“I’m Silvan’s wife, Nell, by the bye,” the pretty fortyish woman said. “Dageus’s next-mother. Would ye be liking some kippers and tatties, lass?”

She decided next-mother must be the medieval equivalent of second wife. “It’s, er, very nice t-to meet you. And yes, I would,” Chloe stammered, sinking limply down into her chair.

Only then did Dageus reclaim his seat. He was staring at her intensely, his gaze full of sensual promise. She shivered. His expression couldn’t have said any more clearly that Chloe Zanders had kept her virginity quite long enough.

“You look lovely this morn, lass,” he said silkily, as he passed her first a platter of potatoes and eggs, then one of fat wedges of ham and kippers. “I fancy you in a gown.” His eyes added that he knew there’d been nothing to put beneath it when she’d gotten dressed, intimating that he was the one who’d chosen her gown and brought it to her room while she’d slept.

Her erotic awareness of the man—an eleven on a scale of one to ten—rocketed to a twenty. Chloe took a deep breath, managed a “thank-you” and turned her attention toward something tangible to tackle: food.

Simon Barton-Drew’s face was grim as he replaced the phone in the cradle.

Trevor hadn’t phoned in for fourteen hours. Simon had been trying to reach him on his cell since early that morning, with no success.

And that could mean only one thing.

Scowling, he kicked a chair across the room. Trevor had better be dead, he brooded.

Stalking to the outer door of his office, he swiftly locked it. Before closing the blinds, he glanced out at the rain-slicked street. With the exception of a mangy alley cat noisily wrestling a bit of trash from a nearby Dumpster, the area was deserted, the street lamps buzzing as they flickered on. As much time as he spent in the dilapidated Belthew Building on Morgan Street in a seedy section on London’s outskirts, Simon felt more at home there than in the elegant brownstone where his wife had stopped waiting dinner for him twenty years ago.

The land on which The Belthew Building stood had been owned by the Druid sect of the Draghar for centuries. Constructed above ancient labyrinthine crypts, it had served as their headquarters for nearly a millennia, in various incarnations. Once an apothecary, then a bookstore specializing in rare books, then a butcher’s shop, once even a brothel, it now housed a small printing business that drew little notice, and there was no paper trail connecting it to the powerful Triton Corporation.

Their members were the elite, well-placed in society, many in government, more still in the upper echelons of large holding companies. They were wealthy, learned men with impeccable pedigrees.