After Giulia had left the small town where she’d opened a new refuge Toby had waited two miles down the road with a fully equipped truck, his security contingent and a few retired firefighters.
It was almost two hours later before the explosion came, but it looked like Chinese New Year, a burst of light and colour shooting up into the afternoon sky.
The team swung into action. “Nobody’s going to die today,” he told the men in grim promise. “We fight back—not dirty, but clever. Stick to the plan.”
They all nodded. They knew what he wanted them to do, and were ready to meet resistance if necessary. They shoved on their masks and ran in.
And Toby knew there wouldn’t be a fight. The two men sent to set the fire were trapped beneath a beam that had crashed down on them with the first explosion, and were screaming for help.
He sent two experienced men in to check the rest of the place. Then he ran into the back of the building where the walls were beginning to topple, the roof sliding sideways.
The beam that had fallen on them was a supporting one. These two were idiots, not even knowing enough to get out before the explosion. Grimly he shoved a massive broken shard of the beam under the stairs to keep them up until his men cleared the building, and went to work to pull out Dumb and Dumber. He had two, three minutes at the most, before the fire got too close and these dopes would die.
“Hang on, I’ll get you out,” he yelled in English as he used a battery-powered chainsaw to break up the thick slab of wood, so there’d be no sparks. He hoped it wasn’t yet common knowledge that the Prince’s old friend spoke Hellenican Greek like a native.
“Lord Orakis will be furious with us for this,” one of them muttered to the other, in such breathless pain Toby knew he had at least one crushed rib. “But he did tell us to break this beam first!”
Toby tossed aside half the beam. “I won’t be long now,” he said in English.
“What if they don’t get us out before the accelerant in the cellar explodes?” the other panted, ignoring Toby completely. “It can’t be long now.”
Toby tossed aside the second half of the beam. The young guys in his team were working on shoving pieces of steel to keep things up for now. “I’m just about done, so I’ll have you out in time, but thank you for the information,” he said politely in their language, and Orakis’s men gasped.
He checked them for spinal injury, cleared them for movement and carried one out, calling to one of the guys to take the other. Both men were totally silent now, probably weighing up their options to avoid prison time.
Toby and the other firefighter handed Orakis’s men to the paramedics. “Request police surveillance in the hospital for these two. They’re the arsonists. Search them—they may also have evidence that the fire was ordered by Lord Orakis,” he said briefly and, to the beat of cheering townspeople, he ran back in to find the accelerant and other traces of evidence before the building collapsed.
Checking the stairs for signs of hazardous materials before he got the accelerant out, he heard a strained voice from below. “Toby. Toby Winder…”
Toby blinked and yelled, “Max?”
Lia walked past liveried servants, holding the doors open for her, after returning from an afternoon tea for charity. Last night had been a state dinner.
She sighed in relief. She actually had tomorrow off, and she was planning to do some serious sleeping in until Charlie and Jazmine called for their updates.
The King knew about the calls; everyone did. Everyone listened in, wanting to see how things were going.
But, though she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to date. Max was handsome, suave and charming, with a heart as untouched by her as hers was by him. They’d always be friends, but nothing more. Lately she’d had some calls from Georgiou, the son of the Earl of Conroi. He was young and eager, and good-looking in a dark, intense way, and looked at her with restrained hunger. Toby was right—Georgiou did really like her—but all she wanted to do was pat him on the head. He seemed so young.
She headed for her room, intending to ask her maid for a peppermint tea. All the rich cakes and biscuits at the afternoon tea didn’t sit well in her stomach.
A commotion from the eastern wing made her frown. There were people striding back and forth, and people in white coats snapping orders. She looked through the balconies to the front gate; a mass of headlights and flashing lights told her the press was here in force.
“What’s going on?” she asked her security detail, who followed her in silence. When the man and woman refused to answer, she snapped, sick to death of everyone hiding things from her. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask the press outside for news.”
