It was a dark and stormy afternoon somewhere, Dorian thought happily as he leaned back on a stone bench next to a playing fountain. The north-of-France sky was blue with sunshine, and the Major was at his side. Dorian sighed in bliss and leaned back again, this time onto the Major’s knee. There were some advantages to being on a wild goose chase in northern France with Major Eberbach: for once, the Major seemed too preoccupied—only preoccupied, Dorian had decided regretfully—to become overly upset at such small liberties.

Indeed, the Major did not even withdraw his knee, although he did say, "Do not get too comfortable."

"Why not? This is as comfortable as I’ve been in years." Which was entirely true, even though the Major’s knee was rather bonier than a padded bench and knobbier than the stone one.

"Because," said Major Eberbach, "we have work to do. On your feet, Eroica. I believe the gentleman from the Deville Security Company is finally getting around to us."

"From behind those peach trees," said Dorian in a bored voice. The Major wasn’t the only person here with ears.

"Where he’s been hiding for the past ten minutes," added the Major, "after entering by the garden’s north gate."

Dorian shot the Major an annoyed glance and observed, "He had coffee and a croissant for breakfast and visits an inferior tailor," as he stood and dusted off his impeccably-cut slacks.

The Major did not smile, quite. "The tailor I can see, but the breakfast?"

"Darling, you can’t get anything but croissants and coffee for breakfast in the entire province of Champagne. You know that."

"Unfortunately," agreed the Major. To the newcomer: "M’sieur Deville?"

"You could say that," said the little man in purest street Parisian. "I’m Deville." His very ordinary brown hair was streaked with gray at the temples.

"Ah," said Dorian languidly. He allowed his eyebrows to rise just enough to express his opinion of Deville’s accent. And Deville is the best local security firm, I’m told."

"Ah, well, as to that," said the man, tossing a peach-pit up and down in one hand before lobbing it into the fountain, "I’m the one as has done all the houses around here. I’ve made a place for myself, you might say." He wiped his hand on a handkerchief before holding it out to Dorian. "M’sieur Eroica?"

Dorian shook the offered hand. "I understand you installed the security system on this house."

"Yes, sir. Deville Security for the house and grounds." He glanced back at the trees. "The north door needs a fix and there’s a patch of garden with a hole, right here." His glance back at Eroica was inquiring.

"You keep up with your work, I see."

"Yes, sir." Some subtle flexion of the man’s hands gave Dorian to understand that locks and keys were more a pleasure than a business for M. Deville. He heard the Major shift stance behind him, which for the Major constituted a shout of discovery.

"Excellent. I’m curious about your work elsewhere as well. At, for instance, the Saint-Vire estate. Can you give me some up-to-date specifics about it?"

M. Deville’s eyes opened enough to show a sharp brown gaze, then his face fell back into the mask of naive innocence. "Now that, sir, would cost you a bit more."

* * * * *

Klaus listened while Eroica negotiated, in this well-guarded place where no one could hear them but the breeze, for the information they’d need to reach a strong room containing a certain painting newly added to the Saint-Vire collection on the estate nearby. This was all about a damn fool painting. In Klaus’ opinion, it was entirely possible that the unspeakable Major Van Colan of the nearly unspeakable MI6 had had it painted and "discovered" solely to confound them all.

Unfortunately, Eroica’s many unacceptable qualities did not prevent his being the most trustworthy appraiser of genuine or faked art available to NATO. Even more unfortunately, he’d steal the stuff if he could—real and faked. During this mission, the Major had set himself to tolerate some of the thief’s eccentricities for the sake of keeping him under constant watch. It had made for a quieter mission, at least—almost pleasant. Klaus warned himself that his mission was not to enjoy Eroica’s conversation and his amusingly puzzled looks when Klaus failed to shout at him, but to watch the thief.

He watched as Deville and Eroica exchanged the assurances peculiar to their tacit trade. Presently M. Deville accepted a thick stack of banknotes from Eroica as a "consultant’s fee." The little man then retreated, via the second stand of peach trees the Major noted.

"Will he stay bought?" he asked Eroica.

