Page 34 of Under Arthur’s Protection

I set the chair beside the wall and went back for my camera. When I returned to the little tower, Arthur was waiting for me. He’d moved the chair slightly, squaring it on the uneven floor, and he stood beside it with one hand on its back.

“It’s not the sturdiest thing.” He offered his other hand to me.

I slid my hand into his. His big, solid hand enveloped mine, so much like the morning we’d met, but today⁠—

You’re here to search for evidence.

He supported me as I stepped up onto the seat. But the chair shifted, and his grip tightened.

Then his other hand left the chair back and found my waist.

Everything inside me froze. His hand spanned from one side of my back to the other, and the power of it traveled through my body. Heat started where his hand rested and spread outward until my skin was on fire, and I may have forgotten how to breathe for a moment.

The chair stopped moving. He released my palm and held me steady with both hands. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I reached slowly for the grooves, trying to calm the energy collecting between my thighs. The chair could have vanished, and he would have just held me there without breaking a sweat.

God, he was strong. And in control. He barged into situations and took control like… Memories of another deep voice and strong arms washed over me. A man holding me steady on the rolling ladder against his office bookshelves.

The English air is messing with your head, Gwen. That’s all it is. That’s all it ever was.

Focus.

The cuts in the stone were deeper than I’d expected, their edges smooth but still distinct. I photographed from three angles, maneuvering my phone’s flashlight to throw shadows across the carvings so my camera picked them up. I made out individual letter forms, but not enough to read the full inscription by eye.

“I’ve got the photos I need for round one, but I need to enhance them on the laptop.” I looked down at Arthur. “The carving’s too worn to read from here.”

He didn’t budge. He held me in place, his brown eyes almost black in the dim light of the tower. The man may well have been made of stone. He was motionless, other than a muscle ticking in his jaw.

I couldn’t have gotten down by myself if I’d tried; his grip was so firm. “Can you help me down?”

He blinked rapidly, like he was waking up from a dream, and let go of me. One hand landed on the back of the chair, while he held the other out for me. “Of course.”

I took his hand, and he braced me until both my feet were on the stone floor. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll be at my post.”

At my impromptu workstation, I tethered the camera to my phone’s data signal and started an upload to my cloud server. The process crawled. I needed high-resolution images, so they were large, but my internet connection was tenuous. While it transferred, I sketched in my notebook. The circle-cross symbol. The letters and how they broke across stones. I pulled them up on the camera’s preview screen and added some small details.

Minutes passed, and the upload felt like it was operating in reverse. I returned to the tower and jotted measurements in my notebook. Sat in my chair. Opened the sword’s case. Cross-referenced the photographs I’d taken of the pommel at Caine-Ferraro’s.

Still. Crawling. I should have packed a cable to do a direct transfer.

“How’s it going?”

I startled.

Arthur stood beside my chair. Behind him, the chair I’d used in the tower was back in its row.

“The internet’s slow.”

“It is.” He glanced at his phone. “I’m going to switch off with Lance. He’ll be inside in a minute.”

“Has it already been half an hour?”

“Thirty-two minutes, to be precise.” He smiled, and it hit me low in my stomach, layering on top of the warmth from last night, from the waffles, and from when he’d held me on the rickety chair.

Good heavens, he was⁠—