The Royal Runaway

by Lindsay Emory

  I could see where he was coming from. Still. My fingers stopped on a biography of an ancestor of mine. “Queen Elsa-Marie.”

  Nick sighed and ran his thumb along his eyebrow, waiting for me to explain myself.

  “Her husband, King Leopold the Fourth, was never a strong man. He was ill for most of his life. Historians say it could have been something like cystic fibrosis, or a neurological disease, or possibly a mental illness, but whatever it was, he was bedridden and locked away from the public eye by the time he was thirty-five.”

  “I don’t know if I’d fight for this gene pool, Princess.”

  I waved that off, not wanting to get into the fact that the family tree had been spliced and transplanted several times over since that particular Leopold had fallen off the throne.

  “Elsa-Marie was left to lead the country in his place. Her most devoted advisor was the Earl of Brant.”

  “As fascinating as Driedish history is . . .”

  “He was her lover.”

  That got Nick’s attention. As I knew it would.

  “Historians say Brant was indispensable to the security of the kingdom, running her military and intelligence networks.”

  A muscle in Nick’s jaw worked. “A kept man.”

  “Her partner.”

  “Her boy toy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Her consort.”

  Nick held my gaze for a long minute before giving his head a shake. “I have a job to do.”

  “I have a job for you.”

  His lifted brow suggested what kind of job he was willing to do. Maybe if I had taken him up on that unspoken offer, I could have kept him in Drieden, by my side. But I had my duty.

  “I want to catch Christian.” I want revenge.

  He laughed. It was a sound without joy. “Not if I catch him first.”

  “Let’s do it together.”

  He lifted a hand and ran the back of his fingers down my cheek. “Too late, Princess. He’s already gone. I’m going to have to start the search all over again, and I’d rather not have you getting shot at any more than you already have these past few weeks.”

  “What about keeping me safe here, in Drieden? You were so worried about me coming back to the palace and now you’re just going to leave me here?”

  “From the reports I’ve received, the person who was responsible for several murders has been securely locked away in a Driedish prison.”

  He was talking about Tamar. “And what about Christian? He’s still on the run and knows everything.”

  “He had his chance to harm you in that apartment and he didn’t. If I know my brother, he’s running as fast as he can right now.” Nick cocked his head. “Besides, I heard that your security detail was preparing to escort you to Perpetua.” He smiled faintly. “The place where they send the uncontrollable women.”

  “You’re leaving.” It was a question phrased as a statement.

  He dipped his head slightly. “My mission to find out what happened to Christian is finished. Now I have orders to leave the country.”

  I turned my head toward the shelves of dust-covered, leather-bound books. This princess would not let him see what that did to her. She would not ask him to resign his position and to serve her instead.

  I could tell him why I was returning to Perpetua. Tell him that before I took my place on the throne I needed time to study, to learn, and to practice, away from the noise of the palace and the glare of the media spotlight. I could take him by the arm and suggest that he teach me the things he knew about war, peace, and the space in between. I could share the dreams I had—for my country and for us—and pray I could convince him to stand by my side.

  But I fully realized then that Nick Fraser-Campbell was a man who needed a thrill, needed the danger. He wasn’t a man who would lock himself in a castle and stay home for a princess, uncontrollable or otherwise.

  And I wasn’t a woman who would beg him to stay.

  Still he came to me, as if he heard what I wasn’t saying. He answered by cupping my face and kissing me, softly and thoroughly. It was a bittersweet good-bye, full of regrets and containing no promises.

  When he pulled away and walked toward the door, there were a thousand things I could have said. He would have stopped. He always stopped for me.

  But it wouldn’t have changed anything. Nick was going to close this door and follow his destiny. Just as I had to follow mine.

  forty-two

  ONE MONTH LATER . . .

  THE WINDOWS OF MY BEDROOM opened onto a wide balcony overlooking the North Sea. There was no good reason for this balcony to be here. It’s not like we had balmy days on Perpetua, where one could take one’s breakfast al fresco.

  One day I would uncover the letters ordering its construction, or an architectural plan that revealed why some imprudent fifteenth-century Mother Superior desired a ten-foot-long stone balustrade from which she could watch a ship’s landing on Perpetua’s tiny, rickety dock.

  Maybe that was the reason, simple as it might be. That long-ago nun, that holy Bride of Christ, wished to have a full view of everyone who came to and left this tiny island.

  I understood the territorial impulse, now that it was my tiny island. As soon as Big Gran had signed the paperwork, granting me guardianship of the island in anticipation of my coronation, I’d started the renovations.

  The convent-turned-castle itself was strong and met all of my small household needs. Incremental updates throughout the twentieth century meant we had plumbing, electricity, and satellite dishes.

  But the renovations I was ordering had nothing to do with creature comforts.

  I tapped the plans on my desk, showing Lucy and Hugh what I was talking about. “Here. This door to the armory. Are you sure this is secure?”

  Hugh drew a line across the paper. “There are two different independent systems that operate the armory security and the cell doors.” He drew a second line between two other points. “Two more networks control the guardhouse and gate and the safe rooms.” He looked at me and nodded. “This is a better system than any I’ve seen before.”

