“I made you fall,” Micah said. “And you dropped your sword.”
“I think the fight was done when I grabbed you,” was my retort. “After all, you wouldn’t want to get hurt here.” Since I’d retained my handful of Micah, I gently traced all the places he’d rather not enjoy an injury.
“That would be terrible,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the pink impression his teeth had left in my breast.
“I can’t believe you bit me.”
“Does it hurt?” he asked, now intent on unfastening my bodice. It was always much easier for Micah to get me out of these confounding outfits than it was for me to get into them.
“It does,” I murmured. “You should kiss it. Twice.” He did, and again and again, while his deft fingers worked on my corset. Once he freed me from my bone and satin cell, I sat up and shook out my hair, having decided that he owed me somewhat more of an apology. I was still in my gown, from the waist down anyway, and Micah was technically fully dressed, but my, that skirt of his did make things easier.
Afterward, we snuggled on the sheet that was recently a skirt, my dress folded into a pillow beneath our heads. “About my next lesson,” I began.
“Yes, love?”
“Can we get you a proper kilt for that one?” I asked, tracing small circles on his belly. “I’m beginning to see what you like about all these skirts.”
He laughed, hugging me a bit tighter. “I thought you were against this…how did you put it?…‘damsel in distress’ nonsense.”
“Maybe it’s not all bad,” I conceded. “After all, what if you were the one in distress, and I needed to rescue you?”
“What if, indeed.”
14
The day after our swordplay/wardrobe lesson, Micah was off somewhere, doing something important yet again, and I was once more trolling the manor trying to find new and interesting ways to amuse myself. This particular important event of Micah’s had something to do with the annual tithe from the village. Yep, he used the word “tithe,” which I then learned was really just a fancy word for taxes. It also meant that I now knew one of the ways Micah managed the Whispering Dell, not to mention how he earned some of his money. Finally, I’d learned something about how Micah managed the village. It was just my luck that I learned the most boring part first.
It seemed that taxes really were unavoidable, even in the Otherworld. Being that I have no great love of tax payments or bureaucracy, I wasn’t exactly pining to join Micah. I was just bored. Again.
Mom’s advice echoed around in my skull, mostly because she was right. If I wanted to be happy here in the Otherworld, I needed more in my life than just Micah. I mean, even when (and if) I became his full-fledged wife, he won’t always be around to entertain me, what with his many obligations as the Lord of Silver. Then I remembered that being his wife meant having babies, lots of babies, and realized that too much free time probably wouldn’t be one of my problems. I hope this tithe was large enough for us to hire a few nannies. For the sake of the babies, of course.
I sighed and stepped outside the manor to walk in the gardens. I suppose I could have passed the time by helping Sadie set up her library, but with the exception of a few comic series and some trashy prewar paperbacks, I’d never been much of a reader. Of course, I’d never done much of anything in my spare time, except go to happy hour and watch television. So much of my life had been devoted to being unremarkable that I’d never bothered developing any hobbies, not even a lame one like stamp collecting. All of this unremarkableness had led directly to my current plague of boredom. Now, when I was finally free to do whatever I wanted, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to do with myself.
Maybe I’ll take up sculpturing. My feet had led me to the knot garden, and I was contemplating the statue of Micah’s mother that was its centerpiece. I was a passable artist, at least where drawing was concerned, even though all I’d ever really done was copy my favorite comics. While I didn’t think that qualified me as an artiste, I figured that my metal abilities should give me an edge in sculpting; I remembered Max telling me how he had made tiny metal flowers for a girl he liked. I decided not to dwell on the fact that those flowers were what made him the Institute for Elemental Research’s favorite science experiment.
I can start with roses, I mused, fingering a velvety petal. I can make the thorns sharp as needles, like barbed wire, and the petals will be so lush and—
“Sara.”
I turned to see my mother skulking behind the boxwood hedge, axe—or rather, one of the hatchets the silverkin used for chopping wood—in hand. Being that the boxwoods were only knee high, she looked utterly ridiculous, like an extra in a low-budget slasher film. Just like that, I wished for more boredom. “Yes?”