15. Winnie

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WINNIE

Mum: Winnie, Ken told me that Barry called the council. I’m so livid! I can’t believe I ever considered them my friends. I was watching a doco on the telly about sociopaths and I think that’s what they are! They lured me in with their afternoon teas and chats over the fence and then bam! I know what they’re doing. They’re trying to take my house away from me so they can have it for themselves and fill it with their expensive, uncomfortable Scandinavian furniture!

Let’s see how High-And-Mighty Barry likes the doll heads I threw over the fence!

When do you finish your job again? I think I might need a little help. You don’t have to come in the house. I know you have FEELINGS about it, but just to drive some things to the charity shop for me? I promise that I’ve done so much work since you last saw it. You’ll be so impressed.

“ M y lord, you have a visitor—” Reginald pauses as he realises Alaric isn’t in the room with me.

“He found a box of coloured beads and got all inspired.” I shrug as I return to stacking boxes. “I let him go to his study for a bit. His fidgeting was disrupting the organising process.”

Reginald frowns at the Sleep Token riff blasting from my portable speaker. “And the buzzsaw coming out the speakers doesn’t?”

“Nope.” I grin. “By the way, thank you for saving those swords for me. I don’t think he’s ready to be rid of them.”

“I agree.” Reginald’s features relax, his eyes glazing over a little. He’s remembering something to do with Alaric and the swords . “The swords are important to him. I’ve stacked them in one of the cells in the dungeon for when you need them. Gideon Blake is here to move the loom. I’ll let him up.”

I decide not to concern myself with the mention of a dungeon. What a man keeps beneath his castle is his own business. “Okay, do you want me to tell Alaric or?—”

“I prefer not to disturb my lord during his creative pursuits.” Reginald retreats. “He tends to be a little…”

“Stabby?”

“Precisely.”

“Lord Valerian? I don’t believe it.” I grin. “Send up Gideon and his crew. I can instruct them.”

A few minutes later, Reginald reappears, sweeping his arm in a grand gesture. “Gideon Blake, may I introduce Ms. Winifred Preston, our professional organiser.”

“Call me Winnie.” I stand, brushing dust from my hands before offering it to the newcomer.

Gideon regards my hand with wry amusement. I don’t know what I expected from a loom mover, but it isn’t this immaculately dressed man with tousled golden hair and peacock blue eyes that sparkle with mischief.

“Gideon.” His eyes crinkle at the edges as he clasps my hand in both of his. His touch is cool, like Alaric, but he is wandering around the draughty castle in a silk shirt. “I heard you need your loom relocated, or is that code for ‘save me from Alaric the Cantankerous Count’?”

He says this in such a flirtatious way, with one eyebrow cocked, that I burst out laughing.

“No code. Lord Valerian needs the ballroom for his party.” I peer over his shoulder. “Where are your guys?”

“My guys? You think I have a retinue of manservants following me around, catering to my every whim?” He laughs again. “Unlike your Bad-Tempered Baron, I prefer to traverse my own whims. Much more fun that way.”

“I mean, where are the guys who are moving the loom?”

Gideon rolls up his sleeve, revealing elaborate tattoos of Renaissance artwork. He squeezes his bicep. “I’ve got two of these guys.”

I snort. “You can’t move this loom by yourself.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge? What do I win if I succeed? A kiss from fair Winifred?”

Who is this guy? And why does he talk about Alaric as if they’re friends?

Is he a friend? Does Alaric have a friend? And he chose this ?

I find myself re-arranging the picture I’d formed of Lord Alaric Valerian in my head.

“No kisses.” I fold my arms. “And you’re not attempting to move that loom yourself. It’s got to be against health and safety regulations.”

“Fine, but I’m going to make Alaric do most of the work. It’s the least he can do since the poxy bastard made me help him set it up in the first place.”

They are friends. Interesting.

I’m trying to imagine the scenario that brought Alaric together with this very un-Alaric-like man, but I can’t picture it.

“Alaric’s in his study, working on an art project,” I say. “I don’t want to disturb him, but maybe we can get Reginald to…”

Gideon isn’t listening. He circles the room, his eyes taking in the carved capitals on the marble columns that I’ve started to clean off, the corner of the marble floor we uncovered beneath the pile of tapestries, and the neat piles of boxes I’ve stacked in the corner ready to be taken to the skip.

“I’m impressed, Winifred Preston. When Alaric’s mother told me about this little party, I thought it would be a disaster. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a slow-motion trainwreck, especially when it involves certain members of certain royal courts. But with you at the helm, Allie has a chance to pull this off.”

