City of Jasmine. Deanna Raybourn

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      Five

      To his credit, Gabriel didn’t look surprised. “You expected me.”

      “Of course I did. I even did you the courtesy of leaving the shutters open.”

      He flicked a glance to the window. “Damn. And I went to all the trouble of picking the locks, too.”

      He turned back to me. “You may as well put the gun down, you know. You won’t shoot me.”

      “You seem very sure of that.”

      “Well, it isn’t so much that you won’t shoot me as that you can’t.” He opened his hand and a palmful of bullets fell onto my coverlet.

      “Damn you.” I put the gun down and crossed my arms over my chest. “Very well. I suppose we can be civilised about this. Make yourself comfortable. That disguise must be painful.”

      “You’ve no idea.” He straightened, rolling his shoulders back and shedding the archaeologist’s stoop for the beautiful posture I remembered so well. The shadow he threw on the wall behind him grew as he eased himself up to his full height. He loosened the mouthpiece, with its terrible yellow teeth, and shoved it into his pocket before taking out a small tin and his handkerchief.

      “You might not want to watch this part.”

      “I’m not squeamish,” I told him, which we both knew was a lie. But I was curious, and I watched the process with fascinated horror.

      Slowly, carefully, he reached up to his eyes and levered out a pair of almond-shaped lenses that covered the whole eyeball. I put out my hand and he gave me one to inspect. I held it to the light, marveling at the thinness of the glass and the delicacy of the painted brown iris. “Clever,” I told him as I handed it back. “It’s the one thing I couldn’t figure out about the disguise.”

      “They’re hideously uncomfortable and most of the time I wear coloured spectacles, but in close company I take the precaution of covering up my own,” he said blandly, batting his lashes. He was entirely correct about that. They were remarkable eyes, and no one, having once seen them, would forget them.

      “The beard is appalling,” I pointed out.

      “Quite disgusting. I’m always getting bits of food stuck in it, but it’s entirely my own, I assure you,” he said, tugging at the hairs on his chin.

      I got out of bed and went to him, standing so close I could see the first tiny lines just beginning to etch themselves at the corners of his eyes, lines he had not had the last time I had seen him. Slowly, deliberately, I drew back my hand and slapped him as hard as I could across the face.

      He rocked back on his heels, turning his head back slowly. He was smiling.

      “I entirely deserved that.”

      “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t a figment of my imagination.”

      “Satisfied now? I am flesh and blood, as you can see,” he added, daubing the blood away from his lip.

      I went to the bed and sat with my back against the pillows.

      “When did you figure it all out?” he asked in a conversational tone.

      “I knew you’d sent the photograph yourself when I found the banknotes. REAPERS HOME. It’s an anagram of the inscription on my wedding ring—hora e sempre. Really, Gabriel, a child could have cracked that. I hope you haven’t been spending your time composing codes for an international spy ring. You’d be something worse than useless.”

      He gave me a ghost of a smile, the same buccaneer smile that had gotten him into and out of more trouble than most men see in a lifetime. “Have a heart, love. I was in a hurry. Besides, I thought you’d enjoy a little cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

      He swayed a little on his feet. “Are you still intoxicated?” I asked pleasantly.

      “Not much. I vomited most of it as soon as I could get to my bottle of ipecacuanha. Nasty stuff, but it does the trick. Got rid of what was left in my stomach, but there was a fair bit of it already in my blood. God, I loathe arak.”

      “You did a tremendous job convincing me СКАЧАТЬ