"But why the Clarendon, Holmes?"

The cab rattled over the pavement at a pace that precluded any sort of diversion.

"Because that is where Lord Bexbrough and Mrs. Bellamy are going. I shouldn't be surprised if we see Miss Adler there as well. The King of Bohemia is the host."

"Good gracious."

"His wife, of course, remains at home in Bohemia with the children."

"Of course." The cab stopped; we got out and Holmes paid the driver. "But Holmes, we haven't been invited."

"Yes we have," he said, holding up a card. "His Majesty may have a lamentably medieval sense of his own privilege and worth, but one cannot charge him with the sin of ingratitude."

The party had taken over one of the private salons downstairs at the hotel. The richness of the room itself and the opulence of the fare provided could not entirely outshine the glittering company that moved through it. Holmes, ever more current with society gossip than I was, bent his head to murmur to me occasionally. "The Duchess of Chatham... Lord Gothingham... the notorious Madame Violante... ah, here we are." He gestured across the room at a pair arranged on a Louis Seize sofa. "The so-called Mrs. Bellamy and her most recent admirer."

"So-called?" I said, as my eyes traveled from Lord Bexbrough's slender form to Mrs. Bellamy's decolletage.

"I suppose you would not necessarily know that George Anne Bellamy was one of Britain's more celebrated actresses during the previous century," he said. "Sic transit gloria mundi. That name is assumed, Watson."

"And do you know who she really is?"

"No. No more do I know whether that trinket presently draping her is genuine." I looked. The snake brooch was pinned to the bodice of her dress. "That is what you are going to find out."

"I?" I demanded.

"The fair sex is your department, Watson."

"You want me to do what, exactly?" I whispered fiercely, as we withdrew behind a potted plant for privacy.

"I want you to get that brooch away from her."

"And how do you suggest I do that?"

"I'm sure that as a man of the world--"

"Holmes!" I had to work not to raise my voice. "Of all the dishonourable--"

"Watson, this woman is definitely a homebreaker and probably a jewel thief. You are not injuring her, really; you are merely preventing her from injuring another."

"I seem to recall hearing that somewhere before."

"Once you have the brooch off, test it against a windowpane or a crystal goblet. If the stones are real they will cut glass. You may then return it to her and make your escape."

I glared at him. I knew that I was about to accede to his request. He knew that also, and smiled.

"And what will you be doing while I seduce Mrs. Bellamy?" I inquired.

"I will be finding out what Mr. Godfrey Norton is doing here and who invited him."

His eyes went to the drinks table, where Mr. Norton was obtaining a large brandy.

"Very well, Holmes," I said with a sigh.

Providentially, Lord Bexbrough withdrew to join some other gentlemen at a party of cards. Before Mrs. Bellamy could follow, I was approaching the couch with two glasses of champagne.

"Good evening," I said. "May I offer you some champagne?"

Mrs. Bellamy looked up with a smile that I felt would not be out of place on the face of a cat, or a snake.

"Why thank you, Mr..."

"Sigerson," I said, handing her one of the glasses.

"Mr. Sigerson. How delightful of you to guess exactly what I wanted."

"It is pure luck," I answered, sitting on the sofa near her. "I happened to see that your friend was churlish--and foolish--enough to leave you unattended for a moment, and inspiration struck."

I was a little alarmed to see that her glass of champagne was already half empty.

"I suppose you are tired of men telling you how fascinating you are, and how enthralling your performance was as Mrs. Cheveley," I said.

"Oh not in the slightest," she answered, sitting up and sliding closer to me. "I find I can listen to people talk about me for hours without its becoming tedious."

"Then I am a lucky man," I murmured, trying to smile at her as Holmes left me to my fate.

---

"I just need to touch up my powder," Irene said, leaning close to me to whisper it. "I won't be a moment."

"Of course," I said, and released her arm. She handed her half-empty glass to me. I set it on the end table next to my own. Ordinarily the most I drink is a little wine with dinner, but I felt a need to keep my courage up, and the champagne seemed to be working admirably.

She tossed a backward glance at me as she left the room, as if to reassure me that she was coming back. I hoped she was, because without her I suddenly felt exposed. Somehow as long as she was with me I felt that I was protected from suspicion and scrutiny, and that no one questioned my fraudulent masculinity. Alone, I suddenly became conscious of myself as a woman in an ill-fitting man's suit whose secret would be obvious to anyone who took a close look, and had a slightly open mind.

