Chapter 16
Sixteen
Sam woke, then almost wished he’d managed to stay asleep for another hour or two.
His side burned as fiercely as if he’d run directly into his cousin’s fists more than once, his mouth stung when he breathed, and his hands ached in a way that suggested that perhaps he needed to brawl more often.
He vaguely remembered having put his peas on the floor—he’d be nipping into the nearest market for another bag for sure—but they’d done a decent work on his eye because he had no trouble seeing out of it.
Unfortunately having two functioning eyes left him with a full view of Master Harold Brewster, the man who had loaned him the nightclothes he was wearing and father of the faery in his arms.
His arms, not Harold Brewster’s arms.
He also understood why his neck was on fire and that was because he’d fallen asleep sitting straight up on the sofa and the pillow he’d managed to stuff behind his head as he’d told himself he would just close his eyes for a few minutes had cruelly deserted him, no doubt by simply falling off the back of the couch.
He was enormously grateful that his hands were in plain sight. He was somewhat less relieved to find that Harriet had put one of her arms around his waist and was currently sound asleep with her face buried against his neck.
“Ah,” he began, looking at her father with his most trustworthy expression.
Mr. Brewster only lifted an eyebrow.
Sam patted Harriet on the shoulder. “Harriet, ‘tis morning and your faery minions are calling.”
She sat up with a yawn, pushed her hair out of her eyes, then froze.
He understood.
“Hi Dad,” she croaked. “Nothing happened.”
“Are you saying you aren’t the one who roughed up TD Piaget’s brother there?”
Harriet laughed. Sam couldn’t decide if he should find that reassuring or insulting, but he was fairly certain that his morning of being abandoned to his fate had just begun.
Harriet tossed her half of their blanket onto him and got effortlessly to her feet.
She embraced her father who smiled at her as if he thoroughly enjoyed her company, then she blithely skipped off to no doubt garb herself for the day.
Sam found himself facing a paternal mien that was not unfriendly but definitely assessing.
He stood up immediately, grateful for at least a decent blanket to hide behind so he didn’t look absolutely ridiculous in stripped pajama trousers, and made Harriet’s father a low bow.
“Thank you for the loan of these fine nightclothes,” he said politely. “And a safe place to sleep.”
Lord Brewster—and Sam could scarce keep himself from calling the man that aloud—was only studying him in a way that made him very nervous.
“Run into something foul last night?” Lord Brewster asked with an assessing glance.
Nothing of interest was half out of his mouth before he realized that perhaps Harriet’s father thought it might have been Harriet’s fists to do damage to his face after all. He would have attempted a reassuring smile but he suspected that might not be the right path to take.
He also wished he’d been dressed properly whilst also not sporting what he was sure was ripening into a decent black eye, but one made do with less-than-ideal circs when necessary.
“I was doing a bit of reconnaissance around your cottage,” he began, “and ran afoul of one of my cousins. We have a long history together and unfortunately he has an equally long memory of pranks my brother Theo and I pulled on him when we were very young.” He shrugged, then regretted it when his side protested the movement.
“We indulged in a friendly little brawl hopefully too far away to have kept anyone awake. I will say without hesitation, sir, that my cousin is a man of unimpeachable honor who, had your beloved daughter been anywhere nearby, would not have subjected her to any unpleasant sights.”
He imagined he could leave battles with swords discreetly unmentioned.
Lord Brewster nodded thoughtfully. “And you?”
“My honor is unimpeachable, as well,” Sam said, because that was what every male in his family expected from him at all moments and he had never failed to adhere to that code of conduct. “Harriet is absolutely safe with me, and I would defend her with all that I am should the need arise.”
Lord Brewster stroked his chin in a manner that was so reminiscent of Robin of Artane, Sam almost choked.
“Know anything about swords, son?”
“Ah—”
Lord Brewster nodded toward a bag that Sam had somehow either missed or slept through being deposited in the corner of the great room, a bag that greatly resembled the sort of carry-all Jackson and Oliver were apparently using to ferry about their weapons of doom.
He hardly dared hope the one he was currently looking at might hold an assortment of golf clubs instead of anything more lethal.
