The Art of Stealing Time

SIX

“That was totally uncalled for!”

The voice that rumbled above and through me was pissed. Very pissed.

“You could have hurt Gwen!”

“Yeah,” another voice said, and it took a few seconds before I realized that it came from my mouth. I put a hand up to my face to verify that fact, realized my eyes were closed, and opened them.

I was sitting on the floor, propped up against something hard and warm, wrapped in a delicious scent that reminded me of a campfire in the mountains. I turned to look, and my nose brushed Gregory’s chin. “Hello,” I told his chin.

“Are you all right? Do you hurt anywhere? You hit the floor hard.”

“I don’t feel hurt.” Slowly my gaze moved upward until it reached his eyes. They were filled with concern now, the little laugh-line crinkles around the outsides making my stomach feel all warm and happy. “What happened?”

“Evidently that twit in the tunic was a mage. He threw open a portal at our feet.”

I stopped looking at his nice eyes and nicer laugh lines to look around us, allowing him to help me to my feet. We were in a long rectangular room paneled in dark wood and bedecked with various antique weapons arranged in decorative fans and crosses. The floor was black-and-white-diamond marble tile. At one end of the room stood a tremendous fireplace, the kind that they used to have in medieval castles in order to roast whole oxen. The other end had two double doors, while overhead, dusty banners wafted gently in a ghostly breeze. A couple of long benches sat along one wall between suits of armor, while the other wall held a large curved desk with a sign that stated in three languages that tours would be conducted only in the company of an official guide.

No one else was in the room except a white cat that sat on the desk. As I watched, it jumped down and strolled over to us, tail held high.

“Where are we?” I asked, squinting at the sign in hopes it would tell us. It didn’t.

“I have no idea. I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt before I went exploring. Shoo, cat.”

I looked at him, guilt welling up inside me. “I’m sorry,” I said before I could chicken out.

His eyebrows rose. “For?”

“Not telling you who my mother was. I just—you were with the Watch, and my moms have had so much trouble lately, and the last thing ended up with me being arrested, and then the Watch people released me, but they had this annoying scribe follow me around until I drove her mad and she quit, and the Watch couldn’t find anyone else who would do the job, and then my moms didn’t really believe me when I said that if they screwed up again, they’d get sent to the Akasha, and I died trying to get that lawyer off their backs after I told him that they weren’t going to give him the magic after all, and my moms didn’t believe that, either, and I had to see a therapist who thought I was loopy.”

Gregory frowned. “That was quite the run-on sentence.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“It had a lot of meat to it, a lot of things to discuss and think about, and perhaps ask for more explanation about, but right now I believe the more pressing matter is to find out where we are, and why the scrawny mage sent us here. Cat, move.” He nudged the cat, which had decided to plop its butt down on his shoe.

“Aw, don’t be mean to the poor kitty. It clearly likes you.”

“It can like me all it wants so long as it stays out of my way.”

“Not a cat lover, eh? I am.” I bent down to pick it up. The cat gave me a long look, unsure of whether or not it approved of this action, and finally, after some deliberation, sank its teeth into my hand. “Ow! You little monster! Fine, I won’t pet you, then.”

The cat jumped out of my arms, gave me a scornful look, ignored Gregory, and marched over to the nearest bench, where it attended to some grooming of a highly personal nature.

Gregory took my hand and examined the bite.

“Little beast has sharp teeth.” I shot a glare at the cat. It paid us no attention.

“You’ll live,” was all Gregory said before he herded me to a door on our right. I had to admit, I didn’t mind his hand holding mine. His thumb stroked over the bite a couple of times until it stopped stinging. What that simple touch did to my stomach was another matter. “Come. We will find out who is in charge here.”

He flung open the door. It was a bathroom. A man sat on the toilet, holding a computer gamer magazine. He looked up in surprise. Two cats emerged from the room and twined around Gregory’s legs.

“Whoops!” I said, turning around quickly.

“Our apologies,” Gregory said, and closed the door.

“Well, that was embarrassing. How about I get to pick the next door?”

“More cats!” His tone was disgusted. “No, I do not want to pet you. Go away. What did you say, Gwen?”

