The Hourglass (21 page)

This time she carried the bowl and a spoon into the library. The room smelled of Ardeth, a bit smoky, a hint of fine soap, his cologne, and leather. The fire was never permitted to go out in here, so the room was warm. That was for the sake of the old, rare books, Ardeth declared. The fire was more for his sake, Genie thought as she untied the sash of her robe.

She sat in Ardeth’s favorite wide leather chair and looked at all the books on the shelves, wondering if her husband had read many of them. Most likely he had. She’d been limited to her mother’s tastes during her girlhood, then whatever books came her way during the years with Elgin. Books were a luxury she could not afford then, not when money for food and rent were so scarce.

Now she had more books than a lending library, right at her fingertips, and no one to tell her what she ought to read. She’d better start soon if she hoped to catch up with Ardeth, or even Miss Hadley. Then she laughed to herself, at herself. Why, she could not read half the languages on the spines of the books. Still, she did feel better sitting here with Ardeth’s books. And with the trifle.

She had not eaten half, or picked up a book, when she heard the door open.

“Ah, what a lovely sight.”

So was he, his dark hair slightly disordered, his neckcloth unknotted so the ends hung down his broad shoulders. She felt better already. “May I have a taste?”

Oh. He meant the trifle. “Of course. I can go fetch another spoon.”

“Do not bother. We can share.”

Before Genie could move to the sofa Ardeth lifted her, bowl and all, and sat down on the armchair, with her across his lap. She sat stiffly, trying to maintain her dignity with her toes not touching the ground, and too much of her touching the hard planes of her husband. Good grief, her bottom was against his thighs and he was eating trifle!

He pulled her closer, lifting the spoon to his mouth. “You couldn’t sleep?”

“No, and I did want to speak with you. But I can wait until tomorrow. I can see that you are tired.” His eyes were half-closed, even as he handed her the spoon. “You’ll want to find your bed as soon as you finish.”

“Not yet. I have too much to do.”

“Do you never sleep?”

“Only when I must. Sleep is a waste of time. Sometimes I forget that a body needs refreshing. What did you want to speak of, my dear?”

She swallowed and handed him back the spoon. Instead of handing it to her when he’d had his share, he brought it full to her lips. He was actually feeding her, which had to be one of the most intimate, erotic moments of Genie’s life. She could barely remember her name, much less what she’d wanted to ask him.

She licked her lips and shook her head when he offered her another spoonful. Genie needed the time to think, and to think about something other than the warmth where she sat, when Ardeth always claimed to be cold. Where to start? Her toes curling in her slippers? No, no. The easiest place to start was with the boy. While the earl kept eating, she told him about visiting her sister and how she had related Ardeth’s warnings about leeches.

“I do not know if she will listen, but the boy was no better. Worse, if anything.”

She told him about the child’s coughing fit over a silly trick of Olive’s, and asked if he had any ideas.

“It sounds as if the boy might be an asthmatic. The condition has been known for centuries, without a successful treatment being found. Odd, is it not, that people know a hundred ways to kill each other, and do so regularly, but they can hardly cure anything?”

She had to ask: “Could you?”

He smiled. “No, I do not have that kind of knowledge, either.”

“But you worked wonders with the soldiers.”

“Those were wounds. Stitching and sewing, stuffing pieces together.”

“But you know so much.” She waved one hand around at the shelves that reached to the ceiling. “And you own all of these books.”

“I could search them all without finding the cure.”

“You are sure?”

“Believe me, if anyone anywhere had discovered an effective panacea, I would know it.”

She did believe his statement, no matter how farfetched. Ardeth was no physician. He did seem relaxed for a change—Genie must remember to tell Cook to make more trifle—so she felt encouraged to ask, “How did you learn so much?”

“I told you, from my travels.”

“Many people journey, but few are half as wise.”

His lips curved up again at the compliment. “I am not nearly wise enough. I would not hold you on my lap if I had half the wit of an insect.”

She started to rise, thinking she was hurting him, but Ardeth held her firmly with one arm around her waist. “I am not stupid enough to let go.”

Genie thought she would be wiser to pursue a different tack. “How did you have time to study if you were constantly moving about? Did you attend a university at all?”

“It is too hard to explain.”

He did not seem angry or impatient, so Genie persisted. “I would try to understand, to know my husband better.”

“I appreciate your efforts, my dear, but much of my past is nearly incomprehensible to me, too.” He ate the last spoonful of the trifle and set the bowl aside, obviously seeking an answer to her honest question, so she stayed. Then he said, “Think of a vast place where the greatest minds of all time gather.”

“Cambridge?”

He was polite enough not to laugh at her provincialism. “No, bigger. A spiritual space, filled with the knowledge of the ages.”

“A monastery?”

‘Think larger still, with no walls, no easy answers, only more mysteries.”

“That sounds like a magic kingdom out of some fairy tale,” she scoffed. “Next you will tell me there are elves and unicorns. No such place can exist.”

He rested his head against the back of the chair, his eyes closed. “Oh, it does, somewhere between Heaven and Hell, I suppose.”

“Now you are being enigmatic again.”

“I told you, it is too hard to explain.”

“But you could help my nephew, I know you could. He is a beautiful child, and I hardly got to know him. I fear I never will.”

“I cannot. I have been here too long and the knowledge, the power, fades.” He flicked his fingers toward the hearth, but nothing happened; the fire still burned.

Genie thought he was teasing. “Surely there are books right here full of magic tricks. But I am not speaking of sleight of hand.”

“Neither am I. A man forgets too much. That is his nature, and has to be if he is to go on.”

“But you will go back? You will return to this mysterious place in…five months?”

“Less now.”

