“I’m new.”
Lucy looked at me for a more thorough explanation. “Father had him assigned. To keep an eye on me.”
She nodded approvingly before launching into an expected scolding. “What were you thinking, Thea, really? A royal princess can’t just take a vacation without anyone knowing about it.”
She looked back at Nick. “And you. Haven’t you been trained? Her Highness is standing. One does not remain seated while Her Highness is standing.”
Nick reluctantly rose from the chair he had been comfortably slouching in.
“We have standards in this palace. I expect you to keep a very close eye on Her Highness and immediately inform me if she tries to do anything reckless.”
“Yes, of course.” Nick did a very good job keeping a straight face when he replied. He was already well acquainted with my reckless streak.
“Lucy’s quite protective of me,” I told him.
Her head whipped around at my words. “Me? He’s the one who needs to be protective. I don’t know why your father didn’t hire four more guards to keep an eye on you.”
“She’s only got the one couch,” Nick said offhandedly.
Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “Wha . . . ?” Yes, Nick had agreed to my return to the palace only if he stayed in my apartments with me, but I hadn’t planned on telling anyone. No one would have really noticed, as long as he got up early and put the blankets and pillows away before Lucy or a maid came in.
But Lucy’s order to stand must have ignited Nick’s contrary streak. “Father’s orders. Twenty-four/seven protection,” I said with a rush to distract her.
Lucy harrumphed. “She should send you back to Perpetua,” she said, speaking of my grandmother. “But with Anders making so much noise, she’s calling the troops into action.”
“The troops?” Nick echoed, and I tried sending him a mental order to shut up. Lucy wouldn’t understand a bodyguard who wouldn’t stand and who wanted to speak, too.
Sure enough, Lucy shook her head disapprovingly and went to the canvas bag she’d set down when she first came in. “Sophie’s not happy, and neither is Henry.”
“So Gran asked everyone to come back to Drieden to appear at royal events,” I summarized, hoping that would satisfy Nick’s blatant curiosity before he did something as gauche as talk again.
Lucy heaved the bag onto a table and removed a pile of newspapers. “I think I got all of the ones that you asked for. If this is going to be a new habit, I’ll have the press office send up extra subscriptions. My newsstand isn’t convenient for my driver to stop at.”
Nick strolled over and started leafing through the newspapers I’d ordered for him: Le Monde, The Wall Street Journal, The Driedener.
“He’s checking for weapons,” I told Lucy when she looked affronted at his impertinence.
“He’s very thorough.”
“You have no idea,” Nick said.
Lucy blinked several times. I turned my head so she wouldn’t see me biting back a smile.
“About these events, do you have the details for me?”
Lucy removed her leather-covered planner from the bag. “Some. Her Majesty’s office is still finalizing the schedule.” Her finger landed with a thud onto today’s page. “She wants to see you.”
“Who?”
Lucy had known me too long to play that game. “You can’t pull stunts like this, Thea. Not anymore.”
Nick flashed a quick look at me when she said that, but thankfully, Lucy was in efficiency mode.
“She’ll expect you at noon.” Lucy pulled a sheet out of her calendar and laid it on the table. It was cream with my light blue coat of arms embossed at the top, but it was Lucy’s feminine, crisp handwriting that filled the page. “And here are the next week’s appointments.”
After ordering me a full Driedish breakfast and calling Roberto to “do something” about my hair, Lucy left, and Nick made a quick beeline toward my calendar.
“No. No. No. No.” As he switched back into English, he ticked off each of Lucy’s neatly drawn dates with black sharp slashes of the fountain pen she’d left behind.
I stole the pen from his hand. “You can’t say no to all of these.”
“This was a bad idea.”
“You didn’t have a better one.”
Then I took my calendar back. “One doesn’t say no to an audience with Queen Aurelia.”
Nick’s expression suggested otherwise.
“You can’t be serious. She’s my grandmother. She’s seventy-five years old! How could she possibly be a threat?”
“According to you, she was one of the last people to see Christian alive.”
My head jerked and then I remembered—he was right. That night at Ceillis House, when Big Gran had called Christian and me to speak privately. “What are you saying?” I put a hand to my throat. “I should interrogate my grandmother?”
“Do you want me to do it?”
“No.” I don’t think I’d ever said a word that quickly before.
Nick loomed over me, his face deadly serious. “Someone has murdered and kidnapped Christian and his associates—or ordered it done.”
The realization slapped me in the face as if I’d run into a brick wall. “You didn’t want to come back here because you thought my grandmother was behind this?”
He picked the calendar out of my hand again and started to scribble.
When he was done, he handed it to me calmly.
“Sophie, Henry . . .” I read aloud the names of my brother and sister next to each appearance. “I don’t understand.”
“As soon as they’re in town, you’re doing everything with one of them.”
He turned and moved toward my small study, newspapers under his arm.
“Why?” I asked his retreating back.
“Because Grandmama’s men probably won’t want to kill a second heir in the cross fire,” he called out.
