Add the usual "they're not mine (sniffle, sniffle)".
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Hannibal walked silently up the stairs and turned left to the open door of the master bedroom. He could hear Clarice humming along with the Italian duet, and some splashing announced that she had gotten into the tub. He spotted her clothes lying in a heap by her dressing table, and with a tolerant shake of his head, he bent to pick them up. As he sniffed the air, his brow furrowed. He lifted her shirt to his nose and inhaled deeply. His frown deepened as he tried to identify the familiar but unknown scent. His eyebrows shot up in surprise as he realized he smelled a man's cologne mixed with her unique scent. Where could she have been that she would have picked up such a smell on her clothes?
He was extremely curious now and wandered over to the bathroom trying to decide how best to broach the subject. He didn't want her to know he was curious, because she delighted in keeping such little tidbits of information to herself, just to make him aggravated. "Getting a little of her own back" was what she called it. Humph! The idea was to be delicate about the questions he asked, and he could be nothing if not delicate.
He paused on the threshold of the bathroom to enjoy the sight of Clarice lounging in the bathtub, up to her neck in bubbles. He would have preferred if she hadn't added so much bubble bath, but the freesia scent was quite nice. He dropped her clothes in the hamper drawing her attention to him.
"Hi," she said with a lazy smile before she closed her eyes again.
"Hi, yourself," he answered as he crossed to a wicker chair sitting next to the tub. "Did you have a nice morning?" he asked as if totally uninterested in the answer.
"Yes, the weather is beautiful outside today," she purred as she relaxed in the warm water.
"Did you meet anyone interesting?" he questioned further watching the curl on her cheek flutter on her breath. She sat up a little and looked at him with a quizzical expression on her face.
"That's an odd question," she said instead of answering.
"You brought some interesting scents back with you," he said gesturing to the laundry hamper. Her brow furrowed and then comprehension dawned. Some other unidentifiable expression crossed her features briefly before she laughed and turned her shining eyes to him.
"I went to the little shop down on rue St. James, to find you some new cologne," she explained. "Did you think I'd gone out to meet some other man?" she asked with a cheeky grin. She laughed again and settled back down in the tub. With some discomfort, Hannibal realized that that was exactly what he had thought, and that his suspicions hadn't been alleviated because he knew she was lying. There was only one scent on her clothes; there would have been many if she had been to the perfume shop. He was sure she knew better than to go behind his back with another man. He would never hurt her, but such actions would have deadly consequences for her partner.
"Did you find anything you liked?" he asked instead of answering her question.
"Yes, but I wasn't sure you'd like it so I left it," she explained smoothly. He was puzzled at the slight twist of truth in her words. He was fairly sure she wasn't having an affair, but couldn't put his doubts to rest. The expression on her face was content, but not that content. She seemed slightly anxious, but in a more excited than nervous way. He had always been able to read her emotions like a book, and could succinctly deduce their cause. Today, however, he didn't have a clue, which made him itch to find out what she was up to. Well, there was one way to find out for sure if she was seeing another man, he thought as she stepped out of the bath. She reached for a towel but he stopped her and wrapped his arms around her instead, heedless of the damage to his silk shirt. She laughed,
"I wondered when you were going to get around to this," she purred. Hannibal smiled, nope, definitely not another man, he thought as he lifted her, sopping wet into his arms, and placed a passionate kiss on her mouth. She moaned and pulled his head closer as he carried her back into the bedroom. The afternoon was spent in much more satisfying persuits.
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A week later, Hannibal still didn't know where Clarice had gone or what she had done that morning the week before. He couldn't just ask her and it was starting to drive him nuts. She hadn't gone anywhere without him since. He was beginning to wonder if maybe she had just gone shopping, but the look in her eyes, when he'd subtly questioned her later that evening, had told him differently. What could she be hiding from him? What could there possibly be that she didn't feel she could confide in him? He was beginning to obsess about it.
So when, for the second time in a week, Clarice left without telling him where she was going, his decision to follow her was instantaneous. Tracking her through the streets of Paris wasn't all too difficult. He stayed about fifty feet behind her, blending in with the local people and the tourists. They moved down small side streets, where Clarice sometimes paused to look in a shop window, but she didn't enter any of them. Hannibal found the newspaper, he'd carried out of the house with him, quite useful at one point. Clarice had moved on from looking display of stained glass mirrors. Hannibal had been leaning up against the wall a few shops down when she had abruptly stopped and turned. He shielded his face with the paper, until she turned back and continued on.
She led quite a merry chase along the lesser traveled paths of the city, and he was slightly amazed when he found himself entering a market square located not far from their house. They'd been walking for almost and hour, and he thought that perhaps she had just gone out to wander around by herself for a while. He lost her momentarily in the crowd but then saw the flash of her red hair across the square. He moved quickly to the perimeter of the square and started to make his way around the crowd to where he had seen Clarice.
His progress was abruptly halted as someone stepped from a shadowed doorway behind him, and he felt the cold press of the muzzle of a gun against his neck. The voice that whispered in his ear made him tense more than the gun ever could.
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Well there we have it folks, chpt 2. I've given up the anagrams but I don't think I can give up the cliffhangers :) Let me know what you think. Oh and guess what?? My favourite actor, Mr. Anthony Hopkins, is working on Red Dragon right now!!! Ya!! Thought I'd pass that on to those who haven't heard yet. luna.