“I offered to pick the door we open next. Those cats sure do like you. Here, kitty, I’ll pet you if you’re not bitey like Snowball over there.”

The white cat, now sitting with its front feet tucked under it (what Mom Two always called “meat loaf mode”), glared at me.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Gregory said, shooting the cat a dubious look.

This cat, which was mostly white with some orange splotches on it, didn’t seem to mind being picked up. He purred amiably as I rubbed his ears and neck. His buddy went over to fling himself down in a pool of sunlight that glowed on the marble floor. “I told you that I like cats. Dogs, too. Actually, all animals, and they like me as well. I think it’s because my moms are Wiccan. They know that we’re animal-friendly.”

Gregory made a noncommittal noise. We crossed the hall to open the door opposite. It was locked.

“Guess we try the big ones,” I said, tucking the cat beneath my arm so I could gesture to the far end of the room, but before we could reach it, the sound of flushing and water running reached our ears.

“Who the hell are you?” asked the man who emerged. He was in the process of wiping his hands on a towel, which he flung to one side as he stalked forward. He was a little taller than Gregory, had curly black hair, dark eyes, and one of those dashing narrow mustaches that make me think of Errol Flynn and swashbucklers.

“We were about to ask you the same question,” Gregory said in a haughty tone that I had a feeling wasn’t going to go over well with Mr. Mustache.

“I live here. I get to ask questions first. Are you tourists?” He narrowed his eyes at us, answering himself before we could. “No, you’re not mortal. You’re also not deceased, and therefore you have no right to be in Anwyn. You can have that cat, though. Make you a present of it. Be glad to get rid of the beastly thing.”

“We don’t want a cat—”

“Speak for yourself,” I said, chucking the cat under his chin. He purred louder and kneaded my arm. “My moms love cats, and they just lost one to liver disease.”

“—and before I explain myself to anyone, I desire to know to whom I’m speaking.”

The man, who had been making a face at the cat, snapped to attention. “I am Aaron, lord of Anwyn, king of the Underworld, and ruler of these lands. Now, non-mortal, who are you?”

“Aaron?” Gregory asked.

“It’s actually Arawn, but no one but pesky people call me that anymore. I’ve gotten with the times,” the king answered with an air of being well-pleased with himself.

“Oh, dear,” I said, unsure of how to greet a real, honest-to-Pete king, no matter how hip he was. Did people still curtsy? I wondered if I even knew how, or if he’d be offended by a bow?

“Gregory Faa.” He bowed, making me swear at myself because I wasn’t quicker off the mark. Now if I tried to bow, it would look like I was copying Gregory, plus I didn’t think I could pull off the move with quite as much panache. Especially not with a cat tucked under my arm. “This is—”

“Gwenhwyfar Owens, Your Majesty,” I said, making a little bob that I hoped would pass for a courtly curtsy. “We were evidently sent here by a mage.”

“Ah?” The king crossed his arms and gave us a considering look. “You can drop the ‘Your Majesty’ business. I’m a man of my people. Why did a mage send you here?”

“That is a very good question,” Gregory said.

I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye. He hadn’t mentioned being with the Watch . . . that was odd. If I were a policeman, I would mention it, whether or not I had authority in that place. And he certainly hadn’t had a problem telling Douglas that. Hmm.

“I’m sure I’ll get a message about it,” the king said, dismissing the subject with a wave of his hand. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about machines, would you?”

“Machines?”

“What kind of machines?” I asked, tucking the cat more firmly in place as Aaron strode to the door, obviously expecting us to follow him. “I know a little about computers.”

“Such things are unreliable. They are always breaking down.” He must have noticed Gregory pulling out his cell phone, because he added, “I believe you’ll find that your mobile device will not work here. It’s something to do with the static in the air. Now, about your experience with machinery . . .”

“I’m a Traveller, Your Maj—er—”

“Aaron.”

“I’m a Traveller, Aaron,” Gregory said as we left the hall and blinked at the bright sunlight flooding the grass bailey before us.

“Ah? Oh, I see what you mean. Your kind does not do well with machinery. Just so,” Aaron said, nodding, then cocked an eyebrow at me. “Are you a Traveller, too?”

