Free Royal Protocol by Christine Flynn Page B

young man hesitated. “Will that be all, sir?”
    “That will be all,” he confirmed, and dismissed them both.
    The even cadence of their retreat was echoing through the wide corridor when she saw him staring at her hands. Suddenly realizing that she was strangling his lapels, thinking he wouldn’t appreciate the wrinkles, shesmoothed the fabric, slipped off the heavy jacket and held it out to him.
    “Thank you,” she murmured, totally disarmed by what he’d done. Never would she have anticipated that bit of chivalry. He couldn’t have thought about his actions. There had been no time.
    Caution crept through her. His first instinct had been to shelter and protect.
    “You’re soaked,” she murmured.
    “So it would seem.”
    His easy command with the soldiers gave way to distance as he folded his jacket over his arm, then stuffed his hands in the pockets of his trousers.
    That distance increased with each passing second. Moments before the rain had damped their discussion, she’d been busy letting him know that she didn’t appreciate his lack of trust—and that she fully comprehended his methods. At the moment she didn’t much care if he’d grasped her message or not. She felt more dismayed with the way she’d gone off about the man she’d married. She hadn’t intended to share anything so personal.
    “Admiral—”
    “Lady Gwendolyn—”
    He watched her eyes meet his as they both spoke. Mercifully, the sadness that had slipped into them as she’d spoken of her husband was no longer there. Neither was the bewilderment. Or the defense. But it was clear from the uneasy way her glance fell to the scarf she threaded through her fingers that their interrupted discussion remained on both of their minds.
    The topic of that discussion had his defenses locked firmly into place.
    There were things he knew about her husband that she couldn’t. Whether she realized that or not, he didn’tknow. He just knew he didn’t trust the tug of empathy he’d felt for her. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling empathy with any woman.
    A peculiar sense of self-protection had him seeking more familiar ground.
    “Is there anything else I can answer for Her Majesty?”
    Willing herself to stick to their task, she quickly shook her head. “I believe you’ve covered everything,” she replied, looking from his shirt. “I’ll tell her what you said…about how you need the captors to contact you again.” Sounding as distracted as she suddenly looked, a faint frown pinched her brow.
    “What?” he prompted, recognizing disagreement when he saw it.
    Thinking he did, anyway.
    The frown deepened as if she were considering whether or not to reply. “You’re going to catch pneumonia as wet as you are,” she finally said. Her glance skimmed his shoulders and chest, then promptly jerked back up when it slipped to his thighs. “Duke Logan is about your size. Would you like me to send someone to borrow a shirt from him?”
    She looked a little damp herself. Not bedraggled, the way she could have. She had suffered most from her shapely calves down. But she didn’t seem to care at all that she was standing in wet shoes and stockings. She actually seemed more concerned about him.
    That she would feel concern for him at all threw him completely. Not wanting it to matter, he drew a breath—and felt it stall in his chest. Her delicate scent drifted from his jacket.
    “It’s only five minutes to the Admiralty,” he finally said, unwillingly touched, anyway. “I have another in my office.”
    Gwen gave a restrained little nod. The Admiralty was the navy’s headquarters at the base of the hill. His car would be heated. He could take his shirt off in it, she supposed, only to call her thoughts to a halt before they could go any further.
    He was a big boy. He could take care of himself. Aside from that, thinking of him without a shirt didn’t seem terribly wise with him staring at her mouth.
    The thought remained, anyway. “Good,” she