by Maria Luis
“The mobile,” I say.
He drops the burner phone into my waiting hand. “I’ve already inputted the director for you.”
Self-doubt is a sword cutting me at my knees. “And if she doesn’t recognize who’s ringing her?”
“The call’s programmed to come from your number.”
Nodding, I skim my palms down over the fabric of my skirt. It doesn’t ease the throbbing in my temples or the ridiculous pounding of my heart. I force myself to step back, to step toward the winding front drive of Broadmoor when all I want is to crawl back into the passenger seat of Damien’s car and bury my head between my knees.
Broken, but never defeated.
“Rowena.”
I glance back over my shoulder at the solitary figure standing beside the car. His legs are long, his arms thickly muscled, but his eyes . . . They hunt me, even now. Chase me, as if I’ll disappear at any moment and it’s his very last chance to keep me with him.
“Have no mercy.”
The words drive a shiver down my spine.
With a small dip of my chin, I turn for Broadmoor Hospital and shove my shoulders back. Young Rowena, how we meet again. My lips curve with a smile that’s only skin-deep. Though I’m not nearly the vision that I was, before the fire, I saunter toward those double doors like my life depends on it.
No, not your life—Damien’s.
Just inside the front doors, a guard rests on a plastic chair, his legs sprawled, his head tipped back with a heavy snore that echoes in the hall. I tap his booted foot with my pump then make sure to keep my distance when he scrambles awake.
Muttering under his breath, he shoves himself to his feet. “Visiting hours aren’t until half past,” he grunts. Sleepy brown eyes peer down at me through a tangle of blond hair. “You’ll have to wait.”
“That’s not possible.” I smile, wide. The smile of a woman who flits from man to man, feckless and naïve. “You see, I’m here to collect someone for my father and, oh, he’ll be so furious with me if I don’t pull through.” I lean forward to whisper, “We aren’t on the best of terms.”
Like a dog being led to table scraps, his gaze drops to my breasts and stays there. “I don’t think”—he visibly swallows—“or rather, we really aren’t meant to allow anyone inside right now. There are checks we do. Daily checks. In”—he makes an exaggerated show of checking his wristwatch—“seven minutes.”
My eyes go big, apologetic. “And here I am just taking up your time when you’ve so much to do.” I cast a glance down the empty corridor. “Is there a front desk monitor? You could just point me in the right direction . . .”
He wavers, literally.
Reed-thin body swaying left, toward the hall, while his hands shove deep into his trouser pockets. Skating a drive-by peek at my chest, he looks to the double doors, clearly deliberating, before motioning for me to pass him by with a quiet puff of air filling his cheeks.
Victory.
“Mary won’t like this, you know.” When those brown eyes swing my way again, he doesn’t even pretend that he’s not blatantly staring at my cleavage. “She’s particular about the rules around here. And an angry Mary means hell for the rest of us.”
“Are you saying that you can’t handle a woman who knows her own mind?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman who has one.”
Keep smiling, Rowan. Do not skewer him.
Easier said than done when he cuts around the next corner, waves a dismissive arm toward me, and introduces me as, “Mary, this one here says she’s on an errand for her old man. Wouldn’t shut up about it, and I knew you’d be just the one to put her in her place.” Dark brown eyes peel away from the infamous Mary to focus on me. “Who’s your father anyway?”
Through gritted teeth, I manage, “The prime minister.”
Color spears his cheeks. “Right-o, then.” And with that, he spins away and scurries back down the hall like the vermin he is.
Refusing to appear rattled—or annoyed—I plaster a pretty smile on my lips.
I’ve played this game a thousand times over in the past: well-timed fawning, the always necessary simpering that manages to degrade my own achievements while stroking my opponent’s ego. It’s a role that I slip into all too easily as I turn to find Mary sitting like a queen behind her desk.