“No, I’m an alchemist.”

“Hmm. Alchemist. Hmm. No, my newest weapon, the Piranha, has no use for that. Now, if you had some way to smooth out a balky gearshift, I could put you to work. But as it is—oh, lord. This is all I need.”

Irritation flitted across his face as a woman strolled out of a small outbuilding. She was dressed in a Victorian artist’s idea of medieval wear, a long silken white gown known as a kirtle, touched with gold shimmering in the slight breeze. Her hair, the same color as the gold trim, hung down to her waist in waves that would have made a shampoo-commercial producer fall over in a swoon. Two orderly lines of mostly white cats followed her, tails standing tall like so many furry staves.

“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” Aaron snapped before the woman and her feline escort stopped before us.

“No, I do not see that you’re busy. You’re never busy. You simply amuse yourself with a variety of toys and pretend it’s work.”

Aaron bristled. “I am the king of the Underworld! The king of the Underworld does not have toys! He has vitally important machinery of war.”

The woman pursed her lips and tapped her chin. “So that thing you’re always hunched over on that computing device wherein you construct villages and towns isn’t a game?”

“SimCity is a highly intelligent computer simulation. It is a tool, woman, not a game. With it, I can plan out the next stages of development of Anwyn to ascertain the best allocation of funds and labor without having any negative impact on the indigenous population, souls in transit, or the wildlife native herein.”

She smirked. “Which explains why you have statues of yourself dotted about the simulated town and cackle loudly when you send a giant lizard monster to destroy the townspeople?”

“They are virtual townspeople. They aren’t real.”

“But you enjoy destroying them with monsters and tornadoes and virulent venereal diseases.”

Aaron made a disgusted noise. “There are no venereal diseases in SimAnwyn, virtual or otherwise. That’s another program.”

“The fact remains that you enjoy destroying the people of your town.”

“Your facts are erroneous. I reject them. Begone. I am busy talking with these fine people.”

The woman turned lovely, if cold, greenish-gray eyes upon us. “Who are they?”

“I have no idea. Someone that one of the mages at the front sent out. It matters not.”

“It matters to us,” I said, smiling politely when the woman glanced at me. “I’m Gwen. This is Gregory.”

“You are not dead,” she said, as if making a profound judgment.

“No. Although I did die earlier in the week if that makes you feel any better.”

“Hmm,” she said, then turned to consider Gregory. She seemed to like him better than me, a thought that made me narrow my eyes. Did she have to ogle him so obviously? We weren’t a couple, but she didn’t know that. What if we had been?

I glared at Gregory when he smiled in a friendly fashion at her. He caught the edge of my glare and raised his eyebrows. I resisted the urge to kick him in the shins.

“Introduce us, Arawn,” she said, pronouncing his name with a heavy Welsh flourish.

“This is my ex-wife, Constance,” he said with a martyred sigh. He gestured toward the double line of cats behind her. “And her hell-spawn creatures.”

“My cats are beguiling furry little beasts of wonder and delight, although technically they are hell-spawned, but only because this is what many mortals think of as hell. And I am not your ex-wife. I do not recognize your divorce proceedings; thus we are still very much married.” She bit off the last few words in a manner that reminded me of the piranha that Aaron had mentioned earlier.

“Only because you live in your own little fantasy world that in no way resembles any form of reality. No, no,” he said, raising a hand to stop her even though she hadn’t responded to his comment. “Far be it from me to interrupt you on your daily torment of the poor, hapless souls who reside here. Stay and talk to the strangers all you like. I have important things to do. The Piranha calls.” And with a curl of his lip (and the slightest hint of an obscene gesture to the feline honor guard), he left.

“You really do have piranha here?” I asked, glancing at the cats. “Isn’t that kind of dangerous for them?”

“It isn’t a real piranha,” she answered with another assessing ogle at Gregory. “It’s what Arawn calls his Velociphant.”

“Do we want to know what a Velociphant is?” Gregory asked.

“No,” she said, then pinned me back with a look that had me straightening my shoulders. “Why did the mage send you to us?”

I slid a look to Gregory. He slid it right back to me, leaving me to stammer, “Uh . . . well . . . you see . . . that is . . .”

