by Lili Valente
“You don’t look sleepy,” I say grumpily.
“And you don’t look cranky, but…here we are.”
“If I were a hobbit, I’d run mad,” I say, not bothering to contradict her. I am cranky. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this turned on by a woman, or had a woman seem so “take it or leave it” about me. Sure, she propositioned me while she had a fever, but since her fever broke, Lizzy seems more than capable of resisting my charms. “And how can you say that?” I continue, grumpier still.
“Say what?” she asks, her attention on her work.
“What you just said. How can you doubt that this woman exists and still believe in her prophecies at the same time?”
“Easily. People are excellent at contradicting themselves. As a species, it’s one of the things we’re best at—believing one thing while holding a completely contradictory opinion at the same time. So which part of being a hobbit would drive you crazy? Your feet being so large in proportion to the rest of your body?”
“No,” I say, my grip tightening on the wheel.
“The public drunkenness? You don’t seem like you’re into public drunkenness. Or private drunkenness. Do you drink?”
“Not often, no.”
“You don’t like feeling out of control,” she says, humming knowingly. Irritatingly. “And that’s what you would hate about being a hobbit. Being small and humble and not in charge.”
“They’re at a physical and cultural disadvantage to the other species in the stories,” I say, troubled by how accurately she’s read me without looking up from her work. “They can’t help being vulnerable, but they are, and given my druthers, I’d rather not be.”
She giggles. “Your druthers… You’re adorable.”
My chest warms, and the grumpy knot in my gut softens.
“Seriously? Who says things like that?” She chuckles softly. “Were all your tutors two-hundred-year-old British men?”
“Some of them were two-hundred-year-old British women,” I say, sneaking peeks at her smile as we hit a relatively straight patch of road. “We also had a twenty-something computer nerd from the Netherlands and a prize-winning fiction writer from Germany who taught the fundamentals of storytelling. But he didn’t last long.”
“Couldn’t stay on task?”
“Kept sleeping with the staff. All the staff—the maids, my mother’s personal secretary, my grandfather’s butler, Nick’s favorite horse.”
Laughing, she looks up with a mix of amusement and horror. “Oh, no, he didn’t. Tell me he didn’t sleep with the poor horse.”
“He didn’t sleep with the horse,” I say, then amend with a wince, “Probably didn’t sleep with the horse. We did find them curled up together in her stall one morning, but the general consensus was that he was too drunk to make it back to the main house after hitting the clubs and passed out there with no damage done. He was let go not long after, though, and his next book featured a man forced to tutor three spoiled little boys, who falls in love with a magnificent white stallion, so…”
Her jaw drops. “The Bleeding Year? Oh my God, I had no idea it was about you and your brothers.” Her nose wrinkles. “And your brother’s poor horse.”
“According to literary critics, the horse is a symbol of his frustrated masculinity.”
Lizzy’s lips purse. “Sounds to me like he could have afforded to be a little more frustrated.” She shakes her head with another soft laugh. “But honestly, these sorts of stories make me feel better. It’s not just my family that’s insane. Mad people are everywhere.”
“Normal, whatever that is, certainly isn’t as common as I assumed as a child,” I agree, studying her profile for a beat. “So, am I forgiven, then?”
“For blackmailing me into this, you mean?” She keeps her gaze on her needle. “Sure.”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“Well, detail work is easier when you’re sitting by a fire with a cup of tea instead of careening around mountain curves, about to pass out from an overdose of anti-nausea medication.”
I frown. “How many did you take?”
“Three,” she says, hurrying on while I’m still sputtering. “I always take three. It’s fine. Don’t fret, General.”
“It’s not fine! You’re supposed to take one every eight hours, and you’ve been ill and on other medications, you don’t know—”
“I know that you wouldn’t want to spend five minutes in a car with me if I weren’t medicated,” she cuts in. “Trust me. It’s like that scene from The Exorcist.”
A graphic—and repulsive—visual from the movie flickers on my mental screen, and I grimace. “I thought you didn’t like movies.”
“I like some movies. That one was okay, considering Zan made me watch it right after I projectile vomited all over her new car on the way back from a stand-up paddle-boarding trip a few years ago. I only took two pills that time. Zan insisted it was dangerous to take three.” She smiles smugly. “Now she knows better than to question my car-sickness management system.”
“How about when you’re driving?” I ask. “Do you still get sick then?”
“Less so, but I still take one pill about twenty minutes before I leave the house. And I can’t sew while I’m behind the wheel, so…” She executes another perfect line of stitches, bringing a tiny leaf into being. “But yes, I forgive you. Your heart is in the right place, I guess. Though…”
“Though what?” I ask, dividing my attention between her face and the road.
She ties off the thread and reaches for the tiny scissors in the bag beside her. “I don’t understand why you’re so…determined to do this. To help me.”
“You’re in pain,” I say. “And you’re my friend. Why wouldn’t I want to help?”
She looks up, meeting my gaze, questions still swirling in her eyes. “That’s kind, but I’m sure you have friends and family and responsibilities you should be taking care of right now. Your brother’s about to become king. You’ll be second in line. Should anything happen to Andrew, you have to be ready to step in at a moment’s notice, right? I imagine there’s a lot of work and preparation that goes into making that happen.”
