“Like Lucretia.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer it. Even Nick’s non-questions were irritating.
We had reached the end of the hall and I saw a children’s station nearby, with cups of crayons for mini Driedeners to doodle their art to hang on the wall. I palmed the stub of a green crayon and stood for a minute, scribbling down more of my answers for Nick. To hell with it. He would get these words from me and nothing more.
How long had you known Christian before the wedding?
Two years.
Which bank is he with?
Royal Bank of Drieden.
What car does he drive?
Land Rover.
Why did he leave?
I don’t know.
How can I contact him?
I don’t know.
Where is he now?
I don’t know.
I refolded the paper and handed it back to Nick. We walked silently down the next hall of the portrait gallery, even though I could have told him a thousand more facts about each of the notable Driedeners hanging on the museum walls. Especially because here, at the end? These were people I knew. My aunt Beatrice. My father, the Crown Prince. A whole section of Aurelia portraits, in oil and ink and film.
At the very end of the hall, right before the exit, there was a freshly painted rectangle where a frame had been recently removed. Off to the side was a smaller spot, where a plaque had hung, telling the world that the blank space had once held the official portrait of Princess Theodora of Drieden and her betrothed, the ninth Duke of Steading, Christian Fraser-Campbell.
Maybe Nick knew what had been here. As a reporter, maybe he’d come to the museum when it was on display, or interviewed the museum employees who had taken it down. Or maybe he was a mind reader when he stood at my elbow and said in a low, husky voice, “You spent the last four months on Perpetua.”
It wasn’t a question. I didn’t respond.
“The place they send women who can’t be controlled,” Nick continued, with the slightest hint of a question. Like he wanted me to confirm whatever he suspected.
I took a deep breath and imagined setting all these portraits on fire. “Have a nice life, Mr. Cameron.”
He didn’t follow when I left.
nine
IT WASN’T UNHEARD OF FOR my security detail to request to speak with me. There had been times that Tamar and Hugh had wanted to update me on new safety procedures or introduce me to a new guard. Sometimes their supervisor, Corporal Mortogne, attended to review plans for public events like a parade or a wedding.
Even though I was perfectly capable of walking down to their administrative offices in the basement, the calendar said they were to meet me in my drawing room, and at half past ten exactly, there was a firm knock on my door.
Hugh walked in first, with Tamar following as she usually did. Officially, they were of equal rank, but I had noticed that the thick-necked, crooked-nosed, muscular man would charge in, while the lighter and more agile Tamar would follow several steps behind him.
They greeted me and I invited them to sit and get on with it.
“What do we need to talk about today?” I asked bluntly. These two had been with me for years. There was no need for ceremony.
Hugh spoke first. “We wished to go over a routine background check we ran, ma’am.”
“It wasn’t actually routine,” Tamar interrupted.
She looked irritated. Whether it was with me, Hugh, or this background check I wasn’t sure, but something about the look on her face made my stomach clench nervously. “Yes?” I asked, as vaguely as I could.
“It’s about this man.” Hugh opened a file to reveal a picture of Nick, which was clipped on top of approximately twenty more photos.
I swallowed hard. I should have known this would happen. Nothing stayed secret in the palace, not even my annoying blackmailer.
But I was still a princess of the Kingdom of Drieden. A monarch in training, my authority was in my blood, so I summoned all of the strength I could and kept my face as inscrutable as possible. “Yes?” I repeated.
Yes.
That was the best I could come up with. I’m a very intimidating princess.
Hugh’s square jaw twitched. “Do you know who this man is?”
“Nick Cameron,” I said. Then I remembered what I had told Tamar at the football match. “He’s a friend of Christian’s.”
The two exchanged a look. That probably alarmed me more than anything. This pair could spend hours at my side and never acknowledge each other’s presence. It was almost a professional requirement, an immense concentration and ability to ignore all superficial bits of activity and noise that would distract from doing the job of guarding my life.
They looked at each other now, communicating something silently. There was a threat in that file. I reached for it, snatching it neatly out of Hugh’s leathery hands.
What I saw made my head swim. I leaned back into my chair, one hand going to my throat, as if that would turn on the air flow that had suddenly stopped making it to my lungs.
“It’s . . . not . . . true . . .” I finally stuttered. “This is a joke, right?” I looked up at Tamar for confirmation that this file was a total fabrication.
But when she asked, “How did you meet him?” that didn’t make me feel any better or assure me that someone was playing a cruel, completely nonsensical joke.
“How did you get this?” I shook the file, ignoring her question. I most definitely did not want to disclose my nightly un-secure jaunts to my security staff.
“Like I said, routine background check,” Hugh said.
“Not routine,” Tamar said through gritted teeth. “We don’t regularly conduct background checks on every person who enters your presence.”
“But you did on . . . him.” I couldn’t say his name. “After the football match. Why?” I needed to know. What had they picked up on that I hadn’t?
Hugh looked at Tamar now, letting her answer. So this had been her idea. Interesting.
