by Tamara Gill
“Aye.” He pushed back his plate. “Make it so. You shall teach me today, right after you bring me more juuse.”
“Nay.” She forked a bite of scrambled egg. “I shall maybe teach you tonight, after I get home from school. As for your juice, feel free to help yourself.”
“But I have already told you I prefer being served.”
“And I already told you, I don’t mind delivering food if you’re sick, or if I happen to be getting something for myself, but face it, Prince, your days of ruling me are over. Capiche?”
“I know not your meaning.” The ferocity of his scowl alerted her to an impending royal snit. “Be warned, Lucy Gordon, your flippant tone is tantamount to treason.”
Swallowing a bite of bacon, Lucy was again shaking her head. “You don’t know what capiche means but you know words like flippant and tantamount?”
He shrugged. “Already this morn I have found the Ope-rah Channel quite educational.”
***
When the wench finally took her leave, Wolfe tidied the kitchen just as he had learned from the tee-vee, then sat at the table, eyeing the empty chair usually occupied by Lucy Gordon.
Her offer to teach him to read made his chest feel oddly warm.
For far from what he had claimed—that reading was of no importance—painful experience had taught him it was...
“What would you have us do, Your Highness? We appear to be surrounded.” Gunter, a brave and tireless soul who had fought beside not only Wolfe but also his brother and father, held his hand over the gushing wound at his side. Even as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, he sat straight on his mount, sword at the ready.
“We must go forward,” Wolfe called to his meager few. There were fifteen in total. All mounted, mud-splattered and bloodied on this bitterly cold day when clouds rose from their very breath.
The horses stood skittish. Eyes wide, nostrils flared in this muddied bowl in the land.
On the bowl’s rim, stood forty—nay, fifty—of his father’s most despised enemy, ringing them in certain death. But on this day, as any other, Wolfe was in no mood to die. When he died, it would be as an old man, held in a maiden’s arms. Dying here, now, in this cold hell was not an option. Chin raised, he said to the men who had long since circled, backs to each other, swords raised to impending doom, “My father’s missive said there are reinforcements ahead. Once we reach those, these fools who only think they have us beat, will soon enough know the errors of their ways.”
“Nay, are ye daft?” young Halyard said, new to the King’s army and fresh from the battle for Gaul. “The missive plainly reads for us to retreat. Your father had no time to raise more men. This mission you send us on is suicide.”
Wolfe raised his sword. “You dare contradict me?”
“Tis not contradiction, but self-preservation.”
“Tis treason!” Wolfe roared. “You are new amongst us, but these men by your sides, they are brothers to me. You dare accuse me of leading them to their deaths?”
Gunter met Wolfe’s stare, only to bow his head. They had ridden together long enough to know each other’s minds with mere looks, and the look he had just conveyed said wherever Wolfe led, he would follow.
“What say you?” Wolfe asked Godric, the next rider in the circle.
He bowed his head.
As did the next man in line, and the next, and the next, until all present with the exception of young Halyard had silently sworn allegiance to their prince.
“We ride.” Wolfe raised his sword to the heavens now crying biting white tears. “We ride! We kill! We succeed in this battle as we have all others!” All repeated the vow that had been called before drawing swords by mighty Gwyneddor warriors since Wolfe had been but a boy, and still longer. All repeated the vow save for one. One who had dangerously slit his eyes.
Oh, young Halyard bowed his head, but then his words were not merely tantamount to treason, but the actual thing. “I will do this, Your Highness, but know ye if what I said to be true, not just my blood but the blood of all present will forever rest upon your soul. I swear on my mother’s grave. Your father’s missive said retreat. Were you to but read it again for yourself, you would see—”
“Enough!” Gunter roared, silencing the young man with but his murderous look. “You ride, or we will kill you ourselves. For when you speak ill of my prince, you speak ill of my king...an act punishable by death.”
Sensing danger, the horses grew ever more restless, hoofing the mud.
