Battle Royal by Lucy Parker
Chapter Eight
Hartwell Studios
Contestants Eliminated: 3
Contestants Quitting: 1
Contestants Crying: 1, but give Judge C a chance. He’s not even properly awake yet.
Judges Hungover: 2
Nadine from Bucksneeded to leave the Operation Cake studio and hook an immediate turn into the casting office for Days Gone By. With that wavy hair and uptilted eyebrows, she even looked like the fictional family in the long-running soap opera. And she’d nailed their signature acting technique. Gaze into the distance. Deep, shuddering breath. Close eyes. Square shoulders. Exude aura of self-sacrificial courage. And—scene.
“I’ll always be grateful for this experience,” Nadine said tearfully into Camera B. Her breath quivered inward again. She pressed her palm to her chest. Her apron, pretty floral top, and neck were all splattered in lumpy cake batter. “But it’s made me realize where I truly need to be right now. With my family. I miss my husband. I miss Roget.”
“Roget?” Mariana asked over Sylvie’s shoulder. Her mouth was full of Victoria sponge. They’d both been going back for thirds and fourths of Emma Abara’s exquisite morning bake. The cake was light, fluffy, and one of the best Victoria sponges Sylvie had ever eaten. It more than compensated for Emma’s disastrous first round.
And it was creating a nice spongy layer in Sylvie’s stomach to soak up the remnants of alcohol.
“Her parrot.”
“The beaky resurrection of Caesar? I thought it had taken that last great plummet from its perch.”
“That was Roget’s predecessor.”
“Are you okay?” Mariana licked the cream from her fingers and peered at her. “You look a bit peaky.”
“Unintentional absinthe binge.” Sylvie could still taste anise in the back of her throat when she swallowed.
Thanks to Darren Clyde using the world’s smallest font to warn of extreme alcoholic content, she’d held hands with Dominic, gushed over his . . . hugeness, and woken up with the mother of all headaches.
“Wow. You other judges really know how to party. Dominic’s also exuding alcohol fumes.” Mariana inclined her head toward Dominic, who was currently staring at the lighting fixture over Nadine’s head. Probably hoping it would collapse and bring this endless monologue to a conclusion, so they could break for lunch. Sylvie needed coffee, stat. There had been a bowl of cold espresso on a benchtop for a contestant’s trifle, and she’d come dangerously close to just dropping her whole head in and absorbing the caffeine like a sponge.
“Even he doesn’t have the bone structure to pull off the vampiric red eyes.” Mariana reached into the pocket of her tunic and pulled out a folded napkin. She unwrapped it, revealing several more pieces of cake she’d been hoarding. “And his normal mood is sufficiently unattractive without a hangover dragging us all into the deeper pits of hell.”
Sylvie had been trying not to look at or speak to Dominic all day. She was . . . Honestly, she was a bit horrified. There was a unique mortification in revealing private pieces of yourself to someone who truly didn’t give a shit.
Even if he could be surprisingly nice when he was sozzled.
When she peeked at him again now, she saw that he was very red around the eyelids. She was fairly sure her entire insides were a similarly angry shade. It felt like she’d scoured her gut with steel wool.
If she’d ever been youthful enough to tolerate absinthe, those days had passed. Cranky Crone could not handle her booze.
Nadine finally wrapped up her lengthy resignation speech. The moment the cameras clicked off, she turned and stalked toward Libby’s station.
The other woman was watching the departing contestant with that same teensy smile she’d directed at Byron before his elimination. She was still currently in the lead, just to add to the hellfire of this day. That little twitch to her lips was infuriating—and apparently not just to Sylvie.
“I hope you’re happy.” Nadine’s jaw set tight as she stopped in front of the countertop. “You nasty little cow.”
With no warning, she picked up the remains of Libby’s unfortunately perfect toffee cream tart and shoved it straight in its creator’s face.
Sylvie had never seen anything like it—the gelatin in the tart held so well that almost the entire contents of the tin transferred smoothly to Libby. Two beady eyes were glaring out of an otherwise largely intact circle of toffee.
When the eyes blinked and Libby’s new face slid off like the Wicked Witch melting into the pavers of Oz, Mariana succumbed to a coughing fit, spraying crumbs over Sylvie’s shoulder. Hazard of screeching with surprised laughter while stuffing one’s face.
Even Dominic’s eyebrows had shot up.
“Did we get that on camera?” a voice asked urgently behind her, and a lighting pole poked her in the back of the head as the crew scrambled into action.
“No.”
“Fuck.”
Within earshot of the contestants, it was all consoling, tactful comments as the production staff began soothing Libby’s wounded feelings and getting her a towel. More helpful people rushed after Nadine, who was stalking off set, tossing back her hair.
On a scale of one to ten, how unprofessional would it be to applaud?
“What was that about?” Mariana asked in a low voice.
“Somehow I don’t think Libby’s character matches her face.”
“Well, nobody could be that ingenuous, could they?” the other judge intoned cynically. She looked down at her hands. “I need more cake.”
“I know. Most of your previous slice is sliding into my best bra.”
“Wowzer,” a new voice said as Mariana made a beeline for the food tables. Speaking of ingenuous, those tones were so soft and melodious, a Disney princess might have hopped the Channel from Disneyland Paris and gone for a wander. “Talk about upping the drama ante,” the newcomer continued. “Last season, it was thrilling if someone dropped an egg.”
Not so much Rapunzel, Sylvie discovered when she turned around, as a young Phryne Fisher. The woman grinning at her was midtwenties-ish, with fine-boned, fairylike features, a short, glossy bob of black hair, and crisply outlined red lipstick. Even her clothing was vintage.
“Hello, Sylvie,” the very pretty girl said, shoving a hand toward her. “I am stupendously pleased to meet you, o genius behind that fabulous creation across the road. Which sadly I can never step foot in, because my flag is planted squarely in enemy territory. I’m Pet De Vere. Dominic’s beloved sister.”
Her cheery tone took a decided dip into sarcasm on those last two words. And ironically made the sibling relationship more believable.
“She of the incredible talent with a piece of paper and a pair of scissors,” Sylvie said, shaking Pet’s hand. A few painful dregs of hangover were brushed aside by curiosity. Dominic was more than a few years older than his sister—and light-years apart in personality from this perky, wee sprite. “Wee” being the operative word. She was at least six inches shorter than Sylvie.
