Aaron looked up and gave her a dissatisfied look. “My bitch, my white roebuck, and my lapwing. They were stolen from me by that fiend Ethan and his trickster brother.”
A memory smote Gregory alongside his head. “Ethan? Would that be Amaethon ab Don?”
“That’s the fellow, the devil blast his hide.” Aaron’s expression turned highly incensed. He shook the blueprint at Gregory. “He stole them and then when I tried to get them back, he declared war against me. Me! Have you ever heard of anything so devious?”
“Yes, but I admit that I’ve also heard about this. My partner was reading me something about Anwyn before I came here, but I could have sworn he said it was mythology.”
“Bah. Where do you think the myths come from?” Aaron snorted, tossing aside the plans. “I want my things back, and you can just steal them for me.”
“I’m not a thief.”
“If you don’t get them back”—Aaron’s voice turned sly—“you’ll spend the rest of your not inconsiderable days in my dungeon. As for you—”
He turned to Gwen. She looked startled. “You said you didn’t need an alchemist.”
“I don’t, but my soldiers at the front inform me that you’re one of Ethan’s warriors who wanted out of his service. I will grant you a place with my contingent.”
Gwen looked like she was going to protest, but evidently she thought better of it, because she just looked thoughtful for a few seconds before saying something that took Gregory by surprise. “All right.”
“You can’t be serious,” Gregory said.
“Why can’t I? I’d rather be a warrior than be stuck in a dungeon.”
She had a point, damn it. He considered stealing enough time to keep them from being captured in the first place, but knew that down that path lay only grief and sorrow.
“Very well. Since Gwen doesn’t mind being forced into a role that isn’t by nature hers—”
“Hey! I could be a warrior if I wanted to!”
“—then I will do likewise. I accept your offer of an exchange for our freedom if I return to you the three items stolen.”
Aaron made a notation in a leather journal. “I don’t believe I made any mention about granting you freedom.”
“Then mention it now. Those are our terms,” Gregory said firmly. He put his arm around Gwen again in order to give her support, but mostly because he just liked the feel of her tucked up next to him. “They are not negotiable.”
Her frown was potent, but she didn’t object to the fact that he spoke for her.
Aaron’s face was stormy for a few seconds, then cleared up as he shrugged. “Very well. You will have your freedom once you return what was stolen from me and the other one has served the span of a moon in my army.”
“Two days,” Gwen countered. “I’ll be a soldier for two days.”
“A fortnight,” Aaron countered.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “A week. That’s my final offer.”
“Done. You may go to the stables and tell the grooms to give you a horse. You may leave immediately.”
He returned to making notes in his notebook, clearly dismissing them from his thoughts.
Gregory didn’t stay to argue; with a slight pressure on Gwen’s waist, he started back up the hill to the castle with her.
“One thing . . .”
They stopped as Aaron’s voice, suspiciously silky, reached them. They turned together to look back.
The king’s gaze was filled with portent. “The mortals have a saying. Perhaps you’ve heard it? Hir yw’r dydd a hir yw’r nos, a hir yw aros Arawn.”
“I don’t speak Welsh,” Gregory said.
“I do.” Gwen hesitated, then translated, “Long is the day and long is the night, and long is the waiting of Arawn.”
“The mortals think that refers to the events of the past, but really, it touches on the fact that I always, no matter how long it takes, have my revenge for a betrayal.” Aaron smiled. “Something to remember, yes?”
EIGHT
“Have you ever wanted to take a vacation from your own life?” I asked Gregory as we walked up the hill to the upper bailey.
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Count yourself lucky.” I couldn’t help but sigh as another orange-coated tour guide herded a group of what looked like Catholic schoolgirls, complete with matching uniforms and attendant nuns in full traditional garb, past us. Faint echoes of “The brewery is renowned for its popular From Hell Ale, made with honey gleaned from Anwyn’s happy little bees. We’ll have a sampling right after we visit the armory, where the blood-encrusted weapons of Anwyn’s brutal past are on display” followed us.
The schoolgirls cheered. The nuns murmured happily about the ale.
I wanted to alternately sit down and weep and run screaming away from the castle.
“Are you allowing that talk of execution to distress you, dulcea mea?”
“Dulcea mea?” I asked, distracted from my general sense of worry, concern, and befuddlement. “What does that mean?”
“It’s Romanian for ‘my sweet.’ And before you say it—and yes, I know you were about to—I used the endearment because your kisses were very, very sweet.”
“Kiss,” I said, jerking my hand away from his. I didn’t even remember holding his hand! What on earth was going on that I could hold a man’s hand without consciously thinking about it? “We had one kiss. Just one.”
“And it was a superb one.”
It most certainly was. Just the memory of his mouth made me feel restless, like I wanted to run a marathon, or rip his clothing off. With an emphasis on the latter. “That was an error of judgment on my part. I should never have kissed you. I can only guess that I was feeling guilty about you having been beaten up and wanted to make sure that your mouth still worked.”
He laughed. “Do you really believe that explanation?”
