“Well,” Dad said with his signature exhale.“I’ll look into it for you, but I seriously doubt there’s any meat on those bones.”
Out the door and up the stairs, Michael was glad she rang.Glad to hoof it down to the pub with her.Glad to be anywhere with her.
Making his way to the second floor Grand Gallery, Michael braced for what he’d begun to dub the Scottie flutter—the movement in his chest when he heard her voice or clapped eyes on her.Rather annoying, one might say, but easy to endure.He’d almost rid himself of the sensation while she was home in Hearts Bend, but the moment she stepped off Royal One, it returned with jet boosters.
To be fair, the flutter indicated his heart was more than the cold rock he’d been carrying behind his ribs since Purnell’s final breath.For that he was a bit grateful.
Ah, there she was by the old bookcase tucked into an alcove.Breathe deep, mate.But Scottie’s smile only made those invisible wings being to flap all the more, and with the wispy light from the window crowning her hair, she looked somewhat like a vision.
“What are we up to, Lady Royal?”he said, pushing a casual tone into his voice.“Why are we meeting here?Not to jump from a window, I hope.Or sneak down a trellis.I must insist we take the stairs.”
“Very droll, Mr.Cross.Wearetaking the stairs.”With a sly look, she pulled a book from the shelf.“These stairs.”The bookcase became a door, revealing a lightless lower level and a spiral set of narrow iron stairs.
“The secret, secret passage?”He laughed, drawn instantly into the mystery and adventure of it.“When or how did you discover this?”
“Prince Gus showed it me during my first visit to Hadsby.But you must keep our secret.I’m only showing you because you saved my bacon twice and escorted me to see Fanatic Fickle.Otherwise, it’s for royal children and a few choice friends only.”She flipped the light switch, igniting a bare white bulb that did little to dispel the darkness.
“I see.Well blow me down, I’m a friend of Lady Royal Blue.”The stairs creaked with every descending step.
“You might need me, come the revolution,” Scottie said.“Rather, I might need you.”
“You jest, but given MP Fickle’s animosity toward your family—”
“—he’d gleefully lead a revolution?”Scottie glanced back at him.There was enough light to see the purpose in her eyes.“We’ll see,” he said.“Maybe you started a path to truth by visiting him.Blimey, it’s dark.Where are we going?”
They kept going by the light of their phones until a door appeared at the bottom of the stairs.It was locked with a keypad, but Scottie punched in the numbers.
When she turned the knob and pushed, nothing happened.She tried again to no avail.“Rats.Gus said it got jammed sometimes.”
“May I give it a go?”Michael reached round Scottie and with one muscled shove, the door relented.He glanced at Scottie, her face, her lips inches from his.“There.It didn’t take much.”He breathed in her skin, her hair, the fragrance that fanned the wings of the annoying flutter in his chest.
“I, um, loosened it for you,” she said, leaning close.
“No doubt at all.”
“We should—” She nodded toward the palace grounds where the late afternoon sunlight turned everything to gold.
Michael tried to speak but he had no words.Only what hefelt.Which was passionate and dangerous.
“Go,” he whispered.“I’ll follow.”
Scottie took a step into him.“I’ll follow you,” she said, her eyes on his lips.
Don’t, ole chap.Don’t.Yet his heart drummed too loud for his ears to hear.He slipped his arm around her waist.
“Now what?”His voice was husky, a sound he’d not heard since… Had he ever heard it?
“Come to our senses?”Scottie rested her arm on his shoulder, her long frame leaning a bit more.
“That would be prudent.”Michael traced his finger across her forehead and down her temple.“But where’s the fun in prudent?”
“We might say you’re my protection officer.Or that I’m going home after the ball and you still love Purnell.”
“You argue for prudent then?”Despite a drip of disappointment, he raised her chin so he could see her eyes.So he could read what her soul was really saying.“I argue for the here and now, this moment, with the golden light on one side, the cover of dark on the other.”
“Then kiss me if you dare.”
Michael wrapped her in his arms as he lowered his lips to hers, kissing her with a slight brush of his lips.As the moment lingered, Scottie locked her arms around him and raised up the few inches she needed to kiss him back.First with a breathy tenderness, then a fiery passion.He gripped her jumper and fell against the metal doorframe, lifting her up so all her weight, all her burdens, were on him.
