The Prince's Secret (The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series Book 2)

by Julie Sarff

  “Yes, that is it, he will be killed during a blood feud with a street gang,” she states firmly.

  “Really?” I venture back with a bit of concern—more for Francesca’s sanity than for Silvio’s forecasted doom.

  “Really,” Francesca stops pushing the sofa, and looks happy that someone has joined in her private conversation. “It will happen early in the morning. In Reykjavik, I believe.”

  “I had no idea the Prime Minister was in Iceland?”

  “Yes.” She looks doleful as she turns her saucer-like eyes on me.

  Well, that’s worth a smile. Yeah, I can imagine those street gangs in Reykjavik are pretty dangerous. I look at the floor trying not to laugh. When I glance back up, I notice that Francesca is still staring at me.

  “Oh, oh right. Let me help you with that,” I say, and go back to pushing on my end. Together, we shove the sofa and the rest of the furniture to the edge of the room. Carefully we roll up the large wall-to-wall sheep carpet and prepare to scrub the tiles—on our hands and knees—as Alice insists it is the “only way to achieve a truly clean floor.”

  While we scrub, I decide it best not to pursue the conversation. Yes, it is always best not to encourage crazy. Yet not a second later, I ignore my inner wisdom and ask, “How do you know all this about the Prime Minister, Francesca?”

  “Because,” she says with all the conviction of a martyr, “His great-grandmother told me.”

  Oh my stars...

  Seven hours later, after listening to the chatter of the deluded for precisely 420 odd minutes, I pull out of the Villa Buschi parcheggio with great celerity. Like a woman trying to get away from a sheer maniac, that’s how I drive. I hit my gate-opening button right after I fasten my seatbelt. Then I race across Villa Buschi’s grounds doing my usual slalom to avoid shrubs, hedges and snake-like vines. As it is, I want to put as much distance as possible between me and the young gal in designer wear who talks to the dead great-grandmothers of elected officials.

  I glance at the clock on the dash. 3:40. Perfect. I can easily get to the nursery school in Arona in twenty minutes. And today I must be on time because who knows what that headmistress will say if I am late again. The other day she told me she is certain the reason why Luca and Matteo are always late to school—and always late being picked up—is because they are from a “broken” family. Then she scolded me in front of several other mothers, saying that children with divorced parents suffer “huge handicaps” when it comes to learning. I have to say, I have enough guilt as it is, and I am getting more than a little tired of talking to people I barely know about my marital status.

  Thinking over the headmistress’ comments as I drive, I begin to feel my blood boil. I grip my steering wheel fiercely and press on the accelerator. I gun the engine and zing around the villa, racing along at top speed. Overhung branches whip at my windshield, but I don’t care. I round the last curve and barrel down on the entrance. I am almost through the gate when it happens. The most surreal thing. The most absolutely amazing and surreal thing. You see, instead of going through the gate, my Panda is hurled backwards as if by some unseen and immovable force.

  Chapter 3

  SOMEBODY RESCUES ME though.

  No, it wasn’t Brandon Logan, the Hollywood actor who recently purchased Villa Buschi, but another big star. I’ll call him Matt Z. That’s not his real name of course. Nobody has the last name of Z. That would be absurd. But I’m not allowed to say his real name, because I signed this ridiculously long confidentiality agreement when I started my job. Thou shall not speak the name of any guest of Villa Buschi, or something or other was written in bold print along with several other ridiculous requirements in a document full of legalese that was over 100 pages long.

  Anyway, I swear, it’s him. One of the most important Hollywood stars of the moment, and he is rapidly untangling me from the airbag that has engulfed me like a giant marshmallow.

  “Are you all right? Signora, are you okay?” he asks in an anxious voice as he undoes my seatbelt and pulls me from the vehicle. Unstable, I wobble to and fro. Briefly I think I might be dead. Matt looks really good. Like an angel. And he smells good, with a hint of pine, like the woodlands.

