Royal Protocol (16 page)

“You’re the one running the show,” she said, nodding toward the doors as he had done. “Shouldn’t you be inside with Her Majesty and the suits?”

Dangerous. The way she looked at him, her eyes luminous with gratitude, had him thinking of her and the pillow again. And a bed. And tangled sheets. “I’m not running anything. I just got it organized.”

Holding his beret loosely by its rim at his side, not trusting the direction of his thoughts, he gestured with his free hand toward what she gripped in front of her. “What’s left on your schedule today?”

The easy way he dismissed his own importance caused her to overlook the fact the he needed something again. This was a man who commanded Penwyck’s entire navy. He headed the RET. At the moment, Penwyck’s one million citizens were at the mercy of his advice to the queen. She couldn’t imagine that he regarded all that power as simply doing a job.

Yet, that was exactly the impression she had as he waited for her reply.

“I have an appointment to check the silver for Saturday evening.”

“How long will that take?”

“Two, maybe three hours.”

“To check silver?”

“We have settings for five hundred,” she explained. “Each fork, knife and spoon, each caviar knife, every
candelabra, serving platter and salt cellar has to be inspected to make sure there is no trace of silver polish or tarnish.”

“Can someone else do it?”

“The queen usually supervises herself. I promised I’d take care of everything.”

Of course she had, he thought. There wasn’t much of anything that wasn’t landing on those slender shoulders at the moment. “After that?”

“I have a meeting with the florists doing the table arrangements and one with Mrs. Ferth about the seating. And I want to stop by to congratulate Monsieur Pomier. I heard he tracked down enough champagne.”

“He was short?”

“It’s a long story.”

Part of him actually wanted to hear it. The other part, the part he was more familiar with, insisted he get to his point. “The seating is what I want to talk to you about. We need to add fifty guests.”

The look she gave him said he had to be joking.

The look he gave her back said he was dead serious.

With a slow blink, she tipped her chin. “Do you have any idea what that will do to the seating arrangements?”

“Change them, I imagine.”

“You have a gift for understatement,” she murmured dryly. “Who would these guests be?”

Other than the guards, they were the only ones there. But he wasn’t about to take any chances on being overheard. Curling his fingers around her arm, he moved her away from the huge bushy palm and farther down the hall. Beneath his hand he was aware of the quick tension in her small, supple muscles. Mostly he was aware of the freshness of her scent and the quiet breath she’d drawn when he’d reached toward her.

Lowering his hand as well as his voice, he murmured, “Security.”

She stood in front of him, her blue eyes guarded, her notebook between them. The coolness he’d seen before was gone, but not the propriety their surroundings demanded.

There was passion beneath that decorum. The thought of discovering just how deep certain of those passions might run conjured images of slowly stripping away the clip from her hair, her jacket from her shoulders, her skirt from her hips. She favored lace. He remembered that because it was the delicate fabric edging her bra that had distracted him in the queen’s drawing room only days ago.

Remembering what he’d done to conceal it, and how soft and firm her flesh had felt, he sucked in a breath of bated frustration.

“I’ll need a chart of the seating arrangements myself. We’ll have to change whatever the seating plan is now to accommodate personnel. Don’t worry,” he muttered, suspecting his voice sounded as tight as his body suddenly felt. “They’ll look like guests.”

He didn’t doubt that, a few short days ago, Gwen would have thought his request totally unacceptable and probably, promptly told him so. It was a clear indication of how far they’d come that her expression revealed little beyond concern. “We can’t just arbitrarily move the invited guests. There is an order at each table. By rank and title,” she hurried to explain.

“That’s where you come in.” The thought of having his hands on her refused to go away. But it felt safer than thinking about the empathy he still felt for her. Desire he could understand. The other simply felt dangerous. “I have no idea what that protocol is, but we know you do.”
Distance, he thought. That was what he needed. “You can help with the new arrangements.”

It had taken days to put the original chart together. To rearrange the whole thing now would have given Gwen a headache of monumental proportions had she actually been thinking about the work involved. With Harrison’s focus intent on her mouth, she was having trouble thinking at all.

