Linda Needham (9 page)

Even you, Princess.

“Peverel might have been saving them for your collection.” He picked up the battered silver candlestick, its value obviously nothing more than sentimental.

Which doubtless gave it nearly magical powers, in the princess’s eyes.

“Lord Peverel is a helpful-enough man, but he’s never shown a moment’s interest in anything Boratanian, save the structure of my government. He’s a legal scholar, he’s elderly, he’s an Englishman, for goodness sake; I doubt he’ll miss a single item, and wouldn’t care a whit, even if he did.”

“You’re probably ri—Get down, Princess!” Reacting out of habit to the sudden scrape of a man’s boot entering the orangery from the west, Drew shoved the princess to the ground and stood in front of her.

She grabbed hold of his calf with both hands. “What are you do—”

He managed to reach backward, clamped his hand over her mouth, and whispered, “Quiet.”

“You in here, my lord?”

“Here, Runson.” The danger dissipated like a vapor. He should have recognized the man’s long stride.

“There you are, sir!” Runson came lumbering around a stack of boxes, his natty butler’s disguise just barely believable.

Then Runson stopped to stare at the princess still clinging to Drew’s thigh—very high up on his thigh, her fingers warm and close and kneading where they
shouldn’t be. “We’re holdin’ a rather overdressed man and his two assistants in the cloakroom. Says his name is Vincent.”

“Vincent!” The princess rocketed to her feet, using Drew’s coattail as still another startling handhold. “Heavens above, I completely forgot!”

“Forgot what, Princess?”

“An appointment!” She grabbed up her big logbook and took off at a run.

“Wait, Princess! Oh, damn and hell!”

The woman was as arrogant and stubborn and unpredictable as any royal he’d ever met.

She’d obviously learned from the best. A complete surprise to him, because, despite her beauty and her fine bones and her command of everything around her, she wasn’t a princess at all.

A scandalous secret.

One that he would take with him to his death, if need be.

D
rew caught up with her and her flying skirts a dozen yards from the orangery, this woman who could sprint like a deer. “Don’t ever bolt from me like that again, madam!”

“Sorry, Wexford. But Vincent is going to be absolutely furious with me.” She kept striding forward as though she hadn’t heard him. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Heaven knows how badly he’ll react, with Runson locking him in the coat closet.”

“Just who the devil is this Vincent fellow?” And why does he matter so much? He shook off the twinge of jealousy, her sudden angst over this man.

Not that he would allow her to see him until he was cleared of any entangling cobwebs.

“Vincent is the preeminent costumier among the fashionable.”

He couldn’t have heard her rightly. “He’s the what?”

“You must have heard of him. He designs and
makes costumes for all the best fancy-dress occasions. He’s a very busy man. And now I’m late for a fitting.”

“Fitting for what?” Drew hooked her elbow with his hand and stopped her, not remembering any fancy-dress occasions in her official schedule.

“My gown…” She frowned up at him, her eyes snapping with impatience. “For the tournament at Lord Swanbrook’s, two days from now.”

Oh, that debacle! Swanbrook had been touting the event for the last year.

“You know the kind of thing, Wexford. Medieval tents and banners and horses, feasting and jousting, archery demonstrations—”

A bloody shooting gallery.
“You’re not going.”

“Don’t be absurd. I have to attend.” She harrumphed at him and started toward the house again, brushing aside the limb of a densely laden lilac bush and launching its powerful fragrance into the air. “It’s another event connected to the Great Exhibition, hosted by Viscount Swanbrook at his estate in Hampstead. I’m representing Boratania.”

“I know what it is. You are
still
not going.”

“The festivities start at noon. I’m one of the Damsels of the Dell, attending Lady Phyllis, Countess of Swanbrook, the Queen of the May. I’ve promised Swanbrook and Prince Albert that I would—”

“I’ll send word to Swanbrook and the prince that you’re under the weather. I’m sure they’ll forgive you.”

“I can’t do that.” She had stomped up the stairs into the side entrance of the house and now pulled open the door with a good bit of pointed force. “Not
only am I a Damsel, Wexford, but Queen Victoria has arranged for me to be formally introduced to Prince Malcomb of Tragovny.”

“Why the devil would she do that to you?” He followed her through the door and down the polished walnut hallway.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m a princess of the blood, my lord. Like it or not, I have no choice but to make a royal match with a royal prince.”

With Tragovny? “God, no.” Drew felt a hot stone drop from his chest and groaned under his breath as it landed with a sizzling thud in the pit of his stomach.

“I can’t help that the queen is always on the lookout for a potential bridegroom for me. It’s inconvenient and annoying, but she is the queen, and I—”

Drew stopped her just before they entered the foyer, trapping her with his arm against the walnut-paneled wall, keeping his voice low and his mouth near enough to kiss her. “And the queen is considering Malcomb of Tragovny for the job?”

