Blood Ties (2 page)

She listened to my detailed description of all that had transpired, wide-eyed and rapt and drinking her ale. When she lowered the mug, she had a small mustache composed of foam. I reached over and wiped it off with my finger. Her skin was soft, and it was as if there was a quick spark, like lightning, between the two of us.

“I am ashamed, sir,” she said softly.

“Ashamed? Why ashamed?”

“Because while you were out there in streets running red with the blood of brave men, I was hiding under my bed with my hands clasped over my ears. I am ashamed because I was so cowardly that I don't feel as if I deserve to be in the presence of one so great.”

“If I only kept company with those who deserved to be in my presence, I'd spend the majority of my life alone.”

She laughed at that. “You are utterly charming,” she said.

We were like-minded in that regard. We were able to agree on how marvelously charming I was.

She leaned forward, and there was the invitation in her voice that we had both known was inevitable from the moment she had shown up. “Would you like to see where I hid?”

“Under the bed, you mean?”

She nodded.

“Under the bed would be fine,” I said, “for a start.”

She nodded again as a slow and slightly tipsy smile spread across her face.

The girl took my hand as I tossed an arbitrary amount of money on the table to cover the bar tab. I hoped it was the correct amount and honestly wouldn't have cared if it wasn't. Ben Finn may be many things, but first and foremost he's someone who can keep his priorities in order.

We left the bar, and she nuzzled her head against my arm, laughing lightly every so often. She interlaced her fingers with mine and kept telling me how strong I clearly was, and how manly, and how thrilled she was to have met me. I tried to remain humble in the face of such excessive adoration, but it was not an easy thing.

Her abode was a small apartment situated over a millinery shop. The ale seemed to be having its way with her, as I was anticipating doing. There were stairs up a side entrance that led to her apartment, and she half pulled, half dragged me after her. “Fear not, dear, I'm right behind you,” I assured her. “Wouldn't want to miss seeing a thing.”

“Oh, don't worry, you won't,” she said, and giggled yet again. If she continued to giggle, she was going to start sounding like a schoolgirl to me, and that wasn't something I was especially looking forward to. I prefer women to girls. They know more, and you don't have to waste your time providing instructions, road maps, or diagrams.

She let me into her apartment, locking the door behind us. It was a fairly simple affair: a small sitting room, a kitchen, and a doorway that led to the bedroom. I'll say this for her: She got right to the point, dragging me into the bedroom while still producing that same annoying giggle. I knew I was going to have to tune it out as best I could as I got down to business.

The clothes began to fly, and in short order there was something in the air, namely her legs. She was, to understate it, extremely receptive. But before I could put her on the receiving end, there was a sudden but firm banging at the door.

“Whoever it is,” I whispered in her ear, my thoughts still occupied with animalistic longing, “tell him to go away.”

Instead of doing as I said, she placed her hand firmly against my face and pushed. Off balance as I was, I tumbled backwards and hit the floor with a very loud thud. Her eyes were wide with concern, and she said with quiet franticness, “It's my husband!”

“Your
what
now?”

“Go! Grab your pants and go!”

I grabbed my trousers out of the pile of clothes and yanked them on, still trying to put together what in the world was going on. The pounding at the door was becoming more insistent. “But you never said—”

“No time! Out the window!”

“But . . .” The rest of my clothes, not to mention my belongings, were still scattered around.

Wasting no time, she shoved everything else under the bed. “Go! Go!” she said in a frantic whisper. “I'll meet you back at the pub and return everything!”

Automatically, I turned toward the window, but then something clicked over in my mind. “Waaaiiit a minute.”

“We don't have time to wait a minute! Hurry!”

I turned toward her with a ready smile. “Oh, but what's the hurry?” I said. “I think I'd actually like to meet the lucky fellow who calls you ‘wife.' I bet it'll be a fun conversation.”

