The Gentleman

  “Knock knock,” Jolie said as she appeared behind the door, pushing it inward. “How’s my sister today?”

  I was doing sit-ups on the floor beside my bed. “I’m feeling good. Better than I did yesterday.”

  “Well, don’t overdo it,” she cautioned before pulling out a white box from behind her back, which she handed to me with a wide grin.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a present.”

  “What’s inside of it?”

  “Why would I tell you that?” she asked with a laugh. “Defeats the purpose of wrapping it.” She dropped it on my lap. “And, besides, I don’t know what’s inside it.” I glanced up at her curiously. “Dureau asked me to give it to you.”

  “Couldn’t he deliver it himself?” I muttered. I wasn’t that annoyed with him, though, considering he had gotten me a gift. Jolie just shrugged as if she didn’t have any response, and I placed the white box in my lap. When I lifted the lid and removed the white tissue paper, my eyes grew wide at the beautiful sea green fabric. I stood up and pulled out the floor-length gown before both Jolie and I gasped in unison.

  “Oh, my God, it’s absolutely gorgeous!” she said.

  “Are you sure he got this for me?” I asked as I faced Jolie. I was completely in shock.

  “He handed it to me and asked me to deliver it to you,” my sister answered with a shrug. “So, I’d call that a safe yes.”

  “This just doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered as I glanced down at the gown where I spread it out on the bed.

  “There’s a card in here, look,” Jolie said as she pointed to the box. I reached down and picked up the envelope, which I opened before pulling the card out.

  I cleared my throat. “Please accept this gift, and if it pleases you, wear it tonight. I’d like to take you to dinner. Best, D.C.”

  “Apparently, he’s asking you out on a date,” Jolie said.

  “A date?” I repeated with a frown. “How can he even consider a date while everyone around here is preparing for Luce’s attack? Never mind he hasn’t visited me once!” I shook my head. “This is just so weird.”

  “I don’t think you should look a gift horse in the mouth,” Jolie answered.

  “Well, it’s hardly right for him to be asking me out, much less for me to accept when I should be plotting our strategy with you,” I argued as I shook my head. “My focus should be fastened on the imminent war and not on silly gowns and even sillier dates.”

  “One dinner won’t change anything,” Jolie answered. “Besides, all battle planning aside, you still have to eat.”

  “I’ve wasted enough time as it is,” I retorted. “I’m sure there must be lots of information that you still need to tell me. I appreciate that you haven’t bothered me with any of it during my recovery, but now we need to make up for lost time.”

  “Bryn?”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to go to dinner with Dureau?”

  “No. Yes.” I shook my head. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe isn’t a good enough answer.”

  “I don’t have a good enough answer.”

  “Well, if your guilt is the only thing keeping you from accepting his dinner request, then you should definitely go. If you don’t want to go because you’re just not attracted to him and you don’t want to lead him on, then that’s another situation altogether.”

  “How did this situation escalate so quickly?” I asked, shaking my head and trying to ignore the butterflies that were spiraling in my stomach. “He asked me out to dinner. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “And he bought you a gorgeous and, ahem, sexy dress to wear for him. I’d say that means quite a bit.”

  “Hmm,” I started, unable to argue her point. I still hesitated though. I recalled how he came to me and helped lead me out of my head. That alone endeared him to me. He’d also been there for me as a young girl, giving me the necessary strength to endure Luce and his sadistic torture. That also made him special. “Do you think two people can share a connection before they even know each other?”

  “Do you feel that kind of connection with Dureau?” Jolie responded, eyeing me with keen interest.

  “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”

  “What’s nothing?”

  “Dureau was the one who used to visit me in my dreams when I was a teenager. And he was the only one who could save me from my own head.” I took a deep breath. “We must share some sort of bond—it’s hard for me to explain.”

  “I believe it’s possible, and it seems like that’s exactly the case between you both,” my sister answered, her eyes still wide—probably after having learned that Dureau was the man from my dreams. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe it. “You have a bond although you don’t know each other well.”

