Courting Guinevere (The Davonshire Series Book 1) Read online

  Courting Guinevere

  Olivia Gaines

  Davonshire House

  Augusta GA

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, are is entirely a coincidence.

  © 2013 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

  Copy Editor: Rachel Bishop

  Line Editor: Teresa Thompson Blackwell

  Cover: koougraphics

  Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

  ISBN-13:978-0615748658 ISBN-10: 0615748651

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8

  First Davonshire House Publishing August 2014

  Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Part I

  1. The Knight's Quest

  2. The Tarnished Armor

  3. Training with the Squire

  4. Testing the Skillsets

  5. Chinks in the Armor

  6. Jousting About

  7. The Knight at Court

  8. Testing His Mettle

  9. The Squire's Understanding

  10. The Knight's Match

  11. Jousting With the Squire

  Part II

  12. The Lady in Waiting

  13. The Lady Enters the Court

  14. The Online Meeting

  15. Opening the Lines

  16. The Quest Begins

  17. Sparring in the Courtyard

  18. Gathering His Courage

  19. Prepping for the Quest

  20. The First Date

  21. Plotting the Course

  22. The Lady's Gift

  23. Fanciful Thoughts

  24. Planning to Meet

  25. Change in Plans

  26. Deciphering the Clues

  27. The Weary Knight

  28. The Sound of Your Voice

  29. The Arduous Journey

  30. Walking the Parapets

  31. Well...Damn!

  32. Share My Fears

  33. The Knight's Around the Table

  34. The Duchess & The Knight

  35. The Lady Speaks

  36. Climbing the Mountain

  37. Preparing a Favor for the Knight

  38. Limping Home

  39. Conquering the Fear

  40. My Fair Lady

  41. Sharpening the Lance

  42. May I Have Your Daughter's Hand

  43. The Knight's Chivalry

  44. The Grail

  45. Epilogue

  Would you like to know what happens next?

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Dedication

  For my Rossie….

  He is alive. Finally.

  Let’s begin our adventure….

  Part I

  The Knight and His Squire

  1

  The Knight's Quest

  The economy was in the tank and America had cut back on its spending, making all of those lucrative overseas markets dry up and pull down their skirts. The positive turn in the whole financial scramble was that travel had been cut significantly, which left him more time to be home. The negative turn was that he was left with more time to be at home.

  The condo in which he currently resided was prime real estate in the San Francisco market and it was purchased at a good price years ago. The large three bedroom condominium overlooked the Bay, which left dinner, shopping, and all those things he swore was lacking in his life only a brisk walk away. Funny thing was, when he was home, he rarely left the building.

  A free weekend at home relegated him to people watching from his window and placing bets with himself to see if the shaggy sea lion male was actually going to score with one of the feisty females. Bored. Maybe I should go and see a movie? The idea soured his stomach; his cinema watching had come down to catching the latest flicks on the in-flight movie.

  Earlier in the morning, he had received a call from corporate and was summoned to arrive in Chicago on Tuesday, but today was Friday.

  Five days. Five days? What the hell am I going to do for five days?

  He called his younger sister, Vanity the fashion model turned business mogul, but she was on her way to a fashion show in Paris. He then called Wilfred, Vanity’s twin and best-selling author, who of course was at home writing. He was very proud of his brother and sister, but not nearly as much as he was of his parents.

  Born in Washington, DC, and raised in Phoenix to a Portuguese mother and an African-American father, he grew up in a very conservative household. His father, a civil rights attorney later appointed judge, was instrumental in passing the MLK legislation for the state of Arizona and was well-known in the legal circles. His mother, Elena, was a retired linguist for the State Department. Although her native language was Portuguese, she prided herself on being multilingual. It was nothing to come home and find the matriarch in a French mood, and each child was only allowed to converse with her in French.

  These language stints could last an hour each day or weeks at a time. The languages he learned were a blessing, and he smiled to himself thinking of the warmness of his parents and those great times in Arizona. He toyed with the thought of taking a flight today to be in Arizona tonight and to fly out on Monday to be in Chicago on Tuesday. It was just too much trouble. He really needed to see his young brother and connect, but his brother’s ranch in southern Arizona was in the middle of nowhere. The last time he went for a visit, his brother still did not have WiFi and was using broadband.

  When Wilfred was not writing, he spent hours in the saddle, riding around the 20 acres of desert that he called a ranch. Although he owned a few horses that he stowed at Wilfred’s ranch, he didn’t really want to head that way. Besides, he would ride his horse for a couple of hours, eat something filled with peppers that he did not like, and have indigestion for the remainder of the night. While he ate antacids, his brother would force him to listen to a rant about some fictional romance he was experiencing with some woman that he made up in his head and brought to life on paper.

