The Royal Bodyguard

by Lindsay Emory

  Which I wasn’t.

  But was Karl? He greeted me as I exited the elevator and smiled warmly. My body reacted—what woman’s wouldn’t? Karl Sylvain von Falkenburg was tall, muscular and striking with bronzed skin, as if he’d just stepped off his yacht after a week in the Mediterranean. “Lady Caroline, I’m flattered that you could come.”

  “Please, just call me Caroline.” I accepted his offered hand. It was warm and welcoming. No sign of an evil weapon or a sneaky syringe. His hand was calloused, however. Maybe from all the hacking he did?

  Stop, Caroline. Don’t be ridiculous.

  I made appreciative comments about his apartment, and they were sincere. The place was breathtaking at night, as if the tiny trillions of lights of Drieden City were shining just so for his decor.

  “Thank you. I don’t get to spend nearly enough time here,” he said, and of course I was about to ask what other residences he spent time at, because I’m a bit of a real-estate buff, but before I could, I turned and saw that Karl had a strange expression on his face, some blend of interest and admiration.

  “Is that why you invited me tonight?” I asked. “Because you wanted a nice dinner at home?”

  He looked amused. “Do you want the truth?”

  If only he knew.

  “I received a phone call, after our outing to the battlefield.”

  “Only one?” I asked.

  “Only one that mattered.” Karl smiled. “From a Lady Astrid Decht-Sevine. Suggesting that we get to know each other better.”

  It wasn’t what I was expecting. And clearly not what Karl had expected either.

  “I’ve only met her once, at a horse race about a decade or so ago. But she is a legend.”

  I remembered what my mother had said. “That’s right, you’re a Sevine relation.”

  He reared back slightly, cocked an eyebrow. “On my mother’s side,” he admitted.

  “So we’re what…cousins?”

  “It would seem so.” He made a gesture toward the candlelit table. “Does that make this awkward?”

  “For most of Driedish history, I believe they preferred that princesses dated cousins.”

  He cocked his head.

  “Date?” he asked.

  I felt my cheeks warm. “Let’s call it an outing. With food.”

  “Exactly so.” With the proper manners of a courtier, he pulled out a chair and I settled in for what I hoped would be an illuminating evening.

  As dinner was served, I must admit I momentarily forgot all my suspicions and reasons for accepting the invitation. Karl was a sophisticated, interesting host who was able to skillfully direct the conversation from topic to topic. He would be right at home at the table in the Queen’s gold dining room—either the small or large one.

  I couldn’t help but think that a match between me and this billionaire might be the only thing that Felice, Astrid, and Aurelia could all agree on.

  It would be so easy, I thought. All my problems would be solved if I could only fall in love with a man who had the appropriate pedigree to impress my family and the right-sized bank account. Karl looked at me, again with that warm yet searching expression. “Would you care to take coffee on the veranda?”

  I answered with an enthusiastic yes. My two favorite things—coffee and fresh air. Then I would artfully ask about his Bionaura company and about whether he might know how a certain almost-royal could hack into my medical records there.

  Karl stood, leaving his napkin on the table. “Let me just go find out what happened to my staff. They’ve left us alone far too long,” he added with a wink.

  It was really too bad that I was damaged goods. Karl would be lovely to get to know better.

  One minute ticked by.

  Three minutes.

  I checked my watch. Karl had not returned, obviously, and the penthouse was strangely quiet.

  And I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  With the sound of my rapidly increasing heartbeat in my ears, I checked my handbag. Swore softly.

  There was no cell phone in it.

  Had it fallen out? Did I remove it at the hotel?

  I couldn’t remember.

  Think, Caroline.

  My eyes darted around the walls for buttons, security alarms, but Karl’s systems were discreet, as became a billionaire. No doubt there was a panic room around here somewhere, but my host had not included that on his brief tour at the beginning of the night.

  I bit my lip to keep from calling out. No need to alert anyone to my presence—or my distress, if it turned out that Karl and his chef and butler were simply extremely quiet at coffee preparations. And dish-washing. And…all of the other sounds that humans make as they live and work in a space.

  A creepy slither of fear slid down my spine.

  Don’t overreact, Caroline.

  Do something, Caroline.

  There.

  I saw a phone on a side table. As if I had no cares, fears, or worries in the world, I walked to the wall, making out that I was inspecting the…what was it? Oh, the Wilheim Kurad sketch. Of course. Probably an estimated two million at auction. Lovely…lines.

  My fingers landed on the phone receiver. Casually. Paused.

  Shit.

  I knew no one’s numbers. Out of panic, forgetfulness, lack of use, I couldn’t remember a single useful phone number.

  Except one.

  I hadn’t called it in years, but I did so automatically now. After two rings, a very bored Driedener answered. “Newspaper tip line.”

  Princess Caroline is having a rendezvous at the Trilennia.

  I whispered and quickly replaced the receiver and spun around, certain that I was being watched.

  There was no one.

  But the door to the veranda was open.

