Battle Royal by Lucy Parker

Chapter Six

“In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood . . .”

—George Bernard Shaw

Let the battle commence . . .

St. Giles Palace

4:25 p.m.

Meeting with Candidate: Mr. Dominic De Vere

Dominic had anticipatedthe intense secrecy surrounding the Albany contract. He hadn’t expected to feel like a character in a straight-to-TV espionage film. He’d been asked to drive to the Givran hotel at quarter to four, after which he’d sat in the bar for fifteen minutes before he’d been approached by an unsmiling couple in head-to-toe black. They had introduced themselves as Jeremiah and Arabella and looked like cutouts from a paper-doll book, the bodyguard edition. By the time he’d followed them out the rear entrance of the hotel and into the back of a black SUV with tinted windows, he had the unwelcome thought that this was where things took an ugly turn in the film.

Clearly, all this time in Sylvie’s company was screwing with his brain.

In more ways than one.

Neither security officer said a word throughout the circuitous journey to the north entrance of St. Giles Palace. Usually, Dominic appreciated people who didn’t need to fill any silence with unnecessary small talk, but right now—yeah, a bit unnerving.

The car drew into a private alcove, out of range of prying eyes and zooming camera lenses. It probably wasn’t a completely over-the-top precaution. The worst of the tabloids would be sticking their noses and cash incentives into any dodgy corner they could find, trying to pluck out the smallest details of the wedding in advance.

He was grateful as hell he hadn’t been born into this life—and he didn’t envy John Marchmont marrying into it. He’d met the groom once, at an awards banquet. From the little he remembered—guileless eyes, a bit of a stammer, zero idea what anyone was talking about—the man was about to be eaten alive. Between them, the press and the British public would make mincemeat of the poor sap.

And the marital home wasn’t exactly a source of privacy and respite. Dominic took in the plush interior of St. Giles as he followed the protection officers through the winding corridors. The carpet was so thick his shoes were sinking in as he walked, and it was spotless despite the risky choice of winter white. At regular intervals, uniformed staff with ID badges around their necks came in and out of doors, keeping their eyes politely averted from the newcomers. He caught the slight whirring traction of a security camera above his head, twisting to follow their progress.

Thanks to the volley of information Pet had flung at his head over the past couple of weeks, he knew that the princess, her parents, and her siblings each had private apartments in the south wing. Hopefully with a little less foot traffic, but he had a feeling that even occupying the “family” wing would be akin to taking up residence in a fishbowl.

According to Pet, it was “true love.”

For their sakes, he hoped it was worth it.

Without any expectation of a useful answer, he addressed Jeremiah, who looked the most likely to drop illicit info. Something about the constant eye twitch and the emerging peek of Doctor Who socks under too-short trousers. “How many tenders are on the short list today?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, sir.”

He seemed scandalized that Dominic had even asked.

Weddings topped the priority list of their contracted cakes. They held hugely personal, intrinsic meaning. For two—or in some cases, three, four, or more—people, it was a symbol of an occasion they would remember and shelter for the rest of their lives.

Or at least until divorce proceedings and a subsequent second cake.

But there were limits to how much pretension Dominic could swallow, and this experience was starting to push at those boundaries.

They rounded another corner, and Arabella spoke into her phone. As they approached an imposing set of double wooden doors—the Captain’s Suite, according to a gold plaque—the left door opened, and a middle-aged man stepped out.

He inclined his head at the protection officers, and their spines snapped rod straight. Dominic half expected a military salute. Evidently, he was a staffer high up the authority ladder. Dominic surveyed him with one glance.

Small round glasses. Vividly red nose. Bushy white beard. Probably a heavy drinker. Definitely a smoker; under a whiff of cologne, he still smelled like the rear courtyard of a pub. Visually, he was a dead ringer for Father Christmas. If Father Christmas were the moody old bastard he ought to be, with a job description that revolved around the entitled demands of millions of sugar-hyped children.

“Mr. De Vere,” the Santa doppelgänger said crisply, after an equally comprehensive summing-up in return. “Please, come in.”

The interior of the room was bog-standard conference suite: an oval table surrounded by backbreaking chairs, a trolley with rudimentary tea and coffee facilities, and a projector screen. A few people in nondescript suits sat in silence, each wearing the ubiquitous staff lanyard. With one exception, it might have been any office building in the city.

That exception, the three people at the front of the room, stood up in a collective movement, accompanied by the rustling of expensive fabric.

