by R. J. Scott
They separated and Max was grinning. “Let’s get back to BI.”
He started the car and pulled out onto the main road. Lucien settled back in his seat, catching a look at his expression in the mirror and seeing that he was grinning too.
Max switched on the radio and was humming along to some song Lucien hadn’t heard. He lost himself in his own thoughts.
I bet whoever wrote those letters never imagined I would fall in love with my bodyguard.
Something about that thought had him closing his eyes to focus on the words. Whoever wrote the letters didn’t threaten Lucien. They implied he would end up dead, but the writer never said he would kill Lucien. They didn’t ask for money or material reward. They spoke of thinking about Lucien, about wishing him luck at the swim meet. Yes the writer had encouraged Kev to the pool and Kev had ended up nearly dead, and hell, Lennox had died, and there had been a letter there. But the letter on his bed after Lennox was killed had told Lucien that Lennox had put him in danger. The writer spoke of the fact that he wasn’t having Lucien put in danger.
“Someone else loves me,” Lucien blurted over the sound of the song on the radio.
Max pulled up at the traffic lights on red and looked at Lucien. “What do you mean?”
“The letters, think about it, no demands for money, just statements of caring and support and misguided revenge on anyone that was causing me issues. What if whoever wrote it saw me arguing with Kev—yeah, we hugged—but what if whoever it was thought Kev was pushing it too far?”
“That isn’t a stretch, a stalker is someone who has an obsession.” The lights changed and Max pulled out and turned right onto the main carriageway. They weren’t far from BI, but abruptly Lucien didn’t want to go there. He had a puzzle in his head, something in the far reaches of his brain that was teasing him.
Someone who had been back at home, who was now in the UK, who loved him. Maybe they’d been looking at this wrong.
“You love me, right? And you want to have sex with me, sleep with me? Right?”
Max chuckled. “Every chance I get.” Then he became more serious. “What are you trying to get at?”
“What if the author of these letters thinks he loves me and needs to look out for me? To protect me? Shit—” Suddenly the nebulous thought that was out of reach coalesced into something more. “Nanny Hilda? Or Bryce Norman.”
“Your nanny is in a home, she’s eighty something.”
“But Bryce is only in his early sixties.”
“The tutor, really?”
“He took a position at Gloucester University after Seb died. There were no more children in our family to teach, but he’d been my tutor for years and he was my only friend when Seb died, the only one who comforted me and didn’t expect me to show the world my fake face.”
They pulled into the driveway to BI, and as soon as the car stopped, Max turned to him.
“Bryce Norman.”
“He’d be sixty-five or so now.”
“I know, I have his profile.” Max frowned. “And you kept in contact with him?”
“No. That’s it, you see, he never replied to any of the letters I sent. I thought he was just someone else in my life doing his job and not really caring about me.”
“Lucien—”
“What if it’s him, Max?” He was losing it here. Max climbed out the car, and Lucien followed until they stood in front of the car. “What if he’s been watching me? What if he killed Oscar Sheiver back home, and hurt Kev, and now Lennox—?”
Max shook him a little. “Stop it, Lucien.”
Lucien stared at Max, focused in on blue eyes and the stern expression, and the panic began to dissipate. “Sorry.”
Max shook him again. “And stop apologizing, we’ve already had this conversation.”
Lucien deflated and Max collected him in a close hug. Lucien pressed his face into Max’s neck and inhaled the scent of his lover. Everything inside him quieted slowly. When he felt calmer, he pulled away but kept hold of Max’s hand.
“What now?” he asked.
“Your hypothesis is a good one,” Max said. “I wanted to see a pattern that made sense, because if anything, those notes were nonsexual. You’re right, the stalker could be a father figure, not for sex, someone looking after you. Whoever the stalker is, he or she is okay with you having a love life, and I guess they were okay with Jamie being in your life despite his connection to Lennox. Perhaps they didn’t even know about Lennox. They were benevolent even, but when you’re in danger or upset, then the stalker ‘helps’ you by removing the problem.”