Dumbfounded, I stood with my mouth hanging open. This is what my life had come to. Using my younger brother and sister as human shields. Just like mad Prince Hugo had done in 1476.
History really did repeat itself.
twenty-three
BIG GRAN HAD SCHEDULED OUR meeting at noon. Since she always took luncheon at one o’clock, I’d assumed this would be a cursory interview. A quick chat with her granddaughter before a civilized bite to eat.
I was wrong. Very wrong.
It wasn’t Her Majesty Aurelia, Queen of Drieden, I spoke with. It was an angry, worried grandmother, which was so much worse.
She lectured and railed and lectured some more. I was reminded of my upbringing, my duty, my responsibilities. She laid the guilt on thick: my family loved me, my country needed me, my legacy depended on my reliable reputation.
“You’re nearly thirty years old, Theodora. You are second in line to the throne! Your time for gadding about on your little adventures is over.”
I let her have her say. Now it was my turn. I had some questions that needed answers, too. “Two nights before the wedding, you told me that you and Father were changing the order of succession. That I would be first in line.”
Big Gran’s gaze shot to the window, where the late-summer day was gray and gloomy. “Yes?” She asked vaguely.
I guessed I had to be more direct. “Has that changed?”
“It was never made public.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her eyes flared at my impertinence.
“I think it’s a fair question. Was the initial decision to make me first in line because of me, or because of Christian?”
Now she really looked insulted, but her expression quickly returned to ferociousness. “Your marriage to Christian would have strengthened our position significantly.”
“Our position?”
“With the vote. I have been informed that in five days, Pierre Anders will call for a vote in Parliament regarding the creation of a republic and the continued support of the monarchy.”
“What does Christian have to do with it? We all got along fine before he came along.”
Gran’s eyes widened as she realized that I’d stood while she sat—a breach of every etiquette rule I’d ever learned.
But she quickly got over my manners in order to lecture some more. “We’ve gone over this. A stable, well-adjusted family with a clear expectation of succession is what will ensure the future of the Crown.”
“Well-adjusted? Have you met our family?”
“Theodora! This is exactly what I meant. Your impetuousness and impromptu trips are simply inappropriate for any princess, let alone the heir apparent.”
I understood now. “So you’re saying I can’t be queen without a husband who’s going to keep me in line.”
Yet again, she refused to be baited. “I’m saying I’ve changed my mind. For the time being.”
We could keep arguing about this, but I had a feeling a tantrum would only reinforce what she believed about me. That somehow I was not yet worthy of being named the next monarch.
I remembered Nick’s crack about interrogating my grandmother. She wasn’t taking my questions very well. But if I didn’t do it, who would?
“Did you see him again?” I blurted out. My grandmother looked taken aback, but once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. “After the ball at Ceillis House, did you see Christian again before he escaped the loveable clutches of our well-adjusted family?”
“No. I had heads of state to meet with; I didn’t have time to pencil in bonding sessions with my new grandson.”
Well. Big Gran had some sarcasm in her after all.
I walked over to her desk, pretending to look at the black-and-white snapshots I’d seen thousands of times. These were the only photos she kept in this room, the ones of her and her parents when she was a little girl. “I keep thinking about it. Wondering what I did wrong, what I could have done to make him stay.” My eyes dropped to her papers. Unfortunately, there was nothing particularly incriminating there—just her usual correspondence and her tablet.
“I was thinking I would see him again.” I ran a finger across the tablet screen, only to see her usual news websites pop up. Something about the Caribbean banking system. Something about global warming. “Maybe we’d be able to talk. Who knows—maybe we could be friends again.”
She sighed. “Obviously, you weren’t listening earlier. This impulsiveness and poor decision-making has got to stop, Thea.”
She’d switched back to my family nickname. Interesting.
“One minute ago you said that my relationship with Christian was good for the Crown. Now it’s a bad idea. Which is it?”
She smoothed her skirts, and for a moment I saw something I rarely saw on my grandmother’s face: uncertainty.
My question wasn’t that tricky, not for a wily public servant like herself, used to public pronouncements one day and political double-talk behind the scenes the next.
“It’s the perception that you can’t make up your mind that’s worrisome. A future queen must not waver from the course she has set.”
I thought about that for a moment, marveling at the scream that started welling up in my throat.
I was finally able to swallow that anger and speak. “I was going to marry him, you know. I didn’t waver from that decision.”
She was avoiding my eyes now. Maybe she knew she’d pushed me too far. Maybe she didn’t want to look the crazy heir straight in the eyes, like a dog that just might bite.
I don’t know why I said what I said next.
“I’ll do everything you’ve asked me to do. I’ll make all the appearances; I’ll smile, stand straight, and simper. But I will find out what made Christian leave Drieden. I deserve that much.”
When she finally looked up at me, the previous uncertainty was gone, replaced by another, thoroughly chilling, emotion: fear.
• • •
OF COURSE, I WAS ON edge as I returned to my apartments. Sparring with Big Gran was not a soothing experience, and I never wanted to push her too far. The ghost of my disinherited sister was never far from my mind. As I entered my sitting room, I thought of Caroline. Maybe I could visit her. See where she lived. After Sybil had mentioned Caroline’s astrological chart, I had meant to call her on my old secret phone. But that plan was ruined now.