The statuesque woman standing front and center studied him from head to foot. Every person in this building was constantly eyeing someone else with suspicion or condescension. Her eyes were infamous, a shade of blue so pale that her irises were almost white, glittering with both intelligence and calculation, like ice crystals reflecting an overcast sky. In an old novel, her features would be described as “handsome.” Presently, they were set into a very polite, totally meaningless smile.

At her side was a younger woman in her twenties, whose eyes were at the opposite end of the blue spectrum, almost navy, and heavily accented by thick streaks of black under her lashes. Unlike the pearls the other women were wearing, she had small silver spikes in her earlobes. Her shoulder pressed against the arm of a blond man with a scab on his chin where he’d cut himself shaving. The man was nervous and doing a terrible job of hiding it—swallowing a lot and repeatedly licking his lips.

Princess Rose of Albany and her fiancé, John Marchmont, who ought to be the stars of this particular show, were eclipsed in both authority and X-factor by the bride’s mother, Georgina, the Duchess of Albany.

In a literal nod to convention, Dominic dipped his head in a brief bow.

His career had brought him into the path of other royals, but this was his first encounter with the duchess. Supposedly, she ruled her branch of the family with an iron fist. Within two sentences, Dominic believed it.

“This is Edward Lancier, my daughter’s private secretary.” The duchess nodded in Father Christmas’s direction. “He’s overseeing the coordination of events in the planning of this wedding.”

Lancier looked coldly back at Dominic. His whole demeanor spoke of intense displeasure. Archaic snobbery at having to deal with the local shopkeepers? Or disapproval this wedding was taking place at all?

“You’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement.” The duchess spoke with the certainty of a person whose every wish was carried out promptly. “It goes without saying that we expect every syllable relating to this event to remain strictly confidential.”

“Naturally.” Dominic’s voice was equally cool, and she lifted her finely tweezed eyebrows.

“First of all, we’d like to thank you for accepting the invitation to submit a tender. His Majesty is particularly pleased by the inclusion of your establishment. De Vere’s has done excellent work for our family in the past, and I understand His Majesty enjoyed a cordial personal acquaintance with your late grandfather, Mr. Sebastian De Vere.”

As a senior and experienced royal, the duchess was prepped and prepared. He imagined a briefing today had also provided the names of his parents and siblings. If he were here to provide a favor and not a highly paid service, she’d probably ask after even his bloody cat by name.

And the seething pile of fur and narcissism he’d inherited in an unbreakable clause of Sebastian’s will would expect no less. Humphrey spent his days either sleeping or destroying pillows, confident that the rest of the world existed solely to serve his comforts.

A feline soul mate for the duchess.

“He did. An honor my grandfather appreciated until his death.”

The stab in his chest was sudden and unexpected. And at this moment unwelcome.

Dominic thought of Sebastian every time he opened the kitchen door in De Vere’s. Part of him expected to see his grandfather standing at the stove, still incredibly adept with his hands, his shoulders broad enough to bear the weight of the business through every financial struggle, every economic downturn.

Broad enough to support the silent cry for help of a very angry teenage boy, a quarter of a century ago.

Sebastian lived in everything that occurred in De Vere’s. His legacy and presence were embedded in the very walls. Usually, his memory was faint, lingering solace.

Today, there was pain.

Grief. The ever-changing sea. Brutal and turbulent. Stretches of peace. And out of nowhere, a knockout wave that rolled through dark shadows, stretching so far back in time now their power had thinned to threads.

Or should have.

“De Vere’s is always pleased to cater to the needs of the royal household.” Rigidly, Dominic closed a mental door on the past and fixed his speculation on the present. Through the industry grapevine, he’d counted at least six salons with the official nod to bid for this contract. A short list should knock that down to no more than three.

Better, it turned out. He doubted if the Duchess of Albany was the royal they rolled out to children’s hospitals and aged-care facilities, unless they wanted to scare the shit out of already vulnerable people, but he appreciated her aversion to beating about the bush.

“At present, we’ve narrowed our choice to two establishments, including your own. We closely considered all submitted proposals.” A note of dryness underscored her tone. “And any unexpected ones that arose.”

“Or snuck in the back door,” Edward Lancier muttered peevishly. “Dragons. Good God.”

Dominic heard that bizarre grumble without immediate interest, but within seconds, it settled and sat sparking quietly at the back of his mind.

And provoked a whisper of suspicion . . .

The Captain’s Suite

5:03 p.m.

Meeting with Candidate: Ms. Sylvie Fairchild

“The princess was delighted by the attention to detail in your proposal,” only the bloody Duchess of Albany was saying.

