Prince Incognito

by Rachelle Mccalla

She turned to confront him, not caring if desperation showed on her face. “This man is under my protection.” She wished her voice wouldn’t tremble.

  “He’s injured. He probably won’t live more than a couple of days. Your uncle explained to me about these blast injuries. They explode a person from the inside—”

  “His ears were fine. That means the impact of the blast wasn’t strong enough to cause internal injuries.”

  “Then why won’t he wake up?”

  Lily groaned. The man behind her on the bench was rousing. She’d watched his eyelids flutter. Given another minute, he might be able to pull himself from his pain-filled sleep. If she could buy him another minute.

  Backing against the bench, she spread her arms wide as though to physically block Michael Bardici from reaching the prone soldier. “He’s recovering. He just needs time.”

  “And then what? He’ll awaken in a fit of terror and kill us all.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know him. Your uncle David recognized the name from his uniform. He was part of the insurgent uprising that caused all that commotion in Sardis. Don’t you see, Lillian? We can’t trust him. He’s dangerous.”

  “He’s a human being. If you toss him overboard, he’ll die. That’s called murder, and it’s illegal.” She didn’t bother to mention that it went against the Bible’s teachings. Her father didn’t share her faith, and she’d learned not to try to foist it on him.

  “It’s not illegal if it’s done in self-defense.”

  “He’s not threatening you.”

  “Not now, but if he wakes up and tries something, he could overpower all three of us. Besides, if I don’t do it, David said he’d drop everything and take care of the man himself. You saw the explosions in town. Your uncle has his hands full. He shouldn’t have to come out here and clean up the mess I never should have let you make in the first place.” The words sounded more like something her uncle David would say, and Lily realized her father was likely quoting his older brother. “One little push, Lily. That’s all it will take.” He advanced slowly until he was less than an arm’s length away.

  Lily could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks, and the rising helplessness that had overcome her when her father’s horses had begun to die. She would have done anything to save the horses, but there had been nothing she could do.

  She wasn’t going to let it happen again, especially not to a human being. “You can’t. You just can’t. We’ll put in at the next port and I’ll leave him off there. I don’t care where it is. Find me a beach somewhere, and I promise I’ll leave him, but you can’t just push him over in the middle of the sea.”

  Even as she spoke, begging for her father’s mercy, his expression hardened. He reached past her, getting his hands under the soldier’s shoulders.

  “No! You can’t!” She tried to pry his arm away. The soldier groaned and blinked. He was waking up!

  But he was too late.

  Her father shoved his shoulder between her and the half-conscious soldier, scooping his arm under him, tilting him toward the rail.

  “No!” Lily held the soldier’s shoulders, fighting to keep him on the boat.

  “Let go.” Michael pulled her hands free and got an arm under the man’s torso, leveraging him up even as the awakening man grasped the air in front of him.

  “Don’t do it!” Lily pounced atop the bench, throwing all her weight into the tug-of-war.

  Her mother gasped from the direction of the below-deck stairs. “Lily! What are you doing?”

  Startled, Lily looked up just as her father caught her by her shoulders, plucking her up and tossing her back toward her mother. She scrambled back, shocked by her father’s behavior. He’d thrown her across the boat! She found her feet as her father got his arms under the soldier and, with one giant heave, tossed him over the side.

  “No!” Lily screamed as she leapt across the deck. Kicking off her sneakers, she bounded onto the bench and leapt over the rail, diving into the Mediterranean water. A moment later she rose and looked frantically about. The sea was fairly calm, but they’d been cutting through the water at a good clip, and had no doubt passed the spot where the soldier had gone overboard.

  Spotting something white—his T-shirt, perhaps—she kicked her legs out and swam toward it, just as her mother’s screams carried through the air, and a life preserver flew past her head, its rope unfurling behind it.

  The rope splashed across her just as her right leg kicked down, catching the cord in a tangle. For one terrified instant, she realized it had twined around her leg. Then the dogged progress of the boat through the water pulled the line taught, dragging her backward with it. She tried to scream, to gulp a breath, anything, but the overwhelming force pulled her through the sea, poring water into her nose, her eyes, her mouth.

  She tried to reach the rope to untangle it, but the press of the water was far too great for her to fight against. With sinking terror, she realized there was nothing she could do to free herself. The sun had set and the night was dark. Would her parents even be able to see what had happened? Even if they quickly realized they needed to haul her in, by the time they got the boat stopped, she’d likely be drowned.

  * * *

  Shock rippled through him as he hit the water, snapping him into the full consciousness that had evaded him as he’d tried to pull himself from sleep moments before. Where was he? What had happened? Acting on instinct, he clawed upward for air, and saw the stars twinkling down from the night sky above.

  A scream caught his attention, and he saw a woman throw a life preserver. It fell just short of him, and he cleared the distance to it in a couple of strokes. Grabbing hold, he got his head up enough above the water to see.

  There were arms in the water.

  No, more than arms, there was a woman. Her leg was caught on the rope to his life preserver, and the moving boat hauled her backward through the water, facedown, helpless.

