A Tale of Two Kingdoms (7 page)

He laughed. “I can no’ believe
you
said ‘ain’t’.”

“Got your attention, did it?”

“You always have my attention.”

“What a lovely liar you are, my love.” She turned to go.

“Like your hair that way, Mum.”

“Shut it,” she said without turning back.

“And that would be ‘she ain’t he’, no’ ‘she ain’t him.” he yelled after her and heard the muted tones of the bawdy laugh she reserved for when she was at home with family. She was already at the end of the long polished hallway, moving quickly with the resumed purpose of a woman who has a royal schedule to keep.

It had been over a year since Duff had first seen Aelsong Hawking sitting with her back to him in a pub in the shadow of the Balmoral Hotel. Since then he’d only seen her twice and, of those three encounters, had only been alone with her once.

He’d given Elora Laiken a chance to talk to her hothead husband and get him to lay some groundwork, or whatever her plan had been. He’d given the times a chance to change and, while some of the younger fae were definitely making noises that they didn’t really see the point of the hostilities, there was no catalyst. No motivation sufficient enough for either side to move off dead center. There wasn’t even a reason to talk about it.

The following day Duff had a mid-morning appointment with the Director of Communications. On the way back into his office he stopped to spin the giant globe that sat between the window and fireplace in the outer office occupied by Grieve. It was one of those objects that regularly failed to capture notice because of the combination of its familiarity and lack of use. On that particular day, however, something about the blues, greens, and yellows was captivating.

As the sphere rotated deosil, his eye was naturally drawn to Scotia, sitting atop the islands of Britannia to the north. Looking down at the top of the world, from his vantage point, he watched as the tundra of the cossacklands seemed to go on forever before coming to a small break where the Bering Sea separated continents. As rotation continued, he was reminded again of how drastically a flat map distorted the representation of size and space relationships on the Earth’s surface and that Canada’s land mass was immense.

As he was thinking just that, he reached out and stopped the globe with his large fingers under the word ‘Canada’. His eyes moved to the right. He knew that people often talked about the severe Canadian cold, but Edinburgh, the city in which he was standing, was further north than every major Canadian city. Cold was not a Scotia fae’s biggest problem.

He spoke to Grieve without turning around, allowing his eyes to continue to move over the uppermost band of North America: Newfoundland, Quebec, Ontario.

“Grieve.”

“Sir.”

“What do I have for the rest of the day?”

“Lunch at the Ministry of Finance. The king said to mark that one mandatory. The Royal Mile Tourist Commission will be here at three to petition you for permissions to use various national monuments for the stagin’ of events.”

“Hmmm.”

“Photographs with royal scholarship recipients at four.”

“How long will that take?” Grieve blinked as if he didn’t fully grasp the question. “Without the usual dawdlin’.”

“Without dawdlin’, perhaps fifteen minutes.”

“So done at four-fifteen then?”

“Aye.”

“Call Pey and tell him I need to see him today. In a professional capacity. My office. His office. Dinner. I do no’ care. Tell him I’m buyin’ and tell him I’ll no’ be takin’ no for an answer.”

“May I ask how long an appointment you’ll be requirin’, your Highness?”

“I need a half hour for business, but would linger over dinner with port and cigars after if he has time. If ‘tis to be dinner, reserve my table in the wine cellar at the club where we could talk without bein’ overheard. Oh, and, Grieve…”

“Aye, your Highness?”

“Ah, never mind.”

A couple of minutes later Grieve knocked lightly on Duff’s office door and poked his head in.

“Mr. Innes says he can get a mutton quickie past his mate if ‘tis early enough, but ‘twill be safer to forego port for a better excuse. Yule perhaps.”

Duff chuckled. “Tell him six then. Call the kitchen at Highlander and have them to do up a mutton saddle with roasted potatoes for the pair of us and have it ready to serve at six fifteen.”

“Very good, sir.”

CHAPTER 2

Glen closed the phone as Rosie opened the door of his office and strolled in smiling. She was wearing a backpack over her shoulder that was girlie-looking, made out of something like bronze satin, kind of vintage, kind of cute. Everything about Rosie was kind of cute except her nymphomania. And that was definitely hot.

“You ready?”

He looked at his watch. Three o’clock. Right on time. “Aye, my darlin’,” Glen said with his very best attempt at an Irish lilt. Rosie laughed and nodded toward the door in a gesture of, “Let’s go.”

Glen had promised Elora he’d get to the bottom of the cause of the Elf Fae War four months before. He didn’t like making excuses about the delay, but a few things had come up: Animal House, filling in for Sol, a major search and rescue operation for the real Storm with simultaneous makeover for a Storm pretender, Rosie… well, Rosie, aliens trying to demolish Jefferson Unit on his watch, and Sol dying having left him in charge and without naming a real replacement.
Criminently!

A lesser person might have succumbed to a nervous breakdown, but he, the Great Glen, had managed to manage. More importantly, he emerged with the best lead so far. He’d promised Elora that he would pursue it as soon as he could get away for a week or so. Now the week was at hand. Jefferson was put back together. The people who had converged on J.U. from every corner of the globe to pay their respects to Sol had all returned to their respective stations of duty and things were quiet.

