Prince Incognito

by Rachelle Mccalla

  Alec felt his hands tighten to fists, but there was nothing for him to attack, no present enemy for him to strike. A zealous desire to protect Lily rose up inside him, but there was nothing he could do to defend her. “I’m the trained soldier. I’m the one who should be dispatched on a mission. You’re an innocent civilian.”

  “I’m not innocent. I’m a Bardici. My family is treasonous, and if I don’t stand up to them, you might as well put me on trial alongside them once they’re all captured.”

  “If they’re captured. If they win—”

  “We can’t let them win.”

  “Aah.” Alec let out a growl of frustration and looked up at the starlit desert sky. He couldn’t stand the thought of Lily facing her murderous uncle. The very idea made him want to wrap his arms around her and shield her from anything and everything that could ever hurt her. She’d already paid far too high a price for her father’s ambition. All she’d wanted was her parents’ love, or the companionship of the animals she’d tried to rescue, but her parents had withheld their affection and killed off her horses. “It’s not fair.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “That you should have to face them again. You’ve already risked your life. You’ve already paid too high a price.”

  Hope crept onto Lily’s face. “You’re thinking of letting me go in.”

  “I don’t like it, but I don’t see any way around it.”

  Lily nodded. “At first light tomorrow I’ll take an empty canteen and walk up to the door of my uncle’s fortress. I’ll tell him I took your water while you were sleeping and left you for dead in the desert.” She grinned mischievously. “It’s more or less true.”

  Alec felt the corners of his mouth bend upward at the sight of her smile. “You’re not going in until your parents have arrived. And we’ll have to work out some way for you to communicate with me.” He looked down at the phone in his hands, and powered it off. “I’ll need to save the battery.”

  “Fair enough.” Her smile looked tired, but still hope-filled. “It will come out all right.”

  “Will it?” Alec pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her and wishing he didn’t have to let her go. But she was right—there wasn’t any other way out of their situation than to face their troubles head-on and defeat them—even if that meant defeating her family.

  His thoughts churned as he held her tight against him. His goals had changed. He wasn’t just fighting for the safety of his family and the freedom of Lydia anymore. No, somehow, once his family was safe and Lydia’s freedom had been insured, he was going to give Lily all that her family had taken from her: her freedom and unconditional love.

  * * *

  Lily clutched the empty canteen as she made her way across the desert sand, glad she hadn’t waited for the sun to rise completely before starting the trek to her uncle’s front door. Already heat had begun to rise in the desert. Combined with the cold terror inside her, it made her feel sick to her stomach.

  She reminded herself that her parents’ yacht had docked near the compound sometime during the night. From what she’d seen of it through Alec’s binoculars, her parents had already gone to see her uncle. Anyway, the yacht was being guarded by armed soldiers, and she was glad Alec had agreed with her not to try to take the boat. Her uncle’s helicopter would catch up to them before they made it out to sea, and then they’d only be in that much more trouble.

  No, she knew her current strategy was the only plan that had any chance at all of working. Prayers accompanied each step as she made her way through the sand.

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she clutched the canteen a little more tightly. Even when she felt as though she didn’t have the strength to go on, she wasn’t alone. God was with her. He’d seen her through the last three days, and when she’d been too exhausted to move, God had used Alec to carry her over the ridges of sand.

  God had provided. And in the middle of the desert, when everything had seemed beyond hope, God had given her a special gift: the affection of a prince.

  She’d always longed for love. Alec’s affection was more than she’d hoped for, and she wasn’t going to let him down now. He had every reason to hate her for what her family had done to his. No, the only way she could make things right between them was by bringing her traiterous uncle to justice, and learning the truth about her parents’ involvement.

  Looking up, she saw the front gates of her uncle’s compound open, and three horsemen poured through. Her heart beat hard. She wouldn’t have to knock on the doors after all. They’d seen her approaching, and they were coming for her.

  “Watch over me,” she whispered to God as the horsemen drew quickly closer. She raised her head to meet them. She had a mission to accomplish. After all, how could she possibly face Alec again unless she faced the demons in her family?

  * * *

  Alec trained his binoculars on the compound, dodging the scraggly branches of the tall bushes that provided his meager cover, shielding the instrument with his hands to keep the field glasses from reflecting the sun’s light and drawing attention to his hiding place.

  Granted, the men who’d ridden out to meet Lily seemed to be focused on her, but that didn’t mean there weren’t sentries scouring the surrounding countryside for him already.

  Bless her heart, Lily had insisted on taking a circuitous route to keep the men from following her footsteps back to their campground. She’d found the rockiest patches of desert to clamber across, obscuring even the faintest traces of her footprints. What little she’d left behind was already being filled in by the skittering sands driven by the desert breeze.

  His location was more or less secure. Lily was the one taking all the risks, and he kept up a continual prayer for her safety. “Grant her courage, Lord. Grant her a room with an outside view.”