I scanned the party looking for Lord Bexbrough and the brooch. Lord Bexbrough was involved in losing some of Lady Bexbrough's money, and had not spared a thought for me--or indeed for the now-neglected Mrs. Bellamy--for some time. Mrs. Bellamy was reclining on the sofa while some other man made love to her. His back was to me, but I felt there was something familiar about the set of his shoulders and the shape of his head.

I was about to move closer to investigate when I heard Irene's voice in the corridor. She was not shouting, but it was definitely not a conversational tone.

"No. I tell you I have had enough. You have your paramour and your pigeon, you don't need my help."

There was an inarticulable murmur, from a male voice.

"Excuse me, Mr. Norton, but I am afraid I am expected in the salon." And then, in a fierce and barely audible whisper, "Let go of me!"

Not thinking much about what I would do when I got there, I strode out into the corridor and around a corner to find Irene Adler administering a stinging slap to the cheek of Mr. Norton. Relieved to see that no interference was called for, I was about to retire, when I saw him seize her by the wrist and wrench her arm behind her back.

"You won't drop me like this," he growled at her, pushing her against the corridor wall.

"I will and have," she spat back. "And if you think you can manhandle me in public--"

I knew she could take care of herself. And yet something seemed to propel me to action. The trousers, perhaps.

"Unhand her at once, sir!" I shouted, bearing down on them. "What do you mean by treating a lady in such a brutal fashion! Have you no shame, sir?"

Norton let go of her and turned to face me, stranded at first somewhere between astonishment and confusion. Then he recovered his ill-humour.

"This is between man and wife," he snarled at me. "I will not be meddled with by a boy."

Before he could return to her, I drew off Lord Bexbrough's gloves and slapped him across the face with them. He looked up, dumbfounded.

"What the devil--"

"Now that I have insulted you, I must give satisfaction," I said, bowing. "Do name the time and place, and I will bring the pistols. I always use Don Castillo as my second in these matters--you will find him in his rooms at the Hotel De Ville. From whom shall I tell him to expect a call?"

Norton gaped.

"Do not tell me you can't think of a second. How often do you duel, sir?"

"I beg your pardon," Norton answered. "I did not at first take your meaning. I will simply step back into the salon and ask him to meet you here. I will return in a moment."

Norton went back up the corrdior in haste. Irene took my ungloved hand and ran down the corridor, towing me in her wake.

The stairwell that she ducked into was dimly lit; the carpet, the painted walls, and she were all limned softly in yellow. I leaned back against the closed door, breathing hard.

"I can't believe he fell for it," I said, half-laughing.

Irene pressed my hand in both of hers. "You were wonderful, Victor. Not oversubtle, but subtlety is wasted on him."

She was close to me now, one hand brushing the shoulder of my borrowed jacket. I lifted one hand to the back of her head, feeling the warmth of her breath on my face, feeling my breast straining against the binding as I leaned in to kiss her.

Her lips parted gently, at first. Then I felt them returning the pressure, and her tongue sliding quick and deliberate between mine. Both my hands were in her hair now, and one of hers was traveling down my back over the seat of my trousers. My heart strained. My blood stirred. She plunged deep into my mouth, and then withdrew, taking my breath away with her.

Looking at the tiara slipping a little on her head, I had a sudden chill of panic as I realized what had happened.

"I think I've had too much champagne," I murmured thickly.

"I think I've had just enough," she answered, her lips almost touching mine.

"I came here with a job to do," I whispered, driven somehow to confess. "But I can't leave you. I'm not that strong."

She ran a hand over the back of my neck and into my hair. "I'm sure it can wait."

Her mouth closed over my ear. More sighing than speaking, I said, "So am I."

"The King has a private suite on the fifth floor," she murmured. "With his infernal arrogance he has told the staff there to expect me."

"But--" With her kissing my neck I could hardly think straight. "Won't he be using it?"

"He will be in the salon talking politics and getting drunk for another three hours at least," she said.

I kissed her again. When I paused, all I could say was, "I will do anything you ask."

She smiled, a little sadly.

"Never tell a woman that," she said. "She might try to take advantage."

She took me by my trembling hand and led me up the stairs.

