I had not expected Sophie to bring up our other sister, so I was more confused than ever. “What did she do now?”
Sophie’s voice rose. “Has she called you? Has she shown that she cares about anyone besides herself? Selfish, that’s what she is. Eloping and leaving the rest of us to carry all the burdens; using your situation to cover for her own.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I murmured. It was true that Caroline’s elopement two months ago had benefited from the media craziness that had surrounded my canceled wedding. In any other year, a Driedish princess running off with a race car driver would have been splashed all over every newspaper. This year, one-half the population was exhausted by royal coverage, and the other half was glad that at least one of their royal princesses had found love.
Sophie was still rambling about Caroline shirking her responsibilities, which was only because Sophie would now have to do a little more work. “And that’s why this is so unfair!” she cried dramatically. “You’re the heir. You deserve happiness! And Christian was such an asshole to you!”
My lungs tightened. I had spent the last four months calling Christian that and worse. But now I knew that he’d been the victim. All because of my family. Because of me.
“Don’t be mad at him,” I finally managed to say. “It wasn’t his fault.”
Sophie’s expression was pitying as she crossed over to wrap her arms around me. “You’re too good,” she said. “You’re the glue that holds us all together, even when you go off on your little vacations.” Sophie shook her strawberry curls at me. “You’re not like her.”
“Mother?” I guessed.
“No, Caroline!” Sophie shrugged. “But Mother works, too.”
She was right. Both our mother and sister had left us behind.
As I let my little sister hug me tight, I have to say I felt the same pang of resentment against Caroline that was tearing apart Sophie. Why did she get to escape? Why did she get to leave?
It would be so lovely if I didn’t have to worry about my duty, my legacy, and my family anymore. Hell, I was even worrying about a dead man who’d left me at the altar.
If Caroline could leave it all behind . . . could I?
The memory of a houseboat flashed before my eyes. It wouldn’t be too hard to disappear. Not in Drieden, though. Perhaps . . . America. Or Canada! More open spaces, people too nice to ask me questions. I could dye my hair, live in the mountains, find one of those nice police officers in a red coat to keep me warm during the winter . . .
It sounded blissful. And possible.
My big speeches aside, nothing was keeping me in Drieden. Gran had this queen thing covered, and then it would be father’s gig. I wouldn’t have to worry about a crown for years. Driedish hospitals would just have to invite some other high-profile Driedener to visit their terminal patients.
For the first time in weeks, maybe months, I felt a hint of relief. The tenuous promise of a life of my own washed over me, and it was that sweetness that caused the tears to flow. The release of expectations and worry flooded my nervous system.
Liberation was so close, I could taste it.
“Oh, darling.” Sophie squeezed me. “Don’t cry. It’s going to be all right, I promise. There are other perfectly acceptable men out there. Ones who hopefully don’t have mental illness in their family tree.”
I nodded, thinking of that brawny Canadian lumberjack I was going to meet at the . . . saloon? The hockey rink? Where does one pick up Canadian hotties?
I distracted myself with that thought as Sophie prattled on with her sympathetic nonsense. Something about Lucy bawling in the stairwell and hundreds of bouquets piled at the palace gate. And then she said something that didn’t quite fit.
“Excuse me?” I asked. “Who was upset about Christian?”
Sophie pulled away and reached for her chilled vodka glass. Clearly we had moved on from the chocolate phase of this memorial service to the vodka portion of the evening. “I was asking you how Tamar was taking the news. Since they worked so closely together, I imagine one would be attached, even if it was just a service-type relationship.”
“Service-type relationship?” How long had she been drinking, anyway?
But Sophie’s eyes were clear and direct when she explained herself. “You know what I mean—she was his bodyguard. I know they’re our paid employees and all, but we do get to know them quite well. I would imagine she would be upset by the news. Speaking of which, where is that Nick fellow? He was quite lovely to have hanging about, if you didn’t mind the scowl and the scary scars.”
Nick . . . I wouldn’t think about what his scowl had done to me. Or Tamar . . . “She wasn’t Christian’s bodyguard; she’s been assigned to me for several years.”
Sophie frowned at an ice cube in her glass. “Are you sure? I saw her coming out of his room at Ceillis House after your wedding ball. They seemed quite cozy . . .” Sophie’s voice trailed off before an understanding smile flitted on her lips. “Ohhhh . . . I see. You sneak! You probably used her to set up your assignations, didn’t you?” She sighed. “One of these days I’m going to have a torrid affair and I’ll call you for all the tips. I haven’t had a proper date in almost a year, not since . . .”
She veered into some story about a Turkish billionaire’s yacht, but I couldn’t pay attention.
Tamar.
Christian.
I had never asked Tamar to involve herself with any so-called assignations. And certainly not the night of the ball at Ceillis House.
What would she have been doing there? With my fiancé? I didn’t recall her presence at all. Even though my father generally kept a shoe-string staff at Ceillis House, at an event such as that, the entire house would have been protected from the exterior. All security personnel would have been required at the gates and doors, with just a few inside the residence.
A slick black oil spill of suspicion slid through my gut.
thirty-five
TAMAR IN CHRISTIAN’S ROOM?
