The Surprise Princess

by Patricia McLinn

  She nodded with feeling.

  “Yeah, I bet you do,” he said with surprising gentleness. The gentleness was gone from his next words. “One day you’re a cowboy with a little spread of your own, home from the wars at last. Course you still get together with some of your old unit. So you’re at a weekend gathering, catching up, and telling tales. Then somebody knocks on your hotel room door in Sherman, Wyoming – damned early, too, and it had been a full night with a fair amount of lubrication to keep the reminiscing going strong – and this somebody tells you you’re a prince.

  “I thought I must’ve been a hell of a lot drunker the night before than I’d thought I was. If Hunter hadn’t been there with the guy from Bariavak, I never would’ve believed him. They wanted me to throw my life over all because of an as—uh, jerk.”

  “Who was the jerk?”

  “Stefan Carlos. Apparently he ran around with the beautiful people being a professional prince. And died in a stupid jet-ski collision.”

  She smiled. “Stupid? Because jet-skiing isn’t as risky as being a cowboy or, um, war?”

  “It was the way he did it. Jackass was killed in a road-rage incident on a jet-ski. From what I’ve read he instigated it, he accelerated it, and he had no right to expect any other outcome. Never once thought of what he was doing to anybody else,” he finished glumly.

  She patted his arm. “It’s a dirty job, being prince, but somebody’s got to do it.”

  “It gets worse. According to some experts I’m not even Prince of Gelicia, because it’s a title of pretence. How do you like that? Prince of pretence. Prince of a country that doesn’t exist, and taking the leavings of some guy named Stefan Carlos who was a bully on a jet-ski — I told them to forget it.”

  “How’d that go?”

  He shook his head. “Hunter Pierce doesn’t give up.”

  “I know.”

  They exchanged commiserating looks before Karl picked up his tale. “So, he says come meet somebody in Washington. Turns out it’s King Jozef. He starts telling me the family history and showing me photographs and paintings, and darned if one doesn’t look like my sister. Turns out that was the king’s mother as a girl, who was related somehow or another to Grunnard. And then King Jozef says it was his ancestor that my great-grandfather stayed with in Bariavak. They’d been boys together and there was this bond…”

  “He’s persuasive, isn’t he?”

  “Very.” It wasn’t a compliment. “And he’s going to be unhappy if I don’t get you back for this dinner.”

  ****

  “Where is Katie?”

  “Hello to you, too, Andy,” Brad muttered into the phone.

  He propped the soles of his bare feet against the edge of his coffee table. His grandmother hated feet on her furniture. And his were particularly bad right now since he’d weeded Katie’s yard today after mowing and edging.

  How was that for a pathetic act of rebellion? Doing something his grandmother couldn’t see to furniture that wasn’t hers.

  “Never mind that. Where’s Katie?”

  “You know where she is. I suspect you’ve known from the start, probably from Carolyn or C.J. For sure you know where she is now, because I can hear the TV in the background reporting what she’s doing in Bariavak.”

  He happened to have the same show on, which he’d muted before answering the phone.

  “She’s all alone in that foreign country and now there’s this prince after her. How could you leave her to these foreigners?”

  “He’s an American. And she’s with her grandfather.” Plus, apparently this prince was some kind of relative, though not the king’s nephew.

  “He’s a prince – that’s not American. And you sent her off—”

  “She went. I didn’t send her.”

  “Well, you better apologize for whatever you did that sent her off that way—” He’d be damned if he apologized for loving her. “—when you see her on the team’s trip over there, and you better hope it’s not too late with this prince—”

  “I’m not going. I’ve got recruiting assignments,” he lied.

  That didn’t stop his grandmother for more than a quarter of a second. “Well, when are you going after her?”

  In a way, he preferred this to the careful conversations he’d endured with people around Ashton these past weeks. In another way, he didn’t.

  “I’m not.”

  “Bradford Alan Spencer—”

  Do you Bradford Alan Spencer take Katharine Mary Davis…

  “Don’t make this a big deal, Andy. We worked together and—”

  “Go ahead, lie to me. Tell me she was just a girl you work with when I know she wasn’t. But—.”

  “Andy—”

  “I know that girl loves you. Gave herself away when I pretended to be criticizing your being a coach. You should have heard her. Oh, yes, she loves you. And you love her. So go ahead and lie to me, but don’t you lie to yourself.”

  ****

  King Jozef had used most of their dinner together to instruct her on Bariavak’s diplomatic history with Turkey. She had to leave soon, so she was almost out of time, and she needed to get this on the record.

  “Grandfather,” she said quickly, before he could start on Italy. “I’ve learned enough in these weeks about your methods to recognize you’re pushing Karl and me together. You must stop.”

  “You don’t care for Prince Karl? But you seem to have such pleasure in each other’s company. I believe you go to a play tonight as his guest, is that not so?”

