The Charmer (4 page)

It was misty outside, the kind of thick fog
that was almost rain, but even so she could make out the cove five
stories below her room. Towering redwoods rose on every side, to
the edges of the shore, though they were half hidden in the haze.
Farther out, gray sea met smoky sky in a seamless melding that
might have stretched forever, off unto the edge of the world. Or
perhaps it was merely the hazy glass curve of the magician’s
crystal that held this strange dream world.

“It’s an inlet of the sea
—
I forget what it’s called. On a clear day you
can see the mountains on the other side,” Wiley said. Today she
wore a sky blue robe with a long sapphire tunic trimmed in silver
embroidery. She stroked a sleeve absently, in a faintly troubled
way.

Jasmine shook her head, breaking the spell of
the sea. “Beautiful,” she said to Wiley, suitably awed. Then she
grinned. “Let’s eat.”

Wiley laughed and moved towards the table.
The male servant stood discreetly against the wall while the other
made up the bed and collected Jasmine’s clothes, depositing them in
a machine hidden behind a wall panel. Jasmine observed that her
white uniform didn’t appear to be the best color for a maid as the
woman began to clean the tub, and then dismissed the matter. Maybe
they had superior methods of stain removal here. At any rate, she
had more important things to worry about.

She spread a napkin on her lap and had just
opened her mouth to broach those matters when Wiley gasped and
began to giggle. “What?”

“You had to sleep there?” Wiley pointed an
unsteady finger at the bed.

She glanced at it, and the mirror on the
ceiling, annoyed all over again. “Your sweet cousin seemed to think
it was funny.” She surveyed the silver chopsticks and wide spoon
beside her plate with consternation. Perhaps she should have tried
harder to master the wooden ones in the Chinese restaurants back
home. Picking up her spoon, she scooped a small taste of what
appeared to be a sausage pilaf and nibbled on it experimentally.
Satisfied, she took the serving scoop and piled a small mountain
onto her china plate. “I won’t be sorry to see the end of him.”

“Here, have some almond milk.” Wiley smiled
almost nervously and handed her an insulated silver ewer.

“Almond milk?” She made a face as she
accepted it and poured a little in a tall crystal glass. “What is
this, planet of the health food junkies?”

Wiley shrugged in apology. “No dairy
animals.”

Jasmine’s brows shot up. “What? No whipped
cream, no butter?” Frowning, she took a cautious sip from her cup.
“Ok, it’s not bad, but if someone whips out a brick of tofu, I’m
leaving.”

Wiley toyed with her fork. Addressing it, she
said, “You can’t.” At Jasmine’s puzzled expression, she clarified,
“They won’t let you leave. They think you’re planning to cause
trouble if they let you go.”

“Rescuing you, you mean.” She tossed down her
spoon. “What right do they have to hold you here, anyway? Seems to
me like they gave up on you a long time ago. Why take you back now,
when you don’t want to go?”

Wiley sighed heavily. “It’s worse. Jayems….
He claims he’s my husband.”

“
What
?” The table rattled as Jasmine
shot to her feet. “For crying out loud, why?”

Wiley’s lip began to tremble. “He claims we
were ‘joined in a betrothal ceremony’ when we were kids.”

Jasmine shoved her chair away, her robe
flapping against her legs as she stood up and paced, the better to
rant. “That’s barbaric!” An awful thought occurred to her and she
paled. “He hasn’t tried to…”

Wiley’s eyes widened, reading her mind with
the ease of long acquaintance. “No! No, nothing like that,” she
hastily reassured her friend. “I don’t think he’d...I think he’d
rather…” She cleared her throat and blushed. “Anyway, it’s the
whole idea.”

“I should say so,” Jasmine agreed
indignantly, pacing again. She spotted the male servant watching
her. No doubt she was sent to spy on them. Well, two could play
that game. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Knightin, my lady,” he said with a
respectful inclination of his head.

She puzzled for a second over the lady—he
made it sound like a title

but let it pass,
assuming it was a substitute for ma’am in this neck of the woods.
She studied his face for a moment, noting that his long rusty hair
was tied back. Long hair appeared to be in fashion on this world.
“How do you get a divorce here?”