  “Your airbag really scraped you up there,” he says and his eyes narrow in concern. Wait a minute, I know that look. It’s exactly the look he had in his last movie. The one where the terrorist tells him there’s a bomb in the building and he has five minutes to diffuse it, only the bomb is buried under five layers of concrete so that even his trusty Labrador retriever cannot sniff it out. That is precisely what he looks like now.

  I stare at him. I just stare. I can’t even think about the blood that is trickling down my face. I mean there he is and he is exactly as they say in People magazine. He is captivating, and wholesome, and he smells so darn good. I decide that I love him. Yes, I love him. Oh, but not in the romantic way. No, I love him as if he were my long lost brother.

  I want to reach out and hug my long lost brother, but all I can do is sputter, “How did this happen?” I look around. My car is in a heap. It looks like a tin can that has been crushed. Did I hit the gate, I wonder? Did I forget to hit the button and the gate did not open and now I am dead and God has sent my long lost brother Matt to take me to heaven?

  But I did hit the button—that much I remember—and the gate is wide open. I look at the Panda again, and I see that directly in front of it is a large Mercedes SUV with nary a scratch. It is only now that I notice Matt and I are not alone. Somebody is dabbing at my face with a fist full of tissues. It’s an uptight-looking, young woman wearing jeans, a sweater and bright blue horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Does your head hurt?” somebody asks me. I am not sure who. A third person has emerged from the SUV—a sort of driver/body guard who wears a black suit and dark glasses. I am so disoriented, I can’t tell which one of the three has spoken.

  My head? No, it doesn’t hurt. It feels heavy though. I want to tell everybody that I need to lie down but I can’t quite manage the words. Instead, I stare at Matt and have an overwhelming desire to lean in and sniff that wonderful pine smell. So I do.

  “Oh, wow!” says the uptight-looking woman, “She’s out of it.”

  “Maggie, would you please map out the nearest hospital?” Matt says authoritatively. The uptight-looking woman nods her head. She whips out a bright, shiny, purple-clad Blackberry and begins to type madly with her thumbs. “Now if you’ll just come along with me,” Matt says as he takes hold of my elbow and guides me to the SUV. “I think we need to get you to a doctor. There now, that’s it, baby steps. Not to worry about a thing, my driver Carson will take us to the closest hospital.”

  “I know the way, I live here,” I chime in, the heaviness in my head subsiding. “We need to turn around and head straight towards Arona, then take the first exit,” I gibber as Matt and Maggie both try to help me climb into the backseat of the Mercedes. Inside the SUV, Matt helps me fasten my seatbelt. “I’m so sorry, Signora,” he says, “we didn’t see you until the last second.” Carson mumbles something about it being impossible to see anything given all the trees and shrubs around the entrance of the villa. Then he turns the SUV around, mowing down several shrubs and a small pine as he does so. Deftly, he makes the left turn out onto the highway.

  Less than thirty seconds later, Maggie decides she is done playing nursemaid and shoves the box of Kleenexes in my lap. I pull a tissue out of the box as the enormous Hollywood star, who is seated on my left, turns to me and says, “I am so sorry, Signora, with all the commotion, I haven’t even introduced myself.” He quickly adds, “I’m Matt so-and-so,” as if anybody, anywhere in the world, would not know.

  I smile wide. I must look awful because Matt’s eyebrows draw together ferociously as he points to all the places on my face that are still bleeding. “You know, right there, on your forehead,” he says, and I raise a shaky hand to pat feebly at my wound. “Uh, that’s good, and now on your cheek, right there. And your chin to
o. My, you’re not a very big person, are you? That airbag tore you up.” Despite what he is saying, I am not thinking about my face or my injuries. What I am thinking is that outside of the absolutely cherubic faces of my children, Matt has the sweetest face I have ever seen in the world. And his woodland scent is so soothing.

  I can’t help it. I stare at him and dab at my face. And sniff, discreetly.

  “Which exit?” Carson asks, looking back at me.

  What? “Um, this exit!” Oops, no that’s wrong, the next one. Jeez, where exactly is the hospital? I should know, but for some reason I’m feeling confused. The heavy feeling in my head returns. I continue giving bad directions, causing Carson to make numerous wrong turns, including accidentally sending him driving up a one way street in the opposite direction. I finally get us on the right track and all is going well until suddenly, as Carson is concentrating super hard at a rather nasty roundabout, I sit bolt upright and scream in a voice that could raise Julius Cesar from the dead—

  “Luca e Matteo!”

