He said nothing else, but that was because my grandmother had just cursed out Christian Fraser-Campbell. “He’s not worthy of a Sevine woman,” she said, with a glare in my direction. I lifted my hands in innocence. I had made a lot of bad decisions in lovers, but agreeing to marry Christian Fraser-Campbell had been all my perfect big sister’s decision.
“Your Grace,” Konnor addressed my grandmother. “What do you know about all this business that Professor McIntosh was going on about?”
“The Knights Templar, the Masonic societies and the Vatican?” she smirked. “What don’t I know?”
I threw my hands up again and left the room. Konnor had opened this bag of worms. I was going to let him have it.
Chapter Twenty
Over the years, the Convent of Saint Felicitas the Martyr had been used for many purposes. Of course, it had been a convent, but it had also been used a hospital, a training center and, now, under my grandmother’s ownership, it was half an academic center for study and retreat and half a stately and luxurious aristocratic estate.
I was in the chapel, which some Sevine ancestor had turned into a cozy den. The pews and kneelers had been replaced with overstuffed chairs and couches in sumptuous velvet and the walls were draped with rugs and tapestries and, curiously, a mishmash of art, ranging from cubist sketches to sensational almost-nude portraits. Probably a great-great-grandmother had sheltered starving artists in the last century, and I imagined the resident ghosts of medieval nuns had been shocked by the licentiousness of the commune.
The collection of art pieces reminded me of the apartment in Rome, another Sevine family holding. Growing up as a princess, naturally I knew a bit more about the royal side of my lineage. It was part of my education, along with that of my brother and sisters. We had tutors on Driedish history, royal genealogies and, of course, the ever-essential etiquette and protocol rules.
But lounging in the chapel-cum-den in Grandmama Astrid’s Swiss convent and after my second—or was it third?—glass of the exquisite Château Margaux Astrid’s housekeeper had produced for me, I pulled my feet under the Hermès cashmere blanket and began thinking deep thoughts about my Sevine side of the family.
Or as deep as they came after three glasses of wine.
Maybe Astrid was right. There was something in the blood line. Something that made the women in our family different. After my mother’s infidelities and the divorce and the reality shows and tabloids, we—my siblings and I—had become estranged from her. How could we not be? We were princesses (and a prince) of a royal house. We had all the privileges and burdens that came along with that. When my mother threw a metaphorical glass of champagne in the face of the House of Laurent, we had no choice, really.
Years went by, I was a good princess.
Until I wasn’t.
Until I defied the Queen and she taught me that both the privileges and the burdens that came with my birth were only mine because she allowed it.
And now who was I? A princess without a title, sure. A woman with a comfortable amount in Swiss bank accounts, absolutely. I was intensely aware that so many women would love to be in my shoes.
Freedom.
I had it now, didn’t I? Exactly what I thought I had wanted when I demanded to be granted permission to marry Stavros.
But freedom is so very…free. Wild. Uncontainable.
After a lifetime of constraints and rules and dictum, I saw now that maybe freedom didn’t settle on me as comfortably as I’d imagined it would. It was a silk Pucci kaftan after a lifetime of tweed Chanel suits. It was going barefoot on the sands of Bali after only wearing Louboutins on slick marble.
Of course, it was going to take a while for me to get used to the feeling. To the lack of expectations. That was all this was, really. Quite understandable that I was having a hard time saying no to Hugh Konnor and his continued insistence that I stay safe by his side. I had spent nearly twenty-nine years doing exactly that, obeying my Laurent side.
It would take some time to grow into my Sevine side.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. Openly saying, “Fuck you,” to the House of Laurent, to the courtiers and politicians. To not hiding anymore.
Because really, hiding? My last six months of solitude in Northern Italy? Hadn’t that been another concession to the royal princess playbook? To not make a fuss, to hope that people averted their eyes and ignored my indiscretions?
What if…
What if I were more like my mother?
A distinct feeling of discomfort skipped through my veins.
Or maybe that was too much, too soon.
Baby steps, maybe?
And then, as if the universe had heard me…and then laughed…who came stumbling into the room but Hugh Konnor.
“There you are,” he said, pulling his head back as if he was seeing me for the first time in ages. Giving me a look that a man does right before he says something like, “Done something new with your hair?”
Except he didn’t say that. Hugh Konnor would never not notice a change in me. He noticed everything, didn’t he? If I darted my eyes, if I shifted my weight. I had always felt like a pinned butterfly specimen when he was around. As if I was only there for him to study. To amuse him.
The thought was arousing in a sneaky way. I always thought I hated the idea of being pinned in place by Hugh. But then, as the image sat with me, as the feeling grew solid, made my limbs loose and languid, I discovered I quite liked it.
It probably was the wine talking.
Liar, the wine said.
He shut the door behind him. “Free at last,” he mumbled, walking with a slight jerkiness toward me.
“Hugh Konnor!” I said in shock. “Are you drunk?”
He collapsed on the other end of the sofa I was curled up on and he seems to give his answer some consideration. “Yes.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Your grandmother has excellent taste in schnapps.”
