He crossed the ten paces between them in three strides and caught her arm. “Please do not go off on your own again until we get this situation resolved. I do not wish to worry for your safety.”
She smiled up at him, her eyes sparkling. “You were worried for me? That’s—”
“Unbearably sweet.” Fairsby’s dry voice interrupted. He’d followed Christophe. Maeve was right behind him.
“I see you met Lord Fairsby,” Fiona said.
“We chatted for a moment,” Fairsby said. “On a matter of little importance.”
“It seemed quite important from a distance,” Maeve said, staring avidly at Christophe. “Everyone was watching, too. I’ve warned you about that, you bad thing.” She playfully swatted at Fairsby’s arm, but he only tightened his lips instead of crushing her, so Christophe figured the two Unseelie had some sort of friendship going.
As much as the Fae could have friends. Mostly they only had rivals for power, cutthroat enemies, or former enemies they’d graciously decided to ignore. The occasional ally. Not really known for friendship.
Maeve pouted her red, red lips. “Don’t keep secrets. It’s so boring.”
“No secrets here. Everything is out in the open,” Christophe said. “Fiona and I are planning to dance. If either of you come near her, I will remove your immortal heads from your immortal bodies, which will be an extremely unpleasant way to spend eternity. Say hi to Rhys na Garanwyn for me, won’t you? If you ever happen to socialize with Seelie Court Fae. Tell him he still owes me from our last poker game.”
He inclined his head to them and, betting they wouldn’t kill him in the middle of the museum, put an arm around Fiona’s shoulders and turned his back on them, grinning at the hissing sound of rage coming from Fairsby.
“Shall we dance?”
Chapter 18
Fiona felt like events were swirling around her that she hadn’t a clue how to decipher, and she didn’t like the feeling. At all.
“Are you insane? You can’t threaten my friends. They’re going to call the police any minute!”
“They won’t. They’re Fae. They want nothing to do with the human police,” he said flatly. “Also, stay away from her. Don’t accept any favors from her, ever. Don’t even say thank you. In fact, don’t even say hello.”
“Look, partner, you can’t dictate to me what I do or do not do with my friends,” she said. “I—”
“Let me guess. She told you to stay away from me. That I’m not human, right?”
That stopped her dead. “She did, actually. Why would she say that?”
He shook his head. “She said it because it’s true. The better question is how would she know that, if she were human herself? Did she explain that?”
“No she didn’t,” she said slowly, revisiting her conversation with Maeve. Her eyebrows drew together. “I never knew Fairsby was Maeve’s cousin, either. There are an awful lot of Fairsbys running around. Also, stop dragging me. I’m getting a little tired of being pulled all over the Great Court.”
“Cousin. That’s one way to put it,” he said grimly, maneuvering them out onto the space cleared for a dance floor. A small orchestra was playing something light and with a down-tempo beat suitable mostly for ninety-year-old dancers. She and Christophe must be the youngest on the floor. Or maybe not. Several things he’d said and done suddenly presented themselves in a new light.
“Just how old are you?”
He threw back his head and laughed, causing several heads to turn their way. “I quit counting at three hundred.”
“Three . . . hundred? You—wait. This is like Atlantis, right? I believe it or not? You don’t have any actual proof?”
“I don’t have a birth certificate, if that’s what you mean.” He twirled her gracefully around an elderly couple she thought she recognized. The Hadley-Radfords, perhaps.
“I believe a record of my birth exists in the scrolls in Atlantis.”
She sighed. “Of course it does. Is that where you learned to dance like this? I expected you to be stepping on my toes long before this.”
“I learned it from my dance tutor, in the palace. It was required training for all warriors. Not all battles are fought on battlefields, Princess. Some are played out in ballrooms.”
He smiled down at her and—for just an instant—Fiona gave herself permission to believe she was on a date. A first date with a fierce, unflinching warrior who seemed to be willing to protect her from all danger. It didn’t make sense.
She didn’t care.
“What did he want with you? Lord Fairsby?”
“Lord Fairsby, as he’s calling himself now, and his
His arms tightened around her. “He is very, very powerful, Princess. Magically powerful, and with his official Scotland Yard position, he has the weight of human bureaucracy behind him. He could make things difficult for you.”
“The British have been making things difficult, as you call it, for the Scots for a very long time.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not the first in my family, and won’t be the last, to kick their arses.”
He grinned down at her. “It makes me hot when you talk tough, did I mention that?”
Her pulse sped up, but she managed a shrug. “Everything makes you hot.”
“When you’re wearing that dress, yep. There go Fairsby and Maeve, heading out. We’ll give them a few minutes before we leave. I don’t want to give them a chance to get near you again.”
He twirled her in a quick loop and then bent her down into a dip. Several of the people standing nearby started clapping, and she could hear the murmurs.
“Isn’t that Lady Fiona Campbell? The book author?”
“Making a spectacle of herself—”
“That’s the man who was on TV with her this afternoon—”
She pulled away from Christophe and walked off the dance floor, her head held high, smiling distantly over the heads of the nosy gossipmongers. He caught up to her in two strides of his impossibly long, hard-muscled legs and pulled her hand into his.
“Thanks for the dance, Princess. It’s been a while.”
“Really? Last year? Last month? When was the last time you treated anyone to your dance prowess?” She heard the sarcasm in her voice, but it was one of her defense mechanisms when she was embarrassed.
“Not hardly. The last time I danced like that was in those dance classes I told you about. The palace housekeeper’s daughter took pity on us and rounded up some girls so we didn’t have to dance with each other. I can tell you that even as a kid, Bastien—one of my fellow warriors—was huge and the gods know that he had at least three left feet.” His shudder at the memory was so heartfelt that she laughed in spite of herself.
“These stories are very entertaining, whether they’re true or not.”
“They’re true. I’ll prove it to you soon, but part of me is hoping you come to believe me without needing evidence,” he said.
She glanced up at him and his face had hardened into an expressionless mask. He’d put up his defenses again, and she knew the time for dancing and joking, brief as it had been, was over.
“Let’s go and talk to some vampires, then,” she said, changing direction to make for the exit. “I’ve already written my check to the hosting organization.”
He tightened his grip on her arm. “There is no
