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A pack of hounds scrambled over the high stone walls flanking the gate. One, slightly ahead of the others, tensed the powerful muscles of his hindquarters in preparation for the seven foot leap to the road. Jean Marie slammed on the brakes. The rental car fishtailed slightly over the gravel and dead leaves on the narrow lane. Two tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she wrestled the car into reverse.
Perfect, just perfect. First her flight got diverted from Brussels to Paris because of fog. Then that damn colonel ordered her—ordered her to drive the 150 miles from Paris to the NATO Support Group in Mons, because his general couldn’t wait five hours for the next flight. Such a shame he couldn’t order the rental car agent to understand her non-existent French or provide a map. She was going to have so much fun explaining how she spent who knows how long driving in circles around Paris. Almost as much fun as explaining how a pack of leaping greyhounds crushed the hood of her rental car. Only they didn’t. The large, gray, stone dogs remained frozen in pursuit like the animals in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast. Those stone dogs and a number of the more surrealistic details of the movie were drawn from the landscaping of an abandoned chateau outside Paris. If she’d blundered on the same chateau, she was really, really lost. As in down the rabbit hole lost, and don’t expect to see Mons any time this millennium.
Maybe lost wasn’t such a bad place, Jean Marie reflected as she scrubbed away the evidence of her brief weakness. She’d always wanted to see the stone hunt, and by now, even that idiot of a colonel must have guessed she wouldn’t be meeting him or his general today. The sun was playing coy with the late winter clouds, but the quality of the light suggested it was close to sunset. Just enough time for a quick look around. The double-wide, wrought-iron gate gave her pause. She didn’t remember it from any of the pictures she’d seen. Each detail of the hand-forged grotesques looked crisp and new under a fresh coat of black paint. Decorative, brass-capped finials gleamed. Jean Marie barely touched the graceful curve of the handle, and the precisely balanced panels folded back from the drive like giant wings.
"Who’s she?"
Two more faces joined the first young woman at the security monitor. "I’ve never seen her before," said one of the newcomers. Absentmindedly, she licked a smudge of what appeared to be blue frosting on her middle finger and rubbed it clean. "But she’s got the look."
"Yeah," the third one giggled, "pole-axed."
Definitely not abandoned, Jean Marie sighed. She hadn’t walked more than 50 feet up the drive before she glimpsed the copper-sheathed roof of a sprawling 17th century chateau. Warm, yellow light glowed in several of the upper windows. Time to do the right thing and ask for directions. She returned to the car and eased the nasty beast up the winding path. Maybe someone would speak English. Maybe they would take pity on her and give her a tour. Yeah, and maybe that wart of a colonel waiting for her in Mons would send someone to rescue her instead of blaming her for the weather, Washington and a host of other disasters beyond her control. In your dreams, she mocked herself. The massive door sprang open before Jean Marie could pull the bell. Several bright-eyed young women in an assortment of flavors greeted her with smiles.
"Welcome to the harem!" said an auburn-haired sprite. "Oops! We’re in France. It should be--"
"No," Jean Marie said quickly. "You got it right the first time. I’m American, and I’m lost. I was trying to get to Mons. Could I borrow your phone and maybe get some directions to a highway that actually goes someplace?"
"Mons? As in Belgium?" the petite, curly-haired blonde asked. "Then you weren’t, uh, you didn’t have reservations?"
Her companions glanced at her sharply, but Jean Marie didn’t appear to notice. A look of relief washed over her face as her eyes traveled over the paneled walls and lovingly tended objects in the entrance hall. "Is this some kind of hotel?" she asked, hiding hope behind polite curiosity.
"More like a bed and breakfast," a third woman quipped. "Actually, it’s a harem, and none of us are supposed to know precisely where we are. But you’re welcome to use the phones, and the blue-faced love god of the tent can direct you to the highway. If you want him to," she added in an undertone that caused one of the other women to swat her lightly on the arm.