I kicked off the stupid high heels that I’d worn to meet my own grandmother. What normal twenty-first-century woman dressed up in high heels to have a conversation with her grandma? I curled my toes into the thick white rug and wondered what would happen if I showed up in my running shoes next time.
What if I put my Nikes on now? My toes curled again. Nick wasn’t here. I could easily slip out for a quick jog. No one would have to know.
Before I could finish processing that thought, there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” I called out automatically, instantly disappointed that I couldn’t escape out to the city gardens for a little bit.
Just for some fresh air.
Tamar walked in, wearing her usual button-down shirt and wide-legged pants. No gun that I could see. I wondered about the one I’d dropped into the Comtesse. Would it be hard for her to get another? Would she have to fill out paperwork?
“I’m sorry, Tamar.”
She looked confused. After all, she’d just walked in. “For what?”
“For throwing your gun in the river. Do let me know if you get in trouble for that.”
It only seemed to relieve her worry for a moment. “About that . . . Your Highness, may we speak?”
“Sure.” I paced the perimeter of the rug. I was restless. I needed to move and talk at the same time. “Oh—have you seen Nick?” If I timed this right, maybe I could still arrange an hour or two of privacy. I needed to think. I could do that better outside.
“Mr. Cameron”—she grimaced as she said the name I had told her to call him while he was in the palace,—“is downstairs doing new-employee paperwork.”
Oh, crap. Nick was going to love that. But what I said was, “Excellent,” because that was surely going to take a while. “Do I need to speak with Hugh?” I asked, remembering my other bodyguard, whom I had not seen since returning to the palace. As the only other person who knew who Nick was, I should probably make sure he didn’t reveal “Mr. Cameron’s” true identity.
Tamar shook her head. “Ma’am, Hugh’s been out this week. I heard it was the flu.”
“Wonderful. I mean, not wonderful for him,” I added hastily when Tamar looked alarmed at my choice of words. “But it’s a bit convenient for us, isn’t it?”
Tamar did not look similarly relieved.
“What’s going on?” I asked, stopping my to-and-fro across the room.
“Mr. Fraser-Campbell.”
“Cameron,” I corrected her.
“Pardon, ma’am, but I must speak plainly. It’s my job to protect you and I don’t feel comfortable with this man, this Scot, staying here, in your rooms, under false pretenses.”
“I see,” I said. Frankly, I was a little stunned. I had assumed Tamar would go along with my orders, as her employer and as her princess. But of course, after all that had happened, things had changed between us. It was good for me to be reminded that perhaps Tamar was not to be trusted. I had to play this carefully.
“Is there something in particular you’re worried about?”
Tamar licked her lips. “He lied when he first met you. He used a false identity. He’s lied for years to his family, to Christian.” She rushed the words out and looked visibly concerned.
“He’s not going to hurt me.” I hoped that would soothe her. “There’s no reason why he should hurt me.”
“I still don’t trust him. Why would he come back to see you, now? To live wit
h you, no less? To continue lying about his identity?” She shook her head, her brown curls bouncing as if adding to a rising warning chorus. “When his own brother isn’t even in this country? Ma’am, I know it’s forward of me, but I have to be sure that you are safe. That there’s a good reason for this man to be in the palace under false pretenses.”
“I see where you’re coming from,” I said slowly. “And, as ever, I appreciate your loyalty and thoroughness. I can assure you that Nick is only here for the best interests of both his brother and me. Can you trust me on this?”
Tamar backed down like a reluctant German shepherd—still tense, yet obedient.
“I’m giving you the next few days off,” I said as I crossed into my dressing room to change into workout clothes.
“Ma’am?” She sounded worried in the other room.
I stripped off my purple jersey dress and pulled on a warm-up jacket and running tights. I wouldn’t go outside the palace walls, but it was imperative that I get some of this energy out. When I returned to the sitting room, Tamar was still there, standing at attention.
“Just a few days, Tamar.”
“Is this a disciplinary action, ma’am?”
“No!” I cried, aghast. “It’s a reward for good service. You worked night and day to find me while I was off . . .” I made a little hand motion in the general direction of the Comtesse. “You deserve to relax a few days. I’ll be fine with the backup shift.” And Nick. When she still looked uncertain, I explained, “I won’t be going anywhere without Sophie and Henry and their guards, anyway. I will be quite well protected.”
She finally left, admirably resigned to the fact that I was forcing her to take some time for herself. I made a mental note to tell Lucy to arrange something nice for Tamar. Maybe she’d like a spa day? And then I left an actual note for Nick on the entry table.
Gone for a run.
twenty-four
WHEN I CAME BACK FROM the gardens, Nick was waiting for me. He shoved a large fruit basket in my hands and pushed me back down the hallway.
“What is this?” I asked, stumped by his behavior. “Where are we going? What are you doing?”
The Royal Runaway Page 14