  “Yeah,” I answered, even though I still wasn’t sure what to make of it. Or not to make of it.

  “So what will it be? Yes? Or no?”

  “Do you promise me that first thing tomorrow morning, you’ll brief me on everything I’ve missed?” I asked as I eyed her narrowly.

  “Cross my heart and hope to …”

  “That’s good enough,” I interrupted her. Then I added, “Looks like I’m going out on my first date.”

  ***

  When I walked into the living room at ten minutes to seven p.m., I was alone. Dureau carefully instructed me to meet him there at seven, and I was early so it was no surprise that he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I busied myself by pulling out the leather-bound books from the library and dusting them off. So far, this undertaking was not very interesting.

  My mind inadvertently kept returning to Sinjin. When he’d left to tell my sister I was awake, I never really thanked him for all his vigilance and care toward me. Now, that weighed heavily on me. I mean, I thanked him, but I failed to let him know how much his watchfulness really meant to me. And now, I wondered if he were avoiding me. I couldn’t think of any other reason why he would have disappeared and never returned. Now that I was ambulatory again and pretty much restored to my former self, I intended to find out.

  Tomorrow.

  In the meantime, I was eagerly awaiting Dureau’s arrival, mainly so I could find out what he wanted from me. If he were interested in me romantically, he had a really strange way of showing it. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t know what I wanted, only what I didn’t want. Having never dated anyone or participated in any sort of a relationship, I wasn’t even sure how to respond.

  “You look strikingly lovely.” A deep voice caught me from behind, and I whirled around to face him, feeling suddenly very self-conscious.

  “Thank you,” I replied as my cheeks burned with embarrassment. This just wasn’t me. This dress, this so-called date, this everything. I was a warrior—never designed for this sort of crap. So why did a part of me secretly like it so much?

  Dureau moved toward me. His brown hair, square jawline, and slender nose were aristocratic—and from what I understood about his lineage, that was exactly what he was. His eyes glimmered with specks of gold when they gazed at me, but there was something else there too. Admiration? Maybe. Attraction? Certainly. Normally, such intense interest from anyone would have made me uncomfortable, but with Dureau, it didn’t feel quite as weird as I expected.

  “What is this?” Hearing Sinjin’s voice at my right side, I turned to face him, although his expression was not only surprised but equally angry.

  “I am accompanying the princess for an evening of fine dining,” Dureau answered immediately. “With her gracious consent, of course.”

  “No, you are not,” Sinjin responded angrily. He hastily approached me and examined my dress, which fit me like a second skin and outlined every curve. The bodice was cut so low, the sides of my breasts were visible. I cleared my throat and tried to close the bodice more securely, but the fabric wouldn’t yield.

  “Sinjin,” I started.

  “Sinjin nothing!” he snapped as he glared at me and gr
abbed my hand, pulling me beside him. “I do not trust this man; and as your protector—” he began.

  “A protector? I must say, you did a fine job of extricating her from her own mind,” Dureau interrupted. His tone was acidic and his eyes narrowed.

  “Dureau,” I started in the same warning tone I used with Sinjin.

  “The means by which you managed to free her shall forever remain a mystery to me,” Sinjin replied. “But I shall also be eternally in your debt now that you have done so.”

  “Then pay your debt to me by minding your own damn business,” Dureau retorted.

  “It is my sworn duty to protect the queen and her kin,” Sinjin seethed as he stepped in front of me. “In honor of that pledge, I refuse to allow Bryn to leave with you.”

  “If that’s true,” I blurted out, anger lacing my words, “then where the hell have you been for the last week?”

  He sighed audibly. “I have been attending to matters of business.”

  Dureau approached us both and stretched out his hand to me. “Bryn, our dinner awaits us.”

