She wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer, but it did occur to her to ask suspiciously, “My mother is here, isn’t she?”
He laughed again. “You and I don’t argue, Alana mine. No, I didn’t bring you here to soften your edges. You huff and puff a lot, but I know how to make you purr instead.”
She gasped, her cheeks suddenly blazing. No matter how many times he’d said such outrageously inappropriate things to her, she couldn’t shrug them off. She knew she should be immune to them by now instead of mortified and angry.
“Good Lord, you make me wish I was your king’s daughter, just so I could have you clapped in irons. One month for every insult means you’ll spend years—”
“Don’t expect me to conceal my thoughts from you when I want you as much as I do. Would you rather I pretend you don’t affect me? Actually, I doubt I can.”
Christoph took her hand and led her out of the room, adding, “Let’s find your mother. Maybe she’ll be a witch and you’ll want my protection from her.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
He sighed. “I’m not.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE SERVANT WHO SHOWED them the way explained that Helga rarely left her suite of rooms. Alana could understand why because the richly appointed rooms encompassed an area larger than most homes. Helga looked right at home in them. She’d been having a late breakfast. Apparently, the maid who had brought the meal had stayed to talk with her. The two had still been laughing over something even as the maid opened the door for them.
Helga rose from her small dining table at the unexpected intrusion. She probably didn’t even think they were there to see her. The chalet was so big it would be easy to get lost in it.
A tender smile broke out on Alana’s face. This was her mother! Her real mother! Helga was wearing a simple green day dress. Alana noticed she wasn’t tall. She was even shorter than Alana by a few inches. No black hair, either. Helga’s was blond, her eyes dark brown. Her frame was sturdy, not thick, just big boned perhaps. Alana was small boned. Helga’s face had no wrinkles. She must have been a very young mother. She didn’t even look forty yet.
“Helga Engel?” Christoph began.
Eyeing them warily, Helga gave a hesitant nod. “You’re here to see me?”
Christoph smiled to put her at ease and introduced himself formally as captain of the King’s Guard. “Indeed, I bring you a wonderful surprise.”
Helga laughed suddenly, guessing, “Another gift from the king? He’s too kind.”
Christoph appeared to be taken aback. “Frederick gives you gifts?”
Helga grinned. “Every year, sometimes twice a year.” At his continued surprise, she laughed at him like a schoolgirl. “Oh, nothing like that! Nothing extravagant at all, just little mementos to let me know he has not forgotten what I did for him. It’s not necessary. You should tell him that for me. This”—she waved a hand to indicate her quarters—“was already too generous.”
Helga’s expression turned sad. Christoph cleared his throat uncomfortably, no doubt both he and Helga thinking of the sacrifice she had made. But Alana didn’t feel sad. She was ready for the happy reunion she’d hoped for.
She started to move forward, to give Helga the happy news herself. Christoph suddenly stayed her, his hand on her arm. She glanced at him and frowned as she took in his rigid military demeanor.
Sure enough, he asked Helga in official tones, “You don’t feel you deserved this reward?”
“I—”
Helga didn’t continue, looking wary once again.
“Stop it!” Alana hissed at Christoph. “You’re not here to interrogate her.”
“You are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are. You have a thousand questions. I merely asked one.”
“You have no reason to unleash that suspicious nature of yours here. It is simple modesty when one denies one is deserving of something. That concept might be foreign to a barbarian like you, but it’s something civilized people frequently encounter.”
He didn’t appear contrite. Of course, the captain wouldn’t. They’d been arguing in whispers so Helga wouldn’t hear them, but that seemed to alarm her even more.
“Would you please tell me why you are here?” Helga asked, glancing nervously between them.
Christoph relaxed. He even smiled again. Alana wondered if her tongue-lashing had really shooed the captain away for now.
“I apologize, Helga,” he said. “The surprise I bring you is your daughter, very much alive as you can see.”
Helga’s eyes touched on Alana for the barest second before they rolled up into her head and she crumbled to the floor in a faint. Alana jumped forward, but she didn’t reach her mother in time to break her fall.
Alana glanced back at Christoph. “Good Lord, you have the subtlety of a boar. You could have done that more gently!”
He came forward and picked Helga up off the floor and laid her on the sofa in the west corner of the large room. Alana followed him there and saw some evidence of her mother’s artistic endeavors, a few baskets of yarn, a large frame holding a half-finished tapestry set in front of a chair.
“What would you have said, eh, to make it easier for her to hear?” he asked. “It was going to be a shock to her no matter how it was presented.”
Alana sighed and leaned over Helga, gently patting her cheeks to wake her. She didn’t notice what Christoph was doing until she saw him approach with a glass of water.
She gasped and shielded her mother’s face. “Don’t you dare!”
He raised a brow. “Why not? It’s quick.”
“It’s rude. Let me try first.”
“You are full of complaints today, why is that? Still nervous?”
“I wasn’t. Not until you started interrogating my mother. You’re not on duty here today. At least, you shouldn’t be.”
“I am always on duty.”
“You’re the one who told me Helga Engel is my mother,” Alana reminded him stiffly. “If you aren’t absolutely sure, you should have said so.”
