Having once felt that disorienting moment of psychic blindness, Asher was ready for him, but still only barely saw him move. His hand had not dropped the twenty inches or so that separated his fingers from the hideout knife in his boot when he was flung backward across the head of the divan, in spite of his effort to roll aside. Somehow both arms were wrenched behind him, the wrists pinned in a single grip of steel and ice. The vampire's other hand was in his hair, cold against his scalp as it dragged his head back, arching his spine down toward the floor. Though he was conscious of very little weight in the bony limbs that forced his head back and still further back over nothing, he could get no leverage to struggle; and in any case, he knew it was far too late. Silky lips brushed his throat above the line of the collar-there was no sensa-tion of breath.

Then the lips touched his skin in a mocking kiss, and the next instant he was free.

He was moving even as he sensed the pressure slack from his spine, not even thinking that Ysidro could kill him, but only aware of Lydia's danger. But by the time he was on his feet again, his knife in his hand, Ysidro was back behind the desk, unruffled and immobile, as if he had never moved. Asher blinked and shook his head, aware there'd been another of those moments of induced trance, but not sure where it had been.

The fine strands of Ysidro's hair snagged at his velvet collar as he tipped his head a little to one side.

There was no mockery in his topaz eyes. "I could have had you both in the time it takes to prove to you that I choose otherwise," he said in his soft voice. "I-we-need your help, and it is best that I explain it to you on the way to London and away from this girl for whom you would undertake another fit of point-less chivalry. Believe me, James, I am the least dangerous thing with which you-or she-may have to contend. The train departs at eight, and it is many years since public transportation has awaited the conve-nience of persons of breeding. Will you come?"