He wondered if his grandfather slept with one eye open. He knew he would have in his shoes.
He looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. Gavin pulled out his cell phone and typed. Nathaniel felt the text hit his phone but he waited what he thought was an acceptable amount of time before he pulled up what he’d gotten.
Moral support only.
He smiled, glanced at his brother, then decided that perhaps having family about wasn’t such a bad thing. His older brother might just have earned a dinner invitation.
He looked up at the ceiling and thought fondly of lochs and forests and the pleasures of no mobile phone signals. He realized that when he began to consider the beauties of a medieval battlefield with a piper piping in the distance, he had perhaps gone too far—
“Nathaniel!”
Nathaniel dragged himself back to the matter at hand and realized his grandfather was shouting at him. “Aye?”
His grandfather looked as if he were going to have a stroke. “Yesis the proper response, quickly followed by,Forgive me, Grandfather, I was distracted by all the money my never being available has cost you.”
Nathaniel didn’t bother to answer. He simply let Peter step in front of him, figuratively, and take over. He suppressed a yawn, then went back to ignoring what was going on. In fact, he was doing a damned fine job ignoring most everything that had gone on for... He looked at his watch. Good lord, it had already been two hours and he couldn’t remember a damned thing that had been said. He glanced at Emma.
She met his eyes, then shifted aside the file folder she’d been using to shield her notepad from prying eyes.
His grandfather had been rendered there, wearing a duck costume.
He had to rub his face to stop himself from belly laughing. He gave her a stern look on principle, then reached over and wrote on the edge of her pad.
You’re marvelous.
She considered, then answered in the same spot.
I know.
He almost asked her to marry him there on the spot, but he supposed there might be a more romantic time and place. Perhaps after he’d gotten them out of quite possibly the most boring meeting ever held and made certain they both would remain in their proper place in time.
The only thing he could say was even mildly interesting was watching Peter and knowing the man was fighting the urge to leap over the table and plunge a pen into Poindexter MacLeod’s eye. It was almost a pity 1387 wasn’t calling at the moment. Nathaniel suspected Peter would have had a delightful time there.
Emma passed him a note. He found that curious given that her file folder had seemingly been guarantee of enough privacy before. He unfolded it, then frowned thoughtfully at what was written there.
That’s your brother, right?
He didn’t look up. Gavin was sitting next to Gerald, who was sitting, rather uncomfortably it had to be acknowledged, next to the old duck himself. He only slid her a slight nod.
She wrote something else, then passed it to him.
Next to him?
He supposed she might want to know so she could label her drawings properly.
Cousin Gerald.
Her hand shook as she wrote.
I’ve seen him before.
He felt a hush fall over the room, and it wasn’t because Gerald had stopped bloviating long enough to take a drink. He doodled a little sword on Emma’s note, then wrote down a single word.
Where?
She only looked at him. The truth was, she didn’t have to say anything. He didn’t even bother to ask her if she was sure or not.
Emma had seen Gerald in thepast?
