by Tara Rose
“This has to be your decision, too,” said Archer.
“I don’t care what you decide. I’ll go along with it. Right now I’m tired and hungry.”
He left the room and Archer glanced toward Roland, who was grinning like an idiot. “This isn’t right.”
“Oh, who cares? We set our own rules from this point on. And we can’t very well punish her for breaking a rule she didn’t know existed.”
“She was very disrespectful to us.”
“We were disrespectful to her first. Acting like fighting schoolboys over who gets to fuck her and when. Consider this from her point of view, Archer. The girl has been yanked from everything she’s ever known, and now she lives with three men she doesn’t even know. We give her a night of passionate lovemaking, and then fight like children the next morning. I’d have walked out on us, too, if I’d been her.”
Archer hated admitting that Roland was right, almost as much as he hated the way Chelsea had crawled under his skin already. He’d never taken sex seriously. He hadn’t cared one way or the other whom he seduced. It had meant nothing to him. But last night had. It had meant more than he wanted to acknowledge, and Archer didn’t know how to react to that. He had no frame of reference for it.
He’d been raised by a man who had made a sport out of cheating on his wife. Archer never did learn whether his mother knew about her husband’s multiple indiscretions. Mitchell had told Archer so often that women were nothing more than vessels to be used for a man’s pleasure, that he had trouble seeing them as anything else.
Until now.
Chelsea wasn’t a vessel. She’d forced him to face that last night, and now she’d forced him to face it again this morning. It was difficult on the best of days to overcome his upbringing, and lately he’d had to be on his best behavior. He was Dalton’s brother, and no one in this castle would ever let him forget that.
He might not share his dead brother’s politics, or his proclivity for siding with the enemy, but he’d have to prove that to most people inside these walls now, possibly for the rest of his life. Roland and Denver believed he wanted no part of the mess that Dalton had been mixed up in, but what would Chelsea think if she found out?
He’d chosen her, the same as Roland and Denver had done. It was now his solemn duty to protect her. He couldn’t do that effectively if she didn’t like him or respect him. And he wanted her to do both. Now that he’d had her, there was no turning back. She was everything he used to dream about before his father filled his head with the idea that women were playthings.
He didn’t want to think of her that way. She wasn’t merely a toy. She was a human being with feelings and needs, the same as he was. It would take hard work on his part to temper his upbringing and instead approach her with dignity over brute strength. With understanding instead of arrogance. But he wanted desperately to be able to do that.
“You still with me?” Roland was watching him, carefully.
“Yes. Let’s eat. But I think we should wait for Denver and Chelsea to return to talk about how to handle this. It’s only right.”
Roland clapped him on the back. “I agree.”
They found all three valets in the sitting room, setting out food. Samuel addressed Archer, bowing as he did. “Sire, Anne is with Miss Chelsea, helping her dress.”
“Thank you.” Archer frowned at Lawrence. “Prince Denver might require your assistance in getting dressed. Why aren’t you attending to him?”
Lawrence narrowed his eyes before bowing stiffly and leaving the room. Archer exchanged a glance with Roland, who didn’t look any happier at Lawrence’s behavior than Archer was.
Lawrence had been Denver’s valet for less than a year, and Archer didn’t trust the man. There was something off about him. Denver didn’t take Archer’s concerns seriously, and that was his business, but now that Chelsea lived here with all of them, Archer thought it was time to keep a closer eye on Lawrence.
Archer didn’t agree with his father on many things, but he did agree that the threat inside the castle wasn’t gone with the deaths of Dalton and the triplets. Far from it.
* * * *
Chelsea entered the sitting room to find all three men there, hair still damp but dressed, sitting down to what smelled like a delicious meal. There was even coffee, or at least it smelled like coffee. She took a seat between Roland and Archer, and thanked Anne when the girl handed her a plate and poured her a cup.
She wished the servants weren’t around, because she wanted to speak to the men privately about her behavior earlier. Were they going to stay through the whole meal? She glanced toward Roland, then leaned close. “Is there a way for all of us to talk without an audience?”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth, and then he glanced over his shoulder. “Would you all please leave us for now? We’ll ring when we need you.”
After Anne and the three valets left the room, Chelsea sighed out loud. “Thank you. How on earth do you get used to that?”
“It’s all we’ve ever known,” said Archer.
“What I have to say wouldn’t be easy with others listening.” She put down her cup and glanced at each of them in turn. “I’m really sorry I lost my cool earlier. It’s just that I’m overwhelmed by all this, and last night was so much fun. It was nothing like I’ve ever imagined. I was caught up in the moment. But then this morning when I woke and it all came rushing back, and then you three started arguing like that… I couldn’t handle it. I don’t know how to deal with this. But I am sorry I snapped at you like that. It was rude.”
They exchanged surprised glances, and then Denver spoke. “Do you regret last night?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. But try to put yourself in my place. Imagine if you found a painting that intrigued you, and then the people in it moved, and then you sort of fell into it and woke up in a place where nothing made sense, and you were told you could never return to your home.”
