Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“Yes?”

“Have you ever made love to a girl?”

“Good grief, Jules! . . . Ah, Saint, you’re just in time to save me from embarrassing questions!”

“What embarrassing questions?” he asked, smiling from Thomas’ rueful expression to his wife’s flushed face.

“I asked him if he’d ever made love before,” Jules said, thrusting up her chin, “to a girl.”

“Shall I leave, Thomas, so you can say what you will to this inquisitive wife of mine?”

“No,” Thomas said hurriedly. “Actually, Saint, I think that knock on her head must have addled her wits.”

“I think that happened a long time ago,” Saint said, and sat down on the bed beside her. “How is my impertinent patient?” Why, he wondered, had she asked such a question of her brother? He decided that he really didn’t want to know.

Jules managed a shy smile. “I’m all right,” she said. “Truly, even though I do look like a tangled raggamuffin.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a brotherly description.”

“Sure was,” Thomas said. “Now, Jules, you behave yourself and do as Saint tells you. I’ll leave you to her, Saint. I’m off to see Bunker Stevenson. Of all things, the old buzzard wants to talk to me about my future.”

“Bunker? What future? He’s not a doctor.”

“Lord only knows,” Thomas said, grinning. “If I’m not here for dinner, don’t miss me, all right?” He strode from the room, whistling, his walk cocky.

“That young man,” Saint said, “is going places.”

“I think this must have something to do with Penelope. Thomas was marvelously nasty to her last night.”

“Intrigued the little twit, huh?”

“Thomas did say that she needed a man to teach her manners. It seems he’s decided he’s just the man to do it.”

Saint laughed. “What a pair you two are. Now, Jules, let’s see how that lump is doing.”

She expected an explosion of pain, but there was only a dull throbbing at his touch. He was very close to her, his eyes intent—his doctor’s look, she thought. She felt his warm breath on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“So you should be,” he murmured, still intent on his examination. “But we won’t speak of it again for a while. Not until you’re back in top form.”

“I’m going to be twenty next month,” she said.

“Are you, now? I’d forgotten.”

“I’m not fourteen anymore, Michael.”

His hand stilled for a moment. He said slowly, “No, you’re not. You want to know something else, sweetheart? You’ve got a very colorful jaw.”

She didn’t want to talk about her wretched head or jaw, she wanted to talk about being celibate, but she was so drowsy, her head fuzzy. “When I’m in top form,” she said, her voice slurred, “then I’ll do . . .”

Saint pulled back and looked down at his sleeping wife. “What will you do, imp?” he asked softly. He gently smoothed the riotous curls from her face. Twenty years old. His mind leapt forward without pause. So many women had children by the time they were twenty. He frowned to himself even as his hand slid beneath the cover and rested lightly on her belly. He stretched his fingers, measuring the distance between her pelvic bones. He whipped his hand back, furious with himself, but he couldn’t stop the thought. She wasn’t as small as he’d believed she’d be. He left the bedroom, not looking back at her.

“It makes me so bloody angry I want to yell!”

Jules smiled at Chauncey. She was sitting up in bed, feeling quite marvelous, really, despite Michael’s insistence that she remain off her feet for another day. “Michael says Wilkes has disappeared,” she said.

“It’s true, if all of Saint’s criminal friends say so,” Chauncey said. “Thank God Thomas was there.”

“Indeed,” Jules said. She added, tired of speaking of Wilkes, “I understand your dear friend Penelope is in the throes of a transformation.”