  Goose bumps erupted down my arms. Had the door been open before? Had the Driedish wind raked it open?

  A feminine instinct made me grab my handbag. It was hand-made, sturdy calfskin with heavy palladium hardware and a handle that fit just so in my fist.

  For a weapon, I could do worse than a Birkin.

  The wind on the penthouse veranda was invigorating and strong. I would have enjoyed seeing the city lights from up here, if I wasn’t so terrified.

  Only a few feet from the glass railing, I turned when I heard a slight scuffing sound.

  “Hello, Caroline.”

  I sighed with a strange relief.

  After all, he was a man who I had once known quite well—or so I had thought. A man who would have been my brother—of a sort. And if I had to pick a person to lurk on a dark veranda waiting for me, I supposed I’d rather have someone I sort of knew than a perfect stranger.

  “Christian,” I said. “You could have called me.”

  He moved away from the wall, and in the dim light I could just make out his skeptical expression. “You were trying to frame me at Dréuvar.”

  “Would you believe that it was my sister and your brother taking control of the situation?”

  “One hundred percent,” he said solemnly.

  Something dark and matte was in his hand, down by his leg.

  “Where is Karl?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady even though OMG that was a gun in Christian’s hand!

  Christian cocked his head back toward the penthouse.

  Okay, then.

  “What was this all about, Christian? You have me here, what do you want from me?”

  “At first it was about your heritage.”

  “What do you mean, my heritage?” I blurted out. As a quasi-journalist, I couldn’t help the follow-up question.

  “It was the discovery at the Langůs battlefield. We simply wanted to confirm that the tests were accurate. That it was King Fredrik who was in that
grave.”

  “We?” I echoed. “You mean Vox Umbra?”

  His eyebrows raised. “Interested parties.”

  My gut twisted. “And I was right. You came after me because I was the weak link. The only Driedish royal outside of naval bases and royal properties who could have her blood tested.”

  “Not blood. I just wanted your hairbrush.” Christian smirked. “But you had an unexpected bodyguard.”

  “So you hacked into my medical records when you couldn’t get close enough to me.” It was so ridiculous. “Why didn’t you just ask? I would have been happy to give DNA to test against bones found on an archeological site.” Just saying the words made me realize what an absolute lie Christian had just told me. “No. You had another reason.”

  “What other reason is there?” He chuckled like I was the one spouting crazy theories.

  “You wanted to know about the current heirs,” I guessed. “To see if we were legitimate.”

  His smile faded and, finally, he lifted his shoulders. “There were questions raised. Speculation in the press during your parents’ divorce. And when I was with Thea, something always felt…different about your siblings.”

  “Shut up,” I snapped. “You don’t get to talk about my family. Not after what you’ve done.”

  Christian paused before speaking again. “What do you know about it, Caroline? You weren’t even around.”

  “I know what my sister and Hugh have told me. About how you traumatized them.”

  He stepped closer. I gripped my handbag tighter. “Don’t you want to know the true story? About why I did what I did?”

  His tone was so sincere, and my instinct told me that he had told the truth in those emails to me. That he did want his story told.

  With a shaky voice I gave him what he wanted. “I can tell the world, Christian. Clémence Diederich for The Times. Front-page investigative reporting.”

  I had to keep him talking, after all. How long had it been since I placed that phone call to the tabloid magazine tip line? How long would it be before paparazzi were camped out in front of the Trilennia building?

  How long before my improvised SOS signal was recognized?

  Christian was shaking his head, though. “They’ll never believe you.”

  “They will,” I said, a little too desperately. “They know who I am. Caroline Laurent. I’ll even put my own name on it.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” The silent threat was chillier than the Driedish north wind.

  “I’m not,” I swore. “After Stavros died, I blew up the Formula One safety procedures. If you’ve been wronged, people need to know. The truth must be known.”

  “Even if your own family is exposed?”

  I shrugged, praying that my next lie would be believable. “They abandoned me, Christian. Just for marrying a man they didn’t approve of. Why would I protect them?”

  And perhaps that spoke to his own self-interest, because he gestured toward the low-slung chairs on the deck with his gun. Oh yes, how completely welcoming that gesture was. Please, come and sit or I’ll shoot you dead and leave you to rot.

  Christian nodded toward the Birkin I still clutched in my lap. I wasn’t sure I could unclench my fingers around the handle if he ordered me to, at this point.

  “You have something to write this down?” he asked instead.

  Because sociopaths are also egomaniacs. Don’t want to miss a word of this insane word vomit. “Um, of course,” I mumbled, praying to the patron saint of princesses in distress that I had something useful inside this very expensive accessory. If all else failed, I’ll just swing it at his head before he takes a shot at me.

  There was no cell phone in the bag, as I already knew. And no, I had not thought to toss in a Hotel Ilysium pen and notepad. But then my fingers closed around a small plastic cylinder.

  My heart started to race.

  I couldn’t be sure, here on this shadowy balcony, but it felt an awful lot like my small can of pepper spray, which Hugh had presumptuously emptied for his own protection in Italy.

