Emma laughed and mussed her friend’s hair. “Have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do...”
“That leaves my options wide, wide open,” she said, holding her thumb and pointer finger up in an “L” shape to her chest. “And just to prove you’re not a complete loser, why don’t you grab that cute prince to take home with you?” Always quick with the joke, that one.
Emma fake-glared at her. “Thanks, but there’s no prince in my future. Though he was pretty easy on the eyes, I will give you that. I’m surprised you didn’t already commandeer that buddy of his.”
“Yeah, well, once I got finished wiping the drool from my chin, unfortunately he’d disappeared.”
“No kidding. I think your river of saliva is coursing its way toward the White House as we speak. Just as the sun sets in the west, I know I can count on you to not miss out on the eye candy, whether he’s a mere bartender or a royal footman,” Emma said, pausing to contemplate the thought. “Is that what you call them? Footmen? Do they do something with their feet, or have a creepy foot fetish? Sort of weird name, isn’t it?”
“Probably more like henchman is my guess. Back in the day his footman would’ve cut off the enemy’s head. Am I right? Ah, well, clearly we weren’t born into that world, so I’m not gonna bother even fantasizing about it, not to mention decipher the terminology.”
“Yep. Besides, imagine how high maintenance a prince would be. Sheesh!” Emma waved her hand as if dismissing a nuisance gnat. “Spot of tea, Mummy? Oh, royal knave, fetch me my slippers! Pip, pip and all that rot,” she said with an exaggerated accent.
The two women practically fell over laughing, until Bartender Ben cleared his throat at an elevated volume, trying to rein in his audience.
“Right, then. Anyhoo...best I can tell, I’ve got no shoots scheduled for the next week, so looks like you can just hole up in the man-cave with Hottie and see where things lead you.”
Caroline’s eyes grew wide and she mouthed “Shut up!” to Emma, then turned back to her hunk du jour.
Emma took a final quick glance around the room as she packed up her camera bag. After working more hours than she cared to count, teetering precariously atop a torturous pair of black stilettos, she wanted nothing more than to peel off her floor-length, black satin sheath, lose the strapless bra that was cutting off the circulation too close to her vital organs for comfort, and tug on her favorite oversized sweatshirt and yoga pants. Then she’d finally pour that very full glass of Chianti she’d been craving, and return to her natural slothdom.
The party was still going strong, but since she was only contracted to do grip-and-grins of Prince Charming, there wasn’t truly a reason to stick around much longer. Hell, she’d likely get pressed into service with the wait staff if she wasn’t careful. Not like she had anyone she could hang around and chat with anyhow, with Caroline being preoccupied. That was the thing about her work world: being a worker bee at the ball wasn’t really much fun, even if the top-tier champagne was flowing freely and the passed canapès probably bore a per-piece price tag that exceeded her daily meal budget.
For Emma, being an outsider at an insider’s party was losing its luster; she was getting old enough to appreciate that it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. Sure, she got to share proximity with some of the world’s elites, but since she wasn’t a member of that rarified universe, it didn’t rank a whole lot higher than being the one polishing the silver at the palace. It wasn’t as if she could chat up the guests, comparing notes on their winter holidays in Aspen, shared vacations on Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson, or summering on Nantucket. The closest Emma got to summering (and when did that become a verb?) — not counting Caroline’s annual skee-ball smackdown on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland, which didn’t quite elevate vacationing to the next level — was escaping to her parents’ beach house in North Carolina.
Okay, she had to clarify this a bit. The Great Hall, as a work venue, on a scale from one to wow, was no doubt a wow. Picture every little girl’s fantasy of taking that Cinderella descent down a grand marble staircase, garbed in a luscious tulle ball gown twinkling with crystal beads, with the man of your dreams (like maybe that Adrian guy) waiting at the bottom to clasp your outstretched hand and pull you into an intimate dance. Throw in that two-story tall Christmas tree, which would put the famed Rockefeller Center version to shame on grandeur alone, and, well, this was where that dream would come to life. That is, if that was the kind of fairy tale you could somehow work out for yourself. Good luck there.
As Emma was working her way toward the coat check, she spied the obnoxious senator pawing at what looked to be a Capitol Hill intern, judging by the badge dangling from her neck. Emma quickly opened up her camera bag, pulled out her camera, and began snapping pictures of the senator in a clinch with the girl, his hand squeezing the young woman’s butt.
“Hey, Senator,” she shouted over the din of the crowd. “Wonder what your constituents would think about you tapping that.”
She moved the camera away from her face and gave him a big thumbs-up as the senator quickly detached himself from the girl, who had to be fifty years his junior.
Gotcha.
With that, camera still slung over her shoulder, she grabbed her coat from the coat checker, handed the girl a buck, and slipped out a side door, never to be missed by those inside. Now to get back to the car, cross the bridge into Virginia, and be home in twenty-five minutes, tops.
Chapter Two
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Adrian was one very ticked-off young man. He paced the floor of the private office-cum-holding room in which he was holed up as if he had somewhere to go. Only he didn’t. Although he might, soon enough, right on down the aisle, what with his mother force-feeding him a heaping helping of Lady Serena Elisabeth Montague, Duchess of Montague, like a fat spoonful of that disgusting, overpriced caviar that girl seemed to be on a steady diet of.
