Royal Protocol

by Christine Flynn

  Her footsteps echoed on the flat stones as she moved past walls stained with torch soot from past centuries. In the light of the electric lamps, strung sometime in the early forties, she passed a metal door that had also been added a few decades ago—when a boiler room had been built for central heat—and opened the heavy wooden door at the end of the long corridor. Checking her watch, she hurried up a flight of narrow stairs and opened yet a heavier door that led to a small alcove. From that secluded space, she slipped through the false front of a massive pillar and moved into the foyer.

  She was to meet Harrison that very minute in the reception area leading to the royal residence. Yet when she entered the spacious foyer separating the east wing from the west, only the usual pair of red-jacketed guards were there—and a square-jawed soldier in army khaki and a black beret who bore down on her the moment she stepped in view.

  “Lady Corbin.” With the practiced eye of man who checked out everyone he met, he managed a deferential nod while skimming an impersonal glance from the sleek twist of her hair to the hem of her slim caramel-colored pantsuit. “Admiral Harrison asked that I bring you to him. If you’ll come with me, please?”

  “Where?’ she asked, since the direction he motioned toward led only to the passage through which she’d just come.

  “Behind you,” was all he said and preceded her through the secluded alcove to hold open the hidden wood-and-iron door.

  He obviously knew where he was going. Assuming they were heading back to the royal offices, wishing she’d known that so she could have just stayed there, she headed down the stairs and stepped once more into the cool, rather damp limestone-lined passage.

  The corridor was barely three feet wide. Begging her pardon when he stepped past her, her escort took a dozen echoing steps and came to a halt in front of the metal door.

  Opening the door with a key, he murmured, “Follow me, please.”

  She stayed right where she was. “Into the boiler room?”

  “I realize it appears unusual, my lady.”

  That was all he said before he moved inside and held the door so she could pass.

  It wasn’t wading in a fountain. And it certainly lacked the charm of sitting atop a bronze horse, but as she eased inside and heard the door slam with a solid clank, she had to admit that she’d just stepped beyond her normal, sedate and admittedly nonadventurous routine.

  She’d never been in the boiler room before. Carefully avoiding a rather oily-looking pipe running waist high beside her, she admitted that she wasn’t all that thrilled to be there now. Above her head, steel grating formed walkways that ran between two enormous furnaces. Black pipe formed a giant maze that poked from the furnaces and disappeared dozens of yards away through the walls and the ceiling. She figured that some of those pipes brought in fuel. The rest carried out steam and hot water.

  As interesting as it was to know how the radiators were heated, she couldn’t help thinking that Harrison was taking his need for security a little too far. A walk in the garden so they couldn’t be overheard was one thing. A tête-à-tête in the dim, oily-smelling bowels of the palace grounds was another matter entirely. “We’re meeting in here?”

  “No, my lady,” the soldier replied, then pointed to the floor as he stepped onto the thick industrial matting. “You’re wearing high heels,” he said, obviously having noted even more than she’d thought in his split-second perusal. “Please, watch your step.”

  “Can you tell me where we are going?”

  “We’re almost there, my lady,” he replied, which apparently meant he could not.

  It was because she was watching her step, and uneasily wondering where she was being led, that she didn’t notice the other door they approached until she nearly ran into her guide’s square back.

  He stopped between two stacks of large metal drums. Ahead of them was nothing but wall. Or so she thought before he pressed his palm to a flat pad and a slab of slate-gray metal slid to the side with a quiet whoosh.

  All she could see ahead of her was another wall of slate gray.

  “If you’ll step forward, Admiral Harrison and Colonel Prescott are just through here.”

  “Here” seemed to be another solid wall. Following him into an elevator-like area, the wall behind them closed the moment she stepped over the threshold.

  The pitch-black lasted only long enough for her heart to skip a beat before the soldier said, “Look down.” An instant later the wall ahead of her opened and she faced a wide expanse of white light.

  He had known the light would be blinding. But she hadn’t done as he’d instructed. Squinting, and with her hand to her forehead to cut the glare, she felt him touch his fingers to her elbow and nudge her onto a floor of gray tile.

  For years she’d heard rumors of another secret tunnel beneath the palace grounds. As her eyes adjusted, she saw her escort salute another soldier behind a large glass wall and realized those rumors were actually true. Except this wasn’t just a tunnel to get from one point to the next. For as far as she could see, unmarked doors randomly appeared along its length. And its length was incredible. The pale-gray walls, the floor, the ceiling itself disappeared into a single pinpoint somewhere in the distance.

  The thought that the corridor might well run all the way to the RII in the Penleigh Hills above the palace was interrupted the moment she heard a male voice call her name from behind her.

  “Lady Corbin. We’re glad you could meet with us.” Colonel Pierce Prescott, Princess Meredith’s handsome fiancé, offered her a reserved smile. It wasn’t often that their paths crossed, but when they did, he was always enormously polite, his manners impeccable.

  There was also always a certain reticence that he displayed toward her. One that she shared with him herself.