"No," said the thief, seating himself again. Klaus backed way from leanable-on vicinity but made no other comment. Eroica threw him a quick glance, then continued while gazing back at the restful garden, "I think he’ll merely try to take advantage of our investigation to get the painting himself, if he can. Time’s a bit short for anything complicated."

"He could have the painting, for all I care, once you’ve done your job," returned the Major. "If it’s an l8th-century piece, you can negotiate with the Saint-Vires for it afterward."

"Thank you, darling." Eroica’s voice was demure. Too demure. Klaus ignored it and continued, "If it’s a forgery…"

"Then it might be a real picture of those agents, mightn’t it? What makes MI6 agents hold still long enough to be painted?"

"We’d like to know," said Klaus grimly.

Eroica turned, gracefully. Klaus could not recall him ever making a motion that was not graceful. "I’ll bet, Major NATO, that you want to know something else about it. Maybe where it came from. But you don’t think I need to know."

Eroica’s guess wasn’t far wrong. Published copies of the picture showed a remarkable resemblance to two MI6 agents who’d been in Eastern Europe, but not France, in the past year. If the purported discoverers could smuggle such an object through the iron curtain, what else might they be able to do? A pipeline like that would be… useful. MI6 had said it would co-operate in the investigation, for it couldn’t produce the agents in question. Or hadn’t yet. The Major said, "It is beyond belief that such an object should have stayed in a basement somewhere since before Napoleon overran Europe. I prefer a more reasonable story."

"Occam’s razor, darling," said Eroica, tilting his yellow-maned head backwards so that curls brushed the bench behind him. "Why shouldn’t it sit there? The Saint-Vires claim it’s a family portrait, don’t they?"

"So they say." Klaus shrugged. "I’ll assign someone to see that Deville doesn’t interrupt us this evening."

"Do that." Eroica sat up and smiled at Klaus, eyes the color of the sky. "Darling…?"

"What, Eroica?" asked Klaus, cultivating a tone of uninterested patience.

Eroica’s eyes held the strange, uncertain look again, but all he said was. "Do you suppose the cherries here are ripe yet?"

* * * * *

The Saint-Vire house bulked dark and square at the end of a long gravel lane, the only lights in the scene from the windows of a caretaker’s cottage. Klaus did not see any signs of the Deville security: Eroica was to have disarmed it already. They approached the house in silence, torches unlit, after leaving one of Klaus’ agents to guard the gate to the driveway.

Eroica touched his shoulder and the Major restrained a flinch of disgust, or what he hoped was disgust. "I think Deville could be here already," the thief whispered in a well-controlled sotto voce.

"Nonsense. I left Mr. Z with orders to keep him from interfering with us."

"It’s hard to keep a good thief down."

"Nonsense," said Klaus, privately uncertain. It was hard to keep Eroica down.

"There’s someone in there. I feel it."

"Nonsense."

"If you say so, darling. It was only a feeling."

Klaus snarled silently at the sceptical cast of Eroica’s glance, wishing he could blame it on the scanty light, but then the thief busied himself at a side door. "Safe now," he said at last, and pushed it open.

Klaus followed closely. Study of the house plans had already set the route to the basement strong room in his memory. He could trust Eroica to know it as well. He could not trust Eroica to follow it.

They walked, together, through an anteroom and a windowed gallery—no lights to be used here. At the turn from the gallery into a passage the footsteps beside Klaus, more felt than heard, faded away.

Klaus stopped dead, listening for Eroica in the silent dark. He heard footsteps resume ahead of him and followed hastily to catch up with the thief.

* * * * *

Just as the Major turned right on their plotted pathway, Eroica ducked left into a corner he’d noticed on the floor plan and marked mentally for himself. The Major, suddenly amiable or not, wasn’t going to have everything his own way. An alternate route should be possible if one turned left and right and right and…

He calculated that he’d outflanked the Major’s path, but then Dorian heard footsteps behind, tapping lightly as though Klaus—Dorian dared, from time to time, to think of him by name—wanted to be heard.