Slick-backed hair, tidy outfit, prim glasses that sit on the bridge of a perfect nose. Clasping her fingers together, Mary presses her wrists to the empty space beside her computer keyboard while bringing her pointed gaze down on me like the sharpened blade of a guillotine lowering to sever its next victim. “What’s the prime minister’s daughter doing in Broadmoor Hospital?”
The fact that she recognizes me isn’t the least bit surprising. Once upon a time, my face was plastered on every magazine cover along with Father’s. And Mary doesn’t look like the sort of person who ever forgets a face, never mind the fact that she’s surrounded by hundreds of them daily.
Without waiting for an invitation, I take the vacant chair opposite her.
Mirroring her pose, I cross one leg over the other and turn myself at an angle to lean my wrists on the desk. “Truthfully,” I murmur with sunshine cheerfulness, “I couldn’t tell you the specifics—my father rarely tells me his secrets. But when he barks out an order, I always hop to obey.” I sweep a pointed glance over the cramped office behind her. “Isn’t that the way of things, though?”
Her narrowed gaze doesn’t falter. “I’m not sure what you mean, Miss Carrigan.”
My smile says of course you do. My next statement, however, is carefully bland: “A woman like you maintaining order in a place like this?” I lift my shoulder in a delicate shrug. “You’re so lucky to have someone like Kathryn as Broadmoor’s director. I’m sure she appreciates everything you do.” More so than my father does for me goes unspoken.
It’s enough gentle praise that Mary perks up in her seat. “She does. Mrs. Levell does, I mean. Do you know her well?”
Not anymore.
I left this world behind without a single regret. Grasped the tattered shell of my life and rose to stand on my own, breaking and molding my spine until the woman who peered back at me in the mirror recognized only one strength: complete and utter independence.
Smoothing a palm over the desk, I deliberately keep my tone blasé when I murmur, “We’ve crossed paths over the years.” A small pause, and then, “I hope you can understand that I’m working with a time sensitive matter. My father”—I tip my wrist over in a motion that’s synonymous with what can you do?—“is adamant that I bring him Robert Guthram.”
Mary’s chin jerks back. “Guthram? But the man . . . the man’s been here for nearly ten years!”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I lift both hands, palms to the ceiling. Helpless. Ignorant. Break for me, Mary. “Honestly, sending me of all people screams desperation—I mean, the man could be downright mad. I’ve only my driver out front to make sure that I get back to London in one piece.”
“He’s not . . . that is to say, Mr. Guthram is a special case.”
Bloody hell. Special how?
“And it doesn’t matter, anyway,” Mary continues, “because you aren’t authorized to take him from Broadmoor.”
Sending up a little prayer of hope, I sink one hand into my handbag and grab the burner phone. Place it flat on the desk like a bomb ready to explode. “I’ll ring Kathryn if you need the reassurance.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s—”
“But I can promise you that the prime minister is very thorough. He wouldn’t send me here only to have me return empty-handed.”
Her gaze swings from my face to the computer. “His son is his legal executor. Marcus Guthram is the commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, you know.” When I only smile at her, patient to the bone, she worries the keyboard’s wire. “Let me just . . .”
Unease swims in my gut.
Forcing my shoulders to remain loose is a burden all on i
ts own, and I fight the urge to peer down at the poppy pinned to my jumper. Is Damien watching us now? Listening? Do not look, Rowan. Do not give yourself away. I’m so close. Mary holds the proverbial keys and—
Sirens the likes of which I’ve never heard erupt over the loudspeakers.
They wail like the banshees of hell, so loud, so piercing, that bile rises in my throat and my palms turn damp with perspiration. Behind me, armed guards take to the hall, marching two in a row. I see their bodies form a line through the blue-tinted lens of Mary’s glasses.
When I sink down into my seat, she sends a disapproving glance my way. “As the prime minister’s daughter, Miss Carrigan, I’m sure you can appreciate our need for caution. It’s routine procedure. No need to look so repulsed.”
It’s not repulsion—it’s bloody fear.
