A Midsummer Night's Romp (23 page)

“Let me guess—Thompson had no serious intentions toward her?”

“Not only that, but he left her an unwanted present.”

“Oh dear. A baby?”

“No, thank heavens.” Lorina's jaw tightened. “Although I don't know why I say that—Sandy would have been better off with a baby than HIV.”

“Ouch,” Gunner said, starting to have an idea of where her tale was going.

“Worse than ouch—it's not the death knell that it was ten years ago, but it's still ruined her life and any hope
she had of having a normal family. She's gone to live with some nursing nuns in Nepal who have a good rate of patient recovery, so we're hoping they can get her healthy again, and able to live a life without infection.”

“I'm so sorry,” he said, holding her tight. “If there's anything I can do—”

She kissed his jaw. “Thank you. She's out of contact from her family and me for two months, so perhaps there will be good news at that time. Until then . . .” She stopped.

“Until then, we have to make Thompson pay.”

“No. Well, yes, it would be nice if he was held responsible for her situation, financially speaking, but so far, he's refused to believe anything that Sandy told him. He claimed she was simply being a spurned lover and making up lies about him to scare off other women, and that he'd sue her if she spread rumors about him. She tried to give him her doctor's statement, but he said that her illicit past had nothing to do with him, other than making him grateful he used condoms with her.”

“If he wore a condom, then how—”

“They aren't infallible,” she said with a knowing look. “And Sandy distinctly remembers one time when he forgot. She told him that even if what he said was true, then he should have himself checked, but he refused, saying he was fine and had no symptoms, et cetera. He simply refuses to listen to her. But, Gunner, he has to be stopped. I don't want another woman to go through what Sandy's had to go through.”

“And that's why you've been playing up to him?” Gunner tried to work out a way that made sense, but failed. “I'm not quite sure I see—”

“I was trying to get him into a position where he was alone with me, so I could slip him a roofie and take a sample of his blood.” Lorina ducked her head, peering
up at him through her lashes. “I know, it's wrong. It's heinous. It's barbaric and immoral, and illegal to boot, but I couldn't think of anything else to do.”

“Hmm. I agree that he needs to face the fact that he is infected and could be infecting others. In addition, he must alert any other lovers whom he has infected.”

“And not be allowed to harm anyone else,” Lorina added.

“Agreed. What can I do to help you?”

She stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “You want to help me?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

He didn't need to consider his answer before giving it. “Because it's important to you.”

“I . . . I . . . Gunner, that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

His heart seemed to give a little squeeze at that idea. “I suggest we confront him together. Yes, I know you've already chatted with him, but if we present a united front, perhaps we can get further.”

She took a deep, shaking breath. “That sounds wonderful. And thank you for caring so much about Sandy that you'd be willing to do this.”

He let her think his altruism was for her friend.

“So you don't think I'm a horrible person?” The look in her eyes was so stark, it left him seriously thinking about marching out of the castle and putting his fist in Thompson's face just because he upset Lorina.

“I do not think you are a horrible person. I think you're rather wonderful, to be honest. There's not many women I know who would put themselves to both the trouble and expense to fly to the other side of the world just to avenge a friend, not to mention save the lives of women she's not even met. My youngest sister might.
Alice probably would, but she'd do it on a whim without any preplanning, and then she'd get herself in a predicament that would be both funny and alarming.”

To his joy, Lorina smiled at that. “I don't know Alice well, but I do think when I get to know her better, I'm going to like her a lot.”

“You will. She's a delight, although not nearly so charming as you.”

“Silly man. You have to say that due to your weird, antiquated idea of chivalry that kicked in when people saw us in the passageway.” Her smile faded, and she looked worried again. “You're not going to tell your family about me, are you?”

“That you have breasts that make my mouth water, and an ass that's almost divine, and legs that make me hard just thinking about them wrapped around my waist? No, I won't tell them those things. I will tell them that you're fabulous in all other regards, but I won't mention a thing about the way your muscles tighten around me until I think I might just die of happiness.”

