Lance sat himself on the edge of one of the twin beds as I peeked into the bathroom.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I told him, sticking my head back round the door. “You might want to go after me.”
He cocked one eyebrow. “Are you saying I smell?”
I simply grinned and he lobbed a pillow at me, missing by inches as I ducked back through the door.
The shower was heaven. I turned the water as hot as it would go and used almost all the hotel toiletries scrubbing my hair and body. When I finally stepped out the bathroom was full of steam. I wrapped a towel around my body and cleaned a space in the fogged up mirror.
The heat of the shower had brought some colour back to my cheeks, and despite the last few days I looked better than I had in years. The haunted look in my eyes had gone, as had the worried crease between my eyebrows. I was still frightened, but the uncertainty in my life had been replaced by a confidence in who I was. I wasn’t just the crazy, psycho girl just trying to get by day by day, I had a purpose. It made a difference.
Gathering my clothes I cracked open the bathroom door and peered out. Lance sat on the end of one of the beds, a bemused expression on his face as he flicked through the channels on the TV.
“You can use the shower now.”
He jumped and glanced towards me. His eyes widened as they travelled over me. The towel wasn’t very big, and I knew I was showing more skin than was probably appropriate.
Dragging his eyes away from my bare legs, he gave me a funny little nod, looking red in the face. He stood up and yanked his t-shirt over his head.
“You – you can sleep in this if you want,” He said, holding it out to me hesitantly.
I took it and he swallowed hard, ducking past me and into the bathroom. After drying myself off I tugged on his t-shirt. It nearly drowned me, reaching mid-thigh. It should have smelt a little, since he’d been wearing it all day -- more than a day in fact, but it didn’t smell bad, it just smelt of him, like rust and some kind of polish.
I carefully folded my clothes onto a chair before flopping into a bed. Compared to my night on the forest floor the bed was pure bliss. Snuggling deeper under the duvet, I took over from Lance flicking through the channels; skipping through news channels and soaps with equal disinterest.
I wasn’t really paying attention. I was listening intently to the sound of the shower. When it cut off I focused on the TV, not even noticing what was on. The bathroom door creaked open and I couldn’t help but look.
Lance had pulled his jeans back on after his shower and was rubbing a towel over his wet hair. Drops of water were dripping down his neck and rolling down his bare chest. I watched one drop slip down his stomach, rippling over the muscles before hitting the waistband of his jeans.
My breath caught in my throat. He glanced at me and a tiny smile curled his lips.
“Suits you,” he said, nodding towards the t-shirt.
I smiled, suddenly feeling shy. He crossed the room and swung onto the other bed, chucking the towel onto a chair.
He grunted and stretched luxuriously. “God, that feels good.”
Laughing at the blissful look on his face, I rolled onto my side to look at him. He turned his head.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I chewed on my lower lip. “Did you know this was going to happen to you? Did you know Merlin was going to bring you back?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. Bringing his hands up, he linked them under his head, staring at the ceiling.
“No,” he said finally. “Towards the end of – my other life – Merlin came to find me. I had retired to my castle, Joyous Gard. I met with him and we talked late into the night about Camelot and the fall of the Round Table. He was the first person I had seen since the battle, though I had heard rumours of Gwain and Percival through the years. When Arthur had fallen Merlin had taken his son into hiding, and the kingdom fell to warring lords, each claiming to be the next king of Albion. Merlin told me a little of the state of the kingdom, but I had no interest in it. I was safe and secure in Joyus Gard, and my love for the kingdom died with Arthur.”
I curled up on my side, staring at his profile as he talked. His jaw had tightened and his hands were clenched into fists beneath his head.
“But when Merlin started to talk of Arthur’s death I nearly asked him to leave. It was something I didn’t want to think or talk about. Then he asked me something. He asked what I would say if someone offered me the chance to make amends for the choice I made. If I was offered the chance to do my duty to Arthur, and not fail him. I said that I would give anything for that chance. He simply nodded and bade me farewell.”
“That was it?” I was shocked. Surely Merlin had done more to explain it?
Lance rolled onto his side to face me. “Pretty much. My memories of the last years of my life are hazy. But I know I died. Then, I opened my eyes at the Lake. And I was me, but not me at the same time. When Merlin first explained what had happened I didn’t believe him. It took a long time to come to terms with it.” He smiled gently at me. “And then I had to go and find you.”
“Bet you were pleased about that.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t know what to expect. I knew you were a Pendragon, but that didn’t prepare me for…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.
“For what?”
“It doesn’t mater. I know it’s only nine thirty, but we should sleep.”
I rolled onto my back with a sigh. “I hate it when you do that.”
The light clicked off but I could hear the amusement in his voice when he replied.
“I know you do.”
Chapter Twenty
For the first few minutes when I woke the next morning I didn’t know where I was. The comfortable bed and warm room felt like home. And at first I snuggled deeper into the duvet, thinking I’d have a few more minutes before Dad shouted for me. But when I opened my eyes it all came flooding back.
