Heroes Return by Moira J. Moore Page A

worry about the matter, my trousers were unscathed.

Chapter Eight
    We returned to the manor to find that a guest had arrived. Alex Reid, the Alex Reid, had appeared while the men were out looking for us. I was surprised by the little spurt of excitement I felt at the news. I didn’t get excited about people. It was embarrassing.
    “Thank you, Bailey,” Fiona said. “If you could let Academic Reid know that I need to freshen up and that I’ll be with him as quickly as I can.”
    “Of course, my lady.”
    Although I hadn’t seen a mirror, I was sure I looked a complete mess. “If you all would excuse me,” I said, and I headed for the closest access to stairs.
    “What’s going on?” Taro asked, striding along behind me.
    “Academic Alex Reid,” I said, taking the stairs in the court room.
    “What about him?”
    “He’s Academic Alex Reid!”
    “So what?” he growled.
    “He’s a brilliant historian, and an excellent writer. I can’t believe he’s here.” I’d had so many questions to ask him while I was still a student. I couldn’t remember any of them right then, damn it.
    “Sounds pretty boring to me,” Taro muttered.
    “Only because you don’t enjoy history. Among those who do, he’s highly admired.”
    We entered our suite.
    Which had been ransacked. Cupboards were left open, knickknacks were out of place, clothes had been pulled out of the wardrobe and drawers, and the mattress had been flipped and left half off its frame. All I could do was stare, stunned.
    Taro swore at length, his diatribe finally ending with “. . . damned Guards.”
    “That’s who you think did this?”
    “Who else could it be? Servants would only be looking for trinkets, and they wouldn’t have to search the whole room to find them. They would have left everything as they found it to avoid immediate detection. Only the Guards wouldn’t care if we knew it was them who had done this.”
    Bastards.
    I went to the overmantel and unlocked the front portion. All the casting tools appeared undisturbed. “It might be a good thing they searched our rooms. Now they won’t suspect us.”
    “They had no right to do this,” Taro snapped.
    “Of course not. But the fact that they did might make everyone safe.”
    “I still think you should write a letter of complaint to the Triple S council.”
    “Certainly.” Not that I thought it would accomplish anything. The Triple S seemed to be powerless in the face of the Emperor’s encroachment.
    We spent some time straightening up the suite. I felt odd knowing people had been rifling through our things. Had they gone through my correspondence? I still had a half-written report to the Triple S in the secretary. They had no right to be reading that. I would have to start locking the secretary.
    I washed up, and when I changed into fresh clothing I felt uneasy knowing unfamiliar hands had touched them. If I hadn’t thought it was ridiculously extravagant, I would have requisitioned an entire new wardrobe. The clothing felt dirty against my skin.
    Taro freshened up, too, changing into trim black trousers and a gorgeous red shirt, leaving his luscious black hair loose. He looked delicious. I wondered why he was making so much of an effort for a man he claimed to have never heard of. Then again, Taro always did his best to look good. We went down to the sitting room.
    Academic Alex Reid was a man in his late forties. I knew that from reading his autobiographical works. What I saw was a tall, lean man with shoulder-length brown hair, graying in places, with brown eyes and rather pale skin. He was almost plain, except when he first saw us. Because then he smiled, and it was a warm, spontaneous smile that completely transformed him into something lovely.
    “You must be Source Karish and Shield Mallorough,” he said, holding out a forearm.
    “I fear I must,” Taro said in an almost flirtatious tone that I hadn’t heard from him in a while. “For such is what I was born. It’s such