  Stepping out from behind Sinjin, I forcibly pulled my hand away from his. “I’m fine, Sinjin,” I assured him, even though my voice was weak and hollow. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

  Sinjin didn’t say anything but stood his ground as he glared at Dureau before his angry eyes met mine. “If you leave with this man now, I will consider you no longer within the confines of my protection henceforth,” he announced.

  “That isn’t fair.”

  “The world is not fair!” he roared back at me. “But the facts do not lie, and I can scarcely perform my job successfully if you insist upon impeding my performance of it.”

  “What does that even mean?” I demanded.

  “It means that if you leave with this stranger now, I cannot and will not offer you my protective services moving forward.” He cleared his throat. “I cannot be expected to perform a job successfully if I do not have control.”

  “She doesn’t require your services when she’s with me anyway,” Dureau interjected icily as he pulled me toward the front doors.

  “It’s okay, Sinjin,” I said as I glanced at him one more time over my shoulder. But he was nowhere to be seen.

  As soon as we were outside, Dureau took my hand and kissed the back of it, lifting his eyes and asking, “Are you okay?”

  “I am. Thanks.” His masculine scent swirled around me, making me slightly lightheaded. I had to hold onto his arm as we continued. “I don’t know what to say about Sinjin. I can’t really make any excuses for him.”

  “And you don’t need to,” Dureau answered. “He cares for you obviously.” I wasn’t sure why, but his comment unnerved me and I didn’t respond. Dureau hesitated, searching my face. Something about him was definitely alluring, mysterious and yet comfortable. The way I felt with him was very different from how Sinjin made me feel. Whenever I was around Sinjin, I seemed more alive. My body was teeming with feelings I scarcely understood, but Dureau provided something calmer and … easier maybe. It was also something I thought I might be able to get used to.

  “Do you care for him?” he asked at last.

  “Sinjin?” I said, sounding almost taken aback. I didn’t wait for Dureau to respond. I shrugged. “Sure, I mean, yes, of course I do.” I took a deep breath as soon as I thought about what that meant. “In my own awkward, weird way.”

  He laughed. “There is nothing about you that is awkward or weird.”

  I realized that my hand was still sitting comfortably in his, so I retracted it. At the same time, I moved my eyes from our hands to his face again.

  “Shall we?” he prompted, and we started forward as he led me to a waiting black Porsche Cayenne, which was parked inside the double gates of Kinloch Kirk.

  We sat down quietly and buckled up our seat belts as Dureau drove through the gates and onto the main road. For my part, I wondered what to say. I wasn’t exactly sure what Dureau and I were. Friends? Were we more than that? Did I want more than that? Was I capable of more than that?

  “Thank you for guiding me back here,” I started in a small voice. “Back from that empty space in my head. I didn’t think I’d ever get out.”

  He nodded and offered me a handsome smile but didn’t say anything. Before I knew it, we were pulling into an empty dirt parking lot that looked like the trailhead to some type of hiking path. “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Surprise!” he answered as he put the car into park. Turning off the engine, he opened his door, moving over to my side momentarily. Then he opened the door for me, and I smiled at him in thanks. When I stepped out, I glanced down the walkway and saw a dilapidated, crumbling visage of what was once an impressive castle, no doubt.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  A fog had rolled in and around the structure’s warm-colored stone walls, and beyond the ruins, I could see the silvery, disturbed ocean in the moonlight, foaming white as it crashed onto the cliffs below.

  “This is Slains Castle,” Dureau replied as he escorted me into what was once the vestibule of the grand castle. Now, it was no more than broken wall segments with large picture windows that once looked out at the troubled sea. As I glanced around, I found stone stairways that led nowhere, stepped brick walls and crumbling turrets.

  “Slains Castle,” I repeated as he led me through one room and into another. There, I noticed a blanket spread out on the ground. Atop it were plates, glasses, and a large, covered basket.

