Royal Protocol

by Christine Flynn

  Because Harrison was there, Gwen stuck to formalities and dropped a quick curtsy as their queen departed.

  Because he had no choice, Harrison kept his mouth shut.

  He had a knack for never quite overstepping the line with the king or the queen. Not that he’d dealt that much personally with the latter before. But so far, his experience had served its purpose. He could suggest, recommend or advise, but he knew that to question a direct order would have definitely put him over it.

  That didn’t stop him from silently questioning what the queen wanted as the door to the salon closed with a decisive click. Feeling shackled, hating it, he bit back an oath and turned to meet the displeasure shadowing Gwen’s eyes.

  His eyebrows merged. “What?” he asked, practically biting off the word.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “No,” he agreed, frustration fairly leaking from his pores. “But I can tell that you want to. Go ahead and say it.”

  She didn’t much care for the fact that he could read her so easily. It seemed to put her at an even greater disadvantage than she already felt whenever she was around him.

  Wanting badly to avoid another disagreement, she sought to explain rather than accuse.

  “I was just thinking that you somehow missed Her Majesty’s point.” She could see his agitation. That she could actually feel it tugging the nerves in her stomach was even more disconcerting. “She couldn’t care less about that alliance right now.”

  “Well, she needs to care.” Aware that his voice had just risen, he glanced to the closed doors behind him. When he turned back to her, his voice dropped like a rock in a well. “Dozens of people are waiting for her decisions so documents can be finalized. The longer they have to wait for those decisions, the more easily our position could deteriorate. There is nothing more important—”

  “There is nothing more important to her than her child,” she quickly concluded for him. She rarely interrupted anyone. But he simply wasn’t getting it. The man was a brilliant tactician, intelligent to a fault, but this one simple fact refused to gel. “She is scared to death for her son. Imagining him in all sorts of horrible scenarios. I imagine she’s even bargaining with God, asking Him to take her in Owen’s place if that is somehow possible. A blind man could see how distressed she is, but you just keep pushing.”

  For a moment he said nothing. He simply moved to stand in front of her, slowly, like a panther approaching cornered prey. His body blocked hers, surrounding her with the tension radiating from his large form. That tension prickled the hairs on her neck, her arms. The nerves in her stomach jumped.

  His voice dropped to a furious whisper. “I push because these agreements are critical to the future of this country. There hasn’t been a time in the last hundred years that we have been in the position to accomplish what the king has spent the past three years putting together. There isn’t time for her to indulge emotion now.”

  “Indulge emotion?” The phrase stiffened her spine, pulled up her chin. The way he crowded into her space, taunting her with his heat, totally destroyed decorum.

  “Haven’t you ever loved anyone?” she demanded, her voice matching his so they couldn’t be overhead. “Haven’t you ever been sick at the thought of what that person might be going through? What they might be suffering, or needing or feeling? Haven’t you ever cared about someone so much that it makes you ill at the thought of what your life would be like without them in it?”

  She was practically toe to boot with him. With her head tipped back, Harrison could see the flashes of blue fire in her eyes, the flush of indignation on her flawless skin. Her impossibly erotic scent filled his lungs, urging him closer, making him more aware by the second of how close her curvy little body was to his.

  All he’d have to do was slip his hands around her waist and he could pull her to him. Twelve inches. One foot. A lousy point-three-oh meters and he could taste her incredibly stubborn, incredibly seductive mouth.

  Realizing what he was tempted to do, wanting badly to do it, he ruthlessly reined in his libido.

  “I’ve done my best to avoid that particular complication.”

  The low growl of his words doused the heat in her eyes. “That probably explains a lot about you.”

  “It explains nothing. It’s just a fact.”

  “Then, I really do feel sorry for you.”

  “Don’t. From what you just said, it sounds as if I’ve saved myself a lot of grief.”

  He wasn’t feeling anywhere near as callous as he sounded. What he was feeling at that moment was defensive and angry, and he wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe it was because she seemed to believe he enjoyed badgering a woman who carried an unbelievable burden on her shoulders. Maybe it was because he hated pushing the queen, but he had no choice because of all that was as stake. Or maybe it was simply because something about the lady warily watching him constantly reached past his armor and yanked at parts of him he hadn’t even realized were there—parts he’d had to shut down simply to do his job.

  The thought caught him totally unprepared as he watched caution enter the luminous depths of her eyes.

  “Do you honestly believe that?”

  The disbelief in her delicate features was echoed in her voice.

  Her question also stopped him cold.

  He couldn’t believe how transparent she was. The way she’d met his challenge moments ago had made it clear how deeply she cared about Queen Marissa and her children. In her irritation with him, he suspected she’d also revealed a great deal of how she’d felt about her own husband. He never would have believed it, but she was woman who cared intensely and with passion. What she felt, she felt to her soul.

  He’d never in his life known that kind of caring. Certainly, no woman had ever felt it toward him.

  Not his ex-wife.

  Not his own mother.

  The thought brought an involuntary wince.

