Chapter Seventeen
When Chey walked into her bedroom, the first thing she smelled was food. Elise hovered over the cart, pulling off lids to platters of roast chicken, salad and steaming vegetables.
“Elise, you're a Godsend. That smells heavenly.” Closing the door, Chey toed off her shoes and approached the small table near the window.
“Mister Mattias had your dinner delayed until you were ready and said you might appreciate a hot bath. So I ran you one.” Elise transferred the plates to the table. “Wine, water or coffee, Miss Chey?”
“Wine, please. A whole glass.” She thought drinking straight from the bottle sounded fantastic, but didn't want to scar the staff with her heathen habits. She fell into a chair and slouched, rubbing her head with her fingers.
Elise uncorked the bottle and poured, then set the glass on the table. She peered down at Chey like a hen at a newborn chick. “If you would like the bath first, I can recover all this and wait.”
“Thanks. No, I'm all right. Just a lot on my mind.” She picked up the glass, still feeling odd about people waiting on her in a private setting. At a restaurant, one expected it. Here, Chey felt conspicuous and strange.
“I'll just put the clean towels out and then I'll go,” Elise said.
“That would be great.” Chey picked at her food while Elise disappeared into the bathroom.
“It is terrible what happened to you at the ruins. I am so glad you are okay.” Elise's voice echoed off the tile.
“So am I. What a nightmare.” Chey set down her fork and picked up the wine again. She had several long sips.
“Do you have any injuries? Should I bring more ointment?”
“No thanks, Elise. I'm fine. Just a few minor scrapes. The scare was the worst part.”
“I've been to the tower room. Just once. I never wanted to go back. It is scary by itself, is it not?”
“It's not pleasant, I'll say that.” Chey set down the wine and propped her elbow on the table. She knew she needed to eat, but her appetite was waning quickly.
“There, everything is set out. Just ring if there is anything else, Miss Chey.” Elise paused at the door to smile.
“I will. See you in the morning.” Chey returned Elise's smile, though hers felt more hollow than she meant it to.
Elise departed with a quiet click of the latch.
Once she was gone, Chey picked at her food for another fifteen minutes. She managed to get enough down to stave off hunger pains over night and covered the rest with lids.
Lighting a few candles in the bathroom, she sank into the jacuzzi tub, flipped on the jets, and soaked for a while. Her mind raced with questions and suppositions, discarding one idea for another. It was maddening and disconcerting, the constant buzz of activity. She couldn't shut her thoughts down at all.
By the time she crawled out of the tub, she was wrinkled and her skin was pink. Still, her mind revolved around Sander and his request that she at least think about staying and giving them a shot to work it out.
Too restless to sleep, she pulled on jeans and a simple zip up, velveteen shirt in pink. After sliding on socks and shoes, she departed her room for a walk. Glad to see the hallway empty, she decided to head downstairs to the gallery and the portraits lining the walls. Passing several guards, she returned polite nods and wondered at something vague that kept niggling her mind. It was one of those things she couldn't pinpoint for the life of her yet persisted enough to pose a distinct distraction.
At least until she reached the gallery. It was a long hallway on the main floor with paintings of Ahtissari ancestors dating back centuries. All the Kings were on the left, the Queens and children on the right. Crossing her arms over her chest, she began meandering along the corridor, taking her time with her study of each one. The archways leading into parlors and libraries and other formal rooms were dark at this time of night, the guests of the party long departed.
Several feet from a dark sitting room, she heard the low thrum of voices. Pausing, she cocked her head to see if she heard it again. Maybe she was imagining it. A moment later, the voices resumed. Taking a few steps closer to the doorway, she tried to make out the words. They were male voices, no doubt about that.
“So just how well did you look after her, anyway?” Sander asked with a note of curious caution.
Chey caught a gasp before it could slip free.
“Does it matter?” Mattias answered.
“It does if there are feelings involved.”
“She's a unique woman. I'm not sure she realizes her own appeal,” Mattias said.
“Did you kiss her?” A harder edge entered Sander's voice.
“Not once. But I thought about it a time or two.”
Shocked, Chey covered her lips with her fingers. Mattias wasn't hiding the spark that had flared between them. She would have preferred to brush it under the carpet and forget it ever happened.
“And Chey? Is she interested in you that way?”
“There was a mutual attraction—is—a mutual attraction, but it was never more than that. You needn't worry, brother. I'm not going to attempt to win her from you.”
