it to be enjoyed; besides, she had seen Bradford captured by that vulgar cat Catherine Conover. If it were not for the respect she had for the Morrison family the Conover wench would never have been allowed within the portals of her home; already there had been questions put ever so delicately to her.
Clementina Drummond-Burrell was not accustomed to being questioned about anything.
Aware that neither Lady Conover nor The Prodigal had yet entered the music room, she bore down on the secluded alcove just in time to see an ashen Verity led away by her friends. Whatever it was, she knew Catherine Conover was at the bottom of it.
“The entertainment is about to begin. Will you give me your arm, Mr. Pemberton? Lady Conover, I trust one of your friends has saved you a seat? Mr. Jason... will you escort Lady Conover?” Imperiously calling over a rather weedy young man for Catherine, Clementina Drummond-Burrell took undisputed possession of Bradford Pemberton.
Under different circumstances Bradford would have found the whole situation amusing; now he simply rose and, bowing with a rusty elegance, extended his arm to his hostess. He abandoned Catherine Conover with neither a thought nor a backward glance.
The first part of the musical program was an up and coming soprano who sang long and mightily, then bowed a great number of times to applause that came as much from relief as from appreciation.
All but forced into her seat by Sir Rodney and Annabelle, Verity had borne the recital with bad grace. The spectre of Bradford and Catherine together (together!) was too painful to absorb, too dreadful to think about, so Verity concentrated with all her will on Lisbet. Just the veriest shred of social consciousness - and the insistent pressure of Sir Rodney’s hand on her arm - kept her from jumping up and going to see about her niece.
Try though she would, Verity could not see Lisbet in the gaggle of young women who awaited their turns to perform. Her friends’ casual assurance that Lisbet was merely out of her line of sight did not allay her emotion-heightened fears, so as the last of the applause died away, the elder Miss Morrison was out of her seat with a startling lack of grace and threading her way through the crowd.
Bradford had scarcely heard a note. He could not see Verity from where he sat, but he knew she was there, sitting beside that ugly devil who was her husband. He could only hope that she was happy and that Nicholas was good to her. Verity deserved that.
As for the other one... Bradford looked around for a glimpse of Catherine’s gaudy garnet and silver and, seeing her momentarily ensnared by an ageing dandy, rapidly made his escape. He would just say something to his hostess and then leave, Bradford decided; Charlie was old enough to come home from an affair like this on his own.
Old enough? Though his nephew was some years younger than Bradford had been during his time on the Town, he knew Charlie was a much more reliable man than he had ever been. He wouldn’t allow himself to become all cock-a-hoop over gaming or believe some of the wild tales he himself had followed...
“Bradford!” Charlie, his face distraught, materialized at his uncle’s side as if he were a djinn created by the older man’s thoughts. “We must do something. Lisbet’s been kidnapped!”
 

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