“There is. But a friend’s life is more important.”
“But you don’t think the curse is real,” she insists as she wraps the corset in tissue paper and tucks it carefully back into her bag. “Which means, if you’re correct, I’ll be fine. I’m not going to placebo effect myself into falling down a flight of stairs. I’m going to be careful. I promise. So, if you’re certain you’re right and there’s nothing to fear, then this quest is nothing but a waste of precious time.”
“You’re more precious than my time,” I say bluntly, refusing to argue with her about this again.
“Am I really, though? When, if you’re correct, all you have to do is wait until December nineteenth and call me up to say me ‘I told you so?’”
I narrow my eyes her way. “Is it your custom to back out of deals after you’ve given your word?”
“Is it your custom to blackmail women into doing what you want and then get cranky when they’re not as happy about it as you’d like?” she shoots back. “And I’m not backing out. I’m giving you a chance to change your mind before we both waste days hunting someone we’re not going to find. Like I said before, if she were still in Rue, I would have run into her. She’s long gone, maybe even dead for all we know.”
“All right,” I say, “I’ll make you a deal. If we can’t find a clue or a trail or something more to go on today, I’ll drive you back to the cabin in the morning and leave you there to sew in peace.”
She crosses her arms and shifts in her seat to face me, clearly suspicious. “That sounds reasonable. What’s the catch?”
“No catch. I’ll keep my word. But if we do find something, you keep yours. No more arguing or trying to back out, and we follow the clues until we get to the bottom of what happened when you were a child.”
She’s q
uiet for a long moment, but when I glance at the passenger’s side, she’s not looking at me. She’s watching the scenery ahead with a faraway expression.
I’m about to ask if she heard me when she says, “What if we do find her?”
“Then you’ll finally have answers. Perspective. And, hopefully, some peace.”
Her brow furrows, but her gaze remains fixed on the road. “Is it crazy that I’m scared? I mean, she’s probably in her sixties or seventies by now, and she wasn’t mean, but…”
I reach out, resting a hand on her thigh and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Of course, it’s okay to be scared.”
“But I’m grown up now.”
“But the girl she frightened is still a part of you, and it’s okay for her to be scared. Just keep reminding her that you’re an adult and you’re going to take care of her. And that I’ll take care of her, too.”
She takes my hand, threading her fingers through mine, and my chest goes tight with longing.
How good would it feel to be just two people who like each other out for a drive on holiday? Looking forward to exploring a new place, sharing a nice dinner, and spending the night in each other’s arms?
What would it be like not to be lying to her right now?
For a moment, I consider confessing what I found last night when I was parked outside the pizza place in Frye, shoplifting their Wi-Fi, but in the end, I trust the voice in my head that says I’ll never get her to cooperate if I tell her everything.
But I can at least tell her something true. “I like you, Elizabeth.”
“I like you, too, I guess,” she grumbles. “A little.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
Her lips twitch at the edges, and she squeezes my hand. “It is.”
14
Elizabeth
I’m a horrible person.
Awful. Selfish. Wretched.
I shouldn’t be encouraging Jeffrey to get attached to me in any way—even as a friend. And I certainly shouldn’t be strolling through the village commons with him, hand in hand like we’re lovers on holiday.
But his fingers feel so good and safe and right threaded through mine.
Every minute we spend wandering around in town there’s a greater risk someone will notice that I’m actually Princess Elizabeth in a wig and run to tattle to my parents. But still, I don’t want our lunch break to end.
“Should we get ice cream?” I nod to my left, away from our hotel and the Jaguar parked in the tiny lot behind it.
“I can’t eat another bite.” Jeffrey’s hand hovers over his still perfectly flat stomach. “I don’t regret that third potato pancake, though. I had no idea Rindish food could be so damned good.”
“It’s the butter. Delia soaks everything in really good butter. I think she even puts it in the lemonade.”
He smiles. “Then I’m glad I stuck to water.” He squeezes my hand. “But I could go for a cup of tea. I heard there’s a good place by the marina.”
I frown. “Really? Where did you hear that?”
“A friend of mine who skis here in the winters. Want to check it out? We could walk. Or drive, if you’d rather. If you’re tired.”
“No, let’s walk,” I say, swinging our joined hands as I pull in a deep breath. “I’m feeling so much better, and it’s only a few kilometers. But I’ll warn you,” I say as we descend the steps at the end of the pedestrian portion of the village, “I’m not sure this tea shop exists. I haven’t been to the marina for years, but the last time I was there, it was all bars and boat rental places. No coffee or tea shops.”
“Well, if there’s nothing there, at least it will be a nice walk. It’s such a pretty day.” He leads the way across the street to the footpath next to the aqueduct, the one that the locals know is the best shortcut to the lake.
But Jeffrey’s not a local…
“How do you know Rue?” I peer at him over the top of my glasses. “Have you been here before?”
“I got online last night and poked around in the maps app. I wanted to get a feel for where you grew up and see if the hotel I wanted to book was walkable from the square.”
