The Wicked Prince

by Nicole Burnham

  “A lot of the kids would. We do our best—Chloe and I each have some training—but we always wish it could be more.”

  “Your best is outstanding. I have a lot to learn if I’m going to keep up.” Alessandro marshaled the remains of his energy and pushed to stand. “Frannie mentioned that both you and your brother live here in the compound?”

  Irene gave a slight nod. “We have rooms at the rear of the nursery, near the little ones. We rarely get a full night’s sleep, but those kids” —she put a hand to her bosom and sighed— “well, there’s a whole lot of love in that building. Wouldn’t trade it the world.”

  At that moment, Frannie breezed into the dining hall. “Kids are in the bunkhouses getting ready for bed. You need anything, Irene?”

  She paused when she saw Alessandro at the other end of the table. Her eyes widened in surprise, which, for some odd reason, made him notice that they curved upward at the outer edges. Had he ever noticed the shape of a woman’s eyes before? Perhaps that’s why he remembered how unusually dark they appeared as she’d turned to face him after studying the Morisot. He’d been drawn into their depths by that alluring little curve.

  “You’re still here?”

  “You expected me to leave?”

  Pink suffused her cheeks and Irene laughed at Frannie’s obvious embarrassment.

  “Of course not. I thought you’d have gone to bed by now. Except” —she put a hand to her forehead and groaned— “I haven’t given you a bunk yet. I’m so sorry. It completely slipped my mind.”

  “It’s all right,” he assured her. “I was talking to the kids and discovering much I don’t remember about geometry. Or chemistry.”

  “You helped with chemistry?”

  “Only for a few minutes,” Irene piped in, her eyes bright with amusement. “I sent Johnny to Alessandro with a trick question, just to see how Alessandro would react. He was perfectly calm on the outside, but I could tell he was panicked on the inside.”

  “You’re lucky I appreciate a good prank,” he told Irene. When he’d realized he was the butt of a joke—and that Irene had majored in chemistry in college—it’d fostered a good laugh all around the table. “Just wait until I send him to you with an obscure European history question.”

  “I’d be in trouble there, for sure. Unless it’s about the Tudors. I’ve read every book I could find about that family. So much intrigue and murder!”

  He gave her a quick wink. “Royal families and their intrigues. You’d think they’d know better.”

  That brought laughter from both Irene and Frannie. Frannie started to say something about finding Alessandro a bunk when the door to the dining hall swung open to admit a scrawny boy in aqua blue pajamas with a Thomas the Tank Engine logo on the chest.

  “Remy? What are you doing out of bed?” Frannie asked.

  The youngster sucked in his lower lip. Alessandro figured this must be the Remy of Humphrey fame. Judging from the boy’s abashed expression as he looked at Frannie, he’d counted on the dining hall being empty.

  “I, um, thought I left something here during homework but I can look in the morning.”

  Irene scrutinized him. “You took your backpack and all your papers with you. What do you think you forgot?”

  “It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

  He backed toward the door, but not before Frannie crossed her arms and pinned him with a look. “Did you bring Humphrey to homework time?”

  Remy paused for a moment, as if debating what to say, then visibly deflated. “I know I’m supposed to leave him in bed during school and homework, but he was sad and he needed me. It was a long day and he got hot.”

  “Camels are built to take the heat,” Frannie said. “They’re tough.”

  “Yeah, I know, but they still get lonely,” he replied. “I’m sorry, Miss Frannie. I promise to leave him in my bed next time.”

  As Remy spoke, Alessandro scanned the floor underneath the tables. On the far side of the room, where Irene had been supervising the elementary school students, a spot of color stood out against the dark wood of the floorboards. Alessandro crossed the dining hall and plucked the camel from underneath a table, then turned and held it aloft. “This camel looks lonely.”

  “Humphrey!”

  Remy crossed the room at a run, then grabbed the camel from Alessandro’s outstretched hand. He hugged it to his chest, then looked at Alessandro through the type of impossibly dark, curly lashes that only seemed to be found on children. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Alessandro lowered his tired body to the bench before cocking his head at Remy. “Miss Frannie told me all about Humphrey this afternoon. I think his name is perfect.”