“Exactly.”
“Now let’s take it to Ross and see what we can come up with. It might not be the tutor, but something about these letters has gnawed away at me. Okay?”
Lucien nodded. “Okay.”
When they walked into the Manor House, Ross was up out of his seat as soon as they entered the office.
“Tech guy came through. The email to that Tommy guy was sent from a coffee shop. That’s the closest we can get.”
“But he has a specific place?”
“Anonymous account, and we can’t be certain who sent it—there’s no surveillance from two years back. But it was a Costa Coffee in Gloucester.”
Lucien and Max looked at each other. His old tutor lived in Gloucester, he’d taught in Gloucester.
“No,” Lucien said, his heart breaking.
Max pulled him close. “It might not be him, this might be another loose end.”
Lucien shook his head and buried his face into Max’s neck. “It’s him,” he said in a dead tone. “It has to be him.”
“There’s something else, Max,” Ross said. “Bryce Norman has cancer and is receiving treatment at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.”
“Okay,” Max said. He sounded so calm. He had to be, because Lucien felt like his world had been rocked. “Do we have an address?”
Max moved a little and Lucien heard the rustle of papers. “It’s all in there,” Ross said. “Lucien, I’m sorry.”
Chapter 14
They stood for the longest time in the car park of St. Edburgh’s hospice. Max had begun to walk in, but Lucien stopped him with a gentle touch of his hand to Max’s arm. He wasn’t ready to go in and confront Bryce Norman. And if they were right, then they needed to have the police involved, because if Bryce was responsible for the attack on Kev and Lennox’s murder…
The consequences for those actions didn’t bear thinking about. He wanted to remember Bryce as a clever man who loved Seb and didn’t treat him like he had a terminal illness and who had been the only one to understand Lucien's need to mourn. For a second, a very old grief hit Lucien and he hung his head.
“We don’t have to do this,” Max said. His voice was little more than a whisper.
“He’s only here one day a week.” Ross had found out that Bryce had long since left his role at the university and was a volunteer at a local hospice. But all of that didn’t make any difference in the grand scheme of things. Was Bryce a killer? Was the man who taught him Shakespeare and calculus someone who could smash a man’s face in with a brick or push another into the pool unconscious, likely to drown?
“We could hand this over to the cops, let them deal with it.”
“We don’t even know if Bryce has anything to do with this.” Lucien started but stopped just as quickly. Getting the authorities involved on what was little more than a gut instinct at the moment was overkill. He straightened to his full height and pushed back his shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
They walked in. The foyer was wide and airy with a small desk to one side. A slim young woman stood from her seat behind the desk.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Lucien couldn’t find the words, but Max was there in an instant, all polished politeness. “We’d like to talk to Bryce Norman and understand he volunteers here on Tuesdays.”
She frowned a little and glanced at her screen. “I’ll call through to the kitc
hens. If you’ll take a seat. Could I ask for your names?”
“Maxwell Connery and Prince Lucien Magrello.”
If the woman was startled at the use of the word ‘prince’ plus the obvious emphasis, she didn’t show it, just rang through the details, then turned back to her screen.
Lucien and Max sat. “He could run,” Lucien whispered.
“Don’t think that way.”
Lucien sat forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled under his chin. Seeing Bryce after all this time was both devastating and sad. When Seb had died, Bryce left the family, taking another role at a UK university, and cutting himself off from Lucien, not answering letters. As teenagers do, Lucien had compartmentalized Bryce as a fond memory, but now it was potentially all gone.
“He loved cooking,” Lucien said, still as quietly as he could. “She called through to the kitchen? You think he volunteers in there?”
Max shook his head. Ross hadn’t been able to dig up anything except for the fact that, other than the volunteering, Bryce pretty much kept himself to himself. ”I don’t know, but we know he’s not a patient here. Yet.”