One thinly plucked brow lifted as she continued to drill a disconcerting hole through Sylvie’s face. She had the extremely pale eyes Sylvie unfairly associated with fictional serial killers. Hopefully not the case here, although the woman definitely looked capable of yanking one of those ceremonial swords off the wall and skewering the maid for putting too much sugar in the tea.

There was still a feeling of profound unreality about this entire experience, heightened from the moment she’d been plucked from a hotel bar by a pair of black-clad protection officers. She was slightly disappointed that she hadn’t been taken to an underground facility and asked to join an eccentric gang of codebreakers or jewel thieves. And relieved that thus far she hadn’t ended up in witness protection or a woodland grave.

“Your rather unexpected proposal,” the duchess added, that piercing gaze narrowing to lethal proportions.

Sword-skewering and shallow grave imminent . . .

For all his pessimism, Jay would have passed off this inevitable confrontation with smooth charm. But at this stage of the proceedings, the royals had requested the presence of only one representative of the bakery. Therefore, Sylvie was handling this part alone and could only do a Sorry, but—

“I apologize for any—”

The duchess cut her short. “We’ll consider that as read. I do not condone the willful breaking of protocol. However, I respect a quantity of initiative.”

Over her shoulder, Princess Rose shot Sylvie a very rapid, literally blink-and-miss-it wink. Sylvie had seen the princess in person once before. She was far more put-together today. She also looked less comfortable, in both her attire and wider company.

At her side, her poor fiancé was twitching so much that his left cheekbone kept bouncing up and down. Every few minutes, Rose squeezed his fingers in a subtle show of reassurance, and he looked down at her with all his feelings blazing in his eyes.

Sylvie had been forced to remind herself three times now that it was incredibly patronizing to mentally clasp her hands and aww at an adult couple as if they were a basket of baby otters.

“This is a cake that will be photographed for every major publication in the world,” the duchess went on. “It will join the annals of history. It’s also a very lucrative contract. Our expectations are high. The margin for error is zero. If you have the least doubt in your ability to deliver—”

“Then I wouldn’t have broken protocol, and I wouldn’t be here today.” Her response was firm and adamant. She’d been nervous walking into this meeting. Naturally. But now that she was here, and for all the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this cake, it was a bake like any other. This was her thing. She would always deliver on such an important day for people celebrating their love. And in that respect, who those people were made absolutely no difference.

That ice-storm gaze again performed a visual dissection of her every feature; then the duchess nodded. “We’d like you to prepare a second proposal for the finalized cake. There are certain parameters to which you’ll need to work. Traditions that cannot be discarded even if your personal tastes are more . . . artistic.”

Sylvie bet Dominic wouldn’t receive that addendum at his briefing.

Clearly, the duchess was more of a white-fondant than sugar-dragon girl.

The Captain’s Suite

4:32 p.m.

Meeting with Candidate: Mr. Dominic De Vere

“You did an admirable job of incorporating necessary details and adhering to tradition in such an elegant way,” the duchess told Dominic. The heavy note of approval caused a flicker of reaction on Princess Rose’s previously expressionless face.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The duchess turned her head a fraction, and for the first time since she’d begun her monologue, she actually acknowledged her daughter and future son-in-law. “Within those guidelines, Her Royal Highness and Mr. Marchmont have expressed a desire that the cake still feel intimate—”

“So perhaps we could request those intimate details ourselves now, Mother?” Rose was probably the only person in Britain who’d ever interrupted the Duchess of Albany and withstood annihilation from the glare that followed. He’d underestimated the princess. She was outwardly dignified, but something hot and belligerent lurked behind that blandness, and in a very different way, she was suddenly as implacable as her mother.

The duchess stared with more coldness than most people would expect from a parent observing their offspring. To Dominic, it was a sight entirely familiar.

Her lips drew into a thin smile. “Of course.” She took a graceful step back, managing to lose no ground in the metaphorical sense. “My daughter and her fiancé will complete the briefing.” As she crossed behind John Marchmont, she murmured something. Dominic doubted if the staff around the table could hear, but he did. “Don’t stammer.”

The young man turned a painful shade of red, his freckles standing out in large dots. From his hairline to the hollow of his neck: human strawberry. Marchmont swallowed again, hard.

This job, a lifetime’s tenure in the public eye whether his romance lasted or not, really was going to decimate him.

Just for a moment, Princess Rose’s public mask shattered, and she shot a look of pure fury at her mother. The anger was covered as quickly as it had broken free, but before she addressed Dominic, she very lightly ran the backs of her curled fingers down Marchmont’s arm.