She turned to Gregory. I could see that he was struggling with an answer that wasn’t an outright lie, and yet shielded the truth a bit.

“I see,” she said after a few seconds of silence. She waved imperiously at a couple of men who were hauling in giant bags of what appeared to be kitty litter. “You there. Take these two to the captain of the guard and ask that they imprison them in the deepest, darkest part of the dungeon.”

“What?” I shrieked.

“I should inform you that I am a member of the Watch—” Gregory started to say, but the woman said nothing as the two men dropped the bag of kitty litter and approached us. She simply lifted the hem of her gorgeous dress and delicately moved away, the double line of cats following her.

“No,” I told Gregory. “I’m not doing this again. I’m simply not doing this.”

The fight that followed wasn’t pretty, nor was it even fair. Just about the time Gregory declared, “Touch one hair on her head, and I’ll pound you into the ground, Watch or no Watch,” a handful of other men appeared from the depths of the nearest outbuilding and joined the fray, the bulk of which was centered on Gregory.

And when I say “on Gregory,” I mean just that. He started swinging the second that one of the men grabbed my arm in the same familiar, “imprisoning innocent women is my middle name” sort of manner that I had experienced the day before, and it only took a couple of heartbeats before Gregory went down under the onslaught of several pissed-off cat-litter toters, or whatever their respective job titles were.

Naturally, I did what I could. I screamed, I bit, I kicked, and I punched. I tried to flip several men over my hip this time, too, but in the end I was ignominiously hauled off yet again to forced imprisonment.

The men had a harder time with Gregory. Once the bulk of them peeled off the pig pile, he came up fighting again. I winced in sympathy when, as I glanced over my shoulder to where he was being carried by six men, I caught sight of not only an eye that was quickly swelling and turning a deep crimson purple but also a fine spray of blood across his dark blue shirt.

We were hauled down smooth-cut stone steps into what I assumed was going to be a dark, dank, rat-infested dungeon.

“I have to say that this is the cleanest, most pleasant dungeon I’ve ever been forced to visit,” I told the man who was attached to my left side. “It’s well lit, it smells good, there’s no garbage or people’s bones lying around, and I don’t hear so much as even one little scream of torment.”

“Lord Aaron believes that a healthful dungeon is a productive dungeon,” the guard said.

“That’s quite forward-thinking of him.”

“Aye, but to be honest, he had them cleaned up when the tourists started coming through,” the man on my right commented.

“Tourists?” Gregory asked from behind me. His voice sounded hoarse and muffled. “Did he just say ‘tourists’?”

“He did. That’s probably what that sign upstairs was all about.”

“What sign?”

“The one that mentioned tours.”

“Why,” I heard Gregory ask one of his attendants, “does Aaron run tourists through the afterlife?”

“Why not?” the man said.

“I have to admit,” Gregory called up to me, “that he has me there. Literally as well as figuratively.”

“We wouldn’t be havin’ to carry ye iff’n ye didn’t fight us,” one of his guards answered. “Ye fair on crippled poor ’Erbert.”

“Aye, he did. I may never walk again,” said the man on my left.

I looked at him. He immediately started to limp.

“Poor Herbert, indeed. He tried to kidney punch me,” Gregory pointed out.

“Then there’s what you did to Maltravers,” my right guard said.

“Who’s Maltravers, and what did Gregory do to him?” I asked.

“’E’s the ’ead litter cleaner, and yer boyfriend ’ere broke his thumb. The one ’e uses to scoop!”

“Christos, not the scooping thumb!” Gregory muttered. “Was Maltravers the one who broke my nose?”

“Nay, that’d be Jones, there on yer left calf.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said Jones. I assumed it was him, but I couldn’t actually see behind me.

I giggled, but felt obligated to say, “Gregory isn’t my boyfriend.”

“And then there’s Wenceslaus,” another man behind me said.

“OK, now you’re just getting silly,” I protested. “This is Anwyn. We’re in Wales. I’m willing to let ‘Herbert’ and ‘Maltravers’ pass, but ‘Wenceslaus’ isn’t even remotely Welsh.”

