Linda Needham (15 page)

At the very beginning. With her parents. Her grandparents, if she could find out anything more of them.

Knowing just what to take, Caro grabbed the long
leather case that held the family tree and went up the stairs to her chamber.

But as she changed out of her much-abused velvet gown and into her linen nightgown and her favorite silk robe, something began to niggle at the back of her brain.

Something she’d heard recently.

Today at the tournament, in the Grand Pavilion.

Or in the garden.

The sky was so blue then.

And there was the abbey bell standing amongst the pansies.

And the spire, glistening gold in the sunlight.

Marcus had been holding it.

And Johannes.

Yes, it was something Johannes had said. An offhand remark that she’d clearly heard, but since it hadn’t made sense at the time, she’d dismissed it.

The late Lord Minorhoff. Something grand he’d done for her father.

No, that wasn’t it. But so close.

Her parents?

Of course! Lord Minorhoff had rescued the spire from the looters!

The night your parents died.

“My parents?” A funny thing to say, because they hadn’t died the same night. Or even in the same country.

But twenty years was a long time ago.

And Johannes was old, doubtless easily confused about things that had happened far in the past.

Facts easily fell out of sequence, became generalized, one legend eventually merging with another and becoming an altogether new tale.

She was making too much of Johannes’s rambling.

No, it was time go back to the beginning, and before that.

She unbuckled the strap around the long, ornately embossed leather case that had protected her family tree for time out of mind.

The thick parchment had been folded centuries ago like an intricate puzzle by some monk with too much time on his hands, with this corner tucked behind that edge, leaving Caro to wrestle with each crease and pleat. The stubborn chart grew larger and larger until it reached its full four-foot-by-eight-foot size, revealing the beautifully illuminated emblems of heraldry, the finely scripted names and titles, important dates, and the web of lines and curves that intersected so many lives.

She unhooked two landscapes from the picture rail and hung her family tree by its integral iron grommets, then stood back and looked at it.

“There I am!” Her name boldly scribed near the bottom, just beneath the connected line of her parents. She’d been added by someone soon after she was born.

“I wonder who?”

Too much to think about tonight.

…rescued by the late Lord Minorhoff from the looters the night your parents died.

And there was that oddity.

In the morning. She’d tell Drew about it the moment she saw him. After she’d checked in on Henry.

And read the reports on the shooting that nearly took the man’s life.

Becoming an empress was a lot more difficult than she’d ever imagined.

And a lot more dangerous.

She tried not to listen for sounds coming from the chamber next to hers, but couldn’t help noticing the silence. She doused the lamps and snuggled into the downy comfort of her own bed.

Her last thought, as she slipped into her dreams, was that the man in the next room looked magnificent in any century.

And that he doubtless hadn’t a nightshirt to his name.

The stuff that dreams were built upon.

“Y
ou were there when it happened, your lordship,” Trevor said, sliding the last of the report across the table into Drew’s hand, “have I got it all down here?”

“I was there all right, Trevor, but I was inside the carriage at first and then didn’t see much as I went after Henry.” Drew kept his yawn behind his fist as he quickly scanned the page in the pool of lamplight, and then slipped it behind the other pages. “But your story seems to fit exactly with mine, so until you talk to Henry and the others in the morning, let’s call this the official report.”

The door burst open to Wyatt’s never subtle entrance, a rolled bundle under his arm. “Here’s our would-be assassin’s clothes, your lordship, contents of his pockets intact.”

“And I’ve made a chart of his blind, as well as the roadway and the approaches,” Halladay said, dropping his carefully detailed pencil drawing onto the
table. “At least as much as I could determine by lamplight. I’ll add to it in the morning.”

“And the body, Wyatt?” Drew asked as he unrolled the bundle of carefully folded clothes.

“On its nasty way back to the Factory. The bastard. Should have a full report by noon.”

“And tomorrow will be soon enough for the rest of it, gentlemen. I don’t know about you, but I want out of this miserable costume. And if I never have to see another tilting tournament, it’ll still be too soon.”

“I did like the fruit pasties, sir,” Trevor said, patting his considerable chest. “And the ladies were fine to look at as well. Our princess most of all.”

A dazzling iridescence of blue and white and gold.

“Thanks to all of your vigilance and quick thinking, we still have her with us.”

An unthinkable loss if he’d failed her.

“Sleep well, gentlemen. I’ll have breakfast brought in here at seven, and we can start then.”

Unsettled by a growing sense that he was missing a crucial clue, Drew stayed behind to read over the “Princess Files” and to right his thoughts. But his thinking was sadly rattled tonight.

And his tunic had begun to itch.

He climbed the stairs and listened at Caro’s chamber door. No sounds at all, no light under her door. She must have fallen asleep.

Doubtless priming herself for tomorrow’s battle against her assassin. That’s just what he needed right now, the potential victim mounting her own investigation.

This marvelous woman who never did anything halfway.

To ensure his privacy before he bathed, he made
sure that his door was locked and then wedged a chair against the connecting panel.