If Broadmoor’s patients require armored guards to watch their every move, I’m terrified to think of what will become of me when I plant myself in the path of Robert Guthram.
“You’re doing a wonderful job here,” is the only reply I can summon when my ears are ringing from the unrelenting sirens. Good God, I’m two seconds away from vomiting all over Mary’s pristine desk. “It’s just . . . inspiring to see such unity nowadays.”
Her stiff nod barely indicates approval.
She taps away, unperturbed by the scene before her, and then her expression twists. Leaning forward with one elbow on the desk, she double-clicks the mouse. “I don’t . . .” Removing her glasses, she uses her shirt to clean the lens before slipping them back onto her face. Whatever she sees on the screen doesn’t change. A moment later, she shifts her surprised stare to me. “You’ve been made Mr. Guthram’s legal executor.”
Oh, Damien, I could kiss you.
“My father, Mary—there’s a reason why he’s been elected PM two terms in a row now. Not a single detail is ever overlooked.”
Begrudgingly, she admits, “Usually there’s a step-by-step patient release process. But”—her jaw clenches—“for the prime minister, I’m sure we can bypass with precautions just this once.”
“You’re an absolute gem.”
Without making further eye contact, she ushers me into a waiting room and lets me know that Robert Guthram will be down shortly. The heavy door slams shut behind her the second that she releases the knob to step back into the hallway.
I don’t allow myself the chance to sink into one of the plush sofas.
Don’t allow myself the luxury of checking Damien’s watch.
My gut tells me that she’s left me in a room decked out with security cameras, and I’d be a fool to give myself away now.
Stay sharp. Stay focused.
Clamping my trembling hands together at the base of my spine, I make a point to pause before each of the paintings that decorate the otherwise blank walls. Five in total. All picturesque landscapes of Berkshire and the towns surrounding Crowthorne and Broadmoor Hospital.
My heart threatens to burst from my chest.
I squeeze my right hand over my left and turn my back toward the closest wall to hide my display of nerves.
Have no mercy.
Damien’s words stay front and center when the door clicks open and swings wide.
And they remain front and center as a tall, middle-aged man steps into the room with his uncuffed hands linked in front of his stomach, as though he’s been instructed to keep them visible. A guard follows directly behind him, looking nearly diminutive behind the lumbering Holyrood agent.
My gaze shifts to a face that may have been classified as handsome before ten years in a psychiatric hospital had its way with him. Impassive dark eyes. Brown hair liberally salted with strands of white that match the growth of his neatly trimmed beard. A flat nose and thin lips, and a scar . . .
It threads through his right eyebrow, splitting the hairs and stretching toward his hairline. I know that scar but from where? Grasping at the slip of a memory, I try flicking through a mental rolodex of the hundreds of people that I’ve met whilst at Father’s side. But this . . . this doesn’t feel like that. The tug at my conscious feels ancient, like a dream swept under the rug, to be forgotten and dismissed in the light of day.
Then Robert Guthram smiles, and, in my veins, I feel only ice.
He steps forward.
I step back and collide with the wall.
“Miss Carrigan,” the guard starts awkwardly, “this is—”
“Oh, she knows me,” Guthram drawls. “We go back years, don’t we?” His voice rings with mocking chastisement. “How you’ve finally grown up, Little Rowan. Your mum would be so proud.”
Oh, God.
No.
Guthram shrugs off the guard.
Another step deeper into the room.
Then he bends at the waist, a glint of hell flickering in his dark eyes, and for my ears alone, he murmurs, “And here I’d lost hope of your father ever keeping his word. Freedom, at last.”
34
Rowena
Terror grips my lungs.
That face lurking in the shadows.
That scar, blood-stained and stark, against pale skin.
That name . . . his name—
A lie. A sham. A complete and utter fabrication.
