The Guardian by Diana Knightley
Forty-two - Kaitlyn
The restaurant was crowded and dark, wood booths with red vinyl cushions, the waiters were wearing red coats as they buzzed around the room. The maître d' wove around tables making sure everyone in the bar noticed the new guests. Clara giggled happily and twittered loudly, waving greetings toward no one sitting in the corner.
B.P. asked, “Are we not sitting at our usual table?”
We wove past the bar, the entertainment, a woman singing accompanied by a piano.
“No, you have a private dining room tonight, Mr Schulberg.”
“I did not ask for one,” he muttered.
The maître d' said, “Sir Padraig arranged for it.”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
B.P. put out his elbow, assuming I had lost my way as my group serpentined through the hall. I put my hand into it and tried to ask the maître d' casually, “Sir Padraig Stuart is already here?”
“Yes, he’s expecting your party.” He put out his arm, gesturing us into the room.
The key point in all of this was that I was undercover.
No one was supposed to know me except Lady Mairead, but as soon as the door closed behind us, as the group I was with appraised the room, my eyes met the other Lady Mairead, who was shocked that I was there. Her eyes flitted from me to the man whose arm I was holding as if trying to understand the situation.
I let go of his arm.
There were two other women there. A young pretty woman who was pregnant and looked frightened and a woman who looked highly amused by the whole thing.
The man who must have been Sir Padraig said to the young pregnant woman, “Get up and go sit at that corner table.” He pointed at a dark chair. She got up, gave a quick, submissive bow, and went to sit in the corner.
Sir Padraig, stood and bowed low, “Thank you for attending my soirée here, welcome.”
His eyes raised and looked directly at me. “Welcome especially, to you, Kaitlyn Campbell, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Fuck.
He had a glisten in his eye, as if he found the whole thing funny as hell.
The other woman, pale, beautiful, and well dressed, was sneering at me, knowingly. A woman in on a secret with an evil man, these were not endearing qualities.
All the Hollywood types sat in their seats unaware.
Sir Padraig approached around the table. “You won’t mind, Kaitlyn Campbell, if I check you for weapons.”
“I do mind, frankly.”
He pulled up behind me, way too close. I shoved his hand away.
He chuckled. His stale breath in my ear. “You carrying something?”
Percy laughed. “Of course she’s not carrying any—”
He stopped short when Sir Padraig said, “Aha!” as he patted my thigh.
I pushed his hand away again, but it was too late, he wrestled out the gun and tossed it to the table.
Lady Mairead’s eyes were wide. The gold band around her neck glistened in the low lamplight.
“More?” He whispered in my ear.
“Of course not, why would I—?” I tried to squirm away, but he expertly held my arm while grabbing my blade from its sheath on my other thigh.
Great.
The plan had been shitty, but even shitty plans don’t usually have everything go exactly the wrong way.
He dropped my knife on the table beside my gun and returned to his seat.
Everyone was looking from him to me, and it freaked me out.
Lady Mairead jerked her head ever so slightly at the young woman in the corner. Her eyes wide.
I glanced at her, the young woman was watching but trying not to, and a certainty settled in my stomach, I didn’t know her, but she was familiar — she was family.
He gestured toward the chair. “Sit sit! You must sit down, you came all this way. I have your meal ordered for you already.” He drew my weapons toward himself.
My voice shook as I said, “How do I know you?”
The lady to his left laughed. “How does she know you? Priceless!”
“You don’t know me? After all I’ve done to you? I’m personally offended.”
Percy said, “Oh come, come, Sir Padraig, you’ve got to be more courteous than this, first you accost her, now you argue with her. You know the phrase goes, after all I’ve done for you.’” He laughed. “She is lovely, our new friend, though she carries more arms than a civilized lady might. Marion, dear, it’s a good thing William isn’t here, he would be smitten with the well-armed lady, wanting to take her on safari in Africa.”
Marion rolled her eyes. “He does love to shoot things.”
A waiter moved around the table pouring wine into our glasses.
I wasn’t close enough to Lady Mairead to get the band off her neck.
Sir Padraig didn’t look like he was going to leave the table.
I was unarmed.
