Heart's Blood(30)

She made no objection, simply rolled this way and that as he unbuttoned the closure at her neck and unwrapped her.

"Now the shoes, I think." Grey unbuttoned the high-topped walking shoes and eased them off, unable to resist the temptation to caress her fine-boned ankles. A faint, ladylike snuffle had him laughing at himself. He was aroused almost beyond bearing, and she'd gone back to sleep.

He turned back for one more glance, one more long, thirsty look at her, before he went off to his lonely chair. He ought to unfasten her skirt so it didn't squeeze her waist. And loosen her bodice so she could breathe. At least he didn't have to bother with a corset. She hadn't worn one, and that memory, of her soft and warm in his arms in the hospital cellar, had his entire body turning bird dog, quivering on point at his target, the small, sweet, delectable body of his apprentice.

He should go. He would. He would get up and go back across the workroom and sit in the chair. He would go downstairs to his bedroom and leave her here to sleep alone. Now. He would go.

As soon as he released her slender neck from the buttons closed high and tight around it. He didn't want her to choke. He only stroked the pale, warm skin of he neck twice. Three times. All right, four. But he didn't let his fingers stray when he opened the next two buttons. Not more than once. Truly.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, freezing him motionless with his fingertips on the perfect line of her collarbone. He was lost in the rayed gold-over-blue of her incredible eyes, sinking fast into their depths.

"Grey?" She spoke.

What should he say? What should he do? "Yes, Pearl?" That didn't sound too inane, did it?

"What are you doing?"

Oh God. He was still stroking her collarbone. Only his brain had frozen, not his fingers. He drew them back. He wanted to jerk away from her, but his hands would not cooperate, would only leave her with reluctance. "Loosening your clothing so you can sleep more comfortably."

It was bad to be so good at lying. Wasn't it? He'd never thought so before, but with Pearl, it felt that way. Sorcery. Had to be. Blood never lied. There was blood between them.

Pearl smiled up at him and he thought his heart might stop. "Oh," she said. "Good."

He smiled, after a fashion. He wasn't sure how happy a smile it was. He nodded. He stood, or started to. Pearl's hand on his, on the hand pushing him up off the bed, stopped him.

"Stay," she said.

He couldn't. He shouldn't and wouldn't.

"Yes," he said. And he lay down on the narrow bed beside her and gathered her into his arms, just remembering to reverse Harry's spell and shut off all the lamps. And they slept.

Morning arrived far too early, ushered in with a pounding on his door, and shouting. Grey became aware of a number of things all at the same time.

He woke fully clothed. Again. But this time he lay in bed. His workroom bed. Snugged up against someone-a small someone-of the female persuasion. Pearl. His apprentice. Who had asked him to sleep there. And who was also fully clothed. Thank God.

The pounding and shouting had gotten louder. Harry. McGregor was there, too. Shouting. And for once the shouting and pounding didn't hurt Grey's head. It wasn't sore. The pounding slacked off and a woman's voice called out. Elinor.

Elinor!





12




GREY'S EYES SNAPPED open and he sprang directly to his feet from lying down on the bed. Half an instant later, Pearl stood in front of him, frantically buttoning up the . . . three buttons at the top of her shirtwaist. No more than that. He still had on his frock coat, hopelessly crumpled now, and his neck cloth. No wonder he'd felt a bit strangled.

He looked at Pearl, whose ears had turned a furious crimson, and who was determinedly looking anywhere but at him. He tipped her face up and put his finger to his lips.

"We came back to my house for food," he said, not loud enough to be heard over the pounding that had resumed. "You fell asleep in the chair. All truth. I moved you to the bed. Yet another truth. And I slept in the chair. One slight untruth amongst all the truths will not harm anyone. Understood?"

"We came here simply to eat?" Pearl murmured.

"And to discuss elements of the case and the magic you worked yesterday."

She nodded, accepting his dissimulations. Grey shot his cuffs, smoothed his crumpled coat, and strode the length of the room to the door to open it.

