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an elaborate bow in response.
    “Kate is not my Miss Cathcart,” said Julian. “And I must protest that her capacity for drink certainly does not exceed mine.”
    “Bloody hell it don’t,” muttered Kate.
    “And what sort of language is this, young woman? In my day a woman knew her place. And it was certainly not drinking to all hours of the night in this rakish and dissipated manner.”
    Chryse, unable to help herself, laughed. “Where was her place?” she asked. “Ma’am.”
    “Between the sheets, I expect,” muttered Aunt Laetitia’s great-nephew ungraciously.
    “You are drunk, Julian,” Aunt Laetitia said without heat. She regarded Chryse with a penetrating but distinctly non-hostile eye. “A young woman of good birth and manners was taught to manage her estates and to hunt. These days, of course, such accomplishments as embroidery, sketching, and trivial conversation are considered sufficient. It is no wonder that Miss Cathcart has taken to drink.”
    “Fortunately,” said Chryse, beginning to like Aunt Laetitia quite well, “I’m not good at sketching, but my husband is.”
    “Ah,” said Aunt Laetitia, lifting her lamp a trifle higher to examine the couple more closely. “You are married. Julian!” This in a voice long accustomed to command. “Introduce me. And then call Mistress Housekeeper and have her show them to the Gold Suite. We can discuss their predicament in the morning, when we are rested and you and Miss Cathcart are sober.”
    “Yes, Aunt,” said Julian meekly.

Chapter 3:
The Empress Of Bounty
    S HE DREAMED OF MUSIC. She often did, and woke pensive at having lost it or laughing at its awfulness. But here she dreamt of music as she never had before—a purity and simplicity of line that was so close to the truth she felt she should be seeking that she ached.
    And woke pressing herself close to her husband in an unfamiliar bed in a strange room.
    “Sanjay?” she said, sitting up startled and a little frightened before she remembered with a kind of vague unclarity the events of the night before. “Where are we?”
    Sanjay stirred and pulled her back down against him in a movement made smooth by much practice. “In bed on our honeymoon.”
    “This is not our hotel.”
    “No,” he agreed. He smiled, caressing her. “Although that didn’t seem to bother you last night.”
    She kissed him, lingering, finally disengaged herself. “I was too shocked to protest last night. I needed some kind of reassurance.” She paused. “I had the strangest dream,” she continued. “And beautiful.”
    Now he sat up. “So did I. I was on an exploratory expedition of some kind and we came on a—not quite a ruin—it was a forest with a city so perfectly intertwined with it that—I almost hate remembering it.”
    “As if,” she said slowly, “all those classes you took in archaeology and ecology and art and culture fit together perfectly.”
    “Yes.” He regarded her for a moment. “How did you know?”
    “Because I had the same dream, I think—except of music—and it had a forest in it, too. Sanjay, where are we?”
    The soft light of morning had penetrated the curtains, scattering beams across the bed. The room was furnished as if from an antique store, but the pieces had a look of well-polished newness about them. Above the fireplace hung a painting, a rather studied, sentimental pose of a mother and child, each with a halo. A fire burned in the hearth, but it was mostly coals, and dying.
    Chryse tested the floor with a foot and found rug. On a beautifully carved chair next to the bed lay draped a fine woven dressing gown. She slipped it on.
    “It’s cold,” she said, padding across the wood floor to the window. She leaned forward to look out. “This is not our hotel,” she repeated at last. “If I had to make a guess, based on these rooftops, and what I can see of the streets, and the carriages, I’d say a century or more ago. Well?” She turned to regard Sanjay a