MAID FOR A PRINCE: (Book 1) (Point St. Claire, where true love finds a way)

by Robyn Grady

  Settling back, Helene dived in again, too. In front of a rioting crowd, some unknown woman had just thrown herself off a palace balcony.

  ᵿᵿᵿᵿᵿ

  Princess Acadia slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her horrified scream. The new queen had said she only wished to talk to the people gathered outside. She’d wanted to assure them of her affection, offer them her deepest regard. No one had expected her to make the ultimate sacrifice and douse those raging fires with her own blood.

  A collective gasp escaped the crowd at the same time Acadia’s brother rushed to the balcony. A moment later, his anguished cry roared through the night while the wispy curtains waved in the breeze like a pair of angel’s wings saying good-bye.

  Her heartbeat galloping high in her chest, Acadia knew she must act. Take control. But as her brother’s wails withered, she found she couldn’t move. To her bones she knew that tonight one life would not be enough.

  She heard a voice—her nephew’s nurse, the same woman who had cared for Acadia and her brother when they, too, had been young. Acadia’s gaze shifted lower. In the nurse’s arms lay the little prince suckling a thumb as he slept.

  “You must leave,” the nurse said. She shot a glance toward those doors and held the six-month-old tighter still. “The mob is quiet now but they will stir and rise again.”

  When trouble had started much earlier that day, the four had gathered in this room. Guards stood firm outside the door as they did on the grounds down below, but the nurse was right. The madness would bubble and grow again. This child’s life was in danger, not to mention the king’s.

  “Get provisions.” Acadia held out her arms. “I’ll take the baby.”

  “If they fall upon us and he’s in your care, there’s no doubt. They’ll do harm to you both.”

  The nurse’s eyes brimmed, but Acadia had no room for emotion, especially her own. She swallowed the bitter pip swelling in her throat and lifted her chin as her mother would want her to do.

  “Go now,” Acadia said. “Collect only enough food for two days.”

  She wasn’t certain what lay ahead, but they’d need to travel light.

  Careful not to wake him, Acadia scooped her nephew close. This baby was her responsibility now. The king’s too, of course, but her brother wasn’t strong or particularly wise like their father had been. Risto did love his wife, however, and would not want to abandon her even in death. He would rely on the guard to protect him, but history told many stories of lines being broken, of kings being killed.

  Gazing down at this darling baby now, Acadia scolded herself. She ought to have been stern with her brother. It didn’t matter whether the woman he loved was a good and true person, whether royal blood flowed in this child’s veins. A sacred law was ignored and the omens had been cruel. People were scared and angry. Acadia understood their concerns.

  She’d understood the queen, too: a reserved woman grateful to have found real love in this lifetime. She’d been gentle and naive and a good friend to the princess. Now Acadia would repay that friendship the only way she knew how.

  The King’s Chief Aide had left on an unscheduled trip this morning. If he were here now, she would have turned to him for guidance. As it was, from this point on decisions would need to be her own.

  With the babe in her arms, Acadia moved onto the balcony. Wearing a uniform decorated with regal brocade, her brother lay in a ball with his head in his hands and his body shaking from grief and shock. While the rabble’s murmurings grew again, Acadia knelt close and tried her best to reason with him.

  “Risto. She would want us to go.” He didn’t move, so she tipped closer, spoke louder. “Did you hear me? If we stay any longer, it will be too late. Do you understand? Your son will die too.” They all would.

  The king lifted a blotched face. His hopeless stare sent an ice cold shaft spearing down Acadia’s spine. He studied his son and blinked slowly once. Then, a defeated man, Risto sighed.

  “Take him away. Take him for the both of us.”

  Acadia’s stomach knotted. She wanted to shake him. This child needed his father, now more than ever. Couldn’t he give himself at least half a chance?

  Still, she could never hate Risto. He was a good brother, a kind husband and father. But he was not a king. Why had fate not been wise enough to make her the son and heir to the throne?

