A Lady Under Siege(83)
Suddenly Gwynn spoke up animatedly. “More faithful than that, I should hope!” he cackled. Mabel slapped him soundly across the chest, and scolded him to button his mouth.
“What do you mean by that?” Sylvanne demanded, but the poultryman lowered his eyes. “Mabel, what does he mean by that?”
“Nothing m’Lady.”
“You must have told him something.”
“Nothing, m’Lady,” Mabel protested, but her face had turned red and she still could not meet her mistress’s eyes.
“This is hardly the time or place—” Thomas started to say, but Sylvanne cut him short, addressing Mabel sharply.
“I want you to come see me tomorrow, and I’ll get to the bottom of this,” she insisted. “Tomorrow, do you hear me?”
“Give the woman a full day to recover from her wedding night, at least,” Thomas interjected. “Mabel, don’t come tomorrow, make it the next day.”
“Yes sir,” Mabel replied glumly. “May I go now?”
“Of course, of course!” Thomas crowed, too merrily, in an effort to lift the sudden pall. “Back to your celebrations! Again I wish the both of you all the best, long lives and many children!”
As the wedding couple turned and retreated, he glanced at Sylvanne’s face, still simmering with anger. “I freed you from your prison, yet you seek new ways to bring yourself suffering,” he told her, but Sylvanne didn’t seem to hear him. He turned his horse toward home, and her horse followed on its own, unguided by a rider whose thoughts were miles away.
42
“Where’s the Find on this thing?”
“You don’t know how to find Find?”
“I don’t use this browser. Here it is. I’m fine. I’m fine at finding Find.”
Derek’s hard drive had crashed, so he’d invited himself over to use Meghan’s computer. “It’s actually for something we should do together,” he’d said.
“Which is?”
“Research your Thomas of Gastoncoe. Trawl through the Domesday Book and any other medieval census we can get our hands on.”
“You think I haven’t done that?”
“I’m sure you have. I have too, actually. I’d just like to try some more.”
“It’s not just an excuse to get into my house?”
“Do I need an excuse?”
“No,” she’d said. “Come on over.”
She’d been working upstairs in her studio, and invited him to sit at the computer there. While he conducted his research she worked freehand at her drafting table, glancing over at him occasionally. She felt a delicious tension, knowing that they would soon be lovers. How could he not know it too? The last time they’d been together they’d kissed, and she’d told him she was ready. Now they sat in a hurricane’s eye, pretending a kind of quiet domesticity, as if they were already lovers of long standing. She felt eager, yet patient—she wanted him to start the wheel in motion. He sat at the computer, muttering about Latinate surnames and the incompleteness of documents. She’d lost herself in a drawing when she heard him say, “I’ve found him.” She looked up quickly to see Derek swivelling in his chair toward her, a big boyish grin on his face, his hair pushed down and falling over his forehead in bangs, the way Thomas wore it.
“Very funny,” she smiled. He looked very handsome that way.
“Do I look like him like this?”
“A lot.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “If you want to get to know me better, it’s good we’re here on your home turf. At my place there would be too many surprises—threadbare sheets and empty toilet rolls. And if you want to imagine that it’s Thomas, come to you from across the centuries, you can take him to the same bed you’ve dreamed him in.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you,” she said.
He came close to her. His skin really did smell of Ivory soap.
“Betsy’s in school till when?”
“We have three hours.”
“Perfect.”
She took his hand and led him to her bedroom. The sheets were white linen. “Looks comfy,” he said appreciatively. “Home field advantage was the right choice.”
“Derek, don’t say anything.”