Despite Adrian’s repeated entreaty to the contrary, his mother the queen had deemed Serena to be “ideal marrying material,” via yet another text message to her son, and palace efforts were now under way to ensure the fulfillment of her wishes, regardless that they were in direct conflict with her son’s own desires. Certainly it hadn’t helped that Serena’s mother, Lady Sarah, a close consort of the queen, had been touting the glories of her daughter to his mother for years now.
“Serena Montague.” He growled her name, swatting away his equerry and trusted confidante, Lord Darcy Squires-Thornton. “Despicable would be too generous a word to describe that miserable manipulator. I’d no sooner wed that scheming, conniving—”
“Adrian,” his aide said, stopping him with a hand against his chest and a stern look in his eyes. “The walls have ears.”
Adrian glanced around the room, remembering that there were indeed others nearby whose discretion wasn’t guaranteed. It wasn’t easy always having to worry that what you said could be broadcast publicly and not in a good way. Ridiculous, really. He was starting to feel almost imprisoned in his life of privilege, what with the extreme limitations on his privacy, his freedom, and, point in fact, his choice of life partner. He never chose to be an heir to a dynasty; rather, it was thrust upon him thanks to this outdated primogeniture nonsense. Who was to say he was any more deserving of the throne than his siblings, or even Darcy, for that matter? It all might have made sense a few centuries ago, but now?
He was beginning to wonder if being a relic of days gone by wasn’t more of a strange curiosity that ought to be relegated to sideshow status or somehow set up as a tourist attraction to sustain the royal needs, of which there were plenty.
“Besides which, she’s a complete drunk!” he whispered in his friend’s ear.
“True, but you have to admit it was rather funny when she fell down the grand staircase at your father’s birthday party last month. Without that you’d have been left to listen to a string quartet as your only entertainment.”
Adrian laughed. “Would
have been preferable. And here I thought seeing her tumble head over heels down a flight of steps would have been enough for my mother to finally realize the woman’s a total lush. Instead she bought into the whole excuse about Serena’s blood sugar dropping so quickly, and Mother swoops into care for her. Bah! Maybe if she’d eat a meal once in a while, she wouldn’t be so embarrassingly smashed every time I see her.”
“Obviously, she’s head over heels for you,” Darcy said, smiling. “What better way to prove it to you than quite literally showing you?”
Adrian moved into a smaller office within the confines of the larger one in which he was pacing, seeking a moment’s solace from onlookers. He pulled Darcy close to him.
“I can trust you, no matter what, right?” he asked, his brow knit in concern.
“We’re mates,” Darcy said. “But you already know that!”
“And you don’t want to see me stuck with that witch for the rest of my life, do you?”
“Are you kidding me? I’d practically marry her myself just to spare you,” his friend said. “Although, honestly, I couldn’t be that devoid of self-respect, so sorry, she’s all yours.” He chucked him in the arm, a sign of friendship he could only display amongst their closest of friends lest the “hired help” look like more. That whole propping up the royal stature thing really bugged Adrian, but Darcy didn’t mind at all.
“I need some space, Darcy,” Adrian said. “I need time to think. And maybe to give my mother reason to care more about me as a person rather than a mere branch of the family tree that needs to be spliced together with what she deems to be an appropriate mate. I’m more than a glorified version of one of Mother’s beloved horses, set out to stud to sire racehorse-quality offspring.
“I can’t even stomach the concept of spending the rest of my life with Serena, let alone the reality of it. I’d give up my royal status and take a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s before I submit to my mother’s demands on this one.”
“Would you mind telling me how exactly you’re going to succeed with this? You know your mother always gets what she wants. She’s the queen, for God’s sake.”
“Yes, well, maybe the queen needs to realize her boy is a man now, capable of acting on his own behalf. And I’m going to start that right now.”
“By?”
“By slipping away from here, unannounced. Getting out. Going somewhere. Doing something. For once not being led around with a bit in my mouth and a crop at my flanks. I need to get away, Darcy. And I need it now. I can’t hide in Monaforte. But I can easily get lost in America. Think about it — it’s a brilliant idea. Disappear for a while, see what it’s like to actually live a bit.”
“So you’re running away from home then?”
“Don’t make it sound so childish. It’s nothing of the sort.”
Darcy stood back and stared hard at his friend, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders back, his closely-cropped blond hair in direct contrast with the shiny black waves Adrian sported. He leaned forward and fixed his brown eyes to Adrian’s blue ones.
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“I think it’s the first decision I’ve been serious about my whole life. I’m tired of living the life everyone expects of me. I need to see what it’s like to just be me out there, Darcy. I need you to help me escape. You can hold everyone at bay when they start asking questions. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I swear to you I’ll be safe and I will return, soon. But not before I discover who the hell I really am.”
His friend thought for a few minutes, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, staring off into space,. Finally he looked back at Adrian.
“You really think this is what you should do?”
