by Kate Johnson
“At least I don’t look like you any more.”
“You poor thing.”
At least Drina wasn’t treating her any differently now. The first few days had been shaky, because Eliza wasn’t used to her sister actually overtly showing she cared, and it unnerved her. Eliza knew she was recovering well when Drina told her she looked frightful.
Apparently, the most Googled term concerning either of the Suffolk sisters was ‘are they twins?’ From a very young age, Eliza had repeated her parents’ answer that there were eighteen months between them, even when she was too young to understand what a month was.
The press had made a game of pretending they couldn’t remember which one was which years ago. It hadn’t gone away, with various epithets describing them as ‘the one with the horses’ (Drina) ‘the one with the useless degree’ (Eliza), ‘the one with the boobs’ (Drina again) and for a slightly humiliating month or two after Jamie’s wedding, Eliza had been ‘the one with the lobster hat’.
She’d rather be known for her terrible taste in hats—which had been at the hands of a stylist anyway—than as the victim of a drugs gang. Now she was ‘the one who got kidnapped’ or ‘the one with the scars’. Quite frequently, given the decision to ditch her security which she hadn’t attempted to explain, she was ‘the stupid one’.
As she excused herself to run to the nearest bathroom again, she thought that last one might actually be true.
“And then Uncle Xavi said the sight was crooked and shot three ducks! But Momma said they weren’t real ducks and that meant I could get this! Imma call him Booger.”
Xavier shepherded his over-excited nephew into the warmth and bustle of the house and raised his eyebrows at his mother.
“Booger, huh?” She regarded the large, blue and green stuffed animal of indiscriminate shape that completely overshadowed her grandson. “Great name. Why don’t you leave him here with me and Pops and go get washed up?”
“I got cotton candy all over me!”
“You sure do, buddy,” said Xavier, pointing him towards the bathroom. “Go on, wash your hands, or you can’t have any of Abuela’s…?”
“Shrimp tostones,” supplied his mother.
“Mmm, yummy shrimp tostones,” Xavier said, bigging up the tummy-rubbing for his doubtful-looking nephew, who eventually ran off to the bathroom, dragging a sticky Booger.
Xavier’s mother kissed him on the cheek, and said, “How was the fair?”
Xavier shrugged, which he could just about do now without it hurting. “Loud. Bright. Valentina is an excellent bodyguard, by the way. Stared down every selfie request like a pro.”
His mother clucked as she fussed over the stove. “You’re still getting them?”
Even more since he’d been out with his sister and her kids. He’d thought taking his nieces and nephews to the county fair might have been a clear signal he was out for some private time, but it only prompted, “Aww, look what a great daddy he’ll be!”
“I bet that princess gets more selfie requests,”said his mother.
“Probably.” Probably not, since the press had reported radio silence from Eliza since her return to England.
“You should call her, Xavi. Ask her advice.”
He kept his smile in place. “Mom, I don’t have her number. And international calls are expensive, remember?” There was nothing his mother hated more than wasting money.
“Oh, sure, but can’t you get her on the email? Online?”
Xavier just smiled and didn’t try to explain the internet to his mother again. It hadn’t gone well the last… well, ever.
“Mom, she has her life, I have mine.”
“Yes, but she’s so pretty, Xavier. I don’t have any blonde grandchildren.”
“Mom!”
Valentina came in from the car, where she’d been trying to extract her youngest child without waking her. “Is she matchmaking again? Mom, leave him alone.”
“You can’t blame a woman for wanting more grandchildren.”
“You already have nine,” scoffed Valentina, heading for the stairs. “Leave him alone. Maybe Xavi doesn’t want kids.”
His mother feigned a heart attack. “Would you do that to your poor mother?”
“I would, because I am cruel and heartless.” Xavier snagged a beer from the fridge and uncapped it with his teeth, grinning at her over the top.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve a son like you…”
He turned away, smiling, as his phone rang. Fishing it out of his pocket, he glanced at the number. Huh. Central dispatch at the police department. “Rivera,” he answered, wedging the phone under his ear as he headed out for the front porch, beer in hand.