Chey had half a mind to interrupt them. She wanted to tell Sander that yes, there had been a mutual attraction, and yes, she had wondered what Mattias wanted from her. More than anything, she wanted to tell him that after the canoe trip, she'd consciously put a block up between her and Mattias. Not just that...Sander had become the focus of her attention and interest. She wanted to confess that in the tower, on the stairs, for those few terrifying seconds after the gunshot, she'd been stricken with fear that Sander had gone down instead of the attacker.
“A wise choice. We have a chance, her and I, and I mean to put us both to the test. I'll crush anyone who stands in my way.”
“Spoken like the true heir to the throne,” Mattias said. Wryness could be detected in his reply.
“Don't act like you wouldn't do the same. We all know your 'relationship' with Viia is, and has been, a complete farce.” Sander scoffed. The clink of ice in a glass followed.
“It has kept mother off my tail for an entire year. We can't say the same about you, can we?” Mattias laughed a devilish kind of laugh. “Speaking of which—good luck with that.”
“Mm.” Sander hummed agreement. “What's worse, is her father and mother want the match, too. I believe he is going to petition father for an official marriage decree.”
The woman Sander had gone to see. Whoever she was, she must belong to a powerful family. Chey frowned. Her assessment that things would be difficult for her and Sander was truer than she knew.
“If that's true, Dare, you might as well send the little photographer home and forget about any designs of courtship.”
“No. This time, Mattias, I will at least give myself a shot to see if I can have something close to normal with Chey.”
Chey straightened and took two steps back from the edge of the doorway. She'd heard all she needed to hear. More than she ever meant to hear, too. It was time to escape back to her room and think hard about her decision to stay or go. The obstacles in her path were many and great, and there was every indication she would wind up the one with a broken heart.
Pivoting on a heel, she came face to face with Natalia.
. . .
“Do you make it a habit to eavesdrop on private conversations, Miss Sinclair?” Natalia asked, raising the volume to be heard half way down the hall in both directions.
Chey gasped first, then cringed. There was no way Mattias and Sander could miss Natalia's announcement. How, exactly, would she defend herself this time? To say she hadn't been doing what Natalia accused her of doing would be an outright lie.
A shuffle and shift of muscle under material indicated Mattias and Sander had entered the hallway.
Natalia, tumbler in hand, swirled the amber liquid in the glass before taking a drink. “Brothers, look what I've discovered lurking outside your door. And you actually entertained the idea of courting this bitch, Dare? You can't be serious.”
“Watch your mouth, Natalia,” Sander warned.
Chey turned to face Mattias and Sander. “She's right. I was listening.”
Mattias wore a vague frown. Sander's expression was curiously neutral. Chey knew better than to think he was unmoved by her eavesdropping.
“I don't have to watch my mouth, Dare. This is blasphemy. She's unfit to even consider dating, much less anything else. An American? Really?” Natalia broke into a shrill, disbelieving laugh.
Chey twitched with anger. Natalia's condescending glance made her want to cold cock the woman.
“Mattias.” Sander said his brother's name in a way that sounded like another warning.
Mattias thinned his lips and looked from Chey to his sister. Stepping across the short distance, he grasped Natalia's elbow and firmly guided her away from Sander and Chey.
“Hey, hey! I wasn't done. Doesn't Dare want to hear that I plan to tell mother everything?” Natalia called back.
Mattias muttered threateningly under his voice in their own language.
Natalia had no other choice than to go with Mattias. She threw more threats out as she went, some in her native tongue, others in English.
Stricken by the entire ordeal, Chey looked away from the pair to the floor at her feet, then aside and up to Sander. He was watching her with the same unreadable look he'd had when he came out of the sitting room.
“I didn't know anyone was in the room. I was just looking at all the portraits,” she said in her own defense, gesturing to the long line of paintings down the hall. It didn't explain why she'd lingered to listen, and she knew it.
Sander raised his glass and drained what liquor remained. At first, he said nothing. Finally, he asked, “Do you have feelings for him? Now is not the time to lie.”
“No. I care about his well being, yes, and I think we're friends. We get along well and he did not lie that there has been an attraction between us. But it was never what you and I have. At first, I didn't like you at all,” she confessed in her typical blunt way. “But after you fixed lunch that day, and then with the canoe trip—I got to see a different side of you than the man who tackled me off the mare.”
His lids lowered to cover half his eyes. The corner of his mouth ticked like he briefly fought off a smile. “And?”