  Could it be?

  If it was dark enough for me to not know, then I figured I had a chance.

  “Oh, brilliant,” I remarked brightly. “I have my recorder on me.” I palmed the canister, found the button with my thumb and, feeling like a terrified idiot, spoke into it. “Interview with Christian Fraser-Campbell.”

  Because it was dark, because he was a narcissist, because I had my very own patron saint and security detail of guardian angels, Christian didn’t look twice at my so-called recorder.

  I took a deep breath. It wasn’t much, but I’d take what I could get.

  Five minutes? Ten? Keep him talking, Caroline.

  Until you can’t anymore.

  “Were you already a member of Vox Umbra before you became engaged to my sister?” I asked him, holding the mace a little in front of me.

  Christian nodded approvingly. “I was. It is a birthright of my family. Thea and I, we had met casually, then one day I received a call, encouraging me to pursue her.”

  “Who was it?” I asked, even though I already knew.

  “Your grandmother. Astrid Decht-Sevine.”

  “It was an arranged marriage?” I asked, my throat dry.

  Keep him talking.

  “No, encouraged,” he said, in a tone that said he doubted my intelligence. “Beneficial for everyone involved.”

  “So why did you threaten the Driedish monarchy?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “There was a better offer.” And then, as he realized how that would sound in a newspaper interview: “But really, it was because the people needed to know that the Driedish royal family was stealing from the people.”

  Whatever. I didn’t care. This was all fake and any second now he was going to figure out that I was bluffing with a pretend voice recorder. I had to catch him by surprise if I was to have any advantage at all, so I readied myself to hurl my Birkin at Christian’s smug face because I was tired of hearing him talk—

  Crack.

  I screamed.

  I sprayed.

  Another scream. Christian’s.

  Crack.

  Gunshot.

  Shove.

  I fell to the cement. Tasted blood, grit, pepper, salt.

  Heard my name. “Caroline!” In the same instant, I was clutched more tightly than I had been in my life. Surrounded by heat, male, darkness.

  An embrace I would know anywhere. In heaven or in hell.

  “Hugh.”

  His hands went to my cheeks, my chin was lifted to meet his face. “Are you all right?” A desperate demand.

  I nodded. Then his mouth took mine. An altogether different demand.

  Mine. Yours.

  I broke away. I couldn’t help it. Still in survival mode. Adrenaline off the charts. “What about—”

  We looked down at Christian twisting and wailing on the ground several feet away from us. He had been shot in the face with pepper spray (mine) and shot in the arm with a bullet (Hugh’s).

  Teamwork.

  Hugh was grim. “It’s time to finish this.”

  I watched his first punch. And then the second.

  I turned my head on the third, the fourth and the fifth. And then things went still. And Hugh returned to take me into his arms.

  Chapter Forty

  We found Karl unconscious in the kitchen, along with two of his staff members. I said a silent prayer of thanks to that patron saint of mine and promised to never work her that hard again.

  Hugh called Nick at the palace, and I heard obscenities through the phone. When Hugh ended the call, he looked at me with a grim expression. “You’re going to have to explain what happened here.”

  I opened my mouth, and then closed it when I realized that Christian was still alive—barely. When
he was turned over to palace security, he would start talking and, boy, did he have secrets to spill.

  Finally, I shook my head. “They’re not going to like what they hear.”

  Hugh walked over and kneeled in front of my chair. “We only have a few minutes—what do you want me to do?” I realized that Hugh was offering to do the unthinkable. Darkly, I thought it would be so much simpler if Hugh had pointed his gun a little closer to the chest cavity region when he’d taken a shot at Christian. But there was only so much I would ask of this man.

  So all I said was, “You found me,” because it was enough.

  And he replied, “All I had to do was follow the cameras.”

  In the next moment, the emergency responders spilled out of the elevator, followed closely by more palace security officers, who bundled me up and swept me away without another word.

  In the basements of the palace, there were administrative offices, the maintenance offices, and the security offices. This is where I was led, with a guard on either side of me, one at the back and one in the front with one hand on a radio.

  They brought me to some kind of a conference room, where Thea and Nick were waiting, along with several other people who I recognized from my brief stay on Perpetua.

  “Caroline!” Thea breathed a sigh of relief when she saw me, but it was me who should have been worried, because she looked ragged. The fluorescent lights did our fair skin no favors, but even then she looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept in days.

  “I thought you said you were going to take care of her,” I said to Nick, whose lowered lids said he was in no mood for my sass. So I moved on to more important things. “Has Christian arrived yet?” I needed to know what he had said.

  “What happened, Caroline?” Thea was so angry she looked like she was about to spit nails—golden ones, of course. “Did he kidnap you?”

  “Kidnap me? Why on earth would he do that?”

  Almost as one, every set of eyes in the room rolled toward the palatial chambers above our heads.

  “I’m not a princess,” I objected.

  “Don’t be stupid,” a scratchy voice said from behind me. “You’re that and more.”