Improper English (13 page)

“I am not anal, I simply have an important report due on Monday. My work is such that I must be available to act at any time. Perhaps you Americans are unfamiliar with such a thing as a dedicated work ethic, but I assure you I am not.”

“Oh, let’s start flinging nationalistic slurs about, shall we? Then try this on for size, Mr. No Sex Please, We’re British. I was married to a workaholic who spent damn near every single moment of the day working on ‘important’ projects, and I can tell you from experience the only reason people like you spend all day, every day working is because there is nothing else to fill your lives.”

“There is also an RAF War Memorial on the hillside,
as well as the John F. Kennedy Memorial.”

A silence heavy with unspoken anger wafted forward from the back seat, finally followed by a low, “I’m here. What more do you want from me?”

“Many people are unaware of the fact, but the actual ground the Kennedy Memorial stands upon was given to the United States by the queen in 1965.”

“A dubious honor,” I snapped at Alex, turning toward the front and staring out the window at the passing scenery.

“Do you think so? I thought it was a rather generous gesture.”

I stared at Karl. “What? What’s a generous gesture?”

His gaze flickered to the rearview mirror. No doubt he was noting Alex’s childish behavior. I shrugged. I certainly wasn’t going to make any more excuses for the man’s rudeness in going on a sightseeing tour and ignoring all the sights.

“It doesn’t matter, Alix. Now, just ahead is—”

I turned back to glare at Alex one last time. He ignored me, his fingers flying over the black keys of his laptop as he frowned at the screen. “What a pain you’re being! You’re going to miss all of the good historical stuff if you keep your nose buried in that laptop all day.”

“—Eton, famed for Eton College, where generations of noblemen, royalty, and politicians have been educated. If you are writing about gentlemen who were well educated in the early nineteenth century, you’ll want to look at Eton. Many of the upper class were sent here.”

Alex didn’t look up at me, not even a glance my way to acknowledge that I was speaking to him, but his jaw made a tight little movement that made me think he was
grinding his teeth. I smiled and returned my attention to the area we were passing through.

“This is very pretty,” I said to Karl as we zoomed past a quaint little town. “I can’t wait to get to Windsor and see the historic sites. I love history, you know, and since I plan on writing lots of historical romances, this trip is the ideal research opportunity for me, so be sure to point out all of the important stuff. I don’t want to miss one single thing, no matter how many party-poopers are along with us.”

“I am not a party-pooper,” came clearly from the back seat. I ignored him just as he had ignored me.

“So, Karl, can you tell me anything about this area? It looks old. Anything of interest around here?”

Karl shot me a quick, steely look, then returned his gaze to the road. “Erm…no. We’re almost to Windsor. I’ll just find a car park, and we can walk to the castle first, if you like, then explore the town.”

“Sounds fabulous,” I agreed, leaning toward the window until I had Alex in the side mirror. He was glaring at the back of my head. “Doesn’t it sound fabulous, Alex?”

He turned his glare back to his laptop. “I’m sure you’ll have a pleasant time. I will wait for you at the Fort and Firkin.”

I craned my head around to look at him. “The what?”

“It’s a pub,” he said without looking up.

“Here we are in historic Windsor. Alix, to your left there you’ll see St. George’s Gate and the southeast face of the castle. We’ll park there, see the castle, then stroll down through the town afterwards.”

I spent a moment in awed appreciation of the sight Karl was pointing to. The gate was a tall, two-story
squared-off archway that was dwarfed on the right by two huge round towers, and further on by a block of square towers. Each of them had a face of tightly set stones, arrow slits, and beautifully arched windows. I was in heaven. “Wow, that’s so fantastic! It looks just like a real castle!”

Karl chuckled as he whipped into a parking stall. “It should. Windsor Castle has been standing for nine hundred years.”

The sight of the castle drove from my mind all thoughts of Alex’s frustrating refusal to join us—until he muttered something about meeting us later and started to stalk out of the car park with his satchel slung over one shoulder.