The early morning sun came through a crack in the curtains, creating a band of gold on the opposite wall. I watched the dust motes dance for a moment, listening to the racket of the birds outside the window. It couldn’t have been long past dawn.
Rolling onto my side, I glanced at the bed next to me. Lance lay on his stomach, his face half-buried in a pillow. His curly hair was even more messy than usual; the strands at the back trailing down the nape of his neck. I let my gaze carry on. His shoulders were broad, the muscles well defined even when completely relaxed in sleep. His body tapered down to surprisingly narrow hips. I imagined snuggling against that broad back, arms around his hips.
I forced my eyes back up to his face. These were thoughts I didn’t want to be having about him. Yet at the same time I couldn’t deny the butterflies in my stomach when he looked at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered.
Of course, I told myself firmly, that was only because of who I was. He’d admitted himself. I was his second chance at doing his duty. Any concern he had for me was born from his urgent need not to fail Arthur a second time. I was a fool if I let myself pretend it was anything more than that.
I closed my eyes and shoved those thoughts down. I didn’t want to think about it. It was all too confusing.
Lance shifted and I opened my eyes again quickly. He stretched, scrubbing his face into the pillow before turning to look at me.
“Morning,” His eyes were still half-closed, his voice raspy with sleep. “Did you sleep well?”
“No dreams. That’s always good,” I replied with a chuckle.
He sat up, raking his hands through his hair in an attempt to comb it out with his fingers. All he managed to do was make it stand up on end even more. “We should head to the museum as soon as we can.” He swung his legs round and stood up, heading for the bathroom. “Get dressed and we’ll go get Percy and Wyn up.”
Lance hammered on the door next to our room less than ten minutes later. It took a long time for someone to finally answer, but a
t last Wyn yanked open the door.
Like Lance, he had slept in just his jeans and I struggled to keep my eyes on his face. It wasn’t like when I looked at Lance, but I couldn’t deny his physical attractiveness. A thatch of dark hair covered the middle of his chest, but he was leaner than Lance, not quite so broad across the shoulders and chest.
He gave Lance and I a long look and then stepped aside for us. As I moved into the room I couldn’t help giggling.
“Wow. You two really made the most of room service.” Plates and bowls occupied almost every flat surface.
“Don’t look at me,” Wyn said, holding his hands up. “I just had some supper. Percy was the one who decided to try every dish on the list.”
“Menu,” I corrected absently.
“And do we have enough money to pay for all this?” Lance asked, moving a tray so he could sit on the edge of the table.
Percy grunted from where he was still sprawled on the bed. “You worry too much, Lancelot. Chill out a little.”
“Chill out? Really? This modern world is bad for you. You’re going native.”
Percy propped himself up on his elbows. “We’re stuck here. Might as well make the most of it. Besides, ‘chill out’ is a lot more to the point than, ‘never fear, Good Knight, thy fears are unfounded.’”
I snorted with laughter. “Did you ever really speak like that?”
Percy grinned up at me. “Close enough. Terrible isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure. I actually quite liked it. There was a poetic, almost lyrical, quality to it that was missing in modern speech.
Wyn shook his head at our conversation, pulling his t-shirt on over his head. “I’m assuming you’re here because you want to get moving.”
“Yes. I want to get to the museum before it gets too busy.”
Wyn and Percy grumbled about it a bit, but fifteen minutes later we were leaving the hotel. We decided to leave the car at the hotel and walk. Neither Wyn nor I were too keen on driving through rush hour city traffic and the museum wasn’t far away. Cardiff was a small, compact city by comparison to places like London.
Small as it was it was lucky that Lance had an excellent sense of direction. Once out of the hotel car park I didn’t have a clue where we were going. I hadn’t really been paying too much attention the night before, but Lance immediately pointed towards the green of a nearby park.
“We should be able to cut through there.”
We set off towards the park but within a few minutes I was lagging behind, almost having to jog to keep up. “Do you three mind walking a little slower?”
All three of them looked back at me in surprise.
“I’m not obscenely tall, so I can’t keep up,” I explained.
Lance chuckled and fell back to walk beside me, gesturing to Wyn and Percy to keep going. “Obscenely tall?”
“Yup.” I grinned up at him. “You are.”
“I wouldn’t have used the word ‘obscene’.” He sounded hurt but when I looked up at him he was smiling.
“Unnaturally?” I suggested.
He poked me in the ribs, and I laughed and dodged out of the way. Abruptly I remembered my thoughts from the morning and I sobered. Lance noticed my change of expression, but didn’t say anything. The silence between us was uncomfortable, like both of us were thinking things we’d never voice. It worried me that maybe he’d noticed my attraction to him.
I was relieved when the front of the museum rose ahead of us. It was a huge building with a long frontage flanked by two wings heading back away from the street. A wide set of steps led up to the main doors, rows of towering pillars holding up an overhanging roof.
A big sign outside the doors proclaimed that there was some kind of Celtic legends exhibition on for the next week, and I amused myself briefly imagining the faces of the historians running it if I introduced the three Celtic legends walking alongside me.