“Silly man,” she repeated, and got off his lap, collecting the clothes and returning to the bathroom. “We're not getting married.”

“I think we are,” he called after her, and idly wondered if he should be concerned why something that had started as a joke was now becoming vitally important to him.

“W
e got one!”

It wasn't so much the volume of the shout that had me looking up from where I was sitting on my air mattress tying the laces of my boots, but the excitement rife in the words. I couldn't tell who had shouted the statement, but I thought it was one of the grad student diggers.

“Really? Where?”

That sounded a lot like Daria.

“Castle cellar. Paul's cleaning it now so we can read it. Of course he's claiming that it was all him finding it, but Simon said it was in a trench on the northeast, not the one Paul was on. Exciting stuff, huh?”

“Very.”

I poked my head out of my tent and had my guess confirmed. “Another mouse stone?” I asked Daria, who
stood with an especially sour look on her face, watching the retreating back of the digger.

“So I gather. I wouldn't know, since Paul won't let me near the cellar trenches.” She shifted the look to me before giving me a twisted smile. “Welcome back, by the way. I heard through the grapevine that you and the hunky Gunner were trapped together overnight.”

“It was a lot less fun than you're imagining,” I told her, gathering up my camera bag and emerging from the tent. “No toilet, no food, no water, and after a couple of hours, no light.”

“Mmhmm. But evidently you found a way to keep yourselves busy.”

“OK, that is a knowing look if I ever saw one,” I said, pointing to her face. We both turned and started toward the pasture where Daria's trench was. “And it's totally unnecessary. I'm too traumatized by the way everyone burst in on us to put up with that. What's been going on while we were incommunicado?”

She gave a short burst of laughter. “That's one way of putting it, eh? Well, let's see. . . . There was a search for you and Gunner when you didn't show up for supper.”

“It's nice to know that the second I disappear, people think I'm having sexy fun time.”

“Well, you were,” Daria pointed out.

“I know I was, but everyone else doesn't have to think that way about me!” I pulled my dignity together. “At least people noticed we were missing.”

“This morning the baron and his wife came back, and when he found out that no one had seen you or Gunner since yesterday, he started a proper search in the castle.”

My cheeks warmed at the thought of what they had found, but I pushed it away. “Thank heavens for the baron.”

“Yes, well, thanks to him
and
Gunner's daughter. The baron grilled her about what you talked about yesterday morning, and she said that Gunner had been talking about how his dad had taken them down to the cellar, and then the baron said, ‘I wonder if he went to look in the bolt-hole,' and then I gather they tried the door, but it wouldn't open, so he got an ax and hacked it down.” She made a moue. “I have to say, I wish I'd been there to see that. Roger said he filmed the whole thing, and it was going to get a lot of press.”

“Oh, joy.” I thought of all those viewers watching Gunner and me. “Like that's not going to give me nightmares for years.”

“I don't see why it should—Tabby said she didn't get any shots of you, and kept the camera slightly off-kilter on Gunner so nothing untoward showed. Other than that, nothing much has happened, except this morning, before all of the excitement of finding you, Roger called a meeting and said that he wanted all the digging to be focused inside the castle. Paul tried to object, but Sue and Roger overruled him. As Paul said, we might be the archaeologists, but they hold the purse strings. All of which means today is my last day of doing proper archaeology.” She kicked at a tuft of grass. “This whole treasure hunt thing is beyond ridiculous, and it isn't what I signed up for when I agreed to work for the CMA.”

“I don't blame you for being upset, but look at it this way—if we do find something treasurelike, then it'll bring tons of attention to the dig, and that has to be good for archaeology, right?”

“Eh.” She made a noncommittal gesture. “I'd rather just be allowed to do what I'm best at.”

“I'll get some shots of you this afternoon,” I promised, waving her off when she headed for the trench where
two diggers were sitting and waiting, with nary a film camera in sight.

She waved back, and I hurried off to the castle, feeling a twinge of guilt at joining in the treasure fever, but excited at the thought of another mouse stone. I wondered what Gunner would think of it, then wondered where he was and what he was doing, and whether he was thinking about me. A sharp little spike of jealousy stabbed me at the thought that he was with some other woman, but then I realized just how stupid that was.

