Royal Protocol

Be sure to catch the next segment in the Crown and Glory series,
Her Royal Husband
by Cara Colter.

Not at the moment. He’d had no intention of touching her. He’d deliberately kept himself from it, in fact. Yet, he could feel the taunting fullness of her soft lips beneath his fingers. Her warm breath trembled against his skin.

It would be so easy to slip his hand around the back of her neck, lower his mouth to hers and find out what it was about her that tested his control. But now wasn’t the time to cave in to temptation.

She stepped back, looking very much as if she didn’t know why she hadn’t moved before now. He confused her. But he figured that made them even. She was confusing the daylights out of him.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

A
dmiral Harrison Monteque moved with the silent aggression of a nuclear submarine as he strode down the gilded main hall of the royal residence. Uniformed guards snapped to attention in his wake, doors opening to allow him entry without question as he moved toward the queen’s private apartments.

Not one of those young guards made eye contact with him. A fair number held their breath. No one wanted to draw his attention for fear they weren’t standing smartly enough, weren’t looking alert enough. He wasn’t even their commander. Not directly, anyway. Yet every one of them knew that the formidable man in the impressively decorated navy-blue uniform held the respect of every officer in the military and that he demanded the best of anyone who served the crown.

The best was nothing compared to what he demanded of himself. Rumor had it that he constantly pushed his
own limits, asking even more of himself than he did of others.

Lately he’d been pushing himself more than many would have thought humanly possible—had they known the pressures and responsibilities he and a handful of his peers had secretly undertaken.

For nearly two months he had lived on four hours of sleep each night. Five at best. He spent his nights poring through reams of diplomatic communiqués, stacks of ministerial requests and reports usually meant only for the eyes of the king—all to keep the government running smoothly and protect the interests of the kingdom of Penwyck’s citizens.

He spent his days in briefings with his three counterparts on the king’s Royal Elite Team—each of whom had spent the night with piles of paper of his own—and overseeing the fleets of ships, the aircraft and the fifty thousand sailors under his command.

His caffeine consumption had doubled.

So had his intake of antacids.

If he’d still smoked, he didn’t doubt that he’d be up to a couple of packs a day by now. If not before, then certainly after this morning.

Prince Owen, one of the king and queen of Penwyck’s twenty-three-year-old twin sons and a possible heir to the throne, had been kidnapped.

A note to that effect had been delivered to the royal offices two hours ago. The prince’s absence, along with the signs of struggle the guards had found in the prince’s bedroom, proved the note hadn’t been a hoax.

Harrison had been in an intelligence meeting when he’d received the call. As head of the Royal Elite Team, he had immediately ordered full security for the rest of the royal family. Those he could find, anyway. Prince
Owen’s vagabond twin, Prince Dylan, was still off trekking Europe, deliberately ignoring the need for security for someone of his stature. Or perhaps escaping it. But Harrison had taken full measures to protect those he could. He’d then had the king’s personal secretary break the news of the prince’s kidnapping to the queen.

He would have told Queen Marissa himself, but there had been other security measures to implement, questions to ask, answers to demand. Aside from that, he never did well when it came to breaking upsetting news to a woman. Where females were concerned, he definitely lacked training when it came to offering emotional support.

He had no choice but to speak with her now. As he understood it, Her Majesty had been at breakfast with two of her three daughters, the Princesses Megan and Anastasia, when the note had been received. Security precautions demanded they be separated. The princesses had been escorted to their rooms on the second floor of the east wing. The queen had retired to her chamber.

The thud of Harrison’s polished black shoes echoed off the marble floor as he approached a set of carved double doors. His only hope was that she would remain as calm and serene as she always appeared to be.

A baby-faced lieutenant in the Royal Guard’s red-jacketed uniform and red beret jerked his rifle to parade rest and snapped a salute. “Admiral.”

“Lieutenant,” Harrison returned, and walked past the door the soldier held for him.

The queen’s drawing room was as ornate as the rest of the palace: ceilings and cornices were coffered and curved; walls were covered with hand-carved plaster and gilded wainscoting; the marble fireplace was graced by marble columns. Except, here rich colors of royalty gave
way to frankly feminine shades of cream and yellow. Other than the pale velvet sofa framed by a sheer-curtained window, the furniture was all dainty chairs and chaises covered in silk damask and totally unsuitable for use by any male with muscle on his bones.

