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Richie? Why would he leave his bags in the front of the car? [If he planned to leave directly, that’s where TP would insist on sitting. Besides, the car wasn’t flashy enough, and Methos’ personal early warning system registered no free-ranging immortals. Of course the walls of his fortress were thick. He glanced up. The silent, lighted windows told him nothing except someone turned on the lights.
Her?
Where had that thought come from, Methos asked himself as he opened the door. Where was the harem, for that matter? The sensor panel appeared undisturbed. Perhaps they rescued another stray. He hoped this time... He hoped this time it was a pear-shaped shoe salesman from Gaetano with 42 granddaughters and a pronounced overbite.
After Jean Marie left, Methos determined not to think about her and, for the most part, succeeded. In the beginning, the soft hearts of the harem insisted on flagellating themselves over her departure. He reminded them that misunderstandings were inevitable in domestic arrangements such as theirs. People made their individual decisions to accept the situation or not according to their temper. Guilt was neither relevant nor productive, especially when the mainspring of their self-recriminations hadn't bothered to thank them for their hospitality. The harem stopped discussing it in his presence. End of problem.
It irritated Methos when some small mystery brought her to mind like this. Jean Marie’s motives weren’t particularly mysterious once he parsed out what patches and CyDoc were talking about that night. Some might even have found her sense of obligation to her hostesses rather touching, especially in the context of a personality he recognized as devious and essentially ruthless. Some people also wander about history flinging themselves at reluctant lovers’ feet, but self-abasement was never his style. A man needs some pride. He suspected that was something a woman like Jean Marie understood too well.
He ought to find a way to introduce her to MacLeod. It would be fun to watch the fireworks unless she fell in love with the great moralizing Scot. As in a vision, Methos saw Jean Marie’s eyes clouded with passion, her lips bruised with kisses, her long, thoroughbred legs locked around another, and raw, primal fury exploded within him. The muted shriek of tearing fabric and the sudden weight in his hand shocked him to his senses. He stared dumbfounded at his half-drawn sword and the new rents in the lining of his coat. And Ashraf thought she’d found herself a cushy job, he laughed silently. Little did she know.
Methos took a calming breath, grateful the harem was occupied with their mystery guest. He wanted to keep this ridiculous episode to himself. In this life, he never got jealous. At least not so anyone noticed. The continued presence of Richie’s head on his shoulders testified to his limitless forbearance.
But Troll Princess hadn’t walked out on him, had she? None of them had. The saying "Give a wolf a taste and keep him hungry" sprang to mind.
Another noiseless laugh. Jean Marie would like that. It was used in some movie or another. The blazing lights of the library beckoned him, as much from habit as anything else. At first, Methos thought it was deserted. Then he wondered if he conjured her, his personal Mephistopheles all dressed in black.
Jean Marie looked harmless enough, sitting quietly at the large table, her bright head bent over what appeared to be one of his older volumes. The heavy leaves of crinkled, water-stained, rag paper resisted the leather-covered weights meant to hold the book open on the reading stand. She would know the proper way to lay out a bound manuscript, he thought sourly.
Jean Marie rested her pencil across the small tablet of paper beneath her right hand. She turned a reasonably friendly face in his direction and said, "You’re back."
"Mmm," he answered noncommittally, not quite trusting himself to respond to her inane opening. He glanced at the text she’d been reading:
"Chapter the Second. Wherein it is described how I met Methos, the old one..."
His hands slammed onto the table on either side of her. His chest pressed against her back as he leaned over her shoulder. His sword strained the fabric of his coat where it rested against her left shoulder.
"I didn’t know you read Italian." He said it softly, but there was no mistaking the implicit threat in the knotted muscles of jaw and neck.
"I can’t. I’m just translating the rubrics."
"Are you familiar with the text?"
"Not really, but I always loved fairy tales," she said. "Sorry, didn’t realize you were so touchy about people using your books. The harem never said."
"I’m not," he said through gritted teeth as he stepped back. "But this particular volume is very old and precious to me."
Methos regretted the need to put space between them. In their brief moment of contact, Jean Marie almost seemed to nestle against his chest, and that almost felt too good. He still wanted her, even though he knew she bit. Maybe because she bit, he admitted, supremely annoyed with himself.