Allie?

Allie?

I’m going to do a lot of mental adjusting to believe Alaric lets him get away with calling him Allie.

“I’m just the organiser. Alaric’s the one who’s done all the work.”

“Is that what he’s told you? Interesting.” Gideon rubs his chin. “Did he tell you that I’m his party planner?”

“No.”

I can’t even imagine Alaric hiring a party planner. I assumed that his mother was taking care of the details. Or Reginald. Or that Alaric planned to bar the castle gates and throw boiling pitch on anyone who tried to get in.

“You’re looking at the genius tasked with transforming this dusty room into a ball no one will forget. And now that I’ve seen the space we have to work with, I’m even more convinced this will be the event of the year.” Gideon tilts his head to the side, regarding me with those fierce blue eyes. “You should be my date for the ball. We’d turn heads.”

The butterflies in my stomach do a little cha-cha-cha. “Are you asking me?”

“I don’t need to.” He steps closer, his finger trailing a chilly line along my arm. “Surely you can feel the passion between us? This sexual fission just begging to be unleashed? When we dance at the ball, everyone will know we’re destined to be lovers?—”

“Gideon.”

I whirl around, jerking my arm away from Gideon. Alaric looms in the doorway, glittering beads stuck to the wool of his tailored jacket, his face a storm cloud.

Gideon either doesn’t notice or isn’t afraid of Alaric’s moods. He sweeps his arm across his body and bows deeply. “Allie, looking dapper as always. I was just chatting to your organiser about the ball?—”

“Winnie doesn’t want to go to the ball with you,” Alaric growls.

“Winnie is standing right here .” I plant my hands on my hips. “And she can make up her own mind about dates to the ball.”

Alaric’s face falls. Abject misery passes across his features. The sight of such raw emotion on his usual stony countenance startles me. But it’s gone in an instant, replaced again by a scowl directed at Gideon.

“Thank you for the invite, Gideon,” I say sweetly. “But I won’t be attending the ball. I’m not nearly fancy enough for an invite, and I’ll be back in London by then, anyway.”

“Such a pity,” Gideon sighs dramatically. He moves behind me, and before I can step away, he leans in close, his breath dancing over my earlobe. “You would have made a fine date. You smell divine, Winnie Preston. Like strawberries. That’s what I’m smelling. Ripe strawberries picked fresh from a summer garden. Is that what you smell, Allie?”

“Get out,” Alaric snaps.

“I can’t leave yet.” Gideon grins as he moves to the loom. He’s enjoying himself far too much. “I’m moving a loom. Winnie, darling, would you bend over here for me and undo that nut?”

Alaric looks like smoke is about to pour out his ears.

“You know, Winnie.” Gideon starts to unlock the clamps holding the loom together. “Some years ago Allie promised me – upon pain of an excruciating death by being buried alive – that I would never have to move this loom again. And yet, here we are.”

“I couldn’t have foreseen my mother throwing this infernal ball,” Alaric mutters. His eyes never leave me as he crosses the room to help Gideon with the pins.

“Having become intimately acquainted with your mother during the party planning process, I rather believe you should have foreseen this—are you helping me take apart this internal contraption, or making love to it? You’ll need to give that pin a bit of welly?—”

Reginald slips into the room and joins me as we stand in the corner and watch Alaric and Gideon curse each other out as they take apart the loom and march it, piece by impossibly heavy piece, to its new home upstairs. By the time Alaric lifts off the warp beam, his shoulders rippling and his features stoic, with not even a droplet of sweat on his forehead, I’m the one who needs the cold shower.

“I didn’t know Alaric has a friend,” I whisper to Reginald as Alaric and Gideon get into a bickering match over a scuff Alaric claims Gideon made on the marble column.

“I’m not certain Gideon Blake is someone you’d want as a friend,” Reginald replies.

“That’s okay. I’m not certain that Alaric knows how to be a friend. He looked so angry when he came in and all Gideon had done was joke about asking me to the ball.”

Reginald looks pained. “My lord has his strange little ways, Ms. Preston. I find it’s best not to question them. That way lies madness.”

But I can’t stop thinking about the way Alaric’s eyes filled with storms when he saw Gideon with me, or the pain that flashed across his features when Gideon said I smelled like strawberries. Could it be that I’m not the only one thinking about our kiss?

Does aloof, stony Lord Valerian feel something for me?