The tiny gesture was so weighted with feeling that even Dominic felt the poignancy.

Perhaps, under the rumpled curls and visible sweat, Marchmont was also burying unexpected depths.

If Sylvie were here, she’d be swooning all over them. Unsurprisingly, the woman who hurled handfuls of glitter at perfectly good cakes was starry-eyed for a love story, real or imagined. He’d seen her light up like a firecracker on set when she realized her pet contestants, Emma and Adam, were both single.

“First of all, I’d also like to thank you for the effort you put into making the pitch personal to us.” Rose had produced a smile that looked genuine. Given the turmoil roiling behind that façade, she was a bitter loss to the film industry. “The lace was a lovely touch, and the thoughtfulness in using peony poppies.”

A reminder that he owed his sister a bottle of wine.

Twice, Pet had tentatively tried to suggest a dinner to go with that wine. Both times, she’d wandered around the point like a lost rabbit in the woods and bolted back to her comfort zone before he could reply. Which was either organizing his business like a soft-voiced sergeant major, or determinedly flirting with every unattached member of his staff.

“I don’t want to keep you from your evening plans.” Rose pulled out a handwritten piece of paper. “So I’ll keep this concise. Regarding the flavors, for most of the layers we’d like—”

She began laying out the practical details, and Dominic opened his tablet to jot down notes. He inserted the occasional query and suggestion, but largely listened and let idea fragments coalesce in his mind.

“For structural reasons, I’d suggest the chocolate fudge rather than the chocolate mousse,” he said when Rose expressed a desire for two layers of chocolate—score two and another bottle of Riesling to Pet.

After a few minutes, the princess cleared her throat and looked at her mother. “That’s almost everything. If Johnny and I could have a moment, please, we’ll finalize the last details and leave Mr. De Vere be.”

Despite her tone, so polite and deferent that the ultimate effect was anything but, it was a dismissal with no room for refusal. And judging by the undulating muscle in the duchess’s jaw, Rose would hear about it later.

In front of her staff, there was nothing she could do but gather her regal dignity and leave.

Father Christmas, however, looked more like an angry little prune with every passing second and apparently couldn’t resist piping up. “With all due respect, Your Highness, it’s my responsibility to oversee—”

“And it’s our wedding, Edward.” Rose was sugar-sweet now. She checked her black leather watch. “Please do return here at five, but in the meantime, we would like ten minutes alone. Of course, you’ll be informed if anything of importance arises in that time.”

No doubt Lancier managed to keep himself informed on all manner of things that arose in this building.

When multiple bristling bodies had left the room, and the door had shut with a pointed click, Marchmont seemed to grow a good inch in stature. Dominic looked at him thoughtfully before he turned back to the bride. “Your Highness—”

“Rosie.” She cut him off, and again her demeanor brooked no opposition, although she softened the terse word with a follow-up, “Please.”

“Rosie.” Dominic flicked to a new screen on the tablet. “Go ahead.”

“With?” She was watching him closely, carefully, her fingers still stroking Marchmont’s wrist.

“The details that will make this cake personal and intimate for you despite its size and symbolism, and help to shrink a stateroom full of people you probably can’t stand down to a bubble of two.”

A moment of silence, in which a twinkle appeared in Rosie’s eyes.

“I told you he couldn’t be as much of a bastard as he seems,” Marchmont said with sudden, extravagant relief.

Apparently, when the incoming member of the royal family wasn’t too petrified to speak, he operated with complete open honesty.

A rare quality in any human being, and one unlikely to be prized by Lancier and his cohorts.

Rosie cleared her throat and took the wise course of ignoring the last ten seconds of her life. “We each have one additional request for the cake.”

“Although I’d like to speak to you about mine privately,” Marchmont added quickly.

“It’s to be a surprise to me on the wedding day, that Johnny would like to be kept separate on the proposal.” Rosie’s eyes cast a fond look at her fiancé, before shooting back to Dominic with an explicit silent addendum. Include only if appropriate. Noted. “For my part, I’d really love it if the top layer of the cake—our layer—is the flavor of Johnny’s favorite drink.”

As special requests went, that ranked high on the easy scale. “Which is?”

He was expecting an alcoholic flavoring, Baileys, Kahlúa, Bénédictine—

“Midnight Elixir.”

Spoke too soon.

The Captain’s Suite

5:20 p.m.