“How shall you get there? If you take a ship, I could—”

He touched her lips with his fingers. “It is a different kind of journey. You know that.”

“You will die.” That was a statement, not a question.

His hand fell to his lap, actually her lap, and idly stroked her thigh while he thought of any other word he could use. He could not find one that made sense. “Yes.”

She was only a little distracted by his hand on her upper leg. Somehow his hand was beneath her heavy robe, sliding against the thin silk of her night rail. She refused to succumb to the pleasure, if such was his intent. With Ardeth in an expansive mood, understanding his answers was more important than understanding that the same fiery heat could build in her
other
leg, without his touch. “But you know you will expire at such and such a time? That is impossible unless…you do not intend to kill yourself, do you?”

His fingers stopped moving, but wrapped around her thigh in a firm hold. “What, after fighting so hard to live? No, I will not give up until I have to. This”—he squeezed her leg harder, moving his thumb at the same time in a caressing motion that also drew her silk bedgown up higher—“feels too good.”

She breathed in. Then out. “You cannot explain more?”

He shook his head and moved his hand to the hem of her gown, now near her knees.

“But you will leave?”

“Unless a real miracle happens. I thought…”

He did not say what he thought. “Do you believe in miracles?” Genie asked, thinking there was one at work right now, her bones melting into meringue.

“Oh, I have seen many in my day.” His eyes were on the front of her robe, which had fallen open to reveal her bosom, with no stays, no corset, no shift, nothing but a scrap of silk and a line of lace between her smooth, snowy breasts and his hands, his eyes, his tongue, by heaven.

Before he could reach out to lower that neckline, to feast with his eyes the way he had savored the sweet trifle, she shifted around to face him.

He groaned.

“Did I hurt you?”

He could only shake his head, his tongue turned numb and dumb.

“I want to tell you that I understand about your vow of chastity.”

She did? Ardeth was having a hard time understanding it now. Harder with every wriggle.

She nodded. So did her breasts, it seemed, the darker nipples rising and falling with her movement, with her breath.

That was good, Ardeth thought. One of them should keep breathing.

Then she said, “Yes, you think marital relations might shorten your life.”

That got his heart beating again and his wits back in his brain instead of his breeches.

One misstep might make him Satan’s puppet for eternity. If he harmed her or hurt her feelings, if he used her like a harlot, he was finished, hourglass or not. He’d be gone forever, and this time not as a Reaper, either, despite Satan’s words. His Grimness would not employ such a defector, and the Devil would not let him go. Ar might end up being a plague bearer or a fire kindler. The Devil loved those catastrophic kills. With so many souls lost, a few more than usual were bound to come his way. A dead Coryn Ardsley, Earl of Ardeth, would have no power to prevent any of it. He would have no will to resist, but enough to know what he was doing. That would be the worst.

As if he felt a sudden chill, Ardeth pulled Genie’s
skirt down and her robe closed. He moved his hand to her hair, brushing his fingers through the sunset waves. “We shall not speak of it again. Now rest.”

Here, in his arms? In his lap? That must have been what he’d meant, for he pulled her closer against his chest, tucking her robe around her like a blanket. But she was not cold, not at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. And she was still not tired. Well, perhaps she was a little weary. After all, it must be close to four o’clock in the morning by now. And the gentle touch of his fingers on her head was soothing. So what if her husband was an enigma or an escapee from a mental asylum? His arms felt right. His chest made a perfect pillow. His steady heartbeat acted as a lullaby.

The crow flew in an hour later. Ardeth opened one eye at the flapping of the bird’s wings at the trifle bowl as Olive looked for crumbs. Then he opened the other eye and noticed that his wife’s robe had fallen open, revealing her charms, and that there was a gremlin’s grin on the crow’s face.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, meaning he had not lecherously undressed a sleeping woman or nudged her mind into slumber in order to avoid more questions.

“Ar hum ball,” Olive cawed.

“I am humble? Well, yes, I have learned humility in the face of my desires, but I have not surrendered.”

“Hum ball,” the crow repeated.

“You mean humbug? I tell you, I did not tumble my wife here in the library like a libertine.”

The crow wiped his beak on the carpet. “Ar. Hum’bird balls.”

Chapter Sixteen

Genie awakened in her own bed the next morning. She did not have to wonder how she got here, remembering her husband’s arms around her. She did, however, wonder what Cook had put in the trifle. She had never seen Ardeth at once so talkative and so little in control. Not that he made any more sense than usual. The poor man was deluded into thinking that some dire fate was going to claim him, whisking him off to some metaphysical temple on a specified date, depending on the discovery of a small hourglass. Or maybe Ardeth was still living his fairy tale of a knight in shining armor, with a sorcerer’s spell laid on him.

Whether he was deluded or not, Genie was not going to let him go.

She had a kind and caring husband, enough funds that she need never worry. She had friends, family, an almost scandal-free name. Now all she needed, according to Ardeth, was a miracle.

Was it blasphemous to pray for something that sounded entirely heathenish? Genie did not know if her prayers were worth tuppence, since she had lied and cursed and not honored her parents, besides been unfaithful to Elgin’s memory. Oh, and she had coveted her neighbor’s everything, in the days when she had nothing.

She honestly did not know if she believed in miracles, for that matter. She did, however, believe that God helped those who helped themselves, and she fully intended to help herself to a happy ending. If there was such a thing as a miracle, Ardeth was hers, appearing just when she needed him. Hers to keep.

She was not going to concede defeat, not going to hand the man she loved—she could admit that to herself—over to some evil assassin or wicked wizard, even if they existed only in his own muddled mind. He’d stay, she was sure, if she found the hourglass, or if he loved her enough.