Elizabeth Peters - Trojan Gold

I attributed his frown and his formal outstretched hand to annoyance at my tardiness, so I brushed the latter aside and flung myself into his less-than-enthusiastic arms. They were not unenthusiastic for long; as they tightened around me, and his lips warmed to the task at hand, I thought how nice it was to have to stand on tiptoe to kiss a man. After the first second or two I didn’t make any other mental comparisons; it would be like comparing apples and oranges, each is delicious in its own way, it all depends on which you prefer. There is no doubt, however, that a certain degree of guilt increased the ardor of my embrace—though why the hell I should have felt guilty I don’t know.

I freed myself, amid a spatter of applause from the watching tourists; after all, they had nothing else to look at. Tony was blushing furiously, as is his engaging habit. I linked my arm with his and led him toward the exit.

There wasn’t much I could do but take him home with me. The Museum was out of the question until I could warn Schmidt not to give Tony the slightest hint of our latest scam—excuse me, investigation. John would surely have gone by the time we returned. I only hoped he had not left some intimate garment hanging on the bedpost or a message scrawled in shaving cream across the mirror. But so what if he had? Tony didn’t own me. Fidelity had never been part of the deal. But I did owe him a place to stay, for old times’ sake. He’d expect that much.

“I have a reservation at the Bayrischer Hof,” he said, staring straight ahead. “If that’s out of your way, you could drop me at a taxi stand.”

My hands lost their grip on the wheel for an instant; I swerved back into my own lane amid the frenzied gesticulations of the wild-eyed driver of a Fiat on my right.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I have a reservation at the—”

“I heard you. What’s bugging you, Tony? Just because I was a little late—”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“With what?”

“With the—er—the situation being what—er—” Tony let out a long, gusty sigh. “I’m engaged.”

“To be married?” I gasped.

“That is the customary meaning of the word,” Tony mumbled.

I cut across two lanes and finally found a place where I could pull off the road. I turned to face him. He wouldn’t look at me; he continued to stare straight ahead, as if the bleak winter landscape held something of absorbing interest.

“That’s very nice,” I said. “Just one question, Tony. Why the hell did you come here?”

“It was her idea.”

“Oh, was it?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Oh, did it?”

He kept sliding down in the seat, his knees rising as his body sank. When his knees were on a level with his head, I couldn’t control my laughter any longer. But I will admit that the laughter wasn’t altogether merry.

“Look at me, Tony.” I put one hand on his cheek; he shied like a skittery horse. “I’m not going to bite your head off,” I continued gently. “Seems to me you’re in enough trouble as it is. Who is this extraordinary female?”

The mildness of my voice reassured him. He pulled out his wallet. “Her name is Ann Belfort.”

If he’d set out to find someone whose characteristics were the antithesis of mine, he had succeeded. A cloud of soft dark hair surrounded the girl’s heart-shaped face; her eyes were as big and brown and melting as those of a Jersey cow. “Five feet two inches?” I inquired, studying the face I had always wanted to possess.

“Three and a half inches.”

“Uh-huh. What do you do when you want to—”

“Now cut that out!” Tony sat upright, rigid with chivalrous indignation.

“Kiss her, I was about to say. I suppose you can always find a rock or a low table…. Oh, hell, I’m sorry. Forget I said that. Belfort…Any relation to Dr. Belfort of the Math Department at Granstock?”

“Uh—yes. His daughter.”

“When are you being married? No, don’t tell me. June, of course.”

“That’s right. I don’t know why you—”

“Neither do I,” I admitted. “I’m very happy for you, Tony. I honestly am. But I don’t understand why you are here instead of in Illinois.”

“She knows all about you,” Tony said.

“ All about me?”

“All she needs to know.” Tony bowed his head. A lock of raven hair dropped adorably over one eyebrow. I repressed an urge to grab it and pull as hard as I could. “It was okay,” he went on gloomily, “until about a month ago, when I woke her up calling your name.”

“Did you really, you dear thing?”

“It wasn’t so much what I said as the way I said it. ‘Oh, Vicky—Vicky—oooooh…’”

He sounded like a dying calf, or a man in the last extremity of about-to-be fulfilled passion. I grinned reluctantly. “I can see her point—though I still think this is stupid. She sent you back to your old love to make sure the incubus is exorcised?”

“Succubus,” Tony said. “Incubi were masculine; the female demons whose diabolical sexual assaults on helpless innocent men—”

“Oh, right. Seems to me you’re waffling, Tony. Either you’re still lusting for me or you’re not. What’s the point of the Bayrischer Hof?”

“I don’t really have a reservation.”

“I thought not. It’s a very expensive hotel.”

“I had assumed I’d stay with you, of course. In a perfectly platonic way—no fooling around—”

My sympathy for cute little Ann began to dissipate. “‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov’d I not honour more.’” But this was really too far out. Not love, quoth she, but vanity, sets love a task like…Like a weekend nose to nose and side by side with an old flame, with no moment of weakness, no—“fooling around,” indeed.

“And you agreed?” I demanded incredulously.

“I didn’t think there’d be any problem.” Tony looked so hurt and baffled and young that I thought seriously of slugging him square in the chops. That boyish look gets all his women, but he was thirty-four years old, for God’s sake. Old enough to have better sense.

“I mean, we were always good friends,” Tony went on in an aggrieved voice. “I used to like to talk to you. If you hadn’t kissed me—”

“I did it out of the kindness of my heart, you conceited male chauvinist! If you’re going to let one friendly kiss get your male hormones in a whirl…Did this woman step out of some kind of time warp, or is she just emotionally retarded?”

“Of course a single experiment is not conclusive,” said Tony, reaching for me.

Apples. Nice, crisp fresh apples, like Jonathans, with a little tang under the sweetness. Wholesome American fruit, no imports, nothing exotic. But the very best of their kind.

It was Tony who ended the kiss. I’d have gone on as long as he wanted; it was his experiment, not mine.

“Well?” I inquired. “Have you reached a scientific conclusion or is more research necessary?”

“I think,” said Tony weakly, “I had better go to the Bayrischer Hof.”

“You can’t.” I started the car and edged back into the traffic. “They’ll be booked solid this time of year. Don’t worry, you can always prop a chair against your bedroom door.”

What I had said was true—most of the hotels would be full-up over the holidays. But the more I thought about letting Tony stay with me—chair or no chair—the madder I got. In addition to the other disadvantages, I resented being used as a bad-conduct prize.

After a moment of chilly silence I said, “Scratch the chair. You can start calling hotels as soon as we get to my place.”

The silence that followed was even chillier.