She told him about Mr. Green and Luke, his bodyguard, the brooch, rubbing it, saying the name Pendragon, and then being here.
“Pendragon?” Genevra asked from the outer room with Hild.
“Yes,” Camelee told her, turning to her. “Why?”
“I feel as if I have heard it before.”
“It’s fictional,” Camelee told her. “One of the nannies who raised me readThe Once and Future Kingabout King Arthur Pendragon and his Round Table Knights. The nannie thought it fascinating that I was named after the king’s castle. I studied it all a little further. His wife was Queen Guinevere. Pendrey supposedly is variant form of Pendragon. So, my name could be Camelot Pendragon.” She smiled. “It fascinated me. But it ended there. I didn’t live in a fairytale.”
Wolf covered her hand with his. Her heart felt as if it were melting down to her stomach. How could he not be a complete jerk when he looked the way he did? How could he be a murdering barbarian in battle and a tender protector when he was with her?
“Do you still have the brooch?” Genevra asked her.
“No. It didn’t come here with me. Nothing did.”
“Do you think Mr. Green is here?”
She looked at Wolf after he asked and felt so fortunate to have found a needle like him in this haystack. Did he trust her instincts so much?
“I don’t think he would be here,” she told him.
“I will have riders ask around and see if anyone has heard of him, to make certain.”
He did so much for her. Was it because, like him, she wanted to go home? It wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? “Thank you,” she said softly and smiled at him.
Did he appear ruffled? Had his steely resolve just quaked a little—right in front of her? She wanted to stare at him, to watch and see if he came undone if she smiled again. But Hild ran to him and stood before him.
Camelee studied her with her smile growing. She was a cute kid when she wasn’t being pitiful. Her eyes were wide and usually haunted, but now they were curious and joyful. She said nothing for an eternal moment and then placed her little hand on his much larger one.
“Uf.”
He chuckled lightly and turned to Camelee and whispered, “Is she barking at me?”
Camelee laughed and poked him in the side. “She’s saying your name, Silly. Watch the way her nose crinkles after she says it, like someone shook the pepper too close.”
His grin remained as he spread his warm gaze over her face, looking at her as if he knew something she didn’t.
“Hild,” she said, to show him. “Who is this?”
“Uf!” the child exclaimed, lifting off her feet with her expelled breath. A half an instant later, her small nothing-of-a-nose wrinkled at him.
He laughed and took her hand. “What can I do for you, Hild?”
“Uf go outside?”
He looked at Camelee and then at Genevra. “Are you two up for it? I want to keep us all together until I find guards I trust to keep watch over your door.”
Genevra agreed to go outside. Camelee would love a hot bubble bath but, oh well. “Of course. Sounds fun!”
They stepped out the door with Wolf going first. No one bothered them or even looked their way. Their gazes were affixed to Wolf’s. Some of them wanted to ask him questions about secret southern routes, and northern boats waiting along the shorelines.
But if anyone thought they could leave against the king’s orders, they were mistaken. And Wolf told them so. He promised to personally hunt down and kill any deserters.
“How about sharing those three beauties, my lord?” someone called out from a group of men.
Without hesitation, Wolf reached over his shoulder and pulled an arrow from his quiver and his bow from its tether. “Cover her eyes,” he warned quietly, aimed and shot. The arrow landed in a man’s chest and felled him to the ground. “Does anyone else want me to share?”
Camelee stood staring at him, horrified after he killed one of the king’s men for asking a question. Granted it was a vile question, but—
