“Did that just happen?”She leaned toward Michael.“I can’t stop shaking.”
Michael motioned to the proprietor behind the bar—a burly man in a sailor cap and a dull white shirt with his sleeves rolled up, his long braided beard tucked into his undershirt.
“Ernst, can we have some water?”
The man raised a finger and nodded.“Stella!”He poked his head through the kitchen pass-through.“Cross man, Lady Royal, here.Fish, chips.W and P.”
Scottie rested her head in her hands.“I keep seeing her dangling there, clutching her daughter.What if I’d lost my grip?”
She looked up as a pretty server with short curls and bright eyes set down two bottles of water and two frosty pints.
“Thank you.”Scottie twisted off the cap and took a long drink, but the water only churned her nerves.“I might be sick.”
“Take a deep breath.”Michael covered her hand with his.“If you need, the loo’s in the corner.”
“Give me a sec.”She leaned back, staring at the golden flames licking the hearth.Outside the paned window, people drifted past, heading up Wells Line toward Centre Street.“I don’t even know her name.Why’d you rush me out of there?”
“Because that lot was drunk and fired up.Didn’t you hear them chanting ‘No more Americans’?”
“Do you think they’d really hurt me?”
“Sadly, yes.The RECO party is very anti-monarchy.Small yet vicious.”
“Surely those who support the monarchy would—”
“Stand by with their phones, filming as you’re thrown over the quay, then lament it later?Maybe.I am not taking any chances.What a selfish lot, letting that woman dangle there with her little girl while they gawked.We’ll see how many post the footage for their socials, hoping to go viral.”He withdrew his hand.“You’re not in America, Scottie.You’re not in small-town Hearts Bend with your white picket fences and Uncle Joe on the porch picking his guitar and grinning.”
“You’ve been watchingAndy Griffithreruns,” she shot back.“We live in the twenty-first century in Hearts Bend, Michael.I know the world’s dangerous.”
“Even more so because you’re now part of a unique and elite family.You can’t run off on your own.What were you doing out here?”
“I needed some air.”
“Air?Stand by Whistlecrag Bluff and breathe in half the North Sea but at least tell me first.Wherever you go, whatever you do, you must notify me or Operations.Your protection is my responsibility.”Michael looked as stricken as she felt.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t think.”
“In this world, that sort of thing can get you killed.”
“Is this about Prince John?Kate told me of the incident in Brighton Kingdom.The attempt on his life.You were cleared, and tonight was my fault.I’ll own it.”
“No, it’s not about Prince John,” he said.Yet to Scottie’s ears, there was doubt in his reply.“But I’d like to avoid a repeat incident, Scottie.Even if you take the blame, I’m right there with you.I don’t get the privilege of blaming you.So please—help me by letting me help you.”
“Okay, okay.”Part chastened, part grateful, she felt something deeper in his plea, almost as if he needed more from her than a daily report of her whereabouts.But what could Michael Cross possibly want from her?When their eyes met across the worn table, her trembling began to ease.The thumping in her ears faded.
“Where I go, you go,” she said.
“Thank you.”He exhaled and smiled faintly.“Except, not to the loo.”
She laughed and toasted him with her water.“Not the loo.”
“Yer royalness.Welcome.”Ernst, whom Scottie had met before with Gus and Daffy, took a sweeping bow, then stepped aside for a dark-haired woman in a stained apron carrying two platters of fish and chips.“My Stella.”He patted her shoulder.“Good wife.Jolly husband.”
Scottie smiled as Stella bobbed a curtsy, a feminine version of Ernst, minus the beard, of course.Her figure was soft and curvy, her cheeks pink from the kitchen heat.
“Yer Blues,” the woman said warmly.“Family.”
When they’d gone, Michael handed Scottie a napkin roll and took up his own.“Salt of the earth, as they say.If you’re ever caught in a mob again in the Old Hamlet, run here.Ernst will hide you.”