Some of that buoyancy in Pet’s face had faded as Sylvie spoke, morphing into something more complex. “Oh,” she said, a bit uncertainly. “Has he actually . . . Has he mentioned me?”
She glanced across to the studio to where Dominic was deep in conversation with the executive producer. As he was probably purposely not looking in Sylvie’s direction, he also hadn’t seen Pet yet.
“He gave Mariana a silhouette portrait you cut of her.” Sylvie must be almost a decade older than Pet, but she didn’t want to be condescending. Nevertheless, she found her voice gentling. “She showed it to me. You’re extremely talented. Are you a full-time artist?”
“Thank you.” Pet cleared her throat. “No, I’m not. I’m a full-time PA, and right now I’m temping for Dominic while his executive assistant is out on sick leave.” She held up an envelope. “Hence the personal delivery service with urgent documents he needs to sign.”
“Well, if you ever wanted to practice art as a profession, you could. We’re all jealous of Mariana’s portrait. Count me in if you ever need a model.”
“Sure. Anytime” was the response after a noticeable pause and a slightly odd glance.
“Pet!” Mariana returned with more cake and offered them both a piece. “How nice to see you again. Have you come to watch the filming?”
“Officially, and if my brother asks, no.” Pet tasted the cake and immediately brightened. “This is really good cake.”
“Courtesy of Emma.” Mariana inclined her head to where most of the contestants were whispering amongst themselves. “In the red apron. Next to her in the blue apron is Adam. And the matchmaker here would like to see them team up over more than a group challenge.”
They all watched as Emma leaned forward to wipe up a puddle of spilled lemon juice. She stumbled, and Adam just about threw himself across his neighboring station to grab hold of the bow in her apron strings. He pulled her back before she could fall and ended the performance with a reassuring pat on her upper arm. Emma said something, and he blushed on every visible patch of skin on his body.
As he turned away, fiddling with his badly knotted tie, Emma self-consciously adjusted her glasses and patted the multitude of tiny braids twisted under her headscarf.
“Oh, wow.” Pet had pressed her hands together before her face, Dominic’s urgent envelope currently forgotten, squeezed between her palms. “I so ship it.”
“I will concede they’re sweet,” Mariana said. “And that I shouldn’t be surprised the resident unicorn enthusiast is a hopeless romantic.”
Sylvie had returned to rubbing her temples. “Pardon me if it’s obvious when two people are into each other.”
“Is it?” Mariana murmured. And smiled at her blandly.
“Speaking of sweet,” Pet said, “those little unicorn marshmallows you put in your hot drinks at Sugar Fair are the best. I’d like to steal your idea and add them to the menu at De Vere’s, but unicorns are not on Dominic’s radar.”
“Unless they’re catapulting straight into his skull.” Mariana examined another piece of cake and prodded it between her lips.
“Have you been giving me illicit patronage after all?” Sylvie teased Pet.
“It’s evidence of my ironclad willpower and loyalty that I’m not facedown in a booze cauldron every Saturday night, but no. Sorry. Dominic’s apprentice is the one putting coins in your coffers. He loves them. And it sounds like he could do with the treats right now, poor guy.”
“Going through a rough time?” Mariana asked incuriously through her mouthful of cake, and Pet nodded.
“Yeah. He’s sole caregiver for a family member with high needs, and his work’s really been slipping. Dominic’s shortened and changed his hours so he can spend more time at home, on full pay, and given him a bonus so he can pay for some home help.”
Sylvie looked up. “Dominic did that?”
“Surprising.” Mariana’s response was blunt. Apparently, the warm fuzzies over her gifted silhouette had reached their expiry date.
“I don’t think it’s surprising at all.” Pet folded her arms, but the belligerent gesture turned into something more like a self-hug. Sylvie was pretty sure that only she heard the soft follow-up: “But I suppose I don’t really know him well enough to say.”
Sugar Fair
Where everything has been running like clockwork in the boss’s absence and it is, as ever, one big happy family.
It’s nice to have something to rely upon in a world of constant change and unwanted skin tingles.
“For the third time,” Jay was saying when Sylvie finished decorating a golden anniversary cake that afternoon and walked through to the central shop floor, “could you mix up the lollipop selection? We’re almost out of birds and jungle animals, and we have way too many of these weird walrus things.”
Mabel didn’t look up from the ball of sugar she was molding. “That’s you, dipshit. Just balder this time. I took the liberty of giving Lollipop Jay a haircut since the breathing version seems to have lost the address of his barber.” Helpfully, she added, “Imagine the walrus with a Steven Tyler wig, and look again.”
Jay stared at her before his gaze dropped to the lollipop in his hand. Sylvie was eight feet away and she could already see the perfect likeness of his face sunk eerily into the sweet, like a tiny trapped spirit.
An alarming crimson flush rose up Non-Lollipop Jay’s neck.
She prayed for strength.
“I have to go out for an hour or two,” she said loudly, “to do some research for . . .” She glanced at Mabel’s lowered head. “For a commission. Is everything going to be all right here?”
“Sticky hands keep touching my art, and if this scraggly-haired idiot doesn’t stop interfering with my vision, I’m going to sculpt a six-foot-tall amezaiku voodoo doll and shove an ice pick in his dick,” Mabel returned pleasantly. “Business as usual.”
Sylvie made the executive decision to just let that go. As she turned away to collect her coat, Mabel added, “Have fun poking about dusty old papers at the Royal Archives.”
She stopped. Mabel was engrossed in her work. Fortunately, all their current customers were in the right atrium, beyond the waterfall, which muffled sound.
“I won’t ask how you know that.”
Mabel’s snort was scornful.
Jay caught her up in the back cloakroom. “Do you want me to come? Lend an extra pair of eyes? I’ll let you borrow my magnifying glass.”
Sylvie frowned, buttoning up her coat. “Don’t you have an early group in the Dark Forest soon?”
“Oh . . . right.” He ran his hand over his jaw. “And another group later, yeah. We’re doing well for bookings. All this promo for Operation Cake and the social media campaign is really boosting sales.” He reached out and pulled her plait free of the coat collar. While his hand was in the vicinity, he gave her cheek a fond stroke with his thumb. “Sorry it’s at the expense of daily run-ins with De Vere.”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said after a moment. She stretched her lips into a smile. “The sacrifices we make for the bottom line, right?” Reaching up on her tiptoes, she took his shoulders in a little hug, and pressed an affectionate kiss to his cheek. “Call me if there are any major disasters. Please try not to murder Mabs, and vice versa.” She turned back at the door. “Oh, I meant to ask . . .”
