Page 78 of Under Arthur’s Protection

I filled a pot with water and set it on the back burner to boil. The tomatoes had broken down in the pan, the olives were soft, and the kitchen smelled almost as good as Hettie’s had. All I was missing were the anchovies. Just like every time I made this dish, I was twelve years old, and she was teaching me to cook because my parents were at a fundraiser and the nanny had called in sick.

Ten feet away, Gwen stared at her laptop. She’d been scrolling through research papers since I’d put the pan on, and every so often she’d read a few paragraphs aloud. Not to me, exactly. More to the room, as though saying it out loud helped her process it.

“This is the third one,” she said. “He published a rebuttal in 2019 arguing against a survey of Templar-period sites in Devon. Said the methodology was flawed and the findings were overstated.”

I stirred the sauce. “Was he right?”

“I’m not sure it matters. Here’s another one from 2017 where he tears apart a grad student’s thesis on inscription patterns in West Country churches.” Her chair creaked. “And one from 2021 dismissing a conference paper on Cornish ecclesiastical records.”

“Isn’t he a metalwork specialist?”

“Early medieval jewelry and metalwork, yeah.” She clicked and clicked, documents and websites flashing as she went. “I don’t think that’s his target, though. All of these rebuttals have two things in common: Templars and South West England.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She hummed before the tapping resumed. “Something’s here, but I can’t figure it out.”

From the sounds of it, Dr. Hopkins was as protective of the area as my father was. “How many papers are you looking at?”

“It’s not all papers. He’s commented on Fergus’s Glastonbury blog a few times, too. Some are social media posts where he’s slamming someone else’s theories. I’ve found…” She read from her notebook. “Thirty-six so far, but twenty of them are specific to Templar-related findings in the West Country.”

“Maybe he’s a contrarian?” I tried a few drawers before I found the one with the cutlery and plucked out a spoon. “Or he doesn’t like outsiders writing about his home turf?”

“Maybe?” She let out a breath and jotted a few more things in her notebook.

I tasted the sauce. It needed more salt. “What’s the pattern in the ones that aren’t Templar or West Country?”

“There isn’t one. They span the United Kingdom and Europe, and cover research from several centuries. Corrosion analysis, dating methods, conservation techniques.”

I added salt to the sauce and checked it again. Perfect. “But over half of his rebuttals are targeted?”

“Targeted.” She swiveled in her chair and pointed at me. “That’s the word I needed. They feel targeted.”

“Against a particular researcher?”

She turned back to her laptop, narrowing her eyes at the document she settled on.

I’d been watching her work since the day we met in the Ferraro’s storage room. She was hardly the first academic I’d run protection for, but she was different. It wasn’t the reverence for her work—I’d seen that plenty of times—but Dr. Gwen Lyons at work was simply enthralling.

Maybe it was the way her whole face lit up when a piece dropped into place. Or the way she tapped her finger on her mouse, wrote incessantly in her notebook, or hummed quietly when she was deep in thought.

It likely has more to do with her smile, her laugh, or the way she felt in your arms earlier, you idiot.

Fuck.

We’d been attacked by three men this afternoon. I should have been thinking strategically. I should have been focused on swapping the car. I should have⁠—

Should not have hugged her.

But fuck me, she’d practically collapsed once I’d cleared the house. I definitely shouldn’t have hugged her, but my body had stopped listening to my brain.

“It doesn’t seem to be about one particular researcher.” She shook her head. “There’s one guy he’s gone after several times, but most of them are different authors.”

I had to keep her talking. As long as her mouth was moving, she wasn’t crying. As long as she was processing facts, she couldn’t process emotions. And for right now, we both needed her thinking instead of feeling.

But what I wanted was to grab her. I wanted her head tucked against my shoulder so I could press her close and tell her everything would be all right.

It was a line I shouldn’t have crossed earlier, and certainly would not cross again.