Meeting with Candidate: Ms. Sylvie Fairchild

“Midnight Elixir?” Sylvie repeated, lowering her tablet. Johnny Marchmont couldn’t just be a lemon drizzle bloke, could he? “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar . . .”

She had a sudden, horrifying hope that Midnight Elixir wasn’t on her own menu. It was a kitschy name for a beverage, flashy, over the top. Right up her street. And Jay had been adding new drinks right and left since he’d taken over the Dark Forest with unexpected aplomb. She was already too busy with Operation Cake commitments to keep up. Not a good look.

“It’s a hot drink they serve at the Starlight Circus in Holland Park.”

Oh, good. She hadn’t missed a trick.

It was just the plagiarizing competition.

The Starlight Circus, a coffee shop in a city with more pollution than stars, was owned by Darren Clyde, a colossal fuckwit with a habit of sending spies into Sugar Fair to buy their food, reproduce it poorly, and change the names. They’d first met in a class on advanced sugar craft, and he’d clearly been sent by Satan to test her.

“Johnny loves it,” Rosie went on. “His assistant buys him one every day.”

Sylvie was petty enough to be glad he wasn’t going in person. He was already enough of a public figure to give Darren a boost in sales. She was always glad to see good things happen for good people, even if they operated in her professional sphere, but outside of the bedroom, nobody liked a bigheaded dick.

She rested her stylus pen against her tablet, ready to fill in the details. “And what is the flavor profile of Midnight Elixir?”

“No idea,” Rosie said with all the cheerfulness of a woman who wasn’t now going to have to spend time and money at the fucking Starlight Circus. “Apparently, it’s a house secret. If it helps, I can definitely taste some sort of berry.”

“I think there’s spice in it,” Johnny piped up, and after a pause, Sylvie wrote down exactly that on her iPad.

Spice (?). Some sort of berry.

Well, she’d always enjoyed a mystery. All those nights listening to Agatha Christie audiobooks while she worked were about to pay off.

“I’m not sure how you knew about I, Slayer,” Rosie said suddenly. “But we adored the pitch cake. You’re so clever.”

“If it w-were up to us”—on the odd word, there was just a hint of a stutter in Johnny’s deep voice—“we’d keep the theme on the big day.”

“Obviously, that would be a step too far,” Rosie added drily. “Although I’d pay a good deal of money to serve a slice of Caractacus to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

The duchess and her coterie had got to their feet a few minutes ago and abruptly departed, after a pointed remark shot in her daughter’s direction—“I believe this is the part of the proceedings where we vacate the room.” Otherwise, Sylvie wouldn’t bring up—

“I hope I didn’t invade your privacy in making that cake. You mentioned the video game one night when you were—”

“Falling down drunk in your business premises?” Rosie filled in the blank with a faint grin. “Amazingly, I do remember the night in question, although I have no recollection of boring a complete stranger with personal anecdotes. I belatedly apologize. I also belatedly thank you for never saying a word about it. It was my dearest friend’s birthday. And I wanted to . . . get out. Be out. In hindsight, it was appallingly reckless to ditch my PPOs.”

Personal protection officers. Thanks to the covert pair who’d driven her here, Sylvie had that acronym down. It was the only question they’d deigned to answer.

“The reality is that whatever I do in life, I’m always going to be a security risk, to myself and to others around me.” Fleetingly, Rosie’s look at Johnny was taut. Concerned. And clearly, not for herself. “But that night . . .” A small smile hovered. “Worth it.”

“You ditched your PPOs?” Before Sylvie’s fascinated gaze, Johnny—Bertie Wooster incarnate—seemed to physically expand. He stood taller, his shoulders dropping and squaring. As worry carved stern lines into his face, he looked both older and temporarily effectual. “Rosie . . .”

“Point noted and agreed, my love.” She spoke softly, her fingers still linked through his. “It was foolish. I won’t do it again.”

Johnny’s reply was so low-toned that Sylvie barely heard it and wished she hadn’t. She felt as if she’d pried open a doorway into someone’s most private refuge. “I wish you felt free. But I need you to be safe.”

Again, they looked at each other, briefly, as if there were no one else in the room.

Sylvie liked this pair very much. As young working royals, criticism and rumor were going to dog their every step. She truly hoped that the bond between them proved stronger than all who would test it.

Rosie cleared her throat. “And now I’d better take a cue from my mother and vacate the premises so Johnny can deliver his own request.”

When the door closed behind her, Sylvie looked at Johnny with raised eyebrows.

She lifted her stylus, ready, waiting.

And, after the Midnight Elixir request, slightly apprehensive.