  He recognized her brown hair, her pale pink top. He’d glimpsed her before through pain-dulled eyes. It was the woman who’d given him water and made his pain go away!

  Pulling on the rope, he hauled her toward him, and looped one arm under her torso. Gently, he lifted her up and shoved the flotation device under her head. He peeled back the long brown hair and found her face just as she gasped a breath and belched up seawater.

  “Can you hold the ring?”

  She coughed, but clutched the flotation device with white-knuckled fingers.

  “Hold tight.” He knew he had to get her leg untangled, or risk her being pulled back under again. Fighting the current created by the moving boat that tugged them relentlessly forward, he pulled himself along the loose length of rope, caught hold of where it had pulled taught, and held it behind her, creating enough slack to allow him to squeeze it back past her heel, and work her foot free.

  He dropped her foot and swam back to her head, balancing himself above the life preserver, level with her eyes. “Are you okay?”

  She coughed and looked like she was trying to nod.

  He peeled back more of the sodden hair that covered her face. She really was beautiful, even half drowned.

  Whoever was running the boat had gotten it slowed down considerably, and voices were yelling something, but he couldn’t make out what.

  “Here.” He eased the woman onto his shoulder as he held tight to the rope. “I’m going to pull us up.”

  She clung to him, her head slumped against his neck, her rattling breath easing as she tightened her grip on his shoulders. “Stairs,” she said, and coughed again. “Stairs—at the stern.”

  He didn’t doubt there were stairs at the back of the boat, but he wasn’t about to let go of the rope to go looking for them. The night was too dar
k, the sea too vast and the boat was still cutting through the water, though more slowly now.

  “I’ve got you. Just hold on tight.” Pulling hand-over-hand up the rope, he moved them closer to the boat, until he kicked the hull with his boots and fairly walked up the side, rappelling against the sailboat.

  The woman clutched him tighter as they rose out of the water and the ship tipped slightly from their combined weight.

  “Can you climb aboard?” he asked the woman as he got one hand on the rail.

  “No. You first,” she whispered. “If I get onboard, he’ll only push you over again.”

  Unsure of whom the woman referred to, he nonetheless heaved one shoulder over the rail.

  Hands pulled at the woman in his arms, but she held on to him tightly as he rolled them both over the railing and scrambled to standing on the deck.

  “Lily.” An older woman reached for the girl he’d rescued, but she shook her head and shoved him toward a doorway that led down stairs to the lit cabins belowdecks. He obediently headed in the direction he was pushed.

  “Lillian.” A man stepped in front of them, barring the way.

  “He can have my room.” The waterlogged young woman pleaded, her voice trembling. “Let him be. We can leave him at the next port.”

  But the man looked angry, and regarded him with a scowl.

  Straightening to his full height, he returned the man’s glare. He couldn’t remember who he was, but he was nearly certain he could take the older man if it came to a fight.

  The man must have realized it, too, because he stepped aside, his mouth set in a grim line.

  She pushed him ahead of her, down the stairs, and guided him into a comfortable-looking full-size berth and en-suite bathroom.

  He spotted a waterproof chair and slumped down on it.

  “Lily?” The older woman was at the door again. “What are you thinking, letting that man in your room?”

  “He’s too big for the guest room. And this way, he’ll have his own private bathroom.” Lily left the door open a crack and addressed her through the gap. “I’m just going to re-dress his bandages. I’ll move to the guest room for tonight.”

  “Fine.” The woman shrank away with a resigned sigh, and Lily closed the door.

  He caught his breath as Lily approached him, her movements cautious.

  “Do you mind if I remove your bandages?”

  “Please.” He sat still as she peeled the soaking wet red-stained gauze from his head.

  “I need to run upstairs and get the first-aid kit. I’ll be right back. If you feel light-headed, you can lie down.” She disappeared, and returned quickly with a suitcase-size first-aid kit. Perching on the edge of the bed beside his chair, she gingerly dabbed his face with ointment, her touch gentle.

  “Your name is Lily?” He repeated the name he’d heard the other woman use.

  “Lillian Bardici.”

  He tried to think. Bardici. It sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. But then, he didn’t even know who he was. Everything had happened so quickly, and he had far more questions than answers. “Do you know who I am?”

  “No. Don’t you remember?”

  He closed his eyes and tried to think, but the throbbing in his head drowned out all his thoughts. “I don’t. The last thing I can recall is being thirsty, and you gave me a drink. How did we end up in the water?”

  “My father threw you overboard. I jumped in after you.”

  “To rescue me?” He couldn’t imagine that the slender woman would have had much success dragging him aboard if he hadn’t awakened, but at the same time, he felt grateful that she’d tried.

  “Yes.” She squeezed more antibacterial ointment from a tube. “To try, anyway.”

  “Why did your father throw me over?”