  But these past months, of course, that reason had become clear. If that were the case, she could never have given her heart to Leandros. When he returned, he would find her gone and the island in chaos. She’d hoped for a future, a family of their own…

  For one bittersweet moment, she closed her eyes and remembered his kiss, the tenderness and sweet longing. Would she ever see him again? Feel the strength of his lean body pressed hard against hers? Hear his words of love, of hope…?

  A shout from the crowd broke the spell. Blinking back tears, Acadia schooled herself. The nurse called from the balcony doors.

  “Men have scaled the walls. The guard will fire, but that mob has weapons too.”

  On cue, shots rang out like whip cracks bouncing off the black pelt of night. Both women jumped. The crowd roared. Over the following barrage of shots, the giant gates rattled, and Acadia’s once perfect world fell further apart.

  While the baby stirred, the king found some courage and unsteady feet. He shepherded all three back inside.

  “You know where to go, Acadia,” he said. “Don’t return. Promise me. Don’t ever come back.”

  Risto dropped a lingering kiss on his son’s soft brow, hesitated a heart-wrenching moment, then strode back to the balcony. Over the din, Acadia thought she heard him address the people who had once revered this family. Then more rifle fire rang out, the crowd cheered, and the walls of the palace seemed to sob and shake.

  With a supplies-sack over one shoulder, the nurse flung open the door then stumbled back as if shoved. Edging forward, Acadia studied the scene outside in the hall. All was quiet. Too quiet. Staff would be huddled in their quarters or gone home. But where were the guards? Helping their colleagues on the ground—or allowing the ramble inside?

  The nurse maneuvered the bag of supplies over Acadia shoulder. The princess asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll stay with the king. He has no one now.”

  Tears sprang to Acadia’s eyes as she clung to the baby. The words burned her throat. “Risto is dead. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I’d do the same for you in a heartbeat.”

  “You’ll come with us…”

  “No. Go, and hurry. This is my time.” The nurse grabbed the door handle. “Find happiness, dear love, and live for us all.”

  When the door closed in her face, Acadia imagined her old nurse crossing to be with the king. Then more muffled rifle fire echoed through the walls, and she flew down two flights of stairs with her nephew in her arms. She swung open the library’s heavy wooden door. In a far corner, beneath a portrait of Acadia’s proud grandfather, she carefully set the baby down on a sofa and the supplies down on the floor. Sweat beading on her brow, she gritted her teeth and, pushing, begged the shelf to budge.

  The waking baby grumbled before the bow of his lower lip wobbled and dropped. A heartbeat later, a crash—the breaking of the palace doors?—threw Acadia’s heart into the air. She prayed to her mother, father, and to every ancestor or sympathetic entity who might deign to listen.

  Spare this baby. Keep him safe.

  More crashing—furniture tossed against the walls—filtered in. As she pushed again, Acadia worried. Why hadn’t she made certain this route had been tested? Why hadn’t she paid heed to the warning signs and planned this escape well ahead?

  Groaning, she exerted every ounce of force her body and soul possessed. As the crashing outside drew nearer, and torchlight bobbed closer through the tall arched window, the bookshelf finally grated against flagstone then slid as if on ice. Acadia collected the baby, darted through the opening, and set him down on the col
d stone floor while she rolled the shelf back in place.

  Looking around, she shivered. Her heart and mind might be racing, but this corridor was as still as death and just as dark. Feeling around the dank walls, she found a torch hanging nearby, but she wouldn’t ignite it yet. The rabble could reach the library any second. She wouldn’t take the risk of light bleeding from beneath the bookshelf’s base.

  The baby squeaked. Acadia picked him up and edged away from the secret doorway. Listening to the crashing sounds grow louder, she suddenly remembered and turned cold. She’d left the sack outside.

  Acadia’s legs all but buckled. Every royal house had tunnels, corridors through which to flee in times such as these. How long before someone put the sack and the convenient bookshelf together? How long before they were caught?

  But she couldn’t go back. She had to push on and hope. Pray.