The secretary’s desk, tucked against a far wall, was unoccupied. A guard had called ahead, so they’d known he was coming. The queen’s personal secretary, however, the gray-haired and very proper Mrs. Ferth, was nowhere to be seen.

Impatient at the thought of having to wait for the woman to announce him, he started back for the guard. He’d barely turned when the tall, carved doubled doors at the far side of the room swung inward. A slender woman in a pale-pink wool suit, her gleaming blond hair restrained in a tight twist, stepped out and closed the doors behind her.

Impatience turned to an inward groan.

No one saw the queen without going through her secretary or her lady-in-waiting. With the secretary obviously unavailable, that left him stuck with the woman he’d come to think of as the ice maiden, Lady Gwendolyn Corbin.

“Lady Corbin,” he said, acknowledging her with a nod of his dark head. He knew there were those who found the woman walking toward him quite charming. Where they got that impression was beyond him. From the cool formality she’d always exhibited around him—on the rare occasions he had been around her—Lady Gwen had struck him as possessing about as much warmth as the marble statues in the garden.

“I must speak with Her Majesty.”

“She’s coming. Can you tell me what’s going on?” With her hands clasped tightly enough to whiten her
knuckles, she moved closer, her blue eyes searching his. “Sir Selwyn would say only that Prince Owen had been kidnapped and that the queen is to remain in her rooms. Do you know what happened? Is he hurt?”

Gwen anxiously searched the ruggedly carved features of the tall, powerfully built man before her. Harrison Monteque had always reminded her of a Scottish warlord, that breed of male who had defended his highlands with nothing but brute force and a sword of hammered steel. The hard angles and planes of his face were framed with deep-auburn hair cut close, she assumed, to tame any hint of curl rather than to meet military code. His eyes, the amber brown of a panther’s, held hers with disconcerting ease.

He was over six feet of commanding, demanding male in an admiral’s uniform. But even without the gold braid trimming his cuffs and epaulets, the five stars denoting his rank and the slew of ribbons decorating his chest, his authority was unmistakable. Power radiated from him like heat.

She had never felt comfortable around the man, never cared for his iron-fisted methods and his overbearing manner. Yet, as she stood waiting for him to shed light on the awful events of the morning, she wouldn’t have cared if he’d marched in with trumpets and his troops, as long as he could tell her what was happening. Her concern for the royal family and her friend the queen totally overrode everything else.

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”

“Because you don’t know? Or because you can’t say?”

Harrison heard no challenge in the question. Only disquiet and a hint of totally unexpected vulnerability.

“Because what I have is only for the queen.”

“Can you at least tell me if the news is positive?”

He had never seen her look at him so openly before. Without the polite-but-cool facade she usually wore around him, he couldn’t help but notice the flecks of turquoise in her lake-blue eyes, the delicate curve of her cheek, the soft part of her lovely mouth.

He’d never before noticed the poreless quality of her skin, or the intriguing, tantalizing fullness of her bottom lip.

He noticed now—along with a distinct and unmistakable pull low in his groin when he caught a hint of the surpassingly erotic perfume she wore.

Caught completely off guard by her, unaccustomed to being caught off guard by much of anything, he banished his body’s betraying reactions beneath military bearing and watched her openness fade.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though the tightness in his voice hardly made him sound it. “I really must speak with the queen.” Wishing she wasn’t standing so close, he nodded over her shoulder. “If you would please get her for me?”

“No need,” came the cultured tones of Queen Marissa’s voice. “I’m here.”

As Gwen had done moments ago, the queen of Penwyck stepped through the double doors that led from her salon and bedchamber. A tall, slender woman of grace and breeding, her dark hair was knotted at her nape and held with a filigreed gold clasp. Her cashmere slacks and silk blouse were as flawless as the diamonds on her fingers and the thick gold chain draped around her neck.

Gwen dropped a quick, automatic curtsy. Her Majesty’s striking features bore the strain of the morning as she acknowledged her with a nod and continued toward the man dominating the decidedly feminine room.

