Royal Protocol

by Dana Marton

  She could have beaten her head against the stone wall at the irony. After resenting him from afar for years, in two crazy days she was falling in love with Benedek. The joke was definitely on her. But since the most they were going to find a hundred years from now would be her unidentifiable bones, nobody would be laughing.

  She walked resolutely in the direction she thought the palace was, knowing she could be completely wrong and could be walking the opposite way. From time to time, she stopped to call out a single word, “Benedek!”

  HE HAD EVERY MAN WHO COULD BE spared from the fight at the palace down in the catacombs. Benedek rushed forward with an industrial strength flashlight.

  But as the hours passed, they found nothing.

  “Benedek!”

  He turned to his brother’s voice. “Arpad, what are you doing here?”

  “The palace has been taken back. The Army is securing it. The royal guard said you were down here.”

  “Rayne Williams is lost in the tunnels.”

  “The fires?”

  “All put out. Nothing major.”

  “Structural damage?” he asked, even knowing that it would take a lot to cause true damage to the three-foot-thick solid stone walls of the palace. Still, he felt relief when Arpad shook his head.

  “Rayne Williams’s warning made the difference. The rebels didn’t have the element of surprise on their side. They weren’t able to take up positions before we confronted them.” Miklos’s voice came from somewhere behind Arpad.

  Miklos came into the circle Benedek’s flashlight illuminated, watched him for a second, then flashed him a knowing grin. “We’ll help you find her,” he said.

  “Chasing bad guys and hot women, isn’t that the Brotherhood’s reason for living?” a voice he hadn’t been sure he would hear again said. His twin, Lazlo, stepped out of the darkness.

  He had a huge bloodstain on his shoulder, haphazardly bandaged. He had his sword in its sheath, a gun in each hand and two ammo belts criss-crossed over his chest. He looked like a bandit. “The bastard got me once, they’re not going to get me again.”

  “What happened at the palace?”

  “Some guy named Vilmos was the leader of the attack. He was the captain of the rebel forces, reporting straight to the Freedom Council,” Janos said. “We got this from a rebel we caught and very politely questioned.”

  Lazlo snorted.

  “We tried to find the man, but someone got to him before us. Seems he had an accident with wildlife.”

  “That was me,” Benedek admitted.

  Istvan punched his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, little brother.”

  “What’s the plan?” Arpad, as always, was the most focused among them.

  “Find Rayne as quickly as we can.”

  “First to find her gets to have dinner with her?” Lazlo put in. Hard to say whether he was just ribbing his twin or was in earnest. Lazlo was an incorrigible ladies’ man. Tabloids loved him. They made money hand over fist covering his exploits. Lazlo didn’t know the meaning of low profile. “I’m thinking a midnight carriage ride through the royal arboretum.”

  “Over my dead body,” Benedek said.

  “Where are we to look, exactly?” Janos asked, clearly impatient with the twins’ spat.

  Benedek wished he knew. “Everywhere.”

  So as they came to an intersection of a half-dozen tunnels going this way and that, each prince took a handful of royal guards with him and dashed on to save the damsel in distress.

  That Lazlo was alive and all his brothers were helping him renewed Benedek’s strength. He panned the ground with his flashlight, hoping to spot dainty footprints. He came to another junction. Two tunnels crossed each other. He had to choose between going straight, right, or left. There were two guards with him. They divided up the possibilities among the three of them.

  He walked a whole mile forward, finding no sign of her. He did, however, find other signs, carved writing on the floor, written in the secret code of the original Brotherhood of the Crown. Prince Istvan, the anthropologist of the family, was going to have a field day with this. Benedek was so focused on searching for visible clues he almost missed the faint voice in the distance.

  “Benedek.”

  His heart lurched, his lungs filled fully for the first time since she’d walked out on him. “Rayne!” He ran forward as he called her name again.

  Then she was there, and the next second in his arms.

  “Oh, God. I thought I was going to die here and rats were going to nibble on my bones.” She caught herself and buried her face into the crook of his neck. “Sorry.”

  He was full of relief and some other warm emotion as he said, “You’re a performing artist. You’re allowed to be a little dramatic.”

  “I’ve been that,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “Sorry about the brush earlier.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Your passion is one of the things I love about you.”

  “One?” Her head came up. “There are others?”

  He smiled a pure smile of relief. “A couple.”

  “Like what?” she asked, but then tried to pull back the next second. “Never mind.”

  He couldn’t let her put that distance back between them. “Like this,” he said, and kissed her.

  He needed her. That was the honest truth. “Were you scared? I came as fast as I could.” Hell, he’d been scared. Scared out of his mind for her. He hated to think of her all alone down here.

  “Just a little lost.”

  “I found you now.” He brushed his mouth over hers, over and over again, touching, stroking. He needed to stay in constant touch with her as much as possible.

  “I’m not scared anymore.”

  Her lips were sweeter than the sweetest Valtrian honey cake, her curves molded to him. Relief nearly knocked him off his feet. First relief, then desire. He moved them forward until her back met the wall. He explored her mouth, his tongue dancing the most intimate dance with hers, while his free hand slipped under her shirt to her soft skin. It wasn’t enough. He set the flashlight on the ground so he could use both hands.

