Free The Hourglass by Bárbara Metzger Page B

discuss, like the houses and home farms. I know nothing of domestic matters.”
    “You are a great reader, you said. You will learn from books. And we have a lifetime to discuss the rest.”
    Six months was too short a lifetime to waste in sleep. “Please stay.”
    “It is late. Besides, it is too warm in here for me. I suppose you are used to hotter climes.”
    He simply shrugged.
    Half of her wanted to stay, to hear his foolishness, to see that look of admiration in his ebony eyes. Her sensible half wanted to flee. Reason lost. “But perhaps you could open a window?”
    Instead he snapped his fingers; the fire went out.
    “It was only a silly parlor trick,” Ardeth shouted at her retreating back. “Anyone can do it,” he said to the door that slammed behind her. Then he cursed, long and loud, in scores of languages. He might have cursed all night without repeating himself; he knew so many foul imprecations and improbable suggestions. After all, few people had ever greeted his arrival with kindly welcomes.
    Frustration was a new experience he could do without. Then he kicked the bed. “Damn.” So was pain.
    His anger had awoken the gremlin crow, whose head was turning, beady eyes looking for a way out or a place to hide.
    “Don’t say it,” Ardeth ordered.
    “Me?”
    “Who else would dare call me a fool?”
    “Me?”
    “And I shan’t have it—do you hear me?—impudence from a foul being that eats worms.”
    “Me?”
    “I know I handled the woman badly. I do not need you to tell me. I was trying to impress her, that was all, like a schoolboy. Fool.”
    “Me?”
    “I told you to be quiet. One more comment out of that pointy beak and I will get a cat.”
    “Meow?”
    “That’s right. A big, ferocious feline with long claws and sharp teeth. Not one more word.”
    So the crow silently squatted on Ardeth’s pillow.

Chapter Seven
    The rest of the wedding journey—an end to army life, an escape from despair, or the entry to real existence, depending on whose eyes the trip was viewed through—passed uneventfully.
    Ardeth kept busy with the horses, his papers, and his increasing staff of couriers, information gatherers, and outright spies. He was planning his arrival in London and introduction to its society with the same care he had given sieges on enemy strongholds. He did not intend to fail. Too much depended on his acceptance. Now he was responsible for another’s welcome back into the rarefied air of the aristocracy, where she would have to live after he was gone.
    Genie had no intention of living among the haut monde, because she knew she would never be accepted there. She would worry about Ardeth’s disappointment later, though, for now she kept busy with seasickness, motion sickness, morning sickness, and being sick at heart when they finally reached London.
    Gracious, she had taken enough of a chance wedding a slightly mad stranger, but Ardeth was far stranger than that! She had married a monster, a freak. There was no other way of describing her befuddlement. Ardeth did not seem evil, just so different her mind could not comprehend his nature. She tried out the notion that he might be an angel. Heaven knew he was beautiful enough. Sometimes he talked in such otherworldly terms that she could not conceive of a real man being so noble, so wise, so learned. She had a hard enough time believing in angels coming to earth to work wonders, however, much less marrying pregnant widows. Besides, what did angels need with money if a simple miracle or two could better mankind? And no angel would pull a dagger from his boot to carve his beefsteak.
    Her mind skittered to the idea that her husband—good grief, she was truly married to the man!—was a wizard, with a crow for familiar. But wizards were fairy-tale creatures, weren’t they, ancient, with long white beards and pointed hats? Ardeth was far too virile for that. And he had no staff. Well, not that kind.
    Perhaps he was a warlock, she speculated,