Page 19 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Fucking hell, man.” I clenched my jaw and shook my head, knowing he wouldn’t let it drop. Because my instincts said the same thing. “Fine.”

Lance studied me, then reached for a napkin to soak up the coffee he’d spilled on the table. “For the record, she’s going to say yes.”

“That’s her call.”

“And when she does, I am doing that job,” Lance said. “Unless you don’t trust me to protect her?”

“This is a good one,” Tristan said, around a mouthful of food. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

I could have told them what I honestly thought. That Lance was overreacting. That I suspected he was working the same angle he worked with every woman. Instead, I stood and said to Lance, “I’m going to Caine-Ferraro’s. Get your head on straight. I’ll see you there.”

Chapter 7

Gwen

The Caine-Ferraro’s meeting room was all mine. Sam had cleared the long table, loaned me a laptop, and by nine o’clock, my world covered its surface. Magnified inscription photographs, UV imaging printouts, cross-reference materials pulled from three different databases, and a notebook I was filling faster than I could organize. Half the notes were recreating the work I’d lost when the thief took my laptop.

The other half was me dumping out everything my brain had spiraled about through the night when I couldn’t sleep.

The recreation was the part that stung. I’d recovered most of my research from the cloud backup, but some of my annotations on the original photos hadn’t synced. I’d spent the first hour of my morning reconstructing what I could from memory, and memory was an imperfect tool when the details mattered this much.

But the new work was making up for it.

The sword’s pommel had a ring attachment, which wasn’t unusual for the period. Ring swords were status symbols, markers of loyalty or oath-keeping, and the rings themselves were often decorative. But this ring had a symbol engraved on its inner face I’d almost missed. The gold was worn smooth in places, but the UV imaging had revealed a cross with flared arms, contained within a circle, with what looked like a stylized wave pattern running beneath it.

I was on the fifth database of medieval iconography, searching for the symbols.

My work normally consumed me, but this morning? This morning, I needed a nap.

After Arthur and Lance had dropped me off at Sam and Antonio’s last night, the couple had tried to fill my belly, but I hadn’t been able to eat. Then I’d stared at the ceiling of their guest room until three or four in the morning before I’d drifted off for an hour.

I’d dreamed about Arthur being the only one who’d come to my hotel room. In that dream, I’d thrown my arms around his neck instead of Lance’s, and he’d sat with me on the bed with his arm around me. I’d leaned into him for comfort, but he’d kissed me and eased me back on the bed.

And then I’d woken up.

Closing my eyes again hadn’t brought any more sleep, let alone any more of that delicious dream.

I ran my hands over my face, trying to scrub the memories away—the real ones and the dream ones.

Fantasizing about Arthur Penn wouldn’t fix anything for me.

I shook my head, trying to straighten my brain cells out. I scrolled down the website, searching for the right symbols. Hundreds of circles and crosses blurred past, none quite⁠—

Wait.

There it was. Linked to an architectural survey published six years ago.

I clicked through to the source document, written by a university team studying carved stonework in medieval English churches. The same cross, the same circle, the same wave pattern—on a stone in the tower arch of St. Catherine’s Church in Cornwall, England.

I stood.

Sat.

Pulled up the photograph of the sword’s ring beside the survey image and compared them. The proportions matched. The flare of the cross arms matched. The wave had the same irregularity in both, including a break in the third crest that seemed intentional.

They weren’t just similar.

They were the same.