  She was warm and willing in his arms, his every fantasy come to life.

  “I need you,” he confessed. “I should have had enough strength to resist you, but I didn’t, and I don’t care. I never meant to—”

  “I understand protocol,” she cut him off, her arms closing around him.

  “So you’re not mad at me anymore?”

  “I won’t be your lover once you’re married. Not even when you’re engaged.”

  “I wouldn’t have—”

  “I like you too much to be mad. I need you, too. Whatever the future brings, I want you right now, in this moment and I’m willing to take the risks, I’m willing to let the walls down even if I get hurt.”

  She humbled him.

  Need sang through him and he lifted her the next second, her legs wrapped around his waist. He was fumbling with the zipper on his pants.

  She stiffened.

  “I’m moving too fast. I’m sorry.” He prepared to pull back, even though it was killing him.

  “Okay, I do want you, but we can’t do this here,” she said, sounding shaky. “I almost forgot where we were. I think we’re in one of those burial chambers. I have a rule against making love in a cemetery.”

  For once, she couldn’t have been more wrong. He laughed. “Look.” He bent for the flashlight and panned the room.

  Her eyes went wide. “What is this place?”

  “Remember the Brotherhood of the Crown, those hero princes I told you about who lived two hundred years ago?”

  She nodded.

  “Apparently they were well loved by the ladies. They acquired considerable funds for their cause from feminine donations. The treasure was lost with their death.”

  “It’s here?”

  He panned the flashlight over the row of rubies that were set into the stone wall in the ceiling. They formed a strange pattern with
a diamond in the middle that sparkled in the flashlight’s beam. “Somewhere near.”

  She turned her wide-eyed gaze to him. “How do you know all this?”

  “I saw some hints carved into the rock floor on my way here.” Her full mouth was too close to his, too tempting. “So is it all right to make love in a treasure chamber?” He dropped the light.

  She closed the distance between their lips. “I don’t have any rules against that.”

  He kissed her thoroughly, stopping only to pull her shirt over her head. He edged her bra straps down her shoulders with his teeth, then kissed her collarbone. “I’m not marrying anyone anytime soon. Spending the last two days with you made me realize how insane that plan had been.”

  “Did I save you from yourself?” She placed a soft kiss behind his ear, sending a shot of sharp desire through him.

  “You have.”

  “Oh, good. Then we’re even.”

  “It’s not a contest.”

  “What is it then?”

  He bent low enough to take her nipple between his lips. She moaned.

  “A slow royal seduction.”

  “I like that.”

  He did, too. He turned his full attention to the other nipple. He spoiled it while working to get his pants and underwear down as far as possible. Then he was at her moist opening, then gliding into her tight, wet heat that welcomed him. Her muscles clenched around him, bringing exquisite pleasure.

  He began to move inside her.

  “We must be breaking a hundred protocols,” she said between two sharp pants.

  “I’ve never enjoyed breaking one this much before. I’m rather hoping we’ll get to break it over and over again.”

  He thrust into her sweet, accepting body. He had her at last. And he was never going to let her go.

  The thought would have shocked him just hours ago, but now it seemed natural, the right thing to do, the only sane thing. He had no idea how he was going to break the news to her, or how she was going to react. Pleasure made him forget his worries.

  Pleasure built inside him to a level that was nearly unbearable, and then she cried out his name, with enough voice projection to collapse any unstable section of the tunnel. Luckily the ceilings all proved to be steady. His heartbeat was anything but. When he at last spilled his seed deep inside her, all he had strength left for was to control their slow slide to the ground.

  She pressed her cheek against his. “I’m glad you found me.”

  He wasn’t sure he could have survived if he hadn’t. But before he could tell her that, voices echoed from the distance.

  “Rayne?”

  “Benedek?”

  “There are other people down here?” Rayne jumped off him and grabbed for her clothes.

  “Those would be my troublesome brothers.”

  “What’s that?” she pointed to the ground.

  And he realized that something had fallen from his pocket.

  “Is that my underwear?”

  He snatched the sheer piece of fabric.

  “Can I have that back?”

  “No.” He stuffed it into his pocket.

  “You—”

  “Benedek, is that you there?” Arpad called.

  Rayne groaned. “Are they always this intrusive?”

  “They’re fancying themselves saving us.”

  “Too late.”

  He watched as she dressed, her clothes molding to curves that were permanently imprinted on his brain. His heart swelled with emotion.

  She was right. His brothers were too late.

  They’d already saved each other. In more ways than he’d thought possible.

  Epilogue

  “Fantastic opening,” Judi, Miklos’s wife, remarked at the royal reception in the palace’s grand ballroom, a most adorable little boy in her arm. “I can’t believe she stayed all this time to give the performance.”

  A full month, Benedek thought as he picked up the toy car his nephew had dropped, and handed it back to the child. The kid looked just like Miklos. He tried to picture a little boy who looked like himself, but a dark-haired silver-eyed little girl popped into his mind instead.

