Will’s eyes widened in alarm. “You didn’t transfer them, too!” They would kill him.
“No, no. Why add the stress to their already depressing and pointless lives? They don’t have the mental stability you and I enjoy.” Will felt a muscle in his face start to twitch. Hart continued, “No, I just had them assigned temporary cross-departmental duty, reporting to you. They know the Diamond now, it seemed best.”
And so Will joined the Men in Black.
Chapter 38
“Actually,” said Adrian, with a sheepish look on his face, “I usually just sit and think. I’m not used to having somebody else in here with me.”
“Couldn’t you sit and think by the cages in the zoo?” ‘There’s a difference between that and being in the same room with them.”
There certainly was. Io was aware every second of the black-green shapes padding up and down the Cavern, where each was and in what direction it was moving. “Besides,” said Adrian, “I like to pace next to them.”
Heavens above, thought Io.
He added, “It helps me concentrate.”
“Couldn’t a few cups of coffee give you the same effect?”
“No, no—this makes me less nervous, not more.”
She pressed herself against a marble slab as one of the panthers stalked past. It seemed to take no notice of her.
Adrian did appear more calm than he’d been outside. “They’re lovely, aren’t they?” he asked, gesturing to the cat padding away from Io.
Of course, she thought, taking a deep breath. They’re beautiful, they’re alien, and they’re dangerous. What more could he ask for? “I suppose I can’t complain,” she murmured. “My reactions to things never seem to be normal either. So I’m told.”
“Is this bothering you?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I’m fine. Just a little, a little … I didn’t expect to be here today. That’s all.”
He smiled. “Why did you come?” He took her hand and helped her up onto one of the high marble slabs, then climbed up and sat beside her. The surface was cold under her gown. Below them one of the cats looked up with an impersonal curiosity. Its eyes were gleaming onyx stones.
“I wanted to be with you.”
This was apparently the right thing to say. He put an arm around her. “I seem to be losing all that frustration,” he said. “Maybe I should just have stayed with you in our suite—it would have saved everybody here the trouble of clearing out.”
She sat there both scared and content, enjoying the warmth of his body and the cool of the marble. She still did not share his enthusiasm for their marriage bed, but in considering the matter she had to conclude that sex had brought them closer. Perhaps all people who were comrades in necessary, disagreeable experiences felt that way—like maintenance teams who cleaned out recyclers.
Luckily she did not share this point of view with Adrian, who might never have recovered from it.
Instead she put her head on his shoulder. “I wish I had someplace like this to go. Something to do.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, haven’t we been figuring a good schedule for you? I told them to leave a certain amount of free time, but maybe that was a mistake.”
“Oh, no, there’s plenty to do—I just mean, I’d like something to do. Something besides going to dinners and being fitted for dresses.”
“Well, why don’t you go through the link-library and see if there’s anything that strikes your fancy?”
She abruptly pulled herself straight. “You let women use the links here?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, to read? I could read anything I wanted?”
“If it’s in the public access paths. Uh, you know how to read, don’t you?” He would think that an aristo girl would have been taught, but with Opal one never knew.
“Of course I know how! Are you saying I could just call up whatever I wanted?”
“More or less.” He looked puzzled.
Io moved restlessly, as though she were about to take off then and there. At that second she caught sight of a graceful furred shape beneath the slab, and backed closer to Adrian. “I’ll wait so we can both leave together.”
He laughed and put his arm back on her shoulder. After a minute she relaxed. He said, “But you do think they’re beautiful, don’t you?”
She looked down at the feline shape still below; lethal or not, one longed to run a hand through the deep fur. “I do. I wish I could touch them.”
“I slept with them one night.”
“No!”
He nodded. “It’s true. It was very late and they’d been given a little too much trank, and we’d been in here for hours.” He grinned. “I was asking their advice on how to handle the Uprising. Anyway, we finally all fell asleep on my cape. It gets a little cold in here, you know, and when I woke up, we were back-to-back.”
“Good heavens!”
“Don’t tell Brandon. It would only upset him.”
I don’t believe he killed Saul Veritie, she thought. The thought came out of nowhere. Her forehead touched the nape of his neck; another thought occurred, and she spoke it. “Your hair reminds me of their fur.” She ran a finger through the dark, soft mass.
“Does it?” His voice sounded strained.
“Yes,” she said softly, and then he was kissing her in a way that even six days had taught her he only used when he meant business.
Her silken shawl was dropped below, where it fell featherlike to the marble and caught the attention of both cats. Io glanced around as though suddenly in need of an escape route. She caught a glimpse of black, dangerous eyes shining up at them, sharp and interested. “Let’s go back to the suite,” she said.
“No, here.” His face was buried in her neck.
She pushed him gently back. “The suite.”
“Please, Io. I really want to stay here.”
“We’ll upset the panthers.”
“They’re a couple themselves,” he said. “They’ll understand.” He pulled off his shirt and placed it as a pillow for her head.
Well, it was her duty to put up with a husband’s conjugal desires. And she did ask to
