Gideon sat back in his corner of the love seat and looked at her. “I keep saying the wrong thing, don’t I?”
She matched his pose, leaning back in her own corner. “I think you’re trying to find some logic in this situation.” Her tone was dispassionate rather than forgiving.
“Will I?”
“No. The carnival isn’t logical, as you understand logic. Nor are the people here—including me. Your world is a million miles away.”
He shook his head. “I’m not that different. I haven’t dropped onto an alien planet, Maggie.”
She smiled. “No. And this is Kansas, not Oz. But you expect order, and you aren’t going to find that here. No schedules—except for Malcolm’s tea parties. It’s a place where you can wear a clown’s face, or a toga or a kilt, and nobody looks twice. A place where you talk to the animals and they talk back, and it doesn’t matter that you aren’t speaking the same language. A place where being normal is to be slightly mad.”
“There are lunatics in my world,” he pointed out.
“Yes. But in your world, they aren’t normal. In this world, they are.” She was on the end of the love seat with the lamp beside it, and the soft glow made her hair gleam silver. Gideon thought she looked like an angel—except for the strange and enigmatic depth of her eyes.
A mad angel.
He cleared his throat. “Are we talking about the carnival? Or about us?”
Maggie looked at him steadily. “Us? Didn’t we close that subject?”
“No. If I remember, you used the words ‘unless and until’ my motives change. They have.” He was surprised to hear himself say that, but wasn’t tempted to take back the statement.
“What are your motives now?”
“I thought you had a knack for seeing things like that?” he murmured.
“If you expect me to be consistent,” she said somewhat dryly, “you haven’t been listening to me.”
“Sorry.” He had to smile a little. “All right, then. My motives. I won’t deny that I was—knocked off balance earlier today, or that you were right about my motives then. But I agree with what you said. Most of the questions should be answered first. I’d like to try to get those answers, and control has nothing to do with it. I want you, Maggie.”
To his surprise, the blunt statement drew a visible reaction from her. Her eyes widened and…she blushed. Blushed. Faint color flowed over her cheekbones like a delicate tide, making her appear very young and adorably confused. It was fascinating to watch.
“I see,” she murmured, her gaze falling.
“Are you blushing?” He sounded as astonished as he felt.
“Of course not. I outgrew that years ago.” She looked back at him, mysterious ripples disturbing the serenity of her eyes. “I was just surprised.”
“Why? You knew I wanted you.”
Maggie didn’t want to answer his question, partly because she thought her answer might well make him draw away. It was obvious that he hadn’t heard his own voice, hadn’t been aware of the implacable note in it. When he had said he wanted her, there had been more than desire in his voice, something unrelenting as if it came from instinct. And whatever it was, her response to it had caught her completely off guard.
The sensation was strange, almost frightening. She could feel her heart beating, thudding against her ribs and in her throat in an uneven rhythm. Her skin felt hot, and she was suddenly, vividly aware of her body as being female. The cool rationality of her mind had become uncertainty and confusion.
Always before, Maggie had felt detached from men. She had heard a number of men express interest and desire, men who, like Gideon, had questions because they were puzzled by her. Yet none of them had roused the slightest spark of response in her, and she had not gone out of her way to supply answers. Never one to accept half measures, she had long ago decided that if she didn’t find the right man, she wouldn’t make the mistake of settling for the wrong one. She had flirted, enjoying the verbal sparring—much as she had with Gideon. She had never been tempted to go beyond flirting. Until now.
“Maggie?”
She looked at him. Really looked. Less formal now in his jeans and sweater. His thick copper hair gleamed with gold highlights, and his eyes were the gray of storm clouds. His face was almost classically handsome, strong and filled with character. The pale brown sweater set off his tan and made the power of broad shoulders more evident, and the jeans fit well over narrow hips and long legs. He was curiously more masculine than any man she’d ever met, as if an aura surrounded him.
He leaned toward her. “Maggie?”
She drew a breath, wondering idly when that automatic function had become a voluntary thing. “Are you sure you want your answers?” she asked huskily.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You may not like them.” She had often thought of herself as an odd woman in many ways; that had never troubled her, but it could well disturb him.
“I can’t imagine that,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s too late for me to make the choice, Maggie. You can throw me out, but I can’t walk away.”
“I can’t throw you out. This is your carnival.”
“Stop saying that.” His voice was sharp. “I’m not talking about the carnival, and you know it.”
After a moment she half nodded, realizing that the choice had been made for her as well. The timing couldn’t have been worse, and she was aware for the first time of just how painful it would be if the man whose questions she wanted to answer didn’t like the answers at all. When he began to understand her, he could well decide that their worlds were indeed too far apart. Or he could, in the end, want only an affair to satisfy a purely physical desire. Only time would tell.
“I suppose—” She was interrupted by a rap somewhere near the door.
The woman dressed so colorfully as a gypsy, her black hair in wild ringlets, stuck her head in the doorway. “I thought I’d get the tray if you two are finished,” she said briskly.
