Royal Protocol

by Christine Flynn

  The furrows deepened. “He didn’t love me, though. And I couldn’t marry him no matter how beneficial it would have been for everyone. I wanted love to be part of my marriage.”

  Her tone was utterly matter-of-fact.

  Harrison’s voice went flat with doubt.

  “You found that with a man you’d known less than a month.”

  “I think I found it in about fifteen minutes. Maybe it was ten,” she amended, wondering at the incomprehension in Harrison’s carved features before she turned to the window. “I met Alex at an embassy ball. He was on guard duty there that night. Allen had been pressing to set the date and I’d gone out onto a balcony to get some air. Alex saw me leave and asked if I was all right.

  “For some reason I wound up telling him everything,” she confided, toying with the stem of her glass. “What he told me in return was that I deserved what I got if I let everyone else make my decisions for me.” There were other things he’d said. Endearing things about how she was too young and too beautiful to be chained to a life she didn’t want. No man had ever called her beautiful before. No one had ever listened when she’d voiced doubts. “Mostly I remember that he told me life was too short to settle for anything less than your own dream.”

  She felt strangely detached from that night over two decades ago. It was as if all that had happened, had happened to someone else. It had been another life. Another time. “It seems that Allen wouldn’t believe the engagement was off until Alex and I eloped a month later.” A faint smile curved her mouth. “He insisted that I had been seduced. I prefer to think it was love at first sight.”

  Catching Harrison’s movement in the window, she watched his imposing reflection as he rubbed his brow and frowned at the back of her head. When it came to love and commitment and caring, he had no idea what she was talking about. She felt as certain of that as he had been about who had harmed the king. After all, he’d made it abundantly clear that he avoided anything that involved his heart.

  “What I did was out of character,” she conceded, because that was apparently what had raised his curiosity to begin with. “And it was naive and impulsive and it probably shouldn’t have worked. But it did. Because I listened to him and my heart and didn’t do what everyone expected, I can honestly say that I was far happier than either of my parents ever were.”

  Then, after eleven years, she thought, reaching the end of the memory, it was all over.

  Those eleven years seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye. As she contemplated the dark window glass, she could no longer recall any image of her husband’s face that hadn’t been frozen in a picture. His voice, his scent, his smile, all were nearly lost to her now. In some ways it was almost as if he had only been a dream himself.

  The way her glance dropped apparently belied her thoughts.

  “You said you don’t know much about what happened to him.”

  “I was told as little as they could get away with.”

  Harrison hesitated, watching her. There was a contemplative quality to his silence before he spoke again.

  “What do you know about that night?”

  “All his commanding officer told me was that there had been an assassination attempt,” she quietly replied. “Colonel Prescott had been with Alex, but his commanding officer wouldn’t let me talk to him. I was told only that Alex had died intercepting a black-garbed intruder beneath the king’s bedroom window.”

  The major died honorably, my lady, she remembered the stone-faced officer telling her. In service to the king.

  Behind her, she could feel the quality of Harrison’s silence shift.

  “You know,” she murmured, not bothering to question how sensitive she was to him, “I can look back on it now and not feel all the anger and the pain. But I really wish someone had caught the man.” Her voice dropped in profound disbelief. “From what I understand, no one even tried.”

  With the tip of one finger, she traced along the veins in the marble window ledge. Reflecting, contemplating, she took a deep breath and slowly shook her head.

  “That’s actually not quite true,” she amended, her tone tightening. “I still feel anger. My little girl was ten when her father was taken from her. For years she had nightmares about that man in black coming to take her, too. She would wake at night crying and I’d hold her and tell her nothing was going to happen. I had to lie to her and promise that she was safe from the man who’d killed her daddy. But there were times when I was as afraid as she was because I knew he was still out there and I didn’t know if I could really protect her or not.”

  Two veins intersected, then split off into different directions. That was what had happened to her life, she thought absently. She’d been at the point where everything had come together, then her life had split, shattered and taken off in a totally different direction.

  “It didn’t help that by then we were living at the palace, in the wing opposite the one where her father had died. But I don’t remember having a lot of choice about where we lived, either. We couldn’t stay in the house the military subsidized because I wasn’t an officer’s wife anymore, so that privilege was gone. And the queen had been kind enough to ask that I serve her.”

  Everything had happened so fast, she thought, remembering little but the numb haze in which the days and weeks had passed. She knew she had no enthusiasm at all for her job, no desire to look for another home. Living with her parents hadn’t been an option in her mind even before they learned of the queen’s offer—which her father declared the greatest compliment she could receive and informed her that she would be an ungrateful fool not to accept it.

  “I’d had no idea how living in the palace would affect Amira,” she confessed. “But Marissa helped me see that she would probably have had nightmares about losing her father no matter where we lived, and moved us to rooms as far from the king’s wing as we could get.”

  “How is your daughter now?”

  The unexpected concern in Harrison’s voice drew her glance to his towering reflection. She thought it was concern, anyway. Remembering who he was, she supposed he might simply be fishing for information.