“Nay, ’e isn’t, and now ’e can’t talk what with the beating your boyfriend ’ere gave him about the throat. Got a clean left in the Adam’s apple, ’e did.”

“He got me in the bollocks.” A thin, reedy voice drifted up from the back. “With his elbow! I may never have children again!”

“You ain’t had them to begin with,” called my chatty guard. “So don’t you be going on about something what isn’t likely to happen to begin with, Ned Bundy. Not that I’m saying getting a man in the bollocks is right,” he added to me. “A man’s bollocks ought not to be touched excepting by him. And possibly his missus, if she has a light hand to her.”

“In general, I agree, with the firm exception of self-defense. What did Ned do to Gregory?”

“Nothing,” Gregory answered. “He just got in my way when I was trying to keep from having any more of my teeth knocked out.”

“There, you see? Self-defense.”

“Aye,” the guard said, sucking on his teeth as he thought. “That’s as might be.”

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Me mum named me Aloysius, but the lads ’ere call me Al. I’m by way of bein’ the ’ead of his lordship’s guards. When ’e has need of ’em. Othertimes, I does a bit of light tanning.”

“I don’t suppose we could convince you to let us go?” I asked without much hope.

The look he gave me was pitying. “Now, then, what sort of a ’ead guard would I be if I was to be lettin’ you and ’im go?”

“A nice one?”

Al scratched his neck. “That’s as might be, but I can’t see my way clear to it without word from my lord or ’is lady.”

“This really sucks,” I said somewhat pettishly. “I don’t want to sit in a cell by myself, twitching at every sound, and with no one to talk to.”

“Well, as to that, I’m afraid accommodations are what you would call a wee bit tight at the moment.” Al stopped before a solid-looking wooden door. One that I couldn’t help notice was fitted with a small cat door. “What with the tourists and all.”

“You imprison tourists, too?”

“Only those that pay for it,” Herbert the guard said, leaning in to add, “It costs extra.”

“Wow,” was all I could think of to say, and say it I did. A few seconds later, that pithy exclamation was joined by “Holy carp!” and “Oh, you poor thing. Is your nose broken?” when the guards summarily dropped Gregory on the floor and closed the door firmly behind them.

I knelt next to him as he rolled over and sat up. His eye was swelling even as I watched it, and a trickle of blood from a split lip dripped sluggishly down his chin.

“You look,” I said, pulling out the end of my shirt and using it to dab at the blood, “like a man who’s gone five rounds with a Velociphant.”

“What on earth do you suppose that is?”

“Love child of a velociraptor and an elephant? That or some sort of elephant on wheels? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that I’m getting sick and tired of being imprisoned. First it was the Watch, then it was that Holly woman, and now it’s the queen of the Underworld.”

“We imprisoned you? For what crime?”

“Nothing that I did. They thought I was my mom, and later released me because they couldn’t prove I was her.”

“Ah, I recall hearing something about that.”

“Now you know why I’m so tired of this shtick. Does this hurt?”

I grabbed his nose and gave it a sharp snap, causing him to jerk back and howl. “Bloody hell! What are you doing? Oh.” He took a stuffy-sounding breath. “I guess it was broken.”

“You’re welcome.” I stood up and looked around, wondering what we were doing there, and more to the point, how we were to get out. “This really is the nicest dungeon. Those cots have memory foam mattresses. And look, I think that walled-off area is a bathroom.” I went behind a closeted section of the dungeon, noting with approval the clean toilet and sink. “Yup, that’s what it is. No shower, though.”

Gregory was gingerly feeling his mouth when I emerged from the toilet area, pulling away his fingers to glare at them. “How bad is it?” he asked, and grimaced.

“Not bad at all. The toilet is clean, and the sink means they must have running water—”

“No, not how bad is the privy. How bad is my mouth?”

I tried very hard not to notice how enticing his lips were. The man had just fought off at least ten attackers and had the battle scars to show for it. I would not embarrass myself by staring with blatant lust at his mouth. “Not bad at all,” I said nonchalantly. “It’s very nice and all, especially when you smile, but I wouldn’t give up ice cream for it. Not unless, you know, I had to.”

He stared at me as if the ice cream in question was coming out of my ears. “What are you talking about?”

