The fact that he offered me no reassurances meant one of two things. He was either unaware of how I was feeling—which seemed hard to believe based on experience—or he knew my doubts and had nothing to quell them with.
22
Rile
I made every attempt to make our departure from the Seychelles as swift and easy as possible, without dwelling on the fact that we were cutting our trip short, particularly given we were only leaving two days earlier than planned. However, Kensington’s mood as well as that of the rest of those who traveled with us was somber.
She did her best to hide her true feelings, but reading her like I was able to, I knew it wasn’t just disappointment she was experiencing. She was worried, even fearful. She had every right to be.
Kensington knew as well as I did that there was more to what happened with Konstantine than sexual assault. He’d said that by the next night, he planned for them to be married. Showing up at King Ferdinand’s palace had only reinforced the level of his obsession. While I didn’t know exactly what role Otto played in all of this, my instincts told me it was significant.
Arranging where we’d meet was complex, and as it involved me asking a personal favor, it was something I had to do myself. The only people who could help me were my parents, and I had every intention of enlisting their aid.
I still believed Mallorca was the safest place for Kensington, and while I didn’t question Angel’s or Casper’s abilities, I intended to keep Ink and Crash on her detail as well. Smoke and Siren would travel with me.
It took a full week after we arrived back in Mallorca to make all the arrangements for my meeting with not just Otto von Habsburg but his parents, Frederick and Wilhelmina, along with Konstantine and his father and mother, Karl and Maria.
Frederick and Karl were brothers. Otto was the eldest son of Frederick; Konstantine was Karl’s. Decker dug deep into the Habsburg family, but found nothing that would indicate anything out of the ordinary in terms of the two sons’ inheritance or that of their fathers.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that was the key, but without Decker finding proof, I had nothing to go on.
The history of the Habsburgs was long and complicated, dating back to the 1020’s construction of the castle from which they derived their name and which still stood in what was now Switzerland.
Between 1438 and 1765, the throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the House of Habsburg. The family was able to vastly expand its domains to include Burgundy, Spain, and its colonial empire, Bohemia, Hungary, and other territories through a series of dynastic marriages.
As with most powerful empires, the house was eventually dissolved in 1806 due to an extinction in the male line. However, when a female descendant married into the House of Lorraine, that empire was soon renamed the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. The male heir from that union, dropped the lesser-known Lorraine and reverted the dynasty’s name back to Habsburg. That branch of the family had ruled Austria until World War I.
Financially ruined, facing the threat of extinction in the male line a second time due to deaths in war and by illness, and powerful enemies in World War II, little was heard about the family to this day.
As Decker had said, the amount of inbreeding in order to keep their line “pure,” had resulted in the opposite. I had no doubt there was some level of madness, perhaps evidence in each of the family members.
Even if I could get them to confess nothing, by having the six individuals who’d represented the once-powerful House of Habsburg in one room, I felt certain I could get enough information to know my next step.
The night before I was scheduled to leave Mallorca to travel first to Madrid and then on to London, I waited until I was certain Kensington was asleep before leaving the bed we shared to go to Celestina’s gravesite. It had been so long since I felt her presence, and that troubled me. I hadn’t seen her from a distance, but when I got closer to the small cemetery, I saw Marta placing a bouquet of flowers next to the headstone.
“I thought I might find you here tonight,” I said as I approached and put my arm around her trembling shoulders.
“Today would have been her thirty-third birthday.”
“Yes,” I murmured. I hadn’t forgotten, and never would. Marta had understood when I chose to only list the year of her daughter’s birth and death on the marker since the day she was born and the day she died were the same, only twenty-six years apart.
We stood together silently for some time. Eventually, Marta left me alone. I sat on the cold grass and put my hand on the etched granite.
“Happy birthday, my love. I miss you so.” I listened to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, closed my eyes, and focused on how the breeze felt on my face.
It had been less than three months since I whisked Kensington away from the States, first to Mallorca, and then Madrid, and finally to the Seychelles. In that time, I had grown to care a great deal for her. She was beautiful and intriguing. Making love with her was better than it had been with anyone else ever, including my beloved Celestina. But I wondered, once this was all over, when Kensington was free to return to her home, live her life without a constant threat, would the magic I felt between us remain?
That the woman I’d married would’ve been thirty-three years old today, was a harsh reminder of Kensington’s youth. In January, she had turned twenty-seven. In November, I had turned thirty-seven.
There were more than years between us; there were life experiences too innumerable to reflect on. It wasn’t just losing my wife and unborn child that had aged me; the years of dangerous missions and the stress that went along with the life of an MI6 agent, compounded the wear on my body and my mind.
It was hard to admit, even to myself, that one of the reasons I left Her Majesty’s Service and ventured out to form the Invincibles was that I was feeling the weight of my years.
