Obviously she’d found something. This woman was no one’s fool, despite her up-tight demeanour. He remembered reading her CV when she had been recommended for the job of assessing and preserving the archives. Multiple qualifications. Glowing references. Her first degree in her teens and a formidable amount of experience since then.
It was tempting to believe this was a mistake, that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Yet she didn’t strike him as a woman prone to taking risks.
‘You’re not pleased?’ she ventured, her brows puckering. ‘I know it’s a shock but—’
‘But you thought I’d be thrilled to become king?’ His words were clipped as he strove to suppress a surge of unfamiliar panic. He had to fight the rising nausea that clogged his throat.
He shook his head. ‘I’m loyal to my cousin, Dr Connors. He will make the sort of king our country needs.’
Alaric succeeding in his place would be a nightmare made real.
Hell! The timing couldn’t be worse. The country needed stability. If this was true…
‘Who else have you told?’ Alaric found himself on his feet, towering above her with his hands clamped on her chair arms. She shrank back as he leaned close.
In the flickering firelight she looked suddenly vulnerable and very young.
The pounding thud of his heartbeat slowed and he straightened, giving her space.
No need to intimidate the woman. Yet.
‘I haven’t told anyone.’ Wide eyes stared at him from behind those ugly glasses and a twist of something like awareness coiled in his belly. ‘I had to tell you first.’
The tension banding his chest eased and he breathed deep. ‘Good. You did the right thing.’
Tentatively she smiled and he felt a tremor of guilt at having scared her. Even now one hand pressed to her breast as if her heart raced. He followed the rapid rise and fall of her chest. An unexpected trickle of fire threaded his belly as he recalled her feminine softness against him.
‘When I get the test results back we’ll know if the papers are what they seem to be.’
‘Results?’ He stilled. ‘What tests are these?’
‘There are several,’ she said slowly, her expression wary. Alaric thrust his hand through his hair, fighting the impulse to demand she explain instantly.
Instead he took another deliberate step away from her and laid his forearm along the mantelpiece. Immediately the tension in her slim frame eased.
‘Would you care to enlighten me?’
She blinked and blushed and for a moment Alaric was sidetracked by the softening of her lips as they formed an O of surprise. She looked charmingly female and innocently flustered in a way that threatened to distract him.
An instant later she was brisk and businesslike. ‘I’ve sent pages for testing. We need to know if the parchment is as old as it appears. That it’s not a modern forgery.’
She’d sent papers away? Who had them now? This got worse and worse.
‘Plus the style of the text is unusual. I’ve sent copies of some pages to a colleague for verification.’
‘Who gave you permission to do this?’ His voice was calm, low, but with the razor edge honed on emergency decisions made under fire.
She jerked her head up, her body stiffening.
‘I was told when I started that, so long as the usual precautions were taken, testing of documents found in the archives was allowed.’
‘If you’re right these aren’t just any documents!’ His hands fisted. Had she no notion of the powder keg she may have uncovered?
‘That’s why I was particularly careful.’ She shot to her feet, hands clasped before her; chin lifted as she met his gaze. ‘None of the pages I sent for testing were, by themselves, sensitive.’ She paused then continued with slow emphasis. ‘I realise this information must be kept confidential until it’s confirmed. I followed the protocols set out when I took on the job.’
Alaric let out a slow breath. ‘And if someone put those pages together?’
‘No.’ She shook her head then paused, frowning. ‘It’s not possible.’ Yet she didn’t look so certain.
Alaric determined to get his hands on the pages as soon as possible.
‘It would have been better to keep this in house.’ Even if it turned out this was a mistake, rumour could destabilise a delicate situation.
Fine eyebrows arched high on her pale forehead.
‘Ruvingia doesn’t have the capacity “in house” to run such tests.’ She paused and he watched her drag in quick breaths, obviously battling strong emotion.
‘I apologise if I’ve overstepped the mark.’ Her tone said he was being unreasonable. ‘I would have checked with you earlier but it’s been hard getting an appointment.’
Touché. Meeting to discuss the royal archives hadn’t been on his priorities.
‘How long before you get the results?’
She launched into detail of how the document would be authenticated, her face growing animated. All the while he was busy reckoning the risks posed by this discovery. The need to verify her findings and keep the situation under wraps.
Yet he found himself watching her closely as she shed that shell of spiky reserve. There was a fire in her that had been lacking before. Or had it been hidden behind her starchy demeanour?
Despite the gravity of the situation, something in Alaric that was all male, functioning at the most primitive level, stirred.
Behind her dowdy appearance he sensed heat and passion in this woman.
He’d always been attracted by passion.
Alaric wrenched his mind back to the problem at hand.
‘A short wait, then, before the results come through. In the meantime, who has access to this chronicle?’
‘Only me. The assistant from your national museum is working on other material.’
‘Good. We’ll keep it that way.’ Alaric would personally arrange for it to be kept under lock and key.
‘I’m also keeping my eyes open for other papers that might confirm or disprove what I’ve found. There’s still a lot to investigate.’
There could be more? Even if this document conveniently disappeared there might be others?
Damn. A simple solution had been tempting. An accident to destroy the evidence and remove the problem. Yet it would only make precautions around the remaining documents tighter and subsequent accidents more suspicious.
Self-knowledge