  “Good.” Lucy nodded to me. “You’ll sleep better with a strong security system. Last time you were here you tossed and turned every night.”

  “I’ve already been sleeping very well,” I told Hugh and Lucy truthfully. Something about the blistering wind and the blasting waves on the rocks lulled me into the deepest of dreams.

  It also probably had to do with the self-defense training I was receiving.

  And the shooting lessons.

  The intelligence briefings were mentally taxing, as well.

  For the last month, I had turned Perpetua into my own training school, bringing in all the experts I needed to prepare me to lead Drieden for the next forty years. I intended to be the most educated, most capable, most badass queen Drieden had ever known.

  My right-hand woman jotted her notes as efficiently as ever in her calendar. I had been so pleased when Lucy agreed to come with me to Perpetua for the next few months. We were a team, and I needed her now more than ever as I prepared for the next steps in my life.

  “There was another passenger on the transport,” Hugh said.

  “Sybil,” Lucy said, with an edge in her voice that indicated she knew something of Sybil’s reputation as the unofficial court psychic.

  “The IT department,” I said, with an edge in my voice to remind her that Sybil was an ally now and deserving of our respect. Tea leaves aside.

  Lucy sniffed. “Hmph.”

  On the corner of my desk, tucked under a piece of sea glass I’d collected on my walk around the island during my first day back, was the letter Sybil had given me to open on my thirtieth birthday.

  I’d forgotten all about it at the bottom of the backpack that I had carried on my caper with Nick until I set up my Perpetua office, when I took a deep breath and called the final person I wanted to recruit for my team.

  Sybil answered on the first ring. “I knew it was you
.”

  “You have caller ID,” I pointed out, even though I was pretty sure my satellite number should have been blocked.

  “How can I help you?” she asked, deftly skipping my name and my title.

  “I want to offer you a job.” I described what I needed; Sybil would be my eyes and ears in Drieden. “You’ll only work for me,” I told her. “No selling information to any other country.”

  “I’ve always fancied the sea.”

  It took me a moment to understand. “You want to live here? On Perpetua?”

  “Part-time, I think. Or at least until your coronation.”

  “How did you know?” The palace would not be announcing my ascension until a month before the Jubilee.

  “Your chart.”

  I didn’t believe her. “Did you hack into something?” I made a mental note to speak to someone about the security of the palace computer system.

  “Thea, you’ll need to believe if we are going to work together.”

  I rolled my eyes but told myself not to get too annoyed. Sybil would be an asset to my enterprise. Not only was she one of the best hackers I knew, but she was also one of the most well-connected spies in Drieden.

  “Do you accept my offer or not?”

  “Did you open that letter?” she asked. “The one I gave you for your thirtieth birthday?”

  I paused, confused. Where had that letter gone?

  “Open it and you’ll have my answer.”

  Then Sybil hung up on me.

  I finally found the envelope.

  Ripping it open was the quick part. Reading it cost me fifteen minutes as I stood and tried to make sense of it.

  One word: Yes. On the paper was taped a tarot card with a depiction of the Queen of Swords. She stood on a rock overlooking the sea, a sword in one hand, a bouquet of violets in the other.

  To say I was disconcerted was putting it mildly.

  How had she known that I was going to become queen?

  It reinforced why I had called Sybil. If there was a chance that she was, indeed, a psychic hacker, I wanted her on my team. Hearing that she’d come to join me on Perpetua was good news.

  “Has she seen the tech lab?” I asked Lucy.

  “Bright and early this morning.”

  “Good. I’ll find her later, then.”

  Lucy left after covering a few more points with me and Hugh stayed in the room. My new chief of security had so far done an exceptional job of anticipating my needs and rolling with my sometimes impetuous punches, and from the all-business look on his rugged face, I could see he had something to discuss.

  “The files you wanted from the palace.”

  “Yes,” I prompted.

  He hesitated. “They were erased, ma’am.”

  “Erased?” I echoed. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But we did a thorough search and could find no record of Nicholas Cameron registering with palace security.”

  “But he was my bodyguard for two weeks. He had a badge; he filled out paperwork.”

  “It’s all gone.”

  “Is that usual?” It seemed like that would indicate a severe security problem at the palace.

  “Certainly not. Records are kept of everyone granted access to the palace security system.”

  I thought about it. “The retina scan. I saw him do that. What about those files?”

  Hugh hesitated again. “There was one . . . abnormality.”

  “What abnormality?”

  “It popped up in the transfer of files to the Perpetua system. I was going through them, to ensure that everyone who has access to the system here was vetted.”

  “Tell me.”

  With a frown, he did. “As I said, all records of Nicholas Cameron or Fraser-Campbell were erased. But we did have one retina scan file of someone who had no other mention in the system. The retina file was named Cornelius.”

  “Max Cornelius?”

  Hugh hesitated a split second. “Yes.”

  My stomach dropped at hearing the confirmation from Hugh’s lips. What it meant, I did not know, and neither did Hugh, but to his credit, when I told him to keep the Cornelius file active in our security system, he did so without argument.