“I am not going to be one of those women,” I told myself as I entered the castle through the French doors that Gunner had taken me through the day before. “I am not so insecure in myself, nor doubtful of his character, to attribute to him that sort of heinous—oh, hello.”

Sue emerged from a side hall, pausing when she spotted me.

“I understand that Paul found another mouse stone,” I said.

“Yes, he did.”

She was as curt as she normally was with me, but I gave that no mind, smiling smugly to myself that she might have wanted Gunner, but I got him.

That thought startled me the second it cohered in my brain. Was he really mine? Did I really want him? The joke about marriage aside, he had said that I needed him, and what was better, he needed me. Was he right? Did I need him? Dr. Anderson had quite a few things to say about women who needed men, but she also said I had to trust my judgment.

The trouble was, I didn't seem to know what to think about Gunner. The fact that he seemed to know I had been abused was disconcerting, but I wasn't ready to face that just yet. No, more than anything, it was the word
need
that gave pause to thoughts of life with Gunner.

Oh, the sex was fabulous, more fabulous than I knew it could be, but was that enough to base a relationship on? Did I even
want
to have a relationship with him? That brought me back to that “need” statement. And where did that leave me?

“Confused,” I muttered to myself as we emerged into the section of the house where the kitchen was located. I turned down an unlit hallway that I knew led to the cellar door.

Sue hurried after me, and we both descended the stairs to the cellar. I tossed the broken door that hung crookedly over the bolt-hole a black look when we passed it, but my attention was focused on the sounds of people and the sight of flickering lights that stretched out from the depths of the cellar. “Has Gunner already translated the stone? What does it say? I have to admit, I'm really starting to get excited about the whole treasure thing, and I didn't believe in it when we began.”

“I have no idea.” We arrived at the three storerooms that were currently hosting trenches. Sue murmured something about being too busy to speak with me, and escaped into the first room.

I looked around in surprise. Roger had somehow managed to get some bright lights strung along the upper walls, which gave the gloomy cellar a strangely stark look. I almost felt sorry to have the lights on, since they stripped away all the mystery inherent in the cellar ambiance.

I peered into the rooms until I found one with a large cluster of people. “Hello. Can I see the stone?”

Everyone turned to look at me, including Tabby and her camera. I'm sure my cheeks turned bright pink when I noticed several of the people smirking, but I was determined to pretend nothing unusual had recently happened to me down in these very cellars. I sauntered
up to everyone with what I hoped was calm self-possession.

“Nice to
see
you again,” Paul said with an impossible-to-miss inflection. It made my blush crank up a notch higher. “Yes, the stone is here. I've just been cleaning it, and have done a translation.”

“Where's Gunner?” I asked, glancing around.

“Can't go an hour without him?” Paul asked with a wink at the camera. “I understand Ainslie's gone off to have his foot attended to.”

“Oh no, has he hurt himself?” A little pang of worry had me wondering if I shouldn't go find him, and then I realized I didn't even have his cell number to call him. I started toward the door. “Maybe I should find him—”

“No, nothing like that,” Roger said, bustling forward and shooing me over to a folding table that had been set up in a corner of the storeroom. “I understand he's having his cast off. Here's the latest clue in the hunt for the treasure. It's not a lot to look at, but Paul assures me that it has another riddle on it. Or part of one.”

I looked down at the roughly rectangular piece of stone. Half of one of the sides had been chipped away, making it look like some fantastical beast had nibbled off the edge. In the lower right corner was a faded outline of a familiar mouse, partially obscured with a black stain. Above it, pale gray letters were visible, a section of the plaster surface having been flaked off, but it looked to me like the bulk of the letters were present.

“That's definitely one of the mouse stones,” I agreed. “What does it say?”

Paul held the stone up and angled it to catch the light. “It's difficult to read since it's so faded, and apparently part of it has been rubbed off. I do see something about an extremity, and little weight. And I think that line there says ‘making a good impression by day.' Hmm.”