“You asked me if I liked your mouth. I said I do. What’s the big deal?”

He showed me the tips of his fingers, then bared his lips at me. Just to the right of his upper two front teeth, a dark gap showed. “I meant how bad was the damage? Does the missing tooth make me look dashing and dangerous, like a pirate, or creepy and disturbing, like a crack addict who lives under a bridge?”

“Dashing,” I reassured him. “Definitely dashing.”

He eyed me. “You’re lying.”

“Just a little. You’re not quite a sexy pirate, but also not a bridge-dwelling crack addict. More . . .”

“A swashbuckler?”

I wrinkled my nose. “More someone who was in a bar fight and lost a tooth.”

“Lovely.” He made a face that turned to a frown when I wandered over to bounce on one of the three cots in the cell. “What are you doing?”

“Testing out the mattress to see if it’s soft or hard memory foam. Seems pretty decent.” I stretched out on it, feeling myself sink into it. “Ahhh. Nice.”

“What about me?”

I gestured toward the other two beds. “Take your pick.”

“You’re not going to tend me anymore? That dab at my lip and the vicious jerk on my nose was the sum total of you nursing the wounded?”

There was outrage in his voice, righteous outrage. I sat up, unable to hold back a little giggle. “You don’t need tending, do you? I mean, you’re immortal. The bleeding has already stopped on your mouth, the swelling around your eye will go down in probably less than an hour, and I’m willing to bet you that the bones in your nose are already knitting back together.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a little sympathetic care,” he said sulkily.

That just made me giggle more.

“I would remind you that I suffered these grievous wounds when a full score of men descended upon me as I attempted to protect you from them!”

“A full score? Ha! It was a dozen at most.” I didn’t let on that I was impressed he had handled himself so well with all those guards. I suspected he’d just get a fat head if I did. It would be far better to turn his attention. “I didn’t need protecting, anyway. I just objected to being imprisoned a second time in so many days.”

He maintained an injured silence for about a minute, then rose and stumbled over to one of the comfy cots, saying, “No doubt you were imprisoned for some illegal act your mother performed.”

I glared at him. “No cracks about my moms, either of them. And for your information, Mr. ‘I’m the Watch and I Know Everything,’ neither my moms, Mrs. Vanilla, nor I did anything deserving of imprisonment. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Mrs. Vanilla?” He lay back on the cot, groaning in relief as he did so.

I sat up to assess whether or not he really was hurt to the point where he needed healing. Most people of the immortal persuasion had self-healing abilities, some more powerful than others. Perhaps Travellers had a harder time healing up their wounds? “She’s a mortal, one of my mothers’ clients evidently.”

“Ah, the old woman they kidnapped.”

I made a face, but he didn’t see it since his eyes were closed. Quietly, I moved over to stand next to him. Blood from the broken nose was giving him two black eyes, although the swelling around the one abused eye had gone back to normal. The split on his lip had also healed, and I assumed the empty socket for the missing tooth had sealed up as well. “You look like a raccoon,” I told him, bending over to brush a bit of dried blood off his chin.

“Thank you,” he said without opening his eyes. As I stood up, he grabbed my wrist and gently pulled me down so that I was half sitting and half draped across his torso. His eyes opened. My stomach went a bit wobbly at the clear blue depths of them, made especially noticeable by the dark purple and black mask resulting from the broken nose. “Why do you have two mothers?”

I had to drag my attention off his mouth and chin and the warm, solid chest beneath my breasts. My skin tingled where it was pressed against him. “Because they fell in love. Why do you have a mother and a father?”

“What makes you think I have a mother and a father?”

“Most people do.”

“True. I did, as a matter of fact, but they weren’t together because they were in love. Theirs was an arranged match. They didn’t much like each other, and they parted ways soon after I was born.”

“How sad for them. And you. I much prefer being raised by two mothers who love each other and me.”

“I would prefer that as well. Why did your mothers kidnap a mortal woman?”

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Here’s another: would you object if I kissed you?”