The tapping continued toward Dorian’s cubby-hole as he remained silent, invisible and (he would have sworn) undetectable in the dark. "Languishing all alone, fond lover?" inquired a voice. Oddly, it sounded like Klaus’ voice, and that sent a thrill through Dorian.

"Not if you’re here," Dorian pointed out. It was not a time and place he’d expect to inspire the Major with romance, but he hardly knew that the man had a sense of romance, let alone what kind.

A hand materialized in the dark to stroke his hair. "Beautiful," said the voice. "So beautiful." Dorian didn’t want to argue. If a pitch-dark French country mansion was what it took to turn Klaus on, he’d buy this one tomorrow. Or steal the deed tonight. He had time for a brief fantasy of what could be stolen in a dark, furnished house with a willing partner. There would be bedrooms upstairs, surely…

A moment later he was seized without further ado, trapped in strong arms, and kissed with an expertise he would have considered more likely from Casanova than Major Eberbach.

"Mmfl?" he gasped, through the kiss.

"Very nice," said his captor. Not quite in Klaus’ voice.

"You’re not the Major! Who the devil—"

"I’m a bit of a devil," the voice admitted, "but I’m not your Major."

"Who are—" The not-Klaus kissed him again, genially aggressive and actively sensuous.

"No one you know—yet," said the voice, eventually. It wore perfume.

"Let me go," hissed Dorian, furious.

"Of course, if you ask it," returned the dark-concealed man. It wasn’t Klaus and it wasn’t M. Deville. Dorian’s exploring hands encountered a mass of thick, smooth hair, which slithered free at a shake of the stranger’s head.

"Who are you?" asked Dorian. Where was the Major? But he didn’t ask aloud.

"I think I should ask you that," said the stranger.

"But should I answer?" queried Dorian, seizing an arm before it could seize him. The sleeve encasing it was satin—a smoking jacket or bed robe? Was this person actually a resident of the sworn-to-be-empty house? The man’s arm somehow slipped free of his grasp as well.

"Tell me who you are," said the other, and his voice was oddly compelling.

"I’m Dorian Red Gloria, Earl of Gloria."

"Ah. Thank you. You are welcome in my house."

"Your…?" Dorian managed to make it a questioning purr of inquiry. The man’s voice made it damnably difficult to think.

"In a manner of speaking. I am here before you, am I not?"

"Ah," returned Dorian. "What are you doing here?"

A sigh evoked the image of a world-weary shrug. "One amuses oneself as best one can," returned the voice from the dark, smoothly urbane.

"You want the portrait, don’t you?" Dorian asked. When artifice failed, the next option was negotiation.

"Do you?"

"How could I not? How could anyone not want the Saint-Vire portrait?"

"Saint-Vire?" The voice was, faintly, surprised. But: "Ah yes, the family has always been of surpassing… interest to me. I commend your taste. Shall we proceed?"

"Pardon me?"

"In obtaining you the picture. It would be amusing, I think, if you were to find it." A hand once more brushed through Dorian’s curls, and Dorian was surprised to realize that he half-hoped the stranger would try to kiss him again. He wondered how he might respond. The possibilities in a dark, furnished house were greater than he’d thought, it seemed.

The stranger, however, merely tapped daintily toward the stairs that led down to the house’s hidden strong room.

* * * * *

Klaus followed Eroica’s footsteps in the dark, and as they entered the room that held the basement stairs, he exerted himself to catch up with them. How could the thief have run ahead of him undetected, even for a moment? They had been nearly shoulder to shoulder, both silent but close enough to touch: then nothing, except the soft but audible footsteps ahead of him.

The faint sounds teased him without satisfying his sense of logic. Eroica would, surely, prefer to find the painting first, and alone. That was exactly what the Major had been assigned to prevent. Yet the thief did not try to elude him, and was in fact standing provocatively stock-still just inside the room’s doorway, as the Major discovered when he collided with a lithe body and a mass of feathery-soft curls. There was a silvery, sensuous giggle.