  Lily would need a window, preferably a window overlooking the desert, and not the inner courtyard of the compound. They’d arranged a signal. If it was safe for him to approach, she’d tie her window curtains in a knot through the window. That way, he’d know which room she was in, and he’d only be alerted if she had information to pass along to him.

  And if she wasn’t able to learn anything that would help him, she’d keep her head down and her window shades closed. Neither of them wanted to risk anything unless there was something to be gained.

  For now, it was enough to see that the men who escorted her into the compound appeared to be handling her gently. One even got off his horse so she could ride while he walked alongside. It was a good sign, and it boded well for his hopes that her family would receive her, if not with open arms, at least without chaining her up somewhere. She’d need her freedom if she was going to learn anything more about the plot against the Lydian kingdom.

  * * *

  Lily felt a rising sense of impatience. In the day and a half she’d been inside her uncle’s compound, she’d had five good meals, several snacks, two showers and a bath. Her parents had even accompanied her to the yacht, where she’d claimed her own clothes and shoes, as well as the Bible from her bedside nightstand.

  Now she turned the pages of the good book impatiently, reading the promises God had given his people in the generations past, saving them from their enemies, reclaiming them when foreign nations had carried them off in exile. She read God’s promises in the book of Isaiah, and smiled at the words of Isaiah 30:21.

  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” She prayed God would guide her, that God would be with her as He had been with His people throughout history.

  The words echoed with a timeless truth. God had been faithful to His people, even when they hadn’t been faithful to Him. It only seemed right, then, that God should help the Royal House of Lydia reclaim the crown that was rightfu
lly theirs. After all, they had never turned their backs on Him.

  But other than catching up on her Bible reading, Lily hadn’t learned a thing. She hadn’t even seen her uncle, and her parents had talked to her as though nothing had happened, telling her all about the fish her father had caught the day after she’d left them—as though she’d no more than gone to visit a friend for a few days, and missed all the fun.

  She didn’t dare ask any direct questions for fear of rousing their suspicions. After all, she’d never cared about politics before. She figured she should be grateful they’d believed her story about leaving Alec for dead in the desert, barely escaping the desert heat with her life. Though a team of horsemen had gone out to the south, from what Lily had seen of their journey, they hadn’t ventured eastward to where Alec was actually hiding.

  He was safe.

  For now.

  But in the meantime, the hours were ticking by like sand through an hourglass. Her uncle still roamed far too freely. Something had to happen soon. “Lord, please help me. I need a break. I need a clue—something. You know what rests in the balance. And be with Alec. Protect him Lord, please.”

  She bent her head over the Bible, repeating her heartfelt prayer, when a knock sounded at the door to her suite.

  She leapt up to answer it, surprised to see her uncle David and her father on the other side.

  Her uncle spoke. “We have something to discuss with you. Would you please come with us?”

  Lily didn’t hesitate. After all, the last time she’d resisted her uncle, he’d put a gun to her neck. This time he’d actually said please.

  It didn’t bode well.

  Her heart hammered hard inside her as the two men led her down the stairs from her second-floor suite, past the elaborate main-floor landing, to a second set of stairs that twisted past a steel door and disappeared into darkness underground.

  David Bardici hit a switch, and artificial light illuminated the gray-painted cement steps. Unlike the rich decor aboveground, there was nothing pretty about where they were going, but Lily followed, praying silently that somehow God would use whatever was about to happen to help Alec’s family.

  They came to a large office, where an open table occupied the center of the drab room, and computers on desks lined the back cinder-block wall. Lily wished she could go online and read the news about the situation in Lydia, but her uncle motioned for her to sit in the lone chair facing away from the computers, while he and her father took the chairs on the opposite side of the table.

  She braced herself for questions. Would they ask for more information about Alec? Steeling herself against giving away her feelings for the prince, she was surprised when her uncle didn’t even mention him.

  “As you may know, the kingdom of Lydia is in turmoil. The king has been missing for five days, and Parliament cannot do any official business without the consent of the crown.”

  Lily hadn’t realized the part about Parliament, only that Isabelle had met with them. She raised a curious eyebrow as her uncle continued.

  “What you may not realize is that our family is descended from the Lydian monarchy. In the king’s absence, we’ve asked that Parliament revisit the Articles of Succession. At this point, it remains unclear who the rightful rulers of Lydia should be. Your father and I are certain we will soon be vindicated in our claim to the crown, but until then, Parliament is drafting a proposed compromise.”

  Surprise lifted Lily’s other eyebrow. She couldn’t see how Parliament could possibly choose her family over Alec’s, especially after the nefarious things her uncle had done to unseat the Royal House of Lydia. Unless they didn’t know what her uncle had been up to…

  “Only a member of the Royal House of Lydia can be crowned,” her uncle continued. “We are members of that family, and the crown was stolen from us nearly a century ago. Until we can prove to Parliament that King Philip’s family has no right to rule, we must compromise with them and form an oligarchy, a ruling partnership made up of all contenders to the throne.”

