Jayne Castle - After Glow

It was as though she was suffering some form of shock but he was not certain how to deal with it. For starters, he was not sure what had upset her the most, finding Maltby's body or the news that the man whose bed she was sharing on a fairly frequent basis was the temporary chief of the Cadence Guild.

He had the unpleasant feeling that it was the second piece of news that had made her go tense and silent.

Lydia was convinced that she had good reason not to trust ghost-hunters and she made no secret of her negative opinion of the Guild. That she was involved in an affair with him did not mean she had changed her mind on either point, he reminded himself.

And the fact that she had been quietly pursuing her own private investigation of the mystery of her Lost Weekend without asking for his help really pissed him off.

They were sleeping together, damn it. That meant they were supposed to discuss stuff before she ran around doing potentially dicey things like trying to find proof of criminal actions on the part of a couple of Guild men.

The fact that he would have put his foot down very heavily on such a project did not constitute grounds for keeping her plans to herself, he thought. In spite of her low opinion of the Guild, she probably didn't have a clue of the kind of risks she was running.

He had grown up in the Guild and he had controlled the Resonance City organization for six years. He knew the risks all too well.

The first thing to do was to get her talking again, he decided. This was a relationship. According to all the advice gurus, communication was important in a relationship.

He followed her into the cramped foyer of her small apartment, trying to think of a way to get the conversation going.

"All things considered," he said, shrugging out of his leather jacket, "I thought that went well."

She dropped her purse on a small table. "Neither of us is sitting in jail, if that's what you mean."

Okay, it was a start. At least she was speaking to him again.

A large wad of lint scampered across the floor on six unseen little legs. Two bright blue eyes sparkled innocently from the depths of a tangle of ratty-looking gray fur.

"Hello, Fuzz." Lydia scooped the dust-bunny up, kissed the top of his head, and settled him on her shoulder. "You don't know how glad I am to see you. I have had a very difficult day."

The dust-bunny blinked his cute azure eyes at Emmett, who was not fooled for a minute. He had seen Fuzz's second set of eyes, the ones he used for hunting at night. The little fluff ball looked as harmless as something that had been swept out from under the bed but at heart he was a highly efficient little predator. There was a saying about dust-bunnies. By the time you see the teeth, it's too late .

Fortunately he and Fuzz had discovered that they had a couple of things in common. One of them was Lydia.

"Lookin' good, Fuzz." Emmett ruffled the dust-bunny's fur and was rewarded with a humming sound. Fuzz, at least, was happy to see him.

"I'm going to get out of this business suit," Lydia announced. She turned down the hall toward the bedroom. "And then I'm going to have a glass of wine. Probably two glasses."

"I'll open a bottle," Emmett said, trying to sound helpful.

He spoke to thin air. She had already disappeared into the bedroom.

"Ghost-shit." This was not going well at all.

He went into the small kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and brooded for a while on the selection of items inside. Among the limited offerings was a carton of milk and some leftover macaroni-and-cheese casserole. On the top shelf was a bottle of the truly dreadful white wine that Lydia kept on hand. The stuff was, in his opinion, only a couple of steps above Green Ruin and Acid Aura, the beverages of choice among the derelicts and down-and-outers who drifted through the Old Quarter.

But there wasn't much choice so he hauled out the jug and set it down on the counter.

Lately he had managed to avoid having to drink Lydia's lousy wine because the two of them had been spending a lot of time at his new place a few blocks away. He not only had a better view of the Dead City from the terrace of his town house, he kept more palatable vintages on hand.

A few weeks ago when he had set out to find living space here in Cadence, he'd had his choice of properties. The real estate agent had tried to sell him one of the big gated estates up on Ruin View Hill. After all, money was not exactly an issue. He had made plenty of it while running the Resonance Guild and he had good instincts when it came to investments.

But he'd had a couple of major priorities when it came to housing. One of them was not wanting Mercer Wyatt and his wife, Tamara, for next-door neighbors. The other and far more important objective had been to be as close to Lydia as possible.

He figured that one month into this rocky relationship was probably way too soon to ask her to move in with him, let alone consider marriage, so he'd opted for proximity. That meant a house in the Old Quarter. Besides, he liked the vibes in the neighborhood.

The real estate agent had eventually given up trying to make him see the advantages of a mansion on the hill and had found him an attractive, post-Era of Discord town house that had been recently remodeled and redecorated.

Emmett had taken Lydia to the house one afternoon while he was considering the purchase just to see how she responded. The glow of delight in her lagoon blue eyes as she walked through the spacious rooms and out onto the terrace to see the glorious view of the Dead City had sealed the deal as far as he was concerned. She looked terrific in his house. Right at home.

He had been hoping that, in a month or two, the time would be right to point out how much money she could save if she gave up her cramped apartment and moved in with him. After that he had planned to ease her gently into the idea of getting married.

He would have preferred to go straight into a fullblown Covenant Marriage with all the legal and social bonds attached to such an alliance. Covenant Marriages were almost impossible to dissolve. Obtaining a divorce required teams of lawyers, a lot of money, and years of patience. And then there was the social stigma to live down.

Most people went first for the standard, easily renewable, one-year Marriage of Convenience to test the waters with a partner, although if someone accidentally got pregnant in an MC it was understood that the couple would immediately obtain a Covenant Marriage license.

The First Generation of colonists from Earth hadn't established the rigid strictures of Covenant Marriage because they had been a prudish lot; rather they had been a desperate lot. Two hundred years ago when the mysterious energy field in space known as the Curtain had opened, providing a gate between Earth and several other inhabitable worlds, the settlers had chosen to make their new homes on Harmony.

But shortly after they had established their colonial towns and villages, the energy field had vanished without any warning, stranding them. The Curtain had never reopened.

Cut off from all contact with Earth, with families separated from their home-planet relatives forever, the high-tech engineering and farming equipment falling apart because of a lack of replacement parts, the colonial leaders had buckled down and concentrated on drawing up plans that would ensure the survival of their communities.

In the effort to create a social structure that could withstand the unknown rigors and stresses that lay ahead, they had fashioned the Republic of City-States that bound all of the colonial cities on the planet into a single federation. They had then proceeded to craft the stern laws that governed Covenant Marriage.

A Marriage of Convenience was the great loophole in the law. It was designed for folks who wanted to rez a little wild, untuned amber before getting serious and for prudent couples who wished to try out a relationship before making an unbreakable commitment. But eventually mature, responsible adults were supposed to settle into a Covenant Marriage. After all these years it was still considered the cornerstone of a stable society.