Chapter 23 #2
She shook her head. “I thought I should limit myself to comments about your golden locks and killer smile, though the last thing probably doesn’t translate too well.”
“I can help, too, you know.”
“It might take some time,” she warned him.
“How fortunate I’m here to aid you in this venture,” he said with a little bow. “I’ll clean up and return as quickly as possible.” He started to release her hand, then turned back. “Don’t bolt.”
She shook her head. “I won’t.”
He smiled, then turned and ran directly into his brother. “Move,” he said pointedly.
Connor turned him toward the front door. “Father wants to see you back in the lists.”
“Father’s standing three feet away, dolt.”
“I didn’t say he was going with you, just that he wants you out there.”
Sam swore at his brother with words Harriet was starting to recognize, though she would have to consult Joanna for the particulars. Sam looked at her as he was being dragged away by his brother.
“Later,” he promised.
“I think … not,” Connor said archly. “You’re going to be very busy today.”
Harriet caught the wink Connor threw over his shoulder at her and imagined Sam was going to have a very long afternoon.
She wasn’t sure if his family was doing that for his benefit or hers, but she suspected that the end result was that she was going to learn a large number of less-polite words in the language du jour.
By the time the day was done and supper over, she was convinced that if Sam’s family got in his way one more time, someone wasn’t going to see breakfast. She stood in front of one of the hearths in the great hall with her parents and watched the keep be cleaned up after supper.
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Pet.”
“We’re from Nebraska, Harold.”
Harriet watched her father smile wryly at his wife, kiss her hand gallantly, then answer the wave from Sam’s father.
It made her happy that Lord Nicholas had been so kind to him, though she couldn’t deny that the sentiment seemed genuine.
They walked off together, chatting amicably in vintage French about things she imagined her father would be putting down in a private journal somewhere after they returned home.
Assuming they could get back home.
“Your Samuel will see to it.”
Harriet looked at her mother. “Was I muttering?”
Petunia only smiled. “I was watching your thoughts cross your face, Harriet. That, and I wondered the same thing more than once on the way here to Wyckham. Our most genteel knight assured us that he would absolutely get us safely back home. Considering our pleasant journey here was in no small part due to him, I have to believe him.”
Harriet turned to look at her mother. “He wants to date. Me, I mean. He wants us to date.”
“Sweetheart, I think he wants to do far more than just date you.”
“But,” Harriet began uncomfortably. “I’m just me.”
“And he’s just crazy about you,” Petunia said with a smile.
“Greek god and an ethereal faery. That’s quite a combination, Harriet, and one Jennifer and I discussed this morning at length.
He’ll have to go through your father, though, who has an enormous collection of medieval courting mores with which to torture him, but I imagine he expects it. ”
Harriet decided she would eventually need to stop taking so many deep breaths, but maybe they were healthy. She had the feeling that if her life continued on its current trajectory, she was going to be extremely healthy, indeed.
“And if we date,” she began, “and it gets serious, what if he wants to move to … well, you know?”
“Darling, he’s already moved to, well, you know, hasn’t he?”
“I meant, what if he wants to come back here?”
“Would you come with him if he did?”
“Would you and Dad come visit?”
Petunia put her arms around her and hugged her briefly. “Sweetheart, we’ll come to wherever you are and happily so.” She pulled away and smiled. “I think what we truly need to worry about is your father trotting regularly through whichever of those fairy rings is closest to him all on his own.”
“Sam might appreciate the extra hand with his matchmaking duties.”
“And your father would have additional things to add to his courting seminars.”
Harriet exchanged a look with her mother that simply defied description. Petunia started to speak a time or two, then simply shook her head.
“And to think this all started because you signed up for a writer’s conference.”
“It started with ghosts, Mom,” Harriet corrected. “And finding Theo’s book buried in the snow on a bench at school—wait, how did you know I signed up for anything?”
Her mother put her hand on her shoulder. “I like to know the lay of the battlefield before I step onto it. Besides, I do know how to use a search engine.”
Harriet was beginning to suspect that she had more of her mother in her than she’d thought.
“And here is your boyfriend’s mother,” Petunia whispered. “We’re going to go catch up on the current state of the arts in New York. You know she was a professional violinist, don’t you?”
