My mother was right; I did wind up having a lot to say about the wedding arrangements after all. When I reentered the castle, the horticulture department, the chefs and the steward of the dining room were waiting to consult me as to what I wanted.
Since they were people who knew their jobs and did them well, it was nearly effortless on my part—just a matter of choosing from among the options available at such a late date. But various details and decisions connected to keeping the castle running were now going to be routed through me, apparently. For example, the head housekeeper expected to consult me on a daily basis for menu approval.
After that, I returned to my suite, lost in wondering what my new role was going to entail, and in turn, that led me to think about the question of whether or not I was going to promise to obey Doom—as his wife, not as his aide.
Once back in my rooms, I found that no effort at unpacking was necessary on my part. Everything had been put away in my absence, which meant that someone, possibly several someones, had examined every piece of underwear I owned, and had probably critiqued it at the same time. I was also going to have to search for most of my belongings. My laptop was on the desk in the sitting room area, however, and I sat down to think and shop for wedding shoes and such online. (I was very glad that overnight shipping was available.) I called up the internet and started browsing.
I had liked my old job, and I had been good at it. When I began, I had taken an oath to obey him, and I had said the words without hesitation. And I had obeyed, for the most part, anyway. Sometimes I had to interpret his orders…creatively. But there is a great deal of difference between the obedience of an employee and the obedience of a spouse.
I hoped my new role was not going to be limited to public relations and domestic duties. Correction: I was going to make sure my new role was not going to be limited to public relations and domestic duties. The problem was that I knew nothing of what he had in mind. I could very easily have worked myself up into an anxious mess over it, but I decided to take another approach. I decided to talk to him about it.
After all, I could always resort to manipulative tactics later, after all, and I had more interesting things to think about—such as whatever it was that Reed Richards was unwilling to reveal about Doom.
As I considered the merits of a pair of baby-blue satin pumps, I discarded the idea that it could simply be that Doom was too obsessive about his work, as Richards wouldn't have a leg to stand on in that department. I was well acquainted with that tendency of his, and I myself was prone to obsess over things.
Doom's moodiness, then? Spell Doom backwards, and you got the word mood, which said it all.
I was inclined to believe that the secret had to do with either the arts arcane, or with sex.
I lack magical powers, since I have neither mage-sight nor the most important talent of the magician, which is the ability to say phrases like, 'By the all-seeing Eye of the Vishanti, may the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak protect me!' without breaking down in an attack of the giggles.
Doom, however, has a considerable talent for magic, and anyone who can speak of himself in the third person can probably say anything without batting an eye. Despite my inability, I did like studying magical theory, and I knew that there were various rites, rituals and spells which require one to do things that would cause the more conservative college roommate some anxiety. For example, the Rite of Aholibah requires that one draw the lines of power on one's naked body in one's own blood. Had I walked in on a roommate who was performing that, I would have called 911.
Knowing what I now knew about Doom and sex, I could also imagine Reed walking in on a scene such as the one I had been participating in last night, and freaking out. Even at that age, Doom would have been bold enough, and more than good looking enough, to persuade a girl into it, and coming as he did, not only from Europe, but from a Gypsy tribe, he wouldn't necessarily have known to put a tie or other garment on the outer doorknob to warn his roomie.
I was interrupted by an e-mail from the subject of my thoughts.
'We shall have dinner this evening on the terrace by the conservatory, at eight, if it pleases you. V.'
It did please me, especially since he had extended to me the courtesy of an option, so I replied in the affirmative, and began to think about wedding-night lingerie...
I went down to dinner in a casually elegant halter dress, long and flowing in ivory silk, and I was glad I did, because when I got to the terrace, it was a place transformed.
If I had few, if any illusions about Doom, I also had few illusions about myself. Unconventionally attractive or no, at 5' 11", I was intimidatingly tall, and with my IQ, I was intimidatingly smart as well, and I would not, could not, 'dumb down' myself—pretend to be less intelligent, less well-informed—to attract any man in the world. I could not have lived with myself ifI did.
As a consequence, men fled from me as if I needed warding off with crucifixes, and romance, like sex, was something I encountered only between the covers of books, preferably Jane Austen.
Therefore, what awaited me on the terrace was unprecedented in my experience. Normally, the terrace was a bare, flat grey expanse , bordered not only with a balustrade, but with a force-field that kept flying objects from crashing into the conservatory and smashing all the glass. Tonight it had been divided in half by a screen of greenery, and a string quartet was playing behind it.
The other side, where I paused in the doorway before going over to the table, had various trees and shrubs in pots scattered around it, all with white, fragrant flowers that glowed in the growing dusk and breathed perfume into the air. Lanterns cast a soft light from their places in the branches. The table set for two shimmered with crystal, china and metal, and the man who waited for me behind it had a mask on, true, but the informal one he had put on afterwards, the night before, and instead of armor, he wore an impeccably tailored suit over his powerful frame.
He rose as I approached the table. "Good evening, my dear."
"Good evening," I replied, as I looked around. "This is so beautiful—Are you sure you asked the right woman?" I said it as if I were joking, but he saw through it.
"I don't know. Are you the woman who regards money and fame as necessary evils, rather than incentives toward being with me?"