Then again, with the way his morning was going so far, golf clubs wouldn’t have been much of an improvement over swords.
“Let’s have a little breakfast, then see if we can work it off in the garden, shall we?”
Sam nodded without hesitation because he was a decent guest. He hoped, however, that if Jackson and Oliver were spying on the back garden, they wouldn’t amuse themselves by shouting suggestions on how he might improve his swordplay.
Given the way the day was shaping up, he wouldn’t have been surprised if that had been only the beginning of their sport at his expense.
An hour and a lovely familial breakfast later, he found himself torn between being distracted by bird calls that he was absolutely certain were not made by any authentically feathered beasts and wondering just how much enthusiasm to put behind swordplay with blades that whilst they were blunted were definitely made from metal.
He knew Harriet had come to watch the potential carnage a quarter hour earlier which didn’t help matters any. He was doing his damndest to keep her father at bay without injuring him whilst at the same time not shouting vulgar suggestions at his cousin and his chief companion in nefarious doings—
“Dad!”
Sam thought he might be seeing stars. He looked up into the heavens that threatened rain and wondered if Jackson had launched him into his current slide into ignominy and humiliation by cracking something that Harold Brewster had just broken.
What he was certain of was that he had been felled by a man his father’s age who, whilst a fairly decent swordsman, was not anywhere near his father’s equal.
In spite of that, Lord Brewster had managed somehow to take his faux blade and jam it directly into whatever divot Jackson had made in his side the night before.
His vision cleared in time to find Harriet’s father peering down at him.
“Sorry, son,” he said. “You were distracted.”
“Real knights don’t flinch,” Sam wheezed, certain his uncle Robin would have appreciated his ability to quote him whilst in the midst of being winded.
He accepted a hand up, wished his ribs hadn’t already been so abused by Jackson Kilchurn, but managed to make Harriet’s father a bit of a bow just the same.
“Very well played, my lord. I’m enormously grateful we were using training blades. ”
“People don’t use sharpened swords, Samuel,” he said soothingly. “Not to worry.”
Sam begged to differ, but the current moment was obviously not the right one in which to do so.
“Perhaps we should have used the plastic ones I have inside,” Lord Brewster continued with a wink. “Next time, yes?”
Sam refused to be offended mostly because the man made a decent argument for the same.
He handed his sword to his favorite faery’s father, accepted a hearty handshake, then watched Lord Brewster escort his daughter off the field and back into the house.
He stretched his side, glared at the surroundings in case Jackson and Oliver were there to notice, then decided he couldn’t go wrong with checking his phone.
He was unsurprised to find a text from Callum containing nothing but question marks.
Those were easily ignored, allowing him to get on with fretting about why it was his brother had seemingly lost his phone.
He refused to indulge in panic over the same because his sibling was nothing if not resourceful.
On the other hand, if he felt at liberty to silently admit to a bit more worry than he cared for, surely no one would notice.
Where the hell was Theo?
He shoved his phone back in his pocket and decided worrying over things he couldn’t control wasn’t going to change anything.
Though he would absolutely repay his brother for any slight concern he might have experienced, perhaps the rest of the day would be best lived one moment at a time.
He turned around, fully prepared to put that plan into action, only to freeze at the sight that greeted him.
Harriet was standing under a lush bit of well-established wisteria, looking as lovely and serene as she usually did.
He wished he’d had any artistic ability at all for he would have painted her just as she stood there, looking less like a faery who was dazed by her surroundings and more like one who had taken in the view and decided it might suit her well enough after all.
He suspected that view would eventually include a man who would endlessly tell her how lovely she was, lose her brush for her regularly, and perhaps make a habit of placing exquisite notebooks about the house for her use at a moment’s notice.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see how he could possibly be that man. His life was chaotic and strange and unsettled in a way that was surely not what a woman of a list-making disposition could live with for the rest of her days.
But that first date … that couldn’t hurt, could it?
He decided it couldn’t, so he walked over and took up a little spot next to her under the wisteria that climbed up the side of the house.
“My lady?” he asked politely.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“The sun, the moon, the starlit sky?”
“Be serious.”