Author's Notes: The following chapter is just a tad risqué, but, I hope, in the best possible taste. (If you've read everything up to this point, I'm sure you'll survive.)

9.

"You have stripped away my defenses. Are you satisfied with your victory?"

~

I felt perfectly fine when I woke up... until to occurred to me that I hadn't, as I'd originally suspected, been on a fast train all night long. No; in fact, that nauseating sensation of continuous movement, as well as the persistent banging and clanging that accompanied it, was being generated entirely by my poor, abused head. Unfortunately, understanding this did not make the horrid feeling go away. If anything, thinking about it made it worse.

Things went from worse to positively horrific when I managed to get one eye open. The daylight was... loud. There is simply no other way to describe it. Even as much as a sliver of light became a complete sensory assault, my head pounding, my stomach heaving. I rolled over and pulled the pillow over my head, but no sooner had I managed to block out the light when I realized that I was about to be very ill, very shortly.

I dashed into my bathroom, slammed the door shut, and retched over the commode for what seemed like an eternity. My skin was all over pins and needles, my tongue was at least three times its normal size, I felt as though my head had been stuffed with cotton batting, and my behind hurt like the very devil. Perplexing symptoms indeed. Although who knew what sorts of diseases one might catch from having been recently kissed by a three-thousand-year-old corpse? Still, there was something strangely familiar about the whole ordeal, although I couldn't place it because my brain seemed to be in the process of disintegrating.

I wobbled to my feet and stood over the sink, trying to drink a glass of water without seriously aggravating either the pounding or the nausea. Once I'd managed that, I carefully brushed my teeth, feeling the scrape of each bristle magnified a thousandfold. Washing my face, I almost screamed when I caught sight of my reflection in the cabinet mirror.

As I replaced the glass, I puzzled over the needle and thread I found beside it. It wasn't mine; I hated to sew, and never bothered with it now that I didn't have to. One of the nicest things about being suddenly wealthy was discovering the joy of not having to darn one's stockings. But who could have left it there? As I examined the needle more closely, things started coming back to me. The window-glass. The stitches. The whiskey.

Then, and only then, did I fathom what the trouble was.

For the second time in my life, I was hung over.

Honestly, I found it impossible to understand what Jonathan liked so much about drinking. It made me clumsy, giggly, and apt to tell people personal information and then regret it the next day. I couldn't recall exactly what had been said, but I clearly remembered babbling on to Rick about my mother and father. And the after-effects were vile.

I was going to have to face the world eventually; best to get it over with as soon as possible. After struggling into a fresh skirt and blouse that matched only in the sense that they were both items of clothing, I stood at the door to the sitting room, pushing at it frantically for an inordinate amount of time before remembering that I was on the side that pulled inward. I gave the wretched thing a tug--and got a nasty shock when Rick tumbled into my room, unconscious.

I yelped in alarm--and then his eyes flicked open. He was on his feet within seconds.

"Evelyn! It's okay, honey, it's just me." He seemed to loom over me, swaying gently. Not unconscious after all, apparently, but only sleeping on a chair propped against my door. Awfully sweet of him, really, staying there to protect me.

I clutched at him, and he held me close, reassuringly solid. I pressed my face into his shirt and inhaled deeply, breathing in his wonderful clean sweat-and-soap smell.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, just near my ear.

I took a step back. "Please--please don't shout," I rasped.

He seemed uncertain whether to be amused or sympathetic. "Sorry."

"No, you're not, you think it's bloody funny!" I grabbed my head with both hands and waited for my own voice to stop reverberating. "Ooh. Oh dear."

Rick walked me over to the sofa, keeping one arm about my shoulders. With the picture window boarded up and all the curtains drawn, the sitting room was mostly in shadow, and still relatively cool. "Here, lie down," he told me, helping me ease onto the settee. I settled my head on a plush cushion with a sigh. Before I quite knew what I was about, a cool, wet cloth was being placed over my closed eyes. "There we go." His lips brushed against my cheek, and then I felt him take my hand and squeeze it reassuringly. Apart from being in complete physical and mental agony, being taken care of like this was something I could definitely become accustomed to. The intense throbbing at my temples and the base of my skull gradually faded to a dull, tolerable ache. "Feel better?" he whispered, stroking my arm.

