Several days later, Adam was helping Fester dig for his pots of gold in the wine cellar at the Towers; he needed some physical activity to divert his lusty thoughts from his wife. At times he was cursing himself six ways to Sunday for being gullible enough to believe. Did Fester really have any gold? Maybe if he bribed the leprechaun with the location of the Blarney Stone, he could find the real answer to the question. Plunging his shovel into the dirt, he mused that perhaps his ship would come in with a crusty little Irishman at the helm.
Although Adam was in excellent shape, it was fortunate that only a thin layer of slate covered the cellar floor. This looking for lost pots was hard work, and he groaned as he began yet another hole. "I must be crazy," he muttered again, stopping to wipe the sweat from his brow.
Fester kept digging. "You'd be in the right place, then, Dr. Adam. But somehow I don't think it works that way."
Realizing he'd spoken aloud, Adam said, "What doesn't work what way?"
"Doctors can't be crazy. If they were, who'd treat the patients?" Fester studied his hole a moment, then turned to glance at where Adam had dug a four-foot pit.
"From the mouths of leprechauns," Adam couldn't help saying, and resumed digging.
"Ye need to dig a good two more feet there," Fester chided him gruffly.
"You're positive this is where you hid your gold?"
"Well, not positive, but possibly," Fester said. "It was a while ago, I got to admit. More than a wee bit ago. Back then I wasn't thinking too clearly, what with the king's men being at me back. I still remember the feel of their icy stares and their hope of trying to ferret out me secrets, ye ken?"
Stopping his digging once again, Adam fixed an eagle eye on Fester's baldhead. "Just how 'possibly'?" He hoped he hadn't been wasting his morning and his good clothes. But then, what did he expect? He had spent a lifetime chasing rainbows, watching his life roll by and his dreams float away like puffy clouds on a hot summer day.
Throwing another shovelful of dirt to the side, he remembered the old saying, The early pirate gets the treasure—though the one who could read a pirate map was even more likely. Just once in his life, Adam wanted to be early rather than late.
Moving to avoid a faceful of dirt from Fester's shovel, he asked for the umpteenth time that morning, "Just how possible is it that your pots of gold are here?"
"As possible as can be. I had to put them somewhere safe. This wine cellar seems as safe a place as any." Scratching his sharp little chin, he added distractedly, "If I remember correctly, the place was owned by a vampire fella at the time. I figured his wine cellar was as good a hiding place as any, since the undead may like their wine, but blood's more to their taste."
Before Adam could probe deeper into the leprechaun's memories, Eve stepped into the wine cellar, her eyes shooting sparks. "Just what is going on here? What tricks are you up to now, Dr. Adam?"
Leaning on the handle of his shovel, Adam replied, "What does it look like? We're digging for gold." She looked beautiful, as always, and mad. As always. He knew she had been avoiding him the past few days, but that was all right. He was letting her get used to his presence, just like a wolf would do when finding a new pack. Instead of moping about, Adam had immersed himself in learning all he could about the various patients and treatments, like any good doctor worth his salt. He had hoped to impress her and help with her work.
"In my wine cellar?" Eve was outraged. "Fester, you know better than to dig in the house! I've warned you time and time again!"
Fester hung his head and looked guilty, contrition weighing heavily on his features.
Swinging back to Adam, she blasted him with words, her finger jabbing him each time she drew a breath. "And you, his partner in crime. How utterly shocking, you impossible man! Who do you think you are, encouraging him in his delusions? I should have you hanged from the quarter mast." Her finger hit squarely in the center of Adam's chest with surprising force. Adam oomphed.
"But, Dr. Eve, you don't have a quarter mast," Fester began, only to be cut off by an infuriated Eve ringing a peal over her patient's head. It almost sounded like Hugo had gotten loose.
"Go to your room, Fester, and stay there! I'll deal with you later." She gave the order like the little admiral she was. Fester wisely recognized the authority behind the command, and did as told. He left the room, his head hung low.
Eve tried not to feel guilty at Fester's dismay, but did anyway. How could a cranky old leprechaun look so helpless? She sighed. Didn't she have enough problems in life without her cellar looking like a bloody graveyard? Her sane, ordered life had been turned completely upside down.
"Eve, I can explain," Adam began, cautiously trying to defuse the situation, but found himself interrupted by a fiery blue-eyed harridan.
"You scheming seducer of innocents! You pillaging proliferate pirate! How dare you add to his delusions! How dare you dig up my cellar looking for buried treasure! Isn't it bad enough I have as many holes in my garden as you need to play golf? Isn't it enough that Fester thinks everyone is after his gold? Now he has to worry about his doctor, who really isn't a doctor at all, but a thoroughly disreputable thief! For shame, to steal from a mad leprechaun. And to think just two days ago you were pretending to have such a compassionate constitution. How utterly depraved can you be?"
Sticks and stones he was used to, but name-calling still bothered him. He didn't want to lose any ground in this game of love and war, and besides, he had meant what he said; he did care about her patients. He also cared about their gold.
"I only wanted to help. Fester seemed lonely. I wanted to ease his burdens a bit. Not to mention he's getting a bit old for all this digging alone. This cellar floor is fairly hard, and he's not a young leprechaun anymore."
