Page 44 of Flirting with Forever

“Your king. We Scots have set our sights a wee bit higher, thank ’e. He may have that one,” she said, pointing to a far simpler vessel, “and the second-best brandy.”

Mertons dabbed the corner of his mouth with his fist. “Did Peter finish with that last sitter, then?”

“Finish with her?!” The cook’s eyes darted worriedly to Stephen’s.

“Well, I hope not, though the king could not have arrived at a worse moment. They had clearly, er, come to some sort of understanding.”

Mertons’s gaze went from Stephen’s private smile to the hand Morag now flung over her heart. He had made no calculation for a love affair, though if this was a continuation of something from the past it would be of little consequence. “Is the woman Peter’s mistress?”

“Mistress?” Stephen laughed. “I can barely get your cousin to converse with a woman, much less”—he stopped, evidently remembering Morag—“court her. The man is a monk. Has been, ever since Ursula’s death.”

Ursula? Who was Ursula?

Stephen lifted the salver and headed toward the hall. “Say a prayer the king’s visit is short.”

“The cheese has turned,” called Morag. “Start him on that.”

Mertons tapped a finger. How had the intelligence failed to include any mention of Peter’s wife? Such an oversight undermined an operative’s performance and added significant risk to the plan. The Executive Guild must have known, had to have known. They had probably been too concerned with stopping the tube hole to worry about an operative issue. The specifics of travel-craft were hardly their long suit. It certainly explained Peter’s dourness this past week, and it might also explain his disappearance this afternoon. He might have gone to her grave, for example, or another place important in their relationship—and neither of those were within spec, of that much Mertons was certain. Neither, of course, was a new love affair, though the log did show Peter holding weekly sittings with a number of women, and who knew what went on in those private rooms. It wasn’t as if the log was that specific. Nonetheless both the wife and lover were of considerable concern to Mertons, especially if the lover were not from his old life. Romantic intrigue was one of the hardest factors to forecast in time science. It emerged spontaneously, even in the most controlled environments. It could swamp a smoothly running calculation in a matter of seconds, and it left anywhere from a 3 to 19 percent wobble in even the most airtight forecast.

Which only corroborated what he knew from his own experience, since he himself had dropped like a ton of time-tube liners when he’d met his dear Joan, and what a trial by fire that had been.

“This woman upstairs,” he said to Morag. “Is she a new client?”

“So I’m to understand. I haven’t seen her, though Stephen says she’s the saint’s own image of Ursula.”

Mertons had to smile. He himself had a soft spot for a fine ankle, and he understood what it meant to follow type, even against reason. “It would be a good diversion for him, I suppose.”

“Oh, aye. A man needs a woman’s touch. Though I could have wished her an Englishwoman.”

Mertons felt a disconcerting twinge. “Oh?”

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

Oddest accent?

Mertons 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 hall 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 pulled out her magnificent, butler-in-a-pocket iPhone and called up the screen.

No Service.

Her heart fell.

* * *

“How do you intend to paint her?”

“Pardon?” Peter rolled down his sleeves, still 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. “Will 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 coolly. “For her fiancé.”