The woman’s jaw tightened, but the man clearly hesitated. She pressed her advantage. “I’m sure King Angelis will be very glad of your discretion when I walk out to the gate and ask one of the press while the cameras are still rolling.”
The woman still didn’t answer, so she turned to the man. He gave a short nod. “Mr Winder was injured in a fire at one of your refuges, Your Highness.”
“Toby,” Lia gasped, turned and ran down the hall.
Several royal staff blocked the way. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but nobody is to enter Mr Winder’s room but medical staff.”
At that, the fury, a low-burning match in her heart, turned to a blaze. She turned to her male security-detail. “Find me an unopened jar of honey, an unopened bottle of pure aloe-juice, Vaseline gauze, bandages, and tape instead of butterfly clips. Now!”
The man, accustomed to the voice of command, turned and ran.
She headed straight for the King’s sitting room. “Let me past,” she snapped to the servants at the doors of King Angelis’s sitting room.
She opened the door to the King’s day room without waiting for them to announce her. The King looked up from the papers he was reading, seeming unperturbed by her entrance. “I gather you’ve discovered the boy’s injury. Sit down, Giulia, and we’ll talk.”
Lia remained standing. “I want you to remove the orders not to let me into Toby’s room, Your Majesty. I know how to treat him.”
The gap between them was evident in the way she’d called him “Your Majesty,” yet the King’s face didn’t harden. “You have to be reasonable, child. How would it look if you—?”
“I don’t care how it looks,” she interrupted brutally. “Make your choice, sire.”
“You won’t call me Theo Angelis now?” His voice and face were sad, old.
Her heart gave an unwilling tug, but she repressed it. He was using her soft heart to get his way. “I can’t love a man forcing me into something that revolts me. Papou would never have hurt me that way.”
“No doubt,” the King sneered. “If you want to see your lover, why don’t you sneak in via the secret passage, as you’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks?”
She maintained her stance in the face of his anger. “I won’t hide our friendship—and I won’t use my royal privilege to keep my dearest friend as my secret lover.”
A wave of colour stained the old man’s face. His jaw jutted.
“I will go to Toby openly to treat his wounds. I don’t care if I have to create a scene or go through the press to do it.”
The King’s jaw worked for a moment. “Fine, put him in danger. It suits me.” He picked up the phone and snapped the order.
Lia turned and walked out without another word. She strode up the stairs, turned right and went into Toby’s wing. The security detail parted this time.
Toby was leaning back on a gurney brought in as medical staff worked on him. He was pale; his shoulder and hands were draped with sterile padding.
“Out,” she snapped at the medical staff, crossing the room to him.
Toby’s eyes opened and he grinned, lifting his brows at her peremptory tone. “Come in, Your Highness.”
The medical staff bowed as they protested, but she’d had it with listening to everyone else. “Don’t patronise
me. I’ve been a princess for four months and a fireman’s sister for ten years. I have my advanced First Aid, updated every year, and an EMT certificate. I’ve probably treated almost as many burn injuries on my brother, Toby and other members of his station as you have patients in hospitals.” She moved to the trolley. “Good, Vaseline gauze and bandages. Don’t give him straight penicillin, he’s allergic, and he reacts badly to the antibiotic cream and glucose-based antiseptic. He can only take a broad-based oral antibiotic, which is useless in this case, unless he becomes infected—which he won’t. He never does with my treatment. Now please, everyone, out before someone gives him staph. Leave the trolley.”
Toby grinned again once the door closed behind the multitudes. “Did you mean to turn me on with that tirade? You’re as sexy as sin when you’re giving everyone hell for my sake.”
“I doubt the King agreed when he tried to lock me out of here.” Still feeling the hot blush on her cheeks, she laughed and, after braiding her hair back and washing her hands thoroughly, began opening packets. “When necessity drives, right?”
“Obviously you felt the necessity, or you wouldn’t be starting World War Three for my sake. Think the King will come in, all guns blazing, to see if I can seduce you without my hands?”
