Florida Knight

by Blair Bancroft

  “Brocc was working right here in Florida during two of the out-of-state fairs where there was trouble,” Princess Kiriana stated firmly as she joined the group. “Thor, too. I checked them both. And Don Antonio. I mean, he’s sort of an odd one, isn’t he?”

  Raven eyed the diminutive princess. “You could apply for the FHP, except you’d never make the height requirement.” He sketched a bow. “Thank you, my lady . . . or is it ‘your majesty’?”

  “Your highness,” Kiriana corrected, her blue eyes twinkling up into his.

  “Well, uh, your highness, thank you very much,” Raven said. “You’ve given us our first real lead. I’d appreciate it if you’d call me the minute you get a reply from Michigan.” He hauled a business card out of the pocket Cat had sewn into his baggy pants and handed it to the princess.

  “Ah,” she said softly, glancing at the card, “so that’s why you said FHP.” Grinning, she waved the card in front of Corwyn’s nose. “A lieutenant, no less. And he called me, ‘your highness.’” Kiriana heaved an elaborate sigh, fluttered her eye lashes. Cat was tempted to use the LALOC princess for a floor mop.

  Corwyn raised an eyebrow as if to say, Hey, you didn’t give me a card, but the thought never made it into words.

  “Corwyn, Corwyn!” The king’s flunkey, the one Raven particularly disliked, panted out his message, seemingly too agitated to remember proper protocol. “Marius’s sword. We found it. Just now.”

  “What d’you mean, you found it?” the king snapped. “Was it missing?”

  “You’d better come look,” added one of the king’s honor guards, skidding up behind the flunkey. The cabin emptied swiftly, Queen Eilis and Prince Marius joining in as they all followed the two messengers. Their near-run faltered, however, when they approached the campfire circle overlooking the lake. Feet slowed, then moved cautiously forward for a closer look. In the center of a large ring of wooden benches was a cleared area where campfires were allowed. Where there should have been nothing more than a mound of ash and charred wood was, instead, a heap of white satin and fur. Piercing the once pristine folds was a shining ceremonial sword, stuck far into the ground, much as Excalibur was thrust into stone.

  “God, it is mine,” Marius breathed. What’s all that white stuff?”

  “My cloak!” Queen Eilis cried. “That’s my cloak.” Eyes wide, she turned to Corwyn, fear choking off her questions.

  “Shit!” Raven muttered. Another prank? Or an outright challenge? A threat designed to cause trouble between the king and queen and their soon-to-be successors.

  “I’m going to kill the bastard,” Corwyn announced as he tucked his terrified wife into his side.

  “No!” Raven grabbed the king’s arm. “We’ve got nothing but speculation. Damn good digging by Kiriana, but insufficient for accusations. Let it go. You spook Alfric, and he’s long gone. And it just might be someone else,” Raven added as a clincher.

  Corwyn shook him off, glared at the sword, its semi-precious stones and mirror polish glinting in the late afternoon sun. “How?” he demanded. “In broad daylight. How the hell did he manage it?”

  “We only got here ninety minutes ago,” Marius added.

  “We’re not dealing with a ghost,” Raven ground out, “just a damn clever crazoid. Nobody’s camped around here, right? He probably thought we wouldn’t find it until campfire tonight.”

  Cat eyed the slash in the queen’s cloak. Professionally, the damage hurt. She’d made the blasted cloak herself. And as a woman, she felt the queen’s fear. The message was unmistakable. “So, with enough balls,” Corwyn ground out, “ the guy could have come up here with what looked like nothing more than a bundle of fabric, checked to make sure no one was around, and in about two seconds flat, dropped the cloak onto the ashes, driven in the sword, and gone off whistling Dixie.” Disengaging himself from Eilis, he stalked toward the fire circle. Raven sprinted after him, grabbed him by the shoulder, surprising outraged the gasps from the flunkey, the guard, and the women. “Fingerprints,” Raven hissed. “No matter how mad you are, Corwyn, you can’t touch it!”

  Gradually, rage faded from the king’s eyes. “Fuck it,” he muttered. “Take the damn thing. Better give Marius a receipt. He loves that piece of junk.” God knew the two of them had fought hand-to-hand enough times over their titles, the right to bear real arms.

  Cat gulped. “Eilis . . . your majesty, with your permission I’ll take the cloak and see if I can fix it.”