“Aye, the young prince be naught a wolf, but a lamb, Roth! Just as ye said!” High on the bowl’s rim, the enemy shouted the taunt, sharing a laugh at Wolfe’s expense.
Wolfe’s nostrils flared with rage. “There. It is there that we shall break through the enemy line. And there that we shall inflict the bloodiest wounds. Ride, warriors of Gwyneddor! Ride!”
With mighty roars, the men did ride and, just as young Halyard foretold, many died...
Wolfe looked up, sharply inhaling while wiping tears from his eyes with the backs of his hands. Gunter, young Halyard, Godric, Maurin—four brave souls dead. At his hands. For while he might not have wielded the swords that dealt their deaths, he had wielded the far more dangerous order. An order based on the fact that had he but known how to read, he would have known young Halyard’s words to be true.
***
“Luce, hello,” William said. “I’m so glad you rang.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
Seated behind his desk, he toyed with his empty tea cup. “Let me guess, lost track of time?”
“Something like that. When I realized what I’d done, I felt awful, William. Can I have a rain check?”
“Tonight?”
“Of course. Eight again?”
“Perfect.”
As William hung up his phone, he gazed at his austere, oak-lined office with its uncomfortable brown leather chairs and sofas and rows upon rows of books. Pools of incandescent lamplight provided the only bright respite from burgundy velvet drapes pulled against the sun.
Pushing back his heavy desk chair, he crossed the room, jerking open the drapes, inviting inside brilliant streams of autumn warmth. Before the Maglev’s construction, he used to keep a flat in the city. Now, he preferred a daily commute. Pressed, he’d told associates the castle cook was responsible for drawing him home each night. The truth? He enjoyed being near enough Lucy in the evenings to be able to chat her up. The woman had gotten under his skin in the most pleasurable way—at least she had until last night. What on earth had her acting so strange?
His secretary entered and for the first time, he really looked at her: dark hair pulled into a severe chignon; severe black suit; extremely pointed courts, the toes of which appeared more accommodating to Yank pizza wedges than feet. She was the exact opposite of Luce. “Here are the files you requested, sir.”
“Thank you, Ms. Roberts.”
She nodded, then, “Would you like me to shut the curtains, sir?”
“Come again?” He looked toward the Thames, at the view that, when he’d been but a child and this had been his father’s office, he’d always found enchanting, to once again find it so. The autumn colors were glorious: russets and reds that reminded him of Luce’s eternally-messy curls.
“Your curtains, sir. You prefer them to be closed. I’m so sorry.” Ever efficient, Ms Roberts headed that way. “The cleaning service must’ve left them open.”
“Leave them.”
Hand on the draw cord, she appeared puzzled by his unorthodox request. “Sir?”
“You heard me. Leave them open—please.”
Fidgeting with her hands at her waist, she said, “Certainly, sir. Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you.” She was almost to the door when he called, “Ms. Roberts?”
“Yes?”
“Am I terribly difficult to work for?”
“Sir?”
Sighing, he looked to the floor. “Come in. And please, shut the d
oor and make yourself comfortable. If such a thing is even possible in this lifeless tomb.”
“Am I to be dismissed, sir? Have I done something to displease you? If it’s your curtains, sir, I promise, that—”
What about his manner inspired this sort of fear? Appalled, he said, “Please, Ms. Roberts, no. I can assure you I’m quite pleased with your services. You’re efficient, prompt, thorough, neat in your personal appearance. All qualities, I assure you, I hold in very high regard.”
“Thank heavens,” she pressed her hand to her chest. “You gave me quite a fright.”
“Sorry. That was the last of my intentions. Please, take a seat.” Gesturing her to a chair, he’d planned to say more, but was taken on a mental detour. Neat. Of course. Was that why Lucy had stood him up? Was that what had led her to be shopping for clothes for another man? A tall, apparently more hip man. Because she feared he didn’t approve of her not keeping her cottage properly straightened—which he didn’t. But what was wrong with him that such a thing even mattered?
“Bloody hell...” He slashed his fingers through his usually neat hair.
“Your Grace?”