  “I wonder how many other performances she had to cancel.” Judi kissed the top of her son’s fuzzy head.

  Maybe he was a selfish bastard, but he didn’t care. He treasured this last incredibly short month while the opera house had been restored to its full glory, and Rayne and he had been secret lovers.

  “You think she’ll go back now to the U.S.?” Judi watched him with those sharp eyes of hers that tended to see everything.

  “Opening night’s over. She has no reason to say.” The thought of that about killed him. He’d been in a dark mood for days.

  Judi cocked her head. “Then give her one.”

  He’d thought about that. “A permanent contract at the Valtrian opera?”

  Judi rolled her eyes and murmured something about men, then raised a perfectly formed eyebrow and gave him a pointed look.

  What?

  She couldn’t know.

  Nobody knew. Rayne and he had been exceedingly discreet.

  But maybe he could tell Judi. She was less likely to jump all over him than his brothers.

  “The truth is…” He picked his words carefully. “I always admired Rayne. She’s an exceptional performer.”

  Judi cleared her throat.

  Okay, fine. “I think when I was younger I might have had some sort of crush on her.”

  The second eyebrow joined the first. “And it passed?”

  His sister-in-law was decidedly grilling him. He didn’t like it. But she had other qualities that made him extremely fond of her, and kept Miklos soppy in love with the woman.

  “So it passed?” she pushed.

  “Not exactly.”

  “You love her.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to deny it. “Don’t tell anyone.” He wanted to figure out what to do with it first.

  “You’re just like your brother.” Judi shook her head. “Men are clueless, regardless of breeding and title, you know that?”

  “Clueless about what?” he asked before realizing that his question was probably proving her point.

  “Everyone pretty much knows already,” she said, spelling it out for him.

  He froze. “No.”

  “Oh, yes. Why do you think the Queen spent her entire evening so far talking to her? She loves her, too, by the way. I can tell.”

  “What are you—”

  Judi put her free hand on his shoulder and physically turned him around.

  And there was Rayne, laughing with his mother who had been, on occasion, called the Ice Queen. Things looked decidedly less than frosty between them.

  That was a relief. But even if it wasn’t the case he knew all of a sudden that it wouldn’t have mattered. He still couldn’t have let her go.

  For the last decade he’d carried the guilt of Anna’s death and thought the reason it all ended in tragedy was because he’d broken protocol. But in a flash of insight now, he had to wonder if the mistake had been not following his heart. Another realization hit him like a century-old stone wall—Anna was the past, and he needed to let go of that past. Rayne had let down her walls. Now he had to let go of his.

  Rayne was his heart. And his future if he was brave enough to claim her.

  He would deal with the media, his mother, the chancellor and any number of people who might have objections. The way to make up for Anna’s death wasn’t to marry a Valtrian debutante without love and make her life miserable.

  There was only one thing he could do.

  “Would you excuse me? I need to go and make some arrangements.”

  “Well, hallelujah, praise the Lord, he’s seen the light at last.” Judi looked pleased as anything. “Keep it simple. She’s so in love with you she can barely breathe from it. And don’t be trite. Don’t call her the music of your life or something like that.”

  He glared at her.

 
Her bubbly laughter snuck after him as he turned his back and left.

  SHE WAS HAVING A GOOD TIME WITH the Queen, a woman with a mind as sharp and lively as anyone Rayne had ever met. They were talking about how grateful everyone was that the palace hadn’t suffered more damage than it had. It was already fully restored to its previous splendor—thanks to Benedek. “Mother.”

  Her heart lurched at Benedek’s voice behind her. Her body immediately flooded with heat. She wondered if her acute awareness of him whenever he was near would ever pass.

  Shouldn’t be a problem much longer. Her excuses for staying in the country had officially run out. In a day or two, she’d have to leave. She wrestled down the pain that thought brought to her chest.

  The Queen motioned to the chair on her other side. “Sit with us,” she told her son. Her face was pale, her voice weak, but she still managed to retain her commanding presence.

  Benedek remained standing. “I would like to steal Rayne for a while.” He turned to her. “I’d like to show you something outside.”

  Rayne stood, then curtsied to the Queen. “I need to find my shawl,” she told Benedek. “Right there, I think. Let me just get that and I’ll be back.”

  She crossed the room to get to the chair where she’d been sitting earlier. When she got back to the Queen and Benedek, they were deep in conversation, a speculative look coming into the Queen’s eyes as she looked her over.

  Then the Queen’s thin lips stretched into a smile. “I’m looking forward to talking some more with you later.”

  “Your Highness.” She curtsied again before she followed Benedek toward the terrace. “She’s so nice. I can’t tell you how intimidated I was when a courtier said she wanted to talk to me.”

  “Intimidated?” Benedek grinned. “She’ll like that. She always complains that she’s just a frail old lady now and nobody pays her any mind.”

  Rayne doubted that, unless the Queen had meant her sons. They were a lively bunch for sure. The Queen deserved a medal for keeping them in line all these years.