Jean Marie pushed back her chair and rose to face him, slim and straight as a blade. "I understand how you feel," she said. "It must have been a shock to find me here by myself reading something that means so much to you."
Not as much as it should’ve been, Methos thought grimly.
"I can tell you I respect books, but nothing says you have to believe me," Jean Marie continued, obviously waiting for Methos to say something. If it weren’t for the fact he didn’t know how to respond, even this small dent in her composure could be accounted a victory of sorts.
Methos waited. Eventually she’d say her piece and be gone, and his blood pressure would return to normal.
Jean Marie conceded defeat with a small shrug. She said, "I didn’t plan on coming back. I was going to mail a large box of something to the ladies with a big thank-you that would just incidentally apologize for disrupting your routine. I figured you’d get the point."
Methos couldn’t help himself. "Don’t tell me you got lost again."
"No. I found something in Mons." Jean Marie walked over to a small, silk-wrapped bundle further down the long table. She jerked the fabric and a stack of zip disks tumbled across the worn surface of the boards. "Did you know you can access the Watchers’ operational database through their corporate billing account? Or that your friend Joe Dawson is keeping a personal journal on the same server?"
Using the silk scarf as a makeshift glove, Jean Marie selected the disk labeled "4" and offered it to him. It was rather like being offered a bleeding gobbet of flesh at the point of a stiletto. "The files on here are current as of 5:30 this morning. Have one of your computer experts get on the server and destroy the original. Otherwise, this could get you both killed."
"If you’re so concerned for my welfare, why you didn’t do it yourself?"
"I don’t know how," Jean Marie admitted. "And my hacking crew would get suspicious if I asked them to do it for me."
"You assume they aren’t suspicious already? You think they don’t know what’s on that disk, or those?"
"Hell, no," she rumbled, her voice chafing and winding around his want like the caress of a randy alley cat. "I know they do. I’m the one who got them hooked on 'the Game.'"
Methos grabbed her upper arms and yanked her towards him . She braced the muscles of her neck just as her feet left the ground. "What have you done!"
"Saved your ass! Didn’t you hear me? Everything about you, the Watchers, the Immortals is on the Internet, wide open for anyone with the time or inclination to find it. I did it in a controlled environment directing experts under orders to get in and out undetected. No damage. No alterations. Do think the next intruder will be so circumspect?"
"What do they know?" Methos demanded.
"Everything and nothing. You think you’re the only one who knows how to lie?"
"Ah, but did they believe you?" he mocked.
"As much as anyone. You’re crushing my arms," Jean Marie added in what sounded like no more than an afterthought.
For the second time tonight Methos looked at his hands with something akin to horror. That wasn’t how he wanted to touch her. That wasn’t who he was. Not now. He wanted to drop her like fire. But if he let her go, she’d stumble over those silly shoes she wore.
Jean Marie waited, her face expressionless to the point of impassivity. Methos lowered her slowly to the carpet and turned away before he could see how much he’d hurt her. It didn’t help. He could still hear the faint rasp of her fingers brushing against the velvet of her sleeves and imagine the painful tingling in her hands, and the darkening stains of bruises beneath her alabaster skin. For a minute, he thought he would be ill.
Think, he commanded himself. Your world is crashing around you. You can’t afford to be distracted. The last woman who tied you in knots of rage played you for a fool. Methos kneaded the back of his neck as he stared into the nothingness of the night. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked himself.
"Not much you can do," Jean Marie answered. "Too many people know I was involved in the project, and too many more know I planned to return here."
"Paranoid little thing, aren’t you," Methos told the pale reflection wavering in the glass before him.
"It goes with the territory," Jean Marie said. "The Immortals and the Watchers are in no danger from my people. Neither is the harem. The crew really believes it’s a game--an exclusive, real-time, interactive game played by the patrons of the bordello I stayed at in Paris. Subscription only, at a million dollars a year."
Methos laughed in spite of himself.
"Well, you get what you pay for. I told the crew the game’s designers created an infinite field of play by basing their characters on real people, combining current records with historic photos and paintings drawn from places like the Bettman Archives and the Bibliothèque Nationale."
