Page 66 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Stay here.” He straightened and strolled out the door and into the corridor. He caught the attention of a passing staff member. Through the glass, I watched him ask a question, to which the woman shook her head. He smiled and nodded, then came back in.

He returned to my table and stood beside me again. He rested a thigh against the edge, like he didn’t have a care in the world, but angled his body so he was directly in front of me.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “We should go for dinner.”

“What?” I blinked at him. “I’m in the middle of something important. Arthur, this document is⁠—”

“We can figure it out over a meal.”

What is going on? Why is he suddenly so obsessed with his stomach? “You can grab takeout. I’ll stay here.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone.”

I checked my watch. It was four thirty, and the archive closed in a half hour. Arthur wouldn’t pull me out of here for food. Not while we were talking about the facts not adding up, and not thirty minutes before the place closed.

He leaned in. Close. His mouth practically touched my ear, and every nerve in my body registered it before my brain caught up. Sandalwood and citrus. The warmth of his skin so close to my cheek. Arthur Penn, my sexy bodyguard, who had stood across rooms from me for a week, was inexplicably right there.

Right.

There.

“Be casual,” he whispered. “Don’t react.”

Oh god. What now?

“I found a camera wedged between two binders on a bookshelf. I suspect it’s covering the entire room.” His hot breath sent a shiver of fear up my spine. “A man’s been walking loops around the outside of the building all afternoon. I think he’s monitoring us.”

The icy cold spread through my whole body. I kept my eyes on the folio, but the words on the page had grown blurry.

Be casual, Gwen. He said be casual.

“Plus, your document was faked. And the staffer I spoke to says no one with close-cropped white-blond hair works here.”

I grabbed his arm. My fingers dug into his forearm. The floor was tilting. This couldn’t be true. None of this could be true.

It was just an old sword.

I tilted my face and whispered back, “Are we in danger?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was steady, his arm solid under my grip. “Pack your things. We need to leave. Now.”

Chapter 22

Arthur

I closed the sword case while Gwen shoved her laptop and notebook into her messenger bag. Her hands shook, but she kept moving.

“You’ve got all of the photos you need?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She slung the bag over her shoulder and looked up at me. Her eyes were wide, and her jaw was tight.

The stupid instinct hit me, same as Glastonbury, same as the ferry. To grab her, hold her, tell her everything would be all right.

Instead, I said, “Walk. Don’t run.”

She nodded as I picked up the sword case.

Using my free hand on her back, I ushered her to the reading room’s door. The young woman and the man at the corner table didn’t budge. Either they were involved and hiding it well, or they were genuine archive patrons engrossed in their research.