  “It’s kind of a long story.” Lillian sighed as her gentle hands eased the salt-sting on his wounds. “My parents and I have been living on this boat for the past month—that’s a long story, too. We sailed from New York to Lydia to visit my father’s older brother, David. He’s a general in the Lydian Army. I don’t like my uncle at all. He’s extremely bossy, and he pushes my dad around. My uncle told my parents that we needed to leave Lydia before the state dinner tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Lillian wiped ointment from her fingers onto a towel before trimming a length of clean gauze to cover his injury. “At the time, I just thought he was being controlling. But maybe he had some inkling about what was going to happen.” She looked at him thoughtfully.

  He studied her face, trying to read what she was thinking. Her blue eyes were streaked with pale gray and green, giving them an almost aquamarine undertone, stunningly beautiful, like the Mediterranean Sea.

  Lillian shrugged and continued her story. “I wanted to see the royal motorcade pass by. The kingdom of Lydia has a royal family, but news about them rarely reaches the United States. I’ve seen pictures of the princesses—they’re so elegant, and always promoting humanitarian causes—but the rest of the royal family is fairly private. I just wanted to catch a glimpse…”

  “Did you?”

  “Hardly. Soldiers pushed everyone back, and then explosions started going off everywhere. I was afraid we’d all be killed.”

  Explosions, yes. He pinched his eyes shut, shadows of memories taunting him from beyond the pain-filled recesses of his mind. Slivers of memories fell down like dust motes shaken free. “They were diversion grenades—classified as nonlethal.”

  “What? You remember?” She looked startled, maybe even frightened. “How do you know that?”

  But the memory melted away like a snowflake in the sun, evaporating to nothingness even as he reached for it. “I don’t know how I know.” He shook his head, wishing he could as easily shake loose the thoughts held prisoner inside. He sighed. “That might explain why I can’t remember much—the trauma from the blast must have temporarily wiped out my memory.”

  “Temporarily.” Lillian repeated. “How soon do you think it will be before you get it back?”

  “Hard to say. Hopefully not long. Stun grenades aren’t mean to inflict permanent damage.”

  “How is it that you know that, but you don’t remember your own name?”

  He thought carefully before answering. “I remember how to speak. I remember how to swim.”

  “I’m grateful you remembered that much.” Her small smile seemed intended to encourage him.

  It warmed his heart. He wished, for her sake, that he could remember. That he had answers to give her. She’d already helped him so much, and he’d done nothing but get her in trouble. “The concussion may have only affected one area of my brain—my personal memories. Hopefully the blast wasn’t too strong, and I’ll recover my memory soon.”

  “Maybe that explains why you weren’t injured any worse than you were.” Lillian taped a bandage securely into place. “Whatever those explosions were, I thought for sure we’d all be killed. I saw you in an alley, and ran for my bike just as you did. When you climbed in the backseat I pedaled for the yacht, dumped you onboard, and we got away from Sardis as quickly as we could. But—” she took a deep breath “—my father talked to my uncle, who told him to throw you overboard.”

  “Why?”

  “He said you’re dangerous.” Lillian sat back, her hands on her knees as she leaned away from him as though she thought he might be dangerous, too.

  “Dangerous?” He mulled over the thought.

  “My uncle said you were involved with the insurgents who ambushed the royal motorcade.” Her voice grew thoughtful. “You knew what kind of grenades they were shooting.”

  Sensing the uncertainty Lillian struggled with, he scrambled to think of something reassuring he could te
ll her. But everything beyond the last ten minutes was covered by a dark cloud, and the circumstances she’d found him in certainly sounded suspicious. “Do you think I’m dangerous?”

  She let out a breath and blinked at the floor, finally meeting his eyes again. “I don’t know.”

  Hope flirted with the doubt in her eyes. She wanted to trust him. He wanted to be worthy of that trust, but he didn’t know enough about his own history to know if he was. “So why are you helping me?”

  “You were injured. You asked me to help you—to get you out of Lydia before they found you.”

  “Before who found me?”

  “I suppose it depends on whose side you’re on.” She gave him that wary, uncertain look again.

  He wanted to assure her that he was a person of integrity and honor, not someone to be feared, but he couldn’t claim something he didn’t know to be true. The unknowns of his past sat between them like a live grenade that might go off at any moment.

  Lillian rose to her feet. “Do you need anything? There’s drinking water there, and a few snacks.” She pointed to a small fridge that served as a nightstand. “Help yourself.”

  Her hospitality surprised him. She didn’t know whether he could be trusted, and yet, she’d given up her room for him, and had gone out of her way to make him comfortable.

  Lillian stopped halfway to the door. “I’ll be across the hall if you need anything. You might want to lock yourself in the room. Don’t trust my father.”

  “Thank you.” He took a step forward, intending to shake her hand.

  She shrank back against the door frame.

  “I have no intention of hurting you.” He assured her quickly, wishing he had evidence to back up his claim. “I don’t think I’m dangerous.”

  Her eyes flickered across the breadth of his shoulders, to the thick biceps that stretched the sleeves of the T-shirt he wore, up to his full height, towering over her in the close confines of the stateroom. “I think—” a tremor cut through her words “—you could be plenty dangerous, if you wanted to be.”

  He lowered his head. She had an excellent point. His powerful physique indicated that he lived a lifestyle that required him to be strong. Did that mean he was dangerous? Her uncle and her father thought so.