As his glance drifted down her body, it was almost as if he were imagining how her body would fit his.

“Admiral. Sir.” A young member of the Royal Guard bounced his self-conscious glance from her to his superior’s profile. “Pardon the interruption, but you said to let you know the moment your car arrived. It has, sir.”

Harrison’s eyes remained on hers. “Thank you, soldier. Tell my driver I’ll be right there.”

“Sir,” came the acknowledging reply.

“So,” he said, as if he hadn’t just mentally stripped her bare. “Do you want to set up a time now or call my assistant later?”

“I’ll have to call her later.” Her forehead pinched. “Fifty?”

“Fifty.”

“This could take all night.”

That was what he was afraid of.

G
wen had been under the impression that she would be working with the RET on the seating arrangements. With Colonel Prescott, perhaps, since he was in charge of intelligence. Or with Duke Logan, since he was a member of the Royal Guard. She thought for certain she would be working with Harrison and had found herself looking forward to the possibility with more anticipation than was probably wise—until she called his assistant and realized that nothing about the little project was as straightforward as it had seemed.

Harrison had failed to mention that the chart couldn’t remain where it was. He’d also failed to mention that she would be knocking heads with the hard-nosed and humorless General Franklin Vancor, Commander of the Royal Guard, who was in charge of all palace security.

The general had a definite problem with the concept of teamwork. It was as apparent as the annoyance in his
beady brown eyes that he hated having to defer to her, a mere lady-in-waiting, when it came to where he could and could not put his personnel. He knew where he wanted his people. Yet he refused to tell her why a particular position at a table was so important. She, on the other hand, generously offered reasons for why such placement wouldn’t work—explanations that had earned her either a snort or a look of barely restrained disgust.

Mercifully, the man she’d been sentenced to work with had just left for dinner. A very late dinner, he’d pointed out, making it sound as if it were her fault the project was taking so long.

As she stood in the tunnel conference room where she had met the RET just yesterday, all she cared about at the moment was that he was gone.

The bad news was that he’d be back.

In the meantime she needed to figure out where to put the other half of his guards.

The seating chart for the state dinner to be held Saturday evening measured four feet by six feet and was actually a map of the ballroom. Positioned on that map were cutouts to scale, representing ten long banquet tables, and five hundred small white cards on which had been written a number and the name of each guest.

The cumbersome chart had been removed from the ladies’ office late that afternoon, and now took up most of the mahogany table.

Her first task had been to reconstruct the whole thing.

Ignoring the headache brewing behind her eyes, she contemplated her handiwork. The tables had been lengthened to accommodate the security personnel, and seating cards had been replaced according to the notes Mrs. Ferth had meticulously taken before Gwen had allowed the
chart to be carted away. Security personnel were represented by small red squares.

Twenty-six of those markers had been placed between guest cards. The twenty-four squares in her palm still needed a home. But noting everything she’d already noted solved nothing, she thought—and tried not to groan when she heard the click of the security latch on the door behind her.

If it was Vancor she was going to cry. She really didn’t want to have to deal with his chauvinism anymore tonight. By comparison her father was a feminist, and Harrison had been the epitome of cooperation since day one.

The thought of Harrison had no sooner entered her mind than the hairs on the back of her neck prickled with recognition. Even before she turned, she knew it was his glance moving over her back.

When she did face him, she found his carved features remote despite the ease of his manner.

“The guard told me you were still here.” Looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else, he closed the door with a muffled click. “I thought you’d be at dinner by now.”

Her life seemed to be crawling with men destined to make her uncomfortable. The thought that this particular one had come when he figured she might be gone had her turning self-consciously back to her task.

Of all the options she’d contemplated, she hadn’t considered that the reason she’d been working with the head of security was because Harrison had wanted to avoid working with her himself.

“I want to get this finished. I’m expecting a call from Amira tonight and I don’t want to miss it.” She’d thought his defense of her that morning might actually have meant something. Feeling foolish because she’d actually hoped it had, she absently rubbed her temple and tried to
focus on her task. “We still have twenty-four personnel to position.”

