Hugh took a deep breath, not an easy one, either.
“And those police officers down there…” I waved at the ruins. “Are they—”
“Gone,” Hugh bit out. “They were all inside.”
The sky seemed to tilt. Good thing I still had this column to lean on. “This is…”
“War,” Hugh finished, with a grim, gravel edge to his voice.
I saw it all so clearly then.
“I’m an idiot,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?”
I didn’t want to admit out loud that I hadn’t taken Hugh seriously. Okay, yes, he’d said all the words describing how Christian had become a bad guy, but I had still been in my princess bubble. Surely, it wasn’t as bad as he said. Surely, this could all be cleared up with minimal fuss and a polite conversation over a civilized cup of tea.
Clearly, watching my husband die in front of me wasn’t enough to destroy all my illusions of a fairy-tale world.
Now, five of Drieden’s finest had been sacrificed, because I’d been too stupid to listen to a reasonable grown-up.
Just like before.
No, I had to listen to my heart and elope with Stavros.
No, my parents couldn’t just quietly behave and live separate lives.
I was being dragged into some palace craziness again, this time amplified to the nth degree. And I was going right along, surfing on the crest of the wave. Why? Because my sister’s psychopath ex-fiancé was playing dead and had sent me a few emails? Because my so-called first love had shown up and said he had to protect me?
“Caroline?” Hugh reached out, offered a steady hand against my arm.
“Nothing,” I muttered, and pushed away from the column. I knew what I had to do.
“Do you have your phone on you?” I asked Hugh.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “The one you took the card out of? The card you flushed down the toilet?”
“Yes.”
“And what, pray tell, are you going to do with it?”
“I should call my mother. Tell her that her house has burned down.”
Hugh looked concerned. “How? With magic?”
I reached into my bra. “Some call it that.”
Chapter Seventeen
Konnor tried to argue, but he had lost blood, and when I swore on my sister’s tiara that I was taking him to my family for medical care, he finally gave me the car keys.
The trip should have taken six hours, but we were there in five. I had been married to a race car driver, after all. I knew how to drive fast.
Konnor passed out outside of Florence and woke up about an hour inside the Swiss border.
“I thought you said we were going to your family.”
“We are,” I said vaguely.
“Are we driving all the way to Drieden, or do you have a plan?”
I avoided his question. “You need a doctor. Someplace safe. We’re going to deal with that first.”
In the loggia at my mother’s smoking villa, I had realized that I had lost my way. The path that I had started on after the death of my husband had veered off on to a dangerous detour.
I had opted out of the crazy life of a European royal. I had purposely decided to live a private, paparazzi-free existence. But somehow, they had dragged me back in. And once again, people had died.
After I had arranged for medical care for Hugh, in a secure location, I was opting out again.
This time for good.
But all of it hinged on being received at the compound I was now pulling up to, high in the Alps.
Part castle, part fortress, the stone edifice was bleak and chilling even against the landscape of snow-covered mountains. At first glance, the iron gates were old and rusted, but I knew that they were probably equipped with the most up-to-date technology and reinforced with modern materials.
Konnor peered up at the imposing walls looming over the valley. “Are you sure this is a safe enough place?”
I only made a hmph sound before I rolled down the window and pressed a button on the discreet box at the gate.
Beep. The box chirped. There was a long moment before someone answered with “Hello?”
I swallowed hard, resolving to ignore Konnor’s wise-ass remark that was sure to come after what I would say next.
“I’m seeking sanctuary for two people.”
“Are we hunchbacks?” Konnor muttered.
The box asked, “Your name?”
I paused, discomfited. It should be so simple, really. A name is given to a child at birth. Maybe it morphs into a nickname. Possibly a woman will adopt a husband’s surname. But it doesn’t have to happen. Generally, your name is your name. Finis. The End.
Except I wasn’t sure of what my name was. Not this year, certainly not today.
Finally, and before I could respond, the speaker clicked on.
“Greetings are extended to Caroline Aurelia Marie of the House of Sevine. You may enter.”
There was a loud buzz and a clack and the gates rolled open.
“House of Sevine?” Konnor asked, his voice low from exhaustion or caution or both. “Don’t they mean House of Laurent?”
“No, they don’t,” I said as I pulled the car slowly through the gates and up the last bit of the winding, narrow drive.
A beat. “Where are we?” Another beat. “And don’t say Switzerland.”
“This is the former Convent of St Felicitas the Martyr.”
Konnor sighed and rested his head back on the headrest. “Of course it is.”
I ignored him.
“Is there an oil well behind the castle?” he asked.
Poor man. He had been shot not eight hours ago. He didn’t know what he was talking about. “It’s not a convent now,” I explained, in case he had some sort of confusion about that. “It was converted into a private property in the early nineteenth century.”
“You really know your real estate.”
“I guess it runs in the family.” I paused. “Look, we needed a safe, quiet place to get you looked at. This was the most secure location I knew of within a day’s drive.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Konnor staring at me. “Why do I feel like this is a trap?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know.” It was an honest answer. “I can’t pretend to know how or why you think in the twisted ways you do.”