  The queen’s white face contrasted starkly with the royal blue satin of her gown. “I . . . I’m not sure I ever want to see it again,” she said.

  “Maybe I can’t fix it,” Cat conceded, “but if I can, just think what a great story it will make. You can show it off to your grandchildren.” Since the two royal offspring were still in elementary school, Cat’s remark coaxed a tiny smile from the frightened queen. Eilis nodded, granting her consent.

  Cat stood back while Raven studied the sword, trying to assess how to pick it up with the least damage to possible evidence. Finally, he gave a what-the-hell shrug and stripped off his black tunic, cautiously wrapping it around the blade of the sword before pulling it from its bed of earth, ashes and Queen Eilis’s cloak. Behind him, applause and cheers. “Hail, Arthur!” Corwyn shouted. “Once and Future King!” As the good-natured laughter subsided, he muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Guess that leaves you out, Marius. We just got a new king.”

  Prince Marius, whose ceremonial crowning as king of Florida LALOC was only six weeks away, did not seem to find the king’s jibe amusing. How could he? Cat realized. It was his sword Raven was carefully wrapping in black poplin. It was Marius who had been set up as a threat to LALOC’s queen. Not a comfortable position. Yet . . . he’d only been on site ninety minutes. Was it possible he’d set himself up to divert suspicion?

  Cat bent over the queen’s cloak, hiding her face. The miserable, sneaking, crazy person behind all this had reduced them to paranoid caricatures of what LALOC members were supposed to be. They’d been friends, a family, enjoying an easy and warm camaraderie. Now they were all suspect. Snapping, fearful, speculative eyes turned on even so devoted a long-term member as Prince Marius, the stalwart warrior and hearty politician destined to be king at the next Coronation.

  No way, Cat scolded herself. No possible motive. And Marius’s temperament was solid. As solid as the blows he struck on the lyst field. Yet Alfric was almost too perfect as a suspect. A taciturn loner who’d never been seen to smile. A man of indeterminable age whose only talent was a gift for hand-crafting metal. She could understand why Raven was doubtful.

  Gingerly, Cat lifted the white fur-trimmed satin cloak from the mound of ashes and slim sticks of charred wood. Fortunately, the red lining had taken the brunt of the dirt and grime. But that nasty four-inch slit where the red lining peeked through looked remarkably like blood. Cat took the cloak out of the fire circle, shook it out over a stretch of fresh, clean grass.

  “I think I’m about to take up fighting,” a voice declared from just behind her. Cat gulped at the sight of Raven’s bare chest so close, so very close. Odd, but he hadn’t seemed so . . . naked when he was gathering evidence. But here, moving up beside her, around in front of her, he was a menace to all her panicked second thoughts. The Florida sun highlighted every well-toned muscle, an abdomen of bronze, arms she’d allowed to hold her, long fingers that had done things . . .

  He’d said something. Something wrong. “You told us not to spook him,” Cat reminded Raven, shaking out the cloak once again, her eyes carefully focused on the drift of gray ash caught in the spotlight of the late afternoon sun.

  “I’m just going shopping,” Raven said, elaborately casual. “You’re my armor consultant. After we lock these things in the van, that is.”

  But by the time they got back to the vendors’ area, Alfric the Armorer had literally folded his tent and gone. “Yeah, most of us pack up late afternoon before Feast,” said Beorn, the leather-worke
r who once again had the booth next to Alfric’s. “Alfric took off maybe half, three-quarters of an hour ago.”

  “And stole Marius’s sword and Eilis’s cloak,” Raven declared sourly as he steered Cat away from the vending area, “then took them to the fire circle and pinned them to the ground, all on his way home.”

  “He left early, isn’t that suspicious enough? Maybe he knows we’re close to figuring everything out.”

  “I wish to hell I was!”

  “You heard what Kiri found out. How can you doubt it?”

  “Alfric’s a pain in the butt. That doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”

  “You want to blame Brocc because of me. That’s not fair, and you know it! And, besides, where’s he hiding? He’s banished, remember?”

  “Don’t we have to get dressed for Court or something?”

