The Book of the Seven Delights (25 page)

"You already serve another goddess?" Idera demanded, confused.

"No," she declared, muttering to herself as she worked the laces of her corset: "Not unless you count

'Fashion.'"

As soon as her blouse and corset were off, Idera dragged her around to the front of Athena's great statue and made a grand obeisance, calling on the Goddess of Wisdom to "look with favor on the prophesied one,
Able-gale
… who, like her name… is both clever and full of wind." She called down the blessings of great wisdom and foresight for the task ahead.

"Task?" Abigail said, frowning as old Idera slipped the straps of the metal bosom-corset up her arms and over her shoulders. "Exactly what sort of task will I need all this wisdom and foresight for?"

"To return the library to the world," Idera answered, tugging and shimmying the metal cups into place over her breasts with alarming intimacy. "What else?"

For that she needed a solid gold bosom-holder? Abigail looked down at the thing being strapped around her. It weighed a ton; her respect for the old woman's stamina soared. Then, with the ceremonial breastplate secure, Idera turned with arms upraised to address Athena again.

"Bless this courageous—" She hesitated and leaned toward Abigail to whisper: "A woman, yes? And not a maid?" Abigail flushed crimson.

"A maid."

Idera looked distressed and it seemed for a moment that she might abort the entire proceeding.

"Not one of those miserly Vestals?" she demanded.

"No! I mean, certainly not," Abigail said, realizing she referred to the famed Vestal Virgins of Rome. The priestess couldn't honestly think…

The news that Abigail was not yet mated could not quite eclipse the fact that she was The Librarian and had come from the ends of the known world to retrieve the library. Reconciling herself to the Fates'

unfathomable decision, Idera sighed and continued.

"… this courageous
maiden
… and give her the strength, judgment, and passion to accomplish this great task." She glanced darkly at Abigail and turned back to Athena, lowering her voice. "And give her a proper partner to open her mind to the great mysteries and make her worthy."

Abigail's cheeks were still burning with embarrassment and lingering indignation as Idera led her down the steps of the temple minutes later. She was struggling to both understand why the state of her virtue would matter and absorb the fact that the breastplate she was wearing had probably been worn by thirty or forty successive generations of priestesses who served the Goddess of Wisdom.

It was all true, she thought, standing on the steps and staring in renewed wonder at the dilapidated plaza that had anchored the keepers' world for centuries. Part of the Great Library had survived in the hands of
female
caretakers. She narrowed her eyes and pulled her shoulders back, determined to be worthy of bearing the honor and the burden that had just been placed on her. Moulay Karroum was going to have a heart attack when he learned about this.

Before she entered a single scriptorium—Idera announced as she conducted Abigail toward her quarters—she would have to undergo a purifying ritual. Imagining all manner of instruments and elements that could make her life a pain-ridden horror, Abigail asked what the ritual involved.

Water, spiced and scented oils, and a thorough rubbing with sponges.

Abigail solemnly declared she would do her best to endure.

The halls and passages of the library and temple complex had once represented the pinnacle of Alexandrian style. Now the walls were in dire need of both repair and paint, the stone tile floors were missing pieces, and the wooden furnishings were warped and parched-looking. The lamp stands in the chambers and hallways had traded most of their gilding for a coat of cobwebs. A number of the doors they passed hung askew on broken hinges. The one thing in plentiful supply seemed to be dust.

"About bloody time!" Smith roared the minute she stepped into the main chamber of the apartment she was given. He was standing stark naked in the center of a huge marble tub filled with water, holding a bit of toweling across his privates and batting away the eager ministrations of half a dozen old women collected around the basin. "Tell the old tarts to keep their hands to themselves!"

Their attentions had apparently brought him roaring out of his exhaustion. Against her better judgment, the sight of his big, well-made body was bringing her roaring out of hers. Her eyes flowed over him in the golden light of several oil lamps, taking in his tanned upper body and his pale lower—

"They're only helping with your 'purification,'" she said, chewing her lip and trying not to be too obvious in her curiosity. "You have to be
purified
before they will allow you into a scriptorium."