"Shut up," growled the Major, wrenching his hand free of tangled locks of hair that smelled of flowers and scented oil and other things. Eroica remained silent, but a fine-boned hand clasped the Major’s. It was Klaus’ left hand, so he did not have to shake it off merely for safety, but the intrusion was one degree too intimate for Klaus after two days of forbearance.

He had put up with the thief’s innuendoes, the smiles and endearments and even giggling. He did not have to endure hand-holding, for Eroica’s pleasure or for anyone’s. Klaus wrenched at the intruding hand preparatory to flinging Eroica away, before the weight and resistance of the body attached to the hand registered on his senses as barely half Eroica’s.

He aborted the motion in mid-swing, dumping the unknown person onto the floor rather than into a wall.

"Let me go, you pig, you elephant!" The voice was French, female and more angry than frightened.

Klaus remembered that he had a torch and that he could use it now that he was past the windowed outer rooms. "Who are you?" The beam of light flickered over red fiery curls, clean pale skin, and a black-clothed body indistinct in the surrounding gloom.

The woman—or girl—sat up, but made no move to continue the scuffle.

"Who are you?" When Klaus did not answer, she repeated the question in English.

"I don’t believe that should concern you," said the Major. Was she another thief, someone from Deville? Any other answer was unlikely.

"I should cut you apart with a sword. Perhaps that would concern you."

"Don’t be ridiculous," he said, impatient. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah… I belong here, m’sieur l’interrogateur. Je suis de ce pays."

"Why are you here in this house? Without light?"

"But you have a light," she pointed out. "I was waiting for you."

"Nonsense."

"It does not matter what you say, m’sieur. You are here to find me. Voila, I am found. Shall we continue upon your mission?"

"My mission has nothing to do with an impertinent girl-thief."

She stood up and tossed her red-maned head in a gesture that was almost dignified. "You mistake a great deal, you who are a thief yourself. I have said that I belong here, and I know you do not. But I will take you to what you came to see, and then we shall discover who is concerned with it."

"What do you mean?" Klaus was not sure if that was an invitation or a threat, and of what.

"I shall not leave you to go alone. You came to this place for some object, did you not? You shall not depart without it."

"You’re right about that," muttered the Major. He had a mission or he wouldn’t be here. What was it? A painting, that was it, and Eroica…

What had he been doing? The Major broke into a cold sweat. While he was delayed by this unknown… person, Eroica could have found the painting himself and made off with it. Whose accomplice was she?

No, Eroica could hardly have passed through this room, the only entrance to the basement stairway, unnoticed by the Major. But where had the thief been all this time?

The girl’s laughter and touch had seemed like Eroica’s at first, although they could not have been. "Why did you take my hand? When you first laughed?" And how had she taken Eroica’s place beside him?

Dark eyes glinting sapphire laughed at him from under darker lashes. "You were losing your way in the dark."

"Did you know where I was going?"

"How not?" she said.

"You lead the way to it," he ordered. "Then we will see if you are right."

She arranged herself on the Major’s left, as far as possible from the light of his torch, and placed a hand on his arm when he evaded her attempt to take his hand again. "We will go in this direction, celui ci," said the imperious voice, and the hand tugged him forward.

"That’s not the way to the stairs."

"It is the way to your goal. But you do not see."

"Don’t try to trick me!" He started to pull free, swung around the pivot of her grip on his arm, and stopped as his torch illuminated the brink of an open stairwell.

"Là bas," she said, releasing her hold on him. Klaus stopped himself at the lip of the stairs only with difficulty.

"I see you know your way, mademoiselle," he snapped. "You go first."

But no voice answered, and the little room was empty in the torchlight.

Shrugging, the Major turned back to the stairs, to observe and test each of them carefully before he walked down into the basement room. What had that been? Some trick of Eroica’s? Klaus shook his head over the thief’s infinite capacity for deception. It had really seemed like a woman… a young girl with red curls… Red? No, Eroica’s hair was yellow. It must have been Eroica trying to trick him again. What else did Eroica ever do?

He reached the basement floor and was engaged in searching for the lights when he heard a massive creaking, as of, perhaps, a seldom-used strong room door. The Major switched the torch to his left hand, reached for his gun, and pointed it at the sound.

