Linda Needham (10 page)

“I think I might know what the burglars were looking for, Wexford,” Caro said, swallowing hard against a rising sense of fear and outrage. “Look here. These boxes.”

“What’s that, Princess?” He was still across the room with his operatives, studying the windows and the floor and the drapes in his professional and efficient way.

“Please,” she said as she stooped to pick up the pages and right a box that had been knocked to the floor.

She felt Wexford kneeling beside her a moment later, watched as he took the page out of her hand and looked at it. “What’s happened here, Princess?”

“I didn’t leave this mess here yesterday afternoon. I would never.”

“I’m quite sure of that.” He picked up more of the loose papers that had fallen under the table.

“I don’t like this, Wexford.” She gathered up a handful of paper, feeling violated to the core.

“Nor do I.” He turned to his agents. “Halladay, go take a detail outside and secure the rest of the doors and windows.”

Caro watched them leave, hoping they would be safe out there in the twilight. “I don’t understand, Wexford. What could a burglar possibly be looking for in these boxes?”

“Indeed.” Wexford was frowning as he skimmed through each page, scrubbing at his chin with a knuckle.

“You’re very thorough, Lord Wexford.” Exhaustively intense.

And so…mysterious.

“A habit, Princess.” He looked up at her with those serious, dark eyes, a hint of a smile tucked into their corners.

And if Wexford was right about this threat to her life, if the assassin was as real as the broken glass and the papers scattered under the shelves, then that could only mean that everyone around her was in danger.

Especially Andrew Chase, the Earl of Wexford, who had promised to take a bullet for her.

A bullet that suddenly seemed so possible.

“Whoever did this, Princess, could just as easily be searching for some kind of document as the crown jewels or an ancient bronze mortar and pestle.”

“What sort of documents? What could they possibly have been looking for in the library that’s of any value to anyone?” She rattled the pages in her hand, suddenly terrified for Wexford. And Wheeler and Mrs. Tweeg.

“It could be anything and nothing at all.”

She held up one of the discarded pages. “Certainly not this ancient court decision over the ownership of a milk cow? Or a seventeenth-century license to brew brown ale on Sundays?”

Or possibly, Princess, they’re looking for solid proof that you’re not really the Princess Caroline.

Drew had been wrestling with the possibility ever since Palmerston had assigned him the case. That the source of the danger was the woman herself.

In the wrong hands, that information could be explosive—to every royal house in Europe as well as devastating to the princess herself.

His princess.

The wild-eyed woman who was staring defiantly at the scattered papers and then directly at him.

“We’ve got to stop them, Wexford.” Her eyes brightened with a kind of crazy courage. “And it’s time I started helping with my own investigation.”

G
ood Christ, no!
“Helping how?” Drew asked, fearing the woman’s reckless determination.

“Sorting through the library and all these papers for clues would be a good place to start.”

Better yet, a safe place to start. “A fine idea.”

“It’s such an eclectic collection. Town charters and personal letters and declarations of war.” She started laying out papers on the desktop. “Here’s a letter from my father to one of his generals permitting him to buy a hundred horses from the king of Prussia.”

A stack of paper ought to keep her busy and out of trouble for a while. He pointed to the gilded and embossed emblem at the top center of the page.

“This must be your family crest?”

“The bee and the beehive. That’s right.” She brought it closer. “And here you can still see the hive resting in a field of clover, all of it wrapped in a band of iron.”

“The meaning?”

“The Latin motto translates to something like ‘due diligence, common wisdom and fruitfulness.’”

“I don’t see anything there that might be a threat to…” He stopped because she was staring at the middle of his chest, lighting a deep fire with her gaze.

“Is this
your
family crest?” She took one of his coat buttons between her fingers and studied it closely.

“My family crest?” He’d never been asked that before. And wasn’t sure how to answer, because the crest had always meant so much more than that.

More than family. More than his life.

“I noticed it on the fireplace mantel at the Huntsman.” She held it still, her fingers slipping along the linen folds of his neck cloth. “And on the ceiling bosses, the tea cups.”

“You’re very observant, madam.”

“I can’t help myself.” She shook her head ruefully. “I’ve been looking for looted objects for such a long time that scouting a room and making careful assessments has become a dreadful habit.”

“Then I guess I’m lucky you didn’t steal the brass door hinges.”

“You’re lucky they hadn’t been looted from one of my castles. But they weren’t. I know. I looked. They too were crested with your sailing ship, and the rampant lion and these three swords overlaid by a rose. It’s very lovely.” She patted the button and his chest, altering the beat of his heart. “Is the emblem very old?”

“Quite recent, actually.” Bought with blood and secrets and unspeakable tales, and struck with a solemn, sacred pledge.

“Interesting.” She peered more closely, fretting her
brow. “There are four arrows behind the shield. What does it mean, my lord?”

“The ship indicates progress through commerce, and the lion, loyalty—”

“To your sovereign, Queen Victoria.”