“Our famous detective. How’s life treating you?”
He recognised the voice. Rhonda always like to chat, if the situation allowed. “Oh, can’t complain. Fame and glory, you know.”
“It’s all party party party, right?”
Xavier glanced back at his mother’s homely kitchen, then out at the placid suburban street. “Oh, every day. And the money, and knighthoods…”
“That Queen should not be waving a sword around like that at her age, you know what I’m saying? She got a permit for that?”
Xavier smiled as he sat down on the porch swing and set his bottle on the rail. “Hey, she’s the Queen. She need a permit?”
“Well, you know their police don’t even have guns. How you supposed to keep the peace when you ain’t got a sidearm?”
“Beats me, Rhonda. I don’t feel dressed without one.” Not that he’d had anything more deadly than the firing range pop gun in his hands for months now.
“Oh hey now, don’t you go putting images of you undressed into my head. There’s a sexual harassment case just waiting to happen right inside my eyeballs.” She sighed gustily.
Xavi, glad she couldn’t see him, made a winding-up motion with his hand.
“Anyway,” she said, as he left a silence for her to fill. “I got a call for you today that was most peculiar. I get this British lady, like something outta Downton Abbey, asking for you.”
Eliza. His heart leapt. No, it wouldn’t have been. Probably one of her people asking him to sign some new non-disclosure agreement, like the ones that had been sent to him before he’d even left the hospital. Xavier was well used to keeping his mouth shut when it came to the press and confidentiality, but the Royal Family had lawyers that made the MDPD look like a bunch of first graders.
“Yeah? What do they need now?”
“Well, I thought it was going to be a business call. Or maybe a crank, because we’ve been getting plenty of those. Proposals of marriage, too, by the way.”
“Tell them I’m married to my job,” Xavier said drily. “What did the British lady want?”
“She said she needed to talk to you and to pass on a message. Now ordinarily I’d just send these to your department, but this one was personal. She said, she needed to talk to you about the time it rained. That mean anything to you?”
Xavier had his beer bottle halfway to his lips. It stayed there, as he stared into the warm twilight and saw a dark, rainy beach with a laughing figure running along it. Smelled the coconut from her skin as he grabbed her and she fell, laughing against him, kissing him in the sand—
“Detective?”
“Uh,” he said, and blinked, and the beach vanished. His mother’s ordinary suburban street looked back at him. “Yeah, I think… yeah. Did she give a name? A number?” he asked hopefully.
“She said her name was Eliza. Nothing more.” Rhonda would be used to informants who gave even less. “Did leave a number, though. At least… well, I guess it’s a British number.”
She reeled it off, and Xavier typed it into his phone. His new phone, which so far only had family and work contacts in it. A few friends. He hadn’t been back in the world long enough to accumulate much more.
“You gonna tell me what that means, Detective?” Rhonda asked.
“M
aybe, when I figure it out,” he told her, and signed off.
He sat staring at the number on his phone until the screen faded to standby. Eliza had called. She wanted him to call her. To talk about that night.
He found himself smiling, then tried to be a cop and think about sensible reasons she might have called. Maybe she’d discovered an embarrassing disease and wanted to alert him. She’d only said she’d been a virgin. Xavier didn’t have enough experience with them to know if she’d been telling the truth. Or maybe she’d caught it off someone else since and wanted to blame him…
Okay, all that was unlikely, and he didn’t believe she’d actually been lying, but he was a detective after all. Maybe… maybe she was calling him to warn him that actually, taking the virginity of a princess was punishable under archaic Royal law, and he was about to be thrown in the Tower…
He took another pull of his beer. Or maybe she wanted phone sex. He’d never know until he called her.
He’d dialled before he thought about the time. It rang a few long times, and he realised it was probably nearly midnight over there. If this was the number of some secretary—
“Hello?”
It was her. Xavier sat up straight. “Eliza?”
“Xavier.” She said his name on a sigh.
“I got your message. About the… night it rained.”