I thought about that for a minute. Although every instinct in me told me to keep him at a distance, both emotionally and physically, I couldn’t help but admit that there was some sort of magnetism between us. I didn’t want to get up off his cot, even though I knew I should. I wanted to touch that golden hair, and stroke my fingers down his jawline, now bearing blond stubble that made my legs feel shaky. But most of all, I wanted to kiss him ever so gently on those tempting lips, not hard enough to hurt his mouth if it was still tender, but enough to let him know that he’d been kissed.

“No. You cannot kiss me,” I said firmly.

His eyes grew grave.

I leaned down and gently, oh so gently, nipped his lower lip. “I, however, will kiss you.”

“I’m not normally aroused by bossy women,” he warned as I feathered little kisses along the edges of his mouth. His hands slid down so that they rested warmly on my waist.

“Who says I’m trying to arouse you?” I asked as I licked the tip of his nose.

His eyes crossed. “You’re doing a damned good job of it if you’re not. Are you going to stop teasing me and kiss me properly?”

“Now who’s being bossy?” I didn’t let him reply. I just leaned in and let my lips do what they’d wanted to do ever since the moment I’d seen him on the cliff. His mouth was warm and soft and infinitely pleasing, but when his lips parted in a happy sigh, my pleasure in the kiss went into overdrive. I touched the tip of his tongue with mine, then retreated. It was such an intimate gesture, it shook me for a moment or two, and I felt the need to give him time to adjust himself to the invasion.

Gregory obviously did not share such thoughts, because before I could tell him that he was an extremely good kisser, his tongue was there in my mouth, being just as bossy as he had claimed I was. I didn’t have long to think about that because not only was his tongue laying siege to my mouth—in a way that made me feel as if my toenails were steaming—but both hands had moved up along my sides until they were cupping the undersides of my breasts. That was pleasant, very pleasant indeed, but when Gregory sent his thumbs into action in the form of soft little sweeps across my nipples, I pretty much stopped thinking and just wallowed in a delicious world made up of Gregory and his magic mouth and hands. And chest. And I had a feeling that the rest of him would be pretty damned fine as well.

“All righty, ’ere we go with dinner, and a few visitors to—oy!”

It took a couple of seconds for Al’s voice to penetrate the thick fog of desire that had rolled over me, but Gregory’s stiffening beneath me did a lot to bring me back to my senses.

I sat up, my mouth feeling strangely bereft, my breasts very much protesting the removal of his hands from their premises.

“Oh,” I said, staring at the two guards who held trays bearing food. Behind them stood three people, one of whom held a camera. “Um. This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Yes, it is,” Gregory said, and crossed his ankles as he put his hands behind his head.

The guards—Herbert and another man—looked at each other.

“I can’t see!” a voice squeaked from behind them. Al opened the door wider, gesturing for Herbert and his buddy to set down the trays of food. The others behind them spilled into the cell. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like a man and a woman having sex,” a thin, rat-faced woman said and took a picture of us. “Henry, I’m shocked and appalled by this. It isn’t at all what I thought we’d see in a dungeon.”

“This is hell, dear,” a short, round man said softly. “I expect that’s the sort of thing they get up to, here.”

“We are not having sex,” I said a bit desperately.

“Not yet, anyway,” Gregory added.

I glared at him. He winked.

“I still can’t see!”

“You’re too young to see, kid,” the rat woman said, taking another picture of us. I stopped glaring at Gregory and stood up, trying to think of something to excuse our actions that didn’t sound inane.

“See what?” A spotty teenage boy pushed his way around the guard. He looked disappointed to find that we weren’t engaged in a full-fledged orgy. “Oh. It’s just some chick and a dude. I thought there would be more skin.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Excuse me, but just who are you people?”

“This is the After-Hours Tour.” Al smiled cheerfully. “We don’t be normally sendin’ tours down ’ere, what with the payin’ customers enjoying their bit o’ privacy, but since you and Sir Bollocks Puncher over there ain’t payin’, ’is lordship figured folks might want to see actual prisoners in their native environ, so to be speakin’. We weren’t to know that you and ’is nibs would ’ave preferred to be alone.”

“I believe,” Gregory said as he sat up and swung his feet to the ground, “that of the two, I prefer the name Sir Cover Model.”

We all ignored him.