  The air between them quivered as they stalked, side by side, back toward the camp site, meeting a steady stream of lords and ladies on their way to Court. They were going to be late, Raven acknowledged. And, frankly, he didn’t give a damn. At the moment he was striking out in both love and war. If frustration didn’t get him, professional embarrassment would. When Cat suddenly tossed a bone to the poor whipped dog, it took him a moment to recognize the subtle change of atmosphere, the tentative move toward peace.

  “You know,” Cat offered, “you’re right.” The royal cabin is overflowing with flunkies, guards, girlfriends, ladies-in-waiting and eager wannabes. Alfric couldn’t have walked in there, calmly picked up Marius’s sword and Eilis’s cloak without someone seeing him. Not in the ninety minutes since Marius and Kiri got here.”

  “Well, hallelujah, Lady Knight. We’ll make a detective out of you yet.” An FHP officer did not roll over and beg for a tummy rub at the first crumb of kindness.

  Cat surged forward, planted herself directly in his path. Somehow she managed to look down her nose even though he topped her by four inches. Scowling, she asserted, “So it had to be a member of the king’s household, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe!” Cat challenged, a clenched fist peeking out from beneath the folds of the white satin cloak.

  “Okay . . . maybe it’s that little snot who sounded the alarm. He’s been making my skin crawl ever since he slammed the cabin door in my face the night the sprinklers went haywire. Maybe he just decided to prove his loyalty to Corwyn by making Marius look bad.”

  Anger shooshed out of her. Deflated, Cat lowered her chin, only to find herself confronting a powerful chest with a scattering of black hair, a flat hard stomach, hips lean enough the baggy black pants seemed in imminent danger of sinking, sinking . . .

  Cat blinked, got a grip. “You know something, lieutenant? You have a devious mind.”

  “What’s the twerp’s name?” Raven asked. “You know, the one who came dashing in, tripping over his tongue, to tell us about the sword?”

  Cat frowned, sorting through her personal roster of LALOC names. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Corwyn’s from the Jacksonville area. He and Eilis usually only attend the bigger events down this way, but he’s a good king, not inclined to ignore trouble. Since he recognized we have a problem, he’s been chasing all over the state trying to keep up with all the events. Each king reigns for six months, so it isn’t possible to keep all their servants straight.” Cat shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know the one you mean—the one who’s always so serious—but you’ll have to get his name from Corwyn. But I can’t see him as a suspect. I mean, he’s so wimpy. I know, I know, don’t say it!” she added hastily. “‘Never trust appearances. It’s always the quiet ones.’”

  Smiling at Cat’s attempt to mimic his voice, Raven took her arm, started them back toward their tent. His whole world was doing a crash and burn, and the blasted woman was taunting him with clichés. “Do you realize we’re damn close to the same point where we started?” He hadn’t planned to sound quite so disgusted, but the anguished words spilled out of his gut of their own volition.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “That bad.” In glum silence, they walked on.

  By the time they got back to their camp site, everyone else had donned their finery and gone off to Court. Raven crossed to the rear of the outer room, found his black dress shirt, the one with the blasted ruffles. Guess he was stuck wearing it for the rest of the weekend. He straightened up, holding the shirt in his hand, only to find Cat still standing just inside the entrance, hands on her hips. She was not happy with him. So what else was new?

  “Sorry, I’m FHP, not FBI,” Raven challenged. “What can I say? You picked a loser.”

  “Picked!” Cat choked. Picked? I get my arm twisted by a big ol’ cop, and you call it picked?”

  “If you’re trying to start a fight, you’re doing a damn good job,” Raven warned. “What’s the problem here? Only a winner will do for Lady Knight?”

  The problem. Dear God, the problem was she wanted to jump his bones, feast on those bronzed muscles, drown in his black eyes, lose herself in his deep but dubious soul. But, first . . .

  “You’re telling me that after all these weeks, you had to get your only clue from a half-pint like Kiri?” Cat jeered. “Big tough cop. Good at saving people, lousy at finding the bad guy. “Hey, what’s an arrow in the back, a guy drowning in mud, a brother in a wheelchair? Who cares?”

  If his jaw fell any farther, he’d be slobbering on his blasted zippered boots!