The museum itself was almost deserted. At half nine on a weekday morning I wouldn’t have expected anything else. Our footsteps echoed on the tiled floors as we entered the main atrium. At the ends staircases led up to the gallery and the second floor. An information desk and a glass fronted gift shop faced the doors.
“Where the hell do we start?” Wyn asked looking over the floor plan just inside.
“I think we can ignore the dinosaurs and anything BC,” I said with a smile. It took a bit of searching but at last we found a display that claimed to have been from digs along the Pembrokeshire coastline.
Most of it was useless, objects found in the ruins of castles and the like, but right at the end was a display of ancient weapons and armour.
I stopped in front of a huge broadsword, pitted with rust and age.
“Is that it?” Lance asked, turning towards me.
I cocked one eyebrow at him. “How the hell would I know?”
“You’ll know.”
I’ll know, Arthur said in the back of my mind. He’d been very quiet since I’d almost gotten trapped in his memories and I knew he was trying to keep some distance between our minds. It’s not here, he added gently.
“Arthur says its not here,” I told Lance, looking away from the old sword.
“This is the right collection though,” Wyn said from a little further along. He pointed at the armour in front of him. “This is one of Mordred’s knights.” He squinted at the sign. “Clearly, geniuses work here. The dates are only out by about a thousand years.”
Lance ignored the sarcasm. “So if this is from the right dig, why isn’t Excalibur here?”
I elbowed him in the ribs just as someone came around the corner towards us. The man was quite young, late twenties at the oldest and a name tag on his chest said he was one of the curators.
“Excuse me?” I stamped on Lance’s foot to get him to stay where he was and then moved forward to intercept the man. “Do you work here?”
“Yes, I do.” He gave me a slow look up and down, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“I wonder if you could help us then. We’re doing a school project. On – on the history of the Pembrokeshire coast. But I was just wondering is this everything from those digs? Only my teacher seemed to think there were a lot more armour and weapons…”
He looked impressed. “You’re right, this isn’t everything. Just this year we loaned some of our more impressive pieces to the Tower of London as part of a ‘British Warfare’ exhibition they are holding.”
I beamed at him. “I see. And what kind of pieces did you give to them? Just so I can get an idea of the full collection.”
“Your teachers must enjoy having dedicated students like you in their classes.” His eyes travelled over me again. Behind me Lance gave an odd little growl, and the man coughed and continued. “It was mostly armour we sent to them. And a few swords I believe.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. I spun back to Lance and the others expecting them to look happy.
“What’s the matter?”
“The Tower of London?” Lance asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s just a museum,” I reassured him.
None of them looked convinced.
“Where we’re from something with a name like ‘The Tower of London’ is bound to be guarded by old magic, or have some curse on any who dare enter it,” Wyn said with a shake of his head as we turned down the corridor to the main doors.
I laughed. “The Tower of London is a visitor attraction. I’ve been there before on a school trip. And I promise there is no magic guarding it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We were on the road yet again. I wondered, as I negotiated the big toll bridge over the Severn River, how many miles I’d covered in just the few days since I’d met Lance.
In fact, the more I thought about it, the harder it was to believe I had known Lance for such a short time. So much had happened and we had been through so much that it felt like far longer. In fact it was hard to imagine a time in my lif
e when I hadn’t known him.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see him drumming his fingers on his thigh. He did that a lot when he was thinking. I just wish I knew what he was thinking about.
Even without stopping it was still nearly four in the afternoon before we hit the outskirts of London. Crowded with traffic and frustratingly complicated, the streets of London were a nightmare. I got lost twice before I managed to find my way down towards the Thames.
I wondered whether we would have been wiser stopping further out and getting the underground, then I imagined how it would look once we’d found Excalibur. I couldn’t be sure it would hide itself the way Lance’s sword did.
Eventually I got close enough to the Tower of London and found somewhere to park. We were down by the river and as we started walking the short distance back towards the Tower, Lance was looking around a little bemused. The city rose around us on all sides, tall modern skyscrapers mixed in with buildings hundreds of years old. The streets were crowded with the most eclectic mix of people I’d ever seen.
“This is London?” Lance glanced across the river at the distant London Eye.
“Have you been here before?”
He glanced down at me as we crossed a road. “Yes and no. I’ve been to this part of Albion before. But London was little more than a village back then. This…” and he gestured towards the towering buildings. “Is just a little overwhelming.”
“I used to love London when I was a kid,” I told him with a grin. “To a country girl like me, it was so exciting, so full of life and excitement.”
“And now?” He caught my arm to stop me walking into a couple of tourists snapping pictures, and I stumbled back into his chest. He steadied me, smiling down into my upturned face.
My heart gave a little stutter. “Now? My life is more than exciting enough. Just not always in a good way,” I added, coming to a halt as we reached the bottom of a towering stone wall.
“I thought you said it was a museum?” Wyn said from behind me.
The Last Knight (Pendragon Book 1) Page 14