Jay’s hand fell from his cheek and he looked at her inquiringly.
“How are things with Fiona? It’s been so busy lately we never had that dinner together, and you haven’t mentioned her for a while.”
Something in his handsome face closed off. His smile became as forced as hers. “We’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“Oh no.” Sylvie’s hand fell away from the doorknob as she stared back at him in dismay. “Oh, Jay, I’m so sorry. I know you really liked her.” She returned to wrap her arms around him again. After a beat or two, his hand fisted in her coat, at the base of her spine. “Can I ask what happened?”
He continued to hold her a second longer. One broad shoulder lifted. “We just weren’t right. One of those things.”
“But—” Sylvie’s phone buzzed. “That’s my taxi.” She didn’t move, undecided. “Look, should I stay? Do you want to talk?”
“No.” He softened the abrupt rejection with another smile, more genuine now. “Honestly, it’s fine, but I appreciate the offer.” He jerked his head. “Go forth and discover what made Prince Patrick tick.”
She could hear the distant tooting of a car horn now.
“Okay, but if you do want to talk—”
“I’ll track you down somewhere between a bowl of cake icing and a stack of dusty papers.”
When she was halfway through the door, Jay said, suddenly, “Syl.”
She looked back.
“I love you.”
“Back at you, slick.” She blew him a kiss and ran to catch the taxi, which was already starting to pull away from the curb without her.
The Royal Archives were spread amongst multiple institutions, but as the main repository for information relating to the king’s siblings, the natural starting spot was Abbey Hall. Located perpendicular to St. Giles Palace, the archival stores had apparently received most of the effects they’d bequeathed for preservation.
Sylvie had already made use of the modern treasure hunter’s first aide, Google. But Johnny wanted the top tier of this cake to be incredibly personal and special for Rosie, and so far, no bald, dry detail of Prince Patrick’s life pulled from a webpage was jumping out to be included in the design. The king’s younger brother had been popular with lower-level palace aides, but reputedly despised the topmost advisors. Never married. A passion for people, philanthropy, and the arts. A close bond with his young great-niece.
And that was about it.
After some well-publicized exploits in his youth, Patrick had kept a low profile outside of his official appearances. He’d carried out his public engagements with bland correctness and generally sailed under the radar. During his teen years and twenties, he’d been photographed with a number of women, each resulting in a press frenzy. The tabloids had shredded every girlfriend like sharks circling bloodied meat, analyzing their past relationships, their appearance, their clothing, their smallest gesture. Anyone who appeared with the prince more than once was mooted as a potential wife.
That appeared to have stopped abruptly in his late thirties. From the age of about thirty-eight until two years ago, when he’d died from cancer at sixty-three, the prince had really never been the subject of even the most tepid romance rumors. No more women with an arm hooked through the crook of his elbow as they left a restaurant, not a hint of an engagement on the horizon.
Considering that he’d been a handsome, kind-looking man in the prime of life even without his royal status, she found that interesting from a purely nosy point of view, but it was hardly helpful for the cake design.
She had found a few covers on YouTube of some pretty terrible rock songs he’d written as a student, the existence of which he’d understandably chosen to ignore in later life. One was titled “The Staring Eye of Death,” which she’d assumed was going to be a metaphorical reflection on mortality, but had turned out to be an ode to the prince’s favorite childhood meal: poached haddock in milk.
She might have more “artistic” tastes in cake design than the Duchess of Albany would like, but even she drew the line at dead fish.
Sylvie seriously hoped that Abbey Hall could provide a metaphorical key, turn an elusive shade into a personality and a soul with hopes and dreams and loves. She needed there to be something that would give her the edge here.
De Vere’s was formidable competition in this race. She didn’t underestimate Dominic. He had the existing prestige and probably the backing of the more traditionally minded royals. He also had an advantage in the other half of the quest, the transformation of Midnight Elixir from beverage to bake. His handling of flavors was literally second to none.
Where he slipped back a step was sentiment and connection to the material. He was all technique and cold perfection, all the time. Rosie and Johnny wanted heart. And therein lay her opportunity, the small gap through which Sugar Fair could slip.
If she could somehow reach back across the years and catch hold of Patrick.
The person, not the prince on paper. The man Rosie had loved.
When the taxi let her out at King Charles Square, she shivered and tugged her hat down her forehead as she walked around the cobblestoned boundary of St. Giles Palace. Her boots slipped on the icy ground, and she wiggled empty gloved fingers at a pigeon that hopped closer, ever hopeful.
“Sorry, little chap.” She suddenly remembered something. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the napkin containing one last square of Emma’s Victoria sponge, shoved at her by Mariana when the other woman had been called back to set. She crouched and tossed the cake to the hungry pigeon. “Enjoy. And make sure you appreciate it,” she said severely. “It’s the best cake you’ll ever taste.”
“Unless he manages to snatch a crumb of the royal wedding cake. As baked by De Vere’s.” Unlike Emma’s sponge, the words behind her were dry. Sylvie swung around, and Dominic raised his brows. The wind was blowing his thick hair around. He looked, as she’d already vocally noted once before, huge in his wool coat, the fabric stretched taut over his broad shoulders. “Talking to pigeons now?”
“Better company than a lot of human beings. Just ask Nikola Tesla.” She straightened. “I would say fancy meeting you here, but it appears that right now our wavelengths are crossing so often we’re weaving a veritable fucking lattice.”
“Abbey Hall?” Dominic cast his eyes up when she nodded. In the silence that followed, she could hear the pigeon making little bobbling sounds.
Dominic stepped back and made a short gesture. “After you.”
He walked more or less at her side, however, and Sylvie felt . . . ruffled. Self-conscious in a way she usually was not.
The tip-tip of her boot heels was loud on the stones. It was a quiet time of day for the square, with minimal foot traffic.
“So, your sister’s lovely,” she said mostly to suppress the urge to flat-out sprint the remaining distance to Abbey Hall.
“Yes, she is.”
She peeked a glance sideways. He was scanning the square with narrowed eyes, his hands tucked into his pockets. No bowed head and shoulders for Dominic; always alert and aware of his surroundings.
“Did you get your urgent correspondence sorted out?”
“I did,” the Master of Loquacity confirmed.
With all these words constantly spilling out of him, it was amazing she could get a phrase in edgewise.
He’d obviously prefer to walk in silence. She considered gifting that wish.
Decided no.
