Adam by Jacquelyn Frank Page A

stitched and tacked it here and there to accommodate her unconventional manner of wearing the dress. “I highly expected you to be wearing male attire.”
    “’Tis as bulky and bejeweled as a lady’s garb. Fashion has not changed much. I promise I will have a few proper ladies’ outfits so you can take me out into public. But should I dress in the English fashion or the Italian? What of the French?”
    “Perhaps you can go the way of the Dutch. No heavy jewelry there.”
    She snorted. “I would make a lousy Puritan. I suppose I will find my way. I just need some time to get my feet above the ground rather than below it.”
    “I will have a girl assigned to you. Or do you need two?”
    “One should be a good start. She can find help if she needs it.”
    “I have sent for your things from storage, and I will put you in the rooms next to mine,” Damien informed her.
    “Hmm. Very well. Is there anything else I should know about the world in general? Like the fact that the Demons want to kill us?”
    “You exaggerate the thing, really. It is more of a ... game. We play tit for tat. It is not as though either of us is arranging huge attacks with our armies.”
    “Hmm. That would explain why the Demon did not kill me,” she mused.
    “What Demon?”
    “I ran into one in the woods. He was no bother,” she said, waving the matter off. Well, not unless she counted the way the memory of his intimate wash over her bare body had bothered her. In fact, it had made her crave things. Things that were forbidden on both sides of their cultures. And it was clear from his distaste for her breed that he had done everything against his will or better judgment. “What night is this?” she asked.
    “It is Beltane eve. You are just in time for the celebrations on the morrow. With you here, it will make for a tremendous festival!” He hugged her until she thought her ribs would snap. She was beginning to get the feeling he really had missed her.
    “How long have I been gone, exactly?” she asked him.
    “Oh, I would say a good forty years now. You left me shortly after we visited Queen Elizabeth.”
    “After Dawn was killed on a French battlefield,” she acknowledged. “How did that freckled little queen make out, anyway?”
    “Quite well, actually. She is still alive, last I heard. She never married, never produced an heir, and really never cared what anyone else thought of her. I see a bit of you in her, though you claimed never to like her.”
    “Hmm. Perhaps I might have been hasty in my judgments,” she mused with a grin. “I would not have thought she had it in her to make it through without a man, the way they were always dancing attendance on her. So many think your sex is the be-all and end-all of progress and performance.”
    “In truth,” he said with merriment in his midnight blue eyes, “I think it is women who are the be-all and end-all of most species. You are the ones who must work your minds, bodies, and souls the hardest in order to keep us going.”
    “Such a progressive thinker,” she lauded him. “And yet you war with the Demons. Quite dangerous.”
    Damien shrugged. “I like dangerous,” he said predictably.
    “And what of you?” she asked. “Have you a woman? Perchance children?”
    She wasn’t surprised when he shook his head. Damien had no interest in romantic entanglements. Nor did the idea of hearth, home, and family appeal to him in the slightest. Like Queen Elizabeth, he would probably die alone and unfettered by all those sorts of complications. And it was Damien’s predictability in matters like these that made it so delightful to be in his company. Jasmine smiled at the thought and hugged her body against his.
    “So it will be just you and me, two lone and contented bachelors, walking the centuries together,” she said happily.
    “Always,” he assured her. “Provided you manage to stay aboveground with the rest of us.”
    “I shall do my very best,” she promised