There were a thousand reasonable explanations.
Tamar and Christian acting comfortable around each other?
It was only Sophie’s opinion, after all, and she read into everything, inserting drama and innuendo where there was none. Like when Nick was here and she insinuated about me and him.
Which she had been correct about . . .
Sophie was flighty and creative, but she was also smart.
It was past time for me to be smart, as well.
Ten minutes later, I was walking down the hall to the service elevator. Stopping at the basement. Down another hall, I carried the leftover chocolate cake that Sophie had brought me. My eyeball was scanned and the door to the security offices was unlocked.
No one was going to argue with a princess bearing chocolate cake. It was far superior to a fruit basket. When I asked for Tamar’s office, I was immediately given directions. “Thank you,” I said with my very best demure smile. “I’ll make sure she shares the leftovers.”
“I didn’t know it was her birthday,” the young man with the close-cut dark hair said to me as he unlocked Tamar’s door.
“You know Tamar,” I said vaguely, to which he nodded automatically, not seeming at all as if he knew her. When I was safely inside her office, I had to wonder if I knew her.
How long had she worked for me? Three, four years? There should have been something of hers I recognized in that gray box of a room, but it seemed sterile and chilly down there. Remembering the last time I was there with Nick, I pulled up a chair and easily logged into the palace network, using the same password that Lucy had provided me to access my social appointments.
I knew exactly what I was looking for. The same assignment calendar that Nick had needed to find the guards assigned to Darter—Christian—the night before the wedding. I was also looking at the guards assigned to Darter at Ceillis House.
That was all I needed to see, I told myself. Once I saw that Tamar had, for some official reaso
n, been assigned to Christian the night of the ball, then Sophie’s story would make perfect sense.
I opened the calendar. Pulled up the month of March. Scrolled to the date.
There it was. The location, Ceillis House, was entered in everyone’s column because the whole family had been there: me, my mother, my father, my siblings, and my grandmother. As I had expected, most of my family had not had individual bodyguards assigned to them.
Christian had been no exception. According to this calendar, no bodyguard had been assigned to Darter that night, and that included Tamar.
Sophie’s words raced through my head like the high-speed rail that ran through Drieden.
They seemed quite cozy . . .
I closed the program and gazed at the icons on Tamar’s computer. Nothing particularly incriminating jumped out at me. Nothing was marked “Christian’s Secret Birthday Presents for Princess Theodora,” for instance. Or “101 Possible Reasons to Speak to My Employer’s Fiancé Two Nights Before the Royal Wedding.”
Think, Thea.
Pretend this is research.
There was rarely one document that thoroughly explained a historical event. Historians had to piece a story together through letters, contemporaneous accounts, and items that belonged to people of the time.
I clicked on Tamar’s email. Lots of internal memos. I searched for Christian’s name. Lots of internal memos about the days after his disappearance.
Nothing from before the wedding.
All right, then. No letters or contemporaneous accounts to study. I pulled open her desk drawer and half-heartedly pushed a few items around—plastic packets from fast-food restaurants, random office supplies, feminine products . . .
This wasn’t right. This was her personal space. I had no business invading her privacy.
The drawer was half-closed when I stilled my hand, praying that I hadn’t seen what I thought I did.
I inched the drawer wider.
It was not a stray black button that had fallen off a winter coat and something that Tamar had meant to sew back on one day.
It was a matte-black disc.
Some would call it antiquated technology.
Some would call it evidence.
I fought the urge to slam the drawer shut, run out of the office, and forget I had ever seen the damn things. They tended to bring a disproportionate amount of trouble.
But I’d been the one who had called forth the spirit of Queen Marie-Theodora, that awful domineering woman. I’d had to make a big speech to Nick. I’d had to declare that I was going to seek vengeance on Christian’s killer.
With all that grand talk, there was no way I could leave this item in the bottom of a desk drawer.
My hand was shaky when I picked it up and my hands hadn’t stopped shaking when I reached for the door handle and nearly ran headlong into Tamar.
thirty-six
MY EXPLANATION WAS SORT OF reasonable. I was checking on Hugh, I’d said. I was deeply worried since he had been so ill for so long.
Tamar’s eyes went to the partly eaten chocolate cake. “Is it someone’s birthday?”
“Oh, that.” I couldn’t think of a lie that would be better than the truth. “Sophie brought it to me. She thought I needed a little chocolate therapy after the news of . . .” My voice broke off remembering Sophie’s questions—whether Tamar was close to Christian, whether she was upset at the news of his death.
“I thought I’d share it with some of the security staff,” I continued, thinking fast. “Those who had been close to Christian may also need some comfort.”
If Tamar was grieving or even remotely sad, she didn’t show it. “How very kind. I’ll show you where you can put it.”
I followed Tamar to the fluorescent break room and left the cake on a table. Tamar walked with me back toward the door. Was she a little stiffer than usual? Maybe. But maybe she was upset about Christian’s death. Maybe she was uncomfortable with me being around the security offices. And what about the bug? Had she placed the one in Christian’s room at Ceillis House? Or had she found this one here? Were there more that had been hidden around royal residences?