  Her father cleared his throat. “It will fulfill all the political requirements. Only those eligible to rule will be included, but no one family will be given power over the other.”

  Lily’s heart pounded hard inside her. She’d wondered why they’d been treating her so well since her return. Now everything began to make sense. They needed her. Recalling the family tree Alec had etched in the desert sand, she realized there were only a handful of biological descendants of Lydia. Alec’s father and siblings were the progeny of Alexander, while her father and uncles were the offspring of Alexander’s older half brother, Basil. With her half uncle Stephanos Valli removed from his position in disgrace, her father and uncle needed her more than ever.

  Once again, it was expedient for her selfish family to have a daughter, to have a puppet they could pull out for show, before she wasn’t needed and they cast her aside again.

  “We need you,” her uncle concurred, “to travel with us to Sardis as soon as Parliament announces a decision. There will be a document to be signed. The three of us are all eligible to represent our family. Philip’s family only has one representative, Princess Isabelle.”

  Michael cleared his throat. “We’ve heard that Anastasia…”

  David nodded. “Anastasia may also potentially sign the document. That is why we must have your support to have a majority.”

  Lily pinched her lips shut. Isabelle and Anastasia weren’t the only siblings. There was the missing oldest brother, Thaddeus, who was as yet unaccounted for, and of course, King Philip himself. And Alec. If her father or uncle knew that Alec had survived, they might try to have him killed to keep him from upsetting their majority in the oligarchy.

  “So, Lillian.” David stood. “You are prepared to sign whatever we place in front of you in Sardis.” It wasn’t a question.

  She looked up at her uncle, his stern face expecting compliance, his fingers resting on the handle of the gun that protruded from the holster at his hip.

  More than her uncle’s threat of violence, her hopes of discovering information that could help Alec led her to comply. There was absolutely nothing to be gained by resisting her uncle. Her only option was to gain their trust enough to learn more about what they were up to. “I’ll do whatever you ask me to.”

  “Excellent.” His smile twisted her stomach in knots. “Come with me.”

  With only a brief glance at the computers she would so have loved to use, Lily followed her uncle and father back upstairs to her room, where they left her inside and closed the door with an extra click.

  She checked the knob a moment later.

  Locked.

  So, then, that was it. She wasn’t sure why they’d taken her downstairs, but could only assume they suspected she might have resisted them.

  One other thing was certain. If they were traveling back to Sardis as soon as Parliament made an announcement, she didn’t have time to waste. Alec would have to be warned immediately. He needed to get back to Sardis, though she couldn’t imagine how he would get there in time. Hopeless tears coursed down her cheeks, but then her gaze fell on the open Bible she’d left behind.

  God rescued His faithful people.

  “Help me to be more faithful, Lord,” she whispered. “I can’t do this without You.”

  * * *

  Alec trained his binoculars on the Bardici compound. The swirling in his empty stomach only reinforced his growing fears. Lily had been inside the estate for over thirty-eight hours. In that time, he’d seen a female figure standing in a window looking out, but no curtains had been knotted. No signal had been given. Why not?

  He’d dared to turn on the Bedouin’s phone to check the internet briefly that afternoon, but other than a rumor about a possible compromise between the Bardici family and his, there
was no news out of Lydia.

  Something had to give soon. His stores of food were gone, and he’d been living off of water from the tiny trickle in the ravine. Even the horses had consumed most of the grass in the immediate area. Besides running out of options, there was every chance they might be discovered at any time.

  As the sun dipped low in the western sky, Alec focused his field glasses on the window where he’d spotted the female figure the day before. A shadow passed across the curtain.

  Movement.

  Someone was there.

  He adjusted the resolution, though no amount of focus could compel the figure to appear again.

  Then the curtains shifted, stirred up by someone inside. The window latch opened and a swath of something sage-green fluttered in the open air.

  The window shut, but the sage-green bulge remained, a knot in the window curtain.

  Lily’s signal.

  It was time. She had a message for him. And, for the moment at least, the coast was clear.

  * * *

  Lily fluffed her hair and popped another mint into her mouth, chastising her reflection in the mirror. “He doesn’t care what you look like,” she told herself.

  But she didn’t believe it. Inconsequential as her appearance might be under the circumstances, she still wanted to look her best when she saw Alec again. After all, he was a prince. Even though she’d told herself a thousand times over that whatever was between them would undoubtedly end once their ordeal was over, she couldn’t help the way her heart beat excitedly at the thought of seeing him again.

  She crossed to the window and peered out into the darkness. Was he even out there? Had he come up with a different plan and left the desert behind? Had he been captured while approaching? Anything could happen to him.

  A canteen landed with a clunk on the tiny balcony outside her window. Lily opened the casement and grabbed the canteen, turning it over to reveal a note.

  TIE ME UP.

  Lily blinked at the handwritten letters, then quickly guessed at what Alec was up to. A long rope extended from the sand-filled canteen, and she twined it around the balusters, knotting it tightly over the top of the railing.