Page 27 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Yeah.” I blinked and rubbed my eyes.

The headlights lit up an ancient stone facade. Not the tiny little cottage I was expecting. No, this thing was three stories high. I only saw what the car’s lights reached, including tall windows, a heavy front door, and the edge of what might have been a walled garden.

Arthur cut the engine while I tried to make out the shape of the building.

Cottage my ass. It was huge!

The men got out and went around to the trunk.

I climbed out into the cool October night, and my head tilted back. The air was calm, and the sky was full of stars. This morning, I’d been in Sam and Antonio’s guest room, worried about my missing laptop and my grandmother’s pearls. I’d taken photographs of the sword, decided I’d go to Cornwall, and had assumed I’d have a few days to arrange my travel.

Instead, here I was, on English soil, staring up at the same constellations I couldn’t see from my apartment in New York City.

“Are you coming in, or did you want to sleep outside?” asked Lance as he passed me.

“You’re tired.” Arthur closed the trunk and came up behind him. “We got your luggage.”

I followed them across the gravel. When the headlights died, the whole shape of the manor came into focus under the half-moon. A single light glowed behind a ground-floor window. “Is someone else here?”

“No. I asked a neighbor to come by and turn on the heat before we left the States.” Arthur unlocked the door and went in first, punching a code into a security panel by the door. “I didn’t want anyone else to complicate the protection detail.”

The entrance hall had stone floors and an immense staircase of dark wood. One lamp on a side table cast a gentle light, and its shadows climbed the walls toward a ceiling that disappeared into the darkness above. The heat may have been on, but the house hadn’t caught up yet—the air was warmer than outside, but still had a chill underneath.

Lance carried my suitcase up the stairs. Arthur turned a deadbolt, reset the security, and waved me after him.

I counted doors as we walked the hallway. Four. Five. Six bedrooms on this floor alone, and the hallway turned a corner where there must have been more.

Arthur opened the door at the end and flicked on an ornate overhead light covered in stained glass. “If the portable oil heater isn’t warm enough for you, let me know, and I’ll fetch some firewood and light a fire.”

“Boy Scout,” said Lance with a chuckle. There it was. The normal Lance, performing for me. Not the one who’d been laughing with Arthur in the car.

I stepped inside, taking in the cream-colored walls with their intricate paneling and two ultra-tall windows. The king-sized bed with a green upholstered headboard almost looked small in the space, even with a sofa along its foot.

“Towels are in the bathroom cabinet,” Arthur said from the doorway. “It should be stocked with anything you need.”

I wandered into the en suite. Another big window with a heavy curtain, a freestanding clawfoot bathtub, and a shower enclosure. I came back into the bedroom, unable to do much more than shake my head. “If this is the cottage, what does the house look like?”

“That’s my father’s fault.” Arthur placed the sword case on the sofa. “He called it Caleborne Cottage, thinking he was being clever and ironic.”

Caleborne. Like Caliburn, the sword King Arthur pulled from the stone in the legends. Most people thought he’d drawn Excalibur, but that was given to him by the Lady of the Lake.

Lance set my bag next to the sword’s case and hugged me. Hugged me! “Get some sleep.”

“Thanks, I will.”

They retreated down the hallway, and I closed the door as another yawn forced its way out of me.

I unpacked what I needed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and changed into the oversized T-shirt and cotton shorts I slept in. The sheets were crisp and cold when I pulled back the duvet and climbed in.

Cornwall. I was in Cornwall, in a manor house belonging to the excessively wealthy Penn family. I mean, I’d known he was rich after reading the article about him and his company, but this was a whole other level of wealth than I’d expected.

I stared at the ceiling, closed my eyes, and… opened them.

It was quiet. Eerily quiet. The oil heater near the bed clicked a few times, but there were no voices, no footsteps, no nothing.

Did you lock your door?

Did it matter? I apparently had two bodyguards lurking nearby.