Adrian nodded his head. “Look, not to slight you, but I don’t think you can totally appreciate where I’m coming from. You’re a marquess. If you decided to quit me, you could go back and lord over your father’s estate and manage the family business. You aren’t stuck as an appendage to the institution of the palace. You aren’t carrying the weight of a country on your shoulders.”
“You know one day I’ll have no choice in that matter,” Darcy said. “Once my father’s gone.” He looked down, hating that idea, since he adored his father.
Adrian waved his hands, dismissing that concern. “Your father’s healthy as a horse. It’ll be years till it’s your problem to deal with.”
“We can only hope,” his friend said. "Though yes, you’re right, I don’t have to partake in the dog and pony show of being the heir to the throne that you’re stuck with. I get that. And you know I’m only here for you because it’s you. We’ve been best friends since we met on the train on the way to boarding school when we were five. Hard to turn down a bloke I’ve known since his voice squeaked like a mouse.”
“At least mine deepened into a man’s voice,” Adrian said, chiding him.
“Oh yeah? You think I still sound like a little girl?” Darcy said, making his voice go as high as possible.
The men laughed.
Darcy shook his head. “This goes against my better judgment. The queen would about kill me if she knew I was going to do this. Make that she would actually kill me. With her bare hands. But your wishes take precedence over hers for me,” Darcy said. “If for no other reason than to spare you a lifetime of high-maintenance, low return-on-investment Serena, I’ll do it.”
Adrian looked puzzled, like he’d just been awarded a huge prize. “You’ll actually go along with this? You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”
“Christ, Ade. You and I practically finish each other’s sentences. I’ve seen what your life is like. I know a lot of it is fun and games, beautiful women, fawning attention, but I also know how much pressure rests on you to always be perfect, to never fail your family, your adoring public, and your family.”
He put air quotes around that “adoring” part.
“Yes, well, I do have a lot of adoring fans,” Adrian said, mocking himself. “What with all those little old grannies who give me crocheted booties, begging me to produce a royal heir.”
“Good lord, the last thing you need right now is a royal heir, particularly minus a royal bride. And I can promise you, Serena is not going to fill that void on my watch.”
Adrian grabbed his friend by the shoulders. “You think we can make this work?”
Darcy buffed his nails on his chest as if showing off his prowess. “Are you kidding? With me as the brains behind this operation?”
“Perfect. Then how are we going to pull this off?”
“We? I thought this was your plan!”
“I don’t have a plan, simply a need. I hadn’t thought through how to implement the thing,” he said. “How about we just work our way out of this holding room and I sneak out some back door, unnoticed. How hard could that be? There must be another way to slip out — maybe an employee entrance?”
Darcy chewed on this idea. He looked over to see a computer on a nearby desk. “Hmmm, let’s see here,” he said, walking over to the computer to see what he could find.
He typed in a bunch of keywords, trying a variety of searchable words until he finally found what he was looking for — a map of the building indicating various exits and detailing all rooms and spaces within.
“So much for national security. You can find pretty much anything on the Internet these days,” Darcy said, shaking his head. “Looks like you can work your way down this back staircase. Along this long corridor there appear to be a series of rooms. One would think there should be an unlocked room or two along there you could pop into to remain undetected, in case a security guard comes down that hallway. If nothing else there’s always the loo.” He pointed to the men’s room sign.
He reached into the breast pocket of his cashmere overcoat.
“Here, take this,” he said. It was his wallet, containing plenty of cash and credit cards.
“These are what you call dollars in America,” he said
with wink as he opened it wide to reveal a thick wad of bills.
“Ha-ha. Very funny. I’m not stupid, you know.”
“So you like to tell me. But it’s not like you’ve been out painting the town red on your own before.”
“I’m not planning to paint anything red, or blue, or purple for that matter. That would draw a bit of attention, don’t you think? Besides which, I’m not Zander.”
Sometimes he wished he could be his brother Alexander, famously known as Zander, last year caught by paparazzi while cavorting naked in a Las Vegas swimming pool with a bevy of equally unclad, very young and very hot women. Seems you could get away with just about anything if weren’t the heir to the throne, and the worst that happened to you was a little tongue-lashing from Mother, once the tabloids had their fill of splashing the overexposing pictures across their front pages. And Zander could hardly have cared less.
Darcy shook his head.
“Just having at it with you, boss. Listen, I’m giving you my credit cards. The cash is from the palace anyhow — it’s what I use as mad money when you need it. I don’t want to give you the palace credit cards as they’d find you immediately if you used them.”
He fumbled around in another pocket.
“Oh, and you’ll want this.” Darcy handed Adrian’s passport to him. “I know you wouldn’t be daft enough to leave the country, but it’s always a good idea to have this on you just in case of an emergency. That way if you have to prove you are the future heir to the throne, maybe they’d actually believe you.
“Right now, I’m going to provide some pass interference for you. I’ll tell the bodyguards that there’s a woman involved and the two of you need some privacy, just to keep them at bay. I’ll escort you to a lavatory and give you a chance to be out of the line of vision for enough time.
At that point, you need to follow this path, and get out fast. Once you’re out, hail a taxi — you do know how to do that, right?”
Something in the Heir (It's Reigning Men, #1) Page 2