“Secret business to do with the Albany contract?” she pried, with another sidelong glance through her lashes.
“Odds I’d tell you if it were?” Dominic stopped and crouched to pick something up from the pavers. When he stood, there was a worm between his fingers. He looked around before walking over to deposit the little guy in a plant pot. “But as it happens, no.” He dusted his hand off against his trousers. “Upcoming function for Farquhar’s. Six cakes. Eight hundred chocolates.”
There were horribly starchy insurance firms, and then there was Farquhar’s. Their current CEO had once been Sylvie’s local councillor during his short-lived political career. The man was so unbending she was surprised he didn’t snap in half like a twig every time he sat at his desk. A perfect match for Dominic’s repressive aesthetic. They were never likely to be a client for Sugar Fair, and she murmured as much.
“We do have distinct markets.” His tone was reciprocally unflattering about the parties who preferred her own work.
“But could both thoroughly benefit from the prestige of this contract.”
His gaze collided with hers. “Yes.”
“A lot of ups and downs for the whole industry lately,” she murmured, an automatic exchange of commiserations with a fellow pâtissier, temporarily forgetting which pâtissier.
However, he responded frankly. “The industry has been in turbulent waters for a good five years. Hence the need to boost income.”
She blinked. Twice. “Is that why you do Operation Cake?”
“Of course that’s why I do Operation Cake. I have staff who need paying; they have families to support. And that bloody show brings in a hell of a lot of associated business.”
Well.
Layers of things in common. Who would have thought?
He was close enough that she could smell his cologne again, overlaid with the familiar scents of sugar and caramel. He smelled both delicious and like hard work. The wind blew loose strands of her hair against his face and he reached up to catch them, holding them away from his skin.
A shiver followed the gust of cold air slipping down Sylvie’s spine.
They both tucked their hands into their pockets, and she started walking again, more briskly. She wanted out of the cold. And she was privately quite psyched about the next hour or so. Museums were her jam, the pokier and dustier the better, and she rarely got a chance to indulge.
They mounted the long strip of stone stairs, and Dominic held open the glass-paneled door for her.
The interior of the repository was a bit of a disappointment. Sylvie had hoped for hidden treasures, and lush tapestries, and lots of old volumes with that nice dusty-book smell. Instead, she got very neat filing cabinets and display cases, and the smell of lavender floor cleaner.
“How . . . antiseptic,” she said glumly, examining the floor plan of the public areas.
“What were you hoping for?” Dominic’s shoulder touched hers. “Abandoned attics, mysterious objects, the odd ghost or two?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Abbey Hall, not Thornfield Hall.” He shook his head. “All right. Consider this my yearly good deed.”
Curiously, she followed as he went to the service desk and spoke in low tones to the clerk.
After a minute or two, another door opened and a beaming elderly Black woman bustled out, hands extended to take Dominic’s. “Dominic De Vere. How wonderful to see you.”
She gave his fingers an affectionate little shake and reached up to kiss him extravagantly on both cheeks.
After years of failing to rise to any bait, rarely cracking a smile, never losing his composure—the back of Dominic’s neck reddened.
If the most interesting thing Sylvie found in this building was Patrick’s laundry receipts, this entire excursion had already justified itself.
Dominic’s very gallant lady friend released his hands and patted him on the arm. Her lively eyes moved to Sylvie. “And who is this lovely young woman? Introduce me.”
A killing stare dared her to even look at his sweet wee lingering flush. The tips of his ears were red, too. “This is Sylvie Fairchild, owner and head chef at Sugar Fair in Notting Hill. Sylvie, meet Dolores Grant, curator of rare books for Abbey Hall, and the woman with the magic keys.”
“Ah, you want access to the inner sanctum.” After shaking hands with Sylvie, too, Dolores rubbed her palms together. “May I inquire why?”
“The late Prince Patrick.” Without turning his head, Dominic touched Sylvie’s arm, pulled her closer to his side, then immediately let her go. Simultaneously, a patron reaching around her for a book dislodged a whole shelf of folders, which now fell on the ground instead of her foot. “What do you know about him?”
“King James’s younger brother. Never married. No offspring. If you mean beyond the basic biography,” Dolores said, “I met him a number of times throughout my career. By far the nicest member of the family with whom I’ve had professional dealings. Unfailingly polite. Always interested. An unusually moral man.” She looked suddenly thoughtful. “Not by the measure of royalty. By the measure of humanity. Prince Patrick was a thoroughly decent human being.”
Sylvie was listening intently. “And a talented musician, I believe.”
Dolores’s ready smile put the most beautiful light in her eyes. “When that man sat down at a piano . . . There are no words,” she said simply, before adding with intense wryness, “There are also no words for his short-lived foray into metal, for an entirely different reason.”
“I did listen to an impassioned performance of his breakfast anthem.”
“Youth is a time for making an arse of oneself, and His Highness excelled at the brief.” Dolores bent to her computer and pulled up a catalogue entry. She scrawled a series of numbers on a Post-it note. “But there’s a recording in the archives of him playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Listen to it. The man wove magic.” Her silky-smooth voice was low and musing. “He treated his instrument with the skill and respect of a devoted lover, and it responded to his touch like a woman in the throes of desire. Every sound, every sigh, coming together in pure harmony.”
The skin over Sylvie’s cheekbones felt slightly taut. Fleetingly, compulsively, her eyes slipped sideways again to where Dominic stood quietly listening to Dolores.
And silently scrutinizing her.
Her heart, increasingly unreliable the past few days, did another skippety-hop, and her stomach muscles clenched.
She swallowed, dragging her gaze away, and saw that the smile in Dolores’s dark eyes had deepened into intense speculation.
Perhaps taking pity on Sylvie’s obvious discomposure, Dolores tilted her head and switched that perspicacious stare to Dominic. “And why the sudden fascination with Patrick?”
There was a fractional pause before he responded blandly, “Just a small research project. But we were hoping to have a look at the private collections.”
“A research project. I think it can be arranged.” She exhaled. “Good heavens, I owe you a good deal more than that.”
“You owe me nothing. But we would appreciate the short-term loan of that key.”
“I owe you my whole world.” The words were soft, but slipped immediately into normal tones before Dominic could reply. “You’re lucky with your timing. I’m on leave after this week. But I can certainly give you a couple of hours now.”
Stepping back from the desk, she held up the electronic key card and spoke with the resonant burr of a tour guide. “Follow me, lady and gent, as we enter these hallowed halls and step back in time.”