“I am certain.”
“Then explain, please.”
“She caught me off guard. We had only just spoken of mistresses. Frederick has been faithful to both his wives, but there was a time between those marriages when he went through a number of mistresses. One tried to kill him. It is my job to know them all, even though this was before my time in the palace. I thought I did know. Her remark implied that she and Frederick—”
“I didn’t gather that from her remark at all,” Alana cut in. “She showed delight that he still remembers what she did for him, even though she claimed his little gifts weren’t necessary. That, Christoph, is a female response. Are you really not familiar with it?”
He made a look of self-disgust. “Just wake her so she can give you a motherly hug and you will be too happy to complain anymore.”
Alana knelt beside the sofa and continued to pat her mother’s cheeks. Without any response at all. She was beginning to worry that Helga might have hurt herself in that fall. But then she heard the slight groan and the catch of breath that followed. Helga’s eyes opened, disoriented, but calm, as if waking from a nap—until she noticed Alana. She actually pushed back into the sofa to try to put distance between them, her eyes rounded in horror.
“Get away from me!” Helga shrieked.
But she was too upset to give Alana a chance to move away. She leapt off the sofa, nearly knocking Alana over, and ran around behind it.
“You lie!” she cried, pointing a condemning finger at Christoph.
Christoph frowned. “If you don’t believe us, then why do you act like she’s a ghost? I assure you her flesh is very warm.”
Alana didn’t have a chance to reprimand Christoph for his inappropriate remark as Helga loudly denied, “I don’t know who or what she is, but she is not my daughter. My daughter is dead!”
“Yes, we know that’s what you thought, what we all th
ought,” Christoph said gently. “But the proof stands before you that it isn’t so.”
“Why? Because she says so?”
“Actually, she thought she was Frederick’s daughter because the man who stole her thought he’d taken the princess and that’s what he told her. But thanks to you, he took the wrong child.”
“Thanks . . . to me,” Helga said brokenly.
She finally looked at Alana—and started to cry. But she didn’t appear to be crying tears of happiness.
Chapter Forty
ALL THESE YEARS, I thought he took you to kill you.”
Though said hollowly, it was also the first indication that Helga was starting to believe them. Yet the news was apparently still too much of a shock to her for her to express any joy.
Alana managed to get Helga to sit on the sofa again. Christoph offered her a handkerchief for the tears before he stood back, not taking a seat himself. But after initially wiping her face with the handkerchief, Helga discarded it in her lap and didn’t seem aware that an occasional tear still rolled down her cheeks.
Alana sat next to her, even tried to hold her hand reassuringly. But she felt Helga tense at her touch, so she took her hand away.
She was feeling a bit rejected by then. Her own brief burst of happiness, when she’d seen the laughing Helga, was gone. Nothing about this reunion was happy—yet. But Alana was still hopeful that once the shock wore off, it would become joyful for both of them.
Some explanation might help in that regard, so Alana said, “He did take me for that reason. He just couldn’t do it and raised me instead. He changed because of it. He’s no longer an assassin.”
“He was an assassin?” Helga gasped.
“Didn’t you think so?” Christoph asked.
Helga’s eyes dropped immediately to her lap. She obviously didn’t like looking at Christoph. He was an official, and he’d been sharp with her.
After a moment Helga said, “Yes, but only you have confirmed it, no one else did.”
“He’s been like a father to me,” Alana assured her mother. “In fact, all these years I thought we were related by blood, that he was my real uncle. He only told me the truth last month.”
Helga’s eyes flared wide. “He’s still alive?”
“Yes, but—”
Helga glanced frantically at the door behind Christoph. “Is he here in the chalet?”
Her fear of Poppie was obvious. Fear instead of hatred for the man who’d stolen her daughter? Alana wondered. She noticed that Christoph was frowning, too.
Alana quickly said, “I’m sure what happened all those years ago terrified you. It’s all right, you don’t ever have to meet him. Tell me about my father.”
Helga’s brown eyes came back to Alana, but the fear didn’t leave them, not all of it. “He was a good man. We weren’t even married a year before he died of fever, so he never got to see our baby.” As an afterthought Helga added, “He had black hair.”
Alana chuckled. “Finally a relative with black hair! That’s been such a bone of contention—with him.” She nodded toward Christoph.
“Why?”
“Because I tried to convince Captain Becker I was the princess, which is who my guardian thought I was. And the captain couldn’t tell me why he knew that wasn’t so. But because of the color of my hair, and your description of me that I was blond, too, like the princess, he didn’t once consider that I could be your daughter instead.”
“Perhaps the assassin lied to you and you aren’t my daughter,” Helga said.
That hurt. Helga had even said it bitterly. That could only mean one thing. Helga still had doubts, most likely, because she felt absolutely nothing for Alana. Alana couldn’t even blame her for it. Christoph had had the same thought, that Poppie had lied to her.
Christoph said as much, “I thought the same thing at first, but not anymore. If I still had doubts, I wouldn’t have brought her here to be reunited with you with the king’s permission, of course. Your reaction to her is, however, curious.”