  “She outgrew the nightmares years ago,” she told him. “She’s doing very well.

  “I’m sorry.” Forcing a smile, she turned, feeling awkward for allowing her thoughts to become so carried away. “I didn’t mean to burden you with all of that. I don’t usually even talk about it.” Wishing she hadn’t, wondering if what she’d just said would wind up in her file, she lifted her goblet. “It must be the wine.”

  Harrison glanced from the gentle curve of her mouth to the imported crystal she held in her slender hands. He couldn’t believe how completely her guard had dropped. She hadn’t even seemed to notice how distant her thoughts had become, or that she’d called the queen by her first name. “You’ve barely touched it.”

  “At least allow me the excuse.”

  Her soft smile remained, touching him in ways he would have sworn he couldn’t be touched. He hadn’t expected her to be so open with him, to reveal so much. He hadn’t expected, either, the odd disquiet he felt knowing what had been withheld from her.

  For ten years she had believed that the man who’d killed her husband had escaped. For ten years she had believed that man was still out there and that none of her husband’s men or superiors had even attempted to bring the murderer to justice. She’d spent that time frightened for her daughter and worrying about decisions she’d been forced to make because of someone who no longer even existed.

  It was no wonder she’d always been so protective of her child.

  Ice tinkled lightly as he set the tumbler on the dining table.

  “They did try to catch him.”

  A moment’s hesitation passed through her eyes. An instant later her lovely smile faded.

  “They did catch him, in fact.”

  Framed by the twinkling lights from the harbor, she stared at him in pure incomprehension. She looked very fragile at that m
oment, he thought. Soft. Delicate. But there was nothing about her that would ever make him think her weak.

  “They wouldn’t have, if not for your husband,” he continued, thinking of the cloak of coolness she often wore. He wondered now if it wasn’t her protection, a way of keeping distance between her and potential harm. She’d had to be strong on her own for a long time now. “He wounded the intruder before he was shot himself. If the major hadn’t disabled him, Colonel Prescott wouldn’t have been able to make the capture.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it again. Trying to absorb what he’d just said, she set her goblet by his glass and crossed her arms. Her wide blue eyes were luminous with confusion.

  “Who was he?” She slowly shook her head, strands of platinum and gold shimmering in her silken hair. “Why wasn’t anything ever said?”

  “Such attempts are always kept quiet if possible. It’s standard security practice with any high-profile person. Once the media gets hold of it, they go nuts trying to poke into existing security measures and dredging up attempts in the past. Publicity breeds copycats, and exposes weaknesses. It was especially important that the palace be silent in this case.”

  “Why?”

  “Partly because it wasn’t just the king he was after. It was the entire royal family.”

  The queen. The princes. The princesses. No one would even have known what had been about to happen if not for the intervention of Prince Broderick. The call from the king’s twin had been quick and frantic. He had heard of an assassination attempt to take place that night. He had refused to disclose his source, but he insisted that the entire royal family was about to be wiped out.

  Had it not been for that call, it was possible that at least one or two of the royals would have died that night, too.

  Had it not been for Major Corbin, the king would have died for certain.

  At his thoughts, the distrustful sensation Harrison got every time he thought of Broderick kicked in. He wouldn’t have believed the man cared about his brother at all, but his warning call to the guard house that night did seem to prove otherwise.

  “The queen?” Gwen took a deep, disbelieving breath. “The children, too?”

  “There was no need for anyone to know that. Not then. Not now. All right?”

  The thin wool fabric of her jacket molded to her breasts as she tightened her arms. “Of course. But who…?”

  “The assassin was the queen’s brother,” he told her, not sure if he was disappointed or grateful that the neckline of the jacket she wore was higher than the one she’d worn the day before. “We believe he was one of the early members of what we now know as the Black Knights.”

  For a moment she said nothing. He knew that the knowledge he had just given her was huge. It was also far more than he would ever have told her had she not had the proper security clearance.

  At least, he wouldn’t have told her about the scope of the attempt that night, he conceded to himself. Because of the odd need he’d felt to put her mind at ease, he wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t have told her the rest of it.

  Not wanting to consider why he would have been willing to break rules for her, he simply waited for all he’d said to sink in.

  “I thought Edwin was killed by some radical group,” she finally said, speaking of Queen Marissa’s only sibling. “Everyone thinks that.”

  His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “That’s what the king wanted them to think. It was his desire to avoid the scandal that would have arisen had the public known the queen’s brother had tried to murder them. He also wanted to protect her feelings toward her only sibling. Because that is the way he wanted it then, that’s the way it must remain now.”

  Ordinarily Gwen would have agreed. Their sovereign’s wishes were always obeyed. As kindly as King Morgan could be, he didn’t suffer betrayal lightly. Yet it appeared that the blanket of silence His Majesty had thrown over the entire incident was slowly being tugged away. She knew that someone somewhere was talking.