The final straw for me had been the London subway and bus bombings. Witnessing the carnage the terrorists caused that day had been the impetus under which I contacted Decker and made him a partnership offer, followed by making the same one to Edge and Grinder.
When I walked into Z’s office the day after learning over two hundred people were dead and thousands were injured, I’d already made up my mind to retire from active service.
“I’d hoped you’d take my place as chief one day, Rile,” he’d said then. We both knew I never would have, whether the bombings happened or not.
I’d originally joined SIS because I believed every man and woman should be able to live their life free of tyranny, free of persecution, and free of fear. While my mother had been an agent before me, both she and my father lived their lives with the same purpose.
They were good people who, like my uncle, King Ferdinand, worked hard every day to ensure every person in Spain was afforded those freedoms.
Not everyone was born to the kind of life I led. Kensington certainly hadn’t been. I didn’t judge her for her upbringing or even her lack of a sense of purpose. I understood that she and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum in that regard. I’d known my purpose for many years and was ready to move into the next phase, one in which I slowed down, took on less, and relaxed more. In that way, I sounded like an old man. She, on the other hand, was a young woman, just beginning to figure out how she would make her mark on the world.
She’d been her grandparents’ companion in the last years of their lives. I couldn’t allow her to step into the same kind of role with me.
There would eventually come a day when she would want to spread her wings, and when that happened, she’d struggle with leaving me behind.
“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?” came my beloved’s beautiful voice.
I have. Allowing her to stay would be selfish. She deserves to make a full life for herself.
“You will break her heart, and yours too.”
I shook my head. Mine broke seven years ago, my darling. I was foolish to think it could ever mend.
> 23
Kensington
It had been two hours since Cortez left the bed we shared and went to visit the grave of his deceased wife. If I were braver, I would’ve told him I was awake and that he didn’t have to sneak away. I would always understand the need he had to spend time in the small cemetery. But there was something more to his visit to the grave tonight, and whatever it was, made him pull away from me.
I felt it the moment it happened, even though he was far enough away that I couldn’t see him in the darkness. It was as though every cell in my body went stone cold. I felt abandoned, more alone than I’d ever felt in my life, even after my grandmother died.
The pain I felt was the same as when I watched her take her last breath and her hand went limp and cold in mine. The feeling of loss was so overwhelming then and now, that I hugged myself as silent sobs wracked my body.
Rather than wait for his return, I crept from the bedroom and took the stairs from the fifth level down to the fourth.
“Is everything okay?” Casper asked when I met her keeping watch on the landing.
I wiped away my tears and motioned with my hand toward the cemetery. “He needed time on his own.”
Startling me, she put her hand on my shoulder. “I know how hard this is—today is the anniversary of her death.”
I didn’t think I could feel any worse pain, but Casper’s words felt like a knife in my heart.
“You should go inside,” she said, perhaps noticing me trembling.
I walked through the door and into the small bedroom that I knew was unoccupied. I fell onto the bed, buried my face in the pillow, and sobbed myself to sleep.
When I woke, the sun was high enough in the sky that I knew it was at least mid-morning. There was no sign that Cortez or anyone else had come looking for me. No doubt, there was someone keeping watch outside my door.
Before we fell asleep last night, Cortez had told me he would be leaving first thing this morning. He didn’t give me any details. He’d only said that upon his return, he hoped that Konstantine would no longer pose any kind of threat to me.
He didn’t say anything about what would happen after that. We didn’t talk about whether I’d stay on here with him or return to London. We didn’t talk about whether we would still be together or if our love affair would end with his job to protect me.
Until he got up in the middle of the night and crept away, I was hopeful that we would still be together. Between then and now, the hope had vanished.
I felt like someone had died, but it wasn’t a person; it was a relationship, or what I’d believed had been one.
“Kenzie?” I heard Teagon’s voice followed by a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
She closed the door behind her and sat on the edge of the bed. “Is everything okay?” she asked, just like Casper had when she saw me in the middle of the night.
I shook my head, crying too hard to answer. Teagon put her arms around me and held me as I dissolved back into tears.
24
Rile
When the plane landed and came to a stop on the tarmac of the private airfield in Madrid, I exited it only to walk several feet away and get on another plane, joined by Smoke and Siren.
Shortly after we were on board, a motorcade of black SUVs pulled up near the aircraft. I watched my parents get out of one and walk to the plane, followed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella along with their security.
“How are you, Cortez?” my mother asked, sitting beside me.
“I’m fine, Duchess, and you?”
My mother glared at me rather than answer.
The flight from Madrid to London was quick, a little less than two hours. When we landed, another motorcade was waiting on the tarmac, not far from where the pilot stopped the aircraft.
We deplaned in much the same order we’d arrived. The only difference was some of the King’s security personnel remained behind after Smoke, Siren, and I exited.
