There were times in my life when I could have chosen an entirely different path. Sometimes I was aware of the significance of these waypoints. Sometimes I only recognized them later.
I saw this one for what it was.
My life would never be the same after this moment. What I said would affect whom I could trust, whom I could love, whom I could grow old with.
In the end, it was the memory of betrayal that made me choose. Christian had somehow gotten involved in this web of danger and deception. Even though I was still looking forward to (hopefully) shoving his head into a muddy pigsty, I couldn’t stay silent, not if this information meant we could still find Nick’s brother alive.
“The treaty between the Holy Roman Empire, Perpetua, and Drieden delineates that the head of the House is the guardian of the territory.”
Nick regarded me with serious eyes. “The House?”
“Of Laurent,” I clarified.
He tapped the screen without looking at it, seeming to weigh what he should say next, so I decided to help him out. “That would be my grandmother.”
After another moment in which he thought through the ramifications, he said, “Is there any way—”
“No.” I cut him off. “Unless someone was impersonating her or acting without authority, there is no way she wouldn’t know about the existence of Magdalena Energy International, founded in the first year of her reign, thirty-nine years ago.”
Finally, he stood, and gently took me by the shoulders. “You know what this means?”
I nodded. My grandmother, Her Majesty Aurelia Victoria of Drieden, was an embezzler. And someone was committing murder to cover up her crime.
thirty-one
WE KNEW THE WHY. NOW we needed a who.
And we still needed Christian’s phone.
Or some other evidence pointing to someone who had started committing violence to keep my grandmother’s secret.
Nick’s bad mood only seemed to grow as we started ripping open more boxes that Lucy’s capable staff had shipped to Scotland. Since some of Christian’s belongings were familiar to me, I found myself lingering over certain items. Some held memories, while some I wanted to make sure had no hidden significance. One of those was Christian’s black leather-bound calendar.
I traced his handwriting with a delicate fingernail and carefully went over each entry, every appointment.
There were business meetings, visits to his tailor, haircuts penciled in every three weeks. Nothing seemed out of order, but there were some mystery notations I didn’t understand. They could have been nothing, of course, but I reviewed and double-checked them to the best of my ability, to try to glean whether they referred to the mysterious mistress. Or something far more sinister. That’s when I noticed Nick slamming something into a box and the resulting crackle of glass.
“What was that?” I asked, getting up to see what had broken. In the empty cardboard box lay a silver frame, the remaining glass jagged over a snapshot of Christian and me, one of the few that hadn’t been sold to the hundreds of magazines and newspapers that had clamored for exclusive peeks into our so-called storybook romance.
“Was there something that offended you?” I asked. “Perhaps you thought it was a snake and were afraid it might bite you?”
“Perhaps you should get back to mooning over his diary.”
“Mooning?” I echoed in disbelief. Had he really just used that word with me? “I’m trying to find a clue.”
Nick reached into the box, grabbed the snapshot, and shook the glass shards off before handing it to me. “Here. You can kiss it good night.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
He moved on to another box, nearly ripping the entire top off with his bare hands.
“This bothers you, doesn’t it?” I held up the snapshot he was refusing to look at.
“I’m just wondering how you got over your boy toy so fast.”
Not this again. “What’s up with you?”
“And who knows how many of your brother’s friends.”
“Need I remind you that I was the dumped one?”
“So?” Nick snarled at the contents of the box, taking fistfuls of Christian’s clothes and tunneling through them.
“So that means I can do whatever the hell I want,” I told him. “And I certainly don’t have to explain it to you.”
“No, you don’t.” Nick muttered at a pile of Christian’s cashmere socks as if they’d offended him as well.
But somehow that was an unsatisfying answer. So I kept pushing. “And for the last time, stop calling Christian my ‘boy toy.’ ”
“Why? That’s what he was, just a prop, a useless cock to do your bidding.”
“Not that useless,” I retorted with a sharper meaning than I’d intended.
Nick paused. His jaw worked but he didn’t lift his head, which angered me. He didn’t get to poke at me and then ignore me.
“You’re jealous, is that it?”
That did it. Nick lifted an eyebrow at me. “Of what?”
“Christian and me. You keep putting him down for no reason, calling him a boy toy when you have no idea what our relationship was like.” I shook my head. “Maybe I was going to marry him for my own reasons. But it was you who I invited into my bed.”
While he stayed silent, the energy shift was palpable. Finally, he spoke, his voice halting and hoarse. “I’m not jealous of my useless brother. I don’t respect a man who would take and take from a woman, never giving her something worthwhile in return, and then abandon her in front of millions of people.” He stopped and started again. “Maybe the idea of him hurting you pisses me the hell off.”
Well. My heart jumped into my throat. That was an unsettling new perspective. Maybe Nick wasn’t jealous, even though my ego would have loved to believe he was. Maybe there was more to his grumpiness since we’d landed in Scotland.
“Why did you die?” I blurted before I lost my nerve. “Why did you fake your death, I mean.”
