Chapter 11 #3
“You certainly will be when I present you with the list of tasks you still must take on in your brother’s stead. Unless he’s planning on living up to his end of our bargain and arriving post haste.”
“He was supposed to be back yesterday,” Sam said carefully. “I’m certain he’s just running late. And if it makes any of this more palatable, he never would have left you in the lurch if he’d had a choice.”
Francine looked at him without any trace of expression on her face. “I’m not worried,” she announced.
“Neither am I.”
Harriet wasn’t sure of much, but the idea that the two in front of her were unconcerned was something she could safely say was not true at all.
“Then in the meantime, I shall do a better job of managing things here,” Francine announced. “Beginning with acting as a proper chaperon for you two,”
“Oh, but there’s no need,” Harriet said, feeling her cheeks grow hot. “We’re just friends.”
“Is that so, young Master de Piaget?”
Harriet hardly dared look at Sam. In fact, at the moment she was perfectly comfortable admitting that she was a complete coward, so she didn’t even try.
Besides, the thought of there being anything between them was ridiculous. For one thing, she hardly knew him, and for the other, she was fairly sure her small, snowdropish self couldn’t possibly bear the brightness of all his sun-deity glory for more than a few minutes at a time.
“We are friendly comrades-in-arms,” Sam said gravely, “and she is perfectly safe in my care.”
“See that she stays that way, my lad,” Francine said. “Let’s be off to our separate rests, children. I suspect tomorrow will be quite the day.”
Harriet couldn’t imagine anything could top having Samuel de Piaget see what her parents were up to, but she’d been wrong before. She watched Francine retreat into the bathroom to no doubt glam herself up with gobs of cold cream, then turned to look at Sam.
“That was interesting,” she offered.
“Wasn’t it just.” He took her hand and bent over it, then straightened and looked at her seriously. “I’m off to contemplate slaying dragons. You, as a proper medieval miss, will be doing what?”
“Following after you—”
“Nay, lady,” he said sternly, “you will be sitting next to the fire, warm and safe, whilst I go off to do my manly business.”
“But—”
He looked at her pointedly.
“All right,” she said with a sigh.
“I’ll bring you a full report of all my findings.”
“All of them?”
He considered, then smiled briefly. “Mostly all of them.”
“You’re very bossy.”
He smiled a bit more easily that time. “You can blame my father for that. He has very high standards for his sons in regard to the tending of the gels in their care.” He released her hand, stepped back, then made her a slight bow. “Until the morning, then.”
She nodded, sighed lightly when he made door closing motions, then retreated back into the dragon’s lair.
She went to sit on her bed and contemplate the state of her life.
That lasted only a few minutes before Francine emerged, beautifying treatments already applied.
She took her usual seat at the writing desk, then looked at Harriet and smiled.
“He’s as charming as his brother,” Francine said, “though they are very different.”
“How so?” Harriet asked.
“Theophilus is delightful, of course, but a bit more serious. Your Samuel is a bit brighter.” She paused.
“The sun and the moon, perhaps, but both lovely lads all the same. And Samuel’s Benedict was indeed wonderful.
They have an affinity for bygone eras that is unusual.
Half the time, I expect Theo to come striding into my office in full knightly gear. ”
Harriet thought it might be best to just remain silent on that.
And she was absolutely certain that Samuel de Piaget was not hers.
It would have been the very height of foolishness to even come close to a wish that somehow he might be.
She grasped for her remaining good sense and desperately made a mental list of all the reasons why that was a good thing.
He was tall, which might make standing up to him hard on her neck or her toes.
He was gorgeous, which would definitely make looking at him for long stretches difficult.
He had a dimple to go along with that killer smile which absolutely threw any hope of remaining irritated with him for any length of time right out the window.
He was also bossy in a particularly medieval sort of way that left her suspecting she might spend a lot of time sitting in front of a fireplace knitting while he went off to slay all the dragons, leaving none for her.
She sighed, took a deep breath, then decided the best thing she could do was carry on as comrades-in-arms, get through the next few days, then tag along as a third wheel on her parents’ adventures for as long as they were in the country.
Besides, she was there to meet Theophilus de Piaget and at least move past the first sentence of her book.
Dark and stormy nights didn’t necessarily have to hide frightening things, they could form a perfect backdrop for a knight in shining armor with the moonlight peeking through the clouds and falling down artistically onto his rich, golden-hued hair—
She clapped her hand to her forehead, rolled her eyes, and went to go put on her hostess’s lovely lavender pajamas. What she needed was a good night’s sleep and a return to her usual good sense.
She absolutely refused to admit that she was beginning to understand why her mother hadn’t chucked her father’s knightly gear into the compost heap behind that greenhouse full of mysterious things.