“No,” I said miserably, and was startled to find that I was holding his hand again. His thumb rubbed against mine in a manner that was both reassuring, and arousing. Damn my libido! I firmly turned my thoughts from those concerning a naked, warm Gregory rubbing other parts of himself on me and focused on the fix we were in. “How are you going to steal a dog, a deer, and a bird from Ethan?”
“I have no idea.” He looked amused at the change of subject, but didn’t challenge me. “I’ve never had to steal anything before.”
“Except time.”
His fingers tightened on mine. “I believe I’ve mentioned already that we don’t steal time—we purchase it.”
“Without the people’s knowledge that you’re doing so. How on earth does the Watch let you get away with that?”
“They don’t. So far as mortals are concerned, that is. We may barter or outright purchase time from immortal beings, of course, but many people are touchy where the sale of their time is concerned, and few are willing to do so.”
“So what do you do in such cases?”
He shrugged. “I’m in the process of trying to find a person who is willing to sell time to me. My cousin has someone to provide time for himself and his wife, so I hope to arrange for the same accommodation.”
“Maybe your wife won’t want you to buy time for her,” I said loftily.
“That is a possibility, although marriage outside of the Traveller society is frowned upon.”
“No, I meant that perhaps she wouldn’t want you doing the he-man for her. Wait . . .” I stopped and squinted up at him. He had an inscrutable air that I didn’t buy for one moment. “Are you saying that you can only hook up with another Traveller?”
“‘Hook up with’ as in engage in a sexual relationship?” His thumb swept the back of my knuckles. “No, that is allowed. Marriage, however, is a different matter. To marry one who is mahrime—an outsider—is a grave sin to Traveller families.”
I stared at him. “Talk about insulting! You are joking, right? No one could be so ass backward in this day and age. Especially considering the dou
ble standard of it’s all right to milk the cow, but not to buy it. That alone makes me incensed, but the whole idea that a group of people won’t allow family members to marry outside of said family—for one, it’s unhealthy. You need diversity in a gene pool. For another, it’s . . . well, unhealthy mentally and emotionally as well.”
“Alas, I’m not joking.” He smiled at me, the warmth from it not only reaching his eyes but kindling something that made me feel as if I had butterflies in my stomach. “That is one reason why I am here.”
I wasn’t sure at first what he was alluding to, but then it struck me like a bolt of lightning that occasionally flashed in the distance. Dear goddess in all the good, green things! He meant me! He was defying his own people just to be with me. It boggled my mind, but it made sense. The kiss, the way he was flirting with me, the constant hand-holding . . . it was all explained if the reason for him being in Anwyn was that he had followed me here based on an instantaneous attraction.
“Gregory, I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m flattered, naturally. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s risked getting in trouble just to be with me, but I have to tell you that even though you have a really nice way of kissing, I’m not looking for a man in my life, especially a husband.”
It was his turn to look startled. “I suspect that you are under the impression that I just proposed to you. Is that so?”
I felt a blush crawl up from my neck to my face. “Well . . . yes. Didn’t you?”
“No.”
The blush deepened before I realized what that meant. I released his hand only to wallop him on the arm. “Oh, I get it! It’s just fine for you to kiss me silly, and make me spend far too long imagining just what you look like without your clothes on, and to have what amounts to an unhealthy obsession with your chin and mouth and that little spot behind your ears where your hair curls. That’s fine, but to make an honest woman out of me isn’t? You, sir, are a bastard! A great, big, hairy pustule of a bastard!”
“All that because I didn’t propose to you?” He shook his head as if in wonder.
“No, all that because evidently you believe I’m the sort of woman who goes around kissing men in dungeons, and holding their hands, and indulging in extremely smutty fantasies about them, but am not worthy so far as your family is concerned. Of all the self-righteous, bigoted—”
“Gwen,” he said, stopping me with a little laugh that had my hackles bristling. “Stop. I didn’t realize that you wanted to marry me.”
“I don’t!” I was quick to say.
“And yet you are upset that I didn’t ask you?” He put a finger under my chin and tipped my face (filled with embarrassment) up so he could better torment me by looking at me with eyes that were the color of expensive blue topazes. “I meant no insult, dulcea mea.”
“Stop calling me that,” I said irritably. “I’m not your sweet.”
“Ah, but you are,” he said in that complacent manner that was starting to annoy me. I’ve always hated it when people remain calm while I’m all riled up. How dare he not be emotional, too! “Or at least, I’d like you to think you are.”
I reeled back, sure that he had just insulted me again, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way of another passing herd of tourists. “Do not say whatever biting thing you are about to say. I did not mean to give insult to you. I simply meant that I would like you to be my sweetheart.”
“But not enough to marry me,” I snapped and jerked my arm from his grasp, still incensed.
He sighed. “Do you want to marry me?”
“No! Of course not! I don’t even know you, and I’m sure that when I do know you, I won’t want to because I will have found out that you’re the most irritating, frustrating, heinous man alive.”
“Heinous?” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose there are worse things to be called. No, do not flare up at me again. As it happens, I agree with you.”
I stopped thinking about punching him on his formerly abused nose. “You do?”
“Yes. I prefer having some sort of a relationship established with a woman before I engage in sexual acts. I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between a casual relationship and one that holds the promise of an eternity spent in bliss. So you see, about that we are of one mind.”
