Page 24 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Discuss, or you decide?” She was testing how far I’d bend, precisely like they all did.

“I decide.” I liked it better when my clients threw tantrums. Tantrums helped provide a line between me and the protectee. Logical questions were worse. They made it sound like we were partners. “That’s the job.”

“And at the cottage? If I want to go for a walk?”

“Tell me first. I’ll verify the route’s safe.”

“A walk?” She tapped her pen against her notebook. “Around the property?”

“The property is rural. There are approaches I can’t monitor without advance warning.”

“What if I want to go into town? To a shop, a pub, or a library?”

“Same rules, and Lance or I go with you.”

She set her pen down. “If I’d known this arrangement meant so little autonomy, I might not have agreed to it.”

Good, push back. Let me put my foot down. “So long as you’re not doing anything that puts you at risk, you’ll have all the autonomy you want. The only condition is that Lance or I am there.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the definition of autonomy.” She wasn’t wrong. Close protection boxed a person in. It was important, but it still boxed them in. I never apologized for it. It was a job, and it suited me. But the way she was looking at me, as though I would ruin her research trip? Something inside me almost said sorry.

Lance sat up on the divan. “What Arthur is trying to say, in his incredibly warm and personable way, is that we won’t be breathing down your neck. You do your work. We stay close, not immediately next to you. Ninety percent of the time, you won’t even notice the difference.”

Gwen’s posture stiffened a fraction. “And the other ten percent?”

“I doubt it will matter while we’re in England, unless someone wants the sword enough to follow us.” Lance gave her his easy grin, which seemed to calm her. He was so fucking good at that.

Send me into a hot zone, and I could talk down a warlord, but put one pair of hazel eyes in front of me, and I was barking orders like my father dealing with room service.

‘Yes, sir, Mr. Penn. Right away, Mr. Penn.’

She’s a client. Treat her like one. “The other ten percent is for moments like when your hotel was broken into, or when someone situated themselves outside of Sam and Antonio’s condo.”

She tensed further.

Way to go, idiot. “The cottage is near Bodmin, where the church is, so it’s a short drive.”

“Cottage?” Gwen’s pen hovered over her notebook again. “It’s more than one room, at least?”

Lance spluttered a laugh, but didn’t add anything to the conversation.

I had a lot of memories of the place, most of them positive—my mother drinking tea in the garden, the kitchen that always smelled like freshly baked bread, long summers when the house felt like the only place in the world where she actually relaxed.

My father was supposed to relax there too, but Gerald Penn worked everywhere he went, because that’s what Gerald Penn did. His constant working was one of the things I preferred to forget. Like the pond that froze over once every five years or so, and let us skate on it… until the year the ice didn’t hold. I glanced at my best friend and decided to move on.

“The property is private, and you’ll have your own room and high-speed internet.” Before I could say more, my phone buzzed. I checked the screen and saw Morganna’s name.

“Excuse us a minute.” I stood and moved toward the aft cabin, gesturing for Lance to follow. The six-seat section near the back had a larger worktable and was far enough from Gwen that she wouldn’t overhear us.

I put Morganna on speaker. “I’ve got Lance here. What do you have?”

“Partial lead on the journalist,” Morganna said. “I’ve narrowed it to three defense correspondents with access to the kind of military service records cited in the article. Two are based in London, one in DC. I’m pulling their publication histories now.”

“How long?”

“A day, maybe two. I’ve been running double duty.” She paused. “Someone at White Spring noticed how much time I’ve been logging on RTS work.”

“And?”