Royal Protocol Read Free Page A

her. Deliberately. Gwen caught the odd glint in Harrison’s eyes as he waited for her reaction. Refusing to give him the satisfaction, she bit her tongue, swearing she almost perforated it in the moments before he released his visual hold and pulled open the door.
    An instant later he was striding out down the long, wide hall, guards jerking to attention as he passed.
    The guard near Gwen remained stiffly still, his eyes straight ahead, his rifle at his side. Not until she started to close the door did he reshoulder the weapon in three motions as quick as they were precise.
    As he did, Gwen noticed the black holster resting against the red wool of his jacket. He was also wearing a side arm.
    It had been ten years since she’d seen armed guards inside the private residence. Normally they kept posts only at exterior doors.
    An old sense of loss, of anger, rose inside her. Uneasily, she pushed it right back down. She didn’t want to think about the events that had last required such tight security. Even though there never had been a sense of closure about them for her—or for her daughter—they were over and done with. They also had no part at all in what was going on now.
    Reminding herself of that, she let the latch click quietlyinto place and pressed her hand to her stomach. She would think only of the present. Of this moment. And at that moment, she could still feel an odd, lingering heat where Harrison’s fingers had gripped hers when he’d so abruptly moved her hand. Preferring to ignore the sensation, she drew a breath of air that still smelled faintly of citrus and something distinctly, boldly male.
    His aftershave.
    Even when he was no longer physically present, the man had the power to unnerve.
    Not wanting to think about him, either, Gwen headed for the desk, thinking about him, anyway.
    She’d had little occasion over the years to directly encounter the admiral, but she could swear that, on the rare occasions they did meet, he made a point of provoking her. She had no idea why that was. Nor was she going to waste energy trying to figure out his warped power-hungry psyche. She knew only that he was reputed to be frighteningly intelligent, obsessed with his job and position and impossible for any woman to land.
    Not that one would want him, she thought, heading for Mrs. Ferth’s painfully neat desk. The man possessed the sensitivity of stone.
    There had been no blood. At least none that was immediately visible, he’d said, oblivious to the mental pictures such doubt would put in a mother’s mind.
    She couldn’t believe the blunt way he’d responded to the queen’s request for information about her son. She couldn’t believe, either, that he would burden the queen about the alliance. Not that the queen wouldn’t be able to handle matters of state. The woman was enormously bright, well-read and far more politically astute than His Majesty tended to realize, or admit. It was just that King Morgan, though an eminently kind and wise monarch,wasn’t the most liberated ruler in the western hemisphere. To his royal mind, politics was man’s work. His queen was to tend their children and the plethora of women’s duties that kept Penwyckian arts, charities and hospitality the envy of the civilized world.
    She had the feeling the admiral was just as narrow.
    Frowning at how he invaded her thoughts, she automatically picked up a stack of lists near the queen’s personal calendar.
    She had planned to check the silver services for the state dinner with the chef’s captain that morning, and to meet with the royal sommelier about the wine, provided that she had been able to get a decision out of the queen. The chef had made his recommendations, but he needed Her Majesty’s approval to serve the Margaux with the fois gras, rather than hold it for the main course of filet with truffles. Aside from the queen’s uncharacteristic indecision, there was the matter of champagne. It was nonexistent.
    The cellar had been