Jean Marie thanked the woman if there was nothing extraordinary about the exchange. She had plenty of practice keeping a straight face and expected to get plenty more in Mons. A harem, at least, promised to be entertaining. The women invited her inside. The sole on one of Jean Marie’s high-heeled pumps skidded on the polished floor. She steadied herself with a hand on the ornately carved table in the center of the hall. A bouquet of concerned faces popped into view. Lord, they looked so young. Not so young, she amended. Care free.
"Are you sure you’re all right?" the blue god worshipper demanded. "How long have you been on the road?"
"Too long," Jean Marie answered, relaxing into her exhaustion for the first time. "Weeks, years, centuries--they all seem to flow together."
Another strange look passed between her hostesses. They became inordinately interested in the length of her jacket and the fit of her skirt. "Too short," one whispered authoritatively.
"Doesn’t hang right," another agreed.
In Jean Marie’s humble opinion, her driving jacket and the suit beneath it fit perfectly. But she wasn’t about to argue if playing House of Style was all it took to assure the women she was harmless. She summoned a weak, hollow laugh. "Didn’t think I was this frayed, though. Ladies, I’ve been driving since 9:30 with only one stop. This is so embarrassing, but could I..." Bless them all. They didn’t need a second prompt. In fact, they treated Jean Marie more like an honored guest than the odd flotsam she knew herself to be. While Jean Marie attempted to talk sense to the Support Group, the women set out tea. A few words of admiration about the chateau and its grounds, and they insisted on a tour. An abridged version of her day’s events even elicited an impulsive invitation to spend the night.
"It’s not like we don’t have the room," the quilter known patches insisted.
"I don’t know," Mouse, demurred. "This isn’t exactly how it’s supposed to work. We may have to get a waiver."
"No, really. I don’t want to cause any trouble. As long as the directions are good, I don’t mind driving at night," Jean Marie said as she gazed longingly at the sybaritic appointments of Mouse’s master bath.
The entire chateau was a fantasy with every room, every passageway unique. Some of the chambers seemed to speak directly to her hostesses: high style American country for patches, this bath for Mistress Mouse. Others could be movie sets for everything from Cleopatra to The Adventures of Robin Hood to Interview with a Vampire--only it all looked real. Every candelabrum and tapestry, every exquisite marquetry table hummed with the self-assurance of age, taste and wealth.
"So this really is a harem," Jean Marie murmured. "Oil money?"
"No," Troll Princess snickered, "old money. Really old money."
"How old?" Jean Marie teased in response. "Robber baron? Ancient Regime? Before the Crusades? Club a dragon and steal his gold kind of old?"
"Yeah, that’s about the right time period."
I can’t leave before I meet this guy, Jean Marie decided. I don’t care what I have to do to buffalo these nice people into letting me stay. I don’t care if the wart finds someone who knows how to read a map and direct me straight to the Support Group in the next 30 seconds. I’m not leaving. The idea that a flock of bright, independent-minded women would be content to spend an indefinite period of time sharing the favors of a single man strained credulity. Casting him as some overbred, chinless... Fortunately, her hostesses acted as if they expected her to remain at least until their patron returned. A little after seven, a sensor light mounted near the door to the upper gallery flashed green. Patches broke off an animated discussion of historic cloth embellishment and fabrication mid-word. "He’s here!" she cried.
The group scampered towards the nearest stairs like kittens after a new toy. Jean Marie followed at a more leisurely pace out of deference for the slick floors and a compelling, if ignoble, desire to make an entrance. Her hostesses slowed at the doors to the large library on the first floor, surreptitiously arranging their garments and primping their hair. Jean Marie couldn’t help but smile. The smile remained as she listened to their muffled greetings and explanations. He didn’t sound like a chinless wonder. He sounded, well, wonderful. Like a clear stream, laughing over its rocky bed. Like pure melody pitched low and sweet. Jean Marie drifted into the room, trapped as any wild thing in the lure of Orpheus. Wrong, Shakespeare. Music hath no more pleasing sound.
"There she is," TP said. "Jean Marie, don’t just stand there. Come in and meet Adam."
