Warning bells began to ring in her mind. Or were they really ringing? Reality had returned in a rush, and Eve pushed Adam away.
He glanced at her, his eyes still hot with unrequited passion yet a touch of confusion. He had kissed many a female, but never had one rung his bell quite so literally.
"What's with all that ding-donging?" he asked, his arousal aching and feeling quite neglected.
"Hugo, the demented dwarf," she replied, her eyes trying to focus past the fog of sensuality in which she was drifting. She took a step back and threw a quick left hook that Captain Kidd had once taught her.
Adam caught it square on the nose. Holding his face, he glared at her. "I should put you over my knee! You enjoyed that!"
Before she could reply, some of her patients began to come undone at the pealing of the bells. The bonging in the cool night air caused Major Gallant to bow once, then charge up the terrace stairs with an imaginary sword in hand, yelling in his faux French accent, "They're blowing the bugle. Charge, men, charge! We can't let those Englishmen win the bridge!"
Not far behind, Mrs. Fawlty was bringing up the rear. She chased down the major, who was heading straight for the bell tower. The harassed housekeeper merely scowled, saying as she passed, "Sure to be, your name's Dr. Adam and hers is Dr. Eve. But I tell you true, this ain't the Garden of Eden."
Eve picked up her skirts to hurry after them.
Chapter Sixteen
Silence of the Lambert
Eve scowled as she hurried toward the bell tower and the batty dwarf in the belfry. Adam had sprung up as well, and caught up to her, while Mrs. Fawlty, ever the busybody, tackled the major. Teeter, who was following fast on the housekeeper's heels, stumbled over the pair, and the patients and staff cheered them all on to the accompaniment of the bells.
"It's a good thing your loony bin is located in the country, more or less, since town neighbors would be up in arms over this ringing at all bloody hours of the day and night," Adam panted as they ran.
Eve remained silent. This husband-and-wife deal was for the birds.
"Why does Hugo feel the need to ring bells constantly?" Adam asked.
"Besides the fact that he's insane?" Eve snapped.
"Besides that."
She reluctantly explained: "The monks in the monastery where he grew up were busy with other duties, so Hugo spent much of his time as the bellboy. With his deformity and surly temperament, he ended up a crotchety, hunchbacked dwarf. His mother spoiled him, giving him everything he wanted while she was alive. Therefore, Hugo feels as if the world owes him, and he rings the bell to call attention to that."
As they passed the massive fountain, Mrs. Monkfort waved, then returned to her thorough cleaning of the statues. Mr. Pryce was rubbing his legs together behind Mrs. Monkfort's back.
"Hugo can be charming upon rare occasions, but he is mean-spirited when he doesn't get his way. He even cheats."
"Cheats?" Adam asked, glancing back and seeing Mrs. Monkfort drop her sponge as Mr. Pryce buzzed her. This tickled Adam's funny bone, and he found himself chuckling.
Eve narrowed her eyes at him. "Cheating, like any dishonesty, is never a laughing matter."
"I apologize. Please continue," he said with a playful grin.
Eve's eyes narrowed further, for his handsome face appeared even more devastating in the faint moonlight. "You do know, Adam, that I'm not some dim-witted debutante looking for a husband, nor some loose-skirted floozy searching for a tricky, tempting rake?"
"Ah, so you find me tempting! My, my—I am coming up in the world."
"You only had up to go," she responded.
He laughed. "So, how does this cranky dwarf cheat?"
"It's not important."
"You brought it up."
"Oh, very well. We vote on dinners once a month. It cheers the patients to have a say in their daily lives. The most votes decides a meal. Or at least it should—except, Hugo has a habit of breaking into wherever I happen to hide the ballots. Then he marks them all to his favorite meal. An appalling one. At first I didn't understand what was happening, but after the last two polls being such a disaster, I investigated. I found out then what the little devil did."
Curious as well as amused, Adam had to ask. "What is this appalling meal?" Surely it wasn't all that bad.
Eve's nose wrinkled in distaste. "Boiled cabbage and herring."
She was right: the combination was appalling. Adam grimaced. "So, we have a mean-spirited, cheating dwarf who has a taste for breaking and entering?"
"With bells on," she said in resignation. "Yes, that about sums up Hugo Lambert. Unfortunately, his father was a thief with an amazing ability to unlock any lock. Hugo evidently learned from him. His father was also a powerful warlock who seduced a Gypsy, Hugo's mother. When his father married another, his mother gave her lover mal de ojo."
Adam nodded. "The evil eye."
"You speak Spanish?" she asked, surprised, as they drew nearer the bell tower.
"In my travels I picked it up."
"When you were a pirate?" Eve couldn't help asking, curious about this strangely odd and attractive man by her side even though she knew that he was a shrewd schemer and certainly could in no way be construed as a romantic interest. All speculation was definitely against her best scientific judgment.
"No. I wasn't a pirate in Spain. Although it's true that I have been a pirate and a poet—and a prankster, a pugilist, and a pauper, a butcher, a baker, and even once a candlestick maker," he added with a shrug. "But in Spain, finding myself on the horns of a dilemma, I was a bullfighter for an extremely short while."
"You? That sounds like a cock-and-bull story to me," she said. "But with you, one never really knows." Arriving at the gate to the bell tower, she ventured a further question, wondering if he would lie: "Have you ever long worked in honest employment?"
He sent her a brief look of aggravation. "Why, of course, my dear. In many ways I am an honest man. I must say that I've enjoyed such employment as well as the dishonest. After all, life's an adventure whether you're a king or a pirate, a vicar or a vampire." He returned their conversation to the subject of the dwarf. "I take it the evil eye somehow affected Hugo, from what you said?"
"Yes, the Gypsy's curse carried over to her son. That curse, I fear, damned her son to madness."
"Have you tried to find a cure for the curse?" Adam asked as they opened the wooden door to the belfry.
"Of course," she shouted, to be heard over the loudly clanging bells. "I even consulted Dr. Jekyll of Edinburgh. But he failed as well."
Adam was impressed: Dr. Jekyll was the premier authority on ancient curses.
As he stepped inside, he noted that the circular bell tower was lit with flickering tapers. The erratic light glinted off the dense stone walls, casting shadows everywhere. He winced and covered his ears, as Eve did hers, since the bells were deafening in the enclosed space. They both scampered up the spiral staircase.
Although it was only a minute, he felt as if it had been at least an hour before he stepped into the uppermost tower room. Wall sconces lit a large area where two massive bells swung back and forth. Taking his hands from his ears, Adam noticed that the noise here was less intense. Part of the sound was carried away by the open architecture, as all four sides were open to the air, with only thick stone columns to support the roof. Adam watched as Eve shook a fist at Hugo, her posture rigid. The hunchbacked dwarf did not see her. He was swinging jauntily on the ropes attached to the undercarriage of the bells, cackling gleefully. Two large handkerchiefs were stuffed in his ears.
"Hugo Lambert, you get down this minute!" For such a little female, Eve had a booming voice. Hugo, however, his body wrapped around a thick hemp rope, his deranged little face merry, thoroughly ignored her. Eve shook her fist, then slipped off her slippers.