Despite her initial enthusiasm to fossick amongst antiques and lovely old letters, Sylvie was feeling a little uncertain in general now, but she followed them through a locked door behind the desk and into a chilled corridor. Which, in turn, led into an absolute tangle of hallways. If she got lost in here, she’d probably emerge back into the square at about age fifty-three. She was pleased to discover that the farther they receded into the building, the messier and more archaic-looking things got, and by the time Dolores let them into a large chamber, they might be in the country house attic of her dreams.
High wooden beams across the ceiling were spotted with the odd cobweb, and shelf after shelf was stacked with labeled cartons and bubble-wrapped picture frames.
“When members of the royal household pass,” Dolores said, “often their personal belongings extend into hundreds of boxes. These came from Patrick’s own properties. Some of it has been catalogued. A great deal has not. We’ve only had this set for eighteen months. You can be assured that if you return in eighteen years, the archivists will have at least half of these boxes fully classified.”
“Are we allowed to just . . . touch things?” Sylvie asked.
“As I’m personally vouching for you and not telling anyone about this, yes,” Dolores returned cheerfully. “Just put on a pair of those gloves, don’t break anything, or take anything, and put things back where you found them. If any long-lost crown jewels fall out of a file, it’s not Finders Keepers.” She gestured over to a long worktable and handed Sylvie the Post-it. “There’s a tape deck on the far table. Here’s the shelving reference for the music recording. It has been logged and digitized, but I think you’re a woman after my own heart. You’ll always seek the original source.”
She studied them for a further moment. “What are you hoping to find?”
Once more, briefly, Dominic’s eyes met Sylvie’s. “Inspiration.”
“I see.” Dolores’s response was a little enigmatic. “Well, that’s what we’re all looking for, isn’t it? I’ll leave you to it.”
She was already heading out in a brisk stride, but popped her head back around the door to fix Dominic with a stern stare. “Postscript. I’ve chased enough snuggling students out of the public stacks lately. No hanky-panky in front of Will.” She patted a bronze bust of Shakespeare on the head. “You’re old enough to know better.”
The door slammed shut behind her, dislodging a wave of dust particles in the cool air, sending them spinning past Sylvie’s hot cheeks.
She was very aware of Dominic standing a few feet away but wouldn’t have looked at his face just then if a million-pound contract and her life itself were at stake.
“Dolores seems very, um, energetic,” she offered into the echoing silence.
“Yes,” Dominic said, intensely drily. “Doesn’t she?” He was already slipping on a pair of white gloves and reaching for a carton, lifting it down from a shelf and reading the detailed label on top. The sleeves of his shirt and wool pullover were pushed back, his famous forearms on full display.
To be quite honest, the more he kept shoving his shirt up, the more she could see why they had their own fan account on Instagram.
“How do you know her?” Not planning to lose ground on the battlefield, Sylvie pulled on gloves and chose a stack of wrapped photographs.
“She was a customer, a long time ago. One of the first I handled after I finished my qualifications and started working for my grandfather full-time.”
Sylvie wanted to ask what Dolores had meant by a favor owed, but there was something about Dominic that made her cautious of prying too far. He was like a human fortress, seemingly impenetrable. But no human being was beyond hurt. She was beginning to have the strangest, prickliest feeling when she was with him, that she could tap, tap, tap against the stone wall—and, just maybe, stab through the tiniest of cracks.
And the feeling it was very important she didn’t.
“You know,” she said suddenly, lifting out a photo of three ascetic, anaemic-looking people with guns and spaniels, “your grandfather is one of my earliest memories.”
Dominic was leafing impatiently through a thick file. His fingers paused on the paper. “Sebastian is?”
“And his chocolate.” Sylvie grinned. “Figures. Most of my strongest memories are food-related. And of those, most of them chocolate. It was my fifth birthday. My aunt Mallory took me to De Vere’s. Your grandfather was out in the storefront. He shook my hand, wished me happy birthday, showed me the front page of the paper, and asked which of these people should win the general election. I chose the one with the nicest eyes, and he said, ‘Excellent. A wise young woman.’ He gave me a cupcake on the house, and Mallory let me pick out a whole box of chocolates. A dozen of Sebastian De Vere’s signature truffles, all for me. I didn’t even have to share.” Her smile flickered. “But I did. Mallory and I went to Kensington Gardens, we sat near the Peter Pan statue, and we gorged ourselves on milk caramel creams. It was . . . a really good day. I’ll never forget it.”
She didn’t really expect Dominic to reply, but he looked across at her. “In the bare bones of an anecdote, I can hear his voice.”
“You were close.”
He said nothing. And then: “We were. Despite a rocky beginning.”
Sylvie frowned.
He must really want to change the subject. He actually voluntarily encouraged her to speak. “And you were clearly close to your aunt.”
A pang. And a flood of love, always, forever love, from her heart to the tips of her toes.
“She was the great love of my life so far.” Sylvie looked down at the second photo she’d unearthed. It was—must be—a mother and daughter, two women a couple of decades apart in age, their features so similar. The daughter was seated, her mother’s hand resting on her shoulder. And at their feet, yet another spaniel. Royals and spaniels seemed to go hand in paw. “My parents died when I was a baby. I never knew them. Mallory was my father’s younger sister. She was barely twenty-one when she was landed with custody of me. There was no one else. My mother was an only child of only children. My father had no other siblings, no cousins, or aunts or uncles. If Mallory hadn’t taken me, I’d have had to go into foster care. I don’t think she even hesitated.”
She traced her fingers lightly over the photograph. “She used to strap me to her chest and take me to her uni tutorials. She was an artist and became a curator, an expert in nineteenth- and twentieth-century glass art and sculpture. Any time she had a contract or speaking engagement outside of London, she made sure I was okay with it, and off we both went.” Finally, simply: “She was always there.”
“Until?” Dominic asked quietly, and a film of blurriness distorted the strangers in the photo.
“Until I was nineteen. When the universe put a very bright light into the sky, a lot too soon.”
There was a clock somewhere in this room. She could hear it ticking, a repetitive dull sound.
A drop of wet touched the corner of her mouth, and she caught it on her tongue before it could fall farther. Blindly, she set the photos aside, reached for the nearest box, pulling it onto her lap.
Something scraped against the wooden floorboards, and then he was there, crouching before her. Her hands gripped the sides of the carton.
He didn’t touch her, but she could feel the warmth and solidity of his presence.
