“So, they have the head and torsos of human women?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Yes! Positively . . .” The prince had been about to launch into a more detailed description of how disgusting the humanoid birds were when he finally remembered who his audience was. He dropped his hands into his lap suddenly and sat up straighter. “They are quite the pest and it’s past time we thinned the numbers. I’ll speak to Captain Mellors and organise the trip. Now Lady Pendragon, are you comfortable? Would you like some wine?”
We took this as a sign to move our boat away, Gabe guiding us further out into the lake. I looked over my shoulder and saw the two of them laughing and drinking together. Well, there was no apparent danger right then, so I settled back.
I tried to relax, just enjoy the very odd experience of boating in an alien realm but found it difficult. Gabe was really beginning to sweat; I watched him labour over pushing us aimlessly around a lake and felt bad. I was a bad girlfriend. I stood by my reluctance around the tattoo, but it had hurt him. The sex we’d had the other day felt like it was the makeup sex you have after the argument, but we hadn’t actually had the argument, and therefore, the issue still hung between us, unspoken. I’d lied to him, went to bed with him thinking he was a fictional character. I’d lied about the shop, Natty. . . . Are we going to survive this? I thought, a cold knife sliding into my belly. Is he going to still want to be with me after watching me flirt with the prince until we got Tess home? I began to ruminate on the probability of my relationship staying intact right up until the prince decided it was my turn to share him.
“You are looking quite pensive, Lady McKinnon. Perhaps I should spend some time in your boat,” the prince said. Not waiting for an answer, our boats were brought together. He leapt from one craft to the other with ease, turning his eye to Natty. “You will go to Lady Pendragon’s craft. You may serve her some food from the basket and wine if she requires it, but if you speak to her, with the exception of when spoken to, I’ll have you removed back to the city. I needn’t remind you of the inappropriateness of having one of you on a royal outing?”
“No, sire,” Natty said blandly, ears laid flat to his skull.
I watched him go, hating the slump in his shoulders now as he delicately hopped across to the other boat and sat down in a tight ball, as far away from Tess as he could. “Now, Lady McKinnon, I’m sure you’ve been longing for some more scintillating conversation. More wine?”
I’d been afraid he’d want to cosy up with me like he had Tess, but instead, he reclined elegantly across the seat Natty had occupied, wearing a fine white shirt open at the neck, trousers that had been pressed just so. He looked both effortlessly casual and moneyed all at the same time. It became apparent that he’d taken that seat so as to rake his eyes along my body, letting them linger at the parts that pleased him, his eyes heavily lidded. I accepted a flute of white wine as much because it gave me something else to focus on.
“So, Lady McKinnon, you’ve never actually told me the real reason you’ve come to the citadel. Your ruse, for Lady Pendragon’s sake, was welcome, but I remain at a loss why such a beautiful woman would cross my poor realm to reach me with so little in the way of protection.”
“My father heard of your plight from our plane and decided to send me to you, to see if a love match could be made. He has many daughters and finding dowries for all of them is tedious. This way if we are a match, you will have your country back and I will have a titled husband. It seemed a natural fit for his problem.”
“And how do you feel about this?” he asked, a slight smirk spreading across his face. “You realise you will be tied to a man that is not human.”
“Like many women, my father expects me to marry for position, not preference.”
His smile widened to something lazier. “But milady, for this to be possible, love must be present.”
