Tanderon (11 page)

When Ringer brought dinner in I tried to explain just how bad an idea he’d had, but he was still in no mood to listen to reason. We’d all missed lunch because of the time we’d had breakfast, and Ringer was just beginning to get his appetite back. My arguments based on reason ended up bouncing off an uninterested back, and I was so p.o.ed I nearly threw the tray of food after that same back. Ringer wasn’t listening to anything he didn’t want to hear, and anything coming from me headed that list.

It wasn’t until after I was rechained for the night that Val came into the room. He glanced at me where I lay on my back in the bed, hands behind my head, and there was a faint smile on his face as he headed for the bathroom. His smile probably came from the memory of the words Ringer and I had had about ten minutes earlier, right after the chain had been closed around my ankle again. I’d purposely waited till that point, and then had laughed at Ringer for being so afraid of me that he had to keep me under lock and key.

I’d been trying to get him angry enough to do something stupid, but he hadn’t even gotten annoyed. Instead he’d just looked at me and shaken his head, and then had murmured, “You don’t know how close to right you are.” Then he’d turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me to stare after him like an idiot. I knew Ringer wasn’t afraid of me, so what the hell had he been talking about? I lay on the bed with my hands tucked behind my head, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what I’d missed this time.

“Now, this is what I call a well furnished suite,” Val’s voice came, and I looked down from the ceiling to see him standing on the other side of the bed. “Every man ought to be entitled to find a beautiful woman chained in his bed. It makes for a very pleasant life.”

He stood there grinning at me, but getting mad wasn’t worth the effort.

“That sounds like a great slogan for running for public office on,” I commented.

“Why don’t you start running now? And for your information, this is my bed. Ringer is in your bed, but don’t let that stop you from using it. I’m sure he’s dying for some company.”

I moved my eyes back to the ceiling, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel the bed dip from Val’ss weight as he sat down and then stretched out. I had enough of my own thoughts to occupy me, but Val seemed to be in the mood for conversation. He moved closer, and then his hand came to my face and gently turned it back to him.

“You don’t accept compliments very well,” he said, the same faint amusement there in his black eyes. He’d gotten down to the buff just as I had, but not for the same reason. I’ve never been able to sleep in anything without waking up choking, but Val had never practiced the habit until he’d begun to sleep with me. “Don’t you like compliments?” he asked. “Or is it just that you’ve heard them so often they’ve lost meaning?”

I studied his face as he looked at me, then abruptly decided to ask some questions of my own.

“Why would you want to compliment me?” I countered, feeling nothing of the amusement he continued to show. “And for that matter what are you doing in here?

As far as I’m concerned you deserved that dose of Glue, but I doubt if you agree with me. After all that’s happened, why are you still here?”

His dark and beautiful gaze sobered, and the hand at my face moved softly over my cheek.

“I’ve got to learn to know you,” he murmured, almost to himself, his stare becoming more penetrating. “You do things I’ve never seen any other woman do, your abilities extend even beyond my original conceptions of them, you’re ruthless and decisive, yet vulnerable, too, in some strange and roundabout way. What sort of codes are you loyal to? Where do you find the rightness in the things you do? And why do you think I ought to be somewhere other than right here?”

He wasn’t asking questions he expected me to answer, I could see that in his expression, so I didn’t say anything. His eyes were on my face, searching deeply for something other than what his eyesight gave him. At last he smiled gently and said,

“Well? You didn’t answer me. Is it that you don’t like compliments, or have you just heard them too often?”

“The first usually comes about because of the second,” I told him, for some reason feeling very uncomfortable. I still didn’t understand what he was after, or what he hoped to accomplish. “In my case, both reasons apply independently as well as conjointly.”

“I admire your vocabulary,” he said with a laugh, still moving his hand on my face.

“Or at least this part of it. Portions of the rest leave a lot to be desired.”

“I don’t recall seeing anyone forcing you to listen,” I countered, bringing one arm down to push his hand away from my face. “I’ve earned the right to use any words or phrases I care to, and if you don’t agree you can lump it.”