He looked up. “Ms. Roberts. For a moment, I'd quite forgotten you were here. Terribly, sorry.”
“Yes, sir. You already admitted as such.” Her heightened color was surprisingly pretty.
Who’d have thought that his own Ms. Roberts, whom he’d seen every weekday for months upon years—without ever having truly seen her—actually possessed a charming blush?
“All right, then...” William found himself in the unfamiliar position of not quite being sure what to do with his hands. “I suppose I should start at the beginning. You see, I have a rather unorthodox question. One I hope you won’t be offended by, but seeing how you’re the only woman of my acquaintance I feel comfortable chatting to who is under the age of sixty, I fear you’re the only one who can help.”
Smiling now, she leaned forward in her chair. “Sir, I’d be delighted to help in any possible way.”
“Yes, well...” Perching on the edge of his desk, he admitted, “this is proving rather more awkward than I’d expected, but here is the gist of it. I fancy myself in love with what I suppose the tabloids would call an American hottie, yet I fear she finds me dull as an old troll. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might make myself more attractive?”
***
Still sniffling and shaken from her latest run-in with Grumsworth, Lucy tried wedging the key in the cottage’s lock while holding Buzzy’s heavy cage under her left arm. But just as she’d failed in her first attempt and begun her second, the door burst open and the prince took the cage from her arms.
“Lucy Gordon,” he said, flip-flopping her heart with a slow, sexy grin. “You are late.”
“I know,” she brushed past him and into the mudroom. “What’s that heavenly smell?”
“Beef stro-gan-off.” He set Buzzy’s home on the mudroom’s wooden bench. “I learned to prepare it from a fellow countryman calling himself Gordon Ramsay. He appears daily on the Cooking Classics Channel.”
Eyebrows raised, Lucy lifted the lid on the concoction simmering on the stove.
“Wow...” Her stomach growled from just the awesome smell. “I’ve heard of him and I’m impressed.”
He bowed.
“And look at you,” she said, so stunned with dinner that she hadn’t noticed his duds. Dressed in khakis and a caramel-colored sweater, he’d then gathered his long hair into a pony tail tied with a highly suspicious strip of leather. Was that one of the shoelaces from her best pair of loafers?
Who cared? He looked even more delicious than the food he’d prepared! “Hot stuff.”
“Judging by your most pleasing facial expression, I assume this is a good thing?”
“Very...” She forced her gaze from his mouthwatering features back to dinner. Eager to discuss anything not centered around her insane craving to kiss him, she asked, “Did you happen to notice what was inside the cage you so graciously grabbed from me?”
“You mean the squarish thing?”
“That would be the one.” She bumbled past him to the mudroom. An exquisite awareness of him wiped clean the lousy slate of her day. How could she have forgotten his size? The sheer muscular mass that made her feel, for the first time in her life, not plump but petite. Even better—or worse—if the hunger for something far different from food raging in his dark eyes could be taken as an indication, she was wanted. Desired. The very idea curled her toes with stupid, irrational pleasure. If the past five minutes had been this enjoyable, what did an entire evening hold in store?
Trying hard to focus on the matter at hand, she lifted the cage’s metal lid, fishing Buzzy out from his pile of fragrant cedar shavings. Hands cupped round his furry, chubby-cheeked belly, she held him up to the prince. “Wolfe, meet Buzzy.”
“Put it down!” The prince lurched back. “It no doubt bites.”
Laughing, she said, “Sure, he bites, but never too hard, and only if you interrupt his beauty sleep.” Offering the tiny creature to Wolfe, she asked, “Wanna hold him?”
Shaking his head, he took another step back and, if she hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn he was...
Impossible. No way, was the big strapping prince afraid of furry little Buzzy.
“Set it down,” he commanded. “I shall off it, then roast it on a stick for dinner.”
“Oh, stop. He’s my classroom pet—or, rather, was our pet.”
The prince not only backed further away but gripped the counter’s edge.
Holding Buzzy to her cheek for a cuddle, Lucy asked, “You’re afraid of this cutie, aren’t you?”