  Sighing, he continued watching the sea lions, thinking that maybe he was just too jaded. Maybe he had been on the road too long and had forgotten how a tamed man comported himself. Just maybe his wayward youth had bruised the soul inside that only sought someone to love.

  In his youth, he was the star quarterback who went to college on a scholarship, later playing more football for the Razorbacks. At the age of 21, he was drafted to the Cardinals, but an injury to his Achilles in his first season took him out of the game and landed him on the couch.

  Depressed and lounging about the house, his parents gave him the task of helping his sister – who was nine years younger – to start her modeling career. As his sister’s career began to take off, he managed to maintain a balance between the work life and a private life for the newest fashion diva he named Vanity. But he had been young, cocky, and full of stamina, while being surrounded by models who ate too little food and made too much money. This lifestyle led to many decadent nights, which often came back to him in a blur.

  Blurs in airports that called him by name smiling in remembrance of nights they shared embroiled in wild passion. Blurs that sat next to him in first class on transcontinental flights whispering in his ear reminders of the way he made them feel. B
lurs that needed relief at three in the morning at 30,000 feet. Blurs he barely remembered, but promised to call the next time he was in town.

  He grimaced as he remembered tucking his teenage sister into bed, and in the adjoining room being the main course for several hungry, waif thin Blurs. On occasion, he would run into a few of the models who were still in the game, or worked for his sister’s lingerie company, or were now famous actresses. Women who had learned to make the adjustment to transition their lives into a phase of adulthood and having adult relationships. He hadn’t learned how to completely do that portion yet; his life was simple.

  He worked.

  He made lots of money.

  When he had time, he spent some of it. He was great at business. He knew how to make the pieces fit together for flow and ease in business enterprises. The rest, he didn’t quite understand. Oftentimes, he felt like he was on a constant quest of learning and failing a remedial course in Relationships 101.

  In grade school, he was educated with the children of dignitaries and his best friend was from Canton. By the age of eight, he was fluent in Cantonese, and he could speak variations of Mandarin and Chinese by the time he was ten. He was also fortunate that his mother forced them to learn and speak language roulette in their home, which is how he discovered that he had a natural knack for linguistics. Being multilingual worked even better in the business world and he was hungry to learn all that he could. However, his pursuit of knowledge for business did not end there.

  His sister left modeling after only eight years to attend college. At the age of 29, he enrolled in graduate school later earning an MBA in International Business, which helped him land a great job with a Chicago-based firm. As soon as his bosses learned he was multilingual, he hit the fast track.

  The company pushed him toward the emerging Asian markets, which were booming, and he was easily able to shift his focus toward emerging futures. By early 2007, he was the one to watch and if he said buy it, you were guaranteed to make a profit. Not much had changed except that now he held the inflated title of Vice President of something or other, which truly wasn’t important to him. What was important to him was he still had the best eye, the best intel, and that certain finesse to know what was going to move, make money, and grow.

  This skill had paid off in the early years of managing his sister’s career. He was able to take a small portion of her salary, invest it, and make it grow. His management fee he also invested and often was able to triple the investment in less than three months. Wise investments of her earnings paid for her education without asking for help from their parents.

  Common sense had told him to take his 15% management fee slash salary and invest it as well. With these funds, he purchased the condo in which Vanity and he resided during their studies. While they were in college, he still continued to invest and the profits earned Vanity enough money to start her own lingerie company. Her second year in business, she was ready to expand, but lacked the capital. He readily agreed to be a silent partner so the company could stay under Vanity’s direction.

  Over the years, after he invested in his sister’s company, he financed his brother’s first book and picked stocks and futures for Wilfred that yielded a very nice nest egg. His sister’s company was now the main rival with La Perla and his brother was one of the leading romance writers in the world. Wilfred also owned his own publishing house. The twins produced something tangible his parents could see.

  His parents were constantly pushing him to settle down, get married, and give them grandkids. Yet at this particular portion of the journey of his life, he could not see paying a mortgage on a house that his wife and her boyfriend would enjoy.

  No, I’m not jaded, just angry.