“I think we all agree it would be a terrific shock,” said Archer. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that just as you lived in your world and had a certain life, this is ours. This is what we know. It’s how we were raised.”
She took a few deep breaths. Archer might have all-American looks with that blond hair and his pretty hazel eyes, but he also had a pole up his ass. “Sire, I do appreciate that you three have grown up very different from me. But let me share a few things about my life with you.” You can do this. “My parents and three siblings were killed in a tornado when I was a senior in high school. I should have been home that night with them, but I had snuck out of the house to go out with a boy my parents didn’t like.”
Roland reached over and placed his hand on hers, and she gave him a thankful glance. The gesture touched her heart, as did the sympathetic look in his eyes.
“In hindsight, they were right about Steve. But had I been home that night, I would be dead, too. Steve Harmon played football, but he was also a player of another kind. He had so many other girlfriends it’s a wonder I never caught anything.” She frowned. Would they even know what she meant? “Do you know what football is?”
They nodded. “Yes,” said Denver.
“And by catching anything I mean STDs.”
“We understand what you mean. Please, go on.”
“I was across town that night when the tornado struck.” Sweat broke out along her hairline as the memories assaulted her. “Our home was leveled and they all died from their injuries within days of each other. Steve’s parents took me in until I turned eighteen a month later. When Steve and I graduated a month after that, we got married. It was a crazy decision, but I thought I was in love.”
That wasn’t the only reason she’d married Steve. “I latched onto the only person I could at the time. I was terrified, and grieving, and had no clue what I was going to do. Not the best way to begin a marriage, for sure.”
Roland grasped her hand. “I can’t even imagine facing something like that.”
She nodded,
and then cut her gaze toward Denver and Archer. Denver looked sympathetic, but Archer had gone pale, and he sat very still. What was going on in his mind right now? Had she said something that sparked a bad memory for him? She knew nothing about any of their pasts.
“I went to work as a waitress at a local diner, and Steve was in college by the fall, but one of us had to work because we couldn’t afford much. I was also foolish enough to think he’d stop all the cheating but of course he didn’t. We were divorced within a year.”
“People are who they are,” said Archer, his voice tight and hard. “They don’t change.”
That made it sound like he’d been hurt in some way, and her heart went out to him. “I agree. But I didn’t understand that at the time. I do now. Unfortunately, the cheating wasn’t the worst part. My parents had left a will, so I inherited some money. After paying an attorney to help me settle their estate, and paying for the…the funerals, I didn’t have a fortune left, but I had enough to help Steve buy a new car because he needed one. He also racked up too much credit card debt, and I co-signed on the cards because I was the one with the income.”
She took another sip of coffee because her throat had gone dry. “As soon as the ink was dry on the divorce decree, he took off. He wasn’t paying on the car loan or the credit cards, and no one could find him, so they came after me because legally they could. I didn’t have enough money to keep paying the attorney to try to track him down. I was twenty, divorced, and broke. But I kept working, and eventually earned an undergraduate degree in history. It took me six years, but I did it.”
“That’s very impressive,” said Archer.
Since it was the first compliment he’d given her that didn’t have something to do with her body or her looks, she gave him what she hoped was a sincere smile. “Thank you. I was one year into a graduate degree in medieval history, with a concentration on the political issues of that time, when I landed here.”
When no one spoke, she continued. “So I guess my point is that I do appreciate your situation. You have your own set of mores and expectations in this society, and if I truly am here for life now, I have to learn them and live within them. I get that. I really do. So if you three can see fit to give me some time and latitude, I’d be very grateful.”
“We can certainly do that,” said Roland. “But behavior like the kind you exhibited this morning in front of servants isn’t the most prudent thing to do. Not in these times.”
“I understand. And again, I apologize.”
“It’s not that we don’t trust them,” said Denver.
“Pardon me for saying so, Sire, but it sounds exactly like that.”
She didn’t miss the quick glance that passed between Roland and Archer.
Denver looked way too uncomfortable right now. “Lawrence is a little rough around the edges. He’ll smooth out in time.”
“How much time?” asked Archer. “He’s been with you over a year now.”
“Let’s focus on Chelsea right now,” said Roland, giving Archer and Denver pointed stares. She didn’t care much that he’d changed the subject, because she couldn’t wrap her head around their issues with servants right now, and she suspected he was only trying to make her feel more at ease.
He turned his gaze on her. “Thank you for the apology, though I feel as if we owe you one, as well. We shouldn’t have handled the situation in that way. We do need to figure out how this will work. It’s new for us, too.”
“I guess I didn’t realize that.”
“We’ve never done this,” said Denver. “Had sex together with a woman.”
“And will you be having sex with other women now that I’m here?”
Denver shook his head. “Absolutely not. No cheating here. We chose you, Chelsea. We can’t have sex with any other woman for the rest of our lives.”