“Who owns the convent now?” Konnor asked, with resignation in his tone.
I bit my lip. “My grandmother.”
Konnor jerked himself upright. “What?”
“Not her,” I said. “The other one.”
My maternal grandmother greeted me in a costume that brought to mind medieval knights. A loose tunic, wide-legged pants, a brown leather corset belt and a sword strapped to her back.
Yes, I said sword.
She was as tall and fit as she had ever been, her skin tawny from outdoor exercise and fresh mountain air and her lush snow-white curls piled up in a regal knot on the top of her head.
“Caroline!” she shouted with a smile, before noticing Konnor limping in behind me. “Your guest?”
“Needs medical attention, as quickly as possible, please.”
Lady Astrid Decht-Sevine, the Dowager Duchess of Aronberg, strode directly to Konnor’s side and called a name. “Fetch the doctor, if you will.” She peered into Konnor’s chalky face, and then to his shirt, where a dried-blood stain was once again glistening. “A hunting accident, I presume?”
Konnor’s mouth slid slyly. “Sure.”
Astrid barked a laugh. “Good man. We’ll get you patched up in no time.”
Sure enough, a man in thick glasses and a very practical navy sweater came rushing into the entryway, followed by two younger men in what might have been some sort of martial arts uniform.
Astrid instructed them to examine the guest and then paused. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“No, you didn’t,” Hugh replied.
Astrid blinked and smiled faintly. “If you are staying in my fortress, I’ll have your name.”
“I’m in your granddaughter’s service. Isn’t that enough?”
My grandmother thought it over briefly then nodded and waved off the men. One reached to help Konnor, but he looked at me instead, his feet seeming to plant themselves into the centuries’ old stone floor. “Don’t go anywhere.”
I opened my mouth and shut it without promising anything. Konnor’s lips tightened in a tense line and then he turned, to follow the doctor and his assistants.
Astrid waited until they were gone before she faced me again, a bemused expression on her face. “I expect you’ll tell me everything?”
I grimaced and said, “I’ll need a shower first.”
“Excellent,” Astrid said. “Ravi!” she shouted at an incredibly handsome man with jet-black hair standing by the door. “Show my granddaughter to her rooms.” She lifted a dramatic eyebrow. “The suite in the tower should do nicely.”
I dutifully followed Ravi through a side door but then stopped and spun on my heel. “Oh, and, Grandmother?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Will you do me a favor and call my mother to tell her that her villa in Tuscany was bombed?”
Astrid’s brows clicked together. “Oh God. Which one?”
“She has more than one villa in Tuscany?”
Dear Grandmama simply shrugged. “At the prices these days, it’s only smart to stock up.” Her lips pursed. “In case one gets bombed.”
From the outside, the Convent of Saint Felicitas the Martyr seemed cold and forbidding. But inside…the guest quarters were warm and luxurious. The suite that Ravi had brought me to was as elegantly and comfortably appointed as any presidential (or monarch’s) suite at the finest hotels around the world. I was up to my chin in a giant porcelain tub of scalding-hot water. Steam had condensed across the marble floors and the gilt-framed mirrors and fogged up the air, creating an otherworldly, relaxing atmosphere that I desperately needed after the past few days of running from vague threats of violence and then, the real deal.
I closed my eyes and tried to forget, for just a few moments, the hellish scene at (one of) my mother’s villa(s). I tried to tell myself that I was back on track. That after a brief pit stop at my grandmother’s isolated Alpine convent-fortress (what—doesn’t everyone’s granny have one of those?) that I would be able to fade back into obscurity. Back to privacy. Independence.
“You’re using up all the hot water.”
I gasped, startled out of my skin, nearly jumping out of the tub. Water sloshed on to the floor.
“Stop sneaking up on me!” I cried through gritted teeth. Seriously. Hugh Konnor was built like an ox but snuck around as quiet as a house cat. How did he do that!? Through the steam cloud, I saw his large figure enter the bathroom. Then he closed the door behind him.
“Why are you in here?” I shifted in the bath, but I didn’t think he could see anything. I’d left only a candle burning and it would be hard to make out anything more than my outline in the water, with the candlelight and steam in the air.
“I had to see you. Make sure you were secure.” He leaned against the wall, and did I detect a note of exhaustion in his voice? He had been shot, I had made him travel half a day to get to a place where I felt comfortable. Guiltily, I asked, “Did the doctor examine you? Are you okay?”
“He did,” Konnor said. “I am.”
“I’m glad,” I said, because I was. I really was.
If something had happened to him…the thought of it…And just like that, a wave of overpowering emotion knocked me over. I started to cry, for no good reason. “Oh fuck.” I heaved and pulled my knees to my chest. It felt necessary to cry, vital to let out…whatever this was.
It was because of me. Stavros. Hugh. Those burly blond men bearing sidearms and creeping into my mother’s house. Hell, even Sergei wouldn’t have been in that loggia if it hadn’t been for Christian trying to contact me.