Though he was still laughing, she heard the deep thread of pain beneath. “Be quiet and let me see your hands. One of the staff will be back with the aloe and honey soon.” Once she had gloves on, she lifted the sterile covers and inspected his shoulder beneath one of the plastic-backed sterile sheets. “There are some second-degree burns here.” She had to work fast or he’d need those antibiotics by morning. “Did they finish cleaning all the wounds?”
He closed his eyes. “Apart from a few splinters they found in my hands.”
She checked them out. “A few splinters? There’s over two-dozen here.” She took the first six ampoules of saline and ran them under hot water. Water just cooler than lukewarm, she’d learned, helped bring the splinters to the surface on burned skin, and didn’t shock the damaged flesh as much. “So what did you do to get this many?” she asked when she returned with a calmness she’d never really felt in treating Charlie or Toby—but keeping serene helped them to relax.
“Fallen beam on two of Orakis’s goons. I couldn’t get it off them with the gloves on. I burned my shoulder while I was pulling Max out—and my hands burned getting the barrel of flame-accelerant out before it exploded. Then the place started collapsing, and…” He shrugged, and she nodded. She knew the story; she’d heard similar tales over and over in the past ten years.
“Max was there?” she asked, burning with curiosity. “Why? Is he all right?”
“He has concussion, some blurred vision. Luckily he regained consciousness in time to call to me.” Toby’s face showed no expression. “He was there because, like me, he suspected Orakis would torch the place. He saw the goons place the accelerant in the cellar, and they hit him and tied him up. When they tried to run, the supporting beam went, trapping them.”
“Ah.” She grinned at him. “I see I’ve been kept out of the loop with your most recent rounds of dangerous antics, dear friend. If you want these splinters removed with as few ouches as possible, I suggest you expound the tale.”
He grinned; his eyes were so warm she wanted to swim in them. “I think I’ve done it, Giulia. I found proof that Orakis is behind the fire attacks on the buildings we’ve set up for our projects in Hellenia—yours, mine and Charlie’s. I found a barrel full of top-grade accelerant set with a timer in the cellar beside Max. And believe it or not, Orakis’s men kept the written instructions on them. The police have them in custody. They talked about Orakis knowing of the arson before they realised I could speak Hellenican. I told the police the King would have their names and the station in question, in case of any ‘accidental’ escapes.”
Lia blinked. He’d said “I’ve done it” as though he’d been seeking a way to bring Orakis down for a while.
Then her heart filled and overflowed. Of course he had; he wouldn’t allow her life to be dominated by that man. Toby had devoted so many years to her health and happiness, she was amazed she hadn’t realised before that he’d do this—risking his life to free her from any harm or threat was just what he did.
She bent and kissed his cheek, aching to touch him, not as friend or would-be nurse, but as a lover. “Thank you, Toby, thank you.”
But he frowned. “Don’t thank me. I did what I had to do.”
“For me,” she said softly, kissing him full on the lips this time, lingering until his mouth softened and he kissed her back. “Now it’s my turn to help you.”
“How can you still want to kiss me after everything I’ve done to you?” he murmured, filled with self-recrimination. “How can you forgive me for hurting you all those years?”
“Ah, Toby,” she whispered, and the aching intensified to kiss him again. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me—and don’t you know I’d forgive you anything?”
His eyes darkened but, as he was about to speak, a knock came on the door. She called out, her voice wobbly, “Come in.”
Her Secret Service man came in with a large paper bag.
She checked out the contents and smiled. “I can’t believe you actually found Manuka honey, Rob. It’s the purest honey there is, and full of natural antibiotics.”
Rob smiled back, and she knew it was because she’d called him by his name.
“Can you stand at the door and make certain no one comes in? All those people around open wounds is a recipe for infection. Mr Winder’s allergic to penicillin.”
“Certainly, Your Highness.” Rob left the room, closing the door behind him.