---

"I can't believe you brought us here," I whispered, staring at the satin quilt spread out over the double bed.

Irene kissed me again, lifting the hat off my head and tossing it into a corner. "I tell you we have nothing to worry about," she murmured, when her mouth was free again. "The King always liked to keep me waiting."

"Then he is an imbecile," I retorted, seizing her around the waist.

She laughed, turning in my embrace and letting me run my hands up to cradle her breast. I slipped one hand down over the fabric of her bodice and pressed her hips against mine. I could hear the whisper of her satin skirt as she writhed against me, stretching her neck out to the touch of my lips.

I stumbled backward. She broke the embrace, but only to take my hand and lead me to the bed, giving me a gentle push that dropped me backward onto the quilt.

Irene climbed over me as I slid up toward the pillows, covering my mouth with hers, and undoing my necktie with expert dexterity.

Before long my jacket had followed my hat and her tiara into the hinterlands, and the collar of my shirt had sprung loose. When she pulled out the shirttails and undid the buttons, she was startled at first by the cotton underneath. Then she realized.

"You'll have to sit up," she said, lifting me in her arms. Her fingers found the end of the binder and she began unwrapping me.

I was so flush with relief at being free of it that at first I didn't notice her little exclamation of dismay. Then I felt her fingers traveling lightly over my breast, and heard her voice sharpen in concern.

"Oh Victor, you've hurt yourself." I opened my eyes. She was examining the skin around one of my nipples, which had been rubbed red by the binder. "If you are going to to this, you absolutely must wear a silk chemise underneath. Those binders will rub the skin right off you. Here." She disappeared, hunting in the shadows for her handbag.

"Irene," I said, appreciating the concern but damning the interruption.

"I've got it," she said, crawling back onto the bed with a small glass bottle in one hand. "This is what I use--I always put some on after the show. Just let me take care of this for a moment."

I dropped my head back on the pillow. I had said I would do anything she asked.

The lotion was cool on my skin, sliding under her fingers as she worked it gently into the skin surrounding my wounded nipple. When her lips closed around it, I was startled by the warmth. And by the thrill that ran all the way through my body as her caress modulated from tender to passionate.

Of their own accord, my hands drew her head into the valley between my breasts, my legs working slowly against hers. She reached down to undo the fastenings on my trousers. I kicked them off with an irritation that made her laugh. Laugh, and then sigh as I reached around to undo the hooks and eyes on the back of her dress.

"One thing that can be said for you," she breathed as I slid the satin bodice down off her bosom. "You know how to undress a woman."

I did; but it was not the first time that it had occurred to me that in a perfect world, undressing a woman would not be quite this difficult. By the time I had her corset off, and she had peeled off her own hose, we were both a little frustrated. But watching her kneel above me, wearing nothing but candlelight and her glorious skin, I forgot everything.

"You are unbelievably beautiful," I said. "Any man who does not cry out in joy every time he sees you is a fool and a blackguard."

She came back to me, stretching her body out along mine, rolling me over on top of her as I searched her mouth.

"I have known a lot of fools and blackguards," she panted, looking up at me with dark and blurred eyes.

"I am not one of them," I said, and then my mouth was busy at her breast.

And from the curves of her breasts as they woke to my touch down the hollow under her ribs to the soft mound of her belly, my mouth traveling lower as my hands trailed behind it, until drawn over the white curves of her legs and back along the impossibly soft skin of her thighs, I was led through shuteyed and selfwilled darkness by scent and warmth alone to the heart of the grove.

If you have ever tasted a woman, you know what I felt. If you never have, I cannot hope to describe it to you.

My hands slid under her hips and tightened on the soft flesh of her buttocks. Satin churned around us as her thighs ploughed like a straining horse's, brushing past my ears and against my hair. I felt her muscles tighten in my hands, heard her breath coming loud and rough, rising to a strange and almost frightening cry. I was in a world that I had never dreamed could exist and if you had asked me at that moment what city I lived in or who I worked for I doubt I could have told you. What I could have told you was that I wanted nothing more than to stay in that valley of spices forever, or at least until one or both of us fainted away out of sheer exhaustion.

But Irene did not faint, and neither did I. The tremble in her flesh rocked mine. I shuddered to the core. When I felt her hands tugging at my hair I did not resist, but allowed her to haul me up to face her, and to grip my head in both of her suprisingly strong hands.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her voice hoarse and her breath still unsettled.