His hands stilled over Christian’s carefully rolled silk tie collection. “There has to be a good reason,” I pressed, “or else you’d be at Brisbane Castle now, reacquainting yourself with your extended family and your title.”
Nick stared coldly at the strips of silk in rainbow colors, a contrast to the dark storm cloud reflected on his face. “I can do whatever the hell I want, and I don’t have to explain it to you.”
Okay, this was a topic that was clearly none of my business. Perhaps it was even classified, given what I knew of his employer for the past six years.
But I still felt hurt.
I picked up Christian’s calendar again, intending to continue my examination, but the weight of Nick’s anger was making it difficult for me to turn the pages.
Strange.
Had I ever felt someone else’s emotions before? Had I ever wanted to walk across a room, throw my arms around someone’s waist, and comfort the person? Soothe away the person’s mysterious pain or palpable fear?
Of course, I loved my family. And the friends I had, while few, were true and dear to me.
But I couldn’t remember another person whom I’d felt so connected to, yet so unbearably distant from.
Somehow, I had come to care deeply for Nick Fraser-Campbell. And as I flipped randomly through Christian’s calendar, I realized what I had to explain to him.
“We led separate lives, Christian and me.” My voice sounded hesitant and scratchy in the chilly room. “Before the wedding. There’s really no way around it, I guess. There’s no protocol for a princess and her fiancé to live together, combine households or finances.” I took a shaky breath as I realized the journal had opened to March, the month of our wedding.
Christian had not written anything on the page for our wedding day.
“I expect we would have continued on in the same fashion,” I said. Nick had stopped refilling a box with sweaters and jeans, but his head hung low so I couldn’t see the expression on his face. “We would have
met at dinners, occasionally in the bedroom, at our children’s events. Maybe that qualifies as a boy toy, I don’t know, but he wasn’t my partner. Not in any sense of the word. I chose him because we got along well, our families approved, and he was handsome and charming and good with people.”
He had filled out other dates in the month of March, but not our wedding date. Had he known all along that he wasn’t going to make that appointment? Or was it simply unnecessary? If we never found Christian, maybe I’d never know. But I knew one thing.
I ripped out the month of March and crushed it in my hand.
Nick’s head jerked up at the sound of paper tearing and crunching.
“I won’t do that again,” I said with a clearer, stronger voice. “From now on, any partner I have will be a true partner. In every way.”
I left him in the room and went outside to get some fresh air. I stayed close to the hotel’s door, even though I knew there were probably more eyes on me than I realized. The Scottish wind was cool and dogged, sort of like the man who was driving me crazy inside.
Similarly, the sharp Scottish air did nothing to clear my frustration. We had reached a dead end. After going through Christian’s things, there were no other places to search. No more bread crumbs to follow. If Christian was still alive, it was at the hands of someone who wanted to destroy my country. If he was dead . . .
My heart felt like granite. Then what was this all for?
When I returned to our rooms, I met Max, who was carrying in great plastic sacks of traditional Scottish curry. The smell was sweet and cloying, and after spooning some plain rice onto a plate, I retired to my bedroom.
Nick did not look up when I left.
Their voices carried through the door until late into the night, and they were still talking when I went to sleep. I tuned out their rough English words and found my thoughts drifting home. To Drieden and the people I had known all my life.
Once again, I dreamt of Christian.
In the dark, tunnel walls dripped with foul water.
Christian ran away from me. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t stop when I called his name. Why he didn’t want to be found. I tried ordering him to stop. He didn’t obey.
I tried cajoling; I tried pleading; I tried invoking the law. I tried every feminine wile I knew. He still didn’t stop, didn’t shout back in his charming Scottish brogue.
He kept running; I kept chasing. The headlights of an oncoming train blinded me. I fell to my knees, scraping them in the filth. I couldn’t breathe and I knew time was up. For me. For Christian.
Then suddenly, I heard my name, dragging me out of a tunnel.
“Thea.”
I opened my eyes. The lights were off in my room but there was enough moonlight for me to see that I was on the floor, with Nick kneeling in front of me.
“What happened?” I mumbled, aware of the hairs on my arms standing up. I was ice cold.
“You screamed.”
My fingers brushed the short pile of the carpet under me. “Did I fall out of bed?”
“No.” He paused. “I pulled you out.”
I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, remembering that all I wore was my camisole and underwear. “Why would you do something like that?”
Nick’s voice was gruff, but as matter-of-fact as ever. “You scream. I try to carry you out of places. It’s become our thing.”
I was still drowsy, but what he’d said didn’t make sense. “So why am I on the floor?”
“You kicked me and I had to put you down.”
“You mean you dropped me.”
His hand reached out and caught my chin, as if to examine me for injuries. “I would never.”
I shook my head and chuckled softly, but then I saw his expression.
I would never.
It had sounded like one of his jokes. But what I saw in his eyes was a promise. Something caught in my throat. “Nick.”
“You’re better now?”
I nodded and went to him, the only man I had ever allowed to wrap his arms around me and carry me back to bed.