“Hey! Wait just one minute there, mister. Where are you going?”

Alex ignored my bellow and continued walking. I glanced over at the castle entrance. There was a line of people waiting to get in. “You get in line, Karl, and I’ll go snag Detective Spoilsport. Won’t take me a minute.”

“Alix, if he doesn’t want to come with us—”

I waved away his objection and started off after Alex. A little ahead of him, coming toward us in a solid chunk of humanity, was a group of about twenty tourists following a woman in a snazzy blue blazer with the name of a tour company embroidered over her left breast.

“Drat the man and his long legs,” I huffed as I trotted after him, then turned around and yelled back to Karl, “Of course he wants to come with us, he’s just being difficult. Men get like that all the time. You buy the tickets, and we’ll be right there.” I turned back and resumed my trot. “Alex, dammit, stop pouting!”

Twenty yards ahead of me he stopped, his shoulders
slumping briefly as I ran up to him. The tour guide halted next to a black metal fence a few yards away and hallooed up her stragglers. I ignored them as I prepared to grovel.

“Come on, I know you’re in a bad mood, but just look at that!” I waved my hand behind us at the magnificent sight that towered over everything. Several of the tourists started taking pictures while they waited for the rest of the group to gather. “Look, Alex, it’s Windsor Castle! It’s nine hundred years old! It’s positively
oozing
with history! You can’t miss that!”

He whirled around to face me, his mouth open to issue a refusal. I put a hand on his arm and gave a little squeeze, trying to stop the words before they were spoken, ignoring as best I could the tremendous jolt of pleasure that shot through me at the feel of his bicep beneath the thin material. “Alex, please don’t go off in a sulk. You’ll have time to work later, I promise. It would be a shame to miss Windsor.”

His gaze held mine, his eyes so brilliant they looked like onyx set in emeralds, but his face was all angular planes, his jaw held tightly. I knew then with absolute certainty he was going to refuse to come with me.

“Please,” I whispered, leaning closer in hopes he would see how much I wanted to spend time with him. “It won’t be the same if you’re not there.”

He glanced over to where several of the nearest tourists were watching us interestedly. The muscles under my hand tensed as he tried to tug his arm away, but I held tight. “You’re making a scene, Alix. Although that doesn’t seem to bother you at all, I’m not used to public displays.”

I refused to let him sidetrack me with inconsequential
issues. I took a step closer until my breasts brushed the soft green of his shirt. “Please, Alex.”

“Karl is very knowledgeable. You’ll enjoy your visit to Windsor with him.” His gaze never left my face. I threw every bit of emotion I had into my eyes, hoping he could read the sincerity in them.

“Yes, he is knowledgeable,” I agreed. “He’s also very smart, and a nice man, and I like him, but, Alex—he’s not you. I want…” My breath caught as I realized that despite my earlier claim, I was making myself vulnerable again, giving him another chance to break my heart. I couldn’t help it, though, I had to say it. I just wished there wasn’t an audience of tourists watching. “I want
you.”

“Vhat did she say?” a soft Germanic voice asked.

“She said she wants him.”

“Who wants what?” A third, English, voice asked. I kept my eyes on Alex, refusing to be distracted, refusing to let him slip away from me.

“That woman wants that man,” the second tourist, also a woman with a German accent, informed her companions.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a middle-aged woman with faded blond hair raise a camera and snap a picture of Alex and me. I hoped his peripheral vision wasn’t as good as mine.

“Ah. Lovers they must be,” the first woman said.

Alex’s jaw clenched again at the words. I tugged him away from the tourists, back toward the entrance to Windsor Castle, but he halted after about twenty feet, spinning me around to face him. I held out a hand to forestall his objection.

“I meant what I said, Alex. I’m sorry if you think I’m
making a scene, but I thought you would like to know how I feel. I thought it was important. I just want you to know how much I want to be with you.”