I lifted my wineglass in a toast. “She has excellent taste in everything. Welcome to Astrid Decht-Sevine’s world.”
“You.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s your world, as well.”
And wasn’t that an echo of my deep thoughts? I shifted uncomfortably, but stopped when Hugh’s hand landed on my ankle.
It was still underneath a blanket, sure, but the weight—the heat—of his hand sent sparks scurrying up my leg, circling my hips, waist, skittering across my skin.
The image of a pinned butterfly came to mind again.
I did not pull my ankle away.
He rubbed a thumb haphazardly, whether it was against the cashmere of the blanket or against my skin, I didn’t know.
And I didn’t mind.
“Your grandmother is a very smart lady,” he said, his working-class Driedish accent thickening under the influence of excellent schnapps. “She knows the dates this tower was erected, the name of the priest who gave last rites to a king of Jerusalem, the cost of a jug of ale during the French Revolution.” He glared at me. “I see where your sister gets it from.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. He was right. My sister Theodora was a history buff who tended to talk people’s ears off with random Driedish history facts whenever she got nervous. I hadn’t put the connection together with Grandmama Astrid before. Another example of the Sevine bloodline sneaking through the House of Laurent’s walls and gates.
He kept rubbing my ankle, and I remembered the way he had reduced me to a puddle of suds and steam with a simple neck massage earlier. Experimentally, I stretched out my foot. He wrapped his fingers around it.
On purpose.
Catching me.
My gaze snapped to meet his. Oh yes, he knew exactly what he was doing.
To me.
The thought ignited a long-hidden spark of anger in me.
“That
day in the barn,” I started. “When I was nineteen.”
He froze. Every other time I had brought this up he had avoided the topic. Moved away. But right now he was staying exactly as he was.
I slowly extended my other leg, nudging my left foot against his thick, denim-clad thigh as I picked my words carefully. “Did you know that day? What you had done to me? The spell you had cast over a young girl?”
My question held the edge of resentment I had carried for so long, and I hadn’t meant to say the word: spell. It was too magical, too sweet, for what I had come to understand in the intervening years had been just a simple hormonal reaction. Young pretty female + strong virile male = sexual attraction.
But as I said it now, Hugh didn’t dismiss it. Or mock me.
Instead he started moving his hands deliberately—God, the man was a demon with his hands—circling my toes, stroking my ankles, lightly brushing up my shin.
“I would like to know the same,” he said, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “Whether you knew what you did to me.” He pulled his eyes from my legs to my face.
“I was a child,” I said defensively. “I didn’t know what I was doing. And clearly, you hated me.”
His full lips twisted in a half-smile. “I hated that you were a child. I hated that I would get fired or worse for even thinking of you that way.”
Oh, this was bad. He was halfway drunk. Hell, so was I.
I also carried the Sevine gene for bad-decision making. So anything that happened wouldn’t be entirely my fault. I was simply pre-programmed to slide, nestle down deeper into the burgundy velvet upholstery. “I can’t fire you now,” I breathed.
It was an invitation which Hugh accepted. He stretched and began climbing down the length of the couch, hands skating along the outline of my body, covering me exactly as he had in all those girlish fantasies of what exactly a good bodyguard should do.
He took his thumb and drew my bottom lip, as if it were a precious, fragile jewel. “My lady.” It was the hottest thing he’d ever said to me. Until the next thing. “May I kiss you?”
The sweetness of it melted everything away that wasn’t my essence. I was no longer princess, child, Sevine, Laurent, I was simply Caroline. His lady. I nodded and he pressed his lips against mine.
A fairy-tale kiss. A prince and a princess under a wonderland bower. A moment in time to be treasured in glass, in a museum.
And then, as quick as a flash, it changed.
We changed.
A girl grew up. A man became feral. We clicked. Hormone—chemical—heat—fire.
Roaring in my ears. Hands on skin, ripping blankets, seeking under, over. I clenched at his shoulder, nipped at his ear. He gripped my ass, teased my nipple. Schnapps meets Château Margaux. Proletariat rebellion smashing the castle walls.
Years of pent-up frustration, lust masquerading as hate, it all exploded right then and there. His hands were peeling down my pants, his tongue stroking along my collarbone. I was kneading the back of his head, lifting my hips to assist his efforts to undress me when, distantly, my brain alerted me.
To a rush of cool air. The sound of my name coming from someone who was not the man I was in the process of seducing.
“Caroline!” A pause. “Hugh?”
We froze.
Hugh dipped his head, his weight on top of me still and heavy and beautiful for one more moment, before he said, with both reluctance and obedience in his voice: “Your Highness?”
Chapter Twenty-One
“What the hell are you doing here?!?” I yelled at my older sister, her Most Perfect Royal Highness ever, Princess Theodora of Drieden, as I pulled up my pants.
Because of course. All this time, all these years, she was still cock-blocking me in our grandmother’s house.
For her part, she seemed to be recovering from shellshock, looking at me and then at Hugh’s straight back. He had jumped to attention and faced a corner as he tried to calm down from our super-hot-almost-sex-makeout session that had been so rudely interrupted.