"Much, thank you. Darling, I hope you didn't sleep on that hard chair all night."

"Nah." There was a pause, and then he added: "Couldn't. Your brother's snoring."

"I'm sorry." I wondered why he hadn't just come into my room, then realized that he'd been watching both myself and Jonathan while we slept. "You must be tired. Why don't you go have a little lie down?"

"Maybe I'll do that." He placed his cheek against my stomach. I could feel the prickle of his stubble through the thin material of my blouse. "Hey, I could get used to this."

"Mmm." I felt around until my hand contacted somewhere in the vicinity of his ear. I tousled his hair and mumbled something about loving him, already drifting back to sleep. If he replied, I didn't hear it.

When I felt him fumbling at the front of my blouse a moment later, I sat up with a start, heart fluttering, head screaming. The wet cloth slid to the ground.

"What d'you think you're doing?" I demanded.

Rick snapped to his feet and held up both hands. "Hey, relax. You missed a couple buttons," he pointed out. His voice was calm, but his eyes blazed with an emotion I couldn't quite identify. "I don't mind if you wanna show me the goods, but Jonathan's supposed to have visitors today. I figured you wouldn't appreciate being on display."

I peered down at my chest, and found myself looking at--well, at my chest. My brassiere, anyhow. At least I'd managed to put that on properly.

"Where is Jonathan?" I inquired, blushing furiously and trying to hold my blouse shut. When Rick had said a couple of buttons, he was obviously being tactful.

Rick, stone-faced, pointed in the direction of the room they shared. "Resting."

"Oh. And... when are his friends coming?"

"Later."

I was trying to button up, but I seemed to have forgotten how to work my fingers. I couldn't get anything to match up properly. One of the buttons popped right off the second I thought had a good grip on it. My face began to sting from all the blood that had rushed to it. I didn't know how I was ever to survive the day if this sort of thing went on.

I glanced up at Rick, who was standing over me with his arms folded. It was obvious that he wasn't going to offer his help. I dimly remembered there being an argument about something like this the night before.

"I don't think I can do these," I whispered, indicating the buttons.

He relaxed his arms, but didn't bend down.

"Please help me."

He didn't move. "You gonna yell at me some more?"

"No. You just... startled me. I was half-asleep." I reached up and tugged at his sleeve, pulling him down to kneel beside me. Cradling his big, brown hand in both of mine, I told him, "You helped me last night, and you were a perfect gentleman. I trust you. And it isn't... it isn't as though I don't like you to look at me, or to touch me."

I don't know what moved me to do what I did then--whether it was the pervading sense that none of this was real, or simply the storms brewing in his eyes. As if in a dream, I slowly moved his hand until it was over my heart, and let it fall there, just inside my shirt. I couldn't escape the sensation that my head was floating, but I could no longer be certain if it was due to overindulgence or sheer nerves. His face betrayed no emotion, but his palm twitched as it made contact with my bare skin, as though I'd given him an electric shock.

"In fact, I... I like it a bit too much for my own good, I think," I continued, as casually as I could, clasping both my hands to cover his. "I've been teasing you a little these past few weeks, testing your limits, and that isn't fair."

"Gee, you think?" he squeaked, in a forced, strangled falsetto.

I smiled in spite of myself. "Oh, be quiet. You're not innocent in all this, so don't try to make out that you are." To demonstrate, I removed my hands, giving him the opportunity to take his back. He didn't.

"Evelyn, I can't be around you and not want to be with you," he told me candidly, his eyes suddenly alight with green flame. "That's just how it is. You're so beautiful. And the more I'm around you, the more beautiful you get." He looked down at his hand, his expression one of wonder. "Your heart's going a mile a minute."

"Yes, well, I--I'm nervous, Rick."

This admission obviously surprised him. "You know I would never hurt you."

"I know... it's just that I've never let anyone touch me like this before."

"I won't, if it makes you uncomfortable."

I shook my head, blushing again, suddenly shy--which was absurd, considering the circumstances. "I want you to," I whispered.

After a moment, he began to move his hand lower--tentatively at first, then with more assurance when I didn't offer any objection. No innocent caress, this; there was definite, wicked intent. But his gaze, so intense and clear, never left my face.