It was a door, opening slowly to throw a widening arc of the inner room’s light into the cellar as it revealed Eroica and a painting.

The thief glanced up at him, apparently quite at ease. "You won’t need the artillery, Major. It’s only a painting."

As the painting was still in its strong room and Eroica wasn’t trying to make off with it—yet—Klaus put away his gun. "Well?" he asked. "I see you’ve found it. Congratulations. Whose is it to be?"

"It’s ours," said twinned voices that seemed to come from within the strong room, until Klaus glanced up at the door above the staircase and saw a pair of far-too-familiar figures there.

"Goddammit to hell!" he snarled.

Eroica looked up to follow the Major’s gaze, and his mouth fell open. "But he—"

White light bloomed from above, revealing the newcomers and the whole basement with stark clarity.

"We were told there’s something of interest for us here," said a smoothly urbane voice that belonged to the taller figure, the one with too much long black hair, "and I see that there is." The speaker flashed brilliant eyes at his red-headed companion. "My dear, did you invite these guests?"

The companion blinked thoughtfully at them all. "As you say, Ban darling, I have such a shocking memory. I may have done, I suppose."

"Maraichi," said the tall man in a warning tone.

The Major snorted in irritation. Games. MI6 evidently had nothing better to do than play all of them for fools, or allow its agents to do so. Had the English no sense of propriety? "Major Van Colan," he grated, preparatory to dissecting everyone present on the grounds of terminal frivolity.

None of the three paid him any attention. Eroica was still goggling at the tall, lithe figure now descending the stairs with deliberate grace. "I thought…" "Do not think," advised Van Colan.

"Thinking is much overrated," said Maraichi, running down the stairs in a burst of motion; in form-fitting black the seeming girl was revealed as a boy. "I wish to see… ah,yes!" He threw open the strong room door to reveal the painting displayed there. "You both want this, yes?"

The double portrait showed a saturnine man, elegant and bewigged as l8th-century custom required. Compelling eyes and a firm mouth matched those of Major Van Colan of MI6. The red-haired young woman beside him wore a mass of free-springing, unpowdered curls and gazed out at them through vast, indigo-blue eyes. Rather like Mariachi’s.

"The Duke of Avon and his wife, Leonie de Saint-Vire," said Eroica slowly. "In, I think, about 1765."

"Is that your conclusion, Eroica?" asked Klaus. They were here, officially, about the damned painting.

"Yes. It’s genuine l8th century work. Nothing to do with our friends here. Lately," he added, with a wary glance at Van Colan.

Klaus studied the portrait, then the MI6 agents. "And where have you… gentlemen… been lately? I am told that your superiors would like to know."

"Maraichi and I have had a few family matters to occupy us. We have only just returned today."

"I see," said Klaus, in the tone of one who didn’t, and meant to.

"Perhaps you don’t, Major. We own this house."

"I do," said Maraichi. Dark lashes over great dark-blue eyes flickered at Van Colan. "We do." The eyes flickered back toward Eroica and Eberbach. "You are our guests, no?"

* * * * *

Dorian watched the MI6 agents and Klaus. It definitely hadn’t been Klaus who’d kissed him. Pity. He wasn’t sure it had been Van Colan either, or not in this life. As for the picture… He studied the man in it, all gold and black and lace ruffles. A rake, once nicknamed Satanas.

"Was it you?" he broke into the inevitable staring contest between Klaus and Van Colan. Klaus threw him an unreadable glance but said nothing. "Earlier, in the house?"

"Earlier?" Maraichi brushed his Titian curls out of eyes that sparked danger. "Ban, what have you been doing with Milor’ Eroica?"

"Nothing at all, sweeting," said Van Colan, but his eyes on Dorian were appreciative. "Not I, Maraichi. Someone else might want to."

"Ah," said Maraichi, glancing quickly once at the Major. "Then… me, I think that Milord Eroica should have the painting, should he not? For," his eyes flashed at the tall MI6 agent, "safety."

"You wound me, child," said Van Colan, "but it shall be as you wish. Call it a lifetime loan," he said to Dorian. "I’m sure you’ll find it entertaining."