Roger peered over his shoulder. “An extremity? Like an arm or a leg? That would indicate a statue. We haven't uncovered any statues, have we?”

“No,” Paul said, setting down the stone.

I wished Gunner were here so he could see it, and sidled over to take a gander at it myself.

“No statues, and the word extremity here could mean the extreme tip of something, so it might not mean arms or legs. It could be the top of a mountain peak, or highest point in a tower, or something like that.”

“I see, I see. Hmm. But it
could
be a statue.” Roger stroked his chin for a few seconds, then exclaimed, “A statue that is pointing to where the treasure is hidden! Or! What if it's a painting of a person pointing? I've seen that sort of thing before. Those Elizabethans, they loved to do that sort of thing. What if it started with the Romans?”

I looked at him in amazement. “Wow, you
really
run with an idea when you get one, don't you? Sorry, that sounded rude. What I meant was—”

“I have vision, yes,” Roger said, thankfully not taking offense at what my mouth had spoken without my brain's permission. “That's why I've gotten as far as I have. Now, then, people, let's look lively, shall we? There's a statue or painting pointing to treasure to be found, and it won't show itself! Tabby, you and Matt and Sam and Vic come with me. We'll go to trench fifteen to film them lifting the skull from the skeleton. Viewers always like skulls. And then there's that suspicious shape in trench sixteen that could well be a chest of some sort. I wonder if there's a wall niche as well. Didn't Romans leave little statues of their gods in wall niches? One of them could be pointing. . . .”

All five of them drifted out of the room, leaving behind Paul, Fidencia, and me.

“The man's an idiot,” Fidencia said with an unattractive sneer.

“Yes, but one whose company is funding the dig, so it behooves us to keep such comments behind our respective teeth, hmm?”

Fidencia rounded on him. “Oh, I like that! You weren't being quite so circumspect when you ran out of condoms and wanted to go ahead despite my saying no, it was condoms or nothing. And speaking of our little rendezvous, I'm getting some sort of a rash that I didn't have before you seduced me.”

Paul cleared his throat loudly to interrupt her. My heart fell at her words, though. Even though she wasn't my favorite person in the world, I didn't want to see her cursed with an STD.

He nodded toward me. “I think that talk is better left for another time, don't you?”

Fidencia evidently didn't care about having an audience. She glowered at him as she said, “I have an itch, Paul!”

“As have we all, my dear, but we don't act on them in public, at least, not unless we take precautions first.”

I rolled my eyes. Paul gestured toward the far end of the room, where the white stones of an uncovered Roman wall gleamed against the nearly black soil that made up the floor. “Shall we get back to seeing where that wall leads?”

“All right, but if you've given me crabs or something, you're going to be hearing more about it,” Fidencia said, stalking off.

Paul smiled widely at me. “Such a volatile girl. And how are you doing after your little embarrassment of this morning? Judging by what I saw, you have clearly gotten over whatever bug blighted you a few days ago,
so if you'd like to get together this evening, I'm sure I can answer those questions you said you had.”

It was too good of an opportunity to miss. “Crabs,” I said to him.

He looked mildly discomfited. “As I said, she's very volatile, and she doesn't like the idea that I have many interests in life . . . both in subjects and people.”

“And if you've given her something worse than pubic lice?” I asked, my heart beating wildly. I'd dreamed of the moment when I could confront him with what he'd done to Sandy, but somehow, it wasn't nearly as wonderful as I'd hoped it would be. It was actually a little scary. I desperately wanted Gunner there to help me confront Paul.

Good heavens—did this mean that I really
did
need Gunner? I shook that thought away, not able to deal with it at that moment.

Paul frowned, his voice going a few degrees colder. “Such as?”

“Try full-fledged HIV on for size,” I snapped. “Have you told Fidencia how many lives you've ruined because you had unprotected sex? Have you told her how HIV can ravage your body? How it can leave you helpless or worse? How it can destroy the lives of sweet, innocent women who make the mistake of falling in love with you only to find out you're a heartless monster? Have you told her all that, Paul?”