I turned my back on him, lying on my right side, at the same time wondering what was wrong with me. I knew I had a bad feeling about that upcoming stay at the Academy, but I felt upset even beyond that – and most especially where Val was concerned. He claimed he wanted to know about me. What did he want to know about, and for what purpose…?

“I don’t agree, but I also won’t lump it,” Val’s voice came from behind me, a faint annoyance tingeing his tone. “What you have or haven’t earned doesn’t enter into it.

A lady doesn’t use that kind of language no matter how angry she becomes.”

I’d become very aware of the pillow linen against my cheek, and could even see the blueness of it. I tried to bring my knees up higher toward my chest, but the ankle chain refused to allow my right leg to move that far.

“I guess you’ve hit the nail right on the head,” I told the pillowcase, which my left hand had a fistful of. “A lady doesn’t use that kind of language.”

There was a moment of silence, during which time I closed my eyes, but then Val spoke again, surprising me.

“Stop it!” he snapped, his hand coming to my left arm to pull me back to the way I’d been lying originally. That way I could see how angry he was, and I didn’t understand why.

“You once told me you never make excuses,” he growled, his eyes hard. “I thought I knew what you meant, but obviously I didn’t. I don’t know anyone who considers defending themselves from unjust accusations as making excuses – except you. And I’d better not see it again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I protested, stirring against the way his fingers pressed into my arm. He saw that he was hurting me and immediately loosened his grip, but his anger didn’t lighten up in the least.

“I’m talking about this little habit of yours,” he said, gesturing with one hand but keeping his eyes directly on me. “It must have taken you time to decide what you would do when and for what reasons, but if anyone questions you about your actions you make one generalized statement and then stop. If the person you’re talking to doesn’t understand immediately, he doesn’t get any clarifications. All he gets is an unarguing silence that agrees with everything he says, but to you it’s a matter of not making excuses. Don’t you see that other people don’t look at it that way?”

“I have no way of changing other people’s outlooks,” I said, bothered by that dark black stare. “If you think you can do something about them, feel free to try.”

“Damn it, it’s you I’m talking about, not other people!” he exploded, sitting up to loom over me. “All I said was that your language was unladylike, I didn’t say you weren’t a lady. You were the one who immediately assumed that, and all you did was agree. There was no call for that kind of agreement!”

I almost smiled at his opening words, but it seemed more appropriate to laugh shortly at the rest of what he’d said.

“That’s the biggest joke I’ve heard in a long time,” I scoffed, putting my hands behind my head again. “Ladies get married and have children and run comfortable, attractive homes for their husbands. They don’t become Special Agents. The demands of the job tend to preclude generally accepted ladylike behavior.”

I grinned faintly at him, admittedly getting a kick out of throwing in samples of the sort of vocabulary I seldom used. It isn’t that I felt uncomfortable using it, it’s just that most people aren’t tuned in to that sort of palaver. And other considerations aside, my job didn’t often end me up in spots where polysyllables would go unnoticed. Val saw the grin I sent up to him, and growled low in his throat.

“I wasn’t joking,” he said, reaching past me to rest his left hand on the pillow right next to my head. His voice was very soft and dangerous, his stare was hard and uncompromising, and to say he wasn’t joking was an understatement. “I don’t see any reason why a female can’t be considered a lady no matter what she does for a living. If you act like a lady, you’ll be treated like one.”

“Is that so?” I murmured, beginning to feel annoyed. “Isn’t it a little too soon for you to be making deep-seated pronouncements? You haven’t been here long enough to see the looks on men’s faces when they find out I’m a Special Agent. Whatever they thought of me till then is totally wiped away by their sure knowledge of what a Special Agent is.

“At first they pale a little, wondering if they’ve said anything I might take offense at.

Don’t forget I kill for a living, and that sort of thing is hard to turn off. Then, when I don’t immediately beat them to the ground or pull a knife, they get bolder, admiring their own courage for continuing to stand next to me.