"‘One amuses oneself as best one can.’ You are far too gracious, sir. Sirs." Dorian sketched a bow to both of them. "I do not doubt I shall enjoy it."

He lost no time in securing the portrait of someone who looked like Maraichi and someone who kissed very well indeed, before he turned back to his Major. "We have what we came for. Shall we go?"

The Major growled, and agreed, and together they walked out into the fickle light of the newly risen moon.

* * * * *

At the driveway entrance, the gate was ajar. Further secrecy would serve no one, so the Major called, "Mr. K! Report in!"

K appeared from the shadows and assumed a rather stolid materiality. "Sir."

"When did Major Van Colan’s car drive in?" Klaus had noted an open roadster in a mercifully moonlight-paled shade of sky blue as they’d left the house. It had not been there when he and Eroica had arrived.

"Less than 20 minutes ago, sir. At…"

The Major waved away the exact time, frowning, ignoring Eroica’s start of surprise beside him. "Make sure it’s in the report. And our exit time, now. Did nothing occur before the car arrived? Were there disturbances of any kind elsewhere on the perimeter?"

"Not according to the sensors. Mr. L said he saw a rabbit, sir."

Mr. L saw rabbits on every surveillance outside the limits of a major city. "Have him write it up for the report, precise description, time and location. If he sees any more we’ll catch them for stew, next time."

"Yes, sir."

Eroica made a sound which Klaus interpreted as stifled laughter.

"You and L stay here until dawn. Note any movements in or out, by anything. Even L’s rabbits. Good evening."

"Yes, sir," said K, showing no sign of fatigue or, indeed, anything but phlegmatic attention to duty. No imagination at all, the Major thought. Good man.

Eroica, on the other hand… Did Eroica’s flights of fancy ever serve anyone but himself? Whatever he did sometimes worked, but the Major was at a loss to understand or predict it. Most especially so during this idiotic mission, whose unlikely success at this moment rested in Eroica’s arms.

Nevertheless, the night was fine and deserted, and the distance back to the rented house and garden not overlong. Without discussion, Eroica fell in beside the Major for the walk. They had covered half of a kilometer on the curving road before Klaus could no longer refrain from asking, "What have you been doing with Van Colan?"

"I, Major? Why do you ask?"

"You seemed to know him."

"No…" Eroica’s voice lacked its customary certainty. Given the thief’s fluency in lying, that probably meant he was actually uncertain about something.

"What do you know?"

A smile glimmered in the dark beside him. "Not who?"

"That as well."

"It’s a long list," Eroica warned him, "and excessively Biblical."

"Cretin!"

"I don’t suppose that’s a joke," said Eroica plaintively. "It would be such a good joke."

"Did you know Van Colan would be there, at the house?"

"No, Major. I went into that damned house just as blind as you were. You have to admit, it was perfectly dark."

"We knew that."

"And I met someone in there, before I got to the strong room…"

"How did you arrive there ahead of me?"

"I don’t know."

Something in the thief’s voice spoke truth to Major Eberbach. Hadn’t he heard someone… not Eroica but someone else… in the room above the basement stairwell? And she’d said… She?

The Major didn’t remember anything of the kind and had no intention of remembering it. Eroica’s hair was soft, feathery tangles of curls; he was sure it was Eroica’s hair that was like that.

"Who did you meet and what did you do?"

"I met… someone who kisses a lot like Van Colan, I should think."

"You what?"

"You heard me. There was someone there who might have been Van Colan’s twin—but it wasn’t him. And he kissed… oh, well. He kissed me."

"And you let him?"

Klaus could hear Eroica’s wicked smile without having to look at him. "What do you think?"

"I think you’re shameless. Van Colan, strangers in the dark, your whole ‘long list’ of people who you f—"

"Major."

"What?"

"I fuck whom I please," said Eroica with perfect composure. "I kiss whom I please at dark house parties, too. Make of that what you will. I didn’t ‘let’ him kiss me. I enjoyed it. A lot." He shrugged, jostling the painting in its improvised wrapping, and began to walk more quickly so that the Major was no longer striding beside him.

