by Banks, Evie
“How so?” demanded Chase.
“The Bretton claim is every bit as strong as the Montshire claim, yet they passed over Mr. Bretton in favor of Mrs. Krebs—”
“Because he’s insane!” said Chase.
“In favor of Mrs. Krebs’s obvious charms,” Rufus finished. “I’ve spoken with Mr. Bretton and he’s not insane at all. Very lucid, actually.”
“Psychopathy is a form of insanity,” countered Chase. “He is on trial for the murders of three women whom he strangled.”
There was a collective gasp in the room. Everyone stared at Bretton who merely waved his hand dismissively.
“All charges were dropped. They had the wrong man,” he said.
“You see? A complete misunderstanding,” said Rufus.
“And was it a misunderstanding when he tried to strangle Renee?” Chase’s posture was taut and a normal man would have withered under the intense glare of his eyes, but Bretton remained unmoved.
“Mom?” said Cassandra lifting her head from Renee’s shoulder. Renee whispered she would explain later.
It was Bretton who spoke. “Ah, yes…that. Before you so rudely barged in, the lady and I were in the midst of, ahem, an intimate moment.” For the first time since Bretton had entered the room, Chase tore his eyes from him and looked at Renee, who wanted nothing more than to disappear. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was caressing her neck, not strangling it. As if anyone could harm such a lovely specimen.”
“Mrs. Krebs, is this true?” asked Rufus.
Renee felt flustered. Bretton was definitely dangerous, but she had allowed him into her home and had found him irresistible when he leaned in close to her. Even now, when she met those strange, clear eyes, she felt a little flutter in her stomach.
“I…I don’t know,” she stammered.
“If even the lady whom I’m accused of attacking doesn’t believe I attacked her, then why should any of you?” said Bretton.
There were murmurs of discussion and Renee noted that several heads nodded in agreement. She looked down the sofa at Britchford. His fingers were steepled together under his chin. His jolly demeanor was replaced with intense concentration and calculation.
“Why the secrecy, Neville? The search for the new monarch is a matter of national importance, regardless of party. You should have informed us that there was another candidate.”
“I’m sorry, Britch, but this only came to my attention yesterday.”
“But it’s already out that an heir has been selected and we’ve brought Mrs. Krebs all the way over here under the belief that she was to be queen. She’s already left her life back home and now you want to possibly send her back? You can’t put the bubbles back in the champagne bottle now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HOW DO YOU propose we resolve this?” asked Britchford.
“I suppose dueling is out?” whispered Roberts out of the side of his mouth.
“There will be nothing like that!” said Britchford.
“Pity. Mrs. Krebs is an excellent shot with a rifle.” Roberts looked extremely disgruntled.
The conversation had circled around for fifteen minutes. Renee sat there, sitting as regally as she could, but feeling miserable inside. Discussion continued while the two principle characters under discussion—Renee and Bretton—sat silently in opposite chairs. Whenever she met his eyes, he was staring directly at her. One time he grinned and winked. Renee started to smile in return and then caught herself. Every mistake she had ever made in her life could be traced back to the way her brain scrambled in the presence of a handsome man. Even when she knew the man was all wrong—and this one was wronger than most—she operated on impulse and that hadn’t exactly worked out for her.
She supposed a psychologist would tell her that her vulnerability to masculine attention was an attempt to replace a missing mother and a distant father, but that knowledge didn’t exactly help her. The guy whose motorcycle she had left home on? Gone in three months like Bobby McGee. After that was Keith, whose tattoos had seemed meaningful to her at the time. She had chickened out on getting a matching slashing bear claw tattoo, but the three stars along her shoulder blade were the reason why she kept her shawl draped over her shoulders despite the warmth of the room. After Keith was Mace, whom she had met in a bar and then saw him for the last time a year later behind bars when he was caught fencing stolen televisions sets. After Mace was Cassandra’s father who announced he was leaving the day after Renee had told him she was pregnant. He wasn’t ready, he said. She didn’t know where he was and it was for Cassandra’s sake that when she met Ray—who was stable and employed in the oil fields—she put aside any doubts and determined to make it work. And it had worked for long enough that despite increasing evidence to the contrary, she didn’t see leaving him as an option. Well, he had solved that problem by walking out with the rent money. She had just started to get herself together and stand on her own two feet without a man for the first time in over a decade, when Chase and Roberts had knocked on her door, offering to permanently change her life. She had not gone out looking for this and now another man was talking about changing the trajectory of her life once again. She was sick of feeling powerless, of feeling like a victim. That was not the example she wanted to set for her daughter.