Lia opened all the things she’d need, and then washed her hands again. Then she returned to Toby. Seeing his dirty, grimed face, inhaling the pungent smell of smoke, knowing what he’d endured for her sake, she ached and burned with the need to speak, to thank him, to tell him…
What? If she told him how she felt, he’d never leave and a war could start; he could die.
She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, then nodded in silent resolution. After all he’d done for her for so many years right up until today, she owed him so much. She’d give him the words he’d asked for, if nothing else.
I am the most beautiful…
But she choked on them, even in her mind. She’d spent eleven years thinking the worst of her dark looks, her quiet, home-loving personality. But though her long-held habit of silence had been breaking ever since Toby had first kissed her, this was the biggest of them all. Believing in herself after all these years…She realised she’d rather tell him she was hopelessly besotted with her best friend than say words she couldn’t make herself believe.
“How long have you been planning to bring Orakis down?” she asked as she cleaned the burns around the splinters.
“Since you told me you might have to marry him.” He sounded surprised she’d have to ask. “His moves were obvious to a trained fireman, and nobody else seemed to want to take him on. Though Max surprised me,” he added with a grin. “He’s not the pampered nancy boy I thought he was. He can combat-swim, fly a plane and track through a forest without leaving a trace of his presence.”
“I’m sure he can.” All those skills were on her future agenda as well. Lia laughed at his irreverent terminology for the Grand Duke with a closed mouth, to protect his open wounds, and got back to the subject. “You’re crazy, taking on Orakis like that. Does nothing frighten you, Winder?”
She felt his intense blue gaze on her. “The thought of living my life without you terrifies me.”
Her lungs seized up—her heart pounded hard and fast as it always did when he said things like that, making it nearly impossible to speak—but she forced words out. “Me too. I can’t stand to think—” She shook her head. “Now look at me, I’m shaking. I can’t get your splinters out if I’m emotional. So behave.”
“For now,” he said, with quiet intent
. “When you’re done, beloved, you are going to finish that sentence.”
She almost dropped the sterile tweezers.
His eyes met hers, dark, serious. “We’re out of time, Giulia.”
Moved to her soul, she managed to smile at him. “Yes,” she agreed, her voice off-kilter again, so filled with longing he had to know, had to see it.
It took almost an hour to bathe Toby’s hands and remove the splinters from the burned flesh, dress all his wounds and make him comfortable. While she worked, he told her he’d been sure Orakis would overreach himself before long. By making plans that allowed two unimportant minions to die in the fire, by sending in dummies who’d tried to kill the Grand Duke, Orakis had unravelled his own power—or Toby had done so, by the simple act of saving all three men’s lives. Grovellingly grateful to the man who’d saved them, wanting vengeance on Orakis, his minions had agreed to make full confessions in exchange for reduced sentences.
“Even if Orakis gets off, I gave a statement to the press,” he finished, sounding incredibly tired. “Not only has he lost any chance with you, he’s going to lose the King’s silence and the goodwill of the people by torching two refuge centres set up by their beloved princess. Max also made a statement.”
“Orakis ordered the fires, knowing his own people would die.” Lia shuddered in horror as she finished binding his shoulder. She pulled on a clean pair of sterile gloves to rub a mixture of lanolin and aloe into the minor burns. “How could he do that?”
“How anyone else does in the world,” he murmured, breathing deeply, relaxing with the gentle touch of her palms on his skin. “It’s called collateral damage. Sacrifices are required for what they believe is the best thing for the country. They usually don’t require the sacrifice of those who’ll benefit most, though.”
She felt something inside her turn very still and tense. It was as if her whole body was listening to the words Toby hadn’t aimed at her.
A sacrifice for the country. In the King’s eyes, in the eyes of the Lords, she was that. And while she was honoured to be their princess and do what she could for Hellenia, what she was sacrificing was her future happiness, her heart. She had to give up happiness for the sake of birth and blue blood, a centuries-old tradition invented by those in power, and it hadn’t stopped one minute of war.
His Princess in the Making Page 12