  “There was one more thing,” Hugh started.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m requesting that time off we discussed before.” Our eyes locked. “It’s time to find Christian Fraser-Campbell,” he said.

  I felt my adrenaline rise at the thought.

  “Has there been any sign of him?” One of the first upgrades to the island was a secure line where we could monitor INTERPOL reports that might mention my ex-fiancé.

  Hugh shook his head regretfully. “But that’s why I need to go. He’ll need to be tracked down. Like an animal.”

  When I had asked Hugh to accompany me to Perpetua, to help me learn weapons and security, he had balked and threatened to quit. He had a personal vendetta against Christian and Tamar not only for their treason, but for drugging him and essentially holding him hostage in his own apartment—a humiliation the lifelong loyal officer could not bear.

  Hugh continued. “You agreed that I could go, once you learned how to shoot and fight.” He ruefully rubbed his right shoulder, which I had kicked during a sparring session earlier in the week. “And I think you’ve got the basics down.”

  I sympathized with Hugh’s desire to find Christian and wreak vengeance. Once upon a time, I would have gone with him, but now, I had other duties.

  “Go get the bastard, Hugh. Then bring him back here so I can deal with him.”

  A rare smile broke across my bodyguard’s face. Bloodthirsty bonding at its best.

  The rest of my day was busy. After briefing Sybil, I toured the armory with my sergeant at arms and attended my daily marksmanship lesson on the range he’d set up on the grassy northern slope.

  I returned to my suite of rooms, exhausted and ready to dive into bed and not stir until morning. I showered, changed, brushed my teeth—minimum standards of princess-hood must be kept, even if one was staying on a frigid hunk of rock in the middle of the North Sea.

  Speaking of frigid, when I left the steamy comfort of my bathroom, an arctic blast of wind nearly turned my bare feet into ice.

  Strange. The doors that opened onto the wide stone balcony were wide open. The ice-blue linen curtains billowed dramatically. Perhaps the doors hadn’t been latched securely. After all, the brass fixtures were probably nearly two hundred years old.

  It wasn’t until I reached the ornate handles to close the doors that I saw it.

  A sprig of heather.

  It stood in a small glass of water on my desk, which was situated in front of the balcony, in order for me to fully enjoy the views of the sea as I worked there.

  My fingers lightly brushed the purple bloom on the desk. No heather grew on Perpetua that I was aware of, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe a maid plucked some in the gardens and thought I would enjoy a bit of nature. Maybe she had opened the balcony doors to air out a musty smell.

  Maybe . . .

  The last time I’d seen a piece of heather like this had been in a hotel room in Scotland, that morning that Nick had finally opened up to me. Told me who he really was.

  I picked up the glass, thinking about taking it to my bedside so that it would be the last thing I saw when I turned out the light. The first thing when the sun rose, shy and pale, in the morning.

  I put the glass back down.

  No, I thought, closing the doors to the balcony. Decisions had been made. I was moving on. So, I supposed, was Nick. Somewhere.

  My bedroom was warmer, thankfully, and nearly pitch black as I made my way to the table by the bed to turn on a light.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shift in the shadows. I reached into the space between the bed and table, pulled a nine-millimeter from the holster there, and swung around, releasing the safety simultaneously.

  “Don’t move,” I warned the figure that was almost invisible in the
dark.

  There was a movement. I braced my hands and prepared to shoot like Hugh had taught me.

  The figure seemed to put up his hands.

  “Hello, Princess.”

  A Scottish accent.

  In my bedroom.

  In my castle.

  On my island.

  In the middle of the bloody North Sea.

  Nick.

  I pulled the trigger halfway back.

  “Careful now,” he said.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I said between gritted teeth.

  He took another careful step toward me. “It’s poor form to greet a guest this way, isn’t it?” His mouth slid to one side. “Especially one that’s come such a long way.”

  Etiquette? He was arguing etiquette? With me? “Guests don’t break in and lurk in dark corners!”

  “Is that it, Thea? Are you mad that I didn’t knock?” The gentle tone of his voice came out of nowhere, the way it usually did. And it made my lungs hurt, the way it usually did.

  “I’m mad about a lot of things.”

  “I can see that.” He licked his lips and gestured toward my handgun. “Do you think you could put that down? It’s distracting me from what I came here to say.”

  I carefully released the trigger and lowered my weapon. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m sorry I scared you.” His gaze softened as he searched my face. “I didn’t think about anything but getting back to you.”

  The pain in my chest sharpened. “Why?”

  He shuffled a step back and his head dropped. “I’d heard there was a job opening. Here. With your . . . organization.”

  It took me a long moment to realize what he was talking about, and I very nearly wanted to cry when I had to say, “The position for boy toy has been closed.”

  Nick’s dark gaze lifted and was almost frightening in its intensity. “Has it been filled?” he asked evenly.

  My head shook, almost involuntarily. “No. Closed. I decided I didn’t need one after all. I wanted someone who wouldn’t take without giving. Someone who would stay with me for a long-term assignment.”

  “Really.” He swallowed. “Is there anything else available?” He took a step closer. “Maybe something in security? I have some bodyguard experience.”