  A bashful smile flitted across his lips, then he buried his face in the top of Humphrey’s golden head.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Remy. I’m going to work with Miss Frannie here at the shelter for a few months. If you’d like, I can check on Humphrey while you’re in school to make sure he’s not lonely. Would that help?”

  The little boy nodded, though only his eyes showed above Humphrey’s tawny head. Irene came and put a hand on Remy’s shoulder. “How about I walk you to the bunkhouse? I was about to head there to give some of the boys their papers. You weren’t the only one who left things behind today.”

  “Okay,” he mumbled before turning to leave with Irene.

  “Thank you,” Frannie said once they were alone. “That’s exactly what Remy needed to hear. With a little luck, he’ll feel confident enough to leave Humphrey in bed next time.”

  Alessandro leaned back, resting his spine against the edge of the dining hall table. “I didn’t get the chance to meet him during homework time or kickball. He was with Irene’s group. From what I saw, he gets along well with the other kids.”

  “Like foxhole buddies, this bunch. They’ve endured a lot together. Fortunately, they’re all great kids. I suspect they’d get along even in a normal situation.” She held out her hand. “Come on. Up. I’ll get you a place to sleep before you turn into a zombie on me.”

  He allowed her to help him stand, then followed her out of the dining hall. Night had descended. Lights strung to the eaves hummed as they illuminated the compound. Giggling came from the direction of the girls’ bunkhouse. Otherwise, all was still. He expected Frannie to turn toward the boys’ bunkhouse; instead, she led him toward the office where he’d met her at the start of the day.

  “I assumed I’d be with the teachers in the boys’ bunkhouse,” he said as she pushed open the office door and clicked the overhead bulb to life.

  “Your backpack’s still here,” she said.

  “Oh.” He was more tired than he’d thought. All he’d envisioned was a bunk and his head hitting a pillow.

  She shouldered his backpack before he could grab it, then took a step toward him. “You all right?”

  “Fine.” He glanced up as a fly circled the bare bulb. “Tired.”

  Her hand went to his elbow and he jumped at the touch. She didn’t seem to notice him start, though. Instead, she led him toward the rear of the office and through a set of wooden doors that smelled of fresh stain and into a barren hallway with four doors, two on each side. She walked to the door on the near left and pushed it open. “It’s not much, but it’s clean and there are fresh sheets.”

  “Ah…all right.” His brain was getting fuzzy. Hadn’t Frannie said she stayed behind the office? “This isn’t your room, is it?”

  “I’m across the hall. There’s another empty room next to mine, but the bunk has a leg that needs to be repaired. The bathroom is next to you. It’s simple—just a toilet and small sink—so you’ll need to cross the compound to the shower house if you want to clean up. I left towels at the end of your bed.”

  “That’s not…I don’t want special treatment.”

  “What you want and what you need are two different things.” Her hand went to his arm again, her fingers curling around the area above his elbow as she looked up at him.
Her tone mellowed as she added, “You’re so exhausted your eyes are glazed over. You didn’t walk a straight line when we left the dining hall. If I put this pack on your back, you’ll tip over. Stay here your first week, where it’s quieter. Get a good night’s sleep until you adjust to the routine and get over your jet lag. Then, if you decide you’d rather be in the boys’ bunkhouse, you can move. In the meantime, the teachers there have it handled.”

  Propriety made him want to argue, even as his inner voice said, Frannie, I could kiss you right now. He inhaled deeply to steady himself, then took his backpack from her and turned the knob on his bedroom door. “What time do you need me in the morning?”

  Her hand dropped to her side. “Breakfast is at seven, but don’t worry about it tomorrow. Everyone knows you’ve had a long flight and—”

  “I’ll see you at seven.”

  He face-planted on the bed without bothering to change clothes or brush his teeth. His last coherent thought was that a bunch of kids would not get the better of him. Nor would Frannie Lawrence.