“That’s what Vancor said. I just ran into him.” Walking up to where she stood at the table, Harrison casually picked up a lone red square that had fallen from her stack and slanted her a glance. “You must be giving him a hard time.”

Gwen almost choked. She’d been beyond polite to the man. She’d been downright tolerant. “He told you that?”

“Not exactly,” he conceded. “What he said was that he could have had this finished in no time if he didn’t have to work with you.”

Harrison expected her chin to come up, her expressive eyes to flash. Instead, he was struck by the dullness in those liquid blue depths when her fingers fell from her temple.

“I think he’s having trouble accepting that he can’t just arbitrarily seat people wherever he wants them.”

She looked tired, he thought, and frowned back at the chart. He didn’t want to notice things like that about her. More than that, he didn’t want it to matter.

Mostly, he really wished she hadn’t been there. Or, that he didn’t have to be.

“I don’t doubt that. Trying to make personnel unobtrusive at an event like this always hamstrings an operation. But I’m pretty sure he was thinking more along the lines of how you’re distracting him from what he’s trying to do.”

Give me a soldier to work with,
the guy had grumbled.
Give me someone in a uniform. Give me someone I can swear around,
he’d groused.

“I’m not trying to distract him from anything,” she insisted, oblivious.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“What I am trying to do is get him to understand that protocol is just as important as security. He’s the one who isn’t being cooperative,” she defended, praying she didn’t sound as cranky as she felt. She was as tired as everyone else. Having missed dinner, she was also hungry. Neither contributed to a placid disposition.

Aware of the vague distance in Harrison’s manner, she wasn’t exactly feeling welcome at the moment, either.

“The man doesn’t explain anything.”

“That’s because he’s accustomed to issuing orders rather than taking them. The men he commands do what he says, no questions. You,” he concluded, checking out the little white cards, “ask questions.”

“I can’t do my job without information.” Truly at a loss, she shook her head. “Unless he’s insinuating that I’m trying to interfere with placement of his people,” she ventured, trying to imagine the workings of the man’s mind, “I can’t see how he regards questions as a distraction.”

From the corner of his eye, Harrison glanced toward her profile. She looked exasperated and bewildered, and completely innocent of how easily she could crawl under a man’s skin.

“Is that it?” she quietly asked, apparently taking his silence for confirmation. “He thinks I’m trying to sabotage this by not letting him put someone I know nothing about between an earl and his wife?”

“Gwen.” Harrison’s tone went as flat as the floor. He had no idea how the female mind worked, but hers was getting her farther off base by the second. “That’s not the kind of distracting I’m talking about. He’s just not accustomed to working with someone like you.” She was a beautiful, desirable woman. Interesting. Intriguing. She
elicited all manner of feelings in a man, everything from lust to the need to defend. None were comfortable.

Hesitation entered her voice. “‘Someone like me?”’

He wasn’t about to go into detail. “He’s accustomed to dealing with his men. Not civilian women.”

“Oh,” she murmured, and glanced back to the chart.

Harrison frowned back at it himself. He didn’t care for the odd knot curling in his gut. He had nothing against Vancor. He just didn’t like the thought of the old goat finding her as distracting as he did. He didn’t like that he’d left her there alone with the guy for the past five hours, either.

Possessiveness was definitely new to him.

“I take it that these red things represent security personnel?”

“They do.”

“We need at least two there.”

“That’s what the general said,” she replied, his displeased expression making her cautious. “But everyone there carries a title. I haven’t been able to figure out who we can put a stranger between or who to move to another table.”

“They’re all couples?”

“Not all. That’s making it a little easier to work in your personnel, but it would be a lot easier if I knew how you’re planning to explain these people. I can’t put just anyone between a crown prince and a president, but the general wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

“They’ll all use a cover of diplomat. Their story is that they’re part of Penwyck’s diplomatic corps.”

For the first time since he’d walked into the room, Gwen turned to look up at him. Her eyes looked as blue as a summer sky, her expression completely devoid of
the caution that had been there from the first moments he’d closed the door.

“Why couldn’t he have told me that?”