At times like this it felt like blind, stumbling loyalty. Testing his covenant as well as his intentions. “To my queen and my country. To friends.”

To Jared and Ross, and to Thomas, who couldn’t come with them.

“And the three crossed swords?”

“The courage to endure.” His heart ached suddenly with the sharpness of the hollow memory. The anger as bitter as ever, the helplessness as stark as midnight. “And a debt that’s yet to be paid in full.”

“A debt to whom?”

If only we hadn’t waited that one day longer. If we’d left when we’d had the chance. If Craddock’s heart hadn’t been quite so black and tattered.

“It’s an old debt, Princess. One that can’t ever be truly canceled or satisfied.”

“Is it a family obligation?”

“I don’t have a family.”

She caught her lower lip with her teeth. “I’m so sorry. Have they all passed on?”

“They must have by now. I don’t remember much of anything about them.” Only frightening shadows and a whisper and someone gently squeezing his hand an instant before he was dumped onto the bone-snapping chill of the workhouse’s stone floor.

“Not anything?” She brushed the back of his hand with her fingers. “Then we have that in common: orphaned early and raised by relatives.”

“If I have relatives, madam, they’ve never made themselves known to me.”

“But you’re an earl. Didn’t you inherit from your father or your uncle? Your grandfather, certainly?”

She was going to nag the truth out of him, not that it mattered to him in the least.

“If I recall, the only thing I inherited from my father was my height. At least he seemed a giant to me. But he wasn’t an earl. He was a Thames ferryman and he died of stab wounds received in a struggle with a drunk who chose to pay his fare with the point of a blade instead of the coin of the realm.”

She shook her head. “Your father was…but then how did you become an earl?”

“Hard work, madam.”

“You were a soldier?”

“Not in regular service.” Far more dangerous than that. “Though I have earned my titles by taking a bullet or two for queen and country.”

“You’ve been shot?” She touched her lips with her fingertips.

“A few times. The last was in the process of heading off a war with Sweden. Quite recently, in fact.”

“What war with Sweden?”

Indeed.
“And it earned me the earldom. So did negotiating the Treaty of Eltz-Marienlange and a trade agreement between the warring Ceylonese tea barons and the last of the East India Company.”

And helping to loot the grain warehouses of the privy council to save the lives of starving children in Ireland. Though the queen would have his head if she knew, and Jared and Kate didn’t want the conspiracy generally known.

“So after all your exploits, you’ve chosen your own family crest.”

“We did. Jared and Ross and I.” In an act of grand larceny, and in memory of young Thomas. “We share the crest.”

“That’s an odd arrangement. Who are these men?”

“The finest in the world.” She smiled at that, as though she highly approved of him having fine friends. “We met as boys in the workhouse.”

“Doing what?” Though Caro knew in the deepest part of her what he was going to say before he answered, her heart dreaded the possibility, her stomach ached like fire.

“Working, madam.” He seemed so nonchalant.

“In the workhouse?”

“Slaving, really. Growing up there together.”

“How horrible!” Caro swallowed the tears that were gathering in her throat—he wouldn’t want to see them. “To have to spend a single day of your childhood in such a terrible place! Where are these men now?”

He lifted his chin at her, this very proud man. “Jared is the Earl of Hawkesly.”

“I believe I’ve met his wife briefly. Lady Kathryn. Lots of children.”

Wexford smiled as fondly as a dear uncle. “Lots and lots…and lots of them. They stopped at fifteen adopted. God knows where they’ll stop with their own.”

“And Ross?”

“Carrington. The Viscount Battencourt. He’s the real soldier among us. Though also not in the regular army.”

How easy it was to admire a man with such a large, generous heart.

She caught up the button on his chest again, startled this time at the heat of him against her fingers. She’d wanted to ask about the tiny words she could see inscribed across the crest, but now had to steady her breathing first.

“What does it say here on the ribbons? The letters are very small.”

“On the left is
Exitus acta probat, fiat.
”

“‘The end justifies the means’?”

“And ‘let it be done.’ The left says, ‘with loyalty, courage and enterprise.’ We were perhaps a bit overly poetic when we created the design. But it was heartfelt. Still is.”

“It’s very fine.”
You’re very fine, Andrew Chase.
“I’d like to meet them both sometime. After I’ve rid myself of random assassins. I wouldn’t want to endanger them as well.”

“The possibility of danger would only entice them, madam. They both enjoy a challenge. In fact, I’ve had to beat them away from this assignment with a stick.”

“Your pardon, Princess.” Runson was standing in the doorway, his knuckles poised near the doorjamb. “You’ve three visitors. The Lords Peverel, Wellstetter and Innes.”

“Heavens, Runson, you didn’t lock them in the cloak closet, did you?”

“Tempted to, Your Highness”—he nodded toward the foyer—“but they looked harmless enough, so I put them in the east parlor, with Wallace on guard at the door.”

“Thanks, I’ll be right there.” Although she hadn’t been expecting them. And wondered what they
would make of her “entertaining” the Earl of Wexford.

“Your privy council, madam?”