“Excuse me!?” I snapped my fingers at her, and she jerked, as if she was offended by that small act of disrespect. Whatever. What about me? I felt hugely disrespected right now, after her barging in like she had. “What are you doing here?” I repeated slowly and clearly.
Thea seemed to take in the room again, and then she recovered, like Ms. Perfect always did. “Well, hello again, dear Caroline. So lovely to see you, after all these months,” she said pointedly. “I’ve been so worried about you after your husband’s passing.”
I silently called her a very bad word. “Thank you, dear Thea,” I replied, echoing her regal, distant tone and flawless diction. “I did so appreciate your thoughtful notes after I lost said husband.”
She smoothed a hand down the front of her precisely fitted wool jersey dress. Theodora of Drieden was always elegant, cool, calm and predictable. I could read her like a book. Even now she was reaching into her formidable royal bag of tricks and was about to play a princess card that was so indisputably well mannered that no one could possibly find fault with her.
“It is good to see you,” she said. “Even while you’re putting the moves on my bodyguard.”
Oh. Kill. Me. Now.
Where was a good Swiss sinkhole to swallow you up when you needed one?
I bit my lip and tried my hardest not to look at Hugh. Or Thea. Or anywhere except the portrait hanging above Thea’s left shoulder. There. If I concentrated hard enough, I’d be able to get through the supreme awkwardness of this night.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, once I had regained my composure. “Did Konnor call you?”
“It’s Konnor now?” she murmured.
“No.” That was Hugh, now turned and transformed back into stern bodyguard mode. There was no trace of the passionate man who had kissed me so recklessly just a few minutes before. “I didn’t call her,” he said, looking only at me, which made my heart leap awkwardly into my throat. Yeah. I wasn’t sure how to handle this situation at all. I focused back on the portrait behind Thea, of a woman. Mid- to late-sixteenth century, from the dress. Pale skinned, honey brown hair pulled back and adorned with a coronet of pearls and rubies, sitting in a salon of some sort. I had no idea who she was or why she was hanging up here in the tower. Did they run out of room in the official gallery? Was this a punishment of some kind? Had she been a particularly nasty mother-in-law?
The artist had painted her coat of arms behind her—this I did recognize—the Sevine coat of arms. It was on my mother’s formal stationery, had probably been on other items in our house while I was growing up, and it was everywhere here, too.
So of course I knew it, the quartered shield featuring a cross and a fox and leaves of laurel. But my royal tutors had always focused on our Laurent heraldry, impressing upon us those symbols and consigning the Sevine insignia to the forgotten corners of my mother’s inheritance.
That was why I had never spent a single moment thinking about the significance of the fourth quarter of the Sevine shield. I had never wondered what that bold horizontal diamond meant, or why there were gold rays extending from only the bottom half of the design.
Hugh reached out and steadied me with one hand on my waist. “Caroline? Are you okay?”
Thea turned to Hugh. “And what a surprise to find you here. Especially as you haven’t checked in in several weeks.”
“Do you have any updates for me?”
He glanced at me again. “Possibly.” He seemed to hesitate for a second before saying to my sister, “Actually, if you could give Lady Caroline and me a chance to finish our conversation. I can brief you afterward.”
“No,” I said suddenly. I was aware of both of them turning to me in surprise, but I could only stare at the portrait.
When I studied art history, professors had remarked how I saw paintings diffe
rently. I would comment on the obscure parts, or a technique or some significance that few others pulled out.
And now, it would seem, I had done it again.
“I have to go,” I mumbled as I broke from Hugh’s grasp and went to find dear old Grandmama.
When I entered the main hall my attention was caught by the Sevine coat of arms etched into the stone floor. Then, by the tapestry hanging high on the wall opposite the door, where an older version of the same insignia was embroidered in gold and red.
All those horizontal diamonds. All hiding in plain sight. It seemed bold, daring, reckless, even.
It was the Sevine way, I guessed.
The handsome Ravi showed me back to Grandmama’s practice room, as she called it. There were two fencers in the middle of the piste, their epees flashing like Christmas tinsel. Upon our entrance, they paused and one pushed back their mask. It was Grandmama, wearing sporty eyeglasses. “Caroline, what an inconvenient time to visit.”
“You lied to me.”
She showed no response to my accusation other than to shrug. “No matter, I’m losing terribly. Now I have an excuse to defer this game to another time.” Her partner took off his helmet and ran a hand through his sweaty dark hair. Like Ravi, he was an exceptionally handsome man. Clearly, my grandmama had refined and specific tastes.
After the two men left us alone, Grandmama went to a nearby table and poured from an insulated pot. “Herbal tea?” she asked, and I declined. Still, she poured two cups.
“You haven’t asked me why I’ve come,” I observed as she took a sip of tea. I didn’t wait for a further response. “It’s about Vox Umbra. You’re connected to it somehow. And Christian. He has a tattoo of something in your own crest and you lied to me about it.”
“Darling, we were in the middle of a conference call.”
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