• • •
WHEN THE BUTTERY SCOTTISH SUNLIGHT brushed my face the next morning, I opened my eyes and realized that I had just enjoyed one of the best night’s sleep I’d had in months. Even with the nightmare, I felt rejuvenated and alert enough without coffee to notice the small changes in the room. Like the indentation in the pillow next to mine.
And the sprig of heather on top of Christian’s journal on the bedside table.
Nick came through the door from the bathroom, wearing shorts and a nondescript gray sweatshirt. His hair was damp, his cheeks flushed under the scruff of his two-day beard.
“Where have you been?”
He seemed surprised by my question. “You’re awake.”
“Is it late?”
“No.”
I slid out of the sheets in my camisole and underwear.
He reached down to the floor where his black sweater lay and handed it to me. “You’re cold,” he said simply. It was true, and I couldn’t help a smile as I slipped the rough wool over my head. It smelled like him, which distracted me.
“I went for a run,” he said suddenly.
The way he said “run” sent a shiver down my neck, as his Scottish burr had been thickening since we’d landed in his native country.
“Looks like a good one,” I said, referencing the sheen on his skin, as I walked toward the en-suite.
“Thea.” My name, sudden and intense. Not Princess.
I stopped in my tracks. “Yes?”
“I grew up in these mountains.” He started to speak in a hurried, uncertain voice. “Spent more time outside than in, exploring, going on adventures, hunting. That was real to me. Not the future that was presented to me at birth, wrapped up in a ribbon.
“Military service is a noble calling,” he continued. “No one batted an eye when I said I wanted to serve. I suspect your brother knows something about the usefulness of that. When I arrived in Afghanistan, I . . .” He paused. “Let’s just say I was very good at my job.”
I waited patiently, ignoring the chill of goose bumps covering my bare legs.
“I was missing in action. That part wasn’t a lie. But when I returned, I was offered a new position within the government. I knew at that point that my father had died, and . . .” He shrugged. “It seemed like a gift. The title suited Christian better, anyway.”
“So you decided to let him have it. To disappear and let him assume the mantle of Duke of Steading.”
Nick hesitated for a half second. “Yes.”
“Did you not think he might need his brother?” I asked softly.
“We were never close.”
“Okay.”
“He was a grown man. I was serving my country.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” The Scot had turned accusatory. And a little defensive, even.
I held his eyes and didn’t back down. “I know something about feeling trapped. About family, and duty. And about wanting to run away.”
We held each other’s gaze and then Nick swallowed hard. “But still you think I should return to Brisbane Castle.”
Suddenly, I was exhausted. Ten minutes into my day and all I wanted to do was crawl back under the warm duvet and sleep for another ten hours. Or force Nick back under the duvet with me. Things were so much simpler when we didn’t have to use words to explain ourselves. “You have to make that decision yourself, Nick.” Then I pushed past him toward the bathroom. I would dress, get coffee, and we would return to Drieden and the castle Nick would lock me up in, even when he wouldn’t subject himself to the same prison.
That was the plan, anyway. Until Max brought the news that changed everything.
thirty-two
THE BODY IN THE PHOTOGRAPH was gruesome. And instantly familiar.
I cried out, a mix of shock and horror. I had fully planned on marrying the man in the photograph, who was now cold and d
ead.
Nick had grabbed the photo as soon as Max brought it in. “How sure are we about this?”
“Our people found it on a secure server outside of Drieden.”
Nick frowned at the photo, showing no signs that he recognized his own brother. “And is anyone taking responsibility?”
Max lifted a thick shoulder. “No. We caught it before it was broadcast. Erased the file.”
“What do you mean, erased it?” I asked. It sounded barbaric. Unfeeling. This was a murdered man. Surely his death deserved some sort of acknowledgment, not erasure. I snatched the photo out of Nick’s hand as if that were going to protect Christian now.
Max looked at Nick, deferring to the breathing Fraser-Campbell heir. “She can have it. It’s fine.”
“Fine?” I grabbed at Nick’s sleeve, demanding that he pay attention to me. “This is not fine. This is your brother. Dead!”
Nick’s eyes were on me. “Which we already knew.”
“No, we did not!” I was fully aware I was reaching hysterical levels, but I didn’t care. “What was all this for, then—what was the search for, what was the . . .” I flung my hand back toward his computer, where we had pulled up the Magdalena Energy files.
And then it hit me.
“You used me.”
Some silent command passed from Nick to Max, who quickly left the room and shut the door behind him with a decisive click. Nick was going to regret sending Max out of the room. Privacy was only going to encourage me.
“You used me to get information on my country. On my own grandmother!” I had given sensitive information to a foreign national, and I’d known he was a spy.
Which made me . . .
A traitor.
“What did the British government want?” I demanded. “How did you know Christian was dead? Did you know about Magdalena Energy? Did you know all those people at the law firm died, too? Has everything you’ve told me been a lie? Was this entire search for Christian all a ruse? Have I been confirming everything you’ve known all along?” Even now, I had to know.
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s not ‘like that’?” I decided to circle back to the most important question. “How did you know Christian was dead?”
The Royal Runaway Page 19