  Most of his relationships ended the same way. It always started out that women were fascinated by what he did for a living, mesmerized with the knowledge that in the morning he could be sleeping next to them and in the evening he could be in Tokyo or Bangkok. Seven years ago he’d missed a flight only to arrive home to find his fiancée sleeping next to the gardener, Javier. A man who built, from the ground up, one of the best landscaping businesses in San Francisco. He took pleasure in the Thursday mornings he was home, when he would have coffee on the patio and discuss ideas with Javier. He even flew Javier to his parent’s home to put in his mother’s Zen garden. He trusted him with his parents, his lawn, but was too late when he turned his back on him with his woman. It bothered him that he was more upset to lose the gardener than the fiancée. At least Javier was interesting to talk to.

  His relationships with women were like an elusive dragon he could almost slay, but eventually in the battle, like with his fiancée, he was never the victor. He lost the battle of love with her as well. She wasn’t the first one. She wasn’t the last one. She was every one that he had ever dated. She was a Blur.

  He finally reached a point where he had to ask someone what had gone wrong and why such things continually happened to him. He asked the one person that he knew would never lie to him or tell him what he wanted to hear. He went to Javier.

  Javier, in his infinite wisdom, explained, as only he could, “A woman, señor, wants a man to hear what she is saying. I must tell you, the secret to communicating with a woman is to hear what she is saying. You have never learned to listen.” The words haunted him like a precious treasure guarded by a vicious wizard that only he was destined to own.

  I know how to listen. Vanity had grown up in front of his eyes and he had devoted himself to her for more than fifteen years. He never allowed any woman to come between him and what his sister needed. Somehow he managed to communicate with and understand a teenage girl who was one of the most famous faces in the world.

  He understood that his sister wanted something normal and wanted to go to college.

  I listened.

  I communicated.

  I simply didn’t know how to make love to a woman and then have a long-term relationship.

  He didn’t know how to live a day-to-day life with a woman, being the man in her life and the lover in her bed. He didn’t know how to pretend to be interested in tile backsplashes when he was suffering from jet lag, an ass rash from dysentery, and exhaustion.

  Two years after his conversation with Javier on a particularly exhausting trip to Singapore, he was emotionally tapped out and a Blur sat down next to him. She was one of those people who went by one name and he had briefly dated when he was still managing his sister’s modeling career. The trouble was, he honestly did not remember her real name, but saw her often on billboards and ads. They chatted amicably as he pretended to listen to what she was saying and even put away his laptop to give her his undivided attention. She offered to feed his hunger in the loo somewhere over the Pacific, but he graciously declined with the excuse of, “I’m seeing someone.”

  He held her while she talked, caressed her hair while she laughed, and ordered a drink that he remembered she liked, and, when she wanted to sleep, he allowed her the use of his chest. When she talked, he answered her back. She looked at him with such reverence that Javier’s words actually made sense.

  Over the last couple of years, he had learned to listen well and even converse more so than normal. He was ready to give it all up, locate the woman of his dreams and move forward. If she desired, he would stay home and raise the children. He wanted to be in love with someone who wanted to be in love with him, not someone who loved his lifestyle, his bank account, or the way he looked. He wanted someone to love him with his flaws, his imperfections, and his gigantic heart.

  Sighing, he turned on the television and took a seat with his bag of pork rinds and an ice-cold beer. He was half-watching the screen when the colors of an ad caught his eye. It was a free communication weekend from an online matchmaking site.

  “Log on now and start searching for your perfect match on this free communication weekend.”

  What the heck, he had nothing to do until Monday night. He jotted down the web address, grabbed his l
aptop, and started to log in but stopped short when he realized he did not want to use his real name. He went to Yahoo and created a dummy email address, then synced the made-up account with his smart phone and logged in to the site. After answering a series of questions, he was told to choose a screen name and an avatar.

  He stood.

  He stretched.

  He went to the kitchen and got another beer.

  He walked to his office and ordered Chinese takeout for dinner, and then he came back to the screen.

  He now knew the perfect pseudonym. He figured if she was out there on this site, she had to have at least read a book to know his screen name. He was a valiant knight on a noble quest for love.

  He logged in as “Gawain.”

  2

  The Tarnished Armor

  Gawain sat quietly thinking of where he wanted to go with this online thing and started to recount some of the lessons learned from his previous relationships. He thought back to 2009 when he had two very different connections.

  Carol in accounting had been a yearlong affair. At the end of each month, he looked forward to a nice dinner, a movie, and discussions about potential investments. The conversations on high finance were stimulating and the companionship was cool, but so was the sex. She had only relaxed twice during copulation to allow herself to enjoy her orgasms, which sounded like she had stepped on a mouse. He wasn’t sure if he was hurting her or making her happy. Carol wanted more from him and he could not close the deal because this was not his life.