He slept badly. Chased that bloody Prince Malcomb through a garden fountain; tilted at teapots; took a bullet in his shoulder and a lance in the middle of his chest that sent him backward into a soft, soft place.

A warmth against his face.

The sweet lilt of Caro’s voice inside his head, inside his dreams. Alongside his ear like a whisper.

“Just as I suspected,” she said.

No, not in his dreams. In his room! Not more than a foot from him.

He kept his eyes closed, fearing the worst of her boldness. “Are you dressed, madam?”

“Of course I am.” He felt her leaning closer. “But I don’t think you are.”

“Damnation!” Drew opened his eyes and reached for the counterpane. It was safely above his waist, though not for long if he didn’t move quickly. She was far too close for comfort, and he’d been dreaming of her.

He sat up, knees bent to hide himself, and glared his best at the woman who had somehow found a way into his room despite his best efforts. Like a mountain mist, a ghost slipping through a crack in the molding. “What the devil are you doing in here?”

She hiked herself up onto the edge of the bed. “I knocked, Drew, but you didn’t answer.”

“I was asleep.”

“I know. I could hear you snoring all the way from my room.”

“I don’t snore.”

She laughed and ran her fingers through the hair at
his temple, brushing it back off his forehead. “Then you must have had a great lion in here with you, because I heard such a roaring—”

“What do you want?”

“I want to ask you something.” She folded her hands in her lap.

“Couldn’t this have waited until breakfast? What time is it?”

“A bit after six in the morning. I was wondering if you heard Johannes say the same thing I did yesterday?”

Christ.
She
had
heard.

Drew scrubbed at his face with his palms, wishing it all away. Yet he had to ask. “What was that, Princess?”

“He said that Lord Minorhoff had saved the Tovaranche spire the night my parents died.”

Playing dumb was his safest course. “And?”

“Is that what he said? ‘The night your parents died.’”

Not knowing where she was going with her logic, he could only shake his head and hope for more information. “I don’t know, Caro. Why?”

“Because…” She stood and ambled away to the cold hearth, tapping a fingertip against her upper lip. “It’s absolutely nothing, really. But it’s just an odd thing for him to say, because my parents didn’t die on the same night.”

“It’s been a long time, Caro. Memories become jumbled together.”

Or, bloody hell, Johannes was there when they died. The floor seemed to shift below the bed.

“That’s what I was thinking, Drew. After all, Johannes must be well into his seventies.”

Though the man had seemed sound of mind enough. They all did. And that was the trouble.

“And there’s a chance you heard him wrong, Princess. With all the excitement of meeting your subjects and finding the spire.”

She nodded. “It was quite a moment, wasn’t it?”

“Just leave it be, Caro. You wouldn’t want to embarrass Johannes by questioning his memory.”

Or learning a truth that would eventually lead to so many others.

“No, no, I wouldn’t want to press him. Yes, well, thank you. I guess I’ll be leaving now.”

“Leaving for where, madam?” Here he was, trapped beneath a counterpane without a stitch of clothing.

She measured her gaze down the length of him as though she had read his mind, and then went to the wide-open panel in the wall. “Oh, I thought I’d stroll on into London.”

“Princess!”

“Or maybe just downstairs to check on Henry.”

The minx. “Don’t coddle the man.”

“Henry deserves all the coddling I can give him, my lord. After all, he nearly died for me.”

Drew waited for the sound of his wayward princess replacing the swinging bookcase on the other side of the wall before he threw off the bedclothes. He dressed quickly, and just as quickly made it to the investigation room.

The place swarmed with nearly a dozen agents, and smelled deliciously of the huge breakfast Mackenzie had laid out on the sideboard.

“Ah, there you are, sir!” Nicholas met Drew with a heaping plate and obviously an appetite to match.
“The bloody bastard wasn’t in our file of local criminals.”

“A name?” Drew grabbed a piece of buttered toast from a silver rack on the sideboard.

“Not even a hint.”

That would have been too damned simple. “Where’s Halladay?”

Nicholas had popped a rasher of thick, pink bacon into his mouth and now chewed through it while he talked. “Took a detail to the site of the ambush at first light. Should be back any min—”

Nicholas had stopped chomping on his bacon and was looking past Drew to the doorway. The whole room had come to a complete stop.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” came the low, meadowy-warm voice that had become so fondly familiar.

“G’d morning, Princess…Your Highness…Majesty…madam…Well, hello…blast—” and every other possible greeting from a dozen different men. Along with stumbled bows and half salutes and a whole lot of stammering.

She was standing in the doorway, taking it all in with her usual studied grace. She’d added that same homespun smock over her skirts that she’d been wearing a few days ago in the orangery—her work outfit, with its modest shapelessness and big pockets and slightly raveled flounce.

And suddenly all he could think about was the slender turn of her ankle, her pale stockings and delicate slippers.

“I wanted to be sure that all of you know how much I appreciate the fine work you did for me yesterday
and last night. And for all the other times you’ve devoted to my safety that I wasn’t even aware of.”

“Anything for our princess,” Wyatt said with an unnecessary bow.

