by Candace Sams
“That was another thing. Merlin tricked Garrett into going to see the queen at Balmoral. Once Garrett got there, Her Majesty secretly knighted him when he didn’t want to be knighted. He didn’t think he was worthy of that honor, but what could he do when the queen was standing there, ordering him to kneel?”
“Fuck!” Frankie uttered.
“So, you’ll understand that…if he took his lover, Jean Long, off to Scotland, and Anna Gast went with him…it was most certainly not for training purposes. It was to get Jean out of the way in case of some imminent attack by Morgan. Jean is very new to immortality, never mind being Ethereal. Garrett is sorely in love with her, and doesn’t want to see her die.”
“Why didn’t Merlin just tell me all that?”
“Think how long you’ve known him. He has always pulled this crap. He tells part of the situation but not the whole thing. The queen, on several occasions, has been left with egg on her face whilst trying to explain to Parliament members all the secret chicanery. She’s had to lie and make excuses about certain secret POSI activities, since most of the members of Parliament don’t know Merlin exists. They most certainly do know that the queen is the commander of all immortals in the British Isles. She’s responsible for what they do, how they behave, and when they do or don’t comply with the law. The monarchy has always had that responsibility, since laws were made to register immortal men and women centuries ago. Though Merlin’s machinations always prove to be beneficial, they are never perfect. He takes too much power onto himself. He is not this country’s monarch!”
“I-I have noticed his tendencies to be mysterious. Sometimes, what he asks me to do makes no sense. I was in no position to question his orders during the war. I was simply told to follow them. That situation hasn’t changed. While what you’ve told me is certainly upsetting to those involved, Merlin has never done anything that didn’t turn out in the allies’ best interests.”
“But you follow. Blindly.”
“For the most part. Yeah. He never went so far that I thought he was outside boundaries.”
“And now?”
“Merlin is a known quantity. His flaws and chicanery notwithstanding, you aren’t known to me. Not at all. Yet, I’m supposed to work with you.”
“By Merlin’s design.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Seems you’re here at the queen’s command…to watch Merlin? Is that right?”
“Ask ‘er.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it. Ask. Go straight to the source. Don’t take my word for it. Call. You have the numbers, or your president certainly does.”
“That would be seriously overstepping my pay grade!”
“Not if you tell her that I was the one who prompted you to ask questions. She’ll understand. Trust me.”
“No offense, but who the hell are you that you have that kind of clout? Why would I exchange one cagey Ethereal magician I’ve known for decades, for an even wilier immortal I’ve only just met?”
He slowly smiled. In the darkness, the bright gleam of his grin took Frankie aback.
“Make the call. If it wasn’t so late at night, and there was cellular reception in these hills, I’d tell you to do it now.”
“Tomorrow will do. Right now, I’m still trying to get a handle on where you’re coming from,” she softly advised.
“Come back here tomorrow night, after you’ve contacted the queen. Come back when you can be sure that no farmer or tourist in the vicinity will see you walking in the hills.”
She nodded. “I will.”
Chapter 5
The next evening, as the sun sank on the horizon, Mac stood in the entrance to the small grotto in the hillside. The place was open enough to satisfy his need to be outside, but provided protection against the elements. Though immortals could not die of exposure, they could certainly feel a cold night. The wind blowing through these hills, on an early autumn evening, could be chilling indeed.
He felt her approach the way one feels fresh air in a stuffy house, when a window is opened. For some odd reason, she had an enlightening effect on him though he didn’t want her to. There was something about the way her dove-gray eyes lit up from within; the way her long thick and billowy brown curls blew in the air.
Francesca Radcliffe was trusted beyond most agents. She had the confidence of two of the most arguably powerful countries on Earth. She must never have betrayed that trust to get to the esteemed position she now held. He couldn’t say the same. He’d once been on the wrong side of the law, but that was a very long time ago.
As twilight fell on his chosen outpost, he turned to watch her climb up the hill with ease. She seemed used to working in environments where her greater-than-human physical strength was often put to the test. Only a large bag slung over one shoulder impeded her progress. Even the sword she likely carried in the back of her black duster didn’t stall her progress the way that nylon-looking bag did.
When she was no more than twenty feet away, she saw him watching her, stopped and brightly smiled. “Merlin thinks you’re crazy for staying out here every night. He doesn’t think Morgan LeFey is going to slink onto the property, nor do I. When she comes, she won’t give us notice, but she won’t creep around in the darkness like a thief. She won’t let her henchmen do so, either. She’ll want the honor of taking Garrett Bloodnight’s head, and making a spectacle of it in front of as many people as she can.”
“That’s why I want to keep the fight here, and end it quickly,” he added. “So that she doesn’t get the satisfaction of a human audience from the nearby village. Nobody knows she exists outside the confines of the immortal world. And very few immortals even know. We need to keep that fight here. End it here.”
Frankie put the bag down on the ground and stood up again, smiling even brighter.