The Major altered his stride to match Eroica’s. "You please far too much."

"Don’t you mean, ‘too many’?"

"Yes," said Klaus, and caught his arm. Eroica stopped and swung to face him, shadowed but visible in the moonlight.

"At least you’re acting more like yourself—" he was saying, when Klaus seized his other arm and kissed him, irrationally certain that this would solve the mystery of Eroica.

* * * * *

It wasn’t a subtle kiss, Dorian thought. The Major wasn’t a subtle man. But what on earth did he think he meant? Dorian happily let the painting (since it was safely wrapped) fall to the roadside grass and enjoyed the unsubtle sensations of another mouth and tongue on his. Whatever the Major thought he was doing, Dorian intended to make the most of it.

Klaus finally drew back and said, quite calmly, "You shouldn’t be doing this."

"Don’t you mean that you shouldn’t be doing this?"

"I shouldn’t be doing this," said Klaus in exactly the same tone. "I know."

"Of course you should. I’m the one who has a new painting. You should have something out of this mission too, shouldn’t you?"

"Such as a painting?" asked Klaus.

"Such as me, darling. Not a painting. Rescue me from the demon-lover." He leaned against Klaus again, happy that the Major didn’t push him away.

"Eh?"

"Don’t you think Van Colan makes a good demon? I don’t quite like him, you know."

"Major Van Colan is a very capable agent."

"So are you," said Dorian hopefully, still resting his weight against the Major, who so far had not seemed to notice.

The Major pushed Dorian back onto his own feet. "Do not do it again," he said, "while we are standing on a public road. Ever."

"Then let’s go home and do it there." Dorian picked up the painting and started to walk beside Klaus again, wondering at the possibilities of the night. The moonlit hedges and orchards rustled faintly, giving out earthy odors in the warm night. What had the Major meant with that kiss? Maybe this was a dream, like the whole episode in the house with… whoever it had been.

* * * * *

Klaus opened the front door of the house that was their temporary headquarters and went in, followed by Eroica and the painting. He had no idea what he would do next. The painting, the shadowy events of the evening prior to Major Van Colan’s appearance, and all the half-incomprehensible exchanges between Eroica and the others, were no more in his memory than an outline suitable for an official report. What had he said to Eroica? Before or after Van Colan had arrived? Why had he kissed Eroica, and why hadn’t it been a terrible violation of everything he’d ever done or believed in?

Eroica, perhaps surprisingly, set down the wrapped painting without trying to open it for more of the adoring attention that was positively ridiculous from a grown man toward a piece of canvas and some pigments. Instead, the thief turned to Klaus, there in the wan light of the inner hall that housed the staircase, and looked at him thoughtfully. Also perhaps surprisingly, he did not lunge at Klaus or cling to him or babble.

For a long moment he merely looked, while Klaus held himself completely still, unwilling to deny his earlier action, unwilling to accept that he could want what it implied. He was especially reluctant to put himself on a par with Van Colan’s scandalous personal life, but that was what Eroica evidently wanted.

And Eroica always got what he wanted.

The thief’s lips stretched into a faint smile, and he picked up one of Klaus’ hands to stroke the backs of Klaus’ fingers. "Well?"

"What do you want?"

The smile stretched a fraction wider. "You know what I want. The question, my dear Major, is what you want." Light touches traced Klaus’ knuckles.

"Do I have a choice?"

"About what you want? Perhaps not." A flash of Eroica’s customary sparkle lit the steady eyes. "I never have. I see it, I want it, I take it—until you, beautiful Major. You’ve proved you’re as strong as I am. What do you want now?"

"I don’t know." This was not the absolute truth. Klaus wanted to kiss Eroica again, if only because effect was so… extraordinary. Like everything about Eroica.

And what then?

"Were you jealous of everyone who’s kissed me before?"

"Yes."

Eroica’s grip on his hand tightened for a moment, and then went back to a slow circling of fingertips on the back of hand and wrist. It was Klaus’ right hand, but Klaus made no move to pull it away. "Well, then. Tell me why."