“The next thing that comes is a hand on the shoulder and a lot of pretty words, a testing to see how far they can go. They’ve heard about Special Agents, you see, and consider getting a female Special Agent into bed the lay of a lifetime. Then, if they do manage to make it – ”

“Stop,” Val interrupted, a sickness in his gaze to replace the former anger. He still stared at me, but his head shook back and forth. “Not all men are like that, they can’t be. Some of them have to be capable of knowing a lady when they see one.”

“Sure,” I agreed, too tired to keep the flatness out of my tone. “I don’t mean to belabor an already asked question, but if I’m such a lady, what are you doing lying naked in my bed? Waiting for tea and sandwiches, maybe?”

The pain showed in his eyes then, almost as though I’d hit him, and his mouth opened, possibly to refute what I’d said. But there didn’t seem to be any words to match the attempt. He closed his mouth then and pulled himself away from me, getting out of bed to stride to the door, open it, then disappear through it. I watched the silent, closed door for a minute, then turned over onto my stomach and buried my arms under the pillow while I closed my eyes.

I don’t know what I could have been expecting from Val, but his walking out without a word wasn’t it. He seemed to be picturing me as something I wasn’t, and I’d been coarse on purpose, trying to overstress the point he was avoiding. Of course there were men who treated me the same way they treated any other woman, but those weren’t the ones who caused the deep-down hurt. I’d been trying to find out where Val stood once we got beyond the irrelevant, and it looked like I’d managed to find out.

I sighed as I was forced to accept the fact that he couldn’t admit he was near me for nothing but sex, and I suppose it was that lack of honesty which was most disappointing. I had no right to expect anything from him at all, but I was still human enough to sometimes regret, and foolish enough to sometimes expect. The faint perfume off palaces and princes reached my awareness, but I also felt the metal around my right ankle. I buried my face in the pillow and tried to stop breathing and feeling, but the try turned out to be just as successful as the rest of my tries had been.

No more than ten minutes of peace and quiet could have passed before the door to the sitting room opened again and Val was back, looking determined about something. I groaned to myself and turned my head away on the pillow, but staring at the wall past my bed lamp showed me nothing in the way of miracles that would stop the previous subject from being reopened.

I don’t know why I felt so positive that old ashes would be reraked; I just knew I wasn’t in the mood for it. I considered pretending to be asleep, but the soft light from the bed lamps was still too bright for Val to have missed seeing me watch him come in. The door closed, the stirring of carpet-muffled footsteps came, and then the bed dipped again.

“Remind me to never debate with you for anything valuable,” my partner commented, moving around a little to get comfortable. “We started out discussing the sort of language you use, and ended up with me feeling guilty about being in bed with you. That’s a hell of a way to win a debating point.”

“Do you want me to apologize for making you feel guilty?” I asked, still not turning my head to him. “Maybe you aren’t here looking for tea and sandwiches. Maybe you were heading for the station’s gym and just took a wrong turn.”

“Cut it out!” he snapped, moving around again. “You decoyed me once, and once is enough. I’m here for a lot of reasons, and most of them you ought to know. I’m here to learn everything I can about you, all the little things you never talk about. I’ve already learned why you don’t like compliments, and I intend to learn a lot more. I’m also here because Ringer wants me here, to make sure you don’t exercise those considerable talents of yours and leave us looking like a couple of fools.”

Then his hand came to my hair, grabbed a fistful of it, and turned my head to him so I could see his grin.

“And just incidentally,” he drawled, “I’m also here because I enjoy having a beautiful, desirable woman chained in my bed. I’ve sampled the wares of a good lot of women over the years, but I tend to prefer having ladies chained within reach.”

He used the word “chained” twice, his fist in my hair could not be described as gentle, and his grin was more irritating than a challenge at the wrong time. I pronounced one word very clearly and reached up toward the hand in my hair, intending to do something painful to make him let go, but I never reached him. His hand left my hair fast to intercept my hand, and then he had pulled me toward him and was holding me tight against his body.

“Now, that’s the part of your vocabulary I don’t admire,” he said, keeping my struggles down to a minimum by holding my left hand behind my back. “If I hear any more of that part of it, I’ll get some soap and see if I can wash the lady in you farther into view.”