Stay the Night by Lynn Viehl Page B

slaver as a girl. He put me to work in his kitchens, and eventually I became cook. Fortunately for me, Geoffrey loved food almost as much as he does writing.”
    â€œAll of this is Braxtyn’s fault,” the suzerain said, gesturing around them. “I became a Templar only because we fell in love but could not marry. I released her from servitude before I took my vows, you know, but the damn woman didn’t want her freedom. Then I returned from the Holy Lands, cursed by God, a damned blood-drinking monster, and here she was, waiting for me with open arms.”
    â€œSomeone had to look after you,” his wife chided. To Alex she said, “He became a Templar so he could glean more stories from Holy Land pilgrims, although he always dreadfully distorted everything they told him. There was talk in Greenwich of having him hanged for the lies and immorality he published with his tales.”
    â€œThat was all the doing of Arundel,” Geoffrey said, and glanced at Alex. “He was the archbishop of Canterbury. He despised attacks on the clergy, and reformists like me who made them highly amusing. He tried twice in one day to have me killed in Greenwich.”
    â€œReally.” Alex frowned, and Michael took pity, leaned forward, and murmured the French version of Geoffrey’s surname. As soon as he did, her expression cleared. “Oh, so you’re that Geoffrey.” She put her hands on her hips. “They made me read your book in high school.”
    â€œWho said Americans had no taste?” The suzerain adjusted the frill at the end of his sleeve. “My published work remains the greatest example of classic English literature ever written.”
    â€œSure, if you can read that Middle English stuff,” Alex said. “I couldn’t have understood half the words without the modern translation on the facing page.”
    Geoffrey sniffed. “ ’Tis tragic how our noble language has deteriorated over the centuries.”
    The suzerain finished the formal introductions between his men and Michael’s while Alexandra answered Braxtyn’s questions about their journey and her first impressions of London.
    â€œI daresay Thirty St. Mary Avenue was that building you describe as a striped rocket ship—we call it ‘the Gherkin’—but I cannot recall a structure that resembles a miniature of your American house of Congress with a blue rooftop,” Braxtyn said.
    â€œI think Lady Alexandra means the Imperial War Museum,” Geoffrey put in. “Before it stored the weapons of empire building, it housed much more violent occupants. In those days it was called the Bethlehem Royal Hospital for the Insane.”
    Alex’s eyebrows rose. “It was a mental hospital?”
    â€œAn asylum—the most notorious in our country’s history, I fear,” Braxtyn admitted. “You would know it as Bedlam.” She offered Alex her arm. “Come. Let me take you to your rooms and help you settle in before Geoffrey begins describing the delights of Madame Tussauds.”
    â€œNonsense, everyone loves the waxworks,” Geoffrey called after them. “They have actors put on executions by guillotine in the Chamber Live now. There’s a wonderful exhibit on Vlad the Impaler, who may or may not have been Kyn. And who can resist watching Guy Fawkes being hung, drawn, and quartered a hundred times a day?”
    â€œThat is precisely why,” Michael heard Braxtyn say, “I never permit him to take our visitors sightseeing.”
    Michael watched as the two women walked up the wide, winding staircase leading to the upper floors. “You are blessed by your sygkenis , mon ami .”
    â€œI had heard that you were cursed with yours, but she seems most polite for a female of this time. I’m slightly disappointed.” Geoffrey gestured toward his study. “You must tell me how you curb her tongue, although I hope beatings are