her date in peace. But no. He had to loom right beside her, listening to every word, every disappointed sigh.
“I was, too,” Elli told Ned. “I hope you’ll give me a rain check.”
“I thought you’d never ask. A family trip, huh?” Elli had given him no details—and not because the stone-faced Viking standing next to her might not approve. News like this would travel fast, and she wanted to be the one to break it to her mother.
Her friends often used her title teasingly, calling her “the princess,” and “Your Highness.” They all thought she was so wonderfully unusual, one of three triplet princesses, her estranged father a king in some faraway northern land. As soon as one of them heard she was off for a visit to Gullandria, they’d burn up the phone lines sharing the scoop. Her mother might get wind of it before tonight. Someone might even let something drop to the tabloids.
Then the stinky stuff would really hit the fan.
So she was keeping the details to herself. “Yes, a family thing. But I’ll give you a call as soon as I get back.”
“Elli?”
“Hmm?”
“You take care.”
“I will.” She disconnected the call and wrinkled her nose at the big guy in black. “Well, now, wasn’t that innocuous and aren’t you glad you heard every word?”
Hauk said nothing. He just stood there, waiting for her to make her next move.
She realized she didn’t have a move. No one had called from the school or the district, so presumably the sub had been contacted and was, at that moment, teaching Elli’s morning class, managing just fine with the lesson plans Elli had left open on her desk.
Except for packing and dealing with her mother, Elli was ready to go.
And it was only ten in the morning—ten in the morning on Tuesday. She looked at Hauk, who gazed steadily back at her.
Elli sighed. “Oh, Hauk. What in the world am I going to do with you?”
“Pack your belongings,” he suggested softly. “His Majesty’s jet awaits you. As soon as you’ve spoken with your mother, we can be on our way.”
Chapter Five
Elli didn’t pack. Her father had agreed to give her till Thursday and, for the time being anyway, she was keeping that option open. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was simply because, with Hauk shadowing her every move, it felt like the only option she had.
She went to the spare room, where she kept her computer. Hauk sat at attention on her futon while she surfed the Net for a while and fiddled with e-mail. Then, for an hour or so, she made a valiant effort to get a little reading done.
But it was no good. She kept feeling those cool, careful eyes on her. She couldn’t concentrate on a book.
They had lunch at one. By then she was aching for a little ordinary conversation. Over BLTs she tried to engage him in a nice, friendly chat.
He was the master of the one-line reply. He’d get it down to a single word if he could, or better still, a low, unpromising sound in his throat. She got a number of curt noes, a lonely little yes or two and a whole lot of gruff grunts.
Finally, she asked him about his family. “Do you have brothers—or sisters?”
“No.”
“And your mother and father?”
He just looked at her.
“Your parents, are they still alive?”
“No.”
“Both gone?”
“That’s correct.”
Well, she couldn’t say she was surprised. It seemed hard to picture that he’d ever even had a father or a mother. With his huge, hard, smooth chest and his infomercial abs, his deadpan expression and his lightning-bolt tattoos, Hauk FitzWyborn seemed someone not quite mortal—someone who had never been something so vulnerable as a little boy with parents who loved him. He seemed more like a creature sprung from the Norse myths, like Odin, Vili and Ve, brought into being out of ice.
“Um, your father? Tell me about him.”
He gave her the lifted-eyebrow routine.
She tried again. “What was your father like, Hauk?”
“I told you. My father is dead.” He’d finished his sandwich. He stood, carried his plate and empty glass to the sink, rinsed them both and put them in the dishwasher.
She refused to give up. “I’m sorry, Hauk—that he’s gone. Do you…miss him?”
He reached for the towel, dried those big hands. “He’s been dead for almost a decade.”
“But do you miss him?”
He hung the towel on its little hook beneath the cabinets. “You behave like an American.” He made it sound like some crushing insult.
She sat up straighter in her chair. “I am an American.”
His sculpted mouth curved. Too bad it was more a sneer than a smile. “In Gullandria, the lowliest of the low will know which questions should never be asked. In Gullandria, we do not presume to ask after the dead loved ones of people we hardly know.”
Wow. Two whole sentences. The man was a chatterbox, no doubt about it. And he also had a truckload and a half of nerve, to imply that she was presumptuous, when he wouldn’t let her make a call without listening in on her speakerphone.
She kept after him. “So. You’re sensitive on the subject of your father. Why is that?”
He stood there by the sink, big and broad and silent, looking at her. But she was becoming accustomed to his eagle-eyed stare. She stared right back. And she waited.
At last, he shrugged. “My father was a Wyborn. My mother was not.”
She was getting the picture. “They weren’t married when you were born?”
“That’s right. They were never married. I am a fitz. For future reference, during your stay in Gullandria, when you hear that a man’s name begins with Fitz, you will know that man is a bastard. You might think twice before asking after his family.”
“Thank you.” She gave him the most regal of nods. “I’ll remember that.”
“The prefix Fitz,” he informed her in scholarly tones, “is one known to many lands. A child of King Henry the Eighth comes to mind. You’ve heard of Henry the Eighth, second of the Tudor kings of England?”
“Yes, Hauk,” she said dryly. “Even rude Americans take history in school.”
“A barmaid gave King Henry a son. The barmaid named the child for his father. Henry FitzRoy. The literal