His eyes had darkened, the thin black waves of color radiating out from his pupils seemingly absorbing the surrounding green. “Do you know what you’re saying? Do you understand what it is you’re really asking of me?”

I didn’t, not truly. I didn’t know anything other than that I wanted to be with him desperately, but I knew, in some dim corner of my mind, that if I let him go now, I’d never get him back. My fingers tightened on the thin cotton of his shirt sleeve. Just touching him made me feel better, made me feel more complete. “Yes, I do. To both questions. I understand.”

Alex shook his head as his eyes went darker, sending my heart plummeting to my sandals. He was going to turn me down again. I didn’t think I could take it, not three times, not with the man I wanted so much I could feel him in my blood.

“I don’t think you do understand.”

My breath stopped, my heart stopped, the
world
stopped while I stared into his eyes, braced for the
coup de grace
. He leaned forward until I could feel his breath fan out over my face.

“But you will.”

He traced my lower lip with his thumb as I stood there blinking in the morning sunlight, staring at him, staring into his eyes and hoping to God I hadn’t misheard him.

“Alex, I—”

He smiled then, a real smile, not the polite parody he’d worn as a mask earlier. This was a true smile, one that made his eyes sparkle and two faint dimples appear in his cheeks.

“Ah, look there, is that not pleasant? The man is kissing the woman who wants him. It’s good, yes?”

The cameras clicked as I allowed Alex to make a spectacle of us in public.

We trekked all over the parts of Windsor Castle open to tourists—with the exception of Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, which the men refused to visit—seeing more history than I could possibly take in. There were moats filled with gorgeously landscaped gardens rather than stale, stagnant water; gargoyles and statues on the beautiful St. George’s Chapel; a huge Round Tower that wasn’t really very round; and a rather austere quadrangle that bordered the Royal Apartments. It was a huge site with an upper, middle, and lower ward that seemed miles apart as we walked under the broiling July sun. By the time we finished the tour, we were all dragging, and went to the pub that Alex had recommended for lunch and a couple of rounds of liquid refreshment.

We toured briefly through the town of Windsor itself, but by then there were so many tourists about, it made walking the cobblestone streets (authentic, but uncomfortable in heels) unpleasant.

“It’s a darn shame,” I grumbled to Alex as I clutched him while balancing on one foot in order to shake a pebble from my sandal, “when I’m in one of the oldest civilized spots in England, a place so soaked in history that everyone around the world knows its name, a town that for nine hundred years has been the residence of the reigning monarch, and what do I see?” I waved my hand at the street ahead of us. “A McDonald’s, a Starbucks, and a Pizza Hut all on one street.”

“Global village,” Karl said as he passed by us on his
way to the river where we were going to watch the swan upping.

“I don’t believe that’s quite what the term is meant to imply, but I agree with the sentiment.”

Alex waited until I put my sandal back on, then slid his arm around my waist as if he had been doing it for years.

“Smooth move,” I said softly to him, enjoying greatly his little possessive display.

“I thought it was,” he replied, with only a slight twitching of his mouth.

I may be naïve at times, but I am not completely clueless; it was evident that something of importance had passed between us earlier when we were emoting for the tourists. I had asked him for something and he had given it, changing the entire nature of our relationship, but…well, I guess I
am
completely clueless, because I wasn’t quite sure what the terms were that I had offered and he accepted. I didn’t waste my time worrying over it, however. Experience has taught me well that the fates always saw to it that, sooner or later, the rules were explained. I just hoped they got around to it before I had to leave Alex and go home to face a life without him.

“I know not what to do, my lord—my mother, the Lady Ermintrude, has forbidden me contact with you in order to force me into marriage with the loathsome and ancient Sir Wenceslaus Lecher-ffokes, the man who has wedded and buried seven wives. Should my mother catch you here now, in my bedchamber, while I am in a state of undress and you are exhibiting your manly form to much advantage by having donned nothing more than a pair of skin-tight buckskins and a billowing soft linen shirt that is unbuttoned and displaying such hirsute sights as to make my maiden’s cheeks blush, why, she would not hesitate to call her lover, Captain Montague, he who is the Queen’s champion and expert par extraordinaire with both swords and pistols, in order to challenge you to a duel over my honor, and oh, my lord, after you survived that last duel over just that, I could not bear for you to suffer the same again.”