When I smiled, though, something in him snapped. He sprang forward and kissed me deeply, urgently, devouring my mouth as if he'd been starving for it. His hands seemed to rove of their own accord; so many things happened at once that I was completely overcome. I had no idea how to respond at first; but, rather than shying away, I let him guide me, clinging to him so tightly that it was as though I were trying to pass through him. He was marvelously strong; I could hold him as fast as I wished and it barely fazed him. If anything, he enjoyed it.

Time passed--impossible to tell how much--and it gradually became difficult to ignore the fact that my head was about to split open any second. I whispered to Rick, who was making some very interesting progress (resourceful man that he was), that we ought to stop.

"We'll finish this," I told him. "But not on the settee, with my brother in the next room." My lips felt funny, sort of chapped.

"We could go in your room and lock the door." His mouth was still against the base of my throat, producing a peculiar--but not unpleasant--sensation when he spoke. I placed both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back, gently but firmly. "Best hangover cure in the world..." he added.

"I'm not going to ask how you know that," I replied.

He avoided my gaze, looking up at the ceiling. "Heard it from a guy I know."

Knowing he'd slept with other women, understanding and accepting that, had never been a problem for me. We'd both been brought up with an implicit understanding of society's double standard: men were permitted--and, in fact, expected--to have a checkered past. Women, on the other hand, were supposed to remain innocent and chaste. (Which begs the question of how the men are to sow their wild oats if all the women are putting fences around their fields... but I digress.) We were going to be married, after all; what more proof did I need that I was the one Rick loved?

Dismissing the lingering feelings of insecurity and jealousy, however, was proving to be harder than I would have thought. The insecurity was strongest: what if I wasn't what he expected? What if waiting so long was setting us both up for disappointment? I suspected that one of the qualities he admired in me was my innocence in such matters, relishing his role as teacher; would he still see me in the same light afterwards?

I forged on with, "In any event, I think it's best we wait until I feel more... until I'm not so..."

"Hung over?"

"Indisposed," I finished triumphantly.

He slid his hand down to my stomach. "Say it," he ordered.

"No, I won't."

"Admit you're hung over." He dug his fingertips into the soft flesh, just a little. A warning.

I tilted my chin defiantly. "Never."

He tickled me viciously, and I made a bizarre noise that was a cross between a laugh and a scream. "Come on, tough stuff," he taunted. "Say it!"

I tried a counter-attack, but he pinned both my arms over my head and continued the assault with his free hand. "Rick--stop--I'm going to be sick!" I squealed breathlessly. When he let me up, concern etched on his face, I quickly struck at the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

He squirmed away from me and rolled to his feet. "Okay, that's it," he growled, advancing on me. But before he had a chance to act on whatever devious impulse had occurred to him, I heard Jonathan emerging from his room.

"Hallo-allo-allo," greeted my brother.

"Hiya." Rick quickly grabbed his jacket from a nearby chair and threw it over me, concealing the fact that I was rather less dressed than I ought to have been. Snug under the heavy broadcloth, I fiddled about with my buttons, but it was twice as difficult when I couldn't even see them. I managed to get one done up, although which one, and whether I'd done it properly, was anybody's guess.

"Thought I heard the spoilt little creature whining earlier, is she up?"

It was nice to know he referred to me in such glowing terms when I wasn't present. "I do not whine," I informed him. If any member of the family could properly be said to be a whiner, that distinction belonged to my older brother.

Jonathan's face peeked over the back of the settee. "Oh, there you are, little disembodied voice. Didn't see you. Hallo, rat's nest." He tugged at one of my frizzled locks, then flashed me a cheeky grin that belied the nasty bruises on the side of his face. His own unruly mop of dark curls had been neatly tamed, and he was looking enviably well-rested. He made one of his comical faces, waggling his eyebrows, trying to coax a smile out of me. When I didn't respond, he inquired, "Feeling poorly, sis? You look like death warmed over."

Having actually seen death warmed over, I would like to say in my own defense that it was not quite as bad as all that.

"I'm not well," I told him, ignoring Rick as he mouthed the words 'hung over'. "I do wish you wouldn't shout, Jonathan."