“It was his Driedish.” Tamar had stopped spinning her red pen between her fingers. Now she was holding it, probably unconsciously, like a dagger. “It was perfect. Too perfect for a Scot.”
The irony is, the file confirmed that Nick was, indeed, Scottish. And so much more.
I flipped a page and reread the information that had startled me. Nick’s birth name. His place of birth. His family, all dead except for a younger brother.
Christian Fraser-Campbell.
My ex-fiancé.
“Christian told me his brother was dead. That he died in Afghanistan,” I murmured, my eyes rereading the page, two, three, four times.
No matter how many times I read it, the information didn’t change. Christian’s brother was alive. Roaming the streets of Drieden City. Drinking with me. Kissing me.
Had Christian known this? Had he lied to me? Or had Nick been miraculously resurrected somehow?
Hugh flipped open the second file he had. “Nicholas Fraser-Campbell was a Royal Marine deployed to Helmand province, Afghanistan, eight years ago. According to this, he was caught in an ambush during the siege at Musa Qala and was killed in action six years ago, at the age of—”
My sharp inhale made Hugh stop in the middle of his sentence. I was staring at a photograph of Nick in a newspaper article from Edinburgh. The Duke of Steading’s eldest son. Killed in action. A hero.
I’m not sure I would have identified my blackmailer as the man in this picture. Taken in a dress uniform, this photograph showed a clean, sharp handsomeness. He had not yet been punched, scarred, broken.
Another photograph was behind it, showing a group of men in fatigues in a desert, all with wiry beards. Nick was on the far right. A machine gun in his hand, he stared stonily into the camera. For some reason, I would have recognized this picture of him, even though his eyes were hidden behind wraparound sunglasses and a hat was low on his brow. This was the cocky bastard who would blackmail a princess.
The blackmail.
I could tell Tamar and Hugh about that part at least. They would deal with this not-dead man who would have been my not-dead brother-in-law.
“Where has he been?” I asked while still staring at the stone-faced jerk in the photo who, unfortunately, was not here to answer my many questions. “Why didn’t he let his brother know he was alive? Does Christian know? Has he seen him? And why . . .”
My voice trailed off. I had so many questions myself. The problem was, I wanted to ask him. I wanted Nick to look me in the face and tell me exactly why he hadn’t told me his true identity. Why he’d come after me at all, when his brother had left me humiliated in front of my country.
“Her Majesty was quite clear,” I said, summoning all the royal haughtiness I could. “We will not mention the name of the man I was to marry in this house. And that includes talking to or about his family.”
“But, Your Highness—”
I held up a hand and Hugh went quiet. Sometimes this princess act really worked. “Obviously, there are some issues that these men need to work out. However, it’s their private family business, and this palace will have no further dealings with them. Myself included.”
Hugh’s face fell. I was sure he was looking forward to implementing his favorite interrogation techniques. Tamar, on the other hand, looked satisfied.
“We understand, Your Highness.”
“No one contacts Nick Fraser-Campbell,” I ordered them one more time before they left the room.
No one except me.
ten
NICK WAS WAITING FOR ME, as we’d agreed earlier after a phone call from Jerome’s office, at the bottom of the National Galleries’ grand staircase. I’d come to confront him. To make him answer my questions for a change, but my breath caught when I saw him. He had a profile that was meant to be carved in stone for eternity. His lips went up in a small smile when he saw me, and a confusing mix of anger and feminine desire swept through me. He was unnervingly handsome—that much was true—but how could he think he could get away with his lie? He wasn’t dead. At least not until I was done with him.
As soon as I reached him, his smile disappeared. His eyes focused on something beyond my left shoulder and his expression suddenly morphed into something serious and all business. “Walk with me.” Without asking, he took my hand and threaded it through his arm, and then he was practically dragging me toward the Ancient History wing.
Nick’s eyes scanned the crowd, but his body language was that of a concerned boyfriend doting on his girlfriend. Girlfriend. That confusing emotional stew stirred again. He was Christian’s brother.
And I had kissed him.
“Let go of me,” I growled.
“Not yet,” he replied, sidestepping us both around a group of Japanese tourists all wearing their guided tour headphones. “We had an agreement.”
“I didn’t agree to be manhandled.”
“You did agree to coming without guards.”
“And I did,” I said defensively.
“You were followed.” As if he knew what I was about to do, he scowled. “Don’t look.”
He was making this up. He was a liar. I knew how to sneak out of the palace undetected and I had made sure no one followed me. I wasn’t going to be distracted from the reason I’d arranged this meeting in the first place.
“I know who you really are.”
Maybe that startled him, because he gripped my hand so tightly I thought my circulation was cut off. “You’re pretty strong for a dead man.”
He ignored me, so I went in for the kill. “Does Christian know you’re alive?”
With that, he suddenly spun me into a side corridor that led to the restrooms. He picked up his pace, and I struggled to keep up with his long, fast stride.
“Where are we going?”
Nick kept me glued to him as we moved past the men’s room. He peeked past the next door and, finding a staff break room, pulled us both in.
“Does Christian know you’re alive?” I repeated.