“Rowena! What are you doing here? I thought this was your mother’s room!” Lord Thomas cried, holding aloft those masculine columns of banded steel that were his arms in order to keep Rowena from launching herself onto his handsome and virile person.

Rowena gasped and paused in the act of throwing herself in his arms, cut to the quick, nay the very marrow of her bones by Lord Thomas’s rejection of her. Her heart shattered and dissolved into tiny, infinitesimally small fragments that would never, ever be whole again. She clutched her hands to her bosom, breathless and on the verge of a swoon as the razor-sharp agony cut through her very soul when she realized that Lord Thomas had been toying with her, leading her on, making cruel sport of her all the while he had no intention of fulfilling the many, many wicked promises made by his treacherous, if finely chiseled and manly to the extreme, lips.

“Oh, perfidious traitor!” Rowena cried. “Oh, soulless wretch who would cruelly tease and torment an innocent and comely maid such as myself! Oh, that I should never again have to cast my eyes upon your rampant stallion waiting at the door!”

“The depth of your subtlety overwhelms me,” Alex piped up from the back seat.

“What?” I asked, turning around to glare at him. Who did he think he was, criticizing my lovely story?

“Hmmm?”

“Don’t you cock that delicious eyebrow at me, mister. You know what.”

The frown wrinkling his brow smoothed out as he tapped away industriously at his keyboard. “I have no
idea what you’re talking about. I am innocent of all things.”

I snorted in disbelief. “Oh, be quiet and do your work so we can enjoy Hampton Court. What did you think of it, Karl?”

“Oh, me? What did I think? Is that what you asked? What I think?”

I nodded even though I knew he wouldn’t see it, Karl’s eyes being firmly fixed to the road ahead, his lips (nowhere near as finely chiseled and manly as Alex’s) turned down at the corners.

“To tell you the truth, Alix, I don’t read that sort of book, so I’m not the best person qualified to give you an opinion on it.”

I waved away that paltry excuse. “It doesn’t matter if you read romances. What I want to know is whether or not the prose is vivid enough, if it brings a picture to your mind, if you can really
see
the characters. Anyone can give their opinion on whether or not they think the writing is good.”

“Ah. Well…” Karl’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “Ah…oh, look, here we are at Hampton Court already.”

“How providential.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, turning around in my seat to glare at Alex.

“I’m sorry, I can’t talk to you now, I’m working,” he said, his fingers dancing over his laptop’s keyboard.

“Hrmph.” I turned back to Karl and caught the vestiges of a smile passing between the two of them. Men. They’re so childish. “Karl, I want to know what you think, and I want to know now. I’m not getting out of this car until you tell me.”

He chanced a quick glance at me and sighed. “Give me a moment to find a parking spot.”

I could have sworn I heard a soft “Delaying won’t do you any good,” from the back seat, but when I looked, Alex was still busily typing away.

Five minutes later I pinned Karl to the wall, metaphorically speaking. “So?”

He took my right hand in both of his. I watched his lips move as he spoke, and wondered why Karl could hold my hand, stroking the top with one hand, and rubbing my fingers with the other, without stirring the slightest bit of feeling other than the desire to tell him to stop waffling and get on with what he was going to say, whereas the slightest brush against Alex’s hand sent waves of heat billowing over me. He had actually given me goose bumps once or twice at Windsor when we were walking and inadvertently touched.

“—so my thought would be that you might want to add in a bit more description.”

“Huh?” I recalled my mind to where it was supposed to be. “You think I need more description? Details, you mean?”