“Of course not.” He leaned back as she approached. “But the rodent is unfamiliar to me. Looks more suitable for roasting than keeping as an animal companion.”
“Shame on you.” She brushed past him on her way to return Buzzy to his house. “And you’d better get used to him because, thanks to Grumsworth, this little guy is the newest member of our happy home.”
“The rodent is to remain here? Inside?” He actually looked terrified at the thought.
“Yep,” she headed upstairs to change. “But don’t worry. He doesn’t do much besides eat and sleep. I’ll take care of feeding him and cleaning his cage.”
“Good.” The prince followed.
In her room, Lucy found another surprise. Clothes. Three piles of neatly folded T-shirts, jeans, bras and panties. She reddened, feeling Wolfe’s firm, warm hands on those intimate garments just as surely as if he’d massaged them over the private places they’d been designed to cover. “Um, thank you,” she said. “You didn’t have to do laundry.”
“No,” he leaned on the open door, “I did not have to. I wanted to.”
“How did you learn to work the washer and dryer? To use the right amount of detergent?”
He shrugged. “A woman on tee-vee was quite helpful. Little of the process was complex. As for the soap, that was easily enough distributed from watching a product report upon it during the many brief breaks between my shows.”
“Your shows, huh?” Lucy grinned. He’d been a housewife for a whole two days and already he was afraid of hamsters and had favorite shows? What had she done to this once virile man? Tucking her hands in her jacket pockets, her left hand fingers touched cool foil. “Oh, hey,” she removed a candy bar she’d bought for him while quick-charging her car. “I almost forgot. Here,” she handed it to him. “I got this for you.”
“For me? You brought me a gift?” Though he'd have no way of knowing, the size of his smile was a gift for her.
“It’s not a big deal.” The notion that such a small gesture made the prince so happy, made her chest curiously tighten. “Just a candy bar. Here,” she helped with the wrapper, “you eat it.”
“But the silver!” He stared in horror as she crumpled the foil before tossing it in the bathroom recycling bin. “That alone must be worth a king’s ransom.”
&
nbsp; “Nah, it’s called aluminum foil. The color’s all it has in common with silver.”
His eyes still wide, she broke the bar in half, then held it to his lips, wishing she’d let him hold it himself when, along with the candy, his warm lips and breath grazed her fingers.
When his taste buds finally kicked in, a shiver tremored through him. Gripping her wrist, he asked, “Wench?”
“Yes?” Did shivers mean he liked it or hated it?
His strong lips parted in a huge smile and then he was grabbing the other half of the bar, holding it out to her. “This is magnificent. Food fit for God Himself. Have you tried it? Here,” he forced it to her mouth. “You must have the remains. I insist. Even a mere woman should not be without such a supremely divine taste.”
“A mere woman, huh?” To show him she could eat every bit as well as any man twice her height, she bit off a good-sized chunk of the remaining half and chewed.
“Tis good, eh?”
He’d placed his fingertips to her lips, tracing the curve of her grin. “Yes. Tis good.”
The chocolate was tasty, but even better was the feel of his fingers easing their way around her sensitive skin. Barely touching, yet filling her with the most vibrantly erotic longings, to—to do absolutely nothing.
No, no, no.
She wasn’t playing this game of his ever again. The two of them could have fun together, but not that kind of fun—not that she thought doing those sorts of things with him was fun, because...
Who was she trying to kid?
Face it, she wanted him. Bad. But, like the good scientist she was attempting to be, from now on, she vowed to always maintain a professional distance from her subject—no matter what outrageous move he next pulled!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Wolfe wanted her.
Whilst seated at her disgracefully small table, he watched Lucy Gordon turn her fork upside down, darting her tongue out to lick creamy white sauce from the tines, eyes half shut with hazy pleasure. Pleasure he had created, only with pots, pans and cream sauce, as opposed to trailing his fingers along her sweet inner thighs.
“Thank you.” She put down her fork as if she were done.