“What’s all that?” he asked as he pointed toward her container.
“If I’m going to work with you up here, I’m going to be as comfortable as possible. Merlin says you typically come up here with very few provisions.”
He shrugged in response.
“First, let me get the Merlin issue out of the way.”
“You made that call,” he stated.
“Yeah. And, you’re right though I now feel like a complete idiot for imposing on your queen as I did. She confirms everything you said. She believes in Merlin, but feels like he oversteps the legal authority given to him at times. Whereas you—”
“If I have information, she gets it. Straight up and without any magical flare or showboating,” he insisted.
She nodded. “Her Majesty said that, in almost those same words. She said you were another of a very few of her most trusted knights. That was a piece of information you hadn’t shared.”
“That part didn’t matter. She knighted me long ago though I don’t recognize the honor as necessary. As to the rest, I hate to say I told you so, but…”
“All right…all right. I’ll listen to Merlin, but I’ll temper what he has to say with my instincts.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
She gazed at him for some time. There was a decided glimmer in her eyes.
He raised one brow, feeling some shenanigans were in the offing.
“I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,” she merrily offered with a flirty wag of her brows.
“Pardon?”
She quickly pulled her sword, from the back of her leather duster. “Your weapon!”
The silliness and half-bawdy nature of the query made him smile, despite himself. He reached behind a boulder to his right and pulled out his sword. There was a certain amount of satisfaction when her eyes shot open. They were now as wide as Irish porcelain saucers.
“Crap! A lot of things in Wales really are bigger!”
He stifled the desire to laugh outright. “I’ll take that as a compliment. How do you know my sword is Welsh?”
“The design. I reckon there can’t be another one like it anywhere. It is huge.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “It’s modeled after a WWII officer’s sword. Thirty-two inches. Not ceremonial, however. I have a larger one. For when I need to make a statement,” she half-joked. “Bigger swords sometimes cause rogues to give up, if they believe they can’t win.”
“Agreed,” he told her.
The glint off her current blade provided proof of her claim. The sword she now held was not ceremonial. She caressed the handle the way a lover might caress her mate’s hand — with tender deliberation.
As she gazed down at her sword, he was quite sure she knew precisely how to use it and had on numerous occasions. She wouldn’t be here if not for her prowess in that regard. After speaking with her, he didn’t have the same beauty-intoxicated shock with which he’d been inflicted at the airport. Although still stunning, she was now a person, and not so much a status symbol from America.
Furthermore, he knew the subject wasn’t introduced on a whim. If either of them should lose their sword during any fight — with Morgan’s rogues, or anything else the dark sorceress might conjure — their survival might depend on either of them being able to wield the other’s weapon. He gave her high marks for bringing up the subject first.
As she placed her sword back in its customized slit within her leather duster, he pointed toward the large carryall she’d hefted. “What’s in that?”
“I told you. I like my comforts. Especially if guard duty can go on and on. I’ll show you, but first,” she said as she took a moment to scan the area, “see that flat rock over there?”
He glanced where she pointed. “What about it?”
“I reckon it probably weighs about fifteen or sixteen hundred pounds.”
“And?”
“Could you move it over here, where the ground is more level?”
He tilted his head and stared at her.
“Well, if it’s too heavy…”
“What are you up to?”
“Come on, big guy. We don’t have all night,” she instructed as she put her hands on her hips.
Shaking his head in wonder, he strode to the rock she wanted, hefted it a few feet off the ground, then stumbled toward her. The weight was cumbersome, but not outside his powers to lift it.
“Great! Put it there,” she instructed as she stepped back a few feet.
He did as she asked, but she put one hand to her cheek and tapped an index finger against it.
“Move it to the left just a bit,” she instructed.
He frowned, but complied.
“Okay, back about a foot and to the left —”
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“Perfect! Drop it there!”
He did as she bid, with a decided thud that shook the ground nearby.
“And now, we have la table,” she said, with a French accent on the last two words.
He crossed his arms over his chest as she proceeded to move two smaller, flat-topped boulders next to the initial rock he’d dropped.
Then, without further ado, she picked up the large bag she’d brought, and proceeded to take out a checked table cloth. This was spread on the main rock. With vision so acute that he could watch every movement she made, he tilted his head in confusion. What the hell was she up to? His puzzlement compounded when she brought out an empty jar. It was about eight inches in height. She handed this to him.
“Could you put some water in that?” she asked. “I know there’s some falling from the rocks higher up the hill. I can hear it. Just fill it and bring it back, please?”
Completely flummoxed, he automatically did as she requested. When he returned with the water-filled jar, she was unpacking a plethora of plastic bowls with lids firmly attached. These, she sat out on their makeshift table along with plastic plates and stainless-steel cutlery.
“Great!” she uttered as she took the jar from him.
The last thing she brought forth was a hefty bunch of fall flowers. He assumed they’d be plucked from Garrett Bloodnight’s garden. These she proceeded to dump, stem first, into the jar of water, with a flurry of hand movements meant to arrange them. Then, she stood back and gazed at her handiwork.
