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Arthur replied with a simple,Thank you.
No surprise when he didn’t get a reply to that.
Arthur went out to the garden terrace to find Regan. He followed a lantern-lit path to the bird perch, where Gloom was happily dipping his enormous black beak into a bowl of raw and bloody meat.
“I begin to understand,” Arthur said, “the origins of the term ‘raven-ously.’”
“Hungry little buggers, aren’t they? Ravens originally came to London from the country, drawn to the carcasses of animals that used to float along the Thames from the slaughterhouses.”
“But apetraven,” Arthur said. “How does that happen?”
Regan looked over her shoulder, smiled at him. She held out her arm and let the bird climb onto her wrist. “Gloom landed on the terrace with a bent wing, and I brought in a wildlife rehabilitator to help him. Ravens have wonderful memories for humans who help them.”
“Does he bite?”
“Of course. Better to get bitten by a hawk than a raven. See?” She held out her right hand to show a pale white scar near her wrist. “He nipped me good and hard when I had to catch him that first day he landed with the broken wing.”
“That must have hurt.” He touched the scar, gently caressing it. “But you kept him anyway.”
“He was scared. Animals bite when they’re scared.”
“Is that why you bite, because you’re scared?”
She stroked Gloom lightly across the back of his head. Then she turned to Arthur. Her stare was dark, cold. “I know you’re trying to make me like you,” she said. “It won’t happen.”
“I think it’s happening.”
“It willneverhappen.”
He lowered his voice to a haunted house whisper. “It’s already begun…”
That got her to laugh, a little. A very little, but still he counted it as a win.
“Come on, Brat,” she said. “Time to work off more of your brother’s debt.” She left her bird to his bloody feast and went back into the suite.
* * *
She openedthe door to the red and gold bedroom and let him inside. The first thing he saw was his great-grandfather’s portrait hanging across from the bed, uncovered. He groaned.
“Don’t ask me to cover him up again,” Regan said. She went to the fireplace and turned on the gas. “You’ll simply have to get used to having an audience.”
“He’s my great-grandfather. Having him here is the exact opposite of taking Viagra.”
“He’s a man you’ve never even met, who has been dead for over eighty years.”
“Fine. Leave it,” Arthur said. “Let’s put on a show.”
“He’d appreciate that. Loved to watch other people fucking almost as much as he loved being watched, I hear.”
“This is not helping me to get aroused here,” Arthur reminded her.
“You’re already half-hard in your jeans. Don’t deny it.”
“Half? Maybe a third.”
She pointed at the parcel he was still clutching. “Is that the artwork you brought to play in honor of dear old Great-Granddad?”
“I did. Sort of. It’s only a signed lithograph. We have a Georgia O’Keeffe, but skulls aren’t nearly as erotic as her flowers.”