“I thought there would be more torture. Shouldn’t there be torture, Henry? There should be torture. Blood, and hot irons, and torture—that’s the proper sort of thing to have in a dungeon.”

“This tour has got to be against some sort of rules,” I protested to the guard and tourists alike. “You’re invading our privacy, and we don’t like it.”

“I’ll pass along your complaints to ’is lordship,” Al said, jerking his head toward the door. His two henchmen shuffled out, but only after giving us wide, amused grins.

“I will be sure to say something on the comment cards about the lack of blood and tormented people, of that you may be certain!” the woman snorted.

Her husband smiled a watery smile, and shared it with Gregory and me. “Mariah does love a good torture scene.”

“Bully for her!” I gave her a look that I normally reserve for people who spit in public.

She sniffed and took a few desultory shots of the cell. “Not even a proper set of shackles here. What sort of hell is this where there’s no torture and no shackles?”

“Look, lady—”

“Nothing but a strumpet and her love toy.”

I gaped at her for a second, then took a step forward, intending on giving her a piece of my mind, but Gregory was suddenly in front of me, one arm blocking me.

“Madame,” he said, and his voice was one of commanding dominance. The rude tourist woman shrank before him. “You will kindly refrain from referring to Miss Owens by that word. It is untrue, and upsets her. Furthermore, you will remove yourself, your husband, and that adenoidal teen from our presence.”

“Well, now, well, now,” Al the guard said while the two others backed away from Gregory. I have to admit, I smirked a little behind his back. I wasn’t normally one for expecting someone else to save me, especially a man, but Gregory seemed to slip into the protector role easily, so who was I to complain? “There’s no need for anyone to be gettin’ angry-like, is there? We’ll just be on our way and leave you two to the kissin’ that you were up to.”

“We weren’t kissing!” I objected, then swore to myself. “We might have been, but that was all we were doing. Gregory was wounded, if you recall. I was merely seeing if he had healed up properly. I was . . . tending him.”

The last couple of words fell from my lips with a pretense made limp with disbelief. Even I couldn’t say it with any conviction.

“Have a very . . . fulfilling . . . evening tending ’im.” Al’s parting shot was delivered with a knowing smile. He closed the door, leaving us standing in the middle of the room.

The food wafted a heavenly smell toward us. Gregory moved over to examine the meal, making approving noises at a bucket of ice containing a bottle of champagne. “Ah. Very good year. How pleasant. And now, my dear—”

“Don’t say it,” I warned, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t you dare say it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, then sat back down on his cot. “Even if I did, I’m too weak to actually speak. Feed me?”

“You big ham. You need a sharp smack to the head.”

“No, what I need is some of that tending you spoke of.” He patted the cot. “I’m in considerable pain. Don’t you want to come back over here and give me the benefit of your healing powers?”

“No.” I went to my cot, grabbed my pillow, and hugged it to myself to keep from doing as he asked. Damn the man for his tempting mouth and eyes and oh, dear goddess, the sight of him splayed out on that cot all hard and masculine and bulgy with muscles and did I mention hard? He looked very aroused indeed if the largest bulge of all was anything to go by.

I reminded myself that those bulges were attached to a man who was by definition if not my mortal enemy then not someone I should be having illicit thoughts about, let alone indulging in related touches with.

He was with the Watch. They were dangerous, even here in Anwyn where they had no jurisdiction. If I fell victim to the lure of his sensual ways, he’d be able to play me like a violin, and before I knew it, my mothers would be out of Anwyn and into the custody of the Watch.

I hardened my heart, mentally girded my loins, and told my libido to take a cold shower.

“No?” he asked, giving me a come-hither look to end all come-hither looks.

I almost went thither.

“It’s out of the question. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

“It’s about four in the afternoon.”

“Very tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night. You eat the food and drink the champagne, and if you so much as come within two feet of me, I’ll scream bloody murder.” I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me like a cocoon, rolling over on the cot so that my face was to the wall. I prayed that the buzz of excitement that had filled me at our recent activity would die down enough so that I could at least rest.

Sleep, I knew, was out of the question. Not while Gregory was near. Not while everything in me wanted to ignore common sense.

I sighed. It was going to be a long, long night.