A gasp came from her right, and she whipped
her head around in time to see the maid fumbling for her dropped
feather duster. Score one for the home team.

Good,
she thought with fierce
satisfaction.

Knightin’s expression turned wary. “It is not
done, my lady.”

“It’s not done, or it can’t be done?”

He shifted a fraction and took a slight
breath. “If a woman can prove she has no desire for her husband,
than she may be released from her bond, however—”

Jasmine smiled triumphantly at Wiley and
watched her shoulders begin to relax. “There, you see? Nothing
to—”

“
However
,” Knightin interrupted, “—in
the Lady Rihlia’s case, it would be almost impossible to obtain.”
He seemed almost angry, and Jasmine wanted to find out why.

She pretended to be distracted by the view
for a moment, letting him stew. She needed to keep her temper down.
When she was calmer, she said, “Okay, please explain why Wiley
would have trouble divorcing this Jayems.”

He looked like she’d forced a bite of Chinese
bitter melon on him. “
Lord
Jayems,” he emphasized the title
like a nanny prompting diction, “Is the successor to Lord Rohmeis,
but only through his bond with Lady Rihlia.”

Jasmine winced a little at all the foreign
terms and then looked at Wiley significantly. “So without
Wiley
, the leadership, or whatever it is, goes poof, huh?
But would Wiley really be forced to stay with him if she didn’t
want to?”

Knightin relaxed and answered with a touch of
male arrogance, “Considering the type of bond they share, it’s
unlikely that ‘wanting’ could even be an issue.” When they just
stared at him, he clarified with satisfaction, “Their marriage was
determined by casting lots.”

Jasmine’s temper began to get the better of
her again. “Are you telling me…” she paused to control her tone,
“that my best friend’s future husband was determined by essentially
drawing straws?”

Taken aback, he tried to explain,
unconsciously speaking with his hands in his agitation, as well as
his voice, “The lots are holy, reliable instruments of—”

“I don’t care about your holy mumbo jumbo!”
she shouted. “How could her family do that to her? Where were her
parents? Don’t answer that,” she cut him off, raising a hand in
warning. “I might get sick.” She glanced at Wiley, who looked
worried again, and made herself calm down. Wiley didn’t need her
losing her temper. She had it rough enough already.

But it wasn’t fair—none of it. Wiley had
already been through too much. Growing up an orphan was tough
enough. Suddenly finding an entire family and being snatched by an
alien world was more than enough to deal with without watching her
friend throw temper tantrums on top of it. What they needed was a
plan, and she had just the thing.

She touched Wiley’s hand gently. “Don’t worry
about it, Wile E. Coyote,” she teased. “We’ll just treat him like a
wart—a little liquid nitrogen, a little discomfort, and
poof
, he’s gone.” Wiley laughed, as she’d intended.

Knightin turned an unhealthy shade of bing
cherry.

She eyed him speculatively. “So, what exactly
are your orders? Besides reporting every word we say, that is?” She
watched in satisfaction as his jaw clenched, but he didn’t rise to
the bait. “Do you have to follow her everywhere she goes, or only
when she’s with me?”

Annoyance simmered in his manner, but his
answer was straight forward enough. “Only when she’s with you.”

She smirked at Wiley, and said just to see
her smile, “I guess you’d better step out while I get dressed.
There’s only so much I’d care to have reported about me.”

Wiley chuckled and waved her hand, more like
her old self. “Go use the dressing room, brat. I promise not to let
anyone follow you.”

Jasmine entered the dressing room and closed
the door behind her. She wasn’t nearly as calm as she pretended,
but she didn’t want the panic she felt to show. They had to get
home!

Well, she’d feel better once she was properly
dressed. She took a breath and examined the bundle of clothing
Wiley had brought. There was a pair of black leather boots with
breathable canvas panels in just her size and several pairs of
socks. Comfortable black pants in a material similar to extremely
thick silk with a button fly closure and a belt had been included.
She set them aside while she searched for underwear.

That was when she hit the first snag.

In disbelief, Jasmine dangled a pair of silky
panties up in the air. The material parted at the crotch, forming a
butterfly. She’d never owned such a scandalous undergarment in her
life, and she couldn’t believe Wiley would actually bring her such
a thing. Yet here they were, several pairs of them. Yep, she could
choose to be risqué in fire engine red, pink, black, white
or
midnight blue.