That answered the question of whether or not I was monitored outside the castle. He knew what had been said.
"I don't think you could have come up with anything more moving to say if you took two weeks to think it out," I told him, a little unsteadily. "But yes, I am that woman." I could feel a blush heating my face yet again.
"Then won't you have a seat?" he asked.
"Thank you," I said, and added, he moved the chair for me, "I didn't mean for you to hear—or overhear—that."
"I never imagined you did." he returned, as he took his own seat.
"I can see I will have to watch what I say about you in the future." I draped my napkin in my lap.
"Why? I have no objection to hearing statements such as that." The humor was back in his voice.
"Ah, but I might be irritated with you for some reason, sometimes. Suppose you take to leaving pieces of your armor scattered around?"
"Already you begin to display such shrewish tendencies? If the invitations hadn't already been sent, I'd call off the wedding." he said, with mock offense, and waved over the servobot. No human waiter would eavesdrop on us tonight; mechanical hands would pour the wine and serve the food. It placed the appetizers before us, mountain crayfish in a lemon-ginger sauce.
"In all seriousness," Doom continued, as I tasted the pale gold wine, "I thought you handled both of the Richards, not to mention yourself, extremely well…You were wise not to attach any importance to the imputations Richards made against me. He is at best criminally negligent, at worst, a deliberate saboteur, and in either case, an egregious liar."
I was not surprised by his statement, but I considered the source of it. Regardless of how it may seem, I actually have nothing against Reed Richards personally, other than that he was a superhero. Becoming one seems to do something to the brain; hence his blind spot regarding what became of his inventions once they left his hands. By all accounts, other than Doom's, he was a fine man, a loving husband (despite his snappishness earlier that day), and a good father. He was neither a saboteur nor a liar. He might be negligent, but not much more than that.
"He has me intrigued, however. What am I going to discover about you that I haven't learned in three years'—and one night's—acquaintance?"
He stiffened up. "I would prefer that this matter be dropped. He made a false accusation. That is all."
Now that was interesting! If he had nothing to fear, he had no reason to be defensive, especially since I was being playful. There was something in it. I wondered what it was.
"By all means, my lord." I said, smoothly.
"Thank you," he said. "What do you think of this wine?"
Acquiring a palate for fine wine was one of my hardest-won achievements. It's difficult to become a wine connoisseur in a poverty-stricken town in rural Pennsylvania, and being a goody-two shoes who didn't touch alcohol until I was of legal age didn't help.
"I thought it was young and brash at first sip, but this sauce is so assertive that I think a mellower wine would be overshadowed." I paused. "So you have no objection to a friendship between Susan Richards and myself?"
"None whatsoever. She is rather a shallow creature, however. You may find you have little in common."
"I'm flexible, though. We'll find things to talk about…"
Whoever had planned the menu, the castle kitchens had sent up an exquisite meal, romantic without including anything as obvious as raw oysters, and nothing that was terribly filling. Talking to him was remarkably comfortable, for the most part. The lack of armor made a difference, not only in how I perceived him, but also, perhaps, in how he perceived himself.
The conversation flowed naturally; we talked about items he was considering in the latest rare-books catalog from Christie's of London, discussed the artist Andy Goldsworthy, who would spend hours carefully covering a rock in a stream with autumn leaves so yellow and so perfectly matched that it looked as though the rock had been painted, only to have the current sweep it away, the entire process being the work of art, or spend a hundred days or more with a stone-laying crew, creating a meandering fence of rocks through a wood that would last for a hundred years or more if left undisturbed.
We covered the nuanced sub-text in Stoppard's latest play, and somehow wound up in a hilarious discussion of Latveria's potential as a tourist destination.
"No, no. I think there is a special sort of tourist who'll be attracted simply by the fact that there's no other country in the world with high-speed internet access and without a single McDonald's anywhere within its borders, but I'm just not sure we ought to let that element into the country. They'll not only be terrible snobs; they'll be bores as well." I scraped up the last bit of crème brulee from my ramekin, and finished it.
"You do have a point." he conceded. "And I liked your idea of having all tourists who go hiking without a guide between the months of October and April sign both a waiver and an affidavit stating they will be responsible for the costs of their rescue."
"You read it, then?"
"Oh, yes."
The evening had given way to night, and the quartet had been dismissed, leaving us with the music of a thousand crickets.
I took only a small sip of my brandy; what with the champagne in the mid-afternoon and this meal with different wines for every course, I had drunk much more than I normally would. I was a little more than relaxed now. I was feeling uninhibited enough to ask a question I would have stammered and blushed my way through sober, if I said it at all.
"I'm only asking for purposes of information, but, in our intimate life, is the use of restraints going to be a constant, a variable, frequent or not, or a one time occurrence?"
"A frequent variable, I should say. As a constant, it might prove monotonous—eventually. I take it you would not be averse to some company this evening?"
I smiled at him.
It was not much later that I had on the sleep-mask and nothing else.
"May I touch you?" I asked.
"Where?" he asked. We were on my bed together.
"Everywhere. Within the boundaries, of course.", by which I meant his face. "I want to go exploring the topography—of you."
A/N: Feedback, please! If you liked it, please review. If you hated it, please review anyway.