Strange, that the man she’d always considered one of the coldest people she’d ever met could get down on the floor with her and radiate such utter solace.
Neither of them said a word. She listened to his deep, even breaths, until her own came freely and her shoulders relaxed.
Only then did she look up into his eyes, fixed steadily on her face. His black brows were pulled together.
“It was a long time ago,” she said softly.
“Does it feel like a long time ago?”
Her smile was crooked. “It feels like a hundred years ago. It feels like yesterday.”
He nodded, and that small movement wasn’t acknowledgment; it was understanding. Another fragment of grief, splintering the quiet in the room. Memories of his own.
“Me and Rosie,” she whispered. “I think we both know firsthand that love and family is something you’re born into if you’re lucky, but hopefully you’ll also find it along the way. And parenthood, it’s not always the person who gave birth to you.”
His eyes flickered.
She hesitated. “You too?”
A long silence before one word. “Yes.”
As her mind retreated from both the pain and shelter of the past, recentering in the present, Sylvie became hyperaware of her surroundings. The ticking was coming from an old grandfather clock; she could see the antique face now, just beyond Dominic’s left ear.
There was a bit of dust caught in his thick hair.
A muscle pulsed beside his lips.
Sylvie swallowed and lowered her gaze to the open box. There were more photographs inside, mostly of strangers, more official settings and public occasions than candid shots of the family’s leisure time. She studied a studio portrait of the prince, aged perhaps forty. He sat rather stiffly on a bench, shoulders very straight, lips a little tense and narrow. With the lingering remnants of her own sadness tugging at her, the expression in his eyes spoke of desolation.
With painstaking care, she returned the photograph to the box. Standing up, she glanced at the numbers on the Post-it Dolores had given her and plunged into the rear stacks. That section was meticulously organized, and she located an envelope containing a cassette tape without difficulty.
A welcome smile spread through her body as she plugged in the very retro-looking tape deck and slipped in the tape. She could suddenly see the tiny kitchen of Mallory’s first flat, sunlight filtering in through pink curtains, books and plants everywhere, and cassette tapes scattered across the table. Standing on her aunt’s feet and holding her hands as they danced around the tiles.
Eight-year-old Jay already sporting a romantic coif of dark hair and a melancholic expression, rolling his eyes at her taste, but using months of hoarded pocket money to buy her a Spice Girls tape for her birthday.
She sat down slowly at the table, aware of the faint rustling sounds behind her as Dominic continued his efficient search, and pressed play.
As the first piano notes wrapped around her, Dominic’s movements slowed and stopped.
Pulling off the gloves, Sylvie set them down neatly. Leaning her elbows on the wooden tabletop, she rested her chin in her hands and closed her eyes.
There were rare moments when the passing of time, the significance of the clock, the entire world beyond four walls, drifted into nothingness. She existed in those endless minutes in a bubble, suspended only by the music and the rhythm of her own breaths and Dominic’s silent presence. There was no physical connection between them, she couldn’t even see him—and it was as if she could feel the skin of his hands, the steady beat of his heart, the comforting rasp of his fingers sliding between hers.
When she eventually reached out and turned off the tape, she felt the echoing quiet down to her bones.
Her cheeks were wet against her hands. She ran her pinkie fingers under her lashes, collecting the lingering traces of tears, before she turned.
Dominic was standing motionless, looking down at the box he held. When he lifted his head, the faintest sheen lent those dark eyes the endless depths of the midnight sky.
“If it were possible to bottle sound and sculpt it into visual form,” he said simply, and she nodded wordlessly.
Releasing a long, shaky breath as she put her gloves back on, she stood and removed the tape, returning it to its envelope.
“I’m not sure how to translate that experience into a cake design,” she murmured—and honestly, part of her wouldn’t want to. It had been something profoundly, transcendently personal, somehow, as if every note had hung in the air like the most delicate of lace, drawing around her and Dominic and the haunting spirit of Patrick. And whatever emotion in the prince’s life had slipped from his soul and into those piano keys. “But it’s going to be difficult to top that.”
She took the envelope back to its drawer, reluctantly closing it away.
Leaning lightly against a pillar near Dominic, she nodded at the box he was sifting through. “Have you found anything interesting yet?” She coughed to dispel the lingering huskiness.
“Trying to form a task force with the enemy?” He seemed to take refuge in the sardonic, as quick as she was to step back from that sudden, almost overwhelming sense of intimacy.
“What’s that saying about keeping them close?” Sylvie watched as he turned a small velvet box over in his hands. “Don’t worry. That end contract is ours—”
“Ours?” He arched a brow.
“Sugar Fair.” She’d woven glittery strands of ribbon through her fishtail plait, leftovers from the golden anniversary cake. One slipped loose now and she wrapped it around her thumb. “Fair warning, in the final leg of this race, I will sail airily past you and scoop the honors with very little remorse. But in the meantime, if you’re planning to show up everywhere I go, it’s too much effort and a little too Agent Ninety-Nine to sneak around you in covert circles. I’m prepared to extend a level of cooperation.”
Dominic paused. “All right. A complete walkover would be a sour victory. I will also cooperate. To an extent.”
“Very magnanimous.”
“I thought so.” He ran his fingers over the seal of the velvet box, looking for the opening. “And for the record, if you want me to be worried about credible competition, you’re going to have to do better than fondant stars, sugar dragons, and pseudo-magic. It’s a wedding.” He found and popped the lock. “Not their sixth birthday.”
The usual retort was tickling half-heartedly at Sylvie’s tongue, but if anything had magical properties, it was this room. For at least the next five minutes or so, she didn’t really feel like arguing with him.
In fact—
“You know,” she said slowly, winding the fallen gold ribbon tighter and tighter around her thumb, “you have the tableside manner of the shark from Jaws, but the actual basis of your criticism on the show is usually sound. You know what you’re talking about, and you bring that experience to the set.”
Dominic removed some padding from the box and lifted out a bundle of more velvet. “My experience tells me that’s not ending in a compliment.”
“But,” Sylvie went on with emphasis, “you have an awful lot to say about my business, none of it good, for someone who, as far as I’m aware, has never actually stepped foot in the place.”
His veiled gaze raised from the unknown object held so gently in his hands.
“Tomorrow night, the last booking in the Dark Forest ends at nine.” The ribbon tore in her grip. This was likely the biggest mistake since she’d screwed up the mechanism in that unicorn cake, but apparently she was dedicated to committing it. “Consider this your official invitation into enemy territory. Meet me downstairs at quarter past nine, and I’ll give you your very own potions class. If you’re going to denigrate my hard work, you might as well know what you’re talking about.”
