he added, shaking that golden head, “none can say with certainty how the jarl will vote when the kingmaking again comes around.”
They left for her mother’s house at a little after six in Elli’s BMW. Hauk filled the seat beside her. His knees were cramped against the dashboard and his head touched the ceiling. They’d reached a sort of understanding in the past few hours. At least they’d found something to talk about: the land where he would soon be taking her, the land that he loved.
But looking at him, sitting there in the passenger seat, she was struck all over again with that feeling of extreme unreality: Elli and her Viking bodyguard, on their way to dinner at her mother’s house…
The house where Elli had grown up was three stories, Tudor in style, on a wide, curving street lined with gorgeous mature oaks and maples. As a child, Elli and her sisters had sometimes lain on the emerald slope of the front lawn and stared up at the thick canopy of leaves overhead, smiling at the blue sky beyond, watching the clouds up there, drifting by.
The driveway was on the west side. Elli drove under an arching porte cochere to a back parking area. She stopped at the farthest door of the four-car garage.
“We’ll go in the back way. I have a key, if we need it.”
Hauk frowned. He looked almost comical, crammed into her sporty little car, hunching those massive shoulders so that he could fit. “It would be wiser, I think, to go to the front door, to knock.”
“Oh, please. I was raised here. I don’t have to knock.”
“But I do.”
She sighed. “Listen. I don’t intend to explain everything. If my mother hears how you broke into my apartment, how you tied me up and planned to kidnap me, how Father has set you on me as a round-the-clock guard, she’ll hit the roof. So we’ll let her think you’re my guest, okay? I can always bring a guest home. My mother would never object to that.”
“I am a stranger here. A wise stranger enters by the front door.”
Elli threw up both hands. “Will you save the platitudes? You hardly entered my house by the front door—and if you were really so damn wise, you would have let me come here on my own, because we both know that explaining you is going to be almost as difficult as convincing my poor mother to accept where I intend to go.”
“I have told you, my orders—”
“I know what your orders are. And I’m telling you, I’m no stranger and you’re with me, so there’s no reason we can’t just—”
He showed her the lightning bolt in the heart of his hand. “Someone comes.”
The door to the back service porch opened and her mother’s housekeeper emerged.
“That’s Hilda Trawlson,” Elli told Hauk. “Hildy’s been with us as long as I can remember. She came back with us from Gullandria.” Elli rolled down the window on Hauk’s side. “Hi, Hildy!”
Hilda came down the steps and up to the car. “Elli.” Her dark gaze flicked once over the Viking in the passenger seat. Then she looked again at Elli. “You’ve brought a guest.” Her voice was flat.
“Hildy, don’t be a sourpuss. This is Hauk.”
The housekeeper and the warrior exchanged cautious nods.
Elli could see that Hilda already suspected Hauk had not come from Cleveland. So she announced, “Hauk is here from Gullandria.”
Hilda took a step back.
Elli leaned on her door and got out of the car. “We have some things to talk about with Mom.” She kept a smile on her face and her tone light. The whole idea here was to make her mother—and Hilda—believe that the coming trip was completely her choice.
And it was her choice. They didn’t need to know that choosing not to go wasn’t an option.
Hauk took his cue from her and pushed open his own door. Swinging those powerful legs out, he planted his big boots on the concrete and unfolded himself from the passenger seat. Hildy was giving him the evil eye. He stared back, stoic as ever. Neither deigned to speak.
“Can we just go in?” Elli asked wearily.
“Certainly.” Hilda turned sharply on her crepe heel and headed toward the back door. She led them across the big service porch with its terra-cotta floor and profusion of potted plants, and from there, through the wonderful old kitchen where the green marble counters gleamed and the cabinets were fronted in beveled glass and something good was cooking, down the central hall to the family room.
“Your mother will join you shortly,” the housekeeper said as she ushered them into the room.
“Is she still at work?” Elli’s mother owned an antique shop downtown in Old Sac.
“She came in a few minutes ago. She only went up to change. Is there anything I can get you before I go?”
“Oh, Hildy. Will you stop it? Don’t I even get a hug?”
Hildy’s stern face softened slightly. “Come on, then.” She held out those long arms. Elli went into them, pressing herself close to Hildy’s considerable bosom, breathing in the housekeeper’s familiar scent of Ivory soap and lavender, thinking that those smells, for all her life, would remind her of home.
“Everything’s fine, honestly,” Elli whispered to the woman who was like a dear aunt or a grandmother to her.
Hildy said nothing, just gave her an extra squeeze before letting her go. “I’m in the kitchen, if you need me.”
“I think what I need is a drink,” Elli muttered as soon as Hildy had left them. “And don’t give me that look.”
Gold brows drew together over that bladelike nose. “Look?”
“Yes. There. That one.” She turned for the wet bar on the inner wall. “It’s almost like all your other looks, since pretty much your expression doesn’t change. But there are…minute shifts. The one I just saw was the disapproving one.” She found a half-full bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge and held it up. “You?”
“No.”
“Now, why did I sense that was what you would say?”
“You are distressed.”
She turned to look for a wineglass. “Yep. Distressed is the word. This is not my idea of a real fun time, you know? My mother is not going to be happy about our news. And I wish she had told me that my father had called, that he’d asked for my sisters and me. And I…” She let her voice trail off and shook her head. “You’re right. Wine is tempting, but overall, a bad idea.” She put the bottle away and then lingered, bent at the waist, one hand draped over the door to the half fridge, staring down into the contents. “Hmm. Diet 7UP, Mug root beer. Evian. But the question is, where are my—”
“Your Clearly Canadians are in the back, second shelf.” It was her mother’s voice, smooth as silk, cool as a perfectly chilled martini. She was standing in the open doorway to the hall.
