“For old times’ sake, you can stay with us,” James said, rising to his feet. “Ella will find you a room.”
Ella flashed me a smile. When James held the door open for us to precede him out, she took me by the arm. “Where’s your car? Get your luggage, and I’ll make up the bed for you. You don’t mind one of the servants’ rooms, do you?”
One of the old servants’ bedrooms here was almost as large as my entire flat in London. “That will be perfect,” I told her, and tried to believe it. This was preciselywhat I needed, to be in the midst of the enemy.
Yet something inside me, an instinct deeper than thought, warned me that I was in danger. That James had seen through my tissue of lies and knew my real reason for being here. I’d have to be subtle in my investigations.
I have a lot of strengths. Unfortunately, subtlety isn’t one of them.
ALEX
Well, shit. I’d been so careful, ensuring Margaret had James Fortescue cornered in conversation and that I looked uber-casual as I strolled along the landing. Nothing to see here. Just a slightly lost dragon searching for the bathroom.
Once the group talking outside the drawing room went in, I eased open the door to James’s study and slid into theroom. So far, so good.
I froze when I saw the guy from the bar in there. He was staring at me, and I swiftly realised the look on his face was panic. It appeared I wasn’t the only one taking the opportunity to have an illicit poke around.
I had no idea why he was sneaking around like this or who he was, other than a dragon who obviously had a history with Charlie. Whoever he was, he bought my lame-ass story while I pretended to buy his, and it appeared we both had the same thing in mind—reading as many of James Fortescue’s emails as we could.
Margaret would rip my wings off if she knew what I was up to, but I was impatient. She hadn’t yet got out of James what he wanted from us. Talk of forging closer bonds and vague promises of protection were worrying. Protection fromwhat?Whywould he offer it to us, and what did he want in return?
When I heard someone approaching, I did the only thing I could to cover our presence. The fact I’d been wanting to snog the stranger since I first saw him was merely a bonus. And God, could he kiss. I was practically trying to climb inside his skin when that piercing whistle interrupted us.
True to Fortescue form, Ella barely registered my presence. Her eyes were eating up the stranger. I was perfectly happy with that—the sooner I got out of here, the less likely she’d be able to pick me out in a line-up. I legged it, though not without some regret that Istilldidn’t know the stranger’s name or what he was doing later that night.
As my arousal from the kiss faded, my brain at last started working. I left the house, crossing the road to the small garden in the centre of the Circus, where I leaned against a handy tree. I wished I hadn’t given up smoking. Something about evening air always brought back the longing for a cigarette, even though tonight theautumnal wind was gusty and smelled of rain. I breathed in the musty scent of dead leaves and told myself it was just as satisfying.
The text of the emails meant nothing to me, but that subject line… ‘Le Mort d’Arthur’. Whatever the subject line referred to, the content of the email showed it wasn’t a book club discussing Malory’s epic Arthurian legend. I snorted at the thought of James Fortescue discussing anything. From what I’d seen, he only ever issued orders.
There was a sickness in my gut that I couldn’t shake. The reference to Arthur was a direct nod to my family’s heritage, and though my French was basic, I knew that mort meant death.
Dragons had split into factions based around families centuries ago. My family had dwindled in influence and importance over the years, but we had something none of them had. If they saw Margaret’s presumptive position as a threat…
Cold drops of rain splashed on my skin as I realised I was taking that title too literally. They wouldn’t invite us here to kill her. That would be far too obvious.
But the death of Arthur—what else could it refer to? Then, there was the question of why the stranger had been so interested in that particular email. Why had he been in James’s study? And why hadn’t I wanted to stop kissing him?
I had to put him out of my mind. I needed to talk to Margaret.
Back inside the Fortescues’ house, I did some research on my phone while waiting for the interminable drinks party to finish. Margaret eventually left the room, deep in conversation with a couple of Fortescues, and I had my excuse ready to go.
“The abbey is spotlit at night,” I told her. “Do you want to come and see it?”
“That sounds delightful,” she said, her eyes penetrating. “I’ll meet you in the hall in five minutes.”
This gave me time to ask Mr Taylor for my coat while hoping the rain had stopped. It would look a bit odd if we went sightseeing in a downpour.
Thankfully, it was dry when we left the house, though the wind was still gusting strongly. “They say Pulteney Bridge is all lit up at night as well,” I informed her as we walked. “I don’t know about the Roman Baths, though they’re on our way to the abbey, so we can have a look. We might as well do the full tourist thing while we’re here.”
“Makes a change for us to be the tourists,” Margaret said. Living in the part of Britain that people only visited for their summer holidays became tedious at times. Tourists tramped anywhere they wanted and batted way too fast down single-track lanes, leaning on their car horns when they—inevitably—became trapped behind a slowly moving flock of sheep.
Once we were out of earshot of the house, I glanced over my shoulder. No one was following us, so I confessed what I’d done and told her what I’d found.
Her grip became uncomfortably tight on my arm, where her hand was crooked through my elbow. “I should rip your wings off, Alexander Teague,” she informed me. “If you’d been caught, you could have derailed everything.”
“Except for the fact we still don’t know what ‘everything’ is,” I dared to point out. Margaret was head of our family and, technically, our queen, but she was also my aunt, and I was her favourite nephew. The fact I was her only nephew undoubtedly explained that.
“Except for that,” she allowed. “Now, shush. Let me think.”