  “That doesn’t mean we’re headed for a wedding, the way that awful gossip website said. And now TV is picking it up.”

  “When you are queen, you will understand such trivialities—”

  “No.”

  “Now, do not be squeamish. It is natural I will die and you will ascend to the throne.”

  “No.”

  “Katrina—”

  “I am Katie. When you die, I will still be Katie. But I don’t believe I will ever be queen.” She hadn’t meant to get into this. Not yet. But perhaps this needed to be said even more than the hands-off warning about her and Karl.

  “You are my granddaughter—”

  “Yes, I am. And I hope you will remain my grandfather.”

  “Of course. Nothing can change that. As nothing can change that you are destined to become Queen Josephine-Augusta.”

  “Grandfather, we cannot remake the past. We cannot try to capture what might have been. Princess Josephine-Augusta would have been raised here, living and absorbing the history, the rites, the role.”

  “You have learned a great deal already. In no time you will—”

  “I don’t want to, Grandfather. I don’t … I won’t be a queen.”

  He stood and stared out the window, hands behind him. “What shall I do? What shall my poor Bariavak do? I am undone.”

  She held her tongue, watching.

  He looked over his shoulder. “You say nothing?”

  “I’ve seen you use that maneuver two other times since I came here, and it did not turn out well for your verbal opponents.”

  He glared for a slice of a second, then roared out a laugh. “I have taught you too well.”

  “You are a wonderful teacher.”

  His laughter faded into a sigh. “Or you have learned too well. But still you think to leave me with an abyss before the future of Bariavak.”

  “I don’t believe that. What did you plan before you fo— Before we found each other?” As she shifted her sentence, he reached a hand to her, and she joined him to sit together on the window seat. “I won’t believe you hadn’t made meticulous plans to provide for Bariavak’s future.”

  “An extremity that is unavoidable must be faced. But to accept an extremity when the natural remedy—”

  “I can’t imagine being Bariavak’s queen.”

  “It is this American who plays games who pushes you toward this unnatural decision.”

  She smiled, trying t
o mask stinging in her eyes. “No. You and Brad are of one mind about my royal future.”

  “Are we?”

  “Don’t get that expectant look. It won’t do you any good. Not anymore than your efforts to hire Hunter have done.”

  “Stubborn Americans. I am beset by them.”

  “Karl’s not cooperating, either, huh?” she said with no sympathy.

  “I do not despair of him,” he said with great dignity. “Nor of you. You shall have a great deal of time to prepare to become queen. I am very healthy now.”

  “Even if I were willing to be queen, you wouldn’t like the result. I don’t mean the methods, and certainly not the violence—”

  “All preamble. Now if you please, the but and then the meat of the dish.”

  “But,” she said obligingly, “I am not unsympathetic to the ideals of the rebellion.”

  He stiffened. “Those animals. Those murderers. Those—”

  “Not all of them. As I said, I don’t agree with the methods – how could I? But I have read what they were seeking and I believe if I had been an adult then, I would have agreed with their goals. As Prince Leopold and Princess Sofia did. As—”

  “And look what those animals did to them!”

  “You say Bariavak must come first – the people and the country you serve so diligently. But in this one area your grief overwhelms all else. I do not believe that is the legacy Sofia and Leopold would—”

  “Your mother. Your father.”

  “I call them Sofia and Leopold in this discussion to separate from the emotion of that connection.”

  “You say I do not? That emotion colors what I do?”

  She raised one eyebrow, not needing to confirm with words.

  “You will not abdicate a thousand years of— Enter!”

  The door opened to Hunter, April, and Madame.

  “We don’t want to interrupt,” April said. “But you said you’d like us to keep you company while Katie and Karl go to the play.”

  “Of course, of course. We lost track of time, talking of when Katie becomes queen. Perhaps with a consort.”

  “Grandfather—” Katie started with exasperation.

  “Go, go now, you and Karl to your play. Hunter and April and Madame shall be my company.”

  Katie kissed him on the cheek before departing, but April had seen something in her expression.

  When the king brought the conversation around to his plans for the future – a future with Katie and Karl married and prepared to rule – she said, “Sir, it might not be the best strategy to push Katie so hard.”

  “Bah. I have a great deal of experience at strategy,” he said.

  “Not with Katie.”

  “She is my granddaughter.” Clearly that settled the matter to him.

  April glanced at Madame, but the older woman did not look up. However, she received a level look from Hunter she had no trouble interpreting. She did not say any more.

  ****

  King Jozef smiled at Katie. “Where do you go now?”

  At last it was Friday. The Friday. “To the airport. The Ashton team arrives soon.”

  “No.” His smile was gone.

  “It’s not too early. The plane lands in less than an hour. I can’t wait to see Carolyn and C.J. and all of them. I’ll help them get settled in the hotel, then—”

  “I do not permit you to go.”

  She stilled. “You do not permit me to?”

