"All right," Kit said quietly. "Let's hear it."
"What do you want me to say, Kit? I'm sorrier than you'll ever know. Breaking a friend's trust ... Well, I am British. For whatever that's worth. I've no excuses, Kit. So I won't even try to make any. But lame as it sounds, I thought she'd just turned nineteen, Kit, not seventeen, and ... and dammit, that headstrong little idiot does something to me ... ."
Kit snorted.
Malcolm adjusted himself against the hard desk, wincing slightly. "She's been hurt, Kit. Desperately. If I ever find out who did it, I think I might actually kill him. There's something fine inside her fighting to get out. I see glimpses of it all the time. First in London, again in Brighton. Then in Rome ..." He swore softly. "We were both a little drunk. Hilaria was in full swing. She was doing so well and I was so proud of her and the next thing I knew..."
"Stop." Kit held up one hand. "Please."
Malcolm halted. Then, very quietly, "It isn't much, but I never meant any of this. I'm bloody sorry, Kit. I won't say I'd undo the way I feel about her, but I'm bloody damned sorry for how I've handled this, the mess I've caused. If it's any consolation, I went through nine days of absolute hell, thinking I'd killed her." He groped for something else to say and ended lamely with the only thing he could say. "I'm sorry, Kit."
"So am I," his one-time friend sighed.
"I'll ... I'll go to another station, I guess, get out of your way...
"Malcolm."
He shut up, ready to take whatever bitter anger his friend vented.
"I ought to break your neck, you know. I'm tempted to saddle you with the Neo Edo. The punishment ought to fit the crime, after all. You deserve that paperwork and the government auditors and the inspections and..."
Malcolm winced.
"But..." Kit's faint smile shocked him. "At least she had enough sense to pick someone like you."
Malcolm didn't know what to say.
"It might have been Skeeter Jackson, after all."
Malcolm found his voice after all, surprising both of them. Kit just stared. "Where do you pick up language like that?"
Malcolm managed a wan smile. "Believe it or not, I overheard that one from a Praetorian guardsman the day Caligula was murdered."
"Really? Some day you must tell me the whole story about that day."
Malcolm let his gaze focus on something far beyond Phil Jones' sordid little office. "Maybe. I'm not sure I'll ever tell anyone the whole story."
Kit cleared his throat. "Know the feeling he muttered He scrubbed bloody hands on his ruined jesuit cassock, then cleared his throat again and held out one hand "I don't have enough friends to lose one. Not even for something like this."
Malcolm paused only a moment, then shook it. "I'll make it up, Kit."
The lean time scout grinned. "You sure as hell will. And if she's pregnant..." He let the threat dangle.
Malcolm just groaned
The office door opened. Kit and Malcolm looked up to find Margo staring down at them. Clad in a ragged Portuguese shirt, face and hands smeared with soot and blood, eyes hardened by what she'd been through, Malcolm hardly recognized her.
"No broken bones, I see," she said quietly. "Good. Because Rome was my fault, too. In fact, Rome was mostly my fault." Malcolm didn't know what to say. Clearly, Kit didn't either. "I would just like to say for the record that I don't deserve either one of you. But I think I've learned my lesson-oh, hell, I've learned more lessons in the past seven weeks than I have in the last seventeen years. I screwed up everything. Everyone was right and I was wrong and I'm so damned sorry I nearly got us all killed, I ... I could almost go back to Minnesota and hide ... ."
Her voice cracked.
Oh-oh. Better try and lighten the mood a bit...
"You know," Malcolm said off-handedly, "there's something you really ought to know before your next scouting trip."
She blinked tears, sounding absolutely miserable. "what?"
"Mmm ..." He glanced at Kit and winked. "There's rather a large difference between Old Nick and Saint Nick."
She stared at him, so nonplussed she forgot to keep crying. "Old Nick? Saint Nick? What are you talking about?"
Malcolm glanced at Kit. The scout's lips quirked. Then his eyes crinkled and he couldn't contain it any longer. He started to laugh. Malcolm grinned. Margo, clad in nothing but an Irish alley-cat glare and a too-loose sixteenth-century shirt, glared from one to the other as though they'd misplaced their collective wits.
"What's so funny?" she demanded.
Kit lay back and roared.
Malcolm wiped his eyes. "You called down the wrath of Santa Claus..."
Margo opened her lips over air. Then she started to chuckle. "I did?"
"Oh, Margo," Kit gasped, "you sure as hell did, honey."
Malcolm was still wiping tears. "It was priceless I had visions of the heavens splitting open and a vengeful team of reindeer screaming down at Mach eight while the jolly old elf threw Christmas boxes like grenades ... ."
That set Kit off again. Margo just grinned, taking the ribbing with surprisingly good humor. Then her laughter vanished.
Kit sat up hastily. "What's wrong? Oh, hell .... You're hurt and here we are laughing like idiots-"
"No ... no, it's Kynan." She sank to her knees beside him. "Why did he do that? Throw himself in front of me that way?"
Kit touched a bruised cheek. "He pledged me as his liege lord. You instantly became the object of his sworn protection, his liege lady if you will. He considered it a sacred duty to die in my service, protecting you."
Margo swallowed hard. "I see. I ..." Her face crumpled. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to snivel. Will he live?"
Kit smiled. "I'd say you earned a sniffle or two. And Rachel doesn't like losing patients. He has a very good chance, anyway." Kit dragged a scorched leather bag out of the corner. "I rescued your ATLS and log from the fire, by the way."
She opened the bag slowly, removing the ATLS, the personal log, even a folded chart.
"What's that?" Malcolm asked curiously.
"The map Goldie gave me." She thrust it at Kit. "I don't want it."
Kit took it wordlessly and tucked it into his own ATLS bag. "Speaking of Goldie ... I think we need to hold a little chat with that avaricious old shark."
"You're telling me! She almost got us killed!"
Kit turned a reproachful glance on her.
"Well, all right, I almost got us killed. But she knew I was hopelessly unqualified!"
"Comes with the territory," Malcolm told her unsympathetically. "It's too bad her scam will work. She deserves to lose her shirt."
Margo sniffed. "As much trouble as I had finding that stupid spot on the river, those damned diamonds had better be there. I'd hate to think I put everyone through all this and got poor Mr. van Beek killed, only to find I'd screwed up and stuck them in the wrong place."
"You had trouble finding the right spot?"
Malcolm knew that tone. Kit was suddenly and profoundly interested. "What trouble, exactly?"
Margo wiped her nose. "The maps didn't match, not exactly. Here." She dug out her log and pulled up a file, then turned the screen to face him. `That's the digital snapshot I made of the river valley where we buried the stuff. I had to scan in Goldie's chart and superimpose the two. They still didn't quite match up, but I'm sure I got the right plot of ground."
Kit studied the screen intently, then started to grin.
"What?"
"Margo, I think I just might be able to pay back every scam Goldie has ever run on me. Malcolm, take a look."