She touched his arm. “Please. I’ll see you in the morning, early.”
He stared at her then turned and left her, striking fast across the garden to the terrace. She watched him retrieve his key and push inside, not looking back. And she turned on her heel and hurried away, sorry she had angered him.
Deep in the woods she changed to cat. As cat she wandered the garden, thinking and enjoying her sharpened perceptions, her improved eyesight, the stronger smells. But then as she passed the white house she detected a scent that made her leap to cover, her tail lashing: Wylles. From the open bedroom window came the faint scent of Prince Wylles.
She crouched in the bushes, remembering the palace room where he had lain in bed when she took in his breakfast tray, remembering the boy’s dark, cold eyes so like Siddonie’s. She left the bushes and approached the house, rigid with fright. Crouching, she watched the open window.
She judged her distance and leaped, gaining the sill. Pressed against the screen, she watched Prince Wylles asleep in Tom Hollingsworth’s bed. Seeing the prince here in this world gave her a strange, disoriented feeling, as if the two worlds were being forced unnaturally together.
And suddenly as she watched him, Wylles’ breathing changed.
He didn’t move, he still lay hunched around the pillow. But suddenly his eyes were open, staring straight at her. In the next instant he exploded to life, snatching a drinking glass from the table. He threw it as she leaped off the sill; crouched in the garden below she heard it smash against the wall. Then he was fumbling at the screen’s latch. She backed into the bushes as Wylles shouted, “Stay away from me! I don’t know what you are, but if you come near me I’ll kill you!”
She waited until he left the window, then fled, streaking down the garden.
But as she leaped for the safety of the studio terrace, she realized that Wylles had driven away the last blocks to her memory. Her picture of the Netherworld was whole now—her life there with Mag, all the little details sharply fitted together. She saw clearly her days in Affandar Palace under Siddonie’s domination. Frantically she clawed at the studio door, wanting Braden, wanting to be safe in the studio.
Yet when he came to let her in she sat down on the terrace switching her tail, suddenly feeling contrary and uncooperative. And highly amused. She might be, as girl, rather straightforward. But as cat she was a tease; and her own indomitable cat nature amused her.
He stood staring down at her, annoyed. “Come on in, for Christ sake! What the hell were you clawing the door for if you don’t want in!”
She switched her tail.
“Christ, you’re gone all day and half the night. You never come when I call you. But when
She got up and swaggered in, highly entertained, and headed for the couch.
“What’s so funny? What’s so goddamn funny?”
She stared at him, shocked. She hadn’t thought he would see her amusement. She didn’t know that a laugh showed on her cat face. She turned away quickly, jumped on the couch, and curled down on the satin.
Braden watched her. The damn cat had been laughing at him. And this wasn’t the first time he’d had that feeling. And he wondered if he was getting a bit strange. Frowning, he took the piece of lobster to the kitchen and put it on a plate. “Your lobster’s served, my lady.”
She came running, and tied into the morsel as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
When she finished he got her some cat food, then realized he should have given her that first. Now she wouldn’t touch it. She sauntered back to the studio, jumped on the couch, and began to wash, seeming as content as if she’d just gorged herself on the whole lobster. It was then that he remembered the basket.
He put it down on the couch for her.
She looked up at him, pleased. She seemed to like its smell. She got in, tail waving, circled, and curled down with a sensuous wiggle. Tucking her chin under, she smiled upside down at him, her green eyes slitted, her white throat exposed, her white paws drooping languidly over her belly. Her eyes, he thought, were as green as the sea—green as Melissa’s eyes.
Chapter 37
Olive Cleaver didn’t sleep well. She thought in the night that she heard Tom shout,
She had gone over yesterday to ask Tom to help her with the research, thinking that might get him out of the house. But he had been so surly, so rude, that she had left after just a few minutes.