It got worse.

Jasmine had once seen a picture of some
ancient Mediterranean pottery where the women wore a type of
short-sleeved bustier/vest that had boosted their breasts. The
garments had been cut out around the breast itself, leaving the
naked breast lifted up and exposed as if held in two cupped hands,
rather like an offering.

If she wasn’t holding an exact replica, it
was dang close.

“
Wiley!
” she roared, “Get your butt in
here!”

Wiley entered on the run. Jasmine held the
offending garment up accusingly, and her friend blushed all the way
to the roots of her hair. “Don’t blame me,” she said defensively.
“They’re standard issue here.”

Jasmine’s eyes boggled, dropped to Wiley’s
chest and then hurriedly away. She was
not
going to ask.
“Fine,” she said, her voice strained. “I still can’t believe you
brought them, though. As if I’m going to wear a bright red…” She
dangled the garment on one finger. “What
do
you call this
thing?”

Wiley crossed her arms. “I never actually
asked, and for your information, I wasn’t the one who picked them
out.” She paused a moment, letting the horror build. “Keilor got
them for you after I mentioned you needed a change of clothes.”

There was a long moment of silence. Then,
“You let your cousin pick out my
underwear
?” She ended on a
shout.

“He picked out your boots, too, and I don’t
hear you complaining about them,” Wiley pointed out.

Jasmine shut up. Some humiliations in life
were best not dwelt upon. Trying not to think about it, she put on
some panties, socks and pants. At least the pants were comfortable,
she consoled herself. That left the naughty tops to choose from and
several long scarves of matching colors.

Still wearing her robe, Jasmine picked up a
scarf and scowled at it. “What am I supposed to do with this, wrap
it around my head and pretend I’m a pirate?”

Since Wiley didn’t know, they called in the
maid for a consultation. It turned out that the scarf was made to
be worn crossed over the breasts and tied at the back of the neck
for a bandeau. Somehow the maid convinced Jasmine to put the
bustier thing—which she called an
overnji—
over the bandeau
and at least look at it.

“It’s very respectable,” the older woman
reassured her. “My daughters wear it all the time.”

“I look like a harem girl,” Jasmine muttered,
staring at the midnight blue overnji and white bandeau she’d been
conned into.

Wiley smirked and grabbed the dark blue sash.
She wound it low about Jasmine’s hips and knotted it. “There,” she
said, putting her hands on her hips and standing back to look over
her creation. “Now you look like a harem escapee turned
pirate.”

“Why, thank you, Wiley,” Jasmine sneered,
stalking out. “That is so much better.” She yanked open the armoire
doors and extracted a brush she’d discovered there the night
before. As she eyed the top in the mirrored doors while she worked
the tangles from her hair, she decided that it wasn’t so bad. At
least her stomach was flat. Heck, she’d worn crop tops in public
that bared about the same amount of skin and never thought twice
about it. Of course, none of those had ever been chosen for her by
a man.

With effort she chased the image of Keilor
holding her new panties in his hands, perhaps imagining her in
them. It was swiftly replaced by the image of him looking over the
overnji
, trying to guess at the size of her…

She took a deep, deep breath and then
expelled it slowly. Keilor wasn’t thinking about her breasts, or
anything else for that matter. Men who looked like he did didn’t
need to fantasize. Shoot, for all she knew, he was happily married
and had three kids, not that she cared.

What she needed to be thinking about was
getting Wiley and herself back home where men were manageable and
the local police force didn’t look like the cast of
Howling
III
.

They needed a plan.

Chapter 4

Keilor shook his head as Knightin’s recording
finished late that afternoon. “I think we can conclude that she’s
cagey, disrespectful, and definitely up to no good.”

Jayems gave him a thoughtful look from where
he sat, arms crossed, on the edge of his desk. He slanted a look at
Knightin. “How did the charmer affect you?”

His captain frowned at the memory. “Like a
panting boy with an armful of naked woman. It’s making me wish I’d
fixed my interest elsewhere long before she ever showed up.”