Jean Marie almost didn’t recognize him as the source of the voice. Adam dressed like a graduate student in heavy walking boots, well-worn jeans and an accumulation of faded, shapeless knits that made it difficult to assess the body underneath. The haphazard grunge contrived to make him appear insignificant and drew attention away from his face. Perhaps because his face matched his voice? His narrow features could have been modeled on the portrait of a renegade pharaoh. Set against their austere elegance and the knowing expression in his dark eyes, his short-cropped, dark brown hair looked incongruously boyish. The pale column of his throat appeared naked and vulnerable, his mouth as gentle as a saint’s... And his shoulders were wide enough to fill a door.
Jean Marie’s gaze shot back to his face, surprising a sardonic smile. Adam’s expression reverted to mild almost before it registered. Almost.
What have we here, Jean Marie asked herself. Slippery, conniving, deceptive--oh, I could have fun with you.
She must have inadvertently shifted her legs or moistened her lips as she thought it. The temperature of the air between them rose about fifteen degrees. His gaze traveled over her own carefully chosen camouflage, lingering on her legs, and took the slow route back to her face.
He grinned like the oldest wolf in the forest. Jean Marie grinned back.
What was she doing! In the short hours she’d been with them, the harem had shown her nothing but kindness. And how did she repay them? By playing prelude to a pick-up with their patron, right in front of them!
Appalled at herself, Jean Marie forced a wet blanket of inoffensiveness over her predatory soul and hoped she could get away with it. She also found herself hoping it disappointed him. Just a little, for vanity’s sake.
"No, patches is right." Adam dismissed the question of a waiver with a single motion of his hand. "You must stay. They’re predicting hail, and you look done in."
So much for vanity, Jean Marie thought. She said, "That’s very kind. The earliest the airline could book me was 8 a.m. tomorrow, and I’d hate to have to trust my French to find me a hotel room."
"That shouldn’t be necessary. Half of Paris speaks English. I can’t believe you drove around the city for hours without finding anyone to help you until you came here. I think you’re lying."
Jean Marie stared at him. Adam smiled at her again, cat to mouse.
"From the of best motives, of course," he said as he took Athena and Aine by the hand. Gracefully the women rose and floated from the room, their hands resting on his in the fashion of Renaissance princesses.
The remainder of the harem filed out behind them. Except for the costumes, it could’ve been a scene from Prince of Foxes--the grand procession of Borgia and Bianca (and Bianca) into the castle banquet hall. Only Adam Pierson made a much better Caesare Borgia than Orson Welles.
Like the good courtier she was, Jean Marie bowed to the inevitable and found her place in line.
"I’ve seen it before, you know," Adam continued, indicating the chair to his immediate right at a table set with fragile optic crystal, Sevres porcelain and Georgian silver. "Hostages often ascribe their survival to the kindness of a particular captor and will go to great lengths to protect them. Perfectly understandable, but quite pointless in this case. I know who the culprits were. The trolls got bored. They kidnapped you when you made that wrong turn out of Orly and had the goats chase you.
CyDoc threw her napkin beside her plate. "Adam, that’s absurd. You know perfectly well that’s not how Stockholm Syndrome works."
"Besides, Jean Marie jumped at the chance to tour the chateau," TP added, "And for your information, Methosess was the one who asked her."
"Only after she asked about the fireplaces in the library," Methosess objected.
"Ah." Adam leaned back in his chair, quite pleased with the results of his little ploy. "What did you want to know?"
So much for inoffensive and bland. "Does this mean we’ve entered round two?" Jean Marie asked.
"So it would appear," he chuckled. Nice laugh too, damn it.
That strange sudden tension again seized the harem. "Was that a reference to 'the Game?'" Mouse asked with deadly seriousness.
Adam blinked in surprise. "No." He shook his head for emphasis. "She’s not a player. Different game."
"Then what are you talking about?" Mouse asked.
"Yes, Adam, why don’t you explain." Jean Marie purred.
Adam threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Round two to Jean Marie. You got lucky, but don’t expect it to happen again. Now, what did you find so fascinating about my," he paused, "hearths?"
As if I’d tell, Jean Marie thought, only to reconsider. Tedium might succeed where blandness failed. Jean Marie appeared to give the question a full measure of spinsterish concentration before answering in her most pedantic voice: "The fireplace surrounds were a matched set, but they looked too old for the chateau. Of course, they could just be good 19th century copies," she added with assumed modesty, "I can’t always tell."