I frown. “How did you get online? Were you getting cell service?”
“After you were asleep, I drove to the village and parked outside the restaurant. They have free Wi-Fi.”
“Oh.” For some reason, I’m not liking that revelation. “I had no idea you’d left.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Decided I might as well be productive.”
We walk in silence for a bit, but the nagging feeling near my brain stem won’t go away. Something’s off, but I can’t put my finger on it.
We cross over the bridge that leads down to the lakefront path, where joggers and families on bicycles fight for space against the strolling tourists. For the next kilometer, I’m too busy avoiding eye contact with people I recognize from the market to unravel the knot of uneasiness gathering in my gut.
It isn’t until we climb the wooden steps leading to the marina district that something clicks.
Jeffrey hasn’t looked at his phone since we left the hotel.
Not once.
I’ve been with him the entire time, and I’d been thinking while we ate how nice it was that he kept his phone in his pocket and his focus on the conversation. I don’t have many friends aside from my sisters and Chamomile, but I’ve seen the way most people act in public these days. Every time Sabrina drags me out to a pub or restaurant to escape the madness at home, we’re inevitably the only people not staring at our phones for most of the meal.
But Jeffrey didn’t seem the least bit tempted by his restored connectivity. His focus was on our conversation, meaning he must have mapped out the route to the tea shop last night.
If Jeffrey were a tea aficionado, that might not be that strange—even though we’re here on business, not pleasure—but I know Jeffrey’s tastes by now. He’s a coffee man. If given a choice between a double espresso and a smoky cup of lapsang souchong, he’ll choose the espresso every time. I had to twist his arm to get him to share that pot of mint tea with me.
Which means this little wander might not be as innocent as it appears to be.
He knows you love tea, psycho. He’s probably just being thoughtful and nice.
I want to believe that, I really do. But when Jeffrey turns left at the first side street leading away from the marina proper, headed into an older part of the village where there are more private residences than businesses, the suspicion humming in my bones buzzes louder.
“Are you sure this is the way?” I point to a low, tiny-windowed cottage with a battered wooden sign creaking in front of it. “It’s mostly massage parlors and daycare centers around here. And not the upscale ones. This area isn’t known for being particularly safe. I mean, we’re fine now, but you wouldn’t want to walk alone here after dark.”
Jeffrey frowns. “Which is strange. You’d think historic property so close to the water would have gentrified faster than the rest of the village.”
“It probably would have, but…” I trail off, scanning either side of the narrow road. The sun is shining, and music and laughter drift from the gardens behind the cottages, accompanied by the fragrant smell of Rindish slow-cook stew simmering in a pot somewhere.
There’s a warm, almost cozy energy to the neighborhood, despite the potholes marking the road and the graffiti scrawled on the sidewalk. But I still can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. The sense that something dangerous lies in wait, ready to pounce as soon as I let down my guard.
Trying my best to act like a sane person instead of a paranoid weirdo, I tell Jeffrey, “My grandfather tried to have this area demolished so he could build a hotel on the water. The historical society got an injunction from the court seconds before the bulldozers were set to roll in. He ended up losing face in front of his investors, not to mention thousands of dollars. In revenge, he cut all state-sponsored funding for the restoration of this part of Old Town. It’s been
deteriorating ever since.”
“Even with the transition in power?’ Jeffrey asks.
I nod. “Unfortunately, yes. People hoped things would change with the new government in charge, but there never seems to be enough money to fund projects like this. The castles and tourist-friendly historic properties gobble up all the money first.”
“Is this common knowledge?” Jeffrey asks, slowing his pace.
“Yes.” I shrug. “At least in Rue. We all know we have a historical site we’re obligated by law to protect, but no money for restoration. And the people who live here aren’t the kind most tourists want to run into on holiday. They’re poor and likely to stay that way without help. And sadly, that help doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.”
“I’m sure some people blame your family for that.”
“Some people blame my family for everything,” I agree. “But anyone with sense knows we’re not capable of inflicting further damage at this point. When Rinderland transitioned to democracy, the state seized all the royal family’s assets and property aside from the country estate here in Rue. A few years ago, Parliament offered to restore our castle in exchange for opening it up to visitors, but we didn’t even try to talk my parents into taking the deal. My father can barely stomach Sabrina’s campers on the hillside. If tourists tromped through the ground floor all day long, he’d have a nervous breakdown. And my mother wouldn’t have tolerated the loss of privacy, not when she was certain I’d be sending home money soon…” I sigh, folding my arms over my chest as a cool breeze rushes in from off the lake.
At the intersection, I stop, glancing both ways, and see nothing that looks like a tea shop. On the right sprawl more squat cottages with sunken roofs, and to the left there’s a tiny boy on a faded blue tricycle wheeling in circles in the middle of the dead-end street.
He appears to be all alone, with no one watching over him as he circles round and round, chattering softly to himself.
I shiver, fighting the urge to shout for the boy to be careful. He’s probably perfectly safe. And, even if he’s not, a shouted warning from a stranger would only frighten him. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
