Patrick laughed and heaved himself to his feet. He held down his hand and hauled Oliver to his. “So it might be, laddie, but where’s the sport in that?”
“I might need a bit more experience with steel, my lord, before I can provide you with that sort of entertainment.”
“I thought in addition to being scrutinized by Cameron, you’d been occasionally training with him—or do I have that awrong?”
Oliver hesitated to use the wordtraining. Facing Robert Cameron over swords for any reason at all was something he was still trying to wrap his pitiful wits around. The truth was, that was a side of his employer he’d never been privy to during the first five years he’d worked for him as something more than security and something less than family. At the time, his place in that exclusive group hadn’t bothered him in the slightest. He’d been happy for a way to make pots of money and put to good use all the fighting skills he’d paid a very steep price for.
And then Sunshine Phillips had walked into Cameron’s life and turned it upside down.
Well, she’d upended the entire apple cart, actually, but that was something to think about at a different time. He supposed they were indeed related back in the mists of time, something she hadfirst pointed out to him quite gingerly, as if she hadn’t been quite sure if he would be pleased or not. He was beginning to think he might need to work on his company manners if he ever hoped to date, never mind anything more serious.
And somehow during that time when Sunny and Cameron had been sorting their lives and winding up marching down the aisle to wedded bliss, he’d begun to notice things about his employer’s habits that he’d previously assumed were simply opinions accumulated by a man who had perhaps watched a few too many historical documentaries about Scotland and its glorious history. After all, that certainly could have explained Robert Cameron’s uncanny feel for old things, or his ruthless defense of those he considered in his care, or his unassailable honor in his business dealings.
Then again, those things also could have been quite easily acquired in a previous century.
And then he’d found himself kneeling in Cameron Hall and placing his hands in Cameron’s to pledge him fealty in a particularly medieval sort of ceremony, something that left him thinking about all sorts of impossible things over the subsequent few months.
He might have consigned it all to utter fiction if he hadn’t been part of an elite little crew that had busted an innocent if not completely annoying man out of the Tower of London in 1602. The Tower, that was. And the man. Both loitering in 1602 as if they belonged there and thought nothing of the same.
He’d spent the ensuing year continuing on with the usual business of tracking down antiques and convincing people they really wanted to give them up so he could sell them to others who wanted to pay eye-watering sums to possess them. And somehow, because he’d become a full-fledged member of the clan Cameron, he’d had even deeper lines drawn in his code of honor, deeper than the places where his own had been drawnbefore. He didn’t force anyone to do anything they didn’t want to and he was scrupulously honest.
But the time-traveling bit…
He pulled himself back to the present, profoundly grateful to beinthe present, and looked at the man who hadn’t killed him quite yet. Patrick was studying him silently and in a way that left Oliver wondering if even the loo might fail to provide enough of a hiding place. He endured the study, though, because he had definitely experienced worse.
“We’ve crossed swords a time or two,” he conceded finally, dragging himself back to the present conversation. “Cameron and I.”
“It shows,” Patrick said. “But now, you and I will work.”
“Thank you, my lord,” he said, wondering if that might be the only time he said that. “In a fortnight or two?”
“Tomorrow.”
Of course. “First thing?”
Patrick shook his head. “Mid-afternoon.”
“But won’t you be needing a nap—erm… ah…”
The look Patrick sent him left him wondering ifhemight do well to have an early nap so he might manage to keep himself alive for more than five minutes.
“Mid-afternoon,” Patrick repeated, “after you’ve had a long morning of pampering yourself. Wouldn’t want you to be anything but perfectly rested.”
Oliver suspected that would absolutely not be the case, which he couldn’t argue with. The more exhausted he was when under the stress of trying to keep Patrick from killing him, the better. He made the man a bow and escaped falling on his face only because his yet-to-be-christened elder brother caught him by the shoulder and heaved him back upright.
“Bobby’s doing you the favor of fetching something from the village,” Patrick said.
“How did he know—never mind.” Oliver scowled in spite of himself. “I’ve got to get rid of this damned tracker.”
“You might want to,” Patrick agreed. “And until then, if you need anything, you know where I am.”
“Not as often as I’d like.”
Patrick did laugh then. “If it flatters you any, I didn’t have to recite obscure Latin declensions to keep myself awake whilst tracking you yesterday.”
“I am flattered.”
“You should be,” Patrick agreed. “Did you meditate last night?”