They were hurt because of me.
Sobs wracked me. I curled my head into my arms, resting them on top of my knees. My own little sweat lodge, wrenching every useless emotion out of me. The exhaustion, the confusion, the elation, the suspicion.
“Caroline…” His voice was nearer. I looked up and saw that he had approached the tub. “It wasn’t because of you.” Had I said something out loud?
“You had a bullet in you,” I hiccupped.
“Look.”
I looked. Big mistake.
He had unbuttoned his shirt. A bandage covered his lower side, right where a crest of muscle crossed over his left hip. I saw a bloodstain.
“It passed right through,” he said, like that was going to reassure me.
Yeah, no. That didn’t.
I went faint, and since I was in the bath it might have been fine, but Hugh swore and jumped, his palms catching my head as my face splashed into the water.
He lifted my face, cradled in his strong palms. “You’re really not good with blood, are you?”
“I just don’t like seeing it,” I said, which caused him to chuckle.
Fingers caressed along my cheek, back behind my ears. Gently. I leaned into his palm, the sweet dampness of his skin cool on my flushed face.
“I’m glad you’re okay…” I murmured, another sob tearing through my throat as I said the words. If anything had happened to him because of me…
I couldn’t finish the thought.
“Caroline…” My name between us. My real name. Maybe the only true thing we’d ever share. He hushed me, stroked my hair. Hands moved to my neck, my shoulders, rubbing, teasing the tension out of my muscles in strong, long strokes.
Slowly, my tears subsided. But he didn’t stop. Kneading the line along the top of my shoulder, drawing a thumb along the curl of my spine. I started moving with him, subtly indicating where he could press harder, deeper.
I let out a soft moan.
He stopped. His voice seemed to cloak me like the cooling steam. “I can’t let you go,” he said, all arrogant authority.
I dropped my head further into my arms, stretching out the back of my neck, before lifting my suddenly exhausted head. “Do you know why I dropped out of sight, after Stavros died?”
“No.”
“I didn’t want my life anymore. I knew what they would do to me. I’d be recast into a tragic figure. I saw what they’ve done with Mother. The press, the drama, the never-ending circus of it all. I didn’t want to be that princess.”
Silence from the strong silent type behind me. Go figure.
I continued. “I don’t want whatever is going on with you and Christian either. It’s not my business, it’s not my…” I faltered over the word. “War,” I finished, using the word he had used earlier. “There’s no good ending to me staying involved in this melodrama.”
Finally, after one last touch that might have been an afterthought, he said, “Finally. One thing we agree on.”
Chapter Eighteen
I found my grandmother in her library, surrounded by research and folders of every kind. Maps hung all over the walls, ancient cartography symbols mixed with modern satellite imagery.
She looked up when I knocked a massive carved bookcase. “Ah, Caroline. Settled, are you?”
“Yes, thank you. For making room for me—”
“And your servant.”
“Yes. My…friend.”
Astrid gave me a knowing look, tossed a pen on to her desk and settled back into her oversize leather chair. “I presume there must be something highly unusual going on to make you emerge from your hiding spot and return to your people.”
“Oh, no.�
� I shook my head. “I haven’t returned to anything. In fact, as soon as I take care of a few things, I will be returning to my hiding spot.”
“Really?” She smirked. “Which one?”
I shifted my weight from side to side. No one knew better than my grandmother Astrid about a Sevine women’s hidey-holes. She had led by example—wresting this convent nearly forty years ago from her brother’s inheritance (a story that was nearly legendary in high-flying European nobility circles) and collecting other, less notable properties as well. And I’d sought her advice years before when I started investigating discreet, efficient ways to invest in real estate.
“Sit, Caroline.” She indicated the chair on the other side of the messy desk. “And tell Grandmama everything.”
I sat and then began to pick my way carefully through the story. “I’m not really sure where to start,” I began. “And I’m afraid I don’t know all the particulars,” I continued. “But it has to do with Christian Fraser-Campbell.”
Astrid drew back. “That wretched man who abandoned Thea on her wedding day?”
“Yes.”
“And then killed himself, rather than face her?”
“Well…about that. It seemed that perhaps he didn’t. Or perhaps he has a twin or an impersonator who found me and is really quite insistent on meeting with me, for some reason.”
“A twin? An impersonator?” Astrid coughed a laugh. “Darling Caroline, always trying to make excuses for people. A born mediator, that’s what you are. I see what’s happened.”
“I’m glad one of us does.”
“Your other grandmother lost control of a situation.” Glee lit her face. “Aha! You know what they say about the chickens coming home to roost. Aurelia always thought she could manipulate people better than she actually could. She probably tried to buy this man off, make him agree to disappear, rather than continue to shame the royal House of Laurent, and now he’s reneging on the deal.”
It was possible…but based on what Hugh had told me, not probable. But I didn’t want to correct Astrid, since Hugh’s version of events dealt with some very serious treasonous accusations.
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