“Take that scene you just read to us. You describe the gentleman’s billowing shirt, but nothing about where the two people are standing, whether it was hot or cold, what their surroundings were like, how they were feeling—say whether they had a toothache, for example. People in that time had terrible dental hygiene, and many of them lost most, if not all, of their teeth by the time they were into their early thirties, so constant toothache would not be out of the question.”

“Oh.” Toothaches? He wanted me to give Rowena bad teeth? No romance heroine ever had bad teeth! Or body
odor, for that matter, it just wasn’t heroine-like. “Description. OK, I can see what you’re saying. Maybe talk about the environment a bit more? Like if it’s raining or something?”

“Exactly,” Karl said with obvious relief. “And now, Hampton Court awaits, my lady. If you will avaunt this way, I shall be delighted to escort you to the royal apartments.”

I looked back to where Alex was tucking his laptop away in the leather satchel. “How come
you
never talk like that to me?”

His raised eyebrow spoke volumes.

Where Windsor Castle was magnificent and awesome in its size and strength, Hampton Court was seductive and elegant. We joined the queue and took the tour through the many rooms available to the public, including a visit to the Tudor Kitchen that inspired me to think about writing a medieval romance. In the Georgian Rooms there was a demonstration of Georgian dancing, which was a bit early for my book, but fascinating nonetheless. By the time we’d spent three hours tootling through the palace, we were dragging. There was one more thing I
had
to see, however.

“Come along, gentlemen,” I said, heading off in the direction a sign pointed. “We have to see the maze. No lagging, now! We’ll have a maze race.”

I stopped and looked back to where the two men were plodding along slowly.

“Alix, it’s sweltering out, and we’ve walked at least twelve miles today, so why don’t we leave the maze for another time?”

I frowned. “The maze is famous, Karl! Famous! Everyone
visits the maze. I didn’t come halfway around the world not to visit the famous maze! So get those loins girded, and let’s get cracking!”

Alex veered to the left. “There’s a restaurant over there in the old tiltyard—why don’t Karl and I wait for you there while you see the maze?’

I felt like stamping my foot, but decided it would look too petulant. “You don’t understand. The fun in seeing the maze is seeing it
with
someone. I read about it in a London tourist paper—you’re supposed to make a bet with each other to see who can make it through the maze first. I can’t race myself, so one of you is going to have to come with me.”

Alex looked at Karl. Karl looked back at Alex. “You wanted her, you can take her through the bloody thing,” Karl said.

I stood, frowning, while Alex looked me over. He looked hot and grumpy, but that was no excuse for what he said next. “I’ve changed my mind. She’s all yours.”

“Alex!”

“No, no, I wouldn’t dream of usurping your place,” Karl said, backing away and holding out his palms as if Alex was going to dump me on him. “According to Alix, you’re the one who peeled her knickers off, so she’s yours by right.”

“Hey!” I made the meanest eyes possible at Karl. He ignored me.

Alex rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he cast a longing glance at the restaurant tucked away behind a tall hedge. “I haven’t actually claimed her as such, so technically, she’s open to all comers.”

“ALEX!”
I shrieked, garnering attention from nearby tourists. I lowered my voice to a hiss and walloped him
on the arm. “You have too claimed me—not that I’m a possession to be claimed, mind you, but you have nonetheless, even if we discount that night when all of the underwear peeling was going on, so there’s no technicality about it!”

Alex grinned at me, an act that stopped me right in the middle of my rant.

“You’re attracting attention again, Alix.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m going to make you pay for this, Alexander Black, just you see if I don’t.”

He laughed—he actually threw his head back and laughed at my threat—but at least he took me by the hand and started off toward the maze while Karl made a beeline for the restaurant. I waited until Alex’s laughter had run down, then asked him what he wanted to wager in our maze bet.

“It’s traditional that the winner stand the loser a round of drinks at a pub.”

An idea occurred to me as he spoke. I examined it for a moment, decided it was feasible, it was good, it was meant to be, and pulled him to a stop outside the gate at the maze.

