Personal protection officers. Thanks to the covert pair who’d driven her here, Sylvie had that acronym down. It was the only question they’d deigned to answer.
“The reality is that whatever I do in life, I’m always going to be a security risk, to myself and to others around me.” Fleetingly, Rosie’s look at Johnny was taut. Concerned. And clearly, not for herself. “But that night . . .” A small smile hovered. “Worth it.”
“You ditched your PPOs?” Before Sylvie’s fascinated gaze, Johnny—Bertie Wooster incarnate—seemed to physically expand. He stood taller, his shoulders dropping and squaring. As worry carved stern lines into his face, he looked both older and temporarily effectual. “Rosie . . .”
“Point noted and agreed, my love.” She spoke softly, her fingers still linked through his. “It was foolish. I won’t do it again.”
Johnny’s reply was so low-toned that Sylvie barely heard it and wished she hadn’t. She felt as if she’d pried open a doorway into someone’s most private refuge. “I wish you felt free. But I need you to be safe.”
Again, they looked at each other, briefly, as if there were no one else in the room.
Sylvie liked this pair very much. As young working royals, criticism and rumor were going to dog their every step. She truly hoped that the bond between them proved stronger than all who would test it.
Rosie cleared her throat. “And now I’d better take a cue from my mother and vacate the premises so Johnny can deliver his own request.”
When the door closed behind her, Sylvie looked at Johnny with raised eyebrows.
She lifted her stylus, ready, waiting.
And, after the Midnight Elixir request, slightly apprehensive.
The Captain’s Suite
4:50 p.m.
Meeting with Candidate: Mr. Dominic De Vere
“Rosie was very close to her great-uncle before Prince Patrick’s death.” Marchmont’s eyes met Dominic’s and held gamely. The groom-to-be still looked ill at ease, even with the room depleted of every other occupant. “She saw him as something of a kindred spirit.”
Dominic did a rapid mental collation of everything he knew about Prince Patrick, one of the king’s younger brothers. Not a lot. Conventionally handsome, but not particularly charismatic. A poor public speaker. Lifelong bachelor. Talented musician. Unlike his siblings, who’d marched dutifully along to military college or straight into royal duties, Patrick had attended a music school. He’d studied classical piano but had pursued a weekend sideline in rock. Pierced his nose, picked up a few tattoos, made a short-lived attempt at putting together a band. The prince had penned several songs about the plays of ancient Greece and one or two about his favorite foods. Apparently, his work had enjoyed fleeting popularity in the more artsy nightclubs in Chelsea, and appalled palace courtiers and the more tedious members of the public, who’d clearly had too much time on their hands. On the scale of royal rebellions, it barely registered. There had been a member of European royalty dabbling in satanic cults back then.
“Patrick and Rosie shared a common viewpoint on many aspects of this life. And that way of thinking can result in friction with other members of the family. But Patrick was important to Rosie. She would have loved her great-uncle to be at our wedding.” Johnny hesitated before he added candidly, “In the true meaning of family, he was the closest thing she had to a parent. It’s common knowledge that the king’s relationship with his brother was strained, but I’d like the cake design to include a special and specific nod to Patrick, even if it’s recognizable to no one but Rosie.” A faint smile. “Perhaps especially if it’s recognizable to her alone.”
Dominic waited for a moment, but Johnny seemed to have reached his verbal limits. “Nothing more specific?”
Johnny blinked. Then shrugged. “You’re the artist,” he said. Blankly, not pointedly. “I thought you’d know what to do.”
A longer pause.
“He did like bees,” Johnny offered thoughtfully.
Mystery spices. Berries. Bees.
And the most important underpinning fact: one hell of a paycheck.
Dominic closed his iPad cover with a snap. “I’ll figure it out.”
Johnny beamed.
At exactly 4:55 p.m., he left the Captain’s Suite. Right on schedule, he surmised by the satisfied expressions on every staffer’s face. The door was held open by one of the biggest human beings he’d seen outside of a Marvel film. Dominic was not a small man, but Johnny’s PPO was built like a fucking Airbus. Shaved head, smashed nose, a face so extraordinarily ugly it was conversely fascinating. He might have just walked out of Game of Thrones after single-handedly decimating an army. He looked Dominic dead in the eyes and didn’t say a word.
If it was Rosie who’d chosen her fiancé’s source of frontline protection, she wasn’t messing around.
Jeremiah and Arabella reappeared in the space of a blink and with no prior noise, thanks to either the thick pile of the carpet or teleportation. They escorted him back through the corridors. Just in case he was tempted to bundle a few antiques under his arm and make a run for it. Everyone kept efficiently checking the time and murmuring into phones. Presumably, the other name on the short list was also being shunted through the Cone of Silence at St. Giles this afternoon. The as-yet-unknown competition being kept carefully out of his path.
He still had a very strong suspicion as to the identity of his mystery rival.
He hadn’t heard so much as a whisper she was putting in a tender for this, and her shop floor wasn’t exactly a bastion of secrets.
But considering the personality of this particular bride, her presence on the short list wouldn’t be entirely beyond belief. Yet another what-the-fuck in a day that had also included scones with the consistency of schist and custard that fizzed on the tongue like popping candy—but just within the realms of possibility.
“Dominic De Vere!”
He looked up as a heavyset man in military uniform broke off a conversation and came toward him, hand extended.
An old acquaintance of his grandfather’s, whose name was either Bill, Will, or Gil.
Or Cyril. As opposed to Sebastian De Vere, who had rarely wasted words, Major General Cyril Blake was like a faulty tap once he started talking. Spilling out everywhere and impossible to turn off.
To the foot-tapping agitation of the bodyguard dolls, Dominic was still standing in the corridor at 5:32 p.m., when a second black-clad escort rounded the corner and he found himself face-to-face with Sylvie Fairchild.
They stared at each other against a background of stone-faced protection officers and Cyril moaning about his grandkids and the price of cheese.
Then: “‘Dragons. Good God,’” Dominic quoted in a drawl. “I knew it.”
Chapter Seven
De Vere’s
Twenty-Four Hours after Dominic Finally Escaped the Clutches of Major General Bill Will Gil Cyril
(His grandkids are still a disappointment to an old man.)
(Cheese remains expensive.)
The salt-and-pepper truffles—dark chocolate with notes of sea salt and chili—were a De Vere’s bestseller. They were also intricate to produce, mirror-glazed by hand and finished with a precise swirl of gold-tinted white chocolate. Dominic was halfway through a batch when he smelled a whiff of burning sugar.