“I have to believe there is a reason for all of this,” he said. “I don’t believe it can be Bryce.”
Max bumped shoulders with him. “For your sake I have to believe that too.”
“Your Highness?” Bryce said from the doorway. Lucien immediately jumped up and crossed to him. He didn’t know what to do, hug the man or wait to talk or what. Max saved him again. He thrust a hand out, which Bryce took.
“Maxwell Connery. Call me Max.”
Bryce shook his hand, still with a bemused expression. He didn’t look like he recognized Max or had expected Lucien to visit. If anything, he wasn’t showing any emotion at all. He looked thinner than Lucien remembered, and his hair was white where it used to be brown.
“It’s so good to see you after all this time, Lucien, but whatever are you doing here?” Bryce asked in a jovial tone.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Max asked.
Bryce nodded. “Of course. Can we use the conference room, Maggie?”
Maggie rooted around in a drawer and passed over a key. “Certainly.”
The three men turned from the foyer and down a corridor, Max between Bryce and Lucien, his hands loose at his sides. Bryce unlocked the room and gestured for Max to go in, Max gestured back, and to break the impasse, Lucien went in first with Max close behind.
When all three were in, they all took chairs and Lucien didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t very well jump in and ask if Bryce was sending him letters or had killed someone. This kindly elderly man was looking just as confused as Lucien felt.
“I think we made a mistake,” Lucien said. He looked at Max with an urgency to just leave. Max, it seemed, wasn’t having any of it.
“We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Max—”
“Lucien.” Max’s tone was flat and Lucien subsided.
“Sure, but can I just ask, how is university, Lucien? Was it everything you expected? You used to talk all the time about escaping your family and being your own man.” The words tumbled from Bryce’s mouth, but more in excitement than nerves. He was just pleased for his old student and Lucien began to relax.
“I love it.”
Max interrupted. “You know he is at university?”
Bryce frowned. “He’s here in the UK, I mean, I assumed…” He shrugged.
“He could just be visiting,” Max insisted.
“Max,” Lucien warned. “I always said I was coming to the UK to study.” Lucien was beyond desperate to believe this. Seeing Bryce was a reminder of all the nights he’d cried in his tutor’s hug and looked for reasons why. Why did Seb have to die? Why am I so alone? Why don’t my family care?
Max stood up and leaned casually against the wall. He glanced at Lucien and the expression in his eyes was calm, but Lucien could see how Max was holding himself, his arms crossed over his chest. He was in full-on bodyguard mode. As Lucien remembered those nights where he cried as a teenager, where Bryce was the only one in the whole damned drafty palace that cared enough to check in on Lucien or to hold him when he cried, he decided he’d been wrong: Bryce had nothing to do with this.
Bryce looked up at Max and was clearly puzzled.
“I know Lucien very well,” he said. And he was right, Bryce did know him very well.
“So you volunteer here?”
“I assist the chef for lunches and spend time with some of the patients. It’s my chance to give back in the hope that someday someone does this for me.” He pressed his lips together and frowned sadly. “I’m not well myself.”
Lucien’s chest tightened. “Cancer.”
Bryce shrugged. “At the moment I’m fine. The meds I’m on are strong and my second bout of chemo was over a year ago.” He patted his head. “I even have my hair back, although it’s grown back white.”
Lucien squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry, Bryce.”
“It is what it is,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s good to see you one last time, and to see you with a friend.”
Lucien blushed. Even with Max standing like he did, was it obvious there was more than client-bodyguard between the two of them?
“We’re close. You should sit back down, Max,” Lucien asked.
Max looked at him stonily, then something changed and he sat next to Lucien.
“I apologize,” he said as he held out a hand for Bryce to shake. “I’m Lucien’s bodyguard and I had reason to believe you may be a threat to Lucien.”
Bryce looked puzzled. “Oh, I thought you were together. I didn’t realize he was a bodyguard.” Then he smiled. “Although I sense something else.”
