A Taint in the Blood (50 page)

“Gun it, ol’ buddy,” Harvey said.

He grinned like a shark. Adrian’s smile matched his. Ellen looked between them with a slight frown.

“Sorry, Ellie,” Adrian said. “We were reliving old times.”

He put the heavy vehicle in gear and stamped on the gas pedal; the wheels spun, and they began to lurch faster and faster down the rough forest track.

“Ah . . . don’t you need the headlights?” she asked.

“No, in fact,” Adrian said.

He could
still
feel the lance of pain in his upper jaw, where the equivalent of the sabertooth’s canine was. His laugh was joyous nonetheless.

“Next stop, Amalfi.”

“Yeah,” Harvey said, as Ellen smiled back at him. “And then, Tiflis.”

A
drian sat in the deep stone windowsill, barefoot and naked to the waist in his loose cotton pants, a cigarette in the hand that rested on his raised right knee. Ellen leaned back against the pillows and the headboard of the bed, watching his face as he looked down from the
alberghetto
towards the Mediterranean, squinting a little into the setting sun. The summer day was cooling towards evening, and there was a slight smell of lemon from the grove around the inn; more distantly the town-scents, and underneath it all pine and sea.

I could look at him forever,
she thought.

He turned his head and looked at her. “And how are you feeling, Mrs. Brézé?”

She writhed deliberately in the tumbled sheets. “Sore. Tired. Otherwise fine. You go back to your deep thoughts. You look prettier than Rodin’s
Thinker
in that position anyway.”

“I was not thinking . . . just enjoying being alive. It is not a sensation I had much of, until we met.”

Sleep came easily; there was plenty of time for a nap before they wandered down into the city for dinner. Her eyelids drooped.

Hallo, chérie
, a voice said, and gold-flecked eyes looked at her.
Have you missed me?

Ellen darted upright, gasping, feeling the sweat sheen on her face. It was darker, and the last of Adrian’s cigarette made a red coal-star in the night as he turned.

“Ellie?” he said.

She put her hand to her head as the images slid away into a confused jumble. “I—I think I had a bad dream. About . . . you know. I . . . it’s gone.”

He came over to the bed, leaned down and kissed her gently. “That will pass.”

“Yeah.”

She took a deep breath. “Feel like a shower before dinner?”

A long slow smile. “But certainly. It
is
our honeymoon!”