Chey brushed away an errant strand of hair from her cheek. She maintained eye contact with him. “And then I looked forward to seeing you. Thought of ways to visit the cabin and spend more time there. And if I'm being really honest, I thought the dress Mattias sent for that disastrous dinner with your family had been sent by you and expected to see you standing there when I opened the door. He caught me off guard and I didn't know how to say no after all that. I would have much rather spent the evening with you.”
Sander laughed and took two steps closer. “See, that's what I like about you. Most women would never admit that my brother sent you a dress and that the dinner with my family was a disaster. But not Chey Sinclair.”
Distracted by the glimpse of his chest past the few undone buttons of his white shirt, Chey lifted her gaze to his when he came to stand right in front of her. He exuded casual sexuality coupled with a regal mantle that had been missing at the cabin. Or had it? Perception was a funny thing. Maybe he'd worn it all along and she'd been too distracted by his sheer sense of presence to notice. In a giant hall full of staring portraits and gilded accents, Sander seemed larger than life. He dwarfed the space with his predatory charisma and incisive stare.
“It was. A disaster, I mean. The King all but ignored me, The Queen interrogated me and if looks could kill, I would have been dead on the floor thanks to Natalia. Maybe Viia, too.” Now that she thought about it, half the room had been upset at her presence.
“Interrogated you about your lineage?” Sander guessed.
“Yes. I made the gross mistake of mentioning miscarriages in my ancestral past.” She quirked her mouth and eyed Sander closely. Would that matter to him, too? It was his job, of a sort, to carry on the family line.
Sander's expression waned, then turned wry. “I can imagine how well that went over.” Leaning into her, he stretched an arm and set his glass on a small half table against the wall.
Chey resisted putting her hands on his hips, or his sides, but she gave in to the desire to take a deeper breath while he was close. The masculine scent of his skin and cologne tantalized the senses. Looking at him from under the veil of her lashes, she expected him to steal a kiss.
He didn't. Sander, though watching her like a hawk, leaned back to his original position and kept his hands to himself.
“She's never going to approve of this,” Chey whispered.
“No, she's not,” he replied honestly. “You have a lot to think about. What you've been exposed to so far is only a fraction of the machinations and turmoil that go on around here. I won't lie—sometimes, this will not be easy. Even if we manage to get past the obvious obstacles, you'll be expected to gain citizenship here, learn the language and customs, live here at least ninety percent of the year and take on all the responsibilities of your position.”
Chey hadn't considered citizenship or living arrangements or any of that. It was overwhelming.
“To start with,” she guessed.
“To start with, yes. There is a lot more.”
“I never did thank you,” she said out of the blue.
“For what?” He cocked his head.
“Earlier. In the tower. Thank you for showing up when you did.”
“I saw you leave, like I mentioned, and decided to follow. I knew you wouldn't be going out at that time of the evening, in this weather, unless something happened.”
“It occurs to me that they must have been watching us the whole time. That day we visited the castle...they knew.” Once again, Chey had a niggling feeling that she was overlooking something. Her brow furrowed in thought.
“I'm sure. The tale that goes along with the tower is infamous around here, so it probably wasn't difficult to guess that's why we went.” He paused, then asked, “What is it?”
She glanced at his eyes. “I don't know. I keep getting the sensation that there's something I'm overlooking. A little niggling feeling that I can't get rid of.”
“And you can't pinpoint it?”
“Not really. I guess I'll remember when I'm supposed to remember.”
“Maybe.” He sounded thoughtful. “Do you want me to walk you to your room?”
“No. I'm going to finish my perusal of your ancestors then head up.” There were so many guards around that Chey wasn't worried of an attack in the castle.
“I'll see you tomorrow, then. Good night.” Sander hovered close, then, after a quick smile, headed the opposite direction.
Chey wondered if he was withholding his attention to make her want it more. And it was working, the bastard. She was sorry she hadn't reached out. To touch, to kiss, to...something. Any kind of contact was better than none.
After he was gone, Chey turned to the hallway. Many pairs of painted eyes seemed to follow her every move. If she'd been of a superstitious nature, she would have thought the ghosts of Sander's ancestors were weighing and judging her, deciding if she would do justice to the man himself and the Ahtissari family name. But she wasn't, and they weren't. They were just images in oil on canvas, preserved for posterity, reminders of those who had come before.
It was up to Chey to figure out if she wanted to engage in a courtship that might become something more.