Lucien smiled. “It’s certainly a curious way to meet.”
Bryce fake-punched his arm. “Better Max here than Teddy. Imagine dating the old palace bodyguard.”
Lucien changed the subject. “So, tell me about your work after you finished tutoring me and Seb, I know you stayed in the country a while but then you moved to a university here.”
“I left the University when I was first diagnosed. I decided there was more to life than academia, and although I would never be in full remission, I had more than enough time to get things done, find the right place to come when I’m close to dying, see friends, reconnect with family, usual last-minute things.”
“When were you diagnosed?” Max asked. “Exactly how long have you known?”
“Max, you can’t ask that.” Lucien was horrified, but that was a personal question and it was clear there was nothing sinister about Bryce. He was just an ill old man who didn’t have much time left.
“It’s okay, Lucien, we’re not all brought up with the manners of royalty.” Bryce huffed a laugh. “In answer to your young man, I found out some five years ago but I’ve outlasted the statistics of survival. They only gave me three years you know.”
“Was that what pushed you to kill Oscar Shiever and start this making Prince Lucien safe murder spree?” Max said.
“Max, for God’s sake,” Lucien snapped.
“Murder? What letters?” Bryce looked shocked and genuinely puzzled. Max was wrong. Bryce was a good man and Lucien had to believe he was innocent. Emotion caught in Lucien’s throat.
“I missed you,” he said.
Bryce patted his knee. “You were always the odd one out, Prince Lucien, always the one eager to be loved and wanting nothing of the way of life your parents had. I don’t mean disrespect, but I am glad you’re away from them and living your own life. I am glad that I can leave this life knowing that you are safe and that you are in love.”
Lucien closed a hand over Bryce’s. “I often dream of Seb and—”
“We’re not in love,” Max interrupted with derision dripping from his voice. “Where did you get that idea?”
Bryce frowned. “You said—”
“I didn’t say anything. I’m his bodyguard and th
at’s where it ends. As soon as he’s done here and goes home, I’m no longer in his employ.”
Lucien had no words to say. He was past shocked, his breathing tight, his heart snapping into two in his chest. Max had said he loved him, Max had given him words.
“You’re going to throw him away?” Bryce asked. His tone had changed a little, no longer benevolent and calm but with an edge of concern. “But it’s clear you love him, and you are a strong man who can…”
Max leaned in and spoke conspiratorially. “You know what it’s like: bodyguards often end up fucking clients.” He leaned back. “It’s a perk of the job.”
“I think you’d better leave,” Bryce said. He shrugged off Lucien’s hand. “I won’t have you disrespecting the prince in my company.”
Lucien had no words, his whole world was crumbling in front of him. What was Max saying? And why did Bryce look less old and ill and more focused?
“I can’t leave him in case he trips over and breaks a nail.” Max laughed. The cruel sound slapped Lucien and he stumbled to stand.
“Max?”
Max rounded on him. “Jesus, kid, you dragged me halfway across the country because you wanted to cross some old man off a list. Don’t start in on the hurt lover routine.”
“I won’t have it,” Bryce said. Then he shouted it over the buzz in Lucien’s ears. “I. Won’t. Have. It.”
Bryce grabbed the nearest thing, the mug full of coffee, and he threw it at Max, who took the brunt of the hit to the side of his head. Lucien stared in horror, at blood, at coffee, at Bryce like some kind of demented demon shouting at Max and beating on him.
“He loves you, can’t you see that?” Bryce was shouting so loud, and the woman from reception came to the door.
“Call 999,” Max shouted. He was stumbling back, taking every single one of Bryce’s punches, absorbing every curse and moment of pain, and Lucien realized what he was doing, pulling Bryce away from Lucien.
“No,” he said into the chaos. “No!” He stepped into the melee and grabbed at the first thing he could reach—Bryce’s arm.