"Take a guess," Adam drawled. It was working!
"They don’t feel like reproductions or reinterpretations." Jean Marie opioned. "The motifs are classical, but they don’t have that academic quality one associates with the French, and the finishing’s too good. I’d say Italian, 16th century maybe, but they’re just too big. Unless it was Italian artisans working for a northern court. Hmm?"
The corner of Adam’s mouth crooked in a wicked half smile. "That was good," he said. "That was very good, until that little business at the end took it over the top. Try it again--only this time don’t overplay it. Incidentally, the sculptors were Italian craftsmen in the employ of Henry VIII. The pieces came from Hampton Court."
"And you just happened to be first in line at the fire sale," Jean Marie shot back.
One of the ladies tried to drown a snicker in a swallow of beer and started to choke. You know you’re in trouble when you find yourself missing half of your own jokes, Jean Marie reflected as Harem Dancer and Aine pounded their colleague vigorously on the back.
"Are you an antiques dealer?" Jean Marie asked Adam.
"More of a perpetual student," he replied before taking a healthy swallow of his own brew.
"And this year’s major is?"
"Ancient languages. I’m editing a sequence of chronicles for a group here in Paris."
"Is it a philanthropic venture or something more exotic like using the entries to track volcanic eruptions and their effect on weather patterns?"
"They aren’t particularly interested in volcanoes, but I wouldn’t describe the motives as philanthropic on either side."
"Corporate money for basic historic research?" Jean Marie’s voice rose in astonishment. Adam inclined his head. "And they’re paying you real money for this? That’s unheard of in the states. I know people who would kill for a piece of something like that."
"No doubt, but my qualifications are somewhat unusual."
"No doubt," Jean Marie echoed as another handful of harem members tried to choke on their drinks.
"I have a few of the scrolls here if you’d like to see them," Adam said. "The hand is quite remarkable. I’m told it’s the oldest classical text to use a consistent system of spacing to indicate word divisions. Some people have called the effect hypnotic."
Jean Marie laughed. "I suppose a scroll has more cachet than an etching, but I think I’ll pass on the remarkable hand."
"Don’t you like old things, Jean Marie?" Adam asked in a playful, mournful voice that did things to her nerve endings that ought to be illegal.
"Depends on the age and the condition. Can you be a little more specific?"
Jean Marie never did figure out who giggled first. But the harem didn’t start whooping out loud until Izzi gasped, "Old thing," and crashed her glass into the side of Twig’s bread dish. Twig shrieked when the icy beer splashed the front of her shirt but continued laughing.
Adam’s mouth twitched and his cheeks grew a little pink, but he was trying so very hard to behave himself. "Sorry," he apologized in a somewhat uneven voice. "Private joke. I’m, um, older than I look."
"Got that," a foolishly grinning imp with Jean Marie’s voice burbled. "How do you feel about calling this round on account of laughs."
His answering smile poured over her like warm honey. Oh double damned damn, Jean Marie thought as her toes curled and her thigh muscles went on alert, now I’m starting to like him too.
The ladies looked so contrite after their outburst, it was hard to resist teasing them and impossible not to forgive whatever offense they thought they committed. Jean Marie wanted to stand on the table and tell them, "Look, I’m a stranger here. I don’t expect to know all your jokes or secret codes. Just relax, I’ll be gone in the morning. Or sooner if you want me to." No, she didn’t want to say that. She wanted to stay. She wanted to get to know them all individually--very much including himself--if she could manage it without rupturing the delicate web of trust and affection that bound this unlikely group together. Communal happiness is rarer than emeralds and just as precious. She wouldn’t be the one to blow it.
In other words, stop me before I flirt again. Jean Marie sighed internally and applied herself to nudging the conversation onto paths it might have taken in her absence.
Her hostesses talked about their ongoing projects. Adam contributed details of corporate politics at someplace called "Watchers" and a review of the new stock at Shakespeare and Co., which suggested he’d stopped at the bookstore on the way home. Stopped there very frequently on his way home.