"How did you explain all those perfect resemblances stretching back hundreds of years? Early experiments in cloning?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Photoshop, mostly," Jean Marie replied. "A little computer animation and numerous repetitions of the words ‘everyone has a double.’ If you disregard the sanctimonious expression, there’s a portrait of a lady in the Philadelphia Museum of Art that could be my twin."
"Not to mention all those illustrations of black widow spiders," he murmured.
"Yes, people do forget that red spot is actually over the mouth," Jean Marie sighed.
He hurt her again. This had to stop. He turned to apologize only to discover a half-smile playing over her lips and her eyes crimped in amusement. Oh no, he refused to let her complicit smiles--or that damned alley cat grin--sucker him twice, no matter what they did to the blood vessels below his belt.
"You’re not the first one to mention the resemblance," Jean Marie said. "Never understood it myself. I’m really a very straightforward person. My perspective’s just a little different than most people’s, that’s all."
"Nothing like hanging upside down from the ceiling to give you a different perspective," Methos agreed. "How will your playmates react if the Watchers pull the plug?"
"They’ll think someone finally got wise to them. I spent a lot of time warning them the designers were bound to catch on after a while. Besides, who’d believe them? People living hundreds and thousands of years by the simple expedient of whacking each other’s heads off? Tell it to the tabloids. Friends?" she asked uncertainly.
"I was never your enemy."
"We both know that’s not necessarily the same thing." Dark, changeable eyes met steely blue. For minute, neither spoke, their faces reflecting a wistfulness neither would’ve recognized as their own. He had to stop letting her seduce him into conversations like this, Methos told himself. It was too inviting, too comfortable, too much like coming home. He was only torturing himself. Time to cut his losses, get her out of his life. Or keep her. Where had that mad thought come from?
Jean Marie took a deep, shuddering breath. "Sometimes, I’m my own worst enemy," she said. "I felt very bad about the way we left things. I can accept the mistakes I made based on false assumptions about you and the harem. What I can’t accept is the way I acted on those assumptions. I want to apologize for the things I said and all the things I didn’t."
"You think you were the only one acting on false assumptions?" Methos asked gently.
"No, but I was your guest. The burden of courtesy was mine, and I disappointed myself. What happened between us notwithstanding, I believe in good manners. They’re the only reliable motive for mercy humanity has ever developed."
"An interesting philosophy for a woman who takes no prisoners."
Red bloomed from the high-buttoned collar of her jacket to her hairline. The color looked hot to the touch and clashed horribly with her hair. The effect was rather sweet. He wanted to stroke it cool with his fingertips. "About that," Jean Marie began. "Why don’t you take off your coat and stay a while? There are a few things I’d like to discuss before I go."
"What a busy life you lead, saving the world as often as you do."
"We can’t all be scholars," Jean Marie sighed profoundly, her lovely, awful, approachable blush fading to nothing more than a wash of color on her cheeks. "I really think you want to be comfortable for this. The business with the Watcher database was something in the nature of a warm-up. Please. Take your coat off. Why don’t you sit down too. I promise I won’t make a grab for your sword."
"Since you lie as brazenly as I do, what makes you think I’d put any faith in your promises?" he asked as he tossed his coat over the nearest chair.
"You’re bigger than I am?" Jean Marie suggested. "It’s your house?"
"Remembered, did you?"
"Belatedly," she conceded with a soft laugh, her face, for once, unguarded. Or so he’d like to think.
Methos wished he didn’t like her, wished he didn’t like teasing her, wished he didn’t like the idea of peeling away her secrets as he stripped away her clothes. And there were so many of them today: a velvet jacket that could double for a doublet revealing the tips of shirt collar and cuffs, leather jeans(!) You’d think it was armor. Even that damned suit she wore when they met flashed more skin. Keep her or get rid of her, he reminded himself. And of these, best to let her say her piece and be gone.
"You said something about the ‘d word,’" he prompted.
"D word?" Jean Marie asked. "Oh, you mean ‘discuss.’ Yes, well, it’s more of a business proposition."
"Ah, blackmail," he said. "Finally, a concept I understand."
