The Christmas Princess (25 page)

“Ah.” He sat back. “Tell me, are you aware that Hunter has left us?”

She hitched forward on the seat, “But there’s no need for him to lea—”

“There is every need. The work he does for me now requires travel.”

“The work he does for you?” she repeated, at a loss.

“With the approval of his employer, of course.”

“You… You haven’t sent him away for good?

“Not at all. For a few days only.”

She felt as if she’d been suffocating and now she could breathe again.

“When he returns,” the king went on, “it would only confuse matters if we confided to him — or anyone — what you have told me. It will be better to go on as before and see where this background information he gathers leads us.”

“Background on me? But I’ve told you, there’s no need for that any longer.”

“There is every need, my dear.”

He would tell her no more than that.

In the end, she agreed to his request to keep what she had told him about her identity between them alone.

Tris and Leslie met at the door going into their offices Monday morning.

“Leslie, did Grady call Michael yesterday?”

“I think so. He hasn’t said anything about it, but he disappeared for a while and kid said he was talking to Uncle Michael.”

“I thought so. Michael answered a call, then disappeared into the garage. Then he was out there later making calls.”

They looked at each other, then Tris said, “I think the four of us should have dinner tonight, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. Grady’s put Michael on to finding out what’s going on. Bless his heart,” Leslie said, with a small smile. “He thinks I’m too delicate to be worried about any of this. When what was really bothering me was that he was all laid-back and casual about it. It was so unlike him that it made me really nervous. Tonight we’ll find out what’s really going on.”

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.

Tact didn’t get far with Beatrice Craig. She knew exactly what he was asking beneath the politeness.

“April Craig Gareaux is my great-granddaughter, young man.”

“Yes, Ma’am, but—”

“She is the daughter of Melanie Craig Gatwick Gareaux, who was the daughter of my elder daughter Doria. That’s Doria Halifax Craig Gatwick for your records. Doria died when Melly was twenty-two.”

“Yes, Ma’am. What—”

“I’m speaking, young man.”

He shut up. It was the
young man
that did it, he thought.

He’d driven last night, stayed at a chain motel outside Charlottesville and had breakfast before arriving here.

She’d been inclined to turn him away at the door before he began his explanation that the Department of State hoped for some background on a family member who had connections with a foreign government. Then she’d looked at him sharply, still with the chain on the door, and demanded he hand his identification to her.

She took the ID, closed the door on him and left him standing there for several minutes. If he’d been a gambler, he’d have laid a bet she was calling State at that very minute. It must run in the family. He started to smile.

The door opened and he wiped away the smile. She still gave him a suspicious look.

She’d led him through a house that had been in the family for generations judging from paintings and photos that showed it in previous centuries. Its furnishings respected that history without giving up comfort.

Here in a room at the back enclosed by glass on three sides, the emphasis was on comfort. He’d glimpsed one Christmas tree in a front room. A second stood here. April would approve of both trees.

He pushed aside the thought and got to work, eliciting details around the time of April’s birth, and beyond.

“Jeff’s death was the more difficult for the child.” A sigh escaped the woman. Hunter couldn’t imagine many did. In fact, he didn’t imagine much escaped her — in either sense of the phrase. “I’d like to think it was because by the time Melly died, April had matured, and more importantly had connected with Leslie and Grady, as well the rest of the family. Also the Craigs.”

That confused him — the Craigs
were
the family — but he wasn’t going to stop her now.

“I suspect it was also because Jeff was her true parent. Oh, not that he was a paragon, mind you. Some say he was maturing rapidly, becoming more responsible. I will concede that he took a true interest in April. Spent time with her. In addition, Leslie maintains that I am too harsh in my judgment and that Melly was better when Jeff was alive. Less erratic.” Her features sharpened and she sat even straighter. “Impossible for her to have been more erratic.”

“April’s mother died of—?” The official report said pneumonia.

The woman met his gaze unflinchingly. “Hard living.”

“And her father?”

“Idiocy.”

He coughed. Good Lord, the woman had almost made him laugh during an interview.

“I understand he was mountain climbing with his wife...”

“What could be more idiotic than going to a mountain for the express purpose of climbing it? If one needed to climb one in order to get where one needed to be, yes. Otherwise, idiocy. And, further, to have Melly as his companion and, presumably, his safeguard. I have wondered ... but the State Department does not care about the musings of a senior citizen.”

He did. But he didn’t know how to say it.

“What happened to April after her parents died?”

The woman paused, studying him. He was certain she’d say that information was not germane to his inquiry. She was right.

“After Melly’s death, life went on for April as it had been for several years. She finished high school here, then attended college. In that way, there was little material change in her circumstances. Melly had been absent more and more.”

“What about earlier, after her father died?”

“That was different. Both April and Melly were heartbroken. They expressed it in very different ways. Melly because ever more restless, ever more flighty. April drew in. The more wild Melly became, the more April withdrew. It wasn’t until she was thirteen, and with Melly more and more inclined to fail in her duties as a mother, that Leslie and dear Grady came into her life. For the first time, April became a true Craig.”

He suspected that wasn’t how counselors or most people would express it, but he recognized it as the highest praise from Beatrice Craig.

“And you’re positive that April is the biological daughter of Melly and Jeff?”

“I beg your pardon, young man.” He had never felt more like begging pardon himself.

And then he wanted to grin. April would look like this, and she’d act like this when she needed to. She already had this backbone, and this heart. Not yet honed as sharply by the forces of nature and time. But she’d protect her family as fiercely as this woman did now.

“I have to make sure, Ma’am.”

“You can be entirely sure that April is a member of the Craig family. There is no shred of doubt about that.”

“You said a while ago that April became close to the family as well as the Craigs…?”