  This has the unfortunate and immediate side effect of causing Carson to take evasive action. He must have thought I was screaming “watch out” in Italian or something because he hits the gas pedal with full force. Fishtailing wildly, our SUV springs forward into the roundabout. At precisely the same time a Fiat Cinquecento comes whizzing around the corner.

  There is a collective gasp as the car passes inches in front of our car. The unamused Fiat driver slows down as he sails by, just long enough to make an obscene gesture.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare everybody. It’s just that Luca and Matteo are my children, and I was screaming their names because I just remembered I was supposed to pick them up from school at four o’clock. Now they are probably standing abandoned and alone in the play yard—and what’s worse is that they are going to get kicked out of nursery school because I am constantly dropping them off and picking them up late.” I look over at Matt who nods as he pats one of my hands. He is such a wonderful human being. I can just tell.

  Carson on the other hand looks like he may not be a wonderful human being. Matt tries to calm him down by having him take a few deep breaths. This appears to work, because a second later Carson shifts the SUV into first and drives cautiously to the other side of the roundabout. Meanwhile, I continue on with my life story. “You see,” I sniffle to the three of them, “at first I was only late in the mornings, but as my boss kept giving me more and more work to do, I became late in the evenings, too, and now it’s all one huge mess. I’m never on time.” I glance down at my watch and let out a huge sob. It’s already a quarter past four.

  “She is going to k-kick them out of n-nursery school because I am always so l-l-late…” I begin to wail full force. Buckets of tears pour out of me. I gaze over at Maggie. She looks scared, like one does when they realize they are dealing with a crazy person; like I felt earlier today, when Francesca announced Silvio Berlusconi’s impending death. I can’t help it. I am scared for my children—are they alone? Has everybody gone home from the school and left them sitting on the curb? I don’t care if one of the world’s top actors is watching; I soldier on with the tears.

  “And it isn’t like the headmistress doesn’t already hate me. She does. She hates me. For some reason there are certain people in the world who believe a divorce is always the woman’s fault. Especially here in Italy.” Matt and Maggie exchange a cautious look. “And she is one of them. She thinks a woman should forget and forgive a cheating husband—for the sake of the children. She has never come out and said so, but you can see it on her face. She’s always judging me.”

  “Got it,” Maggie cuts me off. “I’ve got the hospital location.” She glares slavishly at her Blackberry screen.

  “Carson,” she commands, “take the next turn—”

  “STOP! OH SWEET MERCY, STOP!” I bluster.

  Poor, dear Carson! He is now so thoroughly frazzled from being in one accident and narrowly avoiding another that he slams on the brakes, causing Maggie’s horn-rimmed glasses fly off her face. The SUV comes to an immediate halt; right in the middle of the street. Everybody’s eyes turn to me.

  “My kids are here! Here! Stop!” I point animatedly at a concrete nursery school on our right. For a moment, Carson looks as if he is going to completely give up driving in Italy and hop out of the driver’s seat, leaving us all abandoned in the back of the SUV. I can tell by the look on his face that he is deliberating the merits of this idea as he retrieves Maggie’s glasses from the passenger seat. Behind us a queue of cars are forced to wait, their impatient hot-blooded drivers honking wildly.

  I don’t care, because from where I am, I can see Luca and Matteo sitting on the sidewalk next to their diaper bags with the angry headmistress looming behind them, puffing a cigarette. I feel a tidal wave of relief wash over me. The boys look completely unscathed.

  Once again, Carson takes a few breaths and calms down long enough to recover his senses. Then, being the professional that he is, he maneuvers the car out of the road and over to the curb. Before he comes to a complete stop, I scramble over Maggie’s lap in a desperate attempt to exit the car.