Abruptly, she stood up and drew her shawl around her. The raging discussion fell silent and even the unflappable Bretton raised one eyebrow quizzically.
“I don’t intend on sitting here while you all act like high school boys daring each other to dance with me. Call me when you’ve made a decision.”
She didn’t pause to look around, but strode out of the grand room. Cassandra jumped up and followed her out, nose in the air. Renee didn’t stop until she was back in the checkerboard foyer. To her extreme relief, Chase and Roberts had come with her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to Chase and Roberts. “I just couldn’t sit there any longer while they debated what to do with me as if I was some unwanted piece of furniture inherited from crazy Aunt Sally. And to actually consider that…that monster! I’m sorry, but I’ve got more pride than that.”
She crossed her arms, challenging them to contradict her. Cassandra crossed her arms as well.
Roberts surprised her. “You were perfectly right, Ma’am. What Rufus did is unconscionable. He had us traipsing around the globe for weeks and entrusted us with the decision. We were never out of contact with him; he knew exactly who we were talking to and approved the decision. To suddenly pull a stunt like this, well…it’s playing politics at the wrong moment! Isn’t that right, Chase.”
Chase remained grimly silent, but after a moment said, “I’ll call the car.”
The sounds of intense discussion floated down the halls and stairways. It sounded like an argument that would last all night. As they waited for the limousine to roll up to the door, Roberts patted her arm and said quietly, “Don’t worry, Britchford is fighting for you. I think he’s taken quite a fancy to you and he doesn’t fancy anybody except his Chihuahua.”
Renee glared at him, walked out to the car as soon as it rolled up and without waiting for somebody to open it for her, yanked open the door and climbed in. The others climbed in after her. She tapped on the window separating the driver from the passengers. When the driver rolled it down, she said, “Do you have a cigarette or am I going to have to hijack this vehicle to go find one?”
The driver fumbled in his pocket and handed her a cigarette and a lighter.
“How much for the whole pack?”
He handed the pack over the glass and held up his hand to indicate that she should keep it.
Roberts frowned.
“Does anybody want to say anything about this? No? Good.”
She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Roberts rolled the window down, but wisely kept his mouth shut.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RENEE AND CASSANDRA decided to go for the marmalade. Every day a little orange jar had arrived with their
breakfast tray of scrambled eggs, a stack of toast, sausages, and bowl of strawberries and blueberries with cream, but they had always gone for butter or strawberry jam on their toast. Today though Renee was determined to make a change and sample everything England had to offer before she was sent home, which she was certain would happen. She spread the orange gel on thickly and took a bite. “Mmm,” she said. So far, marmalade was her favorite thing about England. Cassandra ate three slices with it before getting to her eggs.
Roberts paced the room while they ate and flipped back and forth between the morning news programs. He had arrived early, as full as energy as a boxer before a prize fight, discussing how they could prove that Renee was the better contender. Renee heard little of it. She had dark circles under her eyes because once her anger from the night before had evaporated, she was left feeling weary and unable to sleep. After Cassandra had gone to bed, Renee had locked herself in the bathroom and smoked three more of the cigarettes from the pack the limo driver had given her.
She yawned and pushed aside the little tea pot and poured black coffee into her cup instead.
“Well, there’s nothing solid in the news,” said Roberts. “Although they are noting that you left the Prime Minister’s residence in a rush. And there’s nothing about Bretton yet. That’s good for us.”
