Chapter 15
Fifteen
Harriet sat on the edge of the sofa in her mother’s fanciest pink pajamas and lavender posy socks and wondered if the time had come to completely rethink her life.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t done that before.
She regularly reconsidered her life plans until they gave up and pled for mercy.
She’d resigned herself to the fact that she was a nerdy list-maker who probably drove all sensible men away with her attention to detail and continual analyzing of their potential for leaving her wanting to make a break for the nearest exit.
At the moment, though, she was beginning to suspect that she’d been dating the wrong people.
Not that she had any plans to date that man sitting there on the other end of the sofa, no sir.
He wore fancy blue silk britches and he knew how to use a sharp sword.
And he swore in French. That he could speak it at all was admittedly a little swoonworthy, but that wasn’t going to distract her from grilling him on exactly what sketchy things he’d been up to earlier near the church.
She considered her opening moves and decided there was no sense in not going straight up the middle of the board with her queen.
“I’m scared,” she said bluntly. “Actually, I’m not scared, I’m terrified. I don’t know what I saw tonight and I’m not sure I want to know.” She swallowed with difficulty. “I thought he was going to kill you. That man, Jackson, who is your cousin. Apparently.”
Sam pushed himself to his feet, catching his breath as he did so. He stretched out his side, then picked up the blanket she’d brought along and fluffed it over her. He sat down with another wince, then looked at her.
“Better?”
“A little,” she managed. “Thank you.”
He shifted to face her. “My mother claims the cure for most ills is food, sleep, and something beautiful, so let’s see where we are with that. What did you eat last?”
“That terrible catered dinner at the conference, followed by half the chocolate bar you were very reluctant to share with me during that lecture on weapons.”
He smiled. “I’ll do better next time. Unfortunately, I left the rest of our collection back at the inn.”
“I’m not sure I could eat anything right now anyway,” she said uneasily. “And I’m not sleepy.”
“Then we’re left with finding something beautiful for you.” He paused and ran his fingers gently through his hair. “I wonder if my glorious crown would suffice?”
She almost smiled, but she couldn’t quite manage it. She reached over instead and picked a leaf out of his hair, then handed it to him. “You missed this.”
“I took a little walk outside earlier.”
“Did you run into a wall while you were out there walking?”
He set the leaf aside. “Someone’s fists, rather.”
He didn’t volunteer anything else and she couldn’t bring herself to ask him for details. Instead, she watched his hand as he fussed with the edge of her blanket, smoothing it out so there weren’t any gaps for any chill to sneak under.
It certainly looked like a normal hand, didn’t it?
And actors studied fencing, didn’t they?
And while she hadn’t thought to ask Oliver how Jackson had become an expert on antique weapons, maybe the answer was as simple as his being a history lover like her father.
Of course that didn’t shed any light on why Sam was sporting a shiner and looked like he’d been rolling around in the garden, but maybe that could be discovered with enough patience.
She looked up to find Sam watching her carefully. She studied him for a moment or two in return, then realized she’d missed identifying a few things about him.
“Are your eyes gray?” she asked.
“So I’ve been told. They’re definitely not the color of a spring sky over a fairy’s bower like yours.”
She made a dismissive noise. “They’re just blue.”
“Nay, they’re a very beautiful blue,” he said, tilting his head a bit and smiling, “something I noticed when I first saw you which satisfies the final item on my mother’s list for me.
I fear you’re simply left with either making do with my poor visage or looking around yourself for something more interesting. ”
She would have told him that his dimple would certainly do for the evening, but he was attempting the same sort of smile she’d seen him use on Francine Collins more than once while trying to skirt discussing things she’d known he hadn’t wanted to talk about.
The familiarity of that, never mind that she knew him well enough to recognize what he was doing, was surprisingly reassuring.
After all, it wasn’t his fault that he was gorgeous or had a twin or was handy with a sword.
It also wasn’t his fault that he had cousins who were apparently out for a little payback, or that he acted in a troupe with cranky personnel, or that he was kind enough to have his brother’s back in a pinch.
He had gone out of his way to see her fed, housed safely, and bossed around with the skill any of his brother’s knightly good guys would have appreciated. Surely that earned him a bit of grace.