"Exactly what kind of idiot do you think I am? Blackmail would give you a hold over me. I would never give you that kind of advantage. When I said business proposition, I meant it. No strings attached. I make my proposition. If you don’t like it, I’m on my way, and everything goes back to the way it was before I landed in Paris. Well, almost everything," she told his twitching lips. "Well, it will go back to the way it was if you do something about the Watchers’ server. To put it simply-- By the way, what do you want me to call you for this, Adam or Methos?"
"If it’s a business proposition, there’s no point talking to Adam. Graduate students don’t have any money."
"Technically, neither does Methos. The property’s in--"
"Methos is fine," he interrupted.
"All right, Methos," she said. Methos decided he like the way she said it, just a little breathless at the end. His mind strayed to how it would sound in other circumstances.
"To put it simply, Methos," she said, "I’m offering my services as a security consultant to the harem."
"What!"
"Oh, I know you’ve got more electronic protection systems than Fort Knox, not to mention serious attack cats and several tribes of belligerent goats. I know, when it comes to computers, several of your ladies could go head to head with NATO’s best without ever breaking a sweat. I even know about your sword mistress and Athena’s right hook. But the way it stands now, anyone can just waltz in here and take your entire harem hostage. "Today someone did," Jean Marie said.
Methos went very still.
"Me."
"What have you done with them?"
"Nothing you wouldn’t approve of," Jean Marie replied far too blandly to suit his temper.
Jean Marie flicked something lightly against his neck and dragged it slowly down his chest. Without taking his eyes from hers, Methos caught her wrist. Jean Marie released what she was holding. A large, gold-plated key on a scarlet ribbon thudded against the carpet. Methos stared at the household master key in disbelief. "You imprisoned them in the chateau!"
"Well, there were too many of them to lock in the trunk of the car, and the stables have no facilities."
"You checked," he said numbly.
"My harem tour was quite exhaustive," Jean Marie reminded him. "They’re really very comfortable. Unless they run out of books, beer or chocolate, they probably won’t notice they’re locked in for another two hours. Plus the gallery doors aren’t that secure, even locked. There are a couple benches in there that would make quite effective battering rams."
"Please," Methos winced.
"Sorry, but one is a copy."
"The doors aren’t."
Jean Marie shrugged. "Eggs and omelets," she said. "Aren’t you going to ask me how I did it?"
"I think I’ve had all the explanations I can stand for one night."
"Fine, then we can get down to business. The services I offer go somewhat beyond what you normally think of as security. Most consultants concentrate on the physical aspects of the job--are you wired for sound, how big are your guard dogs and all that. That isn’t your problem here. What you need is someone who can address the gestalt of security."
"Someone like you," Methos encouraged.
She smiled impishly in response, straightening her shoulders like a small, playful cat. "As I understand it," Jean Marie continued, "each of your ladies was chosen for her particular talent or quality. A bouquet of flowers, if you will. A perfume of many separate notes."
"The complex bouquet of a great wine," Methos murmured.
"Exactly! The liquor analogy goes so much better with this crowd. The problem is, your selection displays serious deficiencies in the areas of guile, subterfuge, stubbornness and plain, old, garden variety bloodymindedness."
"Those are my specialties, darling."
"Yes, but you can’t be here all the time. You need someone who can teach them the finer points of paranoia and how to incorporate it into an almost normal life style."
"Little things like not leaving fingerprints--physical or digital?"
"I run with a rough crowd," Jean Marie replied smugly.
Methos couldn’t believe what was happening. Talk about spiders and their prey--the one that got away had not only returned to the web of her own accord, she was providing specific instructions on filament adhesives. What was Jean Marie up to now? Did he care? "No," Methos said.
"Well, I do," Jean Marie began. "No?" Her eyes went wide and dark with disbelief. Methos refrained from grinning. Suddenly he knew this was going to be fun. "Surely you’ve heard the word before."
"Yes, but never in this context. Why not? It can’t be money, and you couldn’t possibly trust me any less than I trust you."
"It’s neither. It’s a matter of gender."
Jean Marie gaped at him. She was speechless. He actually struck her speechless.
"Absolutely," Methos affirmed cheerfully in answer to her unspoken protest. "I make it a firm policy never to hire contract help that does not meet four very simple, very stringent criteria. They must be male, over 50 years of age, experts in their field and homely as the proverbial garden post. It helps if they have bad teeth, parasites or extreme body odor, but these are not required."