“If you say she’s mine, then she’s mine!” Helga cried defensively. “I just don’t feel it yet, nor can you blame me for that. It was my baby that was taken from me. You bring me a full-grown woman who doesn’t even look like me!”
“Does she look like your husband?”
Helga scoffed. “There is nothing of a man in her.”
“No, there isn’t,” he agreed. “Perhaps you should just be pleased she turned out so beautiful?”
Helga gave him an odd look before she glanced at Alana again and gave her a weak smile. “You are very beautiful. Please don’t blame me for my feelings.”
“No, I don’t,” Alana said. “I completely understand. All my life, I thought my parents were dead. When I was told that wasn’t so, it was a shock to me, too. It took me a while to believe it. It helped to talk about it, though, and that might make this easier for you as well. Tell me about our family.”
Helga sighed. “They’re all gone now. Both my parents were still alive when I moved to the palace, but they were old. I came to them late in life. My father died the same year that I lost my baby. My mother moved here to the chalet to be with me, but she died two years ago. I’m sorry, there is only me—and you—left.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Alana said, then asked carefully, “Can you tell me why you did it, why you switched the babies?”
Helga immediately tensed. “I was warned never to speak of that.”
Christoph interjected, “When we realized who she is, the king gave me permission to tell her the truth and bring her here to you, so she already knows the secret you were to keep. You may speak freely to her.”
Helga started to cry again, but now Alana understood why. Helga wouldn’t be able to remember that awful time without feeling the anguish over losing her child. Alana thought about changing the subject. She didn’t really need to know what had prompted an action that had completely changed her own life. But maybe Helga was reluctant to discuss it because she thought Alana had suffered, being raised by an assassin.
“I’ve had a good life with no hardships whatsoever,” Alana assured her. “I was raised to be a lady in England. I had a fine education, servants, friends, a loving relative—at least that’s what I thought he was. I’ve never lacked for anything except a mother. So nothing horrible happened to me because of what you did. Truly, I bear you no resentment for anything.”
“I do,” Helga said abjectly.
“Then why did you do it?”
Christoph asked it this time, which could be why Helga answered immediately now. “I became nervous with the palace nearly empty, the king away too long in his grief, and no one even coming to visit the princess. The truth is the princess was neglected. Only three years had passed since the civil war when the palace had been attacked and King Ernest was killed. I wasn’t the only one who thought the Bruslans might try to regain the throne with more violence. There was speculation about it in the city even before King Frederick married.”
“Understandable, but the palace wasn’t left undefended,” Christoph said.
“You are correct, there were many guards in the ward, but there weren’t many inside the palace. The two guards assigned to the nursery would check it on their rounds only twice each night! They should have been stationed outside the doors, but they weren’t, and they barely even glanced in the royal bassinet when they did come in, always talking and joking with each other. But I didn’t switch the babies immediately. It was many weeks before my nervousness turned to fear. The princess was nearly three months old before I did it.”
“Were the servants aware of your ruse?” Christoph asked.
“What servants?” Helga scoffed. “There was just one old woman with failing eyesight who came to clean the rooms and bring me meals. The court physician came once a month to check that the princess was healthy and growing normally. But he was an arrogant man who seemed insulted to have been given the task of examining an infant. I caught
the scent of liquor on his breath more than once. I begged one of the court officials for more guards and more help. He laughed and told me the palace was secure, but he did deign to hire another nursemaid to help me. But by the time she arrived, a couple of weeks before the abduction, I had already taken matters into my own hands and switched the babies. I was terrified of what would happen to me if anything happened to the princess.”
“Why didn’t you tell the new nursemaid that you’d switched the babies so she could be on guard as well?” Christoph asked.
Helga didn’t answer right away. “First, I wasn’t sure I could trust her. And the truth is”—she paused again as her eyes teared up—“I loved being able to spend more time with my own baby.”
Alana’s heart melted when she heard that.
“Of course, I didn’t want the other nursemaid to try the same thing,” Helga continued. “The princess’s safety was my paramount concern. Even after the new nursemaid arrived, I kept hounding that official to give us more guards. Even just two! He could have prevented my loss by doing so. That—that assassin would never have gotten past guards at the door to take my baby. I don’t even recall being attacked, but after he knocked me out, he must have tied my hands behind my back.” She shook her head sadly. “But the king knew who to blame when he was summoned back, and he was furious.”
“I would have felt it was his fault, for being gone so long,” Alana said quietly.
Christoph gave Alana a hard look for saying that, but Helga defended Frederick. “It wasn’t. He assumed he’d left his heir in good hands. And his grief was so deep, he didn’t even know he’d been gone so long. Still, the nursery should have been better protected and had a larger staff. That’s why he was so furious. And people were dismissed because of that neglect, but it was too late—for me.”
“You came here after that?” Alana asked.
Helga nodded. “I was released from my charge because of my loss. A new nursemaid was hired to travel with the princess to where they hid her. But I stayed with my parents in the city for a while. They helped me through my grief. I came up here after my father died and was able to talk my mother into living here with me.”
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