“That’s a bet for wusses,” I said, trying to keep the gleam of anticipation from my eyes.
To catch your victim, first you must bait the trap.
“Why don’t we make a real bet? Something that matters?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Step into the parlor, my little fly.
“Well,” I drawled, glancing at the opening to the maze. I had always been very good at paper mazes, and the maze at Hampton Court was nothing more than a three-dimensional version. It was almost a done deal that I would beat him through it. “I thought we could each have our own wager
, a boon to be given by the loser. For instance, if you wanted me to buy you a round of drinks if you win, why then, that would be my boon to you. If I win, however”—my eyelids half closed seductively—“you would grant me a different boon.”

His eyes glittered at me.
Go ahead, my sweet, you know that curiosity is driving you wild. Ask.

“And what boon would you ask of me should you beat me through the maze?”

Ah, my darling, the possibilities I have in mind for us
.…I put a finger to my lips in apparent thought, then donned my best cat-into-the-cream smile. “If I win, you will spend the night with me.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“All night.”

His eyes turned dark.

“Naked. In my bed. Doing whatever I want you to do.”

A slow smile curled his luscious lips. “Very well,” he nodded, “I agree to your boon.”

I blinked at him, startled by the ease with which he agreed. I figured I’d have to force him into accepting my terms. “Oh. Well…that’s good. Shall we go? First person to the center wins, or first person to the center and out wins?”

He put a hand on my arm to keep me from entering the maze.

“Just a moment—you haven’t asked what I want from you if I win.”

I leered. “Does it involve well-oiled, naked flesh?”

The smile reached his eyes. “No. It doesn’t.”

I pretended to pout. “Your loss. So what boon do you want from me if you win, not that it’s likely you’ll win, mind you, ’cause I’m really good at mazes?”

He pulled a strand of my hair from where it had plastered itself to my hot forehead. “I believe I will reserve the right to declare what I will ask as a boon until I win.”

I frowned. “That’s not fair. I told you mine, you have to tell me yours.”

The two faint dimples appeared in his cheeks. “Afraid you’ll lose?”

“No, of course not. I just told you I was good.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”

He had me there, blast his delectable hide, but I didn’t have to like it. I stuck my hand out and he gravely shook on the wager; then we decided that the first person to the center and out of the maze would win. I stood for a moment before the maze opening, my eyes closed, my senses attuned to my surroundings, hoping for a bit of psychic guidance. It was hot even in the shadows cast by the tall hedges of the maze, and the sheer numbers of tourists trekking through the gardens and maze made it impossible to catch any scent of flowers or plants, but I did my best to commune with Mother Nature.

I hit the maze running at full speed, dodging around clumps of people as they stood laughing and calling to one another. I made a couple of wrong turns at the beginning, but by the time I worked my way through to the center, I was confident that I made up for my errors with my speed. Even if Alex got all of the turns right—which would be impossible—I was still faster than he. I dashed toward the exit, whipping around corners and bumping into one or two people, trailing apologies behind me as I planned just exactly what I would do to Alex when I had him in my bed.

He was waiting for me at the exit.

“You…what?…hey, you…cheated…” I panted,
grasping a nearby bench to keep from collapsing in the heat. He looked a bit hotter than he had before, but he wasn’t even breathing hard. “You…didn’t go…in…”

“Shall I describe the heart of the maze for you?” he asked, another one of his Cheshire-cat smiles gracing his lips.

“Yes,” I snarled. He did, including the description of two elderly tourists into whom I had almost run. Twice. Dammit, he
had
been to the center and back before me.

“All right,” I pouted, visions of a lovely, smut-filled evening evaporating in the warm amber of the afternoon sun. “Fine. You win. What’ya want from me?”

He held out his hand. I thought about refusing to take it, but I liked holding his hand too much. I held on to my pout, however, as he tugged me toward the nearby restaurant. “I want you to go to dinner with me.”

I peered at him, every nerve screaming a suspicious warning. “Just dinner? With you? Where?”