Page 11 of Black and Silver

“Ah,” Lawrence said, smiling. “Now that is the way to travel. Although I would not turn into a bat. I think it far more likely that I would transform into some sort of confused tit.”

Lady Minerva appeared to choke on her own spit and burst into a coughing fit in an effort not to laugh.

Lawrence caught his breath in excitement. He was determined to make the somber lady laugh if it was the last thing he ever did.

“Though I suppose the birds of the air are in too much of a hurry for me,” he went on. “If I were to transform into any creature, it would most likely be an enormous toad of some sort.”

“A toad?” Lady Minerva asked, lowering her book slightly.

“Yes, of course,” Lawrene said. “I have always considered myself entirely ordinary, and what could be more ordinary than a common garden toad?” He paused, tilted his head to the side, then continued with, “Well, I suppose Alden wouldn’t find me common. Or rather, he would consider me common, but a fascinating specimen all the same. He could house me in his terrarium, along with the rest of the alligators and poison dart frogs.”

“Would you not grow tired of spending your entire life enclosed in glass?” Lady Minerva asked, her mouth twitching.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Lawrence said. “Alden takes very good care of his creatures. I should have sunshine whenever I wanted it, amphibious companionship, and as many flies and bugs as my heart desired.”

“Would you?” Lady Minerva lowered her book all the way to her lap.

“I would,” Lawrence nodded seriously. “Bugs make quite a feast, I’m told. It even says so in this poem.”

“And which poem is that?” Lady Minerva asked, closing her book entirely and leaning slightly closer to him.

“Right here.” Lawrence picked up the book of poetry, opened it to the page he’d been struggling over, and recited from memory what he’d thought he’d read earlier. “Oh, bless the daring bugs of May that swing and flow on general breezes.”

Lady Minerva’s mouth moved through contortions that most definitely hinted at her desperation not to laugh at his ridiculousness. “Are you quite certain it is not the darling buds of May that sway and flourish on gentle breezes?” she asked.

Lawrence felt heat rush up his neck to his face at being caught in his illiteracy, but he pretended nothing at all was wrong with what he’d said.

“If I were a toad living a rich and peaceful life in Alden’s terrarium, I would sing verses more along the lines of ‘Oh, delicious bug! How I adore the crunch of your wings and the squish of your tender body bursting its blood in my mouth!’”

Lady Minerva clapped her free hand to her mouth, practically pinching her lips to stop herself from laughing.

“I thought you might like that,” Lawrence said. “It did contain blood, after all.”

Lady Minerva snorted then coughed as her closed mouth prevented her laughter from freely escaping.

“See? You even sound like a frog now,” he said. “I accept your appreciation.”

She could not help herself then. She laughed freely for a moment before clapping her hand over her mouth again.

The sound was beautiful, and it was in complete contrast to the somber, even macabre presentation Lady Minerva always tried to make of herself. She really was a beautiful and spritely woman, despite her attempts to appear as though she were an animated corpse. Her complexion was too warm and her cheeks too pink for her to look like the vampires she so loved to read about, and while her hair was, indeed, dark, it was a rich shade of brown that caught the sunlight and ignited with flecks of auburn.

Lawrence suddenly found himself thinking that it did not make an ounce of sense that Lady Minerva had come so far in life without some half-mad suitor snapping her up andbecoming her devoted slave. He could not see her as anything close to a submissive, Wessex wife, but Lawrence had seen and participated in enough in his life to know that not every man wished for a meek and bland wife who would look pretty and never bother him with her thoughts.

He had been searching for something that was the exact opposite of that expression of womanhood himself for a very long time, but without luck.

“I am not a frog, my lord,” Lady Minerva said, still grinning slightly, though the look had become more sly than anything else. “Find another poem to compare me to or I shall never forgive you.”

A twist of panic hit Lawrence’s gut. He glanced down to the book in his hand, wondering if he could somehow please Lady Minerva while still concealing his secret shame. His only hope was that she had never read that particular book of verse before.

“Certainly,” he said, lifting the book and flipping through the pages.

He scanned the pages he passed, willing the letters to come together into something he could read at least a few lines of. He was able to spot a word here and there that he thought he’d made out correctly, but nothing that formed itself into sentences of any sense. He would be forced to invent poetry at a moment’s notice and to deliver it convincingly.

The best way to do that, he reasoned, was to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“Ah, here we go,” he said, pretending to find something in the middle of the book.

“I am ready, my lord,” Lady Minerva said, watching him with a clever, calculating look.

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