“I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am—” she touched the back of Wyatt’s hand and the man’s jaw went limp. “And I promise to be on my best behavior from this moment on. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Drew knew better than to hope she was going to spend the day simply catching up on her letter writing.

“Now, Lord Wexford,” she said, turning those eager blue eyes directly on him, “if you’ll catch me up on the investigation, I’ll get right to work.”

Bloody hell! Be careful what you wish for. An eagerly determined princess might be far more dangerous than a dismissive one.

Or a stunningly beautiful one.

With luminously blue eyes and long, gold-tipped lashes.

And a curling halo of sun-bright hair that he wanted to run his fingers through.

That smelled of her rosy lavender soap and—

“Ah, yes, Princess.” Trying to reassemble his addled wits, Drew was about to ask if she would like to take a seat and listen to the field reports, but her brows suddenly came together. She gasped and made a beeline for the items spread across the top of the large table by the window.

“Great heavens! Where did all of these things come from?” She reached for a silver cigar tube, then seemed to think better of it and merely peered
closely at it, clasping her hands safely behind her back.

Drew raised his brows to his cadre of agents so they would stand down, and then relaxed somewhat as he sat on the edge of the tabletop.

“They were found at the scene of the ambush.”

“All of this?” She looked at the matchbox and then the metal hair comb. “Was it just strewn around randomly, or—”

“Most of it in the assassin’s pockets.”

“His pockets?” She glanced up at him, her forehead a puzzle of lines. “Then how did you get—oh. Of course.” She stopped and then stared back at the array of the dead man’s personal items, her luscious mouth set for a moment in a grim line. “I see.”

“If I may, sir?” Trevor had been watching Caro’s every move, and now reached across the desk, picked up the metal daguerreotype and handed it to her.

Drew moved in behind her, looking over her shoulder, trying to ignore the fresh scent of soap at her neck, the riotous curls at her nape, as she carefully studied the very formal portrait.

“Have you ever seen this man, Princess?” he asked, rather smoothly for a man on the brink of arousal.

“It’s not the assassin, Your Highness,” Trevor added quickly, as intent upon watching her run her fingertip over the surface as Drew was—as all of the other men were, as though her next words would solve the entire case.

“That’s Antwerp behind him,” she said.

“How’s that?” Drew asked, thoroughly surprised at the confidence in her voice.

“Well, the backdrop is a large painting of the Grote Market and the guildhalls in the square. That’s the cathedral tower in the background.”

Of course. The painting was dark and Drew hadn’t yet given it a good look. “Anything else?”

She narrowed her gaze at the photo. “Hmm…he probably has some association with the city of Bruges.”

“Because…?” Drew asked.

“Because the lace tablecloth was made in the Bruges double-swan pattern, a hallmark of the venerable Zwin-Lanchaise factory. And that stone bear statue standing upright beside the vase of roses is the town symbol.”

Drew tried not to smile at his clever princess. No reason at all to feel pride in the woman’s intelligence, but his agents were nodding at one another. “Anything else that strikes you as relevant?”

“The man is wearing finely tailored clothes, expensive linen, a silk cravat from Paris.” She tapped at the neck cloth pin in the photo. “And if I’m not mistaken, my lord, he’s a member of the Guildmen of Bruges.”

“Who are the Guildmen of Bruges?” Wyatt asked from his perch on the window seat, his breakfast plate untouched.

“It’s now an association, but it originated in the fourteenth century as a single officeholder who managed the guild activities outside the town wall.”

“How the devil do you know all this?” Drew asked, leaning against the table again so that he could see her better.

“Because my grandfather, King Alonzo III, was an
honorary member and I have his pin—one just like this one—in my personal collection.”

The group gave one of their collective mumbles of appreciation.

“Amazing work, Your Highness!” Allenby said, adding a long whistle.

Amazing indeed, because the pin connected her, however loosely, to the man who had taken a shot at her. Or not.

“But you don’t know the name of the man in the portrait?” he asked.

“Sorry, I’ve never seen him before.” She handed back the daguerreotype and went back to inspecting the items on the table. “Where did you find it?”

“In his coat pocket.”

“Loose or protected?”

Drew had the distinct feeling he’d lost control of the interview. “In his wallet. Why? Should that make a difference?”

She shrugged. “I’m certainly no expert in logic, my lord, but it seems to me that the only reason the assassin would go to the trouble of carrying and protecting a tintype portrait is that the subject meant something very special to him, personally.”

“Like a brother,” Wyatt said, leaving the window. “Or a cousin. An uncle.”

“Only if the uncle was the same age as our dead man,” Nicholas said, taking another quick look at the portrait. “Because, of course, this daguerreotype couldn’t possibly be more than about twelve years old, which makes the subject too young to be our assassin’s father.”

“However,” Caro added, as she continued to inspect the other pieces of evidence, “he could be a
hero to the man. Someone he admired or who inspired him? A patriotic leader?”

Drew’s thought exactly. Though it didn’t matter. Whether the tintype turned out to be an important lead or a sentimental souvenir, he couldn’t take the chance of not investigating it.