floor and ceiling surrounded her. Electric torches illuminated a circular staircase in front of her. She shivered. Those stone steps led to one place—Drake’s room.
Stop being melodramatic. No big deal, remember. It wasn’t as if she were going to be locked away in a tower cell with him. She was just going up there to help him undress. Chaney gulped.
Drake gestured up the narrow staircase. “After you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t know the way,” she demurred. “My flight was delayed so I missed the taping of the guest rooms this morning. Is it true Henry VIII slept in the king’s bedchamber?”
“That’s what they say.” As Drake ascended, his armor and chain mail clanked. The sound echoed through the stairwell. “He seems to have slept his way across England.”
She followed Drake up. “He did have six wives.”
“Six too many.”
“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” Chaney repeated the rhyme she’d memorized back in school. “I’m sure at least half of them would agree with you.”
“All of them should.”
The disdain in his voice surprised her. She remembered what he’d said earlier today in the great hall. “So you’re not interested in settling down or in marriage?”
“Beheadings, divorces and deaths sound about right when it comes to matrimony.”
“Don’t forget one of Henry’s wife survived those fates.”
“Sheer luck.” He glanced back at Chaney. “I prefer better odds.”
His take on marriage brought a twinge of disappointment, but she didn’t know why. “Don’t you want a family?”
He shrugged. “I have no time for a family.”
“Someday then?”
He continued up the stairs, all armor and wide shoulders. “Perhaps, but I don’t see it happening.”
“You never know what might happen.” The torches flickered like candles, casting shadows through the stairwell. She touched the wall, the stone cool and rough beneath her palm. “It almost feels as if we’ve gone back in time.”
“Except this castle has electricity, heating, indoor plumbing and Wi-Fi.”
“My kind of castle.”
“Mine, too,” he admitted. “Though there is something to be said for a time when men were men. That isn’t always the case today.”
Armor aside, Drake was as manly as men came. “Many of those men didn’t live to see middle age, let alone old age.”
“True, but at least there were rules and codes to battles as well as relationships. That had to make things easier.”
“Easier doesn’t sound very romantic.”
“Let me guess.” His lighthearted tone teased. “You’re one of those romantic women who enjoy hearts, flowers and violins.”
“Well, I’m not all that into hearts and violins, but I do like flowers. If that makes me one of those romantic women, so be it.” She climbed the stairs behind him. “I do believe true love exists.”
“Love may exist,” he admitted. “But I don’t think it lasts long in the real world or really offers much.”
“My parents are still together after thirty-two years of marriage,” Chaney countered. “I doubt they made it that far by simply liking each other.”
“Like can go a long way. As can habit.” Drake reached the top of the stairs. “But I hope for your parents’ sake and for Gemma and Oliver’s, that their love lasts.”
Maybe Drake wasn’t all that bad. He obviously cared about Gemma’s happiness and future, but his words still bothered Chaney. “So you’re not a full-blown cynic about love.”
He stood in front of a massive wood door, looking every inch the lord of the manor or, in this case, king of the castle. “I prefer to think of myself as a realist.”
“We should agree to disagree, then, because I feel totally removed from reality right now.”
Smiling, he pushed down on the door handle. “Then enjoy the fantasy.”
The words Drake and fantasy did not belong in the same sentence. Okay, the guy might be a total hottie and physically appealing, but Chaney disagreed with everything he said about the subjects of love and marriage. Even though she didn’t want to settle down now, that didn’t mean not ever. One day she hoped to experience the kind of love that lasted, the forever kind. And she would never want to date a man who had such different views on relationships from her. Not that Drake wanted to date her.
He opened the door.
“You don’t lock your room?” she asked.
“Can’t. No place to put the key.”
“You could have asked one of us to hold it.”
“The castle is secure. The production crew top rate. Even the locals we’ve hired seem like excellent workers.” He held the door for her. “Besides I don’t have anything that can’t be replaced.”
Chaney tried to understand his way of thinking. Tried and failed. “One of the perks of being wealthy, I’d imagine.”
“For me, yes.” He didn’t sound boastful, simply honest. “Others might disagree.”
“Several others, I’d imagine.”
“Yourself.”
It wasn’t a question. “I don’t have expensive jewelry or electronics with me, but what I have I’d like to keep.”
“If I were yours, I’d want to be kept.”
Her cheeks warmed. Chaney crossed the threshold to his room so he wouldn’t see her blush. She couldn’t imagine Drake allowing any woman to keep him. Especially her. “Wow. Now I know what the production coordinator meant when she called this room opulent.”
No expense had been spared in decorating the suite, a series of rooms, each of which was larger than Chaney’s one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. She stood in the sitting area, where a fire burned in the hand-carved fireplace. The golden flames added warmth and a romantic atmosphere.
Not romantic, she corrected. Nothing about her being her could be construed as romantic. She was here to do a job, nothing else.
Still she caught a glimpse of the bedroom off to her right. Gold and Wedgwood-blue silk curtains hung from a large canopy bed, a bed fit for royalty, heads of state or a corporate raider. Coordinating pillows made a pair of overstuffed chairs placed beneath an arched window look even more luxurious.
“This suite is so lavish,” Chaney said.
“It is rather regal looking.” He removed his gauntlets and placed them on a round table. “If you like it so much, we can trade rooms.”
“Thanks, but I’m happy where I am.” Coming back to England had been a good move, even with seeing Drake again. She’d been handed a golden excuse to miss the housewarming party at her sister’s new house this weekend. No having to tell friends and family she still didn’t have a boyfriend and that she wasn’t jealous her sister was living in a beautiful house in Malibu with a view and a guesthouse. Nope, this was much better than that anyday. “You belong here. This is the king’s bedchamber.”
Drake bowed. “I am but a mere knight, my lady.”
“A king in knight’s clothing.” And with a kingly bed. Chaney noticed the bedding had been turned down. The sheets must be at least 400-count Egyptian cotton. “You shouldn’t sleep anywhere but here.”
“It is a comfortable