“Truly harmless, Wexford. But what will they think of you being here?”

“Tell them that the Foreign Office has engaged me to consult on your transfer to Boratania.”

“You mean like a removal concern? You’re packing up my pots and pans and moving me out?”

“Hardly, madam. Tell them I’m negotiating your borders and waterway treaties.”

Not a very convincing explanation, but Wexford seemed satisfied and was already at the door, leading the way for her through her own house.

The three men rose from their individual chairs and dropped into courtly bows as Caro entered.

“Welcome to Grandauer, gentlemen.” She could feel Wexford standing close behind her as Wellstetter and Innes hurried toward her, smiling broadly.

“You’re looking lovely, Princess.”

“Thank you, Lord Innes.”

Innes scowled at Wellstetter. “Our princess always looks lovely.”

“And I would like to introduce Andrew Chase, the Earl of Wexford. Palmerston has been kind enough to arrange for Wexford to use his diplomatic skills to help me with the border surveys and those impossible waterway treaties. As he’s pointed out so clearly, one can hardly run a country without water and proper borders.”

“Indeed,” Peverel said, nodding. “I’ll admit that I hadn’t given such a thing any thought at all.”

“You three have been marvelous, Lord Peverel. Now what can I do for you tonight?”

“You have a fine home in Grandauer Hall, your highness.” Peverel studied the room with his usual attention to detail, then beamed at her. “But as you have company, we’ll stay only long enough for you to sign a few papers.”

Caro felt Wexford shift behind her and wondered how a man could live his life suspecting everyone he met of nefarious motives.

“What kind of papers this time?” They seemed endless.

“Setting up your own personal treasury, Princess Caroline.” Wellstetter pulled a portfolio from beneath his half-cape and spread it open on the table. “Transfers to the Bank of Boratania from your accounts at the Bank of England.”

Innes added his finger to Wellstetter’s pointing. “Right here are your considerable town rents and your farm and faire revenues.”

“Your taxes, Princess,” Peverel added without even looking down at the document, his hat in his hand, his attention still wandering the room as though he were bored and wishing he were at his club.

One detail heaped upon another, coming faster as the time grew closer. Time when she would be an Empress and her family would be restored to the great names of Europe.

Caro signed countless pages, with Wexford sprawled in a chair, pretending disinterest as he read a copy of the
Times
, when she knew that he’d rather be reading every line from over her shoulder.

Making her feel much better because he was watching over her—this man who had taken bullets
for other people and survived. Which wasn’t soothing in the least.

Even a cat has just so many lives.

“You’ll be at the Swanbrook tournament, Your Highness?” Peverel was already standing by the door, crooking his finger at his compatriots.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Lord Peverel.”
Assassin or no
. She couldn’t allow her enemies to keep her from carrying out her duties.

The men nearly backed into Runson with their duckish bowing. But her “butler” cleared his throat, averting a collision and steering her privy council out into the foyer and finally through the door.

“Will these three be your permanent counselors, Princess?” Wexford asked as he led her back to the library and shut the door behind them.

“Only until I can hold a parliamentary election. Then, just as with the English Parliament, the prime minister will select his ministers and I will live by his choice of council.” Though it all still seemed a far-off possibility. “At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“Just curious as to how a new empress goes about starting a kingdom from scratch.”

“Frankly, I hadn’t thought that far until Palmerston explained the process to me and then the—”

A knock sounded at the library door.

“Come in!” Caro said without thinking.

“Who is it?” Wexford was already at the door, listening vigilantly, as he flashed a frown at her.

“Mackenzie, sir. I thought you might be takin’ a workin’ dinner in here with the princess.”

“Mackenzie is a renowned chef, Princess Caro
line.” Wexford threw open the door to the man and two of his burly kitchen staff. “I’m pleased to say that I stole him from the Compte de Ferrat about seven years ago—”

“Been the best seven years of my life, Princess.” Mackenzie tossed her a huge wink as his male, very out-of-place-looking staff of cook’s assistants carried in a pair of trays, and made room for the luscious smelling food on the low table by the cold fireplace.

“Why exactly do you like working for the earl, Mr. Mackenzie?” A full-blooded, red-bearded Scotsman who was also a reknowned chef?

“Where else, Your Highness, can an ordinary man risk his life for queen and country at the same time he’s preparing a pheasant under glass?” Mackenzie poured the wine into two of her finest stemmed glasses.

“He likes the danger, Princess.” Drew winked at her that time, setting her heart to fluttering.

“Never know where we’ll be from one assignment to the next. Exotic spices, flying bullets and wild game.” He threw back his head and laughed. “Ahhhh, cheffin’ doesn’t get any better than that, Your Highness.”

“Welcome to Grandauer, Mr. Mackenzie. May you find your assignment here long on exotic spices and short on bullets.” She lifted the covered dish and found a succulent game hen steaming on a bed of rosemary. “Though if you’re not careful, Wexford, I just might loot Mr. Mackenzie from you and take him back with me to Boratania.”