"Oh, was I shouting? Sorry." To Rick, who was covering me to my chin for reasons I couldn't quite fathom, he added, "Does she really need to be bundled up like that, old man? She's all red in the face."

"I was cold," I said feebly, although I felt as though I might spontaneously combust any moment.

Jonathan reached down and felt my forehead and cheeks, looking anxious. "Hmm. Feverish. Breathing's shallow, too. And you don't sound at all yourself. Have you a sore throat, my girl?"

"A bit," I replied, quite truthfully.

"Headache?"

"Yes, rather a bad one, actually."

He gave Rick a knowing nod. "You can always tell it's serious when she actually admits to anything being wrong. Should I run and fetch a doctor, d'you think?"

Rick shook his head. "Nah, she'll be fine. Probably just, y'know, exhaustion. There's been a lot of excitement around here." He didn't specify how much of it had taken place on the settee within the past half hour or so, but I still could feel my ears reddening. "Besides, nobody leaves unless we all go together. New rule."

"Are you in much pain, Evie? Do you think you could swallow something?"

The thought made my stomach turn somersaults, but I nodded meekly. I knew that if I said no, he would certainly try to find a doctor--or worse still, drag me to a hospital.

Leaning precariously over the back of the settee, Jonathan leaned in and kissed my cheek, his unshaven chin abrasive against my skin. "Poor thing. I'll dig up some aspirin for you." He stood up and made his way back to his room, still talking. "Marvelous stuff, aspirin. Only good thing to come out of Germany in the last fifty years, if you ask me."

The second Jonathan was out of the room, Rick began to snicker. "You're something else," he told me.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You! He thinks you're sick, he's really worried about you!"

I shrugged. "It'll be good for him. Get him up and about and thinking of someone other than himself for once." It wouldn't do me any harm to be taken care of and fussed over, either. I'd earned it.

Rick snorted derisively.

"Since when are you an advocate of my brother?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "Probably since he told me that you were the only valuable thing he'd managed to hang on to."

I sat up with a squeak. "He said that?" Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.

Rick nodded. "At least now I know where the whole Nurse Nightingale act comes from. Runs in the family." He leaned in and adjusted the collar of the jacket so that it covered my throat. I couldn't understand why he was suddenly so compulsive about it; I decided I didn't mind the attention, and didn't inquire.

Jonathan was back within moments with the aspirin bottle, then ducked into the hall to talk to the steward. "I'm having them bring you up some juice, Evie," he informed me, returning to lean over the back of the settee. "I'll stir the pill into that."

He smiled down at me, and I felt myself suddenly welling up with sisterly affection. I didn't like to think how close I'd come to losing him. I suddenly remembered being very small, sitting on my mother's knee, while she related what she liked to call the story of her boy. She'd called him Jonathan, she explained, because it meant 'God has given'. Jon had groaned and grumbled, of course--being a boy, he'd wanted a manly name, something that meant 'kills large monsters with his bare hands' or 'wins at cricket and never bathes'. But I'd always thought the name was an ideal choice--especially in the years following our parents' death. To me, Jonathan was a gift.

"She doesn't like taking pills," he was informing Rick, with the air of a guide directing a tour. "Never has--not since the time she swallowed that tooth."

And, once again, I was reminded why the name Jonathan had also come to mean "big-mouthed idiot brother".

"You swallowed a tooth?" Rick demanded, eyebrows climbing.

"Jonathan, shut up."

"I hope it was yours," mused my fiancé.

"Oh, yes," continued my brother, eyes alight with devilish good humour. "Her very first tooth. It was loose, and so I told her if she gave me tuppence, I'd have it out for her, and the tooth fairy would give her a whole shilling. I didn't bother to tell her the silly thing would come out on its own if she just left it alone." He perched on the arm of the settee. "So we tied a bit of string round it, and--"

"Don't, Jonathan." The very thought of our little experiments in amateur dentistry made my stomach roil. "Please."

"Anyhow, when we'd finally got it out, Evie was so upset that she tried to stick it back with chewing-gum! And she swallowed it--chewing-gum and all!"

Rick must have seen it in my face, for he moved like lightning, grabbing the waste-paper basket and placing it in my lap. There was very little left in my stomach that could come up, but that didn't stop me from giving it the old college try.

