Page 81 of Under Arthur’s Protection

Chapter 26

Gwen

I kissed him.

Oh my ever-living⁠—

I kissed Arthur Penn.

Or he kissed me?

Or we just kissed, like some sort of magical, magnetic spell took over and our lips couldn’t do anything but meet.

I closed my eyes, remembering his hand in my hair and his muscles under my fingertips. I could have stood there for hours, kissing that man. If the sauce had burned and the pasta boiled off entirely, I wouldn’t have cared. So long as I kept kissing him.

The car engine started in the driveway.

Don’t just stand there! Go get him!

I ran to the side door and threw it open, landing in the driveway. The night air was cool, the street quiet. The Land Rover was gone. I walked to the end of the driveway. No taillights anywhere. No engine noise.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

Why did he leave in such a hurry?

Because he felt it, Gwen. The doubt. The questions.

But I was right to doubt him, wasn’t I?

Arthur was powerful. Commanding. The kind of man who entered a room and rearranged its gravity. He decided where I slept and when I traveled. He decided whether I was allowed to walk outside alone.

Lionel had been the same. Different arena, same effect. Keeper of Arms and Armor at the Marlcombe Collection, he’d been my post-doc supervisor. He was the gatekeeper of my research, the voice that would make or break my career. He’d been powerful and commanding, too. And I’d been drawn into his orbit in ways I shouldn’t have.

I’d mistaken his pull for love, and he’d used it to destroy me.

Arthur is not Lionel, and you shouldn’t have been thinking about Lionel when you were kissing Arthur.

But what if this was simply the same pattern?

What if I was falling for another man in a position of authority, who held my fate in his hands? What if it was all a mistake? What if it was nothing but adrenaline and proximity?

I’d been the silly girl with stars in her eyes, accepting late-night meetings in Lionel’s office. He’d been handsome, too, in a Professor Jones sort of way. Somehow those meetings turned into a relationship. At least, it turned into a sexual relationship. Maybe I’d been too naive to realize all Lionel wanted was to let off a little steam, and there weren’t any emotions behind it.

Maybe it had all been about my low-cut shirts and pretty smiles, after all.

What if kissing Arthur was the same thing? Another late night spent researching an ancient sword—this time in France instead of England, with Arthur instead of Lionel. What if Arthur was only interested in sex, too?

Except Arthur cooked for me. He took his time and crafted real food. Lionel would never have walked beside me in the rain, holding an umbrella over me while he got rained on. He never would have bothered to cover me with a blanket while I slept.

Was there more between Arthur and me?

I put a hand over my stomach to settle its churning.

If Arthur had felt my doubts, was he giving me space? Was this about respect? If that was why he’d left, he wasn’t anything like Lionel. Lionel wouldn’t have even noticed. He would have pressed, and we’d be in bed right now.

Stop it, Gwen. Go turn off the food and wait for him to come back. Guessing and spiraling won’t help anything.

A car turned onto the street, lighting up the narrow road.