He was going to get away for a few days with his girl and do the Lady Laiken the favor of a secret mission at the same time. Of course it didn’t hurt that his girl was first class transportation personified. Just the sort of companion needed for an impossible journey such as the one on which they were about to embark.

He had a very fine evening planned beginning with a ride through the passes, courtesy of his very lovely date, to Doolin, Ireland, where they would eat pub food at Gussie O’Connor’s until they were ready to burst at the seams, see how many pipes and fiddles could cram into one pub on a fine Irish night, then snuggle together in a warm bed at Mrs. McGann’s, thousands of miles away from where either of them was expected to be. Perfect.

Everything about Glen’s first night in Ireland with Rosie was as wonderful as each of them had hoped it would be.

When they woke on their first morning after having slept together, Glen found out that there were a lot of unusual aspects to having a girlfriend like Rosie. He snuggled close to give her a morning kiss.

She turned her head and said, “Ew. No. Morning breath.”

He said, “I don’t care,” and started to gather her close when she simply disappeared out of his arms. “Hey! No fair!”

He heard her giggle in the bath when the water came on. They were lucky to get a room with a bath. He threw back the covers and stood up, intending to stomp after her and show her who was boss, but was stifled by a gasp. The shock of the cold air in the room momentarily froze him in place. He looked down and realized that his privates had shriveled to miniature replicas of themselves and decided that he’d rather not present himself to Rosie in that condition after all.

She opened the bathroom door and looked at him with a question on her face.

“Cold,” was all he could offer.

She laughed at him. “Get in the bed, big baby. I know how to fix that.” Gently pushing him back under the covers, she eased her body on top of him. “You
are
cold.”

He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

“How can you possibly be so warm?”

As she began moving her body back and forth over his, creating the most delicious friction, she kissed the hollow of his throat, raised up and gave him a smile that was erotic and evil at the same time. “Maybe I have hellfire and brimstone in my veins, just like the Dante myths.”

The light that originated behind his eyes was trained on her like a beam and made her catch her breath. She was sure that what she was seeing was what love looked like.

“Maybe, but it feels like heaven. So I don’t care. Just keep doing that.”

As he slid his ice cold hands over the cheeks of her exquisitely curved derriere she jumped straight up with an, “Eek!”

He laughed, grabbed her around the middle with both arms and rolled her onto her back. “You got something for me?”

“Thanks to your magical womanly warming techniques, I
do
have something for you. You want it?”

She grinned. “Only if you can manage with no hands.”

“No hands, huh?”

“Let me see what I can do about that.”

The people in the room next door, who would have liked to sleep for another hour, might venture to say that Glen was a capable companion with or without hands. At least from the sound of things.

The cliffs were so windy Glen was afraid Rosie was going to blow right off. He supposed she could manage even if that did happen, but he was having to consciously work to stay upright.

He thought she was a good sport to agree to combine an investigation with a getaway. Of course there was always a chance that his lead was another dead end, in which case he would have to say that the only thing he had to show for his trouble was a fine few days with his sweet Rosie and some very happy balls. Though he would certainly omit the last of that when he reported to Rosie’s auntie, the Lady Laiken.

The weather had turned cooler than normal and they had rummaged through the backpacks to layer clothes. The plan was for Rosie to transport herself out to the distant island, barely visible in the mists, so that she could spot the entrance to the fabled Ogram’s cave where the hermit was purported to live. If she could find it, she would return for Glen and they would go together.

It was a plan custom designed to deflate a young man’s ego, but it was also the most practical so Glen had to agree that sense trumped pride.

“Back in a flash.”

She gave him a big kiss on the cheek and was gone. It only took Rosie a second to locate two shadows that could be possible targets. The first was only a shadow. The second was a cave, but only three feet deep. However, once at the entrance to that cave, it was possible to see another that was entirely obscured by a limestone lip that curved downward from a shelf above. It matched the description Glen gave her. She switched on the light, did a quick sweep, and went back for Glen knowing he’d be anxious.

He jumped when she materialized next to him, but at least didn’t yelp. Thankfully.

She looked serious and started to shake her head.

His shoulders slumped a little. “Okay, well, it’s just…”

She grinned. “It’s there. Come on.”

“What?”

He didn’t have time to switch gears before he was standing inside the head of the cave.

“This is it, right?”

He couldn’t see Rosie’s face because the light was to her back.

“I think so.”

He fumbled in his pack, retrieved a contraption with duct tape sticking out everywhere, and secured it to his head. Rosie was fascinated and hadn’t yet decided whether she was going to laugh or worry.

“What is that?”

Glen made an adjustment on his forehead and then switched the thing on. The cave was flooded with light. “Oh. I didn’t like any of the ‘head lights’,” he used air quotes, “on the market. This gives us a good six hours. It’s a bike light. Nice, huh? A NiteRider 350, and a… um, jock strap. Look at that.”