  “Slains was built in the sixteenth century,” Dureau continued as he motioned for me to take a seat on top of the blanket. I acquiesced with a smile, being careful to tuck my dress beneath me before I sat down. He walked behind me and took off his jacket, draping it around my shoulders, and I nodded at him to say thanks. “And it has hosted some very famous guests,” he added. “As the legend goes, Bram Stoker was once invited here.”

  “Bram Stoker?” I questioned.

  “The author?” Dureau filled in. “Of Dracula fame?”

  “Oh, really? Wow,” I replied in surprise as I watched him remove the top of the basket before pulling out a bottle of wine. He held up one glass and filled it with the purple elixir, handing it to me. I accepted it as I watched him fill his glass.

  “The chronically dark, foreboding sky stirred Stoker’s curiosity. He based it more or less on the nobleman who owned the castle and walked through its cavernous, candlelit hallways but only at night. This very location provided most of the inspiration for Dracula’s castle, along with its eccentric master, of course.”

  “You know a lot about Scottish history. I thought you were from France?” I replied.

  Shrugging, he handed me an appetizer plate before reaching into the basket and pulling out a plate of what appeared to be figs. He handed the plate to me, and I eagerly helped myself.

  “I tend to lose myself when I research historical places,” he answered with another shrug. “I suppose you could call it a hobby.”

  “I like hearing about it,” I answered with a smile as my attention fell to my plate. “What is this?” I asked.

  “Figs stuffed with goat cheese,” he answered. Reaching deeply into the basket, he brought out a small salad of arugula leaves which he placed in front of me. Then he carefully arranged a piece of bruschetta beside it, mindful of keeping the errant tomatoes in place. “I thought we might like to dine a la tapas,” he quipped with a broad grin.

  “I’ve never had tapas before,” I answered. “But I definitely like it.” Then I glanced down at my gorgeous dress, which seemed completely useless and cumbersome. I knew it would hinder any fighting I might have to do. The way it clung to my curves left me little room to breathe, much less perform as the master warrior I was trained to be. But as soon as the thought entered my head, it exited again. I knew I was safe with Dureau. It was a feeling that wholly consumed me though I didn’t understand why. There was just a bond, something between us that insisted as much.

  “I can o
nly wonder about your choice in my clothing for tonight; don’t you think it seems a bit out of place?” I asked.

  He nodded and laughed. “I just wanted to see you in a tight dress instead of camouflage and combat boots!”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that reply, but I smiled politely all the same. Taking a generous bite of my cheese-stuffed-fig, I allowed my mouth to relish the sweet and salty flavors, a real luxury. I swallowed the bite down with a healthy swig of wine. “How did you manage to set all of this up before we got here?” I asked.

  He cocked his head to the side. “Oh, to be honest, I had a little help on that one,” he answered. “Betta was willing to do it … for a price, of course,” he added with his signature, charming grin.

  For the next hour, we talked about all kinds of innocuous subjects and ate our tapas. I drank two whole glasses of wine. Feeling quite buzzed on the way back to Kinloch Kirk, a nagging sense of dread began to settle like a rock in my stomach. I wondered how our evening would end. Would Dureau try to kiss me?

  “You don’t have to worry about doing anything you don’t want to do,” he said as he glanced over at me from where he sat behind the wheel.

  “How did you know what I was thinking?” I asked, privately shocked.

  He laughed. “It’s written all over your face,” he answered. Then his dynamite smile left his face and he appeared slightly wistful. “I realize this is a difficult time for us,” he started with a sad expression. “And now is not the time to indulge in whatever exists between us, although it has been brewing now between us for a very long time.”

  “What has been brewing between us?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know exactly, but I daresay that you must feel it too?”

  I was quiet for a few seconds. “Yes, I feel it too.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Well, for what it’s worth, the reason I brought you here tonight was to confess my feelings and ask you to be patient. For now, I believe you will agree with me that our focus and undivided attention should be entirely on Luce. We have to be prepared for whatever is coming around the bend.”