Harrison’s air of command suggested that he deferred
to no one. Yet he immediately offered a respectful and amazingly gallant bow.

“Admiral Monteque.” Lifting her hand to indicate that he should rise, she stopped by a small chair beneath a surprisingly casual portrait of the royal family. In it, she and King Morgan were in hunting clothes, their five children surrounding them with their horses. “Please, let’s dispense with formalities. What can you tell me of my son?”

His incisive glance cut toward the woman quietly waiting ten feet away. “May I speak with you alone, Your Majesty?”

“I would prefer that Lady Gwendolyn stay.”

“This is a matter of security, Your Majesty.”

“We all realize that, Admiral,” she replied, too tense to sit, too refined to pace. “Please, what do you know of Owen? I heard a guard say that his room has been searched. There was a struggle.” Her hand clutched the back of the chair as she took a deep breath. “Was there any sign of…violence?”

“There was no blood,” he replied, fairly certain that was what she was asking. “At least none that was immediately visible. We have forensics people in there now.”

“Doing what?”

“Dusting for prints. Searching for physical evidence. Royal Intelligence is on top of it.”

“But what are they doing to find him?”

“What they’re doing right now will help find him,” he explained, taking her insistence as a merciful sign that she was holding her own. “They need clues to know where to start.” He paused. “The best one we have right now was in the ransom note.”

It was against his better judgment to continue in the
presence of the woman watching him so intently. He had no idea what Lady Corbin’s security clearance was, but he knew it wasn’t anywhere near high enough to be privy to the events now taking place. He also knew he wasn’t in a position at the moment to do anything other than as his sovereign instructed.

“The contents of the note will not be made public,” he continued with a pointed glance toward Gwen, “but we know why he was taken. Whoever took the prince is demanding that Penwyck withdraw from the treaty we are about to sign with Majorco.”

“That’s the ransom demand? That we not sign?”

Harrison’s confirming nod was as tight as the muscles knotting his gut.

Majorco was an island thirty miles southeast of Penwyck. Like the island of Drogheda to the east, it was a principality. At least it had been until the last of the ruling family died off last year and left them without an heir. The existing parliament had taken over quickly enough to form a democracy, but their military had fallen apart.

The country’s new leaders had asked Penwyck for protection and proposed an alliance that had quickly become part of a larger agreement the king had been unable to refuse.

“You know that withdrawal from the alliance isn’t an option,” he carefully reminded her. “The treaty with Majorco has become crucial to our trade agreement with the United States. That alliance must go through at all costs.”

The queen visibly paled. “Not at all costs, Admiral.”

“You know how important this is to the kingdom.”

“You will not sacrifice my son.”

Even as the queen spoke, Gwen moved toward her, graceful in her silence, and stopped protectively a few
feet from her side. He didn’t at all appreciate that she was looking at him as if he’d snatched the prince himself.

“I assure you that is not our intention. We will find him,” he insisted, because the alternative wasn’t one he was willing to accept. “Our analysts are already working on the note to see where it came from. Intelligence is also profiling every radical and subversive organization that might feel threatened by that alliance.”

Gwen’s glance caught his. “Who brought it?” she quietly inquired. “The note. Who delivered it here?”

“Please answer her,” the queen asked when he hesitated.

“A commercial courier service delivered it to the royal offices for King Morgan. We’re checking now to see who paid for the delivery.

“We’re taking care of everything,” he assured the older woman, wishing the younger one would leave. “But we’ll have to speak later about what remains to be done regarding the alliance.” He paused, a muscle in his jaw jerking, as it tended to do when inner frustration leaked out. It would have been so much simpler to take care of all his business with the queen right now. But, right now, because of the petite blonde staring icicles at him, he couldn’t. “It’s no longer safe to speak by telephone. There’s too much risk of conversations being intercepted,” he explained, ignoring the chill. “It will be best if we meet to talk.”

The queen said nothing. She simply stared at him long enough for him to get the feeling that the alliance was the last thing on her mind before giving him a rather numb nod.

“Please keep me informed,” she murmured.

“I will.”

“About my son,” she clarified.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” he replied, and watched her give her lady-in-waiting a look of pure distress before she walked regally across the antique Aubusson carpet to the tall double doors.