Maggie glanced at Gideon, then said, “We’re finished. But you didn’t have to come for it, Tina.”
“No trouble.” She came into the wagon and began transferring everything from the card table to the tray on the bed.
“Tina, this is Gideon.”
“Of course it is,” Tina said before Gideon could say a word. She eyed him, then looked at Maggie. “His feet’ll stick out,” she observed.
“Not if he bends his knees,” Maggie said.
“That’s true.” Tina lifted the tray easily, her gaze still on Maggie. “Lamont lost his nose,” she said with the clear expectation of being understood.
“Where?”
“He doesn’t know. But he’s upset.”
Maggie nodded. “Okay. I’ll go talk to him.”
Tina nodded in turn, then briskly carried the tray out of the wagon.
For a long moment after she left, Gideon didn’t say a word. Then, very carefully, he said, “I gather my feet will stick out of the tent unless I bend my knees?”
Maggie was looking at him solemnly, apparently back on balance now. “Yes.”
“So far so good. I hope Lamont is the clown?”
“He is.”
Gideon sighed. “I don’t know whether to be glad or terrified that I understood that conversation.”
“Let me know when you make up your mind.”
He looked at her. “You were about to say something before Tina came in.”
“Was I? Oh. I think I was about to say that the subject was open again.”
“The subject of us?”
Maggie got to her feet and began folding up the card table. “That subject, yes. At the moment, however, I have to go see a clown about his nose.”
“It’s still early,” Gideon ventured, watching her.
“I get up at dawn to feed the animals.”
He sighed. “And tomorrow’s another day.”
“Good night, Gideon.”
—
“I thi
nk it’s obvious,” Farley said in a firm tone. “Maggie’s snuggling up to the man so he won’t break us up.”
Tina threw him a warning glance, but Sean, who was sitting in the doorway of the wagon finishing his stew, didn’t even glance at the two adults inside. “Watch what you say,” Tina ordered in a low, fierce voice.
“The lad isn’t paying attention—”
“She likes him,” Sean said.
Tina looked at Farley. “He always pays attention.” Then she looked back at her son. “Why do you think she likes him, Sean?”
The boy shrugged. “Dunno. When he left today, she was lookin’ after him. Maybe that. Can I sleep in Buster’s tent, Ma? He’s got Alexander with him, and—”
“All right, but I’d better not catch you roaming around outside.”
Wise in the ways of his parent, Sean vanished from the doorway before she could change her mind, leaving his plate balanced precariously on the threshold.
“D’you think the lad’s right?” Farley asked, lounging back on the daybed that was wedged in between the door and the table where Tina was stacking the washed dishes.
She half shrugged. “He’s a good-looking devil, and he can’t keep his eyes off her. Judging by his clothes, I doubt he needs the money he’d get from selling out. If he wants to get in good with Maggie, he won’t make that threat. We’ll see.”
After a moment Farley said, “So we be nice to the man and wait? I’ve never been one for patience.”
“What else can we do? As soon as he gets probate, he can sell out. We can’t stop him.”
“Can’t we, now? I’m thinking there’s always a way of doing that. A man isn’t a mountain, but they have one thing in common. They can both be got around.”
Tina leaned back against the table and looked at him. “You could talk most devils out of both horns and at least one cloven hoof, Farley, but don’t try your tricks on that one. Maggie has a chance of getting around him, but the rest of us haven’t a hope in hell. Now, would you mind very much getting out from underfoot so I can finish my work?”
He rose with an injured expression. “You don’t have to throw me out, I was leaving.”
Maggie remained in the darkness close to Tina’s caravan until she was sure Farley was gone, then eased away in silence and moved toward her own wagon. She had listened to at least two other conversations tonight, and all were basically the same. Everyone was nervous about Gideon, but convinced that she would either charm or seduce him into sparing the carnival.
Which gave her, she hoped, a little more time.
What she had to avoid at all costs was for Gideon to announce to the others that he meant to sell. Until he committed himself to that plan, she thought nothing would happen—at least for a few days. The level of tension was too high now, so she couldn’t expect more than a few days’ grace no matter what he did.
She had considered telling him the truth, but had discarded the idea at least for the moment. She didn’t know him yet, and in any case, hearing that he had inherited along with the carnival one murderer was apt to upset him a bit.
Feeling restless and uneasy, she returned to her wagon, skirting Gideon’s tent. A faint light from the small oil lamp Farley had left glowed inside it, but there was no shadow to indicate if Gideon was awake or sleeping. Maggie climbed into her wagon and softly closed the door.
She changed into her usual sleepwear and then moved the lamp and its small table beside her bed. In the few weeks she’d been here, she had grown more or less accustomed to the scarlet velvet bedspread and gold-tasseled pillows, so she didn’t think about how they looked. And she didn’t think about how she looked lying back on the pillows in her white teddy with the book of literature in her lap. Since a tacit rule of the carnies was that no one was needlessly disturbed once their door or tent flap was closed at night, she wasn’t expecting visitors.
