Eve scowled as she hurried toward the bell tower and the batty dwarf in the belfry. Adam had sprung up as well, and caught up to her, while Mrs. Fawlty, ever the busybody, tackled the major. Teeter, who was following fast on the housekeeper's heels, stumbled over the pair, and the patients and staff cheered them all on to the accompaniment of the bells.
"It's a good thing your loony bin is located in the country, more or less, since town neighbors would be up in arms over this ringing at all bloody hours of the day and night," Adam panted as they ran.
Eve remained silent. This husband-and-wife deal was for the birds.
"Why does Hugo feel the need to ring bells constantly?" Adam asked.
"Besides the fact that he's insane?" Eve snapped.
"Besides that."
She reluctantly explained: "The monks in the monastery where he grew up were busy with other duties, so Hugo spent much of his time as the bellboy. With his deformity and surly temperament, he ended up a crotchety, hunchbacked dwarf. His mother spoiled him, giving him everything he wanted while she was alive. Therefore, Hugo feels as if the world owes him, and he rings the bell to call attention to that."
As they passed the massive fountain, Mrs. Monkfort waved, then returned to her thorough cleaning of the statues. Mr. Pryce was rubbing his legs together behind Mrs. Monkfort's back.
"Hugo can be charming upon rare occasions, but he is mean-spirited when he doesn't get his way. He even cheats."
"Cheats?" Adam asked, glancing back and seeing Mrs. Monkfort drop her sponge as Mr. Pryce buzzed her. This tickled Adam's funny bone, and he found himself chuckling.
Eve narrowed her eyes at him. "Cheating, like any dishonesty, is never a laughing matter."
"I apologize. Please continue," he said with a playful grin.
Eve's eyes narrowed further, for his handsome face appeared even more devastating in the faint moonlight. "You do know, Adam, that I'm not some dim-witted debutante looking for a husband, nor some loose-skirted floozy searching for a tricky, tempting rake?"
"Ah, so you find me tempting! My, my—I am coming up in the world."
"You only had up to go," she responded.
He laughed. "So, how does this cranky dwarf cheat?"
"It's not important."
"You brought it up."
"Oh, very well. We vote on dinners once a month. It cheers the patients to have a say in their daily lives. The most votes decides a meal. Or at least it should—except, Hugo has a habit of breaking into wherever I happen to hide the ballots. Then he marks them all to his favorite meal. An appalling one. At first I didn't understand what was happening, but after the last two polls being such a disaster, I investigated. I found out then what the little devil did."
Curious as well as amused, Adam had to ask. "What is this appalling meal?" Surely it wasn't all that bad.
Eve's nose wrinkled in distaste. "Boiled cabbage and herring."
She was right: the combination was appalling. Adam grimaced. "So, we have a mean-spirited, cheating dwarf who has a taste for breaking and entering?"
"With bells on," she said in resignation. "Yes, that about sums up Hugo Lambert. Unfortunately, his father was a thief with an amazing ability to unlock any lock. Hugo evidently learned from him. His father was also a powerful warlock who seduced a Gypsy, Hugo's mother. When his father married another, his mother gave her lover mal de ojo."
Adam nodded. "The evil eye."
"You speak Spanish?" she asked, surprised, as they drew nearer the bell tower.
"In my travels I picked it up."
"When you were a pirate?" Eve couldn't help asking, curious about this strangely odd and attractive man by her side even though she knew that he was a shrewd schemer and certainly could in no way be construed as a romantic interest. All speculation was definitely against her best scientific judgment.
"No. I wasn't a pirate in Spain. Although it's true that I have been a pirate and a poet—and a prankster, a pugilist, and a pauper, a butcher, a baker, and even once a candlestick maker," he added with a shrug. "But in Spain, finding myself on the horns of a dilemma, I was a bullfighter for an extremely short while."
"You? That sounds like a cock-and-bull story to me," she said. "But with you, one never really knows." Arriving at the gate to the bell tower, she ventured a further question, wondering if he would lie: "Have you ever long worked in honest employment?"
He sent her a brief look of aggravation. "Why, of course, my dear. In many ways I am an honest man. I must say that I've enjoyed such employment as well as the dishonest. After all, life's an adventure whether you're a king or a pirate, a vicar or a vampire." He returned their conversation to the subject of the dwarf. "I take it the evil eye somehow affected Hugo, from what you said?"
"Yes, the Gypsy's curse carried over to her son. That curse, I fear, damned her son to madness."
"Have you tried to find a cure for the curse?" Adam asked as they opened the wooden door to the belfry.
"Of course," she shouted, to be heard over the loudly clanging bells. "I even consulted Dr. Jekyll of Edinburgh. But he failed as well."
Adam was impressed: Dr. Jekyll was the premier authority on ancient curses.
As he stepped inside, he noted that the circular bell tower was lit with flickering tapers. The erratic light glinted off the dense stone walls, casting shadows everywhere. He winced and covered his ears, as Eve did hers, since the bells were deafening in the enclosed space. They both scampered up the spiral staircase.