“Yes. I, er, I realised it actually rained two nights.”
Oh yeah. The night they’d escaped.
“I meant the second one,” she said, and Xavier smiled. Her voice was low, quiet. Sexy. Maybe it was phone sex after all.
“I’ve been thinking about that night too,” he said. He glanced back at the house. Probably, someone was listening. The blinds at the front window twitched. He got up, and made his way down the steps to the front lawn.
“Xavier, where are you going?”
Yes, there was his mother.
“Need to make a phone call, Mom. Save me some tostones.”
He jogged across the lawn, dodging the sprinklers.
“Am I interrupting?” asked Eliza.
“No. It’s fine. I’m at my mom’s.”
“Oh. So am I, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, it’s her house. I just live here.”
He hadn’t really thought much about that kind of thing. He guessed it made sense, if they wanted to keep close tabs on her. Especially given recent events.
“I suppose you think that’s a bit sad,” she went on. “I know in America everyone moves out the second they hit eighteen and only losers still live with their parents.”
“Well, this loser moved back in with his mom,” Xavier told her, walking past the neighbour whose dog always barked at everything. Yep, there it went. “I rented out my apartment when I went on the case, and anyway… it’s better to be around people. Especially when I need help with everything.”
“You still have the sling?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “How’d you know about the sling?” He waved to Mrs Bryant, who didn’t need to be watering her lawn this late at night, the nosy old woman.
A slight pause from Eliza. “I, er, saw a picture. You’re quite the celebrity now.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Dear, I could write you the manual,” Eliza said drily.
“Right. Sure. Sorry. I’m just not used to it. People recognising me.” There went his career as an undercover cop.
“Yes, well they’ve always been cruel,” she said. “One ought to be used to it by now.” She sighed. “I’ve barely been outside the grounds and they’re still snapping pictures of me. Even on the way to the doctor’s surgery. Apparently I’m ‘flaunting’ my scars.”
“Flaunting?” Christ, the gutter press were disgusting. “Like they say about pregnant celebrities. Flaunting a baby bump. What are you supposed to do, be ashamed of it? Hide it?”
Eliza suddenly made a strange noise, like a sob.
“Eliza? Are you okay?”
She drew in a shuddering breath and said, “Yes, well, that might be me soon.”
Xavier stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, as shocked as the moment he’d been shot. He swallowed, his throat dry. “What do you mean?”
“I mean hiding a baby bump. Or flaunting it. I don’t know. Xavi, I don’t know what to do!” Her voice rose, a very quiet wail late at night in her mother’s house.
Xavi glanced around, but no one seemed to be in earshot. He lowered his voice anyway.
“You’re pregnant? You think you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t know. I can’t exactly go out and buy a bloody test from the chemist’s, can I? Imagine that in the papers!”
“Jeez. Yeah.” He blew out a sigh and tried to think. “But we were careful. I was careful.” It wasn’t as if there’d been an abundance of condoms on the island. He’d had no other choice.
“Not careful enough, apparently.”
“Okay. Uh.” He moved the phone away a little and swore a lot. “How sure are you?”
“Well, I don’t want to go into gory details but if it’s not this then there’s one hell of a set of coincidences going on.”
Yeah. She wasn’t stupid. It had been nearly two months since that night. Eliza, he was fairly sure, could count. “Can you get a friend to do it? Get the test, I mean?”
“Like who? Melissa? Surest way to get anything in the tabloids is to tell her.”
Right. Xavier still didn’t trust that her buddy Melissa wasn’t the one who’d sold her out to the Rosa gang. “Not Melissa,” he agreed firmly, and made a mental note to see if she was being investigated by the British police.
“Not my sister, she’s appalling at keeping secrets. And I can’t tell my parents. Or any of the staff.” Eliza’s voice rose in panic. “I can’t, Xavi.”
“Okay, okay.” If she were here in Miami, he’d get in a cab and go straight to her. But she had to be on the other side of the world, didn’t she? “Where are you? London?”