The most violent, profligate, drunkardly prince he’d ever had the displeasure to meet?

She shrugged one shoulder, her breath warm and billowing against the underside of his chin. “I have to marry someone, someday.”

“Well, you’re bloody well not going to marry Prince Malcomb.”

“Is that so?” She set her ponderous logbook on the side table and folded her arms across her chest.

“Not while I still have a breath in my body.”

“And just who suddenly appointed you my matchmaker?” He could feel her foot tapping against her skirts, causing the slightest pressure and release
against his knee. He found himself staring at her lips, imagining their plumpness tasting of lilac and lavender.

“Lord Palmerston did, the moment he assigned me to protect you.”

“From an assassin, not from a husband.”

“From anyone who might try to do you harm. Including…no, madam,
especially
, that puling, vicious Prince Malcomb. I won’t allow it.”

Her eyes softened suddenly to the blue of cornflower. “
You
won’t?”

“And that’s another reason you’re not attending Swanbrook’s little tournament the day after tomorrow or any other day.”

Her voice broke into a harsh whisper. “I’m fully aware of the prince’s behavior, sir. He’s my third cousin and his transgressions have been an embarrassment to the family since before I can remember.”

“Which makes him eternally ineligible for you.”

“I agree with you completely, my lord.” She tapped his chest with her finger, throwing his heart into a spin, shooting sizzling ripples of heat deeper into his groin with every tap. “But Malcomb is family, as is the queen, and I’ve never met him and it’s not as though he’s planning to clout me over the head in the Grand Pavilion, or in the middle of the lists with thousands of people looking on, and then drag me off to his cave.”

Drew realized too late that the woman had lulled him and slipped out from beneath his arm and was heading for the foyer. “We’re not finished here.”

“No time, my lord. Vincent is waiting!”

“Damn this Vincent!” Drew followed her into the cloak closet vestibule.

“I’m coming, Vincent! Please let me in, Mrs. Tweeg.”

Good old Tweeg was standing guard in front of the closet door with a chiding brow. “You’ll not fool me again, Princess Caroline.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tweeg. I was unpardonably rude to pull such a prank this morning. It won’t ever happen again.”

“Indeed it won’t.”

“So, Princess, you intend to completely ignore my professional advice and attend the tournament anyway?”

“This is a perfect instance of your having to work around me, Wexford. But don’t worry, with all those royals roving around the grounds, I’m sure there will be bodyguards aplenty on the scene.”

“Including me, Princess.” And another two dozen of his finest.

“Of course.” She smiled up at him. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Nor would I
, he thought, but wisely didn’t say.

“Besides,” she said, “I mean to rescue a set of golden wall sconces at the tournament.”

“Good God.”

“Is that you, my Princess?” The door thumped, one rousing fist against solid walnut. “Your people have been horribly rude!”

“Yes, I know they are, Vincent.” The princess scowled hard at Drew. “But we’re having a bit of mechanical trouble with the lock.”

Suddenly certain that this man was no threat to anything but the princess’s sense of fashion, Drew nodded at Tweeg and the woman clicked the key in the latch.

“Come with me to my dressing room, Vincent!” the princess announced as the door flew open to a chaos of complaints and lush velvet and deep satins which followed her up the stairs like a cloud bank of exotic chattering birds.

She stopped at the top of the stairs. “Will you come too, Mrs. Tweeg?”

“Me?”

“After all, you are my chambermaid.”

Tweeg cast Drew a rueful look, but then plodded obediently up the winding stairs.

“Will I see you at supper tonight, Wexford?”

It was a challenge, plain and simple. A test of wills.

“Till then, Princess.”

He stood there admiring the fine turn of that ankle in those sturdy little boots as she started up the stairs, amazed that something so ordinary could provoke him to stare.

And stammer.

And wish for a different ending to this story than the one he was duty bound to play out.

Determined to keep the woman alive despite her bullheaded recklessness, Drew made a detour to the investigation room where he jotted a few notes about the morning’s findings, then took a fast horse to the Factory to dig more deeply into the princess’s past.

“Farewell, Princess!” Vincent was still waving madly from the carriage window as it sped down the drive into the twilight. “You’ll be the highlight of the tournament!”

“That you will be, Your Highness!” Mrs. Tweeg
was positively preening now as they stood together on the portico, Caro’s earlier indiscretion forgiven. “And won’t his lordship be surprised.”

“Deep green is definitely his color.” And doubtless his calves are marvelously muscular.

“But you really must mind his word and take care of yourself, Princess Caroline.”