It was a habit of hers to read before sleeping, usually old favorites, and the collection of poems, short stories, and essays was perfect. She was immersed in one long, rambling poem when the tap came at her door, and she answered absently.
“Yes?”
The door opened. “I wanted to take you up on your offer,” Gideon began, stepping inside.
For one very long moment Maggie wasn’t sure which offer he was talking about. She was hardly a shy woman, but even in the lamplight the intensity of his gaze was obvious, and she was suddenly very conscious of her brief and quite revealing choice of sleepwear. Then she remembered.
“Oh. The extra blankets?”
In some rational part of his mind Gideon had questioned his own attraction to this fey woman. It wasn’t her beauty, he had thought; he wasn’t particularly susceptible to feminine beauty, having discovered long ago that the enduring traits were the inner ones. Though now, at this moment, he wasn’t so sure. She was wearing a white teddy with a deep V neckline and a gauzy lace panel at the waist, below which was the briefest skirt he’d ever seen. Her knees were slightly raised to provide a prop for the book in her lap, and her long hair had been pulled around over her shoulder to drift over one breast like strands of silk.
Curiously enough, the gaudy, even tawdry, bed had become something entirely different now. The scarlet spread seemed deeper in color, the tasseled pillows bright splashes of color. She glowed in the center like some rare jewel.
He couldn’t stop looking at her. Wanting her.
“The blankets?” she repeated.
Gideon cleared his throat. “Right. The blankets.”
“Top shelf of the wardrobe.”
He took a step, intending to walk around the foot of the bed to reach the wardrobe. But somehow, he found himself sitting on the bed beside her. She was looking at him gravely, faint color in her cheeks, and her voice was a little husky when she spoke.
“I don’t think this is a very good idea.”
“It feels like a good idea,” he murmured, lifting one hand to cup her cheek. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first moment you turned and looked at me.”
“Is that all you want?” she murmured. “A kiss?”
“You know better. But I’ll settle for that. At least as a start.”
Maggie didn’t protest again. She admitted to herself only as his lips touched hers that this was something she wanted, even something she needed. Then her reasons didn’t seem to matter very much.
The first touch was gentle, almost tentative, but the hesitancy vanished quickly. Burned away. Maggie could feel the heat rise in her like a storm surge, so swift and violent she had no defense against it. His mouth hardened, slanting across hers to deepen the kiss with a stark passion that made her shudder helplessly, and she was barely aware when her arms lifted of their own volition to encircle his neck.
“She’s in that state of mind,” said the White Queen, “that she wants to deny something—only she doesn’t know what to deny!”
Chapter 3
Her arms around his neck…It was that mindless gesture of trust and desire that brought some semblance of sanity back to Maggie. She felt the thick softness of his hair beneath her fingers, felt the hard pressure of his chest against her breasts as he drew her suddenly closer, and she was conscious of the same shock she’d felt earlier.
She wanted him. Questions didn’t matter. Answers didn’t matter. What she felt was something so deep there wasn’t even a word to name it. All she knew for certain was that now she understood what true madness felt like.
It was Gideon who ended the kiss with visible reluctance, raising his head slightly to look at her. His eyes were heavy lidded and darkened, his face taut. “I didn’t expect that,” he murmured.
She had to swallow before she could get the question out. “Expect what?”
“Didn’t you feel it, too? The power of it?”
Maggie was an honest woman, but she also had a strong sense of self-preservation. At that moment she decided a truthful answer might be gasoline thrown on the fire. Unless, of course, she could turn an emotional
reality into an impersonal observation. In the most even voice she could manage, she said, “If you drop the right two chemicals into a beaker, sometimes you get quite a reaction.”
“So we’re just two chemicals that happen to react to each other?” His voice was level.
“Physically, yes.” She didn’t believe that, but elected to take some kind of stand; if nothing else, it would give them something to argue about. “The easy way, remember? The shortcut. If you push the right buttons physically, you’re going to get a predictable response. An emotional response is another matter altogether.” Her throat was aching, but she met his narrowing gaze with certainty in her own.
Somewhat belatedly she mentally ordered her fingers to leave his hair alone and drew her arms from around his neck.
After a moment Gideon removed his own arms and straightened, but continued to look down at her. The flicker of anger she’d seen in his eyes had been fleeting, replaced now by a considering look that was a bit too perceptive for her peace of mind.
“Is this where I get mad and storm out?” he asked.
Maggie had become accustomed to the fact that she often baffled people, but she could never understand why. Now she knew. It was somewhat unnerving and rather fascinating to have a person’s shrewd comprehension turned on her for a change. But stubbornly, she stuck to her part.
“That’s up to you,” she told him. She’d never even considered how difficult it would be to sound dignified while wearing a scanty white teddy. She made a mental note to herself to consider the matter carefully should such a situation arise again.
Softly, he said, “Who wants to control the situation now?”