“Tess,” Flea said, taking a step toward her, but she stepped back, turned on her heel and took off up the stairs.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Flea said when we returned to the room. “What kind of guy goes chasing after a one night stand?”
“I’m glad you did. She doesn’t know it right now, but she’s going to need all of us, really,” I said.
“We should get some sleep,” Gabe broke in, heading towards the adjoining door to the much smaller servant's bedroom. “We have a long day of punting ahead of us, whatever that is.”
29
Apparently, it was using a long pole to push a flat-bottomed boat around. “Perhaps I’ll go in your craft first, Lady McKinnon?” the prince said, watching my arse wobble as I struggled to get in. I’ll admit, boats and I were not friends and I could be clumsy at the best of times. “What are those fetching trousers you are wearing? I’ve never seen the like.”
“Skinny leg jeans,” I said, gritting my teeth then finally plopping down into the cushions arranged at one end of the boat, Natty struggling to stay standing as the boat rocked alarmingly.
“Your Highness, the lake is just as beautiful as you said,” Tess said, dressed in another satin monstrosity. She wrapped an arm around his. “Will you come in my boat and tell me all about the
sights?” The prince frowned, still yet to take his eyes off of my legs.
“I am happy to defer to Lady Pendragon,” I said. I swallowed down a lump of bile and said, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.”
“Of course, milady,” he said, noticeably snapping out of his mood and back into a more congenial one. “I’ll take this big blond brute for our boat, if that’s all right with you, Lady McKinnon?”
“Of course,” I said, forcing my tone to remain airy, “though Flea is the more skilled of the two.”
“Flea it is then,” the prince said, steering Tess toward the other boat, while she shot me a dark look over her shoulder.
“So, what the hell does one do when punting?” I muttered as Gabe pushed the boat away from the lake edge.
“If I was you, I’d relax until the prince joins our boat,” Natty said, taking a seat.
I tried, really I did. There was a light breeze coming off the water that was deliciously cool in contrast to the bright sun beating down. It was a pretty place, a small perhaps man-made, or was that animal-made lake that was fringed by clusters of large pink lotus. The water was clear and blue and as I trailed my hand through it, I saw schools of small orange fish swim to the surface to nibble at my fingers. While I felt a bit of guilt watching Gabe labour, pushing us around, the shift and play of his well-muscled back was also quite a nice sight.
“What are those?” I asked Natty, pointing to the sky. Large black birds circled and wheeled in what looked like a warm up-draft.
“Harpies,” he said with a shudder. “Nasty bastard things.”
“You brought us some of their feathers when you first came to the shop.”
“Not collected by me thankfully,” he said, his paw instinctively going to his nose. “A bloke from the estate here was at the pub a while ago selling the horrible things. The magician’s guild in town doesn’t like stuff from the citadel, says they’re too tainted by the curse to risk—”
“Hey, we’ve sold some of them!”
“I had a hedgewitch look ‘em over before I sold ‘em. Have you had any complaints?”
“No . . .”
“There you go then. I look after me customers. I’d go broke if I didn’t.”
“Looking at the harpy flocks, Lady McKinnon?” I turned in the boat to see that Tess’s boat had drawn alongside us. I felt a pang of revulsion when I saw Tess and the prince tucked up together on the pile of cushions.
“Mr Natty was telling me all about the unfortunate creatures. They sound quite nasty.”
“Yes, but bloody good hunting and can be quite tasty if prepared correctly,” the prince said. “I’ll take the two of you shooting sometime.”
“Uh, OK. Sounds great,” I mumbled. I knew, academically, a lot of my food came from killing animals, but like most city people, I preferred to be as far away from the process as possible.
“What is a harpy, Your Highness?” Tess asked.
“A revolting beast. The wings and claws of a bird, with these terrible humanoid faces and torsos. They reek to the heavens and have these gigantic, juddering, mammary glands,” the prince used his hands to indicate they had big tits, “quite vile.”