"And their hair shall be of what color it please God?" Jean Marie sputtered.
"If they have any," he replied. "It’s the only way to eliminate all possibility of temptation."
"Well, hell," Jean Marie stifled a somewhat hysterical laugh, "You’ve got a sword, why not just create yourself a few eunuchs."
"Oh, you misunderstand me," the music of his voice throbbed with counterfeit woe. "It’s not the harem I’m worried about. I couldn’t possibly employ a woman--or a man who might know a woman--there was the slightest chance I might become attracted to. And I’m a man of very eclectic tastes. How do you think the harem would feel if they found themselves betrayed in such a fashion?"
Jean Marie nodded with all the care and agreeableness of someone facing an armed lunatic.
"Besides, employer/employee relationships never work out. The situation has an inherent inequity that cannot be overcome."
"No," Jean Marie said. It was a small, strangled sound. She shook her head to clear it. "No," she repeated briskly. "You’re absolutely right. Why don’t you go upstairs and release the ladies, and I’ll be on my way."
Methos moved closer. His boot covered the discarded key. His lean body advanced into her space, forcing her to retreat. The edge of the table pressed into the top of her thighs. Methos took another step. Jean Marie scooted her hips over the table. Methos moved his hands over her knees. She flinched from his touch, reflexively spreading her legs. Methos walked between them. "You’re giving in too easily," he said.
Her face was wary now, giving away nothing. She made a casual, openhanded gesture. "To what?" she said in a defiant voice that held no hint of weakness or uncertainty.
Methos smiled. He grinned actually.
"You’re acting like four weeks cushy vacation employment is a big deal," Jean Marie told him. "It was a lark. If it worked out, fine. I could buy myself a few more toys before returning to the states. If it didn’t, it didn’t."
"Let me see if I have this right, you thought you could use my *home* as a kind of paid rest cure for overwrought civil servants."
"Well, it was worth a shot. But I take exception to the word ‘overwrought,’" Jean Marie replied. "I am neither nervous nor excitable."
"We’ll see about that, shall we?" Methos reached down.
Before Jean Marie could react, he slipped off her stiletto-heeled pumps and tossed them to either side of the room. His long fingers cupping the outer edge of each small, silk-covered foot, he traced his thumbs lightly, so very lightly along each arch. He heard her breathless gasp, felt her body tense until it trembled from the strain of not reacting to his touch. [ He brushed his fingers over her heels and up the inside of her calves. Her heat rose to meet him through silk and leather. Jean Marie shivered.
"Your point?" she groaned.
Methos practiced ignoring the sound and the corresponding heat growing within him. He rested his hands over her knees, his thumbs tracing lazy circles over the inside of her knees, and watched her, heard her, felt her start to come unglued. "What’s with the clothes anyway? Did I misplace an invitation to a fancy dress party. Ashraf and Wintersong will be so disappointed," he taunted. "Who are you supposed to be? Hamlet meets Mrs. Peel?"
"Maybe if he did, it wouldn’t have been a tragedy," Jean Marie answered unevenly as he stroked her thighs. Her straight back was arching now, her head thrown back, her eyes half closed. She’d braced her arms against the table to hold her upright, but they were beginning to quiver. When he touched her, really touched her, she would explode. The prospect excited him almost to the point of madness.
"Traveling clothes," she panted. "Comfortable for driving."
"And this?" his questing fingers pinched the stocking clasps of her garter belt. He rolled the clasps between thumb and forefinger almost as if they were nipples he had mind to tease. "Don’t tell me this is government issue. What color is it? Black lace veiling your pale, pale skin?"
Her blush rose faster and darker than before. Her eyes, almost black under the shadow of her lowered lashes glared at him with something not too far from hatred.
"Two can play at this game!" she moaned. Her hips slid forward. Her legs locked behind his thighs, clamping him like a vice against the cradle of her hips. Methos rose so fast and hard he thought he would burst like a rocket into the night sky. With a feral grin, Jean Marie began rocking her hips. The table was a little too low, and Methos a little too tall for him to get the full benefit of the motion until she began rubbing her hand over his fly in the same rhythm. Rock, paper, scissors, his thoughts flew out the window. Hand covered denim covered charmeuse covered him. Chafed him, up and down, up and down.