Jean Marie smiled as she sipped her drink. She stole a glance at her host. Big mistake.
She could’ve sworn he deliberately shifted in his chair to give her a better view. The tatty sweaters he wore whispered over the plane of his chest. How she could hear the minutest rasp of fabric against fabric and him over the talk swirling around them, Jean Marie couldn’t guess.
All she knew was that the sound inspired an overwhelming urge to shred the damn things with teeth and nails, and lay bare the cleanly muscled flesh beneath. Which was probably the whole idea, the cynic in her said.
Jean Marie clutched the thought like it was her last prayer against the unforgivable. Very carefully, she set her glass beside her plate and rose from her chair. Adam rose also.
"To quote Groucho Marx," she began, "‘I really must be going.’ Thank you all for your many kindnesses and for a truly memorable evening. I know you have plans for the night, and I never did finish the press kit I planned to write on the plane. So, if someone could give me directions to Orly airport or leave a map I could pick up in the morning--"
"Follow me," Adam said. "I have what you need in the library."
With a nod to the smiling women, Jean Marie followed.
Behind her back, Mouse high-fived patches, while other members of the harem covered their mouths with hands and napkins to keep from laughing out loud.
Adam teased the corner of a new AA motoring guide from one of the irregular stacks of papers and books heaped over the library table. He spread the map between them, his body leaning just close enough to send Jean Marie’s hormones into overdrive.
Repressed instincts rebelled with a vengeance. She found herself studying the patrician line of jaw and neck and the route her kisses would take instead of the route his marker traced across the page. The elusive fragrances of soap and sandalwood teased the pleasure centers of her brain. He had to explain the turns six ways from Sunday before enough of what he said sank in to make sense.
Adam mistook the frustration on her face for bewilderment. His sympathetic chuckle caught her unawares.
She started--a small, kittenish movement completely at odds with the poised, self-contained woman she played so well. Had he surprised some small imperfection of mind in a woman who prided herself on her wits?
For an instant she looked so heartbreakingly vulnerable all the carefully suppressed protectiveness in his nature surged to the fore. "You’re still not comfortable with this, are you?" he asked gently. "When you live in France as long as I have, you tend to forget how confusing the signs can be when you don’t know the language. Why don’t we forget about the map. It would be nothing for me to drive by Orly on my way to work. Why don’t you let me lead you in?"
His generous offer added another layer of guilt to a burden that was rapidly becoming intolerable. Even in her present condition, Jean Marie could see he’d need to drive 30 miles out of his way to get her to the airport.
"No, it’s okay. I’m pretty sure I’ve got it now. All I need is an address, so I can mail you the map once I get to SHAPE."
"Keep it." Adam’s voice, low and husky, made all the fine, downy hairs on her arms stand at attention. "I can get more at the office. Besides, you might want to return when you have more time."
"I don’t know if the ladies could stand it. Extra dishes. Extra sheets. All those questions about paintings they can’t answer."
The ragged words betrayed the growing weakness of Jean Marie’s defense. In her narrowed eyes and slightly parted lips Adam read a woman’s wariness and a wild thing’s hunger. She could see the contest nearing its end as plainly as he. The prospect filled him with both tenderness and exultation.
"Then ask me about them," Adam said. "Ask me anything."
Anything? Should she laugh or cry? Anything? Can I bear your children or just practice the conceptual part for a few millennia--that kind of anything? His eyes said anything. His lean body--so close she felt like a small planet trapped in the gravitational pull of the sun--said anything.
What do your lips taste like? The hollow of your throat? What makes you groan from pleasure? "No! I mean, it wouldn’t be fair."
"Let me be the judge of that."
Jean Marie shook her head. "Adam, this has gone far enough. It was a great game while it lasted, but it’s got to stop here."
Adam’s gaze followed the movement of her lips as if considering how best to capture them with his mouth. He reached for one of the tendrils of titian-colored hair framing her face and drew the living silk through his fingers.
Jean Marie shivered at his touch imagining, even as she fought her body’s response, how soft his hair would feel against her palms, her wrists, the inside of her arms.