  Lifting his hand, he dragged it over his face, covering his reaction, hiding the thought. Fatigue. It had to be fatigue making him think such things. Weeks of stress and little sleep were bound to affect a man’s brain.

  “It’s been a long day,” he muttered, avoiding the question he truly didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t want to spar with her anymore. Not if he was going to have to work with her. Most especially not with her looking at him with what he could swear was real concern. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “No,” Gwen quietly agreed. “It’s not.” She backed down even further. “I hope the queen’s decision about the dinner will give you enough to work with tonight.”

  It would go a long way. Certainly, it would appease the delegation from Majorco, he conceded to himself, but he wasn’t about to take her into his confidence with more details now. Not when what he really wanted to do was take her to bed and forget everything he’d been forced to deal with in the past two days. The past two months, for that matter. Sex was a great escape. The entanglements afterward were what he had no intention of dealing with. “It would probably be best if we talk in the morning.”

  “Probably,” she echoed. She had no idea what to make of the grim set of his jaw, or the sudden bleakness she’d caught in his eyes moments ago. All she knew for certain was that he seemed cautious, too, as he moved to the door.

  His hand was on the latch when he glanced back to her. “Did you know she was going to ask that you be her liaison?”

  “Not until you did.”

  “It wasn’t something you encouraged?”

  “It wasn’t anything we’d even discussed.”

  His jaw tightened again. But his only reply was a tense nod before he opened the latch and was gone.

  Chapter Six

  The sun streaked the gray clouds with hints of pale mauve as it rose over the ocean the next morning. From where Harrison sat at his wide mahogany desk in his office at the Admiralty Building, he was aware of that color turning more intense by the moment. It turned the air in his office pink.
Even the papers he was reading became tinted with that faint pastel glow.

  A red sky in the morning, he thought, recalling the old sailors’ adage. It would be a rough day at sea.

  Still, that was where he wished he were.

  Life was simple at sea. There was order. Discipline. Everyone knew their job. When to rest. When to work. He’d always found a certain comfort in the routine.

  He had always found a certain loneliness in it, too.

  Leather squeaked as he leaned forward in his chair. He’d managed six hours of sleep. Two more than usual lately. But apparently it hadn’t been enough, he thought, reaching for his coffee. Not if his mind was still wandering off in such foreign directions.

  Coffee would definitely help. Shaking off thoughts of the loneliness he had never considered before, anyway, he lifted the heavy Penwyck Soccer League mug and took a sip of the stout brew. It wasn’t as bad as some of the liquid sludge he’d used to kick-start his brain in the past, but it was always better when his assistant, Lieutenant Sotheby, made it. He’d called her in early two days in a row, but he couldn’t justify doing it again. It hadn’t been as if he needed her to get what he’d wanted, anyway. He’d simply called Pierce, who’d undoubtedly pulled rank himself by calling in an off-duty clerk in Royal Intelligence to get the file he’d requested.

  Intelligence maintained files and ran checks on all palace personnel—and anyone else who had access to the Crown.

  It was Gwen’s file he was reading now. Just because the queen wanted him to give Lady Gwendolyn Elizabeth Worthington Corbin top security clearance, didn’t mean he would do it without checking out the woman first. More than curiosity fed that need, though he was honest enough with himself to admit that curiosity was there. He had taken an oath to protect and defend the Crown and all who came under it. It wasn’t an obligation he took lightly.

  From what he’d read, it didn’t appear that Gwen took her responsibilities lightly, either. With one small, rather interesting exception, she appeared to be an absolute model of loyalty and discretion.

  Because of her father’s position, the chronology in her file began shortly after her birth. According to the dry words on the neatly printed sheets, she was the daughter of Ambassador Charles and Lady Patience Worthington, which he’d already known—and that she had been at the top of her classes through school and university, which he hadn’t.

  She had also once been an administrative assistant in the Office of Tourism. Among her duties there, she had acted as a guide for foreign diplomats and their families for tours of Penwyck’s monuments, memorials and major attractions. She’d held that position throughout her eleven-year marriage to Corporal—who ultimately became Major—Alexander Corbin of the Royal Guard.

  Because of the circumstances surrounding it, there was nothing in the file about the major’s death, other than that he had died in service to the king. Following that notation was mention that the queen had invited Gwen and her then-ten-year-old daughter to live at the palace and join her personal staff—and that a check for the appropriate level security clearance had been run. That level allowed access to the royal family’s living quarters and had immediately been granted.

  According to notes after that, Lady Corbin’s duties had always dealt with the daily lives and responsibilities of the royal family. The queen’s in particular.

  There was no evidence anywhere that she had a life beyond that.

  Nowhere did he find mention of a single suitor or romantic relationship—something some industrious reporter would have undoubtedly picked up somewhere for the society pages or local tabloids, because anything remotely royal seemed to be fodder for their press. Personal relationships were also something Intelligence would have learned of and checked into because of Gwen’s easy access to the royal family. It wouldn’t be unheard of for someone to use a person with such access for less than honorable purposes.