  Colonel Prescott was the man who had been with her husband the night Alex had died. He was also the one soldier his superiors had refused to let her talk with when she’d gone looking for answers. Other than to approach her after the funeral and say he was sorry for her loss, he had never spoken to her about that night himself, either. Even when she’d asked if he could at least tell her what her husband’s last words had been, his only reply was that Alex had said nothing.

  She hadn’t believed him. He’d looked away from her too quickly before he replied for his words to have been the truth. But she’d eventually come to realize that it hadn’t been a lack of empathy on his part. It had been duty that prevented him from saying more.

  She was certain of that. She didn’t like it. But she understood it. She also didn’t doubt for a moment that he remembered that night every time he saw her.

  “Thank you, Colonel. I’m glad to be here, too. I think.” Wishing as much for his sake as hers that that night could somehow be put to rest, unable to imagine how it ever could be, she offered a game little smile of her own. There was always the future to think of. “Before I forget,” she murmured, thinking of that future, “congratulations on your engagement.”

  Incredibly, the reserve vanished from his gray-green eyes. “Thank you, ma’am. I don’t think I’ve actually had time to get used to the idea that she said yes.”

  “Circumstances have been such that I don’t think she quite believes you asked,” she confided. “I’m just sorry the timing is so unfortunate.”

  His sharp glance slid down the hall. Someone had stepped into it a city block away, his red uniform marking him as Royal Guard. “Me, too,” he murmured, his attention clearly compromised by the dark-haired man’s approach.

  Duke Carson Logan nodded to them both.

  “We’re all here now.” His mind totally on duty once more, Pierce motioned her forward. “We should go in.”

  She had no idea where “in” was until she saw the duke open the blank gray door ahead of them and waited for her to proceed. The king’s charming and powerfully built personal bodyguard didn’t seem at all surprised to see her there.

  When she stepped into the conference room, neither did Sir Se
lwyn. Seeing the king’s private secretary, it was actually she who paused. She’d had no idea that he was one of the king’s chosen few.

  There was no doubt in her mind that she was meeting the entire Royal Elite Team.

  She’d known there were four.

  She’d never before known who they all were.

  Sir Selwyn, every inch the distinguished gentleman in his impeccably tailored slate-gray suit, rose from one of the red leather chairs lining the mahogany conference table and told her he was glad she could join them. But even as she acknowledged him, it was the dark-haired mountain of muscle in the navy uniform who commanded her attention.

  Harrison stood at the side of the oval table, latent tension crackling around him as his glance skimmed the length of her body. No one but her seemed to notice how the muscles in his jaw tightened before he pulled out the chair to his immediate left.

  “If you’ll sit here, Lady Gwendolyn, we’ll get started.”

  The men, all commanding, all powerful in their own rights, settled into chairs as if it didn’t matter where they sat. There was no jockeying for position. No order of importance. With Harrison, the head, at a place that wasn’t even centered, there appeared to be no rank among them at all. Their opinions were equal here.

  Surrounded by all that power and testosterone, she felt like the proverbial fish out of water as she took the chair Harrison held for her and slowly sank into the soft leather. His manners weren’t unexpected. With the exception of Sir Selwyn, they were all officers. All were titled. With a couple of notable exceptions on Harrison’s part, they were all gentlemen.

  “The first thing you need to convey to Her Majesty,” Harrison said to her, making no attempt whatsoever to ease her into the deep end of the ocean as he sat down himself, “is that our negotiators haven’t reached an agreement about the size of the military base to be located on Majorco. They want full naval presence. We feel our proximity to that island doesn’t require that large an investment of capital and personnel.”

  “Unless their government is willing to pay for the infrastructure,” Sir Selwyn interjected.

  Sounding very much as if they’d agreed to indoctrinate her by total submersion, the king’s private secretary leaned forward, his hands clasped on the polished wood, his expression earnest. “That is what is on the table now. We can’t see the need for a large base there, but what we really want is the trade agreement with the United States. Because of that, we’re willing to bend, but not be abused. Our economy has suffered greatly since our coal mines played out years ago, and the agreement with the U.S. is critically important. The U.S. won’t sign the trade agreement unless we agree to protect Majorco by signing a military alliance with it.”

  Duke Logan absently toyed with his gold pen. “The admiral said he mentioned that in your presence with Her Majesty the other day.”

  “He did,” she replied, but she really hadn’t given the magnitude of the matter any thought. Her concern had been for the prince.

  “What he didn’t mention,” the duke continued, “is that these agreements are so important we’ve had to take rather…extraordinary measures to see that the negotiations were not interrupted. As close as we are now, we can’t afford for anything to go wrong.”

  Gwen’s careful glance moved from one man to the next.

  “What?” Harrison asked, clearly seeing the question forming in her mind.

  Those extraordinary measures had to be Broderick. But no one offered to confirm that, and she couldn’t ask. After the queen had told her that he had actually been there for weeks impersonating the king, she had asked that she speak to no one about it.

  “Nothing,” she murmured. “I was just listening.”

  He didn’t believe her. She didn’t doubt that for a moment as his piercing eyes held hers and he reached for a letter-size envelope.

  “The size of our military presence is our largest unresolved issue. We feel a fair offer would be to refuse their insistence on a full presence and counter with an offer to train their soldiers on Penwyck with our own. There is a list in here of the other points we need to deal with,” he said, but stopped short of handing it over when the telephone on the credenza interrupted with a low electronic ring.