“I’ll do my very best, Mrs. Tweeg.” Feeling that she might be exposing her erstwhile chambermaid to an unknown danger out on the portico, with the woods growing deeper shadows in the distance, Caro stepped back inside and Tweeg followed.

“I’ll just go back upstairs to see to the chaos that Vincent made of your dressing room.”

“You’re a dear, Mrs. Tweeg.” More than that, the woman had the patience of Job and a keen eye for color. And seemed utterly delighted that she, too, would be wearing her own rust red medieval gown and whimple.

She watched the woman hurry up the stairs, wondering, as she had done all through Vincent’s visit, what sort of roguery Wexford had been up to in the meanwhile.

He wasn’t with his operatives in his bustling investigation room.

“His lordship said he was going into the City for the rest of the afternoon, Your Highness. Then to his gentleman’s club, I believe.”

“Ah, the Huntsman.” For some reason she’d rather not explore, she felt a bit deserted by the lout, exposed to preposterous dangers she didn’t even believe in. “Did he say when he’d be back, Mr. Helston?”

“In time for supper,” said the short man who was
standing in front of a huge map of Grandauer. “He told us to be sure to tell you that.”

The parlor looked nothing like it had…. Great heavens, was that only yesterday morning? Her delicate tables and lace coverings gone, replaced by worktables and filing drawers. An entire armory in place of the fern stands.

And these men who seemed to be taking the threat against her life as seriously as Wexford. Which was fast becoming as much a comfort as it was a bother. She was trying her best to cooperate, but the timing was simply awful.

“Have you any daguerreotypes of your kingdom, Princess?”

“What’s that, Mr. Helston?”

“Photographs of landscapes or landmarks, etchings of towns or bridges?”

“Well, yes! Would you like to see them?”

“The more information we have on the case, Your Highness, the better chance we have of seating you safely on your throne.”

“Good, then. I’ll see what I can find.”

The lights in her library had already been lit and her boxes of daguerreotypes were right where she’d left them on the hearth table.

She had recently begun sorting through the elegantly posed photographs of her royal aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them, sent to her every Christmas over the last few years. Not only daguerreotypes of people, but of crown jewels and tea sets and carriages, whatever could hold still long enough for the camera to capture their image.

Her dear Boratania. The home she had never seen, but that she loved just the same.

She started putting aside those that she thought Helston might find useful. But the sun had set into a softly glowing orange, and now a chilly breeze from an open window was fluttering the stack of papers on the desk.

She went to a window to close it, but found it already shut tight.

Wondering where the odd breeze was coming from, she started toward the next window, and suddenly stepped in a pile of broken glass.

“What the devil?” Startled by the unsettling feeling, she backed away from the crackling sound, the odd coldness settling in her stomach.

“What is it, Princess?”

Wexford! He was back from the City, and already there at her side, agile and alert.

And her heart must be beating from sudden fear and not because his voice had a way of heating her veins as though it were her pulse.

“Be careful, Wexford. It’s broken glass.” She pointed to the mess on the floor, looked more closely at the window, and found the empty pane.

“Bloody hell, be careful!” Wexford shoved her behind him and yanked the drape closed. “Please, Princess Caroline. You must keep the curtains closed! Halladay!”

Three men had followed him into the library at a run, and now swarmed around her, walling her off from whatever danger they thought she was in.

“Stay back, Princess,” Wexford said, standing firmly between her and the glass, as though she
would somehow slip and accidentally cut herself to death.

“A break-in, sir?” one man asked.

“Has all the earmarks, Halladay.”

“How long ago, do you think?”

“Since yesterday at noon,” Caro said, distracted suddenly by a prickly feeling that something was out of place. “I was in here just before lunch and all the windows were intact, the glass doors closed.” And the drapes drawn.

The four men had stopped their careful inspection and were now looking at her, four pairs of eyes that seemed surprised to see her.

“Noted, Princess,” Wexford said finally, as though she were his clerk. And then they all went back to examining the glass and exclaiming over the door latch and hinges.

“Broken from the outside, sir, making the glass fall inward, giving immediate access to the latch.”

“And to all these boxes,” Caro muttered to herself, finally realizing what had been making the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and now her heart start to pound with dread.

The library had become the repository of all the Boratanian documents and books and manuscripts that she’d managed to collect over the years.

Neat cardboard boxes, labeled and arranged on the bookshelves and in the glass-fronted cabinets below, each according to their value and importance, ready to be installed in the library in Tovaranche castle.

Merely a lot of paper and ink and words. Hardly of a moment’s value to anyone but herself and some future Boratania historian.

And yet someone had found them dear enough to
rifle the boxes, scattering loose pages below the shelves.