A cruel sneer lurks at the corner of Silas Hanover’s mouth. “Nine years and counting,” he hisses, low, “and your old man couldn’t even be bothered to show up after all I did for him. The bloody bastard.” Straightening from his exaggerated bow, he shoves his unshackled hands in front of him again, as though the rules of Broadmoor Hospital have been ingrained in his every movement. Mary said that Robert Guthram was a “special case,” and now I know why: he’s spent ten years in a psychiatric ward when clearly it wasn’t for a diagnosable reason.
The sound of madness is deafening, and Silas Hanover is seething with brittle venom.
“And you . . .” His gaze carves a hardened path from my head down to my pumps. “Still a quiet mouse, are you, Little Rowan? Just like your mum. Except, of course, at the end.” Unflinching, he meets my stare. “Such a shame that she didn’t make it.”
Wrathful words dance across my tongue but none emerge.
This can’t be real.
Silas Hanover cannot be Robert Guthram. A spy for the Crown. Defender of the king. The man who was once best mates with Henry Godwin and a member of Holyrood. The one hope Damien has in making the Met’s police commissioner fall in line.
Hanover’s lips twist to the side and his nostrils flare like he’s inhaled something foul. Leaning forward, he touches a finger to the red poppy brooch pinned to my cardigan. “Love for your king,” he remarks sardonically, “the irony coming from your family. This is too much arse-kissing, even for me.”
And then he rips the brooch free.
Tossing the delicate device up into the air, he catches it in one palm and turns on his heel. Stops only long enough to thrust the brooch at the guard before stepping into the corridor without another backward glance.
He knows I’ll follow him.
I’m frozen against the wall, my heart threatening to clamber from my chest, and he knows I’ll follow him.
Because I’m Rowena Carrigan, the prime minister’s daughter, and Silas Hanover was once a man whose scarred face I saw near nightly as a child. My feet padding down carpeted steps and masculine voices drifting from Father’s study, and always a glimpse between the crack in the open door before Father emerged to march me back up to my bedroom. Another nightmare, another night of the darkness stalking me. And a face that I haven’t seen in twenty years, since the night of the fire that turned my life upside down.
“Miss Carrigan?” The guard tilts his head toward the door. “I’m required to escort you both to the front.”
Run.
Run now.
Except that even if I do, there’s no rewinding the clock. Mary spoke with me; records were altered. And the alleged Robert Guthram was discharged, for better or worse. I sway in place. Fuck me. One word from Hanov
er or any of the staffers to my father about what I’ve done, and I’ll be dangling in the breeze before the end of the week.
Or sooner.
Moving past the guard, I glance at the red poppy brooch clasped in his hand. Hazel eyes peer down at me, and I know—before he even shifts a muscle—that I’m staring at an anti-loyalist. His gaze burns with disgust for my show of silent respect for the fallen king. A muscle tightens in his jaw as he directs his stare to the red poppy.
“Sir, can I have—”
“We don’t wear the likes of this around here,” he mutters, dropping the brooch to the ground. He crushes it with his heavy boot, the silver audibly squealing against the concrete flooring. “Do we, Guthram?”
Whistling, Silas Hanover doesn’t even turn around. “Not a one of us.”
The guard puts a hand on my shoulder to march me down the hall. “Don’t suspect that your father’d much like you wearing a red poppy, anyway, Miss Carrigan. Not after all that business with the Mad Priest and Westminster.”
It takes everything in me not to slam to a stop.
Why would he mention . . .?
Jerking my head up, I demand, “What does a red poppy have to do with the Mad Priest? The man’s an anti-loyalist, same as you.” I pointedly drop my gaze to my torn jumper. “Or have I read the situation wrong?”
“It’s not the same.” The hand on my shoulder tenses. “I can promise you that.”
“Priest is against the royal family, isn’t he?”
“He’s an anarchist,” the guard grunts, “and that’s even worse than those damn royal arse-kissers. It means that he’s unpredictable.” His eyes follow Hanover, who’s taken to peering through the oval-shaped window of every door that he passes. “Is it true what everyone’s saying?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Needing space, I give my arm a sharp pull. “Now let me go or I’ll—”