  With her vision adjusting to the shadows, she advanced two steps then a half dozen more. Squinting, she made out the nearest of the torches lining the walls. She could see the baby’s face now, innocent, curious, listening. Then a realization struck, sharp and sure as an arrow’s tip. Trembling, she peered down the corridor. Around the far bend, along the only way to freedom, light from a distant torch drifted near.

  Leandros had been striding down the secret tunnel for some time when he glimpsed movement ahead. Squinting, he pulled up sharply and, senses tingling, listened. But he heard only his heartbeat booming in his ears while sweat trickled down his face and his back. If someone waited farther down, there was every chance he would be shot as a trespasser—or perhaps more likely, lynched as a sympathizer to the royals.

  As a boy, his grandfather had discovered the entrance to this tunnel hidden at the rear of a forgotten pomegranate orchard close by the palace grounds. Curious, he had investigated, journeying down this dark winding tunnel until he’d come to its end. He’d even slid aside the furniture that disguised its access from the palace library. His grandfather’s dark eyes had twinkled when he’d confessed that, luckily for him, the king had not been reading that day.

  Leandros had promised never to divulge this tunnel’s secret location. Clearly this was a route via which royals could escape in times of danger—exactly the kind brewing outside the palace tonight.

  Now, when he glimpsed the movement again, Leandros brought his chin and torch higher.

  “I am unarmed,” he said. Out of the inky shadows, something shot toward him. Leandros snatched the knife sheathed on his belt at the same time as a rat, as big as his neighbor’s gray cat, scurried over his foot and up his leg. Cringing, he swore and batted it away. The rodent thumped the wall. Its screech rebounded before it vanished into the dark.

  Whipping the torch around, he made certain no more lay in waiting before striding on. Other noises crept in…more rats scurrying, water trickling.

  And something else.

  Leandros threw back his shoulders. Were the shadows playing tricks? Then his ears pricked again. Thrusting the torch out in front, he edged forward.

  “Is anyone there?” he called and braced himself, waiting. He was about to move on when a faint whimpering filtered back. Then came a halting question.

  “Leandros…is that you?”

  “Acadia?” he asked, moving forward. Then he saw her, standing small but regal in his halo of light.

  He flew to her, wrenched her close, dropped his face into her sweet-smelling hair while he thanked God over and over, and she murmured his name…the playful pet name only he used for her. He felt weak as a newborn wren yet strong and enduring as the sea. She was alive. Unharmed. He vowed on his life they would never be parted again.

  Acadia pulled away and, in the flickering light Leandros drank in her incomparable beauty as her glistening eyes smiled into his. She looked down and Leandros took in the wide-eyed baby she held.

  “The young prince,” he said, cupping the child’s small warm head.

  Nodding, Acadia ground out, “Both his parents are gone.”

  Leandros drew up to his full height. It had been the queen, then, who had leaped from the balcony earlier. Now, it seemed the king was dead, too.

  “They’ve broken into the palace,” she went on, and at that moment, an almighty crash echoed through into the tunnel, followed by a louder, nearer smash that made her jump.

  Drawing an arm around her shoulders, he held the torch high as he propelled Acadia forward and said, “We need to move, my love. And move fast.”

  As they rushed down the tunnel toward freedom, Acadia held the baby snug to her chest. She’d prayed for a miracle this night, and the gods had listened. When she’d seen the torchlight weaving toward them, she’d thought their safe route out of the palace had been compromised. Hearing Leandros’s voice drifting out from the dark had sounded like a song from a beautiful dream.

  But how had he known about this tunnel? Who else knew of the exit in the orchard?

  Twice rats darted out, tripping them up. The second time she almost fell.

  “Not much farther,” he said, and Acadia wondered if Leandros had a plan beyond emerging from the tunnel. The notion that members of tonight’s mob waited there with guns cocked swam in her mind, but Acadia pushed the thought aside. Together they would find a way. She and Leandros would share a life and live to raise children of their own. Fate could be cruel, but it could also be kind. It had brought Leandros to her, after all.