I took a deep breath and let it settle in my chest. It is an unfortunate consequence of being a woman in my world that many of us tend to learn how to lie quite effectively. Feminine rage, disinterest and dislike can, not most of the time, but can be met with extremes of anger or even violence. I’d been screamed at, called everything from a slut to frigid, poked, shoved and even had fists waved in my face because I dared to tell the man I was standing with I wasn’t interested in him. Men that had taken it upon themselves to approach me. Other women have faced much greater consequences. As a matter of self-preservation, we learn the art of skirting conflict, of managing some men so as to not provoke their fragile egos into dangerous displays. This wasn’t all or even most men, though many times I’d fallen into the trap of doing it, just in case they were 'that guy’. Any man who counted himself as part of my inner circle wouldn’t be staying there long if he started that shit, but out in the big, bad world, I freely admit to judicious use of lying to avoid dickheads getting in my face. So, like many women, I could pull back all that was me: my personality, my thoughts and my feelings about things and hold them in a hard little kernel, deep inside myself for long enough to produce some face-saving lie to get me out of this situation as quickly as I could. I activated that mechanism now.
My face settled into the soft, low-lidded expression of receptiveness. I prolonged our gaze without staring. I smiled slightly, hopefully mysteriously and not like a baby with gas and then said, “My mother has often told me that love can come from necessity. I choose to believe that is possible in this case.”
“Do you, indeed?” he asked with a purr. He picked my foot up from where it lay against the bottom of the boat and shifted, so it settled in his lap. He plucked the shoelaces free, with some difficulty initially, as if he didn’t quite understand how human fingers worked and then pulled my boots off. Thank God I hadn’t worn my old Converse. Pretty sure stinky shoes would have killed any kind of mood he was trying to create. After he’d removed my shoe, he rubbed a thumb along the arch of my foot and said, “Some former acquaintances of mine have said human women appreciate this?”
“Oh, yes,” I simpered, though for just a second my eyes flicked to Gabe, who had brought the boat to a standstill. I thought it had been for mere moments, but the prince turned to look at a panting Gabe and back at me.
“This one seems to get your attention more than your other men,” he said as he began to massage my foot. “Why is that?”
“You thought me a virgin?” I said. “I’m sorry, but in that area, I am a disappointment. My father does not mind, as long as no children come o
f it, he sees it as part of my education.”
“And are you?” the prince asked as his thumbs dug into my muscles in long sure strokes. “Well-educated, I mean.”
“I would need to know the measure by which I am judged here,” I said, fighting the urge to shift back in the pillows, away from the prince’s burning gaze. “What is well-educated here may be . . . over or undereducated in other realms.”
“I agree, but standards of what we speak of are difficult to articulate. Perhaps a demonstration, a mutual demonstration is in order.”
“Perhaps.”
The prince turned to Gabe, “Swap with the other man, you will keep your distance from your lady for the duration of her visit, or you will find yourself the main course for dinner.”
Gabe’s face was like a stone as he turned. Inside my head, I screamed for him to keep a low profile, play along, just until Tess was safe. He merely nodded and then moved from boat to boat, Flea soon appearing at the bow of ours. “Take us away from Lady Pendragon’s boat,” the prince said, “I feel the need for solitude.”
I’m not sure what he thought he was doing. As was well-argued in Pulp Fiction, foot massages don’t mean nothing and unless Flea poled the boat across the lake, up the road and all the way into our bedroom, Tess was going to be able to see what he was up to. Maybe this was all part of his plan, to try and play us off each other. “I find the atmosphere now much more pleasing, don’t you think?” the prince asked as we pulled away from the other boat.
“Very much so, Your Highness, but I fear I cannot enjoy it. I forgot to bring a hat with me and am starting to get a terrible headache. I really must return to my room and take a nap, or I will be in an awful state later. Do you mind awfully if I go? I’m sure Lady Pendragon would love the opportunity to spend more time with you.” My foot was dropped unceremoniously. He pulled back and wiped his hands on his trousers.
“Well, if you feel you must, you must. You’ll leave the blond one here. This Flea can take you back in one of the carriages.”
“Of course, Your Highness. You are too kind,” I said. A lump grew in my throat as we rejoined Tess’s boat and Natty was deposited back in ours. I looked through my lashes at Gabe, all of a sudden worried whether he would return from this trip. Once Flea had us halfway towards the shore, I said, “Gabe will be OK, right? He has a weapon on him?”