“Ah. I wasn’t sure you were listening, young man. Yes, April
is
a Craig. She also has wide and deep support from a close-knit group that includes my granddaughter Leslie and her husband Grady.”

She studied him.

He remained at ease under the survey. Until an odd notion struck him — these eyes were the kind that would sense being followed, and April had these eyes.

“Yes, I see,” she said, making him shift on the seat. “Bless your heart, young man, you believe you know about these people. You do not. As you will discover one way or the other. You would be well-advised to make sure that you do not discover it by hurting our April.”

He was dismissed shortly after that.

As he began the return trip to Washington to catch a flight to New York that would get him there before the close of business, he thought over what Beatrice Craig had said.

One element kept coming to the front.

He’d read the report. He’d known her father had died when she was six, but her mother had lived another ten years, and by then April had already transition to the care of her cousin and great-grandmother.

What he hadn’t realized was that she’d been an emotional orphan in those years with Melly after Jeff’s death.

He and April had more in common than he’d known.

NEW YORK

“You just missed her.” The receptionist pointed to double glass doors still swinging from the force of the push by the woman who’d blown past Hunter. “You can wait—”

He’d already pivoted and grabbed the door on its latest backswing. He wasn’t waiting.

The agent for Gerard Littrell’s literary estate was partway down the hall, past the elevators, apparently heading for the door at the far end. He gained ground with every step, but not as much as he would have expected. Below the hem of her straight dress, the bulging muscles in the back of her calves operated like pistons.

“Marlene Pagenter?”

“What?” She snapped it, but impossible to tell if that was because she was in a hurry — she barely turned her head and she didn’t slow down — or from habit.

“I called from Washington, D.C. Hunter Pierce.”

“Yeah?” No sign of recognition.

“About Gerard Littrell.”

She stopped with a grip on the handle of the far door. He had the notion that if she’d gotten through it there would have been no reaching her.

“About April,” she said. It was a correction.

“About their association.”

She snorted. “Let’s see your ID.”

He showed her. She took her time with it.

When she was done, she said “Sit,” and retreated four feet to a bench across from the elevators. “What’s this about?”

He sat after she did. The bench was almost as uncomfortable as it looked.

“As I said on the phone, it’s about April Gareaux’s association with Gerard Littrell. And your observations of that association.”

“Really?” She did sarcasm well. He was guessing she’d had a lot of practice. “The State Department’s security branch has an interest in dead science fiction authors, does it? Or could it be that April appears to have become the protégé of a certain monarch who’s useful to this country’s interests? Never mind, don’t answer. I don’t have time for your diplomatic lies and a bald-faced one would piss me off.”

She crossed her legs.

“Okay. You want to know if there was something untoward going on between April and Gerard? No. I’m as sure of that as anyone can be who’s not with them 24/7. You want to know if she was milking him for money or angling for a big inheritance? No way. She didn’t get more than a pittance, so she’d either have to be incompetent — and she’s not — or honest.”

He’d known both assessments of her relationship with Littrell before they’d ever approached her. The money was Background 101. An affair had been a more delicate matter. Everyone they checked with said the same thing: No.

Although, as Marlene Pagenter said, there was no way of knowing for sure without being with the couple every minute of the day.

Except he did know.

April had told him.

He knew.

“Then what was their rela— association.”

She squinted at him, as if he might not be in good focus. “Friendship. Gratitude. Caring. Generosity. And she was one hell of an assistant. It’s a fact that he wrote four books in the final years of his life that would not have existed without April. She protected his time and his creativity, kept him on track, and smoothed every bump out of his way.” She smiled suddenly. “Except for the bumps that did him good. Can’t have it perfectly smooth, or a writer’ll slide right into sloth. Especially a man. Delicate creatures men.”

He met her gaze without looking away or reacting.

“What sort of assistant duties?”

“Mail. Fans. Helped with proofs. Errands. Interview requests. Scheduling. Making sure he had tea at the right time and the right temperature. Buying supplies. Talking him out of what he shouldn’t do, into what he should. Only thing she never could talk him into was getting a dog from that shelter she went to all the time. Her sole failure. Probably would have kept the old curmudgeon going another couple of years.” She shook her head. “What did April do? What any good assistant does — everything that needs to be done before it needs to be done. Offered her a job myself after he died. She didn’t want to leave her family in D.C. Pity.”

“She seemed close to her family?”

“Sure.”

“Ever meet them?”

“Most of them, one time or another.”

“Who did you meet?”

The squint was back. “Unh-unh. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but that question wasn’t for your job.” She stood. “If that’s all the questions — the official questions — I have work to do.”

“I don’t know, Grandma Beatrice.”

“Well, I do, Leslie Aurelia. You and your family go ahead and go to Illinois today to begin your Christmas as you planned. April will be fine.”

“I wish she’d call me. I also wish I knew what in the world is going on.”

“You said Michael Dickinson gave you information.”

“He did. Grady and I had dinner with him and Tris last night, and the guys came clean about trying to find out more about this man who’s been in two video clips with April. His name is Hunter Pierce. He’s with State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Has an exemplary record, very highly regarded, not a smudge on his record. But what is he doing with April? That’s what I want to know. And that’s where Michael ran into a wall.”

“No curiosity about this king? Apparently his family shares the characteristic of the Craig hand.” In Beatrice’s hierarchy the Bariavaks clearly came second to the Craigs.

“Well, of course, but—”

“Exactly, so. It’s as plain as when I first saw you and Grady together. What you must learn, Leslie, is that sometimes you have to have faith in the people you love and let them make their own choices.”

Leslie nearly choked. As if her grandmother hadn’t always thought she would be better at guiding Leslie’s life than Leslie had been.