The Time Tutor Read Online Free Page B

found himself confronted with a gaze both penetrating and contemptuous, and a mouth firmed in disapproval. His wig suddenly itched. “Er,” he said, awkwardly dropping into the chair that faced hers. “May I offer you . . .” His sentence fizzled. He had nothing to offer but the dregs of some barely passable brandy.
    The young woman smoothed her hands over the material of her cloak, and he realized that, like an ass, he hadn’t offered to take it from her. Now she was sitting and it was too late for courtesies.
    â€œNo thank you,” she said, in answer to the question he’d never asked. “Mr. Vogelstein, I assume you summoned me here for a purpose. I am in full possession of all knowledge that I might need and I have no interest in learning anything from you. But I am interested in finding out more about you. I represent an organization that oversees what we know about time, and you are not on any of our official rosters.”
    â€œYou are in full possession, are you, my pretty one?” Dar got his gumption up and waded in once more, attempting to save the situation. He waggled his eyebrows, exactly as his own, loathsome tutor had done. “Full possession, you say? I very much doubt it. But you are lucky! I”—and here he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“I am the greatest time traveler of them all, able to bend the hours to my smallest whim. And you, you are chosen by the stars to learn my secrets.”
    The girl got to her feet. “Mr. Vogelstein,” she said, “you are clearly either a fraudster or delusional, or both. I take my leave of you. Expect further investigation by my organization.” She turned and headed to the door.
    â€œConfound it!” Dar scrambled to his feet, grabbed the wig from his head, and threw it on the ground. Then he ripped off his spectacles, threw them down, too, and ground them under his heel. “Beelzebub and all his demons in hell! Come back here!”
    The girl turned slowly and stared at him. “Pardon me?”
    Dar crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her, his temper flown away with the smoke up the chimney. “Goddammit, you blasted chit, sit down. If you won’t take your medicine with sugar, I’ll give it to you neat.”
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    Alva turned to find the time tutor transformed in a moment from a hunched-over charlatan in a moth-eaten wig and spectacles that gave back the light of the candles into a tall, broad-shouldered man with wiry black hair and angry dark eyes. The schoolmaster’s outfit looked ridiculous on him, now that he was standing at his full height and radiating outrage. She blinked, and then, although she was still pulsing with rage, she found herself fighting back a smile. He was a rogue. And, for her sins, Alva liked rogues. She admired the way they tweaked the world by the nose; she admired their gambler’s spirit. And she liked sparring with them. “My medicine ?” She took not one step back toward the chairs. “Do you think I am ill, sir? I assure you I am very well. You are the one in need of a physic.”
    The man achieved his goal by taking two steps toward her. He was tall, and he loomed over her. He was angry, but the threatening stance was bluster. She could tell by the way he moved; he wouldn’t hurt a flea, at least not physically. He would choose, instead, to blister a flea with verbiage, or confound a flea with a smoke-and-mirrors story, or failing all that, hail a flea as a friend and offer it a drink.
    She liked him. She looked up at him: A frowning mouth set beneath a hawk nose. His eyes were tea brown, and his black eyebrows were all saturnine angles. She liked him very much. He was handsome, not because his features were beautiful, but because they were harsh, and vital, and entirely expressive of his volcanic mood. He was both thrilling and just a little absurd. It was a