The offer ended in just the shade of a taunt, and his jaw tightened on what had likely been an instinctive “not a chance in a hell.”
In the silence, the ticking of the grandfather clock sounded like a warning.
Bad-idea, bad-idea, bad-idea.
Tick-tock, listen to the clock, tick-tock, the man’s a cock.
With deft, sensitive hands that had rescued a stranded earthworm and eyes that could betray the most profound understanding . . .
“I have a business meeting tomorrow.” She imagined he’d sound similarly enthusiastic if she’d invited him to a joint colonoscopy. “Half nine?”
She slipped her phone out of her bag, tapped it into her calendar, and wiggled the screen at him. “Done. See you there. And unlike the Starlight Circus, I make no secret of high booze content.” She refastened her bag. “Speaking of, Rosie should probably have a heads-up that Johnny’s daily pick-me-up contains enough alcohol to anesthetize a horse. Even sober, he’s pretty disastrously frank for a public figure.”
“I wonder if that relationship is going to last the long haul.”
“I hope it does. The way they look at each other. Not everyone gets that in their life.”
For just a moment, they looked at each other again.
Bad-idea.
With a tiny, abrupt movement of his head, Dominic unwrapped the velvet bundle on his palm and lifted out the object within.
“Oh!” Sylvie’s exclamation was involuntary. “How beautiful.”
It was a tiny cast-glass sculpture of a globe, a perfect little Earth on a minuscule glass stand. Immediately, before she remembered a few manners, Sylvie reached out for it, her gloves brushing over Dominic’s as she touched the exquisite piece of art. It was a working model, turning on a hinge as she stroked the surface.
“Amazing,” she said fervently, spellbound by the sparkle of light around every curve. “The skill in this. May I—?”
He passed it carefully into her hands, his attention on her face rather than the miniature masterpiece he’d uncovered. “You said your aunt was a glass expert and an artist. Your sugar work has always been exceptional.” One of the few areas of her work he’d commended without reservation four years ago, usually accompanied by mutterings about wasting perfect technique on such frivolous subject matter. “There’s the hand of an artist in your sculptural pieces. Are you a glass artist, as well?”
“Mallory started teaching me when I was six, and I went to art school before I switched to the culinary field. Glass art was my specialty. Inevitably, after being carried around museums every weekend as a toddler, I’d grow to love it or hate it. I love it.” She’d combined the best of both worlds with her sugar art, but sometimes she still missed creating works that lasted longer than a party. She couldn’t stop staring at the globe. “But I’ll never in my life be able to make something like this.”
Very, very delicately, she turned it over, looking for a clue as to the artist. On the base of the stand, engraved in elegant, neat letters were the words: ALL THE WORLD AND STILL ONLY YOU. And underneath, simply: JESSIE.
“Jessie,” Sylvie murmured aloud. This was a piece that ought to be in a museum, not merely a gallery, but she was very familiar with British glass artists both past and present, and that didn’t ring any bells. “Was this just shoved in a carton of random files?” She was massively offended on behalf of the globe, the unknown Jessie, and Patrick, because nobody could have owned this and not treasured it.
Frowning, Dominic was looking through the rest of the box. “This hasn’t been catalogued yet,” he said, “and I’m not sure it was meant to be here. I suspect all of these items came straight from Patrick’s bedroom, and probably ought to have been taken by Rosie. She seemed to be the only one who really cared about him.” He held up a pretty little antique clock, a well-dog-eared copy of Murder on the Orient Express, and poignantly, a hand-drawn old birthday card, inscribed in a childish hand. Loves and hugs and the moon and back, from Rosie.
A couple of vinyl records were sticking out the top of the box, and curiously, Sylvie pulled one out. She could almost guess what it would be before she saw the sleeve. “Rachmaninoff. Probably not performed as well as his own interpretation.” She turned it over and the record slipped out; as she hastily caught it before it could fall, two items drifted to the ground. “Crap.”
She bent to pick them up and stopped, looking down at what she held in her hands. An envelope, yellowed with age. Just an ordinary envelope that had obviously once contained a gas bill. But it was covered with little pencil sketches and notes, still visible despite the passing years, in two different hands. Playful line drawings of a couple lounging by a stream, the figure of a man with his head in a woman’s lap. The same man climbing a tree, his face teasing and alight with laughter. The woman standing with hands on hips, her visible disapproval justified as her lover—for lover he obviously was—tumbled to the ground in the next vignette. Despite his own folly, she bent to kiss his head.
In a neat cursive, a hand had written: I don’t know what you’d do without me.
And a man’s scrawl in return: Never leave me then and we won’t find out.
Sylvie knew the handwriting of the latter. She’d already seen several examples of Patrick’s correspondence today.
The envelope was addressed to Jessica Maple-Moore at Primrose Cottage in a village near Oxford.
Pulling her gaze from the drawings, she looked at the other fallen object. A photograph. No posed studio shot this time. A candid photo of two people sitting on stone steps leading up to a wooden door. The railings either side of their bodies barely held back a profusion of blooming primroses.
A thirtysomething Prince Patrick, wearing an exquisitely cut wool suit, couture in every line, sitting with an arm hooked around his bent knee. With a watch chain hanging from his pocket, he looked more Downton Abbey than the wannabe rocker of his younger days. His dark hair was combed back, slicked to his head, and a smile played about his mouth as he turned his head toward the woman beside him. Relaxed and obviously happy, he looked like an entirely different man.
Sylvie raised her eyebrows. She’d recognized that Patrick had been conventionally handsome, but she hadn’t before considered him attractive, which was a very different beast. Here, however . . . In the sexiness stakes, she’d personally rank a three-piece suit with a waistcoat well over visible abs, and she could understand the light in his companion’s eyes.
With laughter in every line of her fascinating face, a vivacious brunette looked into the camera, but one hand was caught and held tightly in Patrick’s, their fingers linked together. Even in a photograph, the woman emanated an aura of restrained energy that reminded Sylvie a bit of Pet De Vere.
She wished it were a digital photograph so she could zoom in—so used to Instagram that any time she saw a photo, her finger twitched toward an invisible “like” button—but really, no higher resolution was necessary. In the instant when the camera flash had captured this moment for posterity, their body language was baldly explicit.