“He doesn’t want their cover blown.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He knew she wouldn’t. He also knew that standing there staring at her was not a good idea. Not as alone as they were. “He doesn’t know you the way I do,” he said, and turned back to their task.

“Why don’t you move these two?” He tipped his head to see the writing. “Lord and Lady Ashcroft,” he read. “There are open spaces at the table next to them.”

His confidence in her had been spoken as a simple matter of fact. Something that simply was. That same practical approach marked his manner as he tried to make sense of what she was doing with all the little cards.

Determined to be as focused as he was being, she considered the spot he was talking about. “We can’t put the Ashcrofts there. The lord likes his champagne, and the couples that would be on either side of them never touch a drop.”

“So he needs to stay at a party table,” he concluded.

She couldn’t help the hint of relief she felt. Partly because his considering expression removed some of the distance from his handsome features. Partly because his reaction hadn’t been a snort.

“What are the green dots for on some of the cards?”

“Green dot designates a vegetarian.”

“And the blue one over there?”

“That’s the Duke of Rothbury. He’s diabetic. They’ll replace the lemon sorbet that will be served as a palate cleanser with a sugarless version for him and leave off the chocolate-dipped strawberry to be served with the puff-pastry-and-crème-fraîche swan for dessert. It’s easier
on his wife than her having to nag at him not to eat it.” She shook her head, her pity for the poor duchess evident. “He gets to visiting and will eat everything in front of him,” she confided, “including the garnishes. He’s really not very good about his diet without her.”

“Would it be a problem moving the Ashcrofts over there?”

“Oh, we couldn’t possibly do that. That would put them between their oldest daughter’s ex-in-laws and the parents of the baroness who stole her husband from her.”

Beginning to understand another reason Vancor had become so frustrated, he muttered, “I see.” She’d probably defeated every change the general wanted to make. “I don’t suppose that would be politically correct.”

“No,” she agreed, more grateful than he could imagine at his grasp of the situation. “Unfortunately, it wouldn’t. We really do need to keep them at this table.”

“So who can you move?”

Reaching past him, she picked up a white card and replaced it with a red one. “Now that I know what role the security personnel are playing, I can slip them in just about anywhere. Here.” She held out some of her squares. “Find Ambassador and Mrs. Bingham and Monsieur and Madame Lebeau at table three. We can put one between them. We’ll move the negotiators from Majorco in with some of the gentry from England. That should keep them from talking about the alliance all night and allow space for a security person.”

Harrison took in her quiet assuredness as she spoke. The chart, he realized, was actually a carefully designed battle plan not at all unlike something he and his commanders would organize and strategize over during training games. As he studied the neat rows of markers, he
began to appreciate the logistics behind every decision she made.

Gwen’s understanding of the needs, personalities and personal quirks of the guests was undoubtedly indispensable to the queen. Had it not been for the way she was leaning across the table, he might have considered just how valuable it was to him at the moment, too.

She’d reached to move a square, but he wasn’t watching where she put it. His attention had fixed on her narrow waist where her jacket stretched snug with her reach, and the gentle roundness of her hips.

Realizing where he was staring, even more aware of what the view was doing to certain parts of his own body, he silently swore to himself.

“What time is your daughter to call?”

The question had her pulling back to glance at her watch. “In an hour. If you can okay the placement of your personnel, this shouldn’t take but a few more minutes.”

He could do that. It was what he’d come to do, anyway. Get in. Get the job done. That had been his goal tonight. It still was.

Determined to distract himself in the meantime, he located the cards he was searching for. “How is she?”

“I’ve only talked to her once since they arrived in Scotland, but she’s so excited to be there.” Genuine pleasure slipped into her expression. It lit her face, her eyes. “It’s her first trip away,” she explained, putting another square into place. “But you probably already know that. The men who interviewed me about Prince Owen needed to account for all occupants of the palace, so where she is went into their report.”

He hadn’t read those particular reports himself, but
he’d heard where her daughter was. “You have to be relieved that she’s not here right now.”

“Enormously. With all that’s going on, she’s much better off where she is.”