By the time I was finished, the steward had brought the orange juice. He had his hand out for a tip, and was rather nonplussed when Rick handed him the soiled waste-paper basket instead. Jonathan set to pulverizing the little white tablet with the flat of his jack-knife. He made remarkably quick work of it, and before long I was drinking the fruits of his labour, dissolved in the glass of juice. I wasn't sure whether the concoction would make me sick again, but, wonder of wonders, I actually found myself feeling better afterwards. Jonathan advised sleep and a shot of gin, not necessarily in that order, then took himself off to his room to read until his visitors arrived.

Rick remained perched beside me on the settee, one hand splayed over my abdomen. He hooked a finger over the collar of the jacket he'd draped over me and peeled it back, then whistled admiringly.

"Oh, hush," I told him, crossing my arms self-consciously.

He looked blankly at me for a moment, then grinned. "Not that. I was just... you have a scarf, right?"

"Hmm?"

"A scarf. You know. Something to wear around your neck?" He made a tying motion at his throat.

"Yes, why?"

He was trying to keep from laughing now.

"Rick, what is it?"

"Not sure how to tell you this, honey, but you have a huge hickey right here." He touched a fingertip to the base of my throat, one of the places where he'd lavished so much attention earlier.

"A huge what?" I asked, bewildered. I wondered if this was some new and revolting hangover-related indignity, and swore I would never touch another drop as long as I lived.

"A hickey. You'd call it a... um... jeez, Jonathan would know, but I'm not gonna ask him. It's like a bruise that you get from lots of kissing."

"A love-bite?"

"There we go."

I'd overheard girls at school talking about such things, in hushed tones, punctuated by giggles. I was never invited to join these discussions, excluded by the fact that I had nothing to contribute to them. At the time, I couldn't understand the appeal of being marked by someone. Now, though, I had to admit that the idea did have a certain charm. I ran my fingers over the spot he'd indicated. It was tender, and a bit swollen. I was curious to see what it looked like in the mirror, but I didn't particularly fancy my odds of making it to the bathroom unaided.

"You've never done that before," I mused.

Rick ran a hand through his hair, looking anywhere but at my neck. "I didn't mean to--I tried to be gentle. Guess I just got carried away. Sorry."

"Don't apologize. It was... lovely." Lovely wasn't quite the right word, but it would have to do. Thinking on the experience to find a better word twisted my stomach all about, and I wanted that orange juice to stay precisely where it was. "Although... someplace rather less obvious might be advisable in the future, don't you agree? Unless you want to keep buying me scarves."

Surprised by the implication, and obviously uncertain whether or not it was intentional, Rick merely nodded slowly, eyes wide.

My hand strayed to my throat again, and I smiled. "It doesn't hurt, which means I have no reservations about trying to give you one, next chance I get."

"Baby," he growled, "you name the time and place, and I'll be there."

The pounding in my head had mostly abated by this time, but my heart was still rabbiting along at an alarming speed. Every part of my body ached. I wanted so badly to stay awake; I was eager to explore, and to be discovered in return. I wanted to say, here and now, and see the fire in his eyes flare, just before he pulled me into his arms. But I was completely knackered, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be unable to keep my eyes open.

Rick brought his hand up to my face and caressed my cheek with the backs of his fingers. "You need to get some rest," he told me softly.

I nodded. "Are you going to tell me I look like death warmed over?"

"Hell, no. You're gorgeous." He kissed me before I could protest--a soft, lingering kiss that revived all those flutters in the pit of my stomach. When it began to deepen, he was the one who pulled away. "Okay... lots of time for that."

I smiled, and the bloom in my cheek was ardour, not embarrassment.

He sat down on the floor beside the settee, his back resting against my hip. I closed my eyes, wondering how on earth I could possibly sleep now. It wasn't long, however, before I slid into a sort of half-conscious daze, cocooned in safety and warmth.

"You asleep?" I heard him ask at one point.

"Yes," I replied.

"Okay. Want me to fix your buttons now?"

I'd completely forgotten about them. "Mmm. Could you?"

He lingered over the task rather longer than a gentleman would, but, truth be told, I didn't mind at all.