“Why is that good?” asked Cassandra, smearing another slice of bread with the marmalade.
“Because the country is still focused on Renee Krebs,” he said.
Indeed, every news program was running a series of photographs: the first photo was the snap of her in front of Buckingham Palace, the second was of her smiling towards the camera as she entered 10 Downing Street, and the third was of her angrily reaching for the limousine door. In sequence they told a story in which commentators and pundits labored to fill in the explanation, none of which was complementary or close to the truth. “As long as they are talking about you and getting to know you, they are becoming accustomed to the idea of you. Everyone is picturing you walking down the length of Westminster in your coronation gown, the crown being set upon your head. They are eager to hear your voice, to know who you are. Right now you are a beautiful mystery.”
“Turn it off,” said Renee.
Roberts switched off the television, but went into the kitchenette to turn on the small set in there. She could hear Rufus’s gruff voice saying “No comment” coming from the set.
Renee sighed and walked to the window. It was a sunny day and Renee wanted nothing more than to go outside and wander the streets of London. She felt trapped in the hotel because only yesterday the street below had been quiet and slow, , but now there was a clogged confusion of television trucks and media personnel jostling to get the best shot of the hotel. There were vans with the logos of British programs, as well as some familiar American ones like CNN, and numerous foreign logos. One said Al-Arabiyya, which sounded spicy like some kind of chili pepper. A black sedan maneuvered through the crush and the noise down below suddenly got much louder. The reporters were shouting at somebody getting out of the car, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She caught a glimpse of a bald, pink head bobbing through the sea of reporters to the door of the hotel and had an idea of who had arrived.
“I think Alan Britchford is here,” she called out.
Roberts walked out of the kitchenette. “They’re not wasting much time.”
“What do you mean?”
Before Roberts could answer there was a tap at the suite door and then Harry poked his head in. “Mr. Alan Britchford is here to see Mrs. Krebs.”
Roberts nodded and Harry allowed the door to swing open. The conservative leader came in smiling. He was wearing a green tartan vest under a tweed coat. “Mrs. Krebs, so good to see you this morning.” He clasped Renee’s hands.
“Mr. Britchford, I’m so sorry I walked out last night. I wasn’t expecting him to be there.”
“Neither was I, my dear. Neither was I.” He patted her hand and led her to the sofa. He saw Roberts standing off to the side. “Oh, good morning, Stanley. Is Chase in yet?”
Cassandra giggled. “Your name is Stanley?”
Roberts looked like he had just swallowed something very unpleasant. “Yes, as a matter of fact—children should be seen and not heard—and no, Mr. Chase is not on duty yet.”
“It’s just as well,” said Britchford. “That reaction last night—”
“—Was fully justified,” said Renee. “Bretton showed up at my apartment and then jumped out of my window when someone knocked on my door.”
Britchford gave a little cough into this fist. “In my younger days I was known to jump out of a lady’s window or two when her father arrived home.” His pink cheeks turned even pinker.
“There was no intimate moment,” insisted Renee. “He jumped out of the window to avoid getting caught. Sounds guilty to me.”
“Yeah, it was bollocks,” said Cassandra.
Roberts looked aghast. “A royal lady never uses such language!”
“Bollocks doesn’t sound like bad language to me,” said Cassandra. “I don’t even know what it means, I just heard it on TV.”
Britchford shook his finger. “I’m afraid Stan—I mean Roberts—is right. It’s not a very nice thing to say, but well done on trying to learn the culture!” He high-fived Cassandra.
Renee wanted to steer the conversation back to the situation at hand. “Mr. Britchford, something just isn’t right. Why is Bretton here and why would the Prime Minister even consider him? I’m not saying this because I think I’m the cat’s meow—Lord knows the country deserves better than me—but at least I’ve never been accused of murder!”