  At last the tunnel came to an end. Leandros eased the crude door open, and clamor from the faraway din seeped in. Acadia bit her lip. Striking artwork, priceless treasures, the china doll she’d kept from so long ago, a present from her mother… Her home was being destroyed, and there was nothing she could do to save it.

  The palace’s Chief Aide would be devastated when he returned from his trip and saw the destruction. Then again, the mob would likely lynch him before he had time to leave his ship.

  Night was fast closing in. The pungent smell of smoke and ash hovered in the air. Leandros sealed the entrance, and any sign of a doorway magically disappeared.

  “Trees here are thick,” he said. “We’ll be hidden until we reach the bay. When I saw the unrest as I sailed in, I didn’t berth at the docks.”

  Leandros shepherded her on. When they reached the edge of the orchard, Acadia still felt dazed. She seemed to be moving in a dream…in a nightmare.

  Leandros snuffed the torch, darted a look around, and then urged her on. “A little farther.” He scooped the baby from her arms. “The bay’s just around this hill.”

  Acadia thought of Leandros’s boat and of leaving her home behind forever, never to return. The idea saddened her beyond belief, but near everyone she’d truly cared about now was gone.

  The smoke and crackle of those fires still felt much too close. When they rounded the bend, Acadia pulled up sharply. She felt the shock as surely as if a fist had busted her windpipe while her heart dried up in her chest. Out on the water, their ship waited, engulfed by flames and about to sink along with their hope.

  When the writing stopped, Helene was wrenched out of that world. She couldn’t believe it. That was the last page?

  Feeling numb, she handed it over to Tahlia, who sliced through the words fast and then gaped at Helene.

  “This can’t be the end.” Tahlia looked around. “From what I know about that time in our history…”

  When Tahlia bit her lip, Helene pushed her one.

  “Tahlia, what do you know?”

  “There was a Princess Acadia, but she died. Or it’s presumed that she did. No one found her remains, but there was so much destruction that night.”

  Helene pondered the possibilities. Acadia sounded so brave and resilient. And Leandros was there, guiding and protecting her. He would have made sure they survived.

  “If I wrote the end of this story, I’d make sure they escaped,” Helene said.

  “They might have been ambushed.”

  “Hey, I thought you liked happy endings.”

  “Mor
e than anything, I want to believe in them. That they shared a long life together.”

  Helene came back to the here and now. To the “Tahlia in love with Otis” present. Her heart went out to her new friend.

  “I like happy endings, too,” Helene said softly.

  Tahlia’s gaze drifted toward that window again. “I love my life here. If only Darius didn’t expect me to be a carbon copy of what he thinks I should be. I have my own mind. My own heart. If he doesn’t like Otis, that won’t change how I feel.”

  “Darius does like Otis.” He’d told her so. “He thinks he’s a hardworking, respectful boy.”

  “Boy?” Tahlia huffed. “Darius would call him that. Otis is twenty-one. A man. A good man.” The irritation in her eyes faded into longing. “He loves me and I love him.”

  Helene wanted to gather Tahlia close and hug her like her own mother had done with her whenever she’d felt sad. But she wasn’t Tahlia’s parent. Darius was her legal guardian, or he had been until her eighteenth birthday.

  “Your brother’s only trying to do the best for you,” she said gently. “He wants you to finish your education.”

  “Darius is a good brother. But I don’t need his permission for anything anymore.” She got to her feet. “He can’t do anything if I live my life the way I want.”

  Tahlia’s words were passionate, but her tone was composed. She’d given this a lot of thought. And she was an adult. Helene understood Darius wanting his sister to attend college, but he couldn’t force her.

  Tahlia lowered herself back onto the sofa. “What do you want to do with your life, Helene?”

  “I want to be a history teacher.”

  “When I was very young, I wanted to be a ballerina and dance on pointe. At twelve, I was going to be a journalist, the kind who reports on only the most important stories. I remember telling Darius. He was so disgusted, he stomped away. He has no time for the media. Neither did my father. Lately, though, I think more and more about being with Otis. About…” She bowed her head and gazed at her left hand. “About being a wife.”