"I ... I can't tell you..." I stammered.

"Oh no," she said, tightening her grip. "You tell me who you are and how to find you or you are not leaving this room intact. I will not be loved and left, not by you."

Her voice was breaking, and there were tears in her eyes. It had never occurred to me that Irene Adler could possibly care enough for me to be hurt by anything I might do. To see that she did broke my heart.

"My name is Violet Hunter," I cried, tears rushing out along with my passion. "I am a poor governess with no fortune from no family. Everything I own fits into one large trunk and one small valise. I have nothing in the world but a few dresses, some battered luggage, and fifty pounds in the bank. Even the clothes I met you in belong to my employer's husband. I cannot marry you, I cannot take you away from all this, I certainly cannot support you in the style to which you are accustomed. But what I am is yours, and I will love you as long as you let me."

Irene's chin quivered as she broke up into a cry. Her arms wrapped themselves around my shoulders and drew me back to her breast.

"You poor child," she wept, refusing to relax her grip. "You don't even know me."

"Yes I do."

I felt her body go rigid. At the same time, I heard a furious burst of German from the doorway to the bedroom, which had just been flung open.

"What in the name of heaven!" bellowed a deep masculine voice.

I scrambled for the coverlet. Irene rose up on the bed, unafraid and even, it seemed to me, triumphant. My eyes flicked fearfully toward the figure in the doorway. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders, a fine form, and what seemed to me an excessively rich dress. He was also, evidently, the King of Bohemia.

"I'm glad to see you, your Majesty," she said, her voice dripping icicles. "I came here to return something that belongs to you."

She got off the bed, stark naked, and began rummaging in that handbag. She extracted what looked to me like a large square of cardboard that had been folded into many much smaller squares. She unfolded it, and began methodically tearing along the creases, until whatever it was had been reduced to tiny bits. Then she flung the pieces at him.

She had wanted them to strike him, as violently as her arm had flung itself toward him. But instead they fluttered through the air. I saw them gleam in the light and recognized them as fragments of a photograph. A photograph that had at one time included him, and her.

"Now, perhaps," she said, returning to the bed and putting her arms around me, "you will be satisfied. And now, perhaps, your henchmen will see fit to leave me in peace."

"In peace!" the King roared. "I cannot bear to think that I ever touched something so vile. My God! This is a thousand times worse than any harm that photograph could have done me."

"Is it," said Irene, with a deadly smile. "I thought it would be."

The King turned away with a German curse.

"Now perhaps," Irene said, "you might be a gentleman, and allow us to dress in quiet."

The slam of the door was all that let us know he had assented.

Now it was my turn to seize her in a grip she might well have wanted to break.

"Did you plan this?" I demanded. "Have I been your dupe, all night long?"

Her hands reached up to stroke mine, trembling with agitation and fear.

"No. Yes. Maybe. I don't know," she cried, trying to tear herself free.

"Make it one or the other!" I shouted.

Her voice caught in her throat, and for a while she struggled as if she couldn't breathe. Then it came out, in interrupted spurts.

"I wanted to hurt him--I knew this would hurt him--I knew that if we used this room there was a good chance--"

"You--"

"--but I wanted to be with you!" she burst out. "I wanted--the minute you kissed me--I wanted you--I would have--done anything--King or no King--"

My hands relaxed, beginning to tremble like hers. She slid up against me, hanging on like a drowning woman as her head rested on my shoulder.

"I used you like I have been used," she cried. "I can make no excuse for it. But I want you--desperately--I feel I could--that I have never loved anyone--like I could love you--"

"And you don't even know me," I said, drawing back and looking into her tear-shot eyes.

She swallowed. "But I do," she answered.

I drew her back to my breast. She sighed, and folded her arms around me.

"I told you I came here to do a job," I said.

"Yes," she murmured.

"I work for Lady Bexbrough."

She drew back. "Violet," she said. "Do you know--"

"I know that Mrs. Bellamy is Lord Bexbrough's mistress and that he has stolen his wife's jewels to give to her," I said.

"Oh no," she said, shaking her head. "Violet, you don't know the half of it."

"Well," I said. "If you love me, you'd better tell me the other half."