  The lines on Raven’s forehead, the ones around his eyes and mouth suddenly seemed etched as deep as the Grand Canyon. His eyes were blank, focused inward. Or perhaps on nothing at all. And then his hand jerked up to cover his mouth, his shoulders heaved. He stumbled to one of the camp chairs, slid into it. Head bent nearly to his knees, his whole body shook. Rage? Tears? He couldn’t be laughing! Cat inched closer, tried for a glimpse of the face hidden behind his long-fingered hand. Nothing but a shock of black hair, powerful shoulders. Shoulders bare all the way to forever, where his elastic-waist pants had sagged down past the end of his spine. Big strapping females, particularly female warriors, weren’t supposed to go weak in the knees, but Cat suddenly found herself on the tent floor, clutching the black ruffled shirt Raven still held dangling from his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Cat burbled. “I just . . . I just . . .”

  “Wanted to see if I’d hit you.”

  Cat drew in a long breath, slowly let it out. “Right,” she admitted. Raven didn’t move, his body now as still as the chair itself. “You were laughing, weren’t you?” Cat added sadly.

  “Better than tearing you limb from limb.”

  “So you’re a saint, and I’m a fool,” she admitted as she laid her forehead on his knee. “I apologize. I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it.”

  “For a few seconds there, you had me going. I’m not some super computer, you know. It took a while to process all those conflicting signals. It hurt, Cat, and that’s not good.”

  “But you were laughing.”

  “Relief. Pure relief when I finally figured out what you were doing.” The hand which had been covering his face fisted into her hair. A gentle tug, and they were eye to eye. “Don’t. Ever. Do. That. To. Me. Again. Is that clear, Lady Knight?”

  “Yes.” A solemn vow . . . but could she keep it?

  “Last chance, Kate. If you want to walk away, now is the time to do it. No hard feelings. If you stay—right here, right now—I’m not going to play games or apologize for what’s going to happen.” No more ups and downs. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes.”

  Cat framed the angles of his face with her hands. One last gasp of logic before she succumbed to the surge of love that overwhelmed her. “I’m bound to have relapses. It just isn’t that easy,” she whispered.

  “I’m a big tough cop, remember? And I know how to laugh.” Beneath her palms she felt the muscles around his mouth move as his lips curled up in the grin she loved so well.

  Her fingers trailed down over his chin, the tight tendons of hi
s neck, lingered tantalizingly on his shoulder blades, finally came to rest on his nipples. Eyes alight, her gaze locked with his, Cat circled her fingers over the dark circles which were, thank the good Lord, smaller than hers. In the depths of his deep-set eyes, desire burst into conflagration.

  “No!” Raven sprang to his feet, taking her with him, nose to nose, chest to chest. “Foreplay’s not on the menu today,” he got out through gritted teeth. “Move, woman! Before we put on a matinee for the whole damn camp.”

  “No one’s here.” With a smile of enticement worthy of Cleopatra, Cat lifted her lips to his.

  In a maneuver she would later get Raven to demonstrate so she could figure out how he did it, Cat found herself over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Like one of the Sabine women, she thought. Except she wasn’t struggling. Truthfully, the journey to the tent’s back room seemed like a mile. When he set her on her feet, she raced his hands to the hem of her dress. One long mutual tug and the dress was gone, leaving her looking rather odd in bra, panties and tall laced boots. The lacy undergarments melted away. “Forget the boots,” Cat muttered, tearing at the elastic of Raven’s black pants, which swiftly dropped past his lean hips before coming to a stubborn halt on his boots.

  Thank God for zippers.

  She’d never felt like this before. This frantic, driving need to touch, feel, give joy, take it to herself. The staggering desire to be part of another person, to be joined in the most intimate way two people could be, was something she had told herself didn’t exist. Only in books, in tall tales by fantasizing fools. She smiled as his naked body, as ready as a man could get, bent over hers, dark eyes demanding, one hand cupping her to see if she was ready for him. Yes, yes, yes!

  No gentle movement, inch by slow inch, as he had done the first time. He was all the way inside her, his mouth fixed over her breast, before she finished gasping his name. “Michael! . . .”

  For a moment he paused, fighting for control. She’d been celibate for seven years because rape masquerading as love was all she knew. He couldn’t be another Tag What’s-his-face. Then again, maybe she needed to know sex could be hot and hard and not be rape. It could be just one more way of saying, We’re good together. You’re great, I’m great. I want you because I care for you. Because we need each other. Love each other. This afternoon, it’s the iron fist to the velvet glove. Tonight, I promise slow, gentle, keep it up ’til dawn.