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Maybe Van didn’t need to punish the professor. Maybe he — and Mary — just had to make sure he couldn’t get away from Harriet Gilmour. Now that was punishment.
Mary signaled her idea to Van. Smart boy. He picked it up from her hand gestures right away. A wicked smile spread across his face.
He nodded and moved behind and to the side of Mrs. Gilmour. Mary staked out the other flank.
Breckenridge, still on his hands and knees, looked upatMrs.Gilmour,twistingandcraninghisneck.His expression — sheer terror.
Breckenridge finally gathered the gumption to scuttleaway,stillonallfours.Hisheadingwouldtake him a yard or two away from Mrs. Gilmour’s left side. Hedidn’thavemuchchoice,thankstopoolandparty furniture.
He spotted Van.
Van grinned wolfishly.
Breckenridge stopped. He set off to the right, as far away from Van as possible, even though the professor’s course would take him perilously closer to Mrs. Gilmour.
Thepoolwassurroundedbyhardceramictilesthat couldn’t feel too agreeable on his knees.
Good.
Mary planted herself in his path.
He winced.
Mary slipped her shoe off. She bent down to pick it up. She tapped the sharp, three-inch stiletto against her palm.
Breckenridge paled.
He stuttered to his feet. He held his forearms out in front defensively. He stripped off his black bow tie and wrapped it quickly around one of his trembling but knotted fists. Smart man. In real life, people usually messed up their own knuckles when they punched someone in the face. This would be interesting. Would the professor actually try to plant his fist on Mary’s person?
Lancelot crept closer. He was, in the normal course ofevents,closetotheground,buthecroucheddown the rest of the way and slunk over to stretch out flat on the poolside tile floor behind the professor.
Saint Bernards never have much hope of remaining unnoticed, and Guinevere didn’t try as she bounded over to Lancelot. She lowered her huge nose under his belly. She flipped him backward enough to make room for her own bulk. She stretched out as a canine mountain between the professor and her mate.
Lancelot whined, but accepted it when she hunkered down. He wiggled closer to her, and she stretchedamassive,protectivepawaroundhisneck. He cuddled into it and raised an adoring glance at her.
Mary smiled. Lancelot couldn’t be a lover and a warrior at the same time, and Mary thought he’d made a good choice between the two for now.
“I’m so-o-o-o glad I found you, Professor,” Mrs. Gilmour screeched. “I so-o-o-o want you to autograph my book.”
Panic and vanity warred across Breckenridge’s face. He cast a quick glance toward Van, who was standing stock still, albeit with fists clenched. That left only Mrs. Gilmour for the professor to panic over.
Vanity won out. He peered at the book in her hand. His lip curled into a sneer. “It’s not my acclaimed treatise on the Romantic poets.”
“Of course not. I haven’t read yours. But this one talks about poetry, doesn’t it?”
She thrust her book at him. He stepped back and to the right. Mary caught his glance and casually stroked her stiletto heel against her neck. He leaped to the left, and to the left again.
But that brought him closer to Mrs. Gilmour. She tried to force a pen into his hand, the one not wrapped up in his bow tie. He tried to bat away her hand and her pen.
That wasn’t a good idea. She stabbed him in the abdomen with the pen instead.
Accident? Intentional? Who knew?
The professor yelped. He looked one way and saw Van, fists still clenched and fighter stance still in place. Breckenridge looked the other way, toward Mary and her shoe. She gave it a good swing for practice.
His eyes bulged, darting back and forth, as though he thought they would stop seeing what they were seeing if he looked and then looked away and then looked again often enough. When that didn’t happen, he cast his gaze toward the sky, as though he might find help there. That didn’t happen either.
He batted the book of poetry out of Mrs. Gilmour’s hand.Thetinytomesailedintothepoolwithasplash far beyond its size.
