Curious, Mona walked to the back room door and peeked inside. Malcolm had wasted no time preparing for the assignation. Instead of wooden floors, she found lush green grass under her feet. Instead of a ceiling, she saw a hazy blue sky. And instead of walls, she saw a silver stream through the trees. The day was halcyon. It looked like someone's memory of a perfect day. She gazed around her and saw that nothing remained of the back room but the door, freestanding, like a portal to another world. Now she understood that in some mysterious way it was. Another world of Malcolm's creation.
Somewhere close by people talked. She heard their voices, low but unmistakably male. Mona undressed, dropping her silk skirt and blouse onto the grass. She walked barefoot and naked toward the sound of the men. She spied them before they spied her, sitting beside their picnic blanket in their black suits as they exchanged friendly fire over something silly and political. Malcolm she recognized at once. The other man seemed familiar, but she knew her mind was tricking her. She'd never seen him before. She hid herself behind the tree and studied him. He had dark reddish-brown hair in a modern Brutus cut. His eyes were dark, but not black like Malcolm's. They were midnight blue instead-she was sure of it even from a distance. Midnight blue eyes and a midnight smile as he spoke. He seemed the sort of man who made all his business deals in a bedroom, not a boardroom. He had a strong nose, strong chin, and strong jaw beneath his beard, and looked a little younger than Malcolm-thirty-five, maybe. Everything about him exuded quiet strength. He was desperately handsome, and in that alone he reminded her of Malcolm. He wore a ring on his left ring finger, but it wasn't a wedding ring. It looked like an antique signet ring of sorts, large, ornately engraved, and silver.
Mona stepped into the clearing where the two men sat chatting. Malcolm glanced her way and waved her over, patting the blanket at his side. She sat, slightly self-conscious of her nakedness even as she knew the other man with the signet ring was nothing more than a figment of Malcolm's imagination. He wasn't real any more than the little pastel nymphs or the men who'd bid on her at the slave auction. He was no more real than the Roman prison guard who'd searched her body, no more real than the priestesses who served the Minotaur.
Malcolm placed his hand on her thigh as she stretched out on the blanket.
"It's got to go," Malcolm was saying to the other man. "It's outdated, outmoded. It's a relic."
"Of course it's a relic," the man with the midnight eyes said. "I'm not arguing that point."
"What is your point?" Malcolm asked.
"My point is … people love their relics. Don't they?" the midnight man asked, turning to Mona.
"You're asking me?" she said.
"You run an art gallery, don't you?" he asked.
"She does," Malcolm said.
"Then you know better than either of us that people love relics," the midnight man said. "What painting would sell for more money-a bad painting that's four hundred years old, or a good painting that was finished yesterday?"
"The four-hundred-year old painting," she said. "Almost always."
"See?" the midnight man said. "My point is proven. The monarchy remains intact."
"You're trying to end the monarchy?" she asked Malcolm. "A strange quest for an Englishman."
"He's a strange Englishman," the midnight man said.
"It's a relic of a benighted age," Malcolm said.
"So is everything valuable that you detest," the midnight man said. "Including marriage."
"I surrender," Malcolm said.
Mona laughed at them. They seemed to be dear old friends, though Malcolm had yet to introduce her to his friend.
"Let's talk of something more pleasant than my two least favorite M words," Malcolm said. "Let us talk of my favorite M word."
"Which is?" Mona asked.
Malcolm leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips.
"Mona," he said.
"A much better topic of conversation indeed," the midnight man said. Mona looked at him and found him at her other side. She stiffened when he leaned in to kiss her as well. She assumed he was there to be an audience to her and Malcolm's lovemaking. It seemed he was to participate as well. Malcolm had never let anyone else have sex with her in these fantasies he conjured for her. Would that change today?
"Trust me, love," Malcolm said, and it was all she needed to hear. The man with the midnight eyes smiled at her and Mona found herself returning the smile, her naked body blushing crimson. It was all a fantasy anyway, wasn't it? He was a figment of Malcolm's imagination, a figment who would be gone the moment she returned to the outside world.