that Harry could have understood the words even if he had been speaking slower. She stood up from where she'd been seated on a wooden lounge, enjoying the peace of the balmy Mediterranean night. "The temptation to say 'I'm sorry, but it's all Greek to me,' is almost overwhelming - you do realize that, right?" she asked the man.
He continued his dancing-gesturing-babbling routine, this time adding a peculiar plucking motion with the hem of her linen tunic.
She glanced around, wondering if she'd misunderstood. "Am I not supposed to be here? Is this garden off limits to us? Derek said it was the garden area on the other side of the house that was for guests only. Did I get that wrong?"
The little man - and he was little, at least a good ten inches shorter than her solid six feet - evidently grew distressed at her inability to understand, and grabbed her wrist, hauling her toward the massive bulk of the house.
"Is Timmy in the well?" she asked, a little smile curling her lips before her gaze moved from what must surely have been one of the servants to the house itself. "Only house doesn't quite cut it as a description, does it? It's more like a palace. Houses don't have wings - palaces do. And I defy you to find a house sitting by its lonesome on its very own Greek island. No, sir, this is a palace pure and simple, and although I'm sure you have a good reason for dragging me to it, I should point out that the only people who are staying in its palatial confines are guests, and I'm with the band. We have the little bungalow on the servant end of the island. Hello? You really don't speak a word of English, do you?" Harry sighed.
The man continued to drag her through a very pleasant garden, filled with sweet-scented flowering Mediterranean shrubs unfamiliar to her, attractive hedges, and pretty neoclassical statues. The night air was balmy, the heavy scent from some flower mingling with the sharper and, to her mind, more pleasing tang of the sea. It was everything she imagined a rich man's private island paradise should be. Well, with the exception of the wizened little man attached to her wrist.
"I couldn't just sit quietly somewhere? " she asked the man, whose fingers were locked like steel around her wrist. "I promise that I won't bother anyone. I don't think I could - I'm so jet-lagged, I can't even think straight. Look, that's a nice little bench right over there in the corner next to the statue of the guy with a really big winky. I won't be in anyone's way. I'll just go sit and contemplate his gigantic genitals, and all will be well."
"Harry!" A man appeared suddenly at a window, hanging out of it and waving frantically. "There you are! Hurry!"
"Derek, what are you doing in the house?" Harry thinned her lips at the sight of the young man. "You said we weren't supposed to go near it while the guests were here."
"That doesn't matter now! Hurry up!"
"If you think I don't have anything better to do than to fly halfway around the world to bail your butt out of trouble because you can't follow a few simple rules - "
"No, it's not me." He pulled back inside the window. "It's Cyn! She's been attacked!"
"What!" The fury in her bellow took the little man still attached to her wrist by surprise, for he dropped her hand as if it was suddenly made of fire. Adrenaline shot through her with a painful spike - adrenaline and a fury that almost consumed her. She leaped forward, easily hurdling the low stone balustrade of a patio area as she bolted for the nearest entrance to the house, wrenching open a pair of French doors. She didn't stop to apologize to the small group of people standing around a pool table, racing around the men and women in elegant evening clothes, making a beeline for the door that was bound to lead to a central area of the house.
The little servant trailed her as far as a marble-tiled corridor, where he veered off to who knew where. Harry didn't care - her mind was blank except for the horror of the words that kept repeating in her head. It's Cyn! She's been attacked!
"Harry, thank God - " Terry emerged from a side hall, gesturing toward a curving staircase, his face tight with worry. "We