"I'm as pure as I intend to get," he said irritably, climbing out of the bath in spite of the women's attempts to stay him. "What the hell's a 'scriptorium'?"

"I believe we covered this. It's a chamber where writing is done and where books and manuscripts are kept." She folded her arms and her attempt to avoid staring at his bare flanks caused her gaze to rebound to his face. She froze.

His eye patch was gone, leaving only its outline visible in skin lighter than the rest of his face. He was staring at her with two eyes that from all appearances were perfectly healthy.

"It makes sense," she said distractedly, "from a manuscript conservation standpoint. Contaminants from the outside… grime, molds, human pests, and parasites, body oils, could ruin fragile documents."

"I didn't come for documents," he declared, wrapping the toweling around his lower half and bracing before her with a glower.

"Well, I did." Embarrassed by her reaction to his nakedness, annoyed by the way the women were ogling their interaction and nudging each other, and dismayed by the realization that he was seeing her with both eyes, she went for something off-putting. "And apparently the good priestesses are concerned you might contaminate
me
."

The light struck in his gaze said her comment had had the opposite effect. Her irritation and her awareness of his maleness rose apace. As he headed for her, she could see his muscles moving smoothly beneath his skin and took in several scars. The old girls made to intercept him with toweling and scented oil, and he lurched back with a "Dammit!" instead, and turned away.

As he escaped into an adjoining chamber, Idera intervened to order the women to attend The Librarian instead. Disappointed, they turned on Abigail with the same intense scrutiny they had trained on Smith.

They pulled the few remaining pins from her hair, shaking it out, brushing, and examining it. They patted her curves, stroked her face, examined her eyes and teeth, and gently poked her breasts.

"I had these once. And better," old Hathor cackled.

"My hips were the talk of the city," Elysia giggled, giving Abigail's derriere an assessing pinch. "But hers are young and firm enough…"

It was by far the most immodest and uncomfortable half hour of her life. By the time she had been scrubbed, rinsed, and laid out on a bench to be oiled and kneaded like a loaf of bread, she fully shared Smith's discomfort. As if they read his name in her thoughts, they began to ask questions about him.

"What's he like, the tall one?" the very elderly Hathor asked as they gathered around to rub scented oils into her skin.

"As a lover," Calla with the thinning, wiry hair clarified. "Is he gentle?"

"Or does he ride like a pillaging Hun?" ancient Mercredes asked, her age-faded eyes suddenly bright with speculation.

"Always favored lovers that were tough and vigorous, myself," declared the soft-spoken one, Elysia.

"Makes the taming and training all the more fun."

"It's been such a long time—tell us, Librarian." Hathor leaned closer. "Does he growl like a tiger or howl like a wolf when pleasure overtakes him?"

"I—I wouldn't know," Abigail declared, reddening such that even her hair seemed to be blushing. "He is not my lover."

Even as she said it. some vulnerable, sensually starved part of her groaned with disappointment so keen it verged on outrage. Smith was right; she did want him as a man. He was handsome and strong and capable and interesting and sensually beguiling…

But he was also arrogant and secretive… possibly violent… not especially trustworthy. He had made it clear he was here for treasure to fund his quest for vindication… perhaps revenge. He looked out for himself, first and foremost, and when she managed to forget it, he always managed to remind her.

"He is merely my employee," she said, taut with conviction.

"Employee" was not a word that translated easily into ancient Greek. The old priestesses gasped as she explained it to them, and they looked to Idera in dismay. The chief priestess sighed, reiterated Abigail's place in prophecy, and then turned to her to explain their concern.

"Before coming with the Protectors to New Alexandria, we served Athena in a small society devoted to pursuing wisdom through initiation into the mysteries of the union of male and female."

It took a moment for Abigail to understand. The union of…
oh
. She had encountered allusions to such things in scholarly tomes, but had avoided indulging in unseemly interest in them. Now she was not only confronted with the fact of their existence, she found herself being judged by their sensibility… which held her upright, abstemious ways to be suspect.