“You’ll do in a pinch, I suppose,” she said with a shrug that earned her a smile. She couldn’t help but smile a little in return. “Thank you. Your mother has good advice.”
“She does,” he agreed, then he gingerly touched the corner of his mouth. “Jackson should have considered that before he ruined your view.”
She wanted to tell him that Jackson hadn’t done anything of the sort, but she imagined he didn’t need anything else to feed his blustering ego that hid what she was beginning to think was a very tender heart.
“I could go find you some ice,” she offered.
“Perhaps in a bit,” he said. “For now, carry on.”
“Carry on with asking all the questions that are about to choke me in their hurry to get out and smother you?”
He smiled briefly. “Aye, that.”
“I’ve been told more than once that I’m too nosy,” she warned, sneaking a look at him to see how that had been received. “By more than one person.”
“If I had a shilling for every time someone had bellowed that at me, I would be a very rich man.”
Shillings, kitchens, swords: she was starting to wonder if he’d been raised by the kind of hard-core medieval faire people with whom her parents would have been best friends. At the moment, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Tonight was unfortunate and I fully blame Jackson for it,” he added, “but that doesn’t help you. How many questions do you want?”
“Three.”
“I’ll give you one.”
She scowled at him, but it was hard to muster up any decent irritation in the face of his smile. She would just have to be creative.
“Are you a spy,” she began without hesitation, “or an international jewel thief or a criminal mastermind outrunning a syndicate hot on your tail?”
“That was three.”
“That was one,” she countered. “One question covering three possibilities, but still just one.”
“True enough.” He took a deep breath, then looked at her seriously. “I’m just a regular bloke with a complicated family situation and several relatives I may or may not have given trouble to once too often when I was younger.” He paused. “Perhaps several times too often.”
“And that business with Jackson back there in that alleyway?”
“A bit of sport.”
“Sport,” she echoed in disbelief. “He looked like he was trying to kill you!”
“We have many lads in my family who are too ready with their fists,” he conceded. “Jack would come to my aid without hesitation if necessary, though, and I would do the same for him.”
“Is that why was he following you in London? To help you?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Then why was Oliver there as well? And what about that guy whose identity we still don’t know?”
“Oliver is a mystery,” he said carefully, “though in this instance he was there with Jackson, no doubt to aid him in tracking me down to be tortured. We’re not yet certain about that other man, though what I am certain of, Mistress Brewster, is that you will not be trailing after any more thugs to investigate their identities. ”
She found it in herself to scowl. “You’re bossy.”
“My father calls it protective.”
“And what does your mother call it?”
“Annoying,” he said with a smile, “when she’s not calling it other things that are perhaps not so polite. But my father is always right about that sort of thing, so she endures it.”
“And you are your father’s son, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“I am my father’s son,” he agreed. “Seventh out of ten.”
She gaped at him. “You’re one of ten?”
“My parents are very fond of each other.”
“I’ll say.”
He pulled the blanket up over her shoulder and tucked it in around her. “How many siblings do you have?”
“Four. I’m in the middle.”
“The peacemaker?”
“I would say the overlooked one,” she admitted, “but it’s more overshadowed.” She shrugged. “It isn’t a bad thing. I’m actually more comfortable in the wings, if you know what I mean.”
“No interest in being a knight pretending to be a monk solving grisly murders between chanting the hours?”
She shot him a look, but he only smiled in return. She lifted her chin.
“I don’t like things that go bump in the night,” she said archly, “and you’re trying to distract me. What exactly did you do to Jackson to make him go after you like that?”
He fussed with the edge of her blanket, then shot her a quick smile.
“Theo and I may have shoved him into a situation he hadn’t expected, which he didn’t much care for at the time.
That, and we arrived at his room fairly early on the morning after his wedding and banged on the door until he answered.
Breakfast was hot downstairs and we wanted to make certain he and his bride didn’t miss it. ”
“I’m surprised he didn’t go after you with a sword then.”
“He was busy with his honeymoon.” He shrugged lightly. “I daresay the joy of seeing me tonight was overshadowed by the memory of several good-natured pranks Theo and I favored him with. Can’t imagine why he’s so sensitive over it all still.”
“He’s very good at the whole sword thing.”