“Haven’t I been saying it all along? I told you it was probably one of that man’s ex-girlfriends, didn’t I? Oh!” She leapt to her feet.
“Adrienne.”
“What now?”
Oh, bother, Lydia brooded. Well buck up, she told herself, knowing from the look on Adrienne’s face that she was just spoiling for a good fight with the Hawk, and that she would be mad as a spitting banshee when she realized she couldn’t get one. “Hawk left for Uster at dawn.”
“For how long?” Adrienne gritted.
“He didn’t say. Adrienne! Wait! We need to sort out what brought you here!” But Adrienne was no longer listening.
Lydia sighed as Adrienne stormed from the kitchen mumbling nonstop under her breath, “Arrogant pigheaded pain-in-the-ass Neanderthal …”
CHAPTER 23
JUST WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, ADRIENNE DE SIMONE? SHE asked herself furiously.
She shrugged and sighed before forlornly advising a nearby rosebush, “I seem to have a bit of a thing for the man.”
The rosebush nodded sagely in the soft summer breeze and Adrienne willingly poured the whole of it upon her rapt audience.
“I know he’s been with a lot of women. But he’s not like Eberhard. Of course, probably there’s nobody like Eberhard except maybe a five-headed monster from the jaws of hell.”
When the rosebush didn’t accuse her of being melodramatic or waxing poetical, she summoned up a truly pitiful sigh and continued. “I can’t understand a blasted thing about the man. First he wants me—I mean, come on, he burned my queen to keep me here, which didn’t really work apparently, but the intention was there. He saves my life repeatedly even though it was kind of indirectly his fault it was in danger to begin with, and then he refuses to see me. And if that’s not enough, he just up and leaves without so much as a fare-thee-well!”
Adrienne plucked irritably at the rosebush.
“I don’t think he quite understands the full necessity of clear and timely communication. Timely meaning now. Where exactly is Uster, anyway?” She fully considered trying to find a horse and go there herself. How dare he just up and abandon her? Not that she minded entirely being where she was—Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea was certainly lovely, but what if she got zipped back to her own time for good and never saw him again?
Damned if that didn’t put things in an entirely different perspective. A few soldiers of the war raging within her breast got up and traitorously switched camp on the heels of that thought.
How had she failed to realize that she could disappear and never see the man she was married to again? That she had no control over it whatsoever? Twenty more soldiers marched over to the Hawk’s side of the fracas raging inside her. Holy cow.
Don’t you wonder, Adrienne, what it would feel like to lie down next to him in the sizzling heat of magnificent passion?
Okay. She had one soldier left on her side and his name was Mr. Suspicious N. Fearful.
Traitors! She frowned at the Hawk’s new camp. Just thinking about him made her feel hot. She trailed her fingers in the fountain’s sparkling, chemical-free water.
She couldn’t imagine never seeing this beautiful fountain again, never smelling the lavender virgin air of 1513. No Lydia, no Tavis. No castle by the sea. No Laird Hawk, man of steel and blazing passion. Just Seattle and bitter memories and fear keeping her inside her house. The 1990s, bargain packaged with smog and ozone holes.
She doubted Hawk would ever try to send her on vacations alone. He seemed to be the kind of man who would treasure his wife and keep her close to his side if the woman allowed it. Close to that beautifully muscled side, and under that kilt …
“Dream a wicked dream,” she sighed softly. Adrienne squeezed her eyes tightly shut and dropped her head in her hands. A long eternity of questions tumbled through her head, and slowly but surely Adrienne helped the last little soldier to his feet, dusted him off, and let him lean on her as she walked him over to the other side of the war. She had made her decision. She would try.
She raised her head from her hands slowly to meet Adam’s piercing gaze. How long had he been standing there watching her with worship in his eyes. Dark eyes, black as hate. Now where had that come from?
“You hate the Hawk, don’t you, Adam?” she asked in a flash of crystal-clear intuition.
He smiled appreciatively. “You women are like that. Cut to the quick of it with a canny eye. But hate attaches a great deal of importance to its predicate,” he mocked as he dropped himself beside her on the ledge.
“Don’t play word games with me, Adam. Answer my question.”