“No, I’m rusticating. Out in the country. Norfolk,” she told him.
Xavier stared at the dark street and tried to work out those sentences. He gave up. “Right, I understood about half of that. Where are you?” he asked clearly, as if she spoke a foreign language. Which she might as well.
“Brakefield. The family home in Norfolk. Deep in the countryside. North-east-ish of London by a hundred-odd miles.”
“Right.” The plan slotted itself neatly into his mind. Flights to Europe generally left in the evening, didn’t they? He could get into London from Miami, no problem, and then maybe… He glanced at the sling, which had prevented him from driving for weeks. Well, he’d figure out how to get to this Norfolk place when he got there.
Xavier nodded to himself, the decision coalescing in his brain, and turned back towards his mother’s house. To Eliza he said, “Stay where you are. I’m coming to you.”
“What?” Her voice rose in pitch again. “Aren’t you in Florida?”
“We have airports and I have a lot of leave.” An almost indefinite amount. “Give me a half hour and I’ll send you the details.”
“But—all that way—Xavi, you don’t have to…”
“I do,” he replied firmly. “Half an hour.”
If she’d been able to plan Xavier’s visit, Eliza wouldn’t have planned it for a weekday when her family were in residence. Of course, Drina was out with the horses, and Mummy was working in her office, but they were both still there. She was only lucky Daddy wasn’t visiting. And when she called the security lodge to tell them she was expecting a visitor, it of course didn’t take long for the news to filter through.
“A visitor, darling?” said her mother, wandering out of her study and almost managing not to be caught noticing the silicon scar patches on Eliza’s face and arm.
“Yes.” Might as well tell the truth, or at least part of it. “Detective Rivera. He’s in England. He called last night and I said he must come and visit.” Not a lie. Not exactly. “T
hat’s all right, isn’t it?”
Her mother frowned. Visitors were usually arranged months in advance.
“He did save my life, Mummy,” she added, and her mother gave her a sharp look.
“Yes, I know, darling. What’s he in England for?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. Maybe it’s just a holiday. Or maybe Granny is going to honour him with something. She did say she owed him a debt of gratitude.”
“Hmm. Yes. Well, don’t go encouraging him to think of castles in the sky. Americans do love shiny things.”
Eliza managed, heroically, not to look at the foot-high gilt-encrusted frieze of cherubs, nymphs and random bits of fruit that marched around the top of the walls in this and half the other rooms.
“Will he be staying?”
Eliza chewed her lip and said hopefully, “I think so?”
Princess Henrietta shook her head. “Really, Eliza, we could have done with more notice. All right then, you can go and tell Mrs Grenfell. What time will he be arriving?”
She’d memorised his flight details and checked them online to make sure she hadn’t misread morning for afternoon. “Mid afternoon.” Eliza gave her mother a quick hug of thanks. “He’s going to call when he’s on the train. Can Janusz go and pick him up?”
“I suppose so,” said her mother, and Eliza kissed her cheek before dashing off to find Mrs Grenfell, the housekeeper. Then she ran upstairs, to stand in front of her wardrobe and despair a bit more.
She’d already tried on half her clothes, trying to strike the right note. Nothing too formal, nothing too casual. None of the yoga pants and cardigans she’d been slouching around the house in while her scars healed.
She paused, and forced herself to look in the bathroom mirror. The scar on her face wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been, considering that apparently bone had been visible at one point. But she still had a rather noticeable pink Y shape beneath her eye, running off into her hairline and over her ear. And stupid tufty short bits of hair too, where it had been shaved off in order to stitch the cuts. It looked like a long summer of hats for her, assuming she was ever allowed to grace a public event again.
She took off the silicon patch and applied gel instead, letting it dry and carefully applying make-up over it. Years ago, out of frustration that she had to hire a make-up artist to follow her everywhere in public or risk a hundred dumb magazine pieces about how tired or shiny or over-done she looked, Eliza had enrolled on a course to learn how to do her own make-up to a professional standard. She’d stopped short of special effects make-up, though, which was something of a shame now.
