Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

Mertons felt a disconcerting twinge. “Oh?”

“Aye. Stephen says she has the oddest accent.”

Oddest accent?

Stephen heaved himself to his feet. It wouldn’t hurt to give this new woman a recheck.

Cam grabbed her purse and flew to the stairs.

She didn’t know where Peter and the king were heading, but when she heard their footsteps fading in one direction, she padded down the hal in the other. Past the staircase, past Mercury and down into the models’ room, which—yes!

—Peter had left unlocked.

She closed the door behind her and ran to the windows.

She pul ed out her magnificent, butler-in-a-pocket iPhone and cal ed up the screen.

“NO SERVICE.”

Her heart fel .

“How do you intend to paint her?”

“Pardon?” Peter rol ed down his sleeves, stil lost in the heady reverie of the sitting. He felt as if he had been transported to the moon and back. With a silent sigh, he brought a hand to his nose and drank deeply of the scent of her hair. A hairpin was tucked safely in his pocket.

“The Spanish countess,” Charles said. “Wil it be mythological?”

“Mythological” was the king’s term for unclothed. The king’s question cleared the fog from Peter’s head like an icy wind. “’Tis a portrait,” Peter said cool y. “For her fiancé.”

The king’s eyebrow lifted, and Peter saw his gaze travel to the gray silk dress hung careful y from a hook on the wal .

“I know the king’s time is valuable,” Peter said, “and Stephen says your need is urgent. How may I serve you?”

“ ’Tis about the paper you asked me to sign today.”

“My solicitor assures me it is a mere matter of your official stamp, and the marriage wil be entered upon the record.”

“And the fact that Ursula is dead and buried is not a deterrent?”

“According to the law, if you make it so, the marriage wil be as if it had existed from the first. It is entirely legal, I assure you.”

“So with a scratch of the quil I make you a widower without your having ever been a groom.”

“Aye.”

“Peter, I don’t know—”

“Your Majesty was most generous to offer to do this for me. As I have explained, it is a wish I hold most dear.”

“It wil not bring her back, you know, my friend.”

“No … but it might let her rest in peace.” And me, he might have added.

The king clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out the window into the street below. “Peter, I should very much like to borrow the countess for the evening.”

Peter felt ice chil his bowels. “She is not mine for the lending. And there is the matter of the fiancé.”

The king smiled.“ ’Tis a minor matter. And you wil explain to her the benefits of befriending the English king.

Why, if she actual y happens to be Spanish, she’d be looked upon as a national hero.”

Peter’s vision darkened. “You are kind to offer your friendship, but this woman wil decline it, I fear.”

“My advisors tel me that this writ you wish me to sign, it is an unusual matter. There is the potential for embarrassment to the crown, the king gratifying the request of a friend.”

Peter thought of the endless series of grants and titles Charles made, and his bile rose. Charles had granted his lovers duchies. He had made their sons dukes.

“What I’m saying, Peter, is that I should feel far more accommodating after a relaxing evening with the countess.”

“It wil not be possible,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not with this woman.”

The king swiveled, the cunning on his face replaced by joyful surprise. “Peter, my dear fel ow! Have you yourself fal en?”

Peter’s face grew hot. Charles had seen him in his darkest despair and had used every resource at his command to divert Peter after he’d emerged, lifeless and wan, from his bed after Ursula’s death. But despite an offer to make any sort of eligible or even ineligible match, Charles had never been able to convince Peter to bury his sorrow in another woman. “I-I—”

“I should never stand between you and such an opportunity, my friend, even if it means dashing my own hopes on the rocks, and I might fairly add that you are the only man for whom that could be said.