Her eyes widened, her eyebrows arched so high that they seemed ready to crawl up and over the back of her head. “Are you
out
of your
mind
?! Are you
stupid
?”

“No, but you obviously think I am.” I shook my head in disgust. “Here's something I didn't actually get around to telling you: I don't have the world's most pristine background. I've done my share of thievery and perpetrated quite a few scams in my lifetime. There's no voice coming from the other side.” And I pointed to the door where the banging was still sounding. “That's not your husband. That's your accomplice. Probably a woman because, if it was a man, he'd be bellowing in order to add some urgency to the threat. So it's pretty obvious that—”

The pounding abruptly stopped, which said to me that whoever was on the other side had heard me. No reason for her (I was assuming it was a her for the reasons I'd mentioned above) not to have heard me since I was making no attempt to keep my voice down at that point. My smile widened and became even more smug.

Then I heard a rough male voice approaching. Someone was coming up the stairs and speaking at the same time. “Meg!” he said with a growl. “Why the hell are you banging on my door? If Jennifer's not home, then she's not home!”

“Oh no,” Jennifer said, and the difference between her acting scared and genuinely being scared was pretty obvious. The truth was that she was, in retrospect, a fairly lousy actress. She'd been doing her best to manufacture concern over being discovered when it had simply been this “Meg” doing the banging. Her reaction, however, was night and day. She was back to whispering, not because she was trying to feign fear but because her throat had obviously constricted. All the blood had drained from her face; you can't fake going deathly pale. Her hands were shaking. Whatever turn this whole business had taken, it was one she hadn't been prepared for. “He . . . he wasn't supposed to be back . . . not for . . .”

“Jennifer!”
I heard the clicking of a key in the lock. The bolt turned, and the door started to open, but then it banged to a halt as the upper chain latch snapped tight. “Jennifer, are you in there? What's going on? This is ridiculous!”

Her voice strangled, she looked to me with total panic. “He was supposed to be out on maneuvers! He was . . . I don't . . . he . . .” Her body seized up. Beyond shaking like a virgin on her wedding night, she clearly had no idea what to do.

I, for my part, did. I dove under the bed, grabbing at my belongings, and yanked out my pistol from my effects just as the door burst open, the chain snapping off with a sound like a rifle shot.

A very large soldier was standing in the doorway. He had broad features and a black, bristling mustache that seemed to have a life of its own. His uniform was stained with dirt, and there was a backpack slung half-off his shoulders. Clearly, this was a man who had, just as advertised, been out on maneuvers. The poor bastard was obviously looking forward to coming home, washing the dirt from his tired and battered body, and maybe having a nice lay with his wife before collapsing into a welldeserved coma.

Fortunately, he had no weapon in his hands. His rifle was nearby, leaning upright against the wall of the hallway where he'd rested it. I had a brief glimpse of a raventressed wo man—the mysterious Meg, no doubt—bolting down the stairs, casting a quick glance behind her as if to have a final glimpse of the disaster she had left in her wake.

Seeing me with my pistol pointed squarely at him, the soldier reflexively started to reach for the rifle.

The cocking of a trigger makes a sound like none other in the world. It commands immediate attention and typically freezes all movement. If anyone was going to have respect for that distinctive noise, it was going to be a soldier, and this fellow was no exception. His hand froze mere inches away from his rifle. He stayed in exactly that position, hand outstretched, while appraising me in the way one typically assesses a threat. I could see that he was studying my aim, whether my hand was steady, whether it looked like I knew my way around a weapon or just happened to carry one around on the off chance someone might be thinking about killing me. In short, he was weighing the odds of his getting to his rifle, aiming, and firing before being the recipient of a bullet in return.

“Don't,” was all I said, but really the word was just for additional emphasis. Our eyes had locked, and the looked that passed between the two of us spoke volumes. My single utterance was not a plea for mercy, and he knew it. It was a monosyllabic warning to him that, if he tried it, he was likely going to die doing so. At the very least, he was going to wind up with a bullet in him.

