Every Time with a Highlander by Gwyn Cready Page B

as a lover, but her training would not allow it. Besides, the less Kent knew, the more secure she could be in his safety.
    The wagon bumped to a halt at the corner of the town’s square, and Undine hopped down. Kent scooted to the edge, an exercise that should have been made ungainly by his deadweight companion, but he unfolded himself with surprising grace.
    In any case, more grace than one would expect from a hunchback.
    Undine gave the farmer a wave of thanks, and when she turned back, she started. Bent and twisted now, Kent had transformed from a man in his prime to a weary, limping cripple who looked ten years older and half a dozen inches shorter.
    â€œFather,” she said, speechless.
    â€œHunchback you said, and hunchback it is. Are you familiar with the play Richard II I ?”
    His voice too had changed, sounding flatter with a faint rasp, and his cadence had slowed. When he stepped from the roadbed to the footway, she nearly offered him her arm.
    She smiled. “The play and the king, both. Aye, I am.”
    â€œâ€˜And thus I clothe my naked villainy, with odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil.’”
    Now the voice had turned a rich, fluid baritone, and the restrained malevolence in the words made her hairs stand on end.
    â€œYou’re very good,” she said.
    He made a small bow. “One can hardly be a priest without a bit of the actor in one’s blood.” He attempted to hike the bishop’s limp body higher and managed only to move the center of the mass to the level of his armpit. “Carrying a ten-stone hump certainly adds to the realism.”
    She leaned in to help but, being rather scrupulous when it came to naked bishops, used a shoulder rather than her hands to shove the man’s arse high enough to get his head back over Kent’s shoulder.
    â€œWhere are we going with him?” Kent said. “Please don’t say far.”
    â€œDo you see the building with the black shutters?”
    He cocked his head. “Yes.”
    â€œI have a friend there—a woman. She knows Rothwell’s coming. I sent a note earlier. There’s a door around the back, and you should—”
    â€œUndine,” called a man from across the road.
    She recognized the voice and groaned.
    â€œWho is it?” Kent asked.
    â€œGo,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Thirteen
    â€œGo” was easier said than done, and Michael trudged toward the house with black shutters with the bishop, who had begun to murmur. If he had to carry the guy much longer, he wouldn’t have to pretend he had a limp.
    Before he slipped into the alley behind the house, he stole a glance over his shoulder—well, over the bishop’s head—at Undine. The man who’d called out to her wore a blue brocade frock coat with gold rope at the sleeve and finely polished boots. She didn’t look especially pleased to be talking to him. On the other hand, in Michael’s experience—which admittedly was limited to the last two hours—she hadn’t yet looked especially pleased to be talking to anyone. He’d decided it was part of her unusual charm.
    The bishop lifted his head, and Michael froze. If the man woke up, how would he explain the fact of him being bound, naked, strapped to a stranger’s back, and on his way to a whorehouse? The only thing worse that could happen would be someone spotting this limping beast with two heads.
    The bishop laid his head back down and sighed. Michael relaxed. The man’s hot breath gathered like summer humidity on Michael’s neck. His back hurt; his sandals pinched; he had a man’s balls pressed against his back. A friar in the eighteenth century was not stacking up to be the role of his dreams.
    Michael reached the passageway behind the building, which couldn’t be called a proper alley, as it was barely wide enough to accommodate a