Britchford looked troubled. “Yes, there is something funny going on. I’m not sure what Rufus is playing at. If I was the cynical sort, I’d say he’s using Bretton to pry some concessions from either the conservatives or the monarchy. What wouldn’t we give up in order not to have some lunatic as the face of Britain?” He shook his head. “Very troubling, indeed.”
“What should I do in the meantime?” asked Renee. “I can’t keep hiding out in this hotel—I’ll go crazy.”
“You’re right. In fact, I think you should go out of your way to be seen,” said Britchford. He glanced at the window. “Let the people see you. The more they see you, the more they’ll like you and the less leverage Rufus will have.”
It sounded plausible, but Renee was uncomfortable that sides were being taken. If Rufus was trying to pry concessions by backing Bretton, then what was Britchford seeking by backing her? She turned to Roberts. “What do you think?”
Roberts looked uncomfortable being put on the spot. “I think royals are above publicity-seeking,” said Roberts. Britchford was about to protest, but Roberts continued. “But I also think they are above hiding liking timid mice. And if there’s one thing I know about Renee Krebs, it’s that she’s not a mouse. She’s got a metal bat and she’s not afraid to use it.”
Renee appreciated the vote of confidence from Roberts. She walked to the window and opened it. Despite the sun, there was a scent of rain. She breathed it in and then walked forward until she was visibly framed in it. The crowd roared below. She couldn’t distinguish any question, but merely smiled and waved into the barrage of camera flashed, paused a moment, pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and then closed the window again.
“You’re a natural,” said Britchford with a clap of his hands.
The door opened then and Chase walked in, looking haggard. There were deep purple lines under his eyes. He threw himself onto a white sofa, pulled out his gun and let the magazine fall to his lap. “I don’t trust myself with it,” he said. “I’m so angry I could shoot something and I’m so tired, I’ll probably miss.”
Renee hurried over with a cup of tea.
“Thanks,” said Chase, looking surprised. He drained the cup in a single gulp.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I’m famished.”
“Cassandra, plea
se get Mr. Chase a sandwich and some fruit from the kitchenette,” said Renee and Cassandra skipped off to make a plate. Britchford cleared his throat and Chase started to his feet. “Oh hello. Sorry I didn’t see you there, Mr. Britchford.”
“It was a late night for everyone,” said Britchford. “I imagine it ran even later for you.”
Chase nodded. “I can’t remember what my pillow looks like. But it wasn’t a night wasted. I found out quite a lot. First of all, Bretton approached Rufus and not the other way around.”
“Hardly makes a difference,” muttered Britchford.
“It means that our Prime Minister cannot be accused of nefarious intent,” said Chase, emphasizing the word our. “Also, Bretton has an expired passport so we’re still working on how he got here. He must have used an alias. We’re examining footage of airports to see if we can catch him exiting and then trace back to which flight he was on. He is remarkably good at not answering questions. He sits there impervious and merely sips his coffee, looking bored as anything. Anyhow, we’re communicating with the American FBI to pull his complete record and learn more about the charges that were levied against him. His trial was dismissed on a technicality, so it may be up to us to prove it.”
Chase leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes.
Cassandra shouted from the kitchenette. “Mom! You have to come in here and see this!”
Renee and Chase bolted into the kitchen area. Renee feared there would be a mouse in there, but she found Cassandra staring at the small television set that Roberts had turned on earlier. Roberts and Britchford crowded in the small room also.
“Oh, for the love of Bartholomew,” said Britchford under his breath.
A picture of Bretton was on the television screen.
“New reports suggest that this man, Ammon Bretton of the United States, is in discussions with the government regarding the vacant throne. This comes only one day after the first reports of an American woman being in contention. The woman’s identity is still unknown. Bretton is known to have attended Northeastern University and worked in a variety of professions including as a nursing assistant and cashier…. The government is still mum on the future of the monarchy”— The screen showed Neville Rufus leaving 10 Downing Street, smiling as he said “No comment.”—“and reports of dissension in the upper tier of government regarding the future of the crown cannot be confirmed.”