"You dare to mention my floors? How could you dig here?" Glancing down, she fought back a scream of frustration. It was bad enough putting up with Fester's folly, but now she had to worry about Adam encouraging Fester's delusions. "And as far as Fester being lonely, that's one for the old Blarney Stone. Fester's never met a stranger he didn't like—except in Parliament. Blast ye to smithereens, Adam. You wanted his gold. Isn't my father's treasure enough?" It hurt that after being paid to be her husband, the impossible impostor was still a gold digger. "Well, the old saying is true. If you lie down with sea dogs, you're bound to get fleeced."
Adam had been watching her carefully, and he noted the flash of vulnerability in her eyes. He backtracked, taking another tack. "I may be digging myself a deeper hole, sweetheart, but the only treasure chest I'm interested in is you." Her chest was indeed priceless, and he could see it as she stood there, bosom heaving. The flesh inside her rounded décolleté rose and sank in a dance that made very hot blood pool in his groin. He had only to look at Eve to want her fiercely. She had only to open her mouth to make him think of silky, cool sheets, hot, sweaty skin, and the musky scent of lovemaking in the air.
"Compliments won't work, Adam. And keelhauling is too good for you. You should be marooned on a desert island. You pirates are all alike. You're never satisfied, always wanting more." It burned her breeches. How could anyone who looked so magnificently male and dashing, even with dirt on his sleeves and cheek, be such a scallywag?
Eve's outrage only made Adam want her more. She was all fierce passions and primal desires, a woman any man should be proud to call his own. Lust overruled his good sense, encouraging him to tease her. "Are you casting stones at me?" he asked.
"What a delightful idea. Let me go find a nice fat one."
Ignoring that, he shrugged on his jacket. "If you won't share your treasured chest with me, then perhaps you'd like to see something I'd like to bury. It's just a matter of where to put the family jewels."
Her face reflected confusion until she realized the meaning of his words. Disconcerted all over again, she spluttered for a moment, her face turning red all the way down into the neckline of her gown.
"You… you pompous, conceited crook! You randy, roguish rake! You're beyond impossible! Hell will freeze over and pirates become members of the House of Lords before I let you… let you…" And yet, she was tempted. She was still a virgin at the advanced age of twenty-seven. Of course, she was also a doctor, and being a doctor she had gotten an eyeful on more than one occasion. She wondered at the size of Adam's hoard. She knew some men had more family jewels than others.
Oh, why had she let him kiss her? She wasn't a stupid woman. She knew that curiosity had killed three of Bluebeard's wives, and that was something she didn't want to mimic.
As Adam noted his wife's reaction, a secret thrill shot through him. She was such a passionate little thing, which boded well for the years ahead in their marriage bed. Managing an expression of contrition, he hung his head and looked suitably disconsolate. "I take that to mean no."
Shaking with rage, she lost control. "I'm warning you, stay away from Fester! Stay the bloody hell away from my patients! And most of all, stay away from me!"
"But, darling, I can't. I'm over the moon about you. Besides, my little beauty, you've got your hands full. You need me. I want to help. I need to help. I'll carry your load, carry your books, carry a tune, carry on and carry forward—anything, if you'll just let me. But most of all I want to carry you off into the sunset."
Truly, the maddening man did look sincere. With his commanding air of devilish tomfoolery, Eve found herself intrigued in spite of her better judgment. But despite his being the best kisser she had ever known, Adam Griffin's good intentions were nothing more than an illusion as false as Fester's gold.
"I mean what I say, Adam. Stay away from Fester. You're not a doctor." She added with angry dignity, "And this is an insane asylum, not a 'loony bin' or 'a house for crackbrained idiots.' I must insist you watch your wording. Some of my patients are sensitive to slurs cast upon their conditions."
Adam sighed. "You lecture me like a naughty schoolboy, but I shall contrive to remember your advice. But you must not forget that I know a few things. Remember, I cured a vampire of his oral fixation."
"In your dreams," she snapped. As if he knew anything about oral fixations. Surely he didn't know enough. He didn't know about her wicked dreams, how she had awoken in a panic. Her fantasy had seemed so real, her nipples ached. Adam had been sucking them while fondling other parts. What a wanton hussy she was! And her thoughts afterward? Now that was an oral fixation. She blushed, hating how he'd burst into her life, intruding upon her world and dreams. It sucked. Though not literally.
Adam laughed, noting his wife's blush. "In my dreams? No, I believe in yours. And, by the way, I haven't thanked you yet."
She didn't want to ask; she really didn't. She really wasn't curious. "Thank me for what?"
"For having given me such an interesting profession. I'm so glad you didn't make me a lawyer." He shuddered theatrically. "All those nasty judges to deal with. Or you could have said I was a man of business, and I'd have had to spend all my days crunching dusty old numbers. But thanks to you, I'm a doctor of the mind. I use my mouth and my head to help people. Oral fixations? I know about all things oral, as a matter of fact. Why, the things an educated man can do with his tongue are just amazing," he added outrageously, a wicked grin on his face. "I'd be happy to show you a trick or two, if I could just get you onto a couch."
"Argh!"
"You sound just like your father when you do that." He laughed. Then, moving to stand below her on the staircase and seeing her look of outrage, he added, "Don't blame me. After all, you invented me, not the other way around."
She glared at him and stormed up the stairs. He counted to five, but had only hit three when another "Argh!" followed closely on the heels of the last. He also heard words that sounded suspiciously like fickle fake and pretentious prick.
"Don't forget that tonight we're guests of the Earl of Wolverton and his wife at Vauxhall Gardens," he called up to her. "We will more or less be onstage as the happily married couple only recently reunited."
From the vulgarity of her reply, he doubted there'd be any reunion in the marital bed anytime soon.