  “Sono qui, sono qui,” I yell to them, tripping as I emerge from the SUV. Both my children look at me in alarm. That’s right, I almost forgot. My face is a pulpy, bleeding mess. Matteo begins to cry in distress and Luca actually screams. The headmistress, however, seems oblivious to my head wounds and goes all red in the face as I rush over to claim my children. I give her a tentative smile, but she glares back with such ferociousness that I think her head might pop off her tightly-clenched body.

  Once again I am saved by Matt. He steps out of the car and comes around. His star presence is so radiant, so intoxicating, that the mere sight of him causes that sourpuss of a headmistress to practically inhale her cigarette.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Matt tries to calm the children. “Your mother has had a little accident, but now she is fine. We are taking her to the hospital to get her bandaged up.” Which must sound like “blah okay, okay, blah blah blah bladdity blah” to Luca and Matteo. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I haven’t taught my children any English. Quickly, I translate it into Italian and the boys look visibly relieved. The headmistress, however, looks as if she couldn’t give a flying fig about what happened to me. In fact, she seems to have forgotten that I am even standing there. All that is in her field of vision is Matt. He offers her his hand and apologizes profusely—in English—for having disturbed her school. She doesn’t have the slightest idea what Matt is saying, but she knows exactly who he is. Gently she reaches out to shake his hand and I see her go weak; her knees begin to buckle and she looks like she might actually go down. My head is throbbing so badly at this point; I don’t have time for this. Matt lets go of her hand and ushers the three of us back into the SUV. As we prepare to take off for the hospital with Luca and Matteo sitting on our laps (unsafe, I know, but totally necessary at that point), I turn around in my seat and notice that the headmistress is still standing there on the curb, looking as if she has just shaken the hand of St. Peter himself.

  Coming in Winter 2015 from Julie Sarff, the following is an e-arc and has not been edited or proofread, grammar and punctuation errors will exist.

  Magda Pendragon: Heir to Arthur

  A un jor d’une Acenssion / Fu venuz de vers Carlion / Li rois Artus et tenu ot / Cort molt riche a Camaalot / Si riche com au jor estut

  Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot the Knight of the Cart

  Prologue

  Edeline was barely five years old when Merllyd sent the babe into the future. It happened on one of the blackest days in Anglian history. Mordred had defeated the child’s father at the battle of Mons. Anglia and the united tribes of Breton stood on the brink of defeat. The heir to the throne had to be spirited away to safety by the most powerful wizard in the world, lest Mordred’s armies moved north to sack the city of Oundle and the fortress of Camaalot. At over 600 years old, Merlly
d was no fool. Before he hid the princess some 1600 years in the future, he put a trace on her.

  Edeline vividly remembered that day. The weather was terrible; so blustery that the flags on top of the castle stood straight out in the never ceasing wind. Edeline was out walking in the rose garden with her governess when the summons came for her to join Merllyd in his office. She remembered being surprised to find Merllyd sitting in his humble wooden chair, saying soothing words to the tiny baby he held wrapped in a plain brown blanket.

  Normally Edeline found Merllyd’s office spellbinding. It was full of glittering whirligigs, perpetual motion machines, a full-scale replica of the heavens and an odd wooden clock that barked orders every hour on the hour such as “Get up now, you rot!” and “Eat your sandwiches before the blarg gets them!” But today she didn’t give the objects a single glance. Today she could tell by the severity etched in Merllyd’s face that something serious was afoot. She watched quietly as Merllyd read an incantation off of a piece of yellowed parchment. It was not a Latin incantation, it was written in runes and Merllyd was speaking in a language Edeline had never heard before.

  “Oh!” she cried with a mixture of surprise and alarm when a wisp of smoke rose up from the babe’s chest. Merllyd wasted no time. Taking a small glass vial from a drawer in his desk, he captured the smoke. He fastened the glass tube with a golden stopper and then read a second incantation off a scroll that he stretched out lengthwise on his desk. This time his words caused the vial to be physically absorbed into a small crystal orb on the tip of his walking stick. Once inside the glass sphere, the stopper dissolved as if it had been made of ice rather than precious metal. Slowly, the smoke swirled out of the vile. It floated here and there around the orb until it, too, faded away into nothingness.