Take her back? He smiled ironically; she wouldn't know what that meant. It would serve her right, but maybe there was another way.

"I don't know about you," he said, "but I suspect we're in the same boat. I also have other interests."

"You louse!" said Cass Gordon, arching rib cage and nostrils. "If you try to make trouble for Agatha, I can promise...."

"What can you promise?" demanded Tennant. When Gordon's onset subsided in mumbles, he added, "Actually, I don't think I'm capable of making more than a fraction of the trouble for either of you that you both are qualified to make for yourselves."

He lit a cigarette, inhaled. "Relax. I'm not planning revenge. After this evening, I plan to vanish for good. Of course, Agatha, that offers you a minor nuisance. You will have to wait six years to marry Cass—seven years if the maid who let me in tonight talks. That's the law, isn't it, Cass? You probably had it all figured out."

"You bastard," said Cass. "You dirty bastard! You know what a wait like that could do to us."

"Tristan and Isolde," said Tennant, grinning almost happily. "Well, I've had my little say. Now I'm off again. Cass, would you give me a lift? I have a conveyance of sorts a couple of miles down the road."

He needed no telepathic powers to read the thoughts around him then. He heard Agatha's quick intake of breath, saw the split-second look she exchanged with Cass. He turned away, knowing that she was imploring her lover to do something, anything, as long as it was safe.

Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it.

Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had run the sedan into a tree at the foot of the hill beyond the river. He had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They had simply picked him up.

Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture. All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides as trophies. With women it was different—perhaps the captors' weapons, whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in body chemistry or psychology, perhaps.

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