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judgment. “Very well. Set up a meeting with Her Majesty. Perhaps her gift could simply be to introduce us. If she isn’t satisfied with that, she’ll have to find some other way to impress him.”
    Lynette made a note in her calendar. She pursed her lips as though debating something, then said, “I see you’ve set up another session with Scott. I take it he was satisfied with your performance?”
    “It was perhaps my finest work to date.” Angie eyed her and cocked a brow. “You still disapprove?”
    “Not any of my business.” Rising, she gathered her papers into a briefcase and slipped on her coat. She looked back over her shoulder before letting herself out. “Be careful, would you? I don’t want to lose my golden goose.”
    “Careful as I can be in this line of work.”
    A scowl, and Lynette was gone.
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
    It is impossible for a human to traverse the inner landscape of a vampire’s mind.
    —Tan Xiao-Ping, philosopher and poet
     
     
     
    “I wish I could travel with you,” Steffen murmured.
    Grace snuggled next to him on a nest of fake-fur blankets in front of a fire that had died down to flickers of flame and orange coals. Its smoky scent hung in the air. Snow lay thick and white outside the cabin in the Cascades he’d rented for the weekend. Every now and then, the weight of it would snap a branch on a fir tree and slide down with a whoosh. The occasional noise accented an otherwise silent night.
    Shifting, she draped herself across his bare chest and rested her chin on her forearm. She’d put on a thick bathrobe against the chill when they’d finished making love, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold. She reached up to play with a strand of his bloodred hair. “I wish you could, too. I’d love to hear what you remember about the places I visit. When were you in Florence?”
    “Mmm.” He thought a moment. “Just after the turn of the sixteenth century. That’s where I first met James.” He had mentioned his close friend to her before. “There were a couple of painters working on two murals commissioned by Machiavelli. James knew him through some sort of business deal, and when he learned I was interested in art, he arranged for me to see them. Humans were doing the most amazing things at that time, works of beauty I’d never imagined.” His eyes lost focus, and his expression softened.
    “Is that when you realized we might be good for something besides breakfast?” She grinned.
    “Maybe.” He grinned back, but it was tinged with another emotion. Sadness? Regret? She couldn’t tell. “I did wonder what Michelangelo would taste like. Too bad I never got to have a bite.”
    “Do people taste like their personalities?”
    Steffen blinked. “You ask the oddest questions.”
    “I wonder about these things. Do they?”
    “Not exactly. What they eat affects their flavor. And whatever they’re feeling at the moment.” His tone deepened with that last sentence, as if he remembered those flavors and liked them. The sound made her heart beat faster.
    “Really?” she asked. “What does anger taste like? Or fear? Or—”
    “That’s enough questions for now.”
    Grace raised her eyebrows. “Are you telling me to shut up, Lord Scott?”
    “What if I am?”
    “I think”—she pulled back and folded her arms across her chest—“you’re going to have to make me.”
    “Is that so?” Steffen brushed his fingers along her cheek.
    “Uh-huh. Because I’ve got lots more questions where those came from. I want to know everything about you.”
    His smile vanished, and he lowered his hand. “No. You don’t.”
    He closed his eyes and turned away.
    “Hey.” Grace stared at him in surprise. “I was just teasing.”
    How had the mood changed so fast, and why? Things were going well enough that Angie had submerged herself more fully into her role than usual. It took a moment to start thinking properly. Reviewing the last of the conversation, she saw the clues