"It’s...much...much...better...that...way," Methos gasped. His raked his hands under her thighs, surprising a whimper of pleasure from her. "I’ve got a proposition of my own," he said.
"I bet."
"The harem could use a woman of your unique, um, talents," he groaned.
"The harem will never forgive me for this," she cried as his shaking hands fumbled with the too many buttons on her jacket.
"They’ll forgive you if it pleases me. I am master here."
"One man...master...fifty women?"
Methos pushed her jacket part way over her shoulders. The embroidered lawn of her shirt was so fine he could see where the pearl of her skin gave way to the rose silk of her bra. He kissed the top of her shoulder through the sheer fabric and rained kisses from her throat to her breast, deliberately moistening her skin through the lawn. By the time he took her breast in his mouth, she was shuddering from the fire of his touch and the chill of the air where it struck his marks.
"Never happen," she groaned. "Do the math."
Methos raised his head. "Jean Marie, can’t you do something with that mouth besides argue?"
Jean Marie pulled his head to hers, plunging her tongue inside the instant their lips met. He sucked her, tasted her, then took possession of the kiss as her arms wound around him, pressing him close. Or was it his arms that fitted her so perfectly to him? Who could tell where one ended and the other began?
Clothes. Methos swore, reluctantly breaking the embrace. The jacket had to go. He stripped off his sweater and hurled it aside. Buttons--the damned cuffs to her shirt had more buttons. To hell with it. He hooked his fingers under the waist to her jeans and wrestled with the button there. With a small whimper, Jean Marie yanked his knit shirt out of his jeans. "Seriously, the harem--"
"Hush." Methos’ hand cupped her chin. Jean Marie turned her head into his hand. "They’ll understand. They’ll only punish you a little for the principle of the thing," he chuckled raggedly as her much more nimble hands popped the button at his waist and carefully, so carefully drew the zipper down. "Something like, oh, laundry duty for a week. Can you stand that?"
"I can stand it," Jean Marie answered in a throaty voice. "I love other people’s dirty linen. You can learn so much about a person from the way they stain their sheets."
Methos rested his forehead against hers, sharing her soft laughter. Jean Marie’s eyes were shadowed with passion. Methos needed only to angle his head to capture her lips, now swollen from his kisses. Soon her legs would wrap around his waist, drawing him deep inside.
"Yeah, I can stand it," she whispered, "considering this," she hooked a finger in his second moth-eaten knit shirt, drawing him over her as she lowered her back to the table. "I might even make it my vocation. You heard of socks getting lost in the dryer. You ain’t seen nothing yet."
His warm laughter tickled the sensitive skin of her throat as he slid her jeans over her hips. Jean Marie kicked them free. Soon there was nothing between them except the heated friction of their bodies. Nipping, kissing, teasing, writhing. Glorious mindlessness came and went in snatches of lightning as they drove each other closer towards explosion. Sliding home, Methos thought. No, coming home, he corrected himself, appalled at his ability to pun under the circumstances. Then Jean Marie began crying his name, and neither of them managed another conscious thought for quite some time.
"Have they kissed and made up yet?" Gandolph asked as she worked the lock on one set of gallery doors with letter opener and paper clip.
Mouse stopped pacing long enough to bang an empty chocolate box against the wall. "Who knows? I told you we should’ve insisted on a waiver," she said to patches. She gestured with the box at the jury-rigged hacking station patches, Aine and Wally’s Familiar contrived out of a stray laptop, a roll of duct tape and some phone cords. "Any luck with that thing?"
"Well, we’re into the system, but reception’s awful," Wally’s Familiar said. "You can’t get a stable connection without decent cabling, and even if we did, the cameras are pointed at the windows. They weren’t designed to rotate at will."
"We’ve got sound most of the time," Aine offered, "I think. But something seems to have blown out the higher registers."
"She should’ve asked," patches said. "I’m sure she had a good reason. She had a lot of things to work out with the master. But she still should’ve asked."
"Just what we need," Mouse groaned. "She doesn’t drink beer. She doesn’t ask. I tell you, this one’s going to take a lot of work."
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