"I don’t know."

"Are you jealous of what else they’ve done with me? Whatever I please. Whatever they please, too." The other man’s body was close to his, within breathing distance. Within kissing distance.

Klaus clutched at the hand on his wrist and tilted his face to meet Eroica’s mouth again.

It was not so very unfamiliar at first. One ate and otherwise used one’s mouth daily, and thought little of it. Eroica’s mouth, however, responded with movement of its own, heat, and an insubstantial taste that was not actually unpleasant. Eroica’s body pushed up against him as well, as it had before, and the warmth there rose quickly, almost uncomfortably, in the enclosed space.

Klaus stayed in the embrace until Eroica finally pulled back, eyes dark now. "I think that answers my question." He took a deep breath. "Klaus, come with me. To bed. Will you?" He started up the stairs, tugging Klaus by the hand behind him.

Klaus did not answer, but he didn’t shake free either. Eroica had him now; perhaps Eroica had always had him. It didn’t seem to matter. He was following the thief into uncharted territory, and he only hoped it would not be as dark as the Saint-Vire house.

In Eroica’s bedroom, undressing with Eroica’s help, it was not dark nor as strange as he feared. Eroica’s naked body showed him the responses and warmth of his own, and Eroica had no hesitation about showing him more about his body than he’d ever known. Mouth and hands touched him with sensations previously unimaginable: in the skin of his joints, in muscles unused to such purposes but shockingly easy to turn to pleasure, in genitals he had thought capable of nothing beyond a staid if functional norm. It was not difficult, also, to obey Eroica’s voice urging him: "Good, keep stroking me that way… yes, kiss me again… go on, down further… easy, go slow, but don’t stop there…"

When the voice faltered, gasping, Klaus continued, for he knew now that Eroica wanted him in a reality that was more important than the words they could use to create truths or any kind of lie.

* * * * *

In the advancing light of dawn, Dorian surveyed the garden court from the precarious but delicious support of Major Eberbach’s knee and a stone bench. He knew a great deal more about the knee than he had yesterday; the fountain and the stone bench remained charming but trivial examples of derivative Italianate work, probably every bit as local as M. Deville. The Saint-Vire painting however… That was extremely interesting. Who had he met in the dark of the house?

"Darling?"

"Do not call me that."

"I always have before."

"I have never enjoyed it. I would prefer that you don’t use it now."

"Oh, very well. Just for you, Major. But you’ll have to call me ‘Dorian’ sometimes." The first rays of sunlight lit the orchard tops with soft green.

"Not in public."

"When we’re alone."

"If you like it, Dorian."

The highest splashes of the fountain flew in rainbow iridescence. "I do. Major, when we were going through the Saint-Vire house, did you meet anyone before you got to the basement?"

"Why do you ask? Are going to tell me how you got there first?"

"Maybe. Who did you meet?"

"No one."

"Are you sure?"

The Major touched Dorian’s shoulder in warning; Dorian sat up as the knee’s support was removed and the Major stood for a moment in the growing light, frowning. "No," he said carefully. "I am not sure."

"Who do you think it was?"

Klaus shrugged, a gesture so unlike him that Dorian spent a moment wondering if it had really happened. He moved over on the stone bench, and Klaus sat down and looked at him. "It seemed to me that I had encountered you, but it could not have been you. I can’t remember it now." He shook his head, frowning again.

"Did I kiss you then?"

"No."

Dorian thought of his meeting with someone who might have been Van Colan—but couldn’t be, according to the timing. "It’s just as well," he said aloud. You know, you surprised me, da—Major. It wasn’t like you to kiss me last night in the open road, be it never so deserted. But you did."

"I don’t know why that happened."

"But it did. And you remember it."

Klaus glanced around the cool, dawnlit garden and nodded. "I don’t understand… many things. Or you. But you are here, Dorian."

"And you’re here." Dorian smiled at him, leaned forward and kissed him neatly and quickly. "Let’s have breakfast."

"Coffee," said the Major wryly, "and croissants?"

"What else do we need?"

END