  Reaching behind him, he snatched it up. “Monteque.”

  Listening, he pressed the button for the speaker phone.

  “…about two minutes ago,” came the disembodied male voice. “The call went to Prince Broderick in the office we set up for him yesterday.”

  “Is it on tape?”

  “Yes, sir. Just confirmed that.”

  “What’s the prince doing?”

  “He’s…pacing, sir. And issuing orders to disburse troops to ‘find that boy.”’

  “His orders are to be ignored.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is that all?” Harrison asked.

  As the voice echoed its last statement, Colonel Prescott pushed back his chair. “I’ll check next door,” he said, and left the room as Harrison hung up.

  “It appears we got the reaction we hoped for from whoever has Prince Owen,” he murmured to everyone remaining, and picked up the envelope again. “As I was saying,” he continued to Gwen, looking as indifferent as he sounded to what had just happened, “this list contains several more points the queen will need to decide.”

  He then proceeded to enumerate them, explaining what the other side wanted and what the team recommended. His tone was even, his manner amazingly unaffected.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine how he could shut himself off the way he had so obviously done. Whoever had taken the prince had just made contact with the palace. It was the break they’d been waiting for. Yet he didn’t show a trace of concern for what he’d just heard. He’d even ordered whoever had called to ignore Prince Broderick’s demand that Prince Owen be found. His only interest was in the agreements and in what it would take to get them signed.

  She was trying to reconcile his dispassionate sense of purpose with the unexpected dejection she’d sensed in him last night and failing miserably, when she noticed that the other two men kept glancing toward the door. Even they were showing more reaction than he had. More interest, anyway.

  “Do you understand?” he asked, speaking of the matters he’d just explained.

  No, she thought. She didn’t. She didn’t understand him at all. “Yes,” she murmured, and repeated what he’d last said. “Penwyck needs two years to complete the building of a runway and docks. Not one.”

  “And you understand that nothing you hear or see here is to be discussed with anyone but Her Majesty?”

  She wanted badly to tell him that he didn’t need to continually remind her to keep her mouth shut. But with others present, the best she could do was give him a look that held remarkable patience, before the door opened and the colonel walked back in.

  All eyes settled on Pierce as he took his place at the table and pushed the small sheet of paper he’d brought with him toward the duke. “We got it,” he said to them all. “The voice was electronically filtered. Definitely male. Possibly British or Penwyckian.”

  “‘You don’t believe how serious we are,”’ the duke read. “‘To prove our point, look at what happened to the king. If the alliance with Majorco goes through, Prince Owen will be dead by midnight the day it is signed. His demise will give you something to think about while you celebrate.”’

  The big bodyguard’s mouth thinned as he pushed the paper back to Pierce.

  Sir Selwyn frowned and rubbed his chin.

  Only Harrison remained impassive. “Did we get a trace?”

  Pierce gave a nod. “The call was traced to Majorco before it disconnected.”

  “Majorco.” Harrison repeated the word slowly, as if searching each short syllable for whatever clue it might yield. “The only enemy we know we have there is—”

  “The Black Knights,” the other three said simultaneously.

  “Exactly.” An unholy light suddenly entered Har
rison’s eyes, gold glinting in their amber darkness. “We’ve suspected that island to be their headquarters for years. Of course they wouldn’t want the alliance.”

  “It would put our military right on their turf,” Pierce concluded, clearly on the same track.

  “Which is absolutely the last thing they would want.”

  “It would help if we had some idea who their leadership is,” Sir Selwyn interjected.

  “It would help if we knew who any of them are. They’ve been a thorn in the side of the Crown for years.” The duke, pondering, pocketed his pen. “What was that about ‘look at what happened to the king’? Are they claiming responsibility for his illness, too?”

  Pierce muttered, “Sounds like it.”

  Gwen’s glance bounced from one man to the next. Their deep, masculine voices ebbed and flowed with speculation about how they could have accomplished such a thing, who would speak with the doctor about possibilities, what the anarchical group might do next. Each man clearly fed off of the others’ intellects. Each clearly respected the others’ responses, ideas, advice. Each also pretty much seemed to have forgotten she was sitting there, taking in their every word.

  The name Black Knights was familiar to Gwen. Evidence had pointed to them in a thwarted robbery of the crown jewels years ago. They had also claimed responsibility for the deaths of Morgan and Broderick’s parents. What she remembered most about them was that they were purported to dress in black and that they always left their mark at or near the scene—the symbol of a black sword.

  Her husband had been killed by a black-garbed intruder. But she’d never heard any mention of the symbol being found.

  So far that symbol didn’t appear to have shown up in the investigation of Prince Owen’s kidnappers, either.

  “Perhaps you should consider calling in Gage Weston.”

  At her quiet suggestion, the room suddenly fell as silent as Tut’s tomb.

  Four pair of eyes turned to where she still sat.

  It was Harrison who had her attention, though. From the way his eyebrows jammed together, she had the feeling he was going to react the same way he had when she’d suggested he call in her father.