“Now, we have a place to eat and good food to keep us alert!”
It took everything he had not to burst out laughing, but it was a rather inviting and even cozy scenario. What made it even more amusing was the fact that she brought out a small glass receptacle in which a tea lamp was plunked. When she lit it up with a cigarette lighter from her pocket, and then sat down on one of the stone stools, he was both amused and enchanted. This makeshift dining area was the very last thing he’d have ever expected.
“Dinner is served,” she advised with a graceful gesture of one hand.
“I have a sandwich,” he told her as he reached in his own duster pocket and pulled out a half-smashed ham and cheese contrivance.
“Suit yourself. But I’m having buttered noodles with meatballs, a crisp garden salad with homemade honey-mustard dressing, and hazelnut coffee.”
“What? No dessert?” he quipped.
“Homemade chocolate brownies,” she countered as she lifted one of the plastic containers and gently shook it. “I also have hot chocolate with marshmallows for later in the night.”
He watched as she lifted two large thermos bottles from the depths of her bag. He presumed one contained coffee, the other the chocolate.
She opened one of the larger plastic bowls, lifted the top off, and the wonderful aroma of meatballs and hot butter filled his nostrils.
“Hope that sandwich does it for you,” she sarcastically told him as she used a fork to scoop out steamy noodles and meatballs onto her plate.
He glanced at his sandwich and shook his head.
“Don’t be an idiot, big guy. An immortal of your size, with your musculature, is probably burning five thousand calories a day. If you’re going to be out here guarding, regardless of whether Morgan shows up this century or not, you should eat to keep your focus. There’s more than enough for both of us. I wouldn’t have brought it if I hadn’t meant to share. Dig in,” she ordered as she pushed the bowl of buttery noodles and meatballs toward him.
“Thank you, Frankie!” He sat and happily complied with her command.
“You’re more than welcome.”
He ate. And ate quite well.
There was something about dining, with a little light illuminating the table, that made him feel quite at home; quite comfortable.
It was very true that any rogue could have smelled the food from some distance, but they’d feel the presence of those rogues before any harm could befall them.
This meal, as Frankie correctly deduced, was simply a matter of making the best of a strange situation. They could now converse on a much friendlier footing. With full stomachs, they could focus. Moreover, if there really was any threat, they’d already agreed that Morgan LeFey, in her unstoppable rage and immeasurable level of insanity, would never sink to a sneak attack. Not with the level of world-wide attention she’d want for her efforts.
“Coffee?” Frankly quietly asked.
“Please!”
As she filled their cups, he put the lids back on the quite empty containers and shoved them all back into her bag while making very sure the hot chocolate and brownie containers were still within reach.
“Did you like the food?”
“Frankie, it was wonderful! Truly. Did you make it yourself?”
“I did,” she told him as she leaned her elbows on the surface of the rock table. “I wanted to be a chef at one time.”
“You’d have made a damned good one.”
“I love to cook. But there’s never a time or an appropriate place to gather people to enjoy it. Not in this business.”
He sipped his coffee and studied the way the flickering candlelight played on her lovely features. He figured she was
about five feet, eight inches tall. Not short, but he still towered over her even in a seated position. But if it was ever true that a woman could win a man’s heart through his stomach, he was certainly on his way to being massively charmed.
Slender, graceful, and beautiful enough to have considered modeling as a career, he doubted she, nor any creature remotely like her, would have ever crossed his path had they been human. Now, here they were in the middle of the Cumbrian hills, having just eaten a wonderful, picnic-like meal on a rock. All because he felt more at home in nature than within the splendid and luxurious rooms of another man’s castle.
“So, Frankie…how did you come to be immortal?”
“Merlin didn’t tell you?”
“No. There actually are instances when his tact outweighs the aggravation he causes.”
“He didn’t say anything about you, either. I suppose it’s left for us to break that ice,” she said as she suddenly glanced away.
“Frankie, don’t feel obligated to talk about it —”
“No, I don’t mind. If I can do it without making an emotional fool of myself.”
He leaned closer. “That bad?”
She chewed on her lower lip for a moment.
He suddenly wanted to change subjects.
“It was 1900,” she blurted.
He leaned closer and spoke softly. “Where?”
“Galveston, Texas.”
He searched his memory. Then, historical articles and newspaper columns about that time came to mind. He recalled what she was about to recount because the circumstances were so very terrible. “I think I know what you’re talking about.”
She nodded, and stared at the tabletop as she began the story.
“My mother and father, my older brother, my twin sisters…we all lived in a very beautiful house in Galveston. On Broadway Street. You might have referred to us as privileged wealthy. There wasn’t anyone living on that street that didn’t belong there,” she sarcastically told him. “Appearances were everything, so our father made sure our home was just as grand as all the others. Back then, our family name was Pratt.”