Lord of Legends

“When does he come?”

He frowned, lifted his hand and held up three of his fingers.

“Three days ago?”

The frown became a scowl, and he raised his fingers again.

“Every three days?”

His forehead relaxed. “Yes,” he said.

He knows his numbers, Mariah thought. “When was the last time he came, Ash? Was it this morning? The first time I visited you?”

“Morning.”

Thank God for that. Whoever this keeper was, he was unlikely to return for another two or three days.

“Did he ever speak to you?” she asked.

“No. Only you.”

So no one had spoken to him. How long had he been wrapped in a shroud of silence?

Distressed and wishing to hide it, Mariah glanced stupidly at the damp towel in her hands. “I think you ought to wash now,” she said.

“Dirty,” he said, gesturing down at himself, compelling her gaze to follow. She noted that his—she swallowed—his “member” was very much in evidence beneath his loincloth.

“Yes,” she said thickly. “Quite dirty.” She moved to wet the towel again. She managed to pass it to him without looking at him, and after a brief pause she heard him sweeping the cloth over his body, followed by the almost inaudible “plop” as his single garment fell to the floor.

She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing her mind to become a perfect blank. This feeling had nothing to do with the way he’d licked her fingers. A lunatic might make just such an inappropriate gesture, lacking the qualities of courtesy and judgment found in the sane.

But there had been purpose in it.

“Mariah.”

The sound of her name nearly wrenched her out of her prickling skin. Involuntarily she turned. He was quite, quite clean, and he had neglected to retrieve his covering.

She shut her eyes again, edged to the chair, felt for the trousers—giving up entirely on the drawers—and used the tip of her boot to push them toward the cage. “Please,” she gasped. “Put on these trousers.”

“How?”

Good Lord. “Haven’t you … ever worn trousers before?”

“No.”

She opened her eyes for a fraction of a second and could barely stifle a gasp. He was quite … quite … prominent. And she was very, very hot.

He has not come to his present age in a perpetual state of nakedness. He has simply forgotten all his old life. How am I even to begin?

“Show me,” he said.

Her eyes flew open again. “I beg your pardon?”

“Remove—” He pointed to her walking dress. “Remove that.”

She nearly choked. “Ash!”

“Did I speak incorrectly?”

He spoke beautifully. Breathtakingly. For a man who hadn’t been able to talk less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d become downright verbose.

“That is quite unnecessary,” she said, knowing that outrage would do no good and possibly much harm. “One does not remove one’s clothing in the presence of others.”

“Never?”

The one exception flooded her mind with fantastical images that sprang unbidden from her imagination. “Not in society,” she said as steadily as she could.

“This is wrong?”

His gesture and glance down at himself made his meaning exceedingly plain. In vain she made another attempt to shut her wanton thoughts away.

“It is not polite,” she said. “You must dress.” She held the trousers up against her body with shaking hands. “You put them on, so. Step into one leg, then the other. The buttons are here.”

“Do they not make it difficult to run?”

Laughter burst out before she could think to forestall it. “Gentlemen seldom find occasion to run.”

“Am I a gentleman?”

Very good, Mariah. A fine beginning. “You will not need to run,” she said. “Can you put them on, Ash?”

“You wish it,” he said, as serious as the monk he most decidedly was not.

“I wish it very much.”

He held out his hand. Half turned away, she passed the trousers through the bars. The mad beating of her heart almost drowned out the sound of his movements. She counted to herself, waiting for him to gather up the garment, put it on, fasten the buttons over his … his burgeoning masculinity. If the buttons would close at all.

If the dowager could see what’s in your mind, Mariah …

“I am finished.”

Her skirts hardly rustled as she moved, stiff as an automaton, to face him.

Dressed he was not. But at least he wore the trousers, half-buttoned. She should have been grateful that they weren’t on backward, though they were much more snug than she had bargained for. He was still quite … noticeable.

“A shirt,” she said, before her imagination could run away with her again. Just as gingerly as before, she placed the shirt at the foot of the bars. He took it, frowned, turned it about, then snorted with something very like disgust.

“You put it over your arms,” she said, pantomiming the action.