“But what if you wanted to?”
Archer surprised the heck out of her by reaching across the table to take her other hand. “We don’t. This isn’t something any prince takes lightly. Or, it shouldn’t be. There are those that haven’t treated it with such respect, but I assure you that we are not part of that group.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “That means a lot to me.”
“But we do have to decide how this will work,” said Roland, “so that what occurred this morning doesn’t happen again. We don’t want you to feel awkward or uncomfortable around us.”
She glanced at each of them in turn. The sexy looks on their faces turned her resolve to talk first into jelly. Did they have some kind of spell on them, as well as on the paintings? What else could explain her reaction to them? “Maybe you should draw straws?”
They chuckled, and then Roland gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. He pointed toward her plate. “Maybe you should eat more than a few bites of food? You’re going to need your strength in a bit.”
She let out a shaky breath at the desire in his voice and in his eyes. “And why is that, Sire?”
“Because the hell with drawing straws or taking turns. I think I’m safe in saying all three of us want you again, this morning.”
Chapter Eight
Chelsea ate only because the men did, but her thoughts weren’t on food. They were on everything said and unsaid in the past half hour. Something was going on with Lawrence, Denver’s valet, and Roland and Archer weren’t happy about it. And she had no clue what had spooked Archer when she’d told them about her family, but she needed to find out.
Both of those nagging thoughts were overshadowed by their assurance that she was the only woman in their lives from now on. It was too much to take in at once, and yet she basked in it. She’d never had a relationship that didn’t include doubt or too much emotional angst for her to deal with. Was this for real? These three gorgeous men were hers to keep?
When she’d had enough to eat, she excused herself to her room for a moment, more to catch her breath than anything. Anne was in there with Lawrence, and they had their heads bent together, whispering. Interesting. As soon as she entered, they both straightened up, and Anne made way too much of a fuss out of trying to explain Lawrence’s presence in the room. She’d have to remember to tell the men about this.
“Are you finished eating, Miss?”
“I am, but Their Highnesses are not.”
“What can I do for you, Miss?”
Would it be rude to ask the girl not to lurk in her bedroom? “Nothing right now, thanks.” She stared at both of them until they left the room, and then she went into her bathroom and closed the door. This would take a lot of getting used to. Chelsea had lived alone for so long that she wasn’t sure she liked the idea of having people coming and going into her space, and having no control over it.
When she felt calmer, she returned to the sitting room to find the servants clearing the breakfast dishes. Roland patted the seat on the sofa next to him, so she took it. Archer and Denver were standing near the sideboard, talking about someone named Dalton. And then it hit her where she’d heard the name before. They’d told her about him last night. He was a Council member who had been helping Enfield spies, but now he was dead.
She leaned close to Roland, not wanting Anne or the valets to hear her. “What’s going on? What did I miss?”
He glanced toward Archer and Denver. “When you mentioned your family, Archer couldn’t help thinking about his brother’s death.”
She frowned for a second, and then sat straight up as the truth hit her. “Dalton was his brother?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I just realized you didn’t know that.”
“I feel terrible. I never would have told you all that story if I’d known.”
“You needn’t be worried. We would have asked you about your life even if you hadn’t volunteered the information. We want to know about it. We want to get to know you as a person, Chelsea.”
“Thank you.” She glanced toward Anne and Lawrence, who kept their gazes on their work, and then she leaned closer so she could whisper i
n Roland’s ear. “I have something to tell you three when the servants are gone.”
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and then he nodded. Once the dishes were cleared, Roland dismissed the servants again, and then he rose, taking Chelsea’s hand. “I think we might all be more comfortable in my room. It’s furthest away from the servants’ quarters.”
Archer and Denver looked like they were going to say something in protest, but the look on Roland’s face must have stopped them. He led her through one of the doors that ringed the room, and into the same bedroom she recognized from the evening before. Once inside, he pointed toward a door on the far wall. “That door leads to your room.”
“I’ll need a map to keep all this straight.”
He smiled. “I thought it might be better for us to come in here and continue our talk, since you seem to have some trepidation about your maid.”
“I couldn’t help but notice earlier when you three were talking about Lawrence that there seemed to be some tension surrounding him.” She told them what she’d witnessed when she went to her room earlier to brush her teeth. “How do you think I should handle this?”
“Don’t do anything,” said Archer. “Merely observe, and keep us posted.”
“Am I in danger?”
“Absolutely not. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“But if you can’t trust your own servants, how do you know you’re not all in danger?”
Roland pulled her close, and it was all she could do to keep breathing. Thoughts of servants and subterfuge inside the castle faded away as she inhaled his scent, and enjoyed the sensations coursing through her body.
“We’ve been dealing with this for a long time now.” He kissed her hair. “Don’t you worry, okay? Just watch them, and if you see anything that makes you uncomfortable or suspicious, you come straight to one of us.”
“I can do that.”
“Good. Because for now, we have to decide how to punish you for that outburst earlier.”