Why are we whispering?”
“Listen,” Jane whispered back, “There’s someone you know waiting downstairs, but you have to pretend you don’t know her, okay?”
“Uh…sure,” replied Peter, uncertainly, still whispering. “But if I know her, won’t she know me?”
“She’s blindfolded.”
“Oh. Of course. I should have guessed.” Peter’s eyebrows were raised so high that they looked like question marks. “So…you’ve taken up kidnapping, is that the surprise? You want help writing the ransom note?”
Jane pounded him lightly on the chest to shut him up. “No, you idiot!” She smiled in spite of her nervousness. “You’ll see. Now listen: She thinks you’re a priest named Father Brian.”
Peter looked blankly at her. “Well, why didn’t you say so? That makes everything so much clearer. Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: I know her, except that I don’t know her because I’m not me, I’m Father Byron.”
“Brian!”
“Brian, right. And she knows me, but she doesn’t know me because she’s blindfolded and thinks I’m Father Brian. Have I got it right so far?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I do declare, Miz Jane,” he whispered, affecting a southern drawl, “this is surely the nicest surprise anyone’s ever given me. Then he pushed her left leg off his lap and, reaching between her legs, stroked her there—delicately, sensuously—with his middle finger for about ten seconds.
Then he withdrew his hand…and gave her another vicious