  “It might be a little late for that,” she murmured cautiously. Even without the king’s command, she couldn’t possibly have told the queen of her brother’s treason. With all Marissa was going through, it would kill her. But it seemed she might learn of it eventually, anyway. “The queen told me last week that Princess Meredith had been asking about her uncle. Apparently, the princess came across something that made her suspect Edwin hadn’t been killed by radicals. She didn’t seem to think that he’d even died on Penwyck.”

  Caution fell over Harrison’s expression like a shadow over stone. “Where did she hear that?”

  “I don’t know.” The queen hadn’t said. “Maybe you could ask Colonel Prescott.”

  “What makes you think he’d know anything about this?”

  “Because he’s Meredith’s fiancé,” she replied, fairly certain from the quiet way he posed the question that the colonel had already mentioned it. “I don’t imagine there’s much of anything she hasn’t talked to him about. And no,” she continued, because she could swear she saw the query forming, “I haven’t said anything about this to anyone else. Just as I won’t say anything to anyone about what we’ve discussed here.”

  His glance held hers, resigned, certain. “I didn’t think you would, Gwen.” He was sorry he’d baited her as he had. Sorry, because it seemed to make it harder now for her to believe that he did trust her and for her to trust him. “I won’t say anything, either,” he promised. “Everything we’ve discussed so far is strictly between us. Everything.” He needed to know she understood. “All right?”

  The quiet intensity in his eyes said as much as his words to Gwen. He had given her information far beyond any official need to know. What he wanted her to know now was that what they’d discussed about her daughter and her husband was no one’s business but theirs.

  Grateful for the assurance, even more so for what he’d been willing to tell her, she complied with a quiet “All right” and broke his compelling gaze.

  “As long as this is all staying between us,” she murmured, hoping he would be willing to tell her even more, “would you answer one more question for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “That night,” she began, her glance falling to the row of buttons on his shirt. He had such a broad chest, she thought. So solid. So strong. Except for a platonic hug, she couldn’t remember the last time she had been held in a man’s arms. “I’d asked Colonel Prescott this before,” she began again, thinking how unfair of him it was to remind her of that now, “but I didn’t believe the answer I was given.”

  “About what?”

  “About what Alex might have said. What his last words were,” she quietly clarified.

  Had Harrison not just read the account of the incident in her husband’s file that morning, he would have no idea what Alex Corbin’s last words had been. He wouldn’t have known he’d said anything at all. But his last words had been typed in quotes on the incident report—and explained why Pierce hadn’t aimed for the intruder’s heart himself.

  Thinking only of what she had asked, the sudden strain in her face didn’t quite register.

  “He said, ‘It’s Edwin,”’ he replied, and watched her slender shoulders rise with her deeply drawn breath.

  “Oh.” That breath slithered out, her body seeming to shrink. “That was why he couldn’t tell me.”

  A fist of guilt hit Harrison square in the gut. Until the light faded from her eyes it hadn’t occurred to him that he might have somehow prefaced his response. He’d had the answer. He’d given it. But he could see that she’d been hoping for something more.

  She had cared deeply about the man she’d married. More than that, she had loved him, though he couldn’t honestly say he had any idea how the emotion made a person think or feel. He just knew that having ten years of wondering finally put to rest filled her with more disappointment than relief.

  He wasn’t responsible for any of what had happened. None of the actions or decisions that had ch
anged the course of her life had been his to make. Still, he heard himself say, “I’m sorry.”

  He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. The fact that she’d had to wait so many years for her answer. Or that the words hadn’t been something more personal. He just knew that he was about to reach for her and remind her that those were her husband’s last words, not necessarily his thoughts, when his sense of self-preservation pulled him back.

  He’d never felt the need to offer comfort to a woman before. He wasn’t sure he trusted the need now.

  The sharp electronic ring of the telephone saved him from wondering if he even really knew how.

  With a wary glance toward the woman deliberately straightening her shoulders, he crossed to the desk near the short hall that led to his bedroom and bath. Gwen had her back to him as he snatched the black instrument from its base.

  As he did, he ran a glance from the gleaming knot of blond hair caught neatly at her nape and over her slender shoulders. The cut of her jacket and slim slacks was simple, tasteful, restrained. The woman inside was proving more complicating than he could have imagined.

  “Monteque.”

  Gwen could practically feel Harrison’s eyes on her back as his deep voice drifted toward her. There was no way to avoid overhearing. Not that he made any effort to keep his conversation discreet.

  “Not yet,” she heard him reply. “I’m talking with her now. I’ll get back with you as soon as we’re through.” He paused, checking his watch. “The ambassador’s assistant set the conference call for a half hour from now. I’ll call you right after that.”

  An odd ambivalence had filled her at finally knowing what had haunted her for years. The brisk no-nonsense tone of Harrison’s conversation did wonders to help her shake it. It also shattered the dangerous ease she’d started to feel with the man who had allowed her to understand what she never had about that night so long ago.

  Harrison had brought her here for a purpose, she reminded herself. And that purpose hadn’t yet been served.