The woman had quite rounded cheeks and a very pointed chin, and she’d depicted both features with ruthless accuracy in her pencil drawings on the envelope.
Without a word, Sylvie handed the envelope to Dominic, as she continued to stare at the photo of Prince Patrick and presumably Jessica Maple-Moore.
Jessie.
Dominic studied the pencil drawings without comment, before reaching for the photograph.
“Clearly,” Sylvie said, “Rosie was not the only person who cared about Patrick.”
When Dolores came to collect them at the end of her shift, Dominic indicated the box they’d meticulously repacked and set aside, and suggested quietly that she might want to double-check to whom the contents had been bequeathed.
Dolores glanced at it—and them—curiously, and took the box under her arm. “Found what you were looking for?” she asked them when they returned to the busy, blessedly warm public rooms.
A tiny beat, before Dominic said, “Not yet. But I think the first stones have been laid.”
“Coming back tomorrow?”
A small glint replaced the thoughtful look on his face. “I have to see a man about a horse tomorrow. Or a woman with enough alcohol to anesthetize one.”
When he went to retrieve their coats, Dolores twinkled at her. “Goodness, was that almost a smile I saw? I’d assume that Patrick and Rachmaninoff worked their magic even on Dominic, but I suspect the credit belongs a little closer to home.”
Sylvie’s mind had been half back in the archives room, and it took a moment to register Dolores’s smiling inference. For the fiftieth time that day, a spreading flush was a pulsing beat in her cheeks.
Before she could voice a denial in what would likely be an astounding display of inarticulacy, Dolores said, “I’ve never seen his body language like that. And I’ve known him for some time now. My love has known him even longer.” She nodded over Sylvie’s shoulder, warmth and delight suffusing every line of her face.
Sylvie turned to see another elderly woman sitting patiently on an armchair near the doors. Her dark brown skin creased into countless wrinkles with the most gorgeous smile as she saw them looking. She blew Dolores a kiss.
“Isobel.” Acres of emotion in a few syllables. “My fiancée.”
“Congratulations.” Sylvie returned Isobel’s wave when it moved to her. Smiling, she pulled a card out of her bag. “If you need a cake for the wedding, please give me a call.”
Dolores laughed and took the card. “I’m afraid Dominic won my loyalty a long time ago, but I’ve heard some very interesting tales of a magical forest and bubbling cauldrons in Notting Hill. The cake I can’t commission, but a cocktail?”
“On the house. Anytime.” Sylvie couldn’t help it. She had to ask. “What did you mean about his body language?”
“So entirely tuned into someone else.” Dolores considered. “Somehow curved into someone else, without moving a muscle. Aware of their every movement, without so much as a glance.”
Sylvie shook her head slightly, but it wasn’t quite “no.” She wasn’t sure what it was. She hesitated. “You said you owed Dominic a favor—”
“I owe Dominic my life. Quite literally.” Dolores gestured five more minutes to Isobel, but the other woman was now talking to Dominic, who’d spotted her and walked over to crouch by her chair. “Years ago, he was catering the desserts for a function I’d organized. When he arrived to deliver the cake, I was forty-five minutes late to the venue. I made it clear to him in our initial meetings that I prized punctuality in myself and expected it in others. I’m never late. He barely knew me, and he had another commitment that evening that would have resulted in a lucrative ongoing contract, I was later told by a member of his staff. But he had a feeling something was wrong. He came looking at my former workplace, and he found me. Fallen through the floor of a rotting heritage building, cold, bleeding, and alone.” A shadow momentarily darkened her eyes at the memory. “For hours. Dominic called emergency services, he stayed with me, he talked to me even though he’s clearly about as naturally chatty as The Thinker, and when the structure collapsed again before help arrived, he dislocated his shoulder keeping me from falling another level.”
Sylvie didn’t know what to say.
Before she had to find words, Dolores continued, “It’s no exaggeration to say I would have died that night without him. But he gifted me my life twice. It was through him that I met Isobel. She knew his family when he was a young child and met him again as an adult. He introduced us at an awards dinner.” Where before she had been open, almost garrulous, here she stopped. She looked into Sylvie’s face, and there was something so . . . dissecting in that look, Sylvie felt as if a sci-fi scanner were running over her body, somehow drawing out every last secret of her past, every minute facet of her character.
She felt oddly nervous suddenly, but whatever silent test Dolores was conducting, apparently she passed. The older woman gave small nod. “Isobel has told me,” she said very quietly, “a little of what she knows of Dominic’s early childhood. She wasn’t in a position to intervene, but she wished desperately that she could, on more than one occasion.”
Something cold and angry clutched in a ball in Sylvie’s stomach. She wanted to ask. And she didn’t want to invade Dominic’s privacy so acutely behind his back.
Dolores answered the unspoken. “Not abuse in the form that the law would recognize. Grievous neglect couched in luxury. He was entirely given over to the care of a nanny, who didn’t believe in coddling children, as she put it. The woman shouldn’t have even had the care of a houseplant,” she added with a distinct bite. “Let alone a child with nowhere to go and no one for whom he could reach. ‘I’ve never felt so helpless,’ Isobel said to me once. ‘A touch-starved five-year-old. I’d have liked to load his parents into a cannon.’”
Dominic had said goodbye to Isobel and returned then with their coats. He cast a glance between them, that laser focus sharpening on Sylvie’s face. She was trying very hard to keep her expression clear of emotion. His eyes narrowed. After a moment, he merely queried, “Ready?”
Silently, Sylvie nodded, and Dominic shot her another look before he held out her coat so she could slip her arms into the sleeves.
Dolores patted his own arm fondly. “I’ll look into the items you’ve flagged.” Her gaze softened on Sylvie. “Have a good evening. Bring her again.”
When they opened the door to walk back outside, the icy wind was a frigid blast, rocketing down Sylvie’s spine. She drew her coat tighter across her chest, and couldn’t help noticing that he stepped to the left, apparently unconsciously taking the brunt of the wind.
Dominic stood looking down at her. His query was abrupt. “Are you all right?”
“I am,” she said slowly. She looked back at the stone walls of Abbey Hall. All things considered, and in a comparatively short amount of time, she felt as if she’d stepped into that building with one path on the horizon, and suddenly someone had opened up a dozen different avenues of possibility.
Her gaze returned to dust over the taut line of his stubbled jaw, the sprinkling of pale freckles above his collar, the unreadable expression in his eyes.
Evenly, he commented, “Not quite what I expected to find in there.”
No.
Nor her.