"We—
ahem
—expected the goddess to send us a Librarian initiated fully in the path to wisdom," Idera said, looking somewhat apologetic.

Abigail looked around at the old girls' long faces and her shoulders sagged.

It wasn't enough that she had her mother's expectations to fulfill, she thought as they dressed her in garments resembling theirs while her things were freshened, now she had a goddess's expectations and the disappointment of a half dozen octogenarian priestesses to deal with! Just when she was feeling good about finding the library…

By the time she had taken some food and wine with the priestesses and they escorted her back to her chambers, she was a little fogged in the head and looking forward to a much-deserved sleep. When the door closed behind her, she stood for a moment looking at the door where Smith had disappeared, then turned emphatically to a second door several yards away. There had to be a bed here somewhere.

She quickly found herself in a dimly lighted chamber, facing a dais topped by a huge, linen-draped bed… occupied by Smith, wearing nothing but a smile and a pale shadow where his eye patch had been.

She glared in surprise at the doors that both led into the same chamber.

Then he said her name, low and soft.

"Hello, Boston."

Her entire body erupted in gooseflesh.

"The old girls are unusually progressive in their sleeping arrangements." His deep, resonating tones caused her fingertips to tingle.

"They're daft as dodos," she said, folding her arms over her chest and raising her gaze to him, "the lot of them."

"The bed is really soft." He patted the bedclothes. "Climb in."

"Do me a favor," she said, seizing the one thread of her reason that wasn't unraveling. "Put your hand over your right eye and tell me what you see."

He scowled, then raised his right hand and cupped it over his eye.

"A beautiful young woman. Wearing way too many clothes."

She tucked her arms tighter.

"So, the eye patch is just a ruse."

"Is that what you're all prickly about?" He gave an indulgent laugh and swung his legs out of the bed. She was relieved to see a linen wrap around his lower half as he rose. "All right. I can see out of my left eye.

My vision has gradually improved. But I still have trouble with bright sunlight producing glaring halos around things, and it's less of a strain if I wear the patch in bright sunlight. Taking it off and putting it back on is a bother… so in Morocco, I wear it all the time."

"And?"

"And… it… makes for something of a disguise." He halted, assessing her stubborn pose and skeptical expression, looking a bit less sure of himself. "There are people who want me dead, remember."

"So, you never thought to tell me—your
partner
—that you actually have two good eyes," she said irritably. "Just like you never bothered to tell me that you were in prison for killing someone… or that you knew about Ferdineaux LaCroix because he was your uncle… or that the Legion had declared you officially dead. How many more secrets do you have, Smith? A harem tucked away in some steamy little corner of the local kasbah? A lucrative little side business in stolen antiquities, perhaps?"

The last bit of humor drained from his face.

"Of all the damned hysterical—" He strode toward her, but she braced and put up her hands, palms out, to stop him. "You've got quite a little tally going there, haven't you? My sins of omission." He flushed hot and bronze. "Repeat them to yourself like a rosary, do you? Thinking it will keep me at bay? How about a little garlic around your neck while you're at it?"

"I'm sure there are other beds nearby," she said looking to the door.

"I suggest you find one," he growled, stalking back up the dais and climbing back into the bed. "Because I'm not going anywhere."

"It's
my
bed. The old priestesses—"

"Figured we'd been sleeping side by side, more or less, for some time and assumed a few more nights wouldn't kill either of us."

"Get out of my bed!" she shouted, flinging a finger at the door.

"Just what is your beef with me, Boston?" he demanded, sitting ramrod straight. "What have I done to earn this anger of yours?"

Very well.

"Every time I think I can depend on you, I stumble across another of your secrets and realize… I don't know you at all."

His eyes glimmered darkly.

"You don't want to know me," he said tautly. "It's easier that way. You get to go on living in your precious books and don't have to cope with the real world. The real world is filled with real men. And real men are messy. Conflicted. Inconvenient. Complicated. You have to take the good with the bad, the bitter with the sweet. But you're no picnic yourself, Boston. One minute you're sizzling hot, the next cold as ice. One minute you're a wilting lily, the next you're bloody Annie Oakley…"