Sir Padraig grinned. “How’s your husband?”
I figured I would try to dispute it all. “I don’t know who you’re—”
“Stupid bitch, doesn’t think I know all there is to know?”
Percy said, “Sir Padraig, watch your language in front of the ladies!”
The woman beside Sir Padraig said, “He’s just calling her what she is, isn’t that right, Lady Mairead?”
Lady Mairead shook her head but refused to answer.
I narrowed my eyes. “And who the hell are you?”
“I’m Agnie MacLeod.” She leaned forward to address Lady Mairead again, “I’m just a little know nothing farm girl from the village, isn’t that what you called me that one time?”
Lady Mairead raised her chin. “I hae never considered ye important enough tae talk on much less pass judgments upon. Ye are nothing important enough tae waste m’time.”
Sir Padraig chuckled, maliciously. “I do like you, Lady Mairead, you are a real prize. It’s been great doing business with you.”
Our dinners were brought to the room and there was a bustling and moving around of plates and utensils and bowls as we got our meals. I stared straight ahead trying to figure out how to get out of this situation.
Sir Padraig leaned back as if relaxed, staring directly at my face.
As all the plates were placed and the waiter bowed from the room, he reached across and removed my utensils from me, sliding them to his plate. “My apologies, Queen Kaitlyn, you look like someone who can figure out how to make a spoon into a weapon.”
“How am I to eat the steak you ordered for me?”
“Maybe you don’t get to eat.” He said to the other guests, “But you, of course, eat up!”
I reached for a slice of bread, trying to imagine how to sharpen it into a shiv.
He smiled. “Aw, sweet Kaitlyn, you look worried.”
I tore the bread in half and ignored him.
“I truly believed you to be more interesting than this.”
I shrugged, put a hunk of bread in my mouth, and chewed.
He leaned forward and spoke to the table.
“You see, Kaitlyn Campbell here, is a queen.”
I chewed and chewed.
“Did she tell you? Her husband, Magnus I, is king of Riaghalbane. Have you heard of it?”
Everyone agreed that they hadn’t, but there was a rising estimation of me at the table: backs straightened, smiles widened, faces turned toward me. I went from starlet want-to-be in a nice dress to someone that everyone was ‘aware of’.
B.P. laughed, “So instead of you, Sir Padraig, I should be asking Queen Kaitlyn to urge her husband, the king, to produce my next film?”
He had just been joking, everyone chuckled, but Sir Padraig dropped his fork and knife to the plate with a clatter. “Why would you do that?”
“What? It was to be humorous, Sir Padraig, I—”
“Why would you say that, about asking King Magnus instead of myself, are you saying he is more important than me?”
“No, that’s not what I meant, I was joking. It’s not—”
“You owe me an apology.”
B.P. said, “For what, for joking about asking a king to back my next film? I...”
Sir Padraig glared at him, a stare that sent a shiver down my spine. Then his face broke into a sinister smile. “Now I’m just being humorous. Magnus is nothing to me, to borrow Lady Mairead’s insult from earlier, I don’t think about him at all.”
I chewed and swallowed and staring at the wall over Lady Mairead’s head, said, “Bullshit.”
His brow raised. “What — bullshit? What are you saying to me?”
“I’m saying bullshit. My husband is the king of Riaghalbane arguably the most powerful throne in the history of the world. He has ruled as a benevolent king, admired by most, and it is very clear to me that, despite your protestations, you think about him all the time. He lives in your fucking head. Jealousy eats away at your black heart and your obsession with him is going to be your downfall. That is a promise, from Magnus through me.”
He chuckled and said to Agnie Macleod, “Told you she had a bitch mouth on her.”
I glanced at the actresses, all with their mouths open.
Clara Bow said, “My word, that was a chilling speech! You are both ruining a lovely dinner!”
Sir Padraig asked her, “Do you not like your meal, Clara?”
“I like the meal, but the conversation is excessively impolite!”
He took a bite of his steak and chewed and swallowed, then tossed his napkin down and leaned back. “You didn’t answer me, Kaitlyn, how is your husband? I haven’t seen him in a while.” He grinned a wide slithery grin. “How’s his heart?”
I felt a chill pass through me.