We were whisked to Buckingham Palace without the same fanfare there might have been had this been an official state visit.
The SUVs pulled into an unmarked warehouse. From there, we’d drive through the tunnel that would take us to what I always referred to as the family entrance.
I sat and waited for the King, Queen, and my parents to exit their vehicle. Instead, the passenger door of the one I was riding in opened.
“Her Majesty has requested a private audience with you first, sir.”
“Certainly.” I followed the man inside and down an unfamiliar corridor. When he opened a door and motioned me inside, the Queen stood waiting.
“Your Majesty,” I said, bowing.
She held her hand out to me. “The meeting that will be taking place is not the one you requested, Cortez.”
“I see.”
“I asked to speak with you first to suggest that you refrain from passing any kind of judgment until the meeting’s end.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Cortez. We’ll join the others now.” I followed her out a different door than the one through which I came in.
When we entered the room where I anticipated the meeting would be taking place, there was only one person present on behalf of the von Habsburgs—Karl, Konstantine’s father.
Had the Queen not briefed me, I would have been livid. Respecting her wishes, I refrained from reacting until I heard what he had to say.
I stood off to the side and watched them go through the formalities. I took a seat only after everyone else had, everyone other than the security teams lining the room’s edges—my own included.
“I would prefer to speak privately,” Karl von Habsburg said directly to the Queen.
“We are.”
He nodded and waited for her cue.
“You may tell the others what you told me.”
He stood.
“What I am about to tell you is a closely guarded secret, until today.” He cleared his throat. “As direct descendants of Emperor Karl I, the last Emperor of Austria, the last King of Hungary, the last King of Bohemia, and the last monarch belonging to the House of Habsburg before the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, we are bound by what is known as the Habsburg Family Statute.”
His words validated my suspicion about Konstantine’s motive. I didn’t know how yet, but felt confident that by the end of his explanation, I would.
Karl von Habsburg went on to say that the edict, put in place in 1839, decreed that in order to “ensure the Habsburg dignity and serenity for now and forever,” family members were only permitted to marry members of dynasties which had, at some point in history, reigned a sovereign nation. Furthermore, direct male descendants had to marry no later than the age of thirty.
The penalty of not doing both, was disinheritance and banishment from the family.
“The list of eligible families, as you can imagine, grows smaller with each generation. Slimmer still is the list of unmarried women of age from those families. In fact, there is only one—Francesca Alexandra Kensington Whitby.”
And there it was. Every puzzle piece immediately fell into place. There were two heirs, both about to turn thirty, and only one woman to save either of them from banishment and disinheritance.
“Where is Konstantine now?” The Queen asked the very question on the tip of my tongue.
This was harder for the man; I could feel his tension and his sorrow.
“As you may have surmised, my son was, in fact, behind the attack on his cousin, believing that if Otto died, it would clear the way for him to be Miss Whitby’s only suitor.” Von Habsburg turned to me. “When you intervened in Budapest, my son believed you were kidnappers acting on behalf of his cousin.”
He sat down, gripping the arms of the chair. “My son, as you also may have surmised, has suffered a mental breakdown. He has been institutionalized.”
The Queen turned toward me and nodded.
“When was he committed?” I asked.
He took a deep
breath. “After the attack on Otto, he was taken to an institution that did not have the same level of security as where he is now.”
“You’re saying he left the first facility and that is when he attempted to gain access to Miss Whitby while she was a guest in my home?” My uncle, like the Queen had earlier, asked the same question I had been about to ask.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
King Ferdinand, again like the Queen, turned to me and nodded.
“Where is your son presently?”
“Broadmoor Hospital.”
I knew of it. It was a high-security psychiatric facility in Berkshire, England.
“In maximum security?”
He didn’t immediately respond, filling me with dread.
“The family has made that request.”
“And it has been denied?”
Von Habsburg nodded. “They disagree that it is necessary.”
I wouldn’t ask now, but the moment I was free to, I would find out exactly how to make it happen.
“How is Otto?” asked my mother when there was a lull in the conversation.
“He is quite well, actually. Thank you.”
“What will become of the House of Habsburg if neither he nor Konstantine marry?” I asked.
“My brother and I are currently writing a stipulation into the statute. We are the only people with the authority to do so.” Von Habsburg hung his head. “It is something we should’ve done years ago.”
“How is your wife, Maria?” my mother asked.
“She is…not well.”
“Her only child is suffering. I can only imagine how hard that must be on her.”
There was something behind my mother’s questions. Later, I would find out what exactly.
When the Queen stood, all others in the room did as well. She walked over to von Habsburg and took his hand. “I know how difficult this has been for you, Karl. I appreciate your honesty and willingness to share the plight of your family.”
Riled (The Invincibles Book 4) Page 14