My demand for an answer seemed to piss him off even more, so of course I had to keep pushing. “He doesn’t, does he? You’re sick. You come after me, blackmail me, when your own brother is still grieving you!?”
He leaned down, his face inches from mine. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I know a liar when I see one.”
He huffed, clearly uninterested in my accusations. So I decided to say what I had come there to say. “You’re Nick Fraser-Campbell. And Christian needs to know that you’re alive!”
“He can’t!” Nick’s eyes went feral.
“You’re telling him or I will!”
From somewhere up above us, there was a loud bang.
“I’m getting out of here.”
“Why?” I demanded. This wasn’t what I had imagined when confronting him about his true identity. My imagination had included a tearful, repentant Nick, standing below the portrait of King Wilhelm the Executioner for added effect.
Just then, a fire alarm went off, a high-pitched shriek echoing off the marble floors.
“That’s why.” He pushed me against a wall, then reached over and locked the door we’d just come through, which didn’t make sense at all.
“Why are you locking the door?” I half-shouted over the screeching alarm. “There’s a fire somewhere in the building!”
“We’re not leaving that way.” Nick nodded at the door. Considering we were in a dark, empty room with a flashing red exit sign hanging above our heads, I wasn’t quite getting what he was saying.
A voice came over the intercom. “Please evacuate the museum. Emergency services are entering the museum.”
“We need to go,” I insisted.
“I won’t go out that door.”
“Why?”
“I don’t feel like getting shot today.”
“No one’s shooting at you.”
A boom sounded down the hall outside the door. I jumped and Nick grabbed me by the shoulders. “The ones who followed you in. The ones from the football match—the big guy and the little woman. And now they’re coming for me.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure it has something to do with the people who kidnapped Christian.”
I smelled something rotten and sharp and looked down, where tendrils of white fog were climbing into the room under the door. Kidnapped Christian? What? I had come for answers and now there were more questions. And smoke bombs. Why?
“Thea.” Nick took my chin in his hand and made me look at him. “You may be beautiful, but I’m not dying for you today.”
A shot rang out. Two. Three. Four. There was no time. I couldn’t think. I could only look into Nick’s eyes, where I saw something indefinable that compelled me to say, “How do we get out of here?”
“You’re not coming with me.”
“You can’t stop me.”
Well, he probably could have. But he pushed me along the wall until we hit a piece of paneling that Nick slid open, revealing an interior box about three feet wide. He swore when I jumped in first, and then he climbed in before sliding the door closed again. “Hold tight,” he said. The box jerked. And then we were falling. Instinct made me clutch at him. Fear made me close my eyes and bite my tongue until I tasted blood.
The box had to be an elevator of some sort with no controls and no brake, because we stopped hard and suddenly. Nick’s hand clamped over my mouth, which didn’t stop me from screaming an obscenity. In our fall, I had ended up in Nick’s lap, my back against his front. I felt his breath over my ear. “Shh . . .”
Surely someone could hear the mad throbbing of my pulse, the rush of blood through my head, but all was quiet until Nick whispered, “Jump.”
The door opened, Nick shoved my spine, and I . . . jumped. Sort of. Mostly, it was gravity doing all the work as I tumbled into the blackness below and was enveloped in a foul, sticky Dumpster filled with black plastic trash bags.
Nick landed next to me and even in the darkness outside, I could see he’d jumped with far more finesse than me. But I didn’t have time to admire his technique. Before I knew it, he’d grabbed my hand again, and we were climbing out of the Dumpster and running.
Nick seemed quite confident that he knew where he was going, and who was I to stop him? I didn’t even know what was going on. Or where he was taking me.
I looked up and realized where we were; after all, I knew this city like the back of my hand. On the back side of the museum, looking down on the wide expanse of the dark murk of the Comtesse River that would let us sneak away undetected—from both whoever was after Nick and the police.
A good, compliant princess would run toward the police, back to safety, back to the palace, but there was no way Nick would come with me. And I needed to go with him. He had something I had wanted very badly for the past four months. Something I hadn’t even realized I needed.
Answers.
Plus, for some inexplicable reason, I felt safe with him. Like he actually would take a shot for me, despite his declaring the opposite only minutes ago.
Nick dropped down to his knees, lifting a manhole cover half a block away from the museum.
Our eyes met, his holding a question for me—run back to my predictable, royal world or trust that he’d keep me safe today. I answered it by putting my foot on the top rung of the ladder.
I climbed down and then saw the lazy passage of the Comtesse below. “What now?” I shouted up to him.
“Jump!”
I let go of the ladder and the frigid water engulfed me a second later.
I’d never dropped twenty feet into any body of water before, much less a murky, cold, salty river running through one of the oldest European capitals, but there was a first time for everything. The cold stunned me, my eyes seeing nothing, but before I could panic, Nick hauled me out of the water and into a small, inflatable rubber boat that had been tied up on the riverbank.
I lay on the floor as he started the motor and got us out of there, going over in my mind all that had been said. I could no longer see the buildings of Drieden looming over the river.
The Royal Runaway Page 6