  Chapter 7

  “So, you never told me…does Prince Charming snore?”

  Chloe softly hip-checked Frannie as they walked along the main dock at Kilakuru’s marina. When Frannie received a call just after dinner notifying her that a shipment of supplies had arrived, Chloe had volunteered to drive with her to the dock to collect the boxes, claiming she needed to get out of the compound for a while and stretch her legs.

  Given that Alessandro had been the topic of conversation from the moment Frannie slid the key into the ignition of Tommy’s truck and turned onto the road that led from Sunrise Shelter to the island’s marina, Frannie suspected Chloe’s main purpose was to grill her about Alessandro.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Frannie said as she paused to adjust the boxes she carried.

  “Oh, come on! You have to. You were practically sleeping with him!”

  Frannie pinned Chloe with a look of annoyance, mostly in the hope she could stop herself from blushing at the mention of sleeping with Alessandro. “First, he spent less than a week in my building before he moved to the boys’ bunkhouse. Second, his room was across the hall from mine and through two doors. He’d need to snore at the volume of a blue whale for me to have heard him. If you consider that ‘practically sleeping’ with me, I have to question your nursing credentials.”

  Chloe huffed out a breath. “Well, damn. Can’t you give me anything to work with?”

  Frannie raised a brow in question as the nurse balanced a box against her knee and opened the back of the truck. Chloe slid her box inside, then reached for the two Frannie carried. Given that they’d already loaded the largest boxes, little space remained.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me that he snores so loud he shakes the floorboards. Or that you spotted him in the hallway with the world’s worst case of bedhead and drool running down his chin. Maybe that he leaves used dental floss hanging off the side of the bathroom sink.”

  “Why in the world would I say that?”

  “So I won’t find him attractive. It’s a nuisance having to see that much male perfection every day, knowing that it’s not for me.”

  As they returned to the boat to see if there were any small boxes that could fit in the truck’s remaining space, Chloe added, “He’s been great with the kids, though. Between us, I didn’t think he’d last a week. It’s been three and I haven’t heard him complain once. Well, other than when Johnny vomited on him.”

  “I didn’t think he would, either.” Frannie paused to thank the crewman who’d moved the rest of their boxes from the boat to the dock, then looked at Chloe. “Wait. Johnny vomited on him?”

  “Right after last week’s pizza dinner. Johnny stopped in the middle of a flag football play, put his hands on his knees for a second, then turned to race for the bathroom. Crashed into Alessandro and spewed all over his shirt.”

  “How dare Alessandro complain about that.”

  Chloe laughed as she and Frannie each picked up boxes. “He told Johnny it wasn’t fair to take the last slice of pizza if all he was going to do was waste it. Well, then Alessandro complained about the fact the laundry detergent hadn’t arrived yet and Mira used the last scoop for the nursery linens. He’d hoped to use the washing machine and detergent for his shirt instead of the sink and a bar of soap.”

  “He’ll have his detergent now. Lots of it, judging from the weight of these boxes.”

  Chloe huffed in agreement. “Do you remember what else is supposed to be in here?”

  Frannie thought about what Alessandro had said the afternoon he’d first walked into her office. She’d been so distracted by the fact he was there, standing before her, halfway around the world from where she’d last seen him, that she’d almost forgotten. “I’m not sure. Laundry detergent was what stood out to me. His diving gear. And medical supplies. He said he looked over a list of our regular orders and used that. Oh, and he said something about luxury items.”

  “Oooh…he did, didn’t he?” They managed to put two more small boxes in the truck, but Chloe held the tailgate without shutting it. “Should we look?”

  “The kids will probably be in bed by the time we’re done, given that we’re going to need to make a second trip. Better to look after we’ve unloaded.” She didn’t want to risk waking the kids by driving into the compound any later than necessary.

  “Wonder what a prince considers a luxury item?” Chloe asked once they were on the road leading out of the marina.

  “Guess it depends on whether he was thinking about Sarcaccian standards or island standards when he arranged the shipment.”