Harriet watched her mother walk off to link arms with the lady of the hall, had a conspiratorial smile from Sam’s mother, then found herself standing next to the fire with nothing to do but contemplate the mysteries of life.
She had just gotten started when she realized Sam was making similar tracks toward something near her.
She looked behind her for a sibling or servant, then realized she was alone.
Well, as alone as anyone probably ever was in Wyckham, but the material point was that her favorite medieval knight was stopping in front of her and looking around him as if he expected her to be swiped at any moment.
“A walk on the roof?” he asked, sounding a little out of breath. “The skies are clear.”
“Are you certain she wants to see the stars?”
Sam glared at his brother who had stepped out of the shadows like a damned vampire. Harriet realized she was scowling at Connor right along with Sam, had a laugh from the man she was most interested in when he saw it, then watched Sam send his brother a pointed look.
“She’ll do damage to you if you vex her.”
“Very well, I’ll come along and stand guard as you tell this girl how lovely she is,” Connor said with a sigh. “Whilst keeping your hands to yourself, of course.”
Harriet watched Connor hand Sam a cloak, apparently for her, then wondered why Sam hesitated.
“What is it?” she asked.
He smiled. “I didn’t finish asking you if you cared for a walk on the roof.”
“Will we fall?”
He shook his head. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Well, he certainly had so far. She found herself wrapped up in a lovely warm cloak, then let Sam take her hand.
Connor sighed and walked away.
She smiled and walked with Sam across the great hall and up the stairs. After another passageway or two and more stairs, they stepped out of a guard tower room and onto a walkway. She realized at that moment that it hadn’t occurred to her not to trust that Sam would get her safely out—
She looked up and gasped.
“Stars,” she breathed.
“A clear night, thankfully.”
She clutched the wall of the walkway uneasily, but Sam seemed to have an answer for that as well. He made certain her cloak was pulled up to her chin, then nodded toward the wall of the circular tower behind her.
“Make yourself comfortable against that, then I’ll put my arms around you and keep you from falling while you look all you like.”
“At the stars?”
“Well,” he said with a small smile, “I suppose if you must. I will of course be here when they cease to entertain.”
She smiled and looked up at him. “Subtle.”
“I’m afraid I’m not,” he admitted, “which means my purpose in having you to myself up here should have been clear, but I keep finding refuse in my way.”
“I heard that,” Connor called.
“No, don’t go kill him now,” Harriet said, reaching for his arm before he pulled away. “I’ll help you later.”
“I heard that as well,” Connor said before he sighed loudly and moved a bit farther down the walkway.
Harriet smiled at Sam’s scowl, then felt her smile fade and butterflies take flight at the look on his face.
“I should have been more specific about why I wanted you to myself,” he said.
“Not to show me the stars?”
“That was part of it.”
“And the rest?”
“Now that I have you here without every damned member of my family—”
Connor cleared his throat.
Sam looked heavenward briefly. “Without all our chaperons,” he amended, “I wondered if you might be amenable to a brief embrace.”
She considered the embrace she was already enjoying that left her feeling very safe and cozy, indeed. “Would that one be different from our current one?”
“It might include a brief kiss.”
She took a deep breath because in spite of a day spent watching him try to get within ten feet of her and be thwarted at every turn, she still couldn’t quite believe that he would be interested in being anything past somewhat chummy comrades-in-arms.
“A brief but friendly kiss?” she asked.
“Well, we have to start somewhere.”
“And where does it finish?”
“You decide,” he said quietly. “Still.”
“Don’t you have an opinion?”
He gave her a very small little smile that was happily revealed by a decent bit of starlight. “I have many opinions, but for the present moment, you decide what you want. I am, as always, your loyal and devoted servant.”
She stood there in the starlight that wasn’t quite sunlight and considered her options.
Even saplings just stretching their branches out to see how that felt could appreciate starlight as well as sunlight, couldn’t they?
She looked up at the man who she suspected knew exactly what he was offering and what it would mean to her and thought she just might love him for it.
She lifted her chin just a bit and nodded with a crispness she imagined Miss Fanny Darling’s governess might have been proud to have in her arsenal. “Very well, you may proceed. I shall see what I think after you’ve made the first attempt.”