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Figuratively speaking, of course. He smiled down at her, using his sweetest smile, the one that melted most of his followers, the one that left Rachel stony-eyed and glaring.
    “Are you afraid of illness?”
    “I’m not afraid of anything,” she said.
    “Aren’t you? Well, you’re young,” he said, deliberately dismissive.
    “I suppose you think that when I get to your advanced age I’ll be wise enough to be frightened,” she snapped, obviously irritated by him.
    He wanted to keep that irritation alive. It amused him, and it made her vulnerable. “Somehow I can’t imagine you ever being as old as I am,” he said.
    “I did my research, O Great White Spirit,” she said sarcastically. “You’re somewhere in your late thirties. You think I’m not going to make it another ten years?”
    “Oh, I imagine you’ll live to a ripe old age, unless you annoy someone enough to kill you. But you’ll always be an angry child, spoiled and fretful.” He waited patiently to see her reaction to that particular salvo.
    It wasn’t what he expected. She didn’t go pale with rage or denial—she seemed more amused at his description. “You think so?” she murmured. “And what will save me from such a horrible fate? Wearing pastel cotton pajamas and listening to your pontifications?”
    “I seldom pontificate,” he said. He’d misjudged her, not a mistake he often made. He’d viewed her as a spoiled little rich girl, wanting her own way. He was beginning to suspect things weren’t quite that simple. What else had Stella said about her? He couldn’t remember, and details like those were too important to overlook. “You might start with an open mind.”
    He’d managed to move closer to her without her realizing it. She was amazingly skittish, considering how determinedly confrontational she was. “An open mind?” she echoed. “I suppose I could try it.” Her smile was incredibly snotty. “There’s a first time for everything.”
    He wasn’t about to rise to her bait. “Including a grain beverage for breakfast and a hard day’s labor,” he said, pushing open the refectory doors. “I think we’ll start you out in the east wing of the hospital, helping the caregivers. You’ll feel at home there.”
    “Sounds lovely.”
    “I’ll leave you in Calvin’s capable hands. He knows more about the running of this place than I do, and he’ll get you settled in your work. You can even see if he’ll divulge all the dark secrets behind this pristine exterior on your way to the east wing.”
    She glanced over at Calvin, waiting calmly by the table, and he had to admire her sangfroid. She didn’t even blink. “What’s in the east wing? The nonbelievers?”
    He bestowed his sweetest smile on her. “No. The mental patients.”
    Calvin’s loyalties and goals were clear, and they had been since the day he’d first set eyes on Luke Bardell. He didn’t like to remember that time—it had been a bad stretch for both of them, and he was a simple man with simple needs. Dwelling on fear and pain was a waste. Particularly when things were going so well right now.
    Not that it was safe. Things were never safe, and Luke ought to have known that, but after years ofpeople telling him he was perfect, the man was starting to believe it. Until Calvin set him straight.
    Luke had enemies. More than that stuck-up bitch who wanted to get her hands on her mother’s money. Fat chance of that—in the years he’d known Luke he’d never known him to willingly give up anything he’d earned, stolen, cheated, or lucked into. Not if someone tried to take it away.
    Rachel Connery was far from the worst of Luke’s problems, but she wasn’t harmless either. If he started ignoring the little threats, underestimating them, then sooner or later he would lose it all.
    Calvin didn’t intend to let that happen. He needed Luke too much. He needed Luke’s gift for conning money out of the most unlikely sources. He needed Luke’s cool, wise,