Right outside the door, I stopped short and said, “Tamar, I want you to know, about that night in my apartment—this situation with Mr. Cameron has been very complicated.”
“He didn’t return with you from Scotland.”
Of course she’d know that, given the number of guards that had greeted me at the airport. “No. He didn’t. You were the only other person besides me and Hugh who knew his relationship with Christian. Suffice it to say, it was complicated and difficult, and I truly appreciate your discretion. We were only trying to help Christian.”
Tamar pursed her lips like she was trying not to say something before coming out with, “He wasn’t trustworthy. Look at what he did.”
The bug in my room. Nick putting it there did seem like a plausible scenario at this point, but it didn’t really make sense why he would have pretended to put one in Christian’s room at Ceillis House. Or at Claytere’s house.
Now I had to address the big bug in the room. “When I was in your office, I was looking for a pen to write you a quick note. I found this.” I pulled out the device from my pocket. “Where did you find this? Are we sure Nick placed these?” When she didn’t answer immediately, I continued with my stream of consciousness. “Because I’m worried that something else is going on. Maybe with Anders and his vote. Maybe he’s resorted to desperate means to try to get some information about the family.”
Tamar finally shook her head. “I don’t know, Ma’am. Hugh found that one. Gave it to me the day he got ill. Said the maids picked one up in Lady Lucy’s office.”
“So that’s why you searched my room?” It made a little more sense now. Tamar was dedicated to me, to her job. She wouldn’t be intimidated by Nick.
“I can’t be too careful.”
Because of my staff’s diligence, we had uncovered two listening devices in the palace. The implications were enormous, but there were still some huge blanks I needed to fill in. If it was Anders, who was he dealing with? Did he know about Gran’s Magdalena enterprise, or was there yet some other bombshell that was going to be dropped on the monarchy? And what had happened to Christian? Was it suicide? Murder? It was surprising how a photograph of a dead body yielded so little useful information.
“Do you know anyone at the national police?” I asked Tamar. “Anyone who can be trusted with this?” I held up the bug. “Perhaps they can trace it to see where it’s transmitting—”
“Yes, but I would need to talk to Hugh first,” she said, talking over me in her businesslike fashion. “I wouldn’t want to go over his head with the national police.”
“Of course,” I agreed immediately. “Is he well? How is he doing? It must be a vicious flu.”
“Much better, Your Highness. In fact, he’s been trying to get out of bed, he’s so anxious to come back to work.”
“Would he be able to stand a visitor?”
Tamar looked overcome. “It would be too much to ask, Your Highness.”
“Not at all.” I put a hand on her arm. “You and Hugh are like family to me. And this way we can consult with Hugh about our next steps and he can still recuperate.”
The decision made, Tamar and I walked to the underground garage, where she selected the keys to a white palace Fiat, in which we would both ride in the front to keep a low profile. On our way to Hugh’s apartment, I asked if we could stop to buy him a few things: a bouquet of flowers, some fresh bread, a selection of magazines.
We had been driving east toward the port for ten minutes before I realized we were going the wrong direction. “Has Hugh moved?” I remembered distinctly that he lived in the Koras district, as he had for all his life. He was a proud of being from a neighborhood known for its strong blue-collar, traditional values.
Tamar turned on her blinker and made a left turn—but not back toward Koras.
“Is he staying wit
h a friend?” Maybe Hugh had a partner who was helping him during his illness. “Are you sure this is the right way?”
Tamar sighed, reached into her jacket, and took out her gun.
“Tamar?” I asked, confused for only a half second before she reached out and rammed the butt of her gun in the back of my head.
thirty-seven
MY FACE HURT LIKE HELL. It was also wet, cold, and sticky. And when I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but pink.
Shades of blush and magenta and rose surrounded me in a suffocating swirl of sweetness.
Had I died? Was this heaven?
I closed my eyes. Opened them. Yes. Still inside of what seemed to be a giant piece of bubble gum. Slowly, my eyes focused and I realized I was in a bedroom that appeared to be trapped in the mid-twentieth century, with pale pink organza curtains over the shutters, a raspberry satin duvet covering the queen-sized bed I was on, and coral wallpaper. Even the lamps were shaded in peony.
I wiggled my toes. My fingers. Everything seemed to be heavy but functional.
So. Not dead, then. Good to know.
It hurt to push up from the uneven mattress, and when I did, I discovered a nylon rope was tied around my wrist. I ran to the wall heater, which the rope was tied around—which also, funnily enough, was the only thing not painted pink in the room. Unfortunately, the heater didn’t seem to be working, as my fingers felt like frozen fish sticks. There was no way I could attempt to work these knots with two hands, let alone one.
I sat on the edge of the bed and fought the impulse to lie back down on the threadbare salmon sheets, close my eyes, and give in to the throbbing pain in my head. It wouldn’t take much to cause me to pass out again.
Two names kept me upright.
Tamar.
Nick.
If I passed out, Tamar won.
If I passed out, Nick would never respect me. I tried my best to summon a memory of him. Something he’d say in his Scottish growl, something that would give me the strength to get through this.
The Royal Runaway Page 21