  Gwen, however, appeared to be either impossibly discreet or truly was the ice maiden he’d suspected she was. She had no man. No life beyond her job. The only places her name appeared in the press or in the file notes were in connection with various charity committees as representative of the queen.

  There was one item in the file, however, that didn’t fit at all with the image of the otherwise proper and dutiful woman.

  Her marriage to Alex Corbin.

  According to a newspaper clipping from a twenty-one-year-old society page, that marriage had been something of a scandal. Her parents had even refused to comment, a dead giveaway that they had not been pleased. He figured he could understand why. She’d been engaged to one man when she’d eloped with another.

  He was holding the yellowed article, studying the picture of Gwen as a breathtakingly beautiful young woman of twenty-two, when a uniformed woman with short black hair, red lips and the square build of a fireplug stopped ramrod straight in the middle of the open door. She also had a don’t-mess-with-me air that tended to give pause to anyone under the rank of commodore.

  “I’ve put on fresh coffee. You didn’t add enough water again.”

  So that was the problem. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Paper rustled as he slipped the article into the file and place it all back into a manila enveloped marked confidential. Her husband’s and her daughter’s file went in, too. “Why are you here so early?”

  “You have a meeting with your fleet commanders in an hour. I wanted to make sure we touched base before you leave so I can make any changes you need in your schedule.” The sharp wedge of her hair didn’t budge as she nodded significantly toward the large leather-bound day planner on his desk. “You’ve been behind lately.”

  The command meeting, he remembered with a groan, thinking she had a true gift for understatement. In the craziness of the past couple of days, he’d almost forgotten he still had a navy to run.

  That meeting was too important to the daily operations of his bases to cancel. But everything else would have to wait.

  “Lieutenant,” he muttered, pushing his cup toward her for a refill. The woman looked as hard as the rivets in a submarine, but she did her job and did it well. She didn’t know the half of what was going on. It wasn’t her job to know. But she protected his backside and covered for him without question, which made her a damn fine officer, as far as he was concerned.

  Gwen, on the other hand, questioned nearly everything he said.

  At the thought, a scowl lowered his brow.

  “How far away are you from a promotion?” he asked.

  There wasn’t much that caught Carol Sotheby off guard. As far as Harrison knew, the only thing that had ever flustered her was the day her husband—who had then only been her boyfriend—had balloons delivered to her office, then candy, then flowers and finally showed up himself with a ring. The big construction worker had had her in tears.

  The question Harrison had just asked now had her frozen to the industrial gray carpet.

  “Promotion, sir?” Focused on his disgruntled expression, confusion pinched her angular features. “Ah…about three months, I think.”

  “Remind me to put a commendation in your file. You’ve gone above and beyond the past few weeks. And call Lady Corbin at the palace for me,” he asked, ignoring the surprise he could see in her eyes. “She’s the queen’s lady-in-waiting. I should be finished here by noon. Find out what time after that she can meet me and Colonel Prescott.”

  Gwen hurried along the narrow underground corridor that ran from the public buildings and staff offices to the royal residence. As she understood it, the passage had originally been part of an escape route for the royal family. Now the royals and certain members of their staff took it simply to avoid unplanned encounters with those who’d come to do business at the palace.

  She wasn’t using it to avoid anyone herself. It was just an easy way to stay out of the rain. Aside from that, the route was quicker than winding her way along halls and the colonnade.

  Her meeting with the cellarmaster had taken far longer than
she’d expected. The shipment of premium Beaujolais they had eagerly awaited had apparently become overheated while sitting on a tarmac somewhere and was, according to the agitated Monsieur Pomier, undrinkable. That meant the Margaux would be served with the fois gras.

  The royal chef would not be pleased to have his choices made for him, but she would have to deal with the equally temperamental culinary genius later. She was more concerned about the champagne. It still hadn’t arrived. According to Monsieur Pomier—who just knew it was being mishandled wherever it was and that he was going to be fired because of it—no one could seem to trace the shipment.

  Hating to see anyone so upset, she had spent twenty minutes assuring him that he was not going to lose his position if another label had to be served. There were many lovely champagnes, and she was certain he could procure the needed cases over the next four days. She had then suggested that he forget dealing directly with the vintner and call local merchants. Surely, on all of Penwyck there were enough decent bottles of champagne to fill five hundred glasses.

  After puzzling over the idea for a moment, he’d declared her brilliant, kissed her hand and grabbed the telephone book. When she’d left, he was looking up wine distributors. She truly hoped he could pull together 110 cases of an appropriate bubbly somewhere. As soon as he did, she could stop worrying about it herself.

  As it was, that worry had already given way to another. Because her meeting had taken so long, she now wouldn’t have time to see if the queen had returned from sitting at her husband’s bedside and learn if there were any changes in his health. She barely had time to make her meeting with Harrison.

  She wasn’t at all anxious to see him again. He pushed buttons she didn’t even know she had, and had made her restless night even more so. Still, she refused to be late. After his parting remarks last night, and those he’d made before, it was clear enough that he didn’t really trust her. If they were going to work together, it was time he learned there probably wasn’t anyone he could trust more.