I opened my eyes, gave her a piercing look.
“You know it’s the truth, Lis. Murder doesn’t exactly whet the appetite for peace. And now the question isn’t how to get the talks moving again. It’s figuring out who wanted to derail them in the first place. Who wanted to ruin what we have? To change the balance of power?”
I was fired up and prepared to argue with whatever she’d said. But she was absolutely right. My job was no longer escorting the French delegates.
It was figuring out who had sent the French delegates home.
• • •
Twenty minutes later, we pulled up in front of the Portman Grand.
A knot of paparazzi waited outside, their gazes avaricious. They were waiting to question me about murder, about the peace talks’ failure, and, depending on how long they’d been out here, the fact that the French delegates had taken their luggage and run.
I sucked in a breath, put my hand on the car door. “I’m the brave one,” I murmured, but Lulu jerked the car away from the curb before I could get out.
“Nope,” she said, continuing through the circular drive. “Can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what? Where are you going?” I checked the side mirror, watched the possibility of a hot shower and minibar binge disappear behind me.
“I’m getting you away from this hotel and all those bloodsucking reporters—no offense. You’ll stay with me.”
“Stay with you?”
“In the loft. There’s a second bedroom. Well, it’s storage, really. And it’s small. And Eleanor of Aquitaine might have peed on some stuff. I mean, I check in there and keep the door shut, but I think she does it out of spite.” She waved it away. “I’m sure it’s fine. We’ll just Febreze it.”
I weighed cat pee against going back to Cadogan House and facing down my mother’s sword again. “Actually, that would be fantastic.”
“Good. Because traffic is a bitch. Autos were supposed to clear this nightmare up,” she said, laying on the horn.
“What about my stuff? My luggage?”
“You can grab it tomorrow when the reporters have slithered back into their pits. You can borrow some stuff tonight.”
“I don’t deserve you,” I said, marveling at how generous she was being, especially after I’d been dumped by vampires. For possibly the second time this week.
With a half-cocked smile, she adjusted her rearview mirror. “I’d say we probably deserve each other.”
• • •
This time, I tried to pay the proper respect as soon as I walked through the front door.
“Hello, Eleanor of Aquitaine.”
She just blinked and stared. And looked generally judgmental.
“I don’t think she likes me.”
“Probably not,” Lulu said. “But she doesn’t really like anyone. I’m here because she allows it, and we both accept that.” She reached down, scratched the cat between the ears. The cat leaned into her hand and made a weird little bark when Lulu stood up again.
“She barks.”
“Shetalks,” Lulu corrected. “In her own particular accent.”
As if offended by the comment, Eleanor of Aquitaine trotted away, tail in the air.
“Where did you get her?”
Lulu walked into the loft, pulled off her jacket, tossed it onto a stool at the kitchen island. “Honest to god, she was sitting outside my door one night, just staring up at it. No tags, no collar, no microchip. Just four pounds of attitude and expectation.”