"Adam, you can’t be serious about this," she insisted. "You can’t be. Neither of us are free agents here. We have responsibilities to other people. You much more than me. Your family is just down the hall. All I have is my job."
"Jean Marie, I think reports of my responsibilities have been somewhat exaggerated." His breath caressed her face.
"Why are you making this so hard?" she whispered.
"Hard? You have no idea."
"You can’t do this to the harem."
"Of course I can--"
"Maybe you can, but I can’t. I won’t."
"You want," he taunted. "Tell me you don’t."
"Damn you," she groaned. "I won’t because all of me wants to."
"Ah, Rick Blaine in Casablanca," he murmured triumphantly. His hand cupped her cheek and drew her face towards his. "Yes, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Jean Marie knocked his hand away and backed out of reach. "This isn’t Trivial Pursuit," she said in raw voice that shot wildfire through his veins.
"Nothing trivial about it. But nothing to be afraid of either. It’s not the kind of game you lose."
"Oh really? You just did. It’s not Rick. It’s not even Casablanca. It’s Sam Spade to Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon. He says it just before he tells her he won’t play the sap for her. He won’t do it, because he can’t trust a woman who’d betray so many people to get something that isn’t worth anything in the end."
Adam’s head jerked back as if struck. For a minute, all they could do was stare, shocked by their first glimpse of each other without disguises or the many-layered veils of their own preconceptions.
So this is what it means to die of exposure, Jean Marie despaired. Against what she found in his soul she had no defense. His compassion overwhelmed her. Defeated her. Shamed her.
Slowly Jean Marie lowered her eyes. Now he would leave. She could not bear to watch him depart.
Through the open doors, Jean Marie heard the soft scuff of leather against polished stone, the discreet rustle of fabric and conversation that marked the harem’s passage through the hall. Now and again, a small draft blew a whiff of perfume in her direction. Jean Marie inhaled it imperceptibly as a statue might, not wishing to attract an atom of their attention. Still, someone hesitated at the threshold of the library.
"Jean Marie, did you and Adam--? Aren’t you going to join us?" patches asked.
Jean Marie opened her eyes and smiled gently at the younger woman.
"But the two of you obviously-- That’s why you went with him, isn’t it? It’s nothing to get embarrassed about. This isn’t a closed club. You know the old saying, more arriving daily." Patches light tone faltered in the face of Jean Marie’s continued impassivity. "It’s okay. Really. We share. That’s part of what makes it so special."
The ghost of a rueful grin played over Jean Marie’s mouth. She clasped both of patches’ hands and said, "It doesn’t matter. But thanks anyway."
You’re lying, patches thought as she watched Jean Marie’s retreating back. I don’t know why, but I know you are.
Jean Marie chose a bedroom as far away as she could get from the probable scene of the action without appearing impolite. The room itself was perfect for the nothing kind of night she had in mind. Real Morris interiors were comfortable, but stuffy and overdone to modern eyes. The swooning visions of Camelot studding the intricately patterned wallpaper reinforced the room’s grandmotherly ambiance. Nothing to remind her of Adam or distract her from her work.
She fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the Support Group commander’s biography, the laptop resting on her abdomen. She opened her dream eyes to an Adam with hair longer than hers, half his face painted blue and a silver earring dangling from his ear.
He covered her nakedness with his long, also naked, runner’s body. She arched her back to meet him. The computer fell off her stomach and woke her with an angry buzz.
Well, at least didn’t have to share, she reflected. "That’s enough excitement for one night," she told the computer. The words rasped. She must have opened her mouth during the dream.
Oh lord, had that been close! After everything that happened, it would’ve been unthinkably tacky to be discovered alone, in an oversized tee shirt, groaning at a sleeping computer.
She needed to get the dream out of her system fast or risk an encore. Time for water and a walk, not necessarily in that order. She tugged on a pair of leggings, opened the door and walked straight into the semblance of another dream.
Adam padded silently towards her carrying a candelabrum with three lit tapers. The wavering light alternately highlighted and obscured his features. He acknowledged his fellow night prowler with a subtle tilt of his head. The shadows cast by his eyelashes grew ridiculously long.
"Adam?" she whispered.
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