Very slowly, he withdrew his hand from anywhere near the gun. He straightened up and squared his shoulders. This was a proud man; I almost felt sorry for him.

“Very wise,” I said in regard to his decision not to try and arm himself.

“Keep your compliments to yourself.” His gaze flickered from me to his petrified wife, then back to me. “What the hell are you doing here? Aside from the obvious.”

“The obvious isn't all that obvious,” I said. I uncocked the trigger as a sign of good faith, but I kept my gun leveled on him. “Your lovely wife here approached me at the pub for a little
tête-á-teat
, but it's not for the reason you think, or for that matter the reason I thought. The dearly, departed Meg—?” And I nodded in the general direction in which the other girl had fled. “The two of them were working together. It's a nice little scam. Jennifer brings a guy up here, things begin getting heated, then Meg starts banging at the door, the poor sap panics, and he climbs out the window without his purse or other belongings. Then Jennifer and Meg divvy up the money and sell off the possessions for additional funds, while the poor sap is just happy to get out with his skin intact. That's basically the extent of it, isn't that right, Jennifer?”

She didn't reply. She didn't have to. The way her gaze turned down to the floor spoke volumes.

“You
bitch
!” the soldier said with a snarl. His mustache was bristling even more, as if it was about to leap from his face and assault her itself. “How dare you—? I'm out serving our ruler, trying to keep Bowerstone safe from things you can't even imagine . . . and this is how you repay me?”

“I think it was more about paying herself than—”

He looked at me with cold fury. Apparently his anger had cleansed him of his previous wisdom over not trying anything aggressive with me. “Keep your opinions to yourself. Otherwise, I'm going to take that thing away from you and shove it up your ass.”

“I'll put a bullet through your eye before you take a step.”

“You'd try.”

“I'd succeed.”

“You'd be surprised,” he said, “how a case of nerves can throw off a man's aim. How having an angry, trained soldier coming right at him can shatter his nerves. It's easy to talk about shooting out eyes when nobody is charging you. I bet your aim won't be as steady as all that.”

“You'll lose that bet. I always hit whatever I'm aiming at.”

“Hah!” The soldier sneered at that. It was obvious to me that the one he really wanted to tear into was Jennifer, but she was his wife, and I was a stranger, so naturally I was likelier to be the target of his ire. “Who do you think you are? Ben Finn?”

I shouldn't have lowered the gun, I admit it. But I was so stunned by his words that I allowed my arm to drop to the side. It was unforgivably sloppy. He could have seized his rifle, aimed and fired, and I would have died with a stupid expression on my face. “Well . . . yes. I am.”

He laughed derisively at that, but then his laughter faded in his throat and he stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Oh my heavens,” he said, and then again,
“Oh my heavens!”
He strode forward, the rifle forgotten, his hand extended. “You
are
! I should have recognized you! How could I not have recognized you?”

“I honestly don't know.”

He took my hand and pumped it furiously and with such force that he could easily have yanked it from the socket if he'd been so inclined. “Corporal Tyler Clixby,” he said. “Bowerstone First Infantry. This is an honor, sir. I saw you from a distance during the great battle. Never seen your like as a marksman. And here you are, here in my home. It's an honor.”

“Yes, so you keep saying. Look, ah . . .” I managed to disengage my hand. It was pretty obvious that there was no immediate danger, and so I crouched and started gathering my belongings. As I pulled on my shirt, “I think it might be best if I got going. You and your wife obviously have issues that need to—”

“My wife.” He echoed it as if he had to be reminded that she was even in the room, then he pulled his mind back to it. “Of course! My wife. You found her attractive?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “But I need to make it absolutely clear that I had no idea that she was married. I would never have any desire to humiliate you in any way, and you can count on my complete discretion . . .”

“Humiliate me?” He seemed astounded at the notion. “Discretion? What are you talking about? I get bragging rights!”