  Curious as she was about the contents of the boxes, Frannie didn’t intend to find Alessandro to ask. It had taken all her discipline to keep a professional distance since the prince arrived. Not that he’d been improper—in fact, if she hadn’t been the one in the palace library with him, she’d never have believed that incident occurred. She’d put him on maintenance duty with Tommy during school hours, then assigned him to the older kids for homework and recreation time in the afternoons. More than once, as he’d crossed the compound with Tommy or monitored a game, she’d caught him watching her. Then, yesterday, he’d glanced her direction while carrying garbage from the kitchen to the roadside Dumpster and nearly tripped over a downed palm frond.

  She’d been sorely tempted to mouth the word attraction, just to irk him. Instead, she’d kept her attention on her conversation with Irene and pretended not to see. God forbid he realize that he’d been correct when he’d made that accusation in the library. Or worse, that she was growing more attracted to him every day. It wasn’t even his physical attributes, though when he’d stripped off his shirt and climbed on top of the gazebo to help Tommy repair a loose section of the roof last week, she’d had trouble averting her gaze.

  It was the little things she’d observed, like the geometry textbook he regularly carried to his room at night. The times he sat beside Naomi at dinner and spoke to her in a manner that didn’t require a response. The fairness with which he refereed the kids’ afternoon sports. His knack for treating everyone on the staff as his social equal. The way he checked on Humphrey’s well-being and gave Remy a discreet report each afternoon during homework time.

  More than once, she’d caught herself daydreaming about the prince as if she were a teenager with a celebrity crush. It exasperated her.

  “I’m still not used to the fact we have a prince working with us,” Chloe said, cutting into Frannie’s thoughts. “He acts like any other bloke. At the same time, I feel like there’s something about him” —she sighed audibly, then let her head drop against the headrest— “I don’t know. An aura.”

  They turned off the road and into the parking area in front of the compound. Frannie cut the headlights and turned to Chloe. “Would it be weird if I said that I know exactly what you mean? It’s as if he’s, I don’t know, alone. On a separate plane from the rest of us.”

  “Exactly.”
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  They climbed out of the truck, opened the back, and carried the shipment to the office for sorting in the morning. “Let’s put the biggest boxes along the wall, then stack the smaller ones on top and around them,” Frannie said. “If we run out of space in here, we can store the smaller ones in the empty bedroom.”

  Chloe nodded. Once they finished unloading, they drove back to the marina for the rest. The boat’s crew had taken the time to place the remaining boxes in the marina’s main office, alongside the parking lot, making the second load much quicker to retrieve. They’d returned to the shelter and stacked the final boxes in the office when a piercing scream echoed through the compound, the type to set the fine hair at the back of Frannie’s neck on end.

  A second scream quickly followed the first.

  “Boys’ bunkhouse,” Chloe said as Frannie whipped open the office door, already headed toward the horrific sound.

  * * *

  Bloodcurdling.

  It was the only word that leaped to mind as Alessandro sat up, ramrod straight, his heart beating as fast as if he were stranded on a mountain face with an avalanche bearing down on him.

  He sucked in a deep breath and listened. Was the pained cry a dream, or real? The past few nights, exhaustion caused his mind to play tricks on him. In his dreams, the perpetual island breeze morphed into a wild wind that carried the roof off the bunkhouse. Typical night sounds—the occasional giggles of kids as they whispered between their bunks in the main room, or the high-pitched squawk of Kilakuru’s nocturnal birds—transformed into squeals of kids in pain.

  Alessandro forked his hands through his hair, still damp from the shower he’d taken to cool off before bed. A glance at his bedside clock told him he’d only been in his room for half an hour. Most of the boys probably hadn’t even nodded off.

  Then he heard it again. An anguished scream pierced the stillness. This time, it was followed by a low moan.

  He flung back his sheets and jogged, barefoot, from his small bedroom into the hallway that connected the adults’ space to the main room of the bunkhouse. Behind him, he heard the math teacher’s bedroom door open.