Although it was only a minute, he felt as if it had been at least an hour before he stepped into the uppermost tower room. Wall sconces lit a large area where two massive bells swung back and forth. Taking his hands from his ears, Adam noticed that the noise here was less intense. Part of the sound was carried away by the open architecture, as all four sides were open to the air, with only thick stone columns to support the roof. Adam watched as Eve shook a fist at Hugo, her posture rigid. The hunchbacked dwarf did not see her. He was swinging jauntily on the ropes attached to the undercarriage of the bells, cackling gleefully. Two large handkerchiefs were stuffed in his ears.
"Hugo Lambert, you get down this minute!" For such a little female, Eve had a booming voice. Hugo, however, his body wrapped around a thick hemp rope, his deranged little face merry, thoroughly ignored her. Eve shook her fist, then slipped off her slippers.
"What are you doing?" Adam yelled, frowning.
"Climbing up there with him to try to talk him down," she shouted.
Grabbing hold of her arm, he shook his head. "Too dangerous. I'll go."
"Nonsense. I've been doing this for years—climbing crow's nests and whatever else."
"My wife shouldn't place herself in such an undignified position. Especially when I'm an expert on climbing too," he argued at the top of his lungs.
Cocking a brow, she appeared amused. "Let me guess. A… mountaineer?"
"Close. I had a tree house as a child," he yelled, stripping off his jacket. "Besides, I'm bigger. I won't allow you to risk that delectable neck. The bells aren't going to toll for you—not if I'm around."
So saying, he shimmied up the rope, his muscles showcased by his black trousers and white shirt, bulging and straining as he climbed.
Watching Adam wrap his legs around the rope, Eve stared unabashedly at his broad back and the tautness of his buttocks in those buff breeches. The cad really was too attractive for his own good. She sighed. Couldn't he be blessed with bowlegs and a scrawny back? Of course not.
As she watched, Adam shouted something at Hugo that she couldn't make out. Hugo stopped swinging for a moment, studied Adam, and then smiled, his crooked yellow teeth showing. Without further ado, the dwarf scurried down with Adam close behind.
Slightly stunned, Eve watched Hugo bow and hobble out the door. Adam let go of the rope and dropped the last few feet to the ground, his shirt damp with sweat. Oddly, she found the sight erotic.
"Whatever did you say to get him down?" she asked be-grudgingly. She had never gotten Hugo to quit ringing his chimes so quickly. And the silence inside the bell tower was absolutely marvelous.
He bowed formally, grinning. "How do you think? I bribed him."
Rubbing her forehead, she grumbled in exasperation. "I should have known."
Adam chucked her on the cheek, laughing. "Your eyes speak volumes. You're irritated."
"How did you bribe him?" Right now she didn't like Adam one bit. Even if he did have a fine backside, maybe even the finest she'd ever seen. However, her practical side won out. If Hugo could be bribed, she certainly wanted to know how.
"Why, with boiled cabbage and herring, of course."
Eve stamped her foot in frustration. "That's so simple! I can't believe I didn't think of it," she said.
Adam glanced at her thoughtfully as they walked down the spiral staircase. "I wonder, can you be bribed?"
His eyes were dancing mischievously, but also seemed rather serious.
"I am made of sterner stuff," she replied. "So forget nosegays, chocolates, or any of the hearts-and-flowers stuff. I was raised on a pirate ship."
"How about some nice, fresh fish?" he joked.
"Not in this lifetime," she snapped. "I'm not that fond offish."
"Surely you want something. Perhaps my devotion, my heart… ?" The words seemed to echo in the tower, along with their footsteps on the stone stairs.
"You were paid to be here," Eve reminded him curtly. His gaze was much too serious, his words too romantic. She didn't want to feel so warm inside. Yet she could feel heat stealing through her, like after she indulged in a fortifying glass of brandy. She didn't like feeling special because Adam admired her beauty and her wit. She was a doctor. She didn't have time for emotions. His words of adoration and love were merely words, with no real substance. What fool fell in love like this, just because he made her patients laugh? Perhaps she found his wit amusing at times, but that didn't mean she was willing to risk her heart. Her father had done precisely that seven times, and only got it right once. Then her mother died, and the captain had almost gone mad with grief. Her grand-mother had loved her grandfather dearly, only to unearth that he had a vampire mistress. Right after her grandmother's grim discovery, Eve's grandfather died, leaving Ruby to lose herself in her creeping madness. "This isn't real. We're merely playing house," she said. "And by the way, I'd thank you not to engage in the game so ardently."
He grabbed her arm and turned her toward him. Taking her hand, he placed it on his chest. "I'm real, Eve. Feel the way my heart beats for you. I've never felt this before. You make my heart sing. You make my head ring. You make every—"
"Stop! That's just Hugo's bells. Besides, a rogue is always a rogue, and a pirate is always a pirate."
He grinned. "I'm wild about you. How could I not be? It's not every female who could invent a man as debonair, handsome, talented, and adorable as myself—and then end up with him."
"You would have me forget your deception?"
"Life is too short. If all you do is work, someday you'll wake up and find that life has passed you by. That love is only a four-letter word. You need a man who fires your blood, who drives you mad with desire, who flies you to the stars when you make love. I am that man."
His soulful look nearly melted her heart. She could almost believe him, here in the moonlight where romance hung heavily in the air. But staring back into his twinkling eyes, she chided, "It'll take more than poetic words to win my affections. I'm not like my father, falling in love at a glance through rum goggles." And with those words, she slipped through his fingers and off to her study.