The Captain’s Suite

4:50 p.m.

Meeting with Candidate: Mr. Dominic De Vere

“Rosie was very close to her great-uncle before Prince Patrick’s death.” Marchmont’s eyes met Dominic’s and held gamely. The groom-to-be still looked ill at ease, even with the room depleted of every other occupant. “She saw him as something of a kindred spirit.”

Dominic did a rapid mental collation of everything he knew about Prince Patrick, one of the king’s younger brothers. Not a lot. Conventionally handsome, but not particularly charismatic. A poor public speaker. Lifelong bachelor. Talented musician. Unlike his siblings, who’d marched dutifully along to military college or straight into royal duties, Patrick had attended a music school. He’d studied classical piano but had pursued a weekend sideline in rock. Pierced his nose, picked up a few tattoos, made a short-lived attempt at putting together a band. The prince had penned several songs about the plays of ancient Greece and one or two about his favorite foods. Apparently, his work had enjoyed fleeting popularity in the more artsy nightclubs in Chelsea, and appalled palace courtiers and the more tedious members of the public, who’d clearly had too much time on their hands. On the scale of royal rebellions, it barely registered. There had been a member of European royalty dabbling in satanic cults back then.

“Patrick and Rosie shared a common viewpoint on many aspects of this life. And that way of thinking can result in friction with other members of the family. But Patrick was important to Rosie. She would have loved her great-uncle to be at our wedding.” Johnny hesitated before he added candidly, “In the true meaning of family, he was the closest thing she had to a parent. It’s common knowledge that the king’s relationship with his brother was strained, but I’d like the cake design to include a special and specific nod to Patrick, even if it’s recognizable to no one but Rosie.” A faint smile. “Perhaps especially if it’s recognizable to her alone.”

Dominic waited for a moment, but Johnny seemed to have reached his verbal limits. “Nothing more specific?”

Johnny blinked. Then shrugged. “You’re the artist,” he said. Blankly, not pointedly. “I thought you’d know what to do.”

A longer pause.

“He did like bees,” Johnny offered thoughtfully.

Mystery spices. Berries. Bees.

And the most important underpinning fact: one hell of a paycheck.

Dominic closed his iPad cover with a snap. “I’ll figure it out.”

Johnny beamed.

At exactly 4:55 p.m., he left the Captain’s Suite. Right on schedule, he surmised by the satisfied expressions on every staffer’s face. The door was held open by one of the biggest human beings he’d seen outside of a Marvel film. Dominic was not a small man, but Johnny’s PPO was built like a fucking Airbus. Shaved head, smashed nose, a face so extraordinarily ugly it was conversely fascinating. He might have just walked out of Game of Thrones after single-handedly decimating an army. He looked Dominic dead in the eyes and didn’t say a word.

If it was Rosie who’d chosen her fiancé’s source of frontline protection, she wasn’t messing around.

Jeremiah and Arabella reappeared in the space of a blink and with no prior noise, thanks to either the thick pile of the carpet or teleportation. They escorted him back through the corridors. Just in case he was tempted to bundle a few antiques under his arm and make a run for it. Everyone kept efficiently checking the time and murmuring into phones. Presumably, the other name on the short list was also being shunted through the Cone of Silence at St. Giles this afternoon. The as-yet-unknown competition being kept carefully out of his path.

He still had a very strong suspicion as to the identity of his mystery rival.

He hadn’t heard so much as a whisper she was putting in a tender for this, and her shop floor wasn’t exactly a bastion of secrets.

But considering the personality of this particular bride, her presence on the short list wouldn’t be entirely beyond belief. Yet another what-the-fuck in a day that had also included scones with the consistency of schist and custard that fizzed on the tongue like popping candy—but just within the realms of possibility.

“Dominic De Vere!”

He looked up as a heavyset man in military uniform broke off a conversation and came toward him, hand extended.

An old acquaintance of his grandfather’s, whose name was either Bill, Will, or Gil.

Or Cyril. As opposed to Sebastian De Vere, who had rarely wasted words, Major General Cyril Blake was like a faulty tap once he started talking. Spilling out everywhere and impossible to turn off.

To the foot-tapping agitation of the bodyguard dolls, Dominic was still standing in the corridor at 5:32 p.m., when a second black-clad escort rounded the corner and he found himself face-to-face with Sylvie Fairchild.

They stared at each other against a background of stone-faced protection officers and Cyril moaning about his grandkids and the price of cheese.

Then: “‘Dragons. Good God,’” Dominic quoted in a drawl. “I knew it.”