“I still can’t see!”
“You’re too young to see, kid,” the rat woman said, taking another picture of us. I stopped glaring at Gregory and stood up, trying to think of something to excuse our actions that didn’t sound inane.
“See what?” A spotty teenage boy pushed his way around the guard. He looked disappointed to find that we weren’t engaged in a full-fledged orgy. “Oh. It’s just some chick and a dude. I thought there would be more skin.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Excuse me, but just who are you people?”
“This is the After-Hours Tour.” Al smiled cheerfully. “We don’t be normally sendin’ tours down ’ere, what with the payin’ customers enjoying their bit o’ privacy, but since you and Sir Bollocks Puncher over there ain’t payin’, ’is lordship figured folks might want to see actual prisoners in their native environ, so to be speakin’. We weren’t to know that you and ’is nibs would ’ave preferred to be alone.”
“I believe,” Gregory said as he sat up and swung his feet to the ground, “that of the two, I prefer the name Sir Cover Model.”
We all ignored him.
“I thought there would be more torture. Shouldn’t there be torture, Henry? There should be torture. Blood, and hot irons, and torture—that’s the proper sort of thing to have in a dungeon.”
“This tour has got to be against some sort of rules,” I protested to the guard and tourists alike. “You’re invading our privacy, and we don’t like it.”
“I’ll pass along your complaints to ’is lordship,” Al said, jerking his head toward the door. His two henchmen shuffled out, but only after giving us wide, amused grins.
“I will be sure to say something on the comment cards about the lack of blood and tormented people, of that you may be certain!” the woman snorted.
Her husband smiled a watery smile, and shared it with Gregory and me. “Mariah does love a good torture scene.”
“Bully for her!” I gave her a look that I normally reserve for people who spit in public.
She sniffed and took a few desultory shots of the cell. “Not even a proper set of shackles here. What sort of hell is this where there’s no torture and no shackles?”
“Look, lady—”
“Nothing but a strumpet and her love toy.”
I gaped at her for a second, then took a step forward, intending on giving her a piece of my mind, but Gregory was suddenly in front of me, one arm blocking me.
“Madame,” he said, and his voice was one of commanding dominance. The rude tourist woman shrank before him. “You will kindly refrain from referring to Miss Owens by that word. It is untrue, and upsets her. Furthermore, you will remove yourself, your husband, and that adenoidal teen from our presence.”
“Well, now, well, now,” Al the guard said while the two others backed away from Gregory. I have to admit, I smirked a little behind his back. I wasn’t normally one for expecting someone else to save me, especially a man, but Gregory seemed to slip into the protector role easily, so who was I to complain? “There’s no need for anyone to be gettin’ angry-like, is there? We’ll just be on our way and leave you two to the kissin’ that you were up to.”
“We weren’t kissing!” I objected, then swore to myself. “We might have been, but that was all we were doing. Gregory was wounded, if you recall. I was merely seeing if he had healed up properly. I was . . .
The last couple of words fell from my lips with a pretense made limp with disbelief. Even I couldn’t say it with any conviction.
“Have a very . . . fulfilling . . . evening tending ’im.” Al’s parting shot was delivered with a knowing smile. He closed the door, leaving us standing in the middle of the room.
The food wafted a heavenly smell toward us. Gregory moved over to examine the meal, making approving noises at a bucket of ice containing a bottle of champagne. “Ah. Very good year. How pleasant. And now, my dear—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t you dare say it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, then sat back down on his cot. “Even if I did, I’m too weak to actually speak. Feed me?”
“You big ham. You need a sharp smack to the head.”
“No, what I need is some of that tending you spoke of.” He patted the cot. “I’m in considerable pain. Don’t you want to come back over here and give me the benefit of your healing powers?”
“No.” I went to my cot, grabbed my pillow, and hugged it to myself to keep from doing as he asked. Damn the man for his tempting mouth and eyes and oh, dear goddess, the sight of him splayed out on that cot all hard and masculine and bulgy with muscles and did I mention hard? He looked very aroused indeed if the largest bulge of all was anything to go by.
I reminded myself that those bulges were attached to a man who was by definition if not my mortal enemy then
He was with the Watch. They were dangerous, even here in Anwyn where they had no jurisdiction. If I fell victim to the lure of his sensual ways, he’d be able to play me like a violin, and before I knew it, my mothers would be out of Anwyn and into the custody of the Watch.
I hardened my heart, mentally girded my loins, and told my libido to take a cold shower.
“No?” he asked, giving me a come-hither look to end all come-hither looks.
I almost went thither.
“It’s out of the question. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
“It’s about four in the afternoon.”
“Very tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night. You eat the food and drink the champagne, and if you so much as come within two feet of me, I’ll scream bloody murder.” I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me like a cocoon, rolling over on the cot so that my face was to the wall. I prayed that the buzz of excitement that had filled me at our recent activity would die down enough so that I could at least rest.
Sleep, I knew, was out of the question. Not while Gregory was near. Not while everything in me wanted to ignore common sense.
I sighed. It was going to be a long, long night.
SEVEN
The night was long. Hellishly long. That was a better description, Gregory decided somewhere around two in the morning. Not only did he have a sleepless night in which to consider his sins, mostly focused on the fact that he had charged into Anwyn without official permission, but he didn’t even have the deliciously ripe form of Gwen to distract him.
“Blast it all,” he said into the close, dark night.
“You can say that again,” came the soft reply.
He stopped staring at the stone ceiling—which he couldn’t see once the guards turned off the lights for the night—and squinted across the cell. Was it his imagination, or could he make out a dark shape that was Gwen’s cot? “Are you awake, too?”
“No. Go back to sleep.”
“I haven’t been to sleep, so I can’t go back to it.” He hoped she would reply. If she would at least talk to him, then he stood a fair chance of wooing his way onto her cot. Or having her come and “tend” him again. That had been most pleasant, and not a little bit surprising.
“I like your mouth,” he said conversationally, putting his hands behind his head as he once again looked up into the darkness. “It is sweet, and hot, and very enjoyable.”
“We are not having this conversation.”
He smiled to himself. She had refused to speak to him for hours, her breath evening out until he thought she