“Oh?” I eyed him. “Just how old are you that you have achieved this state of wisdom?”
“Sixty-four.”
My eyes widened. “You’re what?”
“I was born in 1949. I am the youngest of all my cousins, although not the youngest of the entire family. Several of my cousins have reproduced.”
“Great. I’m older than you.”
“Really? You look the same age as me, but admittedly that is common amongst members of the Otherworld. Would you smite me if I were to ask how old you are?”
“I was born in 1888. Lovely. Now I can’t date you even if I could get past your family’s massive prejudice against non-Travellers.”
“I see nothing that would prohibit us from having a relationship just because you were born almost fifty years before me. It matters little to our kind, after all.” He paused, looked surprised, then continued. “You are serious, are you not?”
“Yes. People would say I was a cradle robber. I’m fifty years older than you, Gregory!”
“You look like you’re age thirty at most.”
“Thank you, but the fact remains that I’m a hundred and twenty-five, and you’re just a baby!”
A roguish twinkle filled his pretty eyes. “If I told you that I liked older women—”
“I’d punch you on your nose and break it again,” I said, waving a fist at him.
He laughed and grabbed my hand, then to my utter surprise, pulled me up tight against his chest and said, “You are delightful, do you know that? You always seem to say exactly the opposite of what I’m expecting.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to unhand me in front of all the tourists and workpeople who trotted about doing their daily chores when his mouth settled on mine with a possessiveness that simultaneously annoyed me (I wasn’t an object to be possessive about!) and thrilled me to my toes (dear god and goddess, the man had to be the world’s best kisser).
His mouth teased mine, coerced mine, pleaded with mine to yield to his. And of course, it did, allowing his tongue entrance, where it swanned around the place like it owned it. I wanted to be irritated about that, but I was too busy clutching his shoulders to keep from swooning. And then when he made a little noise in the back of his throat, the softest little exhalation of pure pleasure, I melted, my fingers sliding through his golden hair as I pressed myself against him in a shameless manner that my breasts and thighs and female parts wholly embraced. I touched my tongue to his, and melted even more, uncaring that we were snogging in full view of anyone who glanced our way. The sounds of tittering and electronic beeps and clicks indicated that the tourists had returned, but not even the thought of them brought sanity to me.
“OK,” I admitted when I managed to peel my mouth from his. “You win the award for kissing.”
“Oddly, I was just thinking the same thing about you.” His eyes were soft and somewhat smoky with what I recognized was purest desire.
A rush of feminine knowledge swept over me, making me very aware of all the differences between us. “You’re so hard,” I couldn’t help but say when I swept my hands down his shoulders to his biceps.
“Extremely so, to the point that it’s going to be painful to walk.”
I couldn’t help a little wiggle that had him groaning and clutching at my hips. “And if you do that again, I may very well throw all my much-lauded manners to the wind and haul you onto the nearest bale of hay, where I will ravish you as you deserve.”
I would be lying if I said I didn’t, for at least two minutes, consider letting him do just that, but at long last, better judgment won out and I managed to get my raging hormones under control.
Gregory had used the time I was doing so
to speak to a young boy who was scooping up grain and pouring it into a metal bucket. The lad disappeared into the stable and returned with a blond woman with jagged cropped hair.
“I’m Clarence, the chief groom.”
“Clarice?” Gregory asked.
She studied him. “Do I look like a Clarice?”
“Well—”
“My name is Clarence. Just Clarence. You are the spy Lord Aaron told me about?”
“Thief. I’m a thief, not a spy.”
She made a “same difference” sort of gesture and snapped an order at the bucket boy. “I’m to give you and your woman horses. How well do you ride?”
Gregory hesitated. “I’ve been on a horse,” he said slowly.
“Tch. I’ll give you Old Mabel. You’d have to be an imbecile to disturb her. And you?”
“When I was growing up, I attended all the local hunt meets,” I said with quiet pride.
“You hunted?” Gregory asked, puzzled. “You don’t strike me as the type who goes in for blood sports.”
I smiled demurely. “I rode on behalf of the foxes, actually. As an alchemist, one of the first things I learned to make was a fox scent that fooled all the hounds. After a few decades of without so much as a single fox appearing, the meet broke up.”
“A job well done,” Gregory said, approval shining in his eyes.
Clarence entered into the stable, saying over her shoulder, “As you’ve riding experience, we’ll let you have Bottom.”
Gregory and I followed her into the dark confines of the stable. The delicious odors of alfalfa, horse, and saddle soap mingled and made me think of days long gone when I’d ridden to and fro over the countryside, sending the mortals and their dogs on all sorts of wild-goose hunts. “Why on earth do you call the horse Bottom?”
A horse’s head snapped up at the nearest stall, his eyes wide, and his nostrils flared as he took in our scent. He bared his teeth and let loose with a whinny that just about deafened me.
“I have a nasty suspicion as to the identity of that horse,” I told Gregory.
He shuddered. “I can say with all honesty that I am sincerely grateful for Old Mabel.”
The Art of Stealing Time t-2 Page 14