Harry and Elinor both crowded in, leaving McGregor in silent protest on the landing. Three persons had now been admitted to his private sanctum. Grey sighed. "Breakfast, McGregor. In the breakfast room, if you please."

"Yes, sir." The butler bowed and vanished. Grey was convinced the man had his own reservoir of domestic magic.                       
       
           



       

He turned back to the workroom to find that Elinor had apparently already ascertained his apprentice's well-being, for she was advancing back along the chamber aimed at him like some artillery piece primed to fire.

He looked for Harry, feeling the need for a modicum of masculine support, and found him among the magical texts, deliberately ignoring everyone else in the room. Grey didn't blame him. He braced himself for the attack.

"You!" Elinor poked him in the chest with a forefinger. Hard. It hurt.

Grey put up a hand in a dismal hope of preventing more pain. He wondered if he ought to respond, but decided against it. Better point of valor, and all that.

"How could you?" Elinor cried. "I realize you have no care for your own reputation. The blacker the better, I'm sure. But I truly thought you had some semblance of a brain in that bony box you call a cranium. Have you completely lost whatever meager amount of sense you might once have possessed? Are you a complete and utter idiot?"

Here, she paused. Was she waiting for a response? What response did she want? What would end her tirade the soonest, for it was obvious she wasn't yet done.

Grey's mouth opened, and stayed that way as he attempted to come up with the correct answer. He finally ventured, "Yes?"

"You must be. What is wrong with you? Is it too much effort to consider anyone's welfare other than your own? Did you stop to think what your stupidity might have cost Pearl?"

"I have no reputation to preserve," Pearl said. Brave and foolish girl, leaping into the cannon's mouth. "Besides, nothing happened. We fed the magic. I fell asleep in the chair. Grey carried me to the cot in the corner, and he slept in the chair. Nothing happened."

Elinor rounded on her, angrier than before, impossible as that seemed. "Do you think that matters? No one cares about the truth. You are the female apprentice of a male magician. The whole world is watching, expecting-anticipating a scandal. The least little spark, the tiniest appearance of something titillating, and the fire will blaze out of control.

"It will prove to the doubters that magic will corrupt any female foolish enough to attempt the practice, and the doors will slam shut again. No decent woman will take the risk, and we'll be right back where we were ten years ago. Two hundred years ago, when every female magician, sorceress and wizard, was burned at the stake."

Grey felt the need to divert some of that fire away from Pearl, even if it meant turning it back at himself. Madness obviously possessed him. "I don't think anyone would actually resort to burning," he said mildly.

"You-" Elinor stabbed her finger at him and he flinched. That finger was sharp as a knitting needle. His Aunt Minerva used to poke him with hers. Needles, not fingers.

"You shut up," Elinor ordered. "This is all your fault, because you never ever think about consequences. Ever. And if you do, you don't care. You don't care about anything, and I am bloody well sick of it."

Grey blinked. He'd never heard Elinor use strong language.

"That's not-" Pearl began.

"You shut up, too."

Pearl flinched when Elinor poked that pointy finger her way, making Grey feel minimally better. He was not the only one wary of that finger.

"This is all your fault," Elinor snapped. "You are fully capable of using good sense, even when he has none, being a man. But what did you do? You surrendered all sense completely."

"How can it be all my fault," Grey inserted himself into the target zone once more, "and all her fault as well? If the blame is all mine, which it is, then none of it can be hers."

"Don't you dare use logic on this disaster," Elinor snapped. "Logic has nothing to do with gossip or scandal. Truth doesn't, either. It is all your fault, and all yours, too." She pointed at Grey and then at Pearl with short, sharp, scary stabbing motions. "And it's your fault, too, Harry Tomlinson." That scary finger turned in Harry's direction.

"Me?" He looked up, startled, from his determined distance. "I didn't 'ave nuffink to do wif this. I'm over 'ere mindin' me own business."

"That's why it's your fault. You weren't paying attention." Elinor went utterly, surprisingly still, then she sighed, deflating somehow to a smaller, safer size. "And it's completely my fault, because I knew something was wrong, but I didn't do anything. I should have come last night and made you come home. And I didn't. I was too tired."