  He gave a slight, impatient gesture. “You are young and unaccustomed to what is expected of you. I am instructing you.”

  “It’s expected of me that I not be there to greet friends who are arriving in this country?”

  “You will greet them in an appropriate manner at an appropriate time. It is important that the people of Bariavak see you in the proper way. Not among the bustle of everyday people at the airport.”

  “Sir—”

  “I ask this of you.”

  A shaft of sunlight cut across his desk, catching his hands, showing the raised veins, the battering of age.

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  ****

  She regretted her acquiescence.

  Regretted it as hours went by that she could have been spending with her friends while waiting for the late afternoon reception.

  Regretted it when word came from the king that she was to wear the Magda tiara. She understood its import to him, but that other time she’d worn it she’d felt like she had a bowling ball on her head, not to mention the near-disaster. The young woman who had brought the word – and the tiara – was only a messenger, so she couldn’t even argue.

  Regretted it when she arrived at the assigned anteroom to find Prince Karl there, looking unhappy in a suit with an official sash across his chest.

  “Command performance,” he muttered as the king came in precisely one minute before the appointed time.

  Regretted it when King Jozef did not meet her eyes, but only nodded to the man by the door.

  Regretted it when the man threw open the double doors, revealing a precise semicircle of Bariavakian officials at ramrod attention. The man began intoning King Jozef’s name and titles as her grandfather walked out, straight-backed and regal.

  “Your Highness,” urged Elisabeta.

  Katie started after her grandfather automatically, sensing Karl behind her.

  April and Hunter were at the near end of the semicircle of officials. They both turned toward her. April smiled warmly. Hunter winked.

  Her spirits lifted.

  This wasn’t the way she wanted to greet her Ashton friends, but after the formality her grandfather insisted on, they would have the rest of the weekend. She started to turn toward them, smiling to show that this—

  Brad.

  His face above her.

  His hands on her.

  His mouth drawing on her.

  It was memories making her think he was here. Because he’d refused to come. Didn’t want to see her…

  Brad.

  He was real.

  He was here.

  Inside her.

  Moving with her.

  She stutter-stepped.

  Karl’s hand under her elbow steadied her.

  Brad’s expression darkened. He looked away from her, toward the king, who had begun to speak with formal, precise words. Misery burned in her chest as she kept her gaze on the expanse of floor that isolated the Ashton contingent.

  She couldn’t meet their eyes. Not C.J. or Carolyn or any of the others. Certainly not Brad. She felt herself drawing in, shrinking, the disappearing trick of her youth.

  The king finished his remarks. The man who’d announced them gestured to the Ashton group to form a line to be formally received.

  C.J. muttered something that brought Katie’s head up.

  He took a stride forward, Carolyn caught his elbow, halting him for an instant. Then Katie saw Carolyn’s hold on his elbow change as she urged him forward. C.J.’s long strides reached her before anyone could object and he wrapped her in a hug.

  She hugged back, fighting tears. Carolyn was there now, too. One hand stroking up and down her back. In another minute, Katie turned into her hug, asking how the flight was, saying how glad she was to see her, babbling.

  Over Carolyn’s shoulder she saw Karl step forward, bridging the gap with his hand extended to shake with assistant coach Martin Brewster.

  Katie also stepped forward, now hugging Maura, then players, Tony Corston, more players. Hunter and April joined the group.

  King Jozef remained where he was.

  C.J. and Carolyn introduced the others one by one to the king, but after those formal words, each one returned to the swirling group in the middle of the floor, talking and laughing.

  On the far side of the swirl and outside of it stood Brad Spencer. As straight and solitary and separate as the King of Bariavak.

  For a flash their eyes met. Katie felt herself lean toward him.

  Then he turned and strode out of the room
.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Ah, if you please, I shall steal Princess Josephine-Augusta away.”

  King Jozef’s hand under her elbow turned her away from Brewster and toward Karl.

  She supposed it was time to let the team get to the bus or they wouldn’t have time to warm up properly before the game.

  The king gestured Karl closer.

  “We have now a dinner arranged with these officials,” he said, not looking at her. “You will attend with Prince Karl. It is important that you both meet these people and beneficial it should occur on such a basis.”

  “I cannot, sir. You know I am attending this evening’s basketball game and—”

  “A basketball game,” he said with exquisite inflection. Not quite dismissive enough to be insulting.

  “Yes. A basketball game that will feature the Bariavak national team and will be attended by many citizens. I will not disappoint them by breaking this commitment nor any of my commitments for the duration of the Ashton team’s stay. It would be an insult to your staff who worked so hard on this event and a poor representation of Bariavak.”

  A flicker crossed his eyes but his expression didn’t change and from the way he smoothly switched to urging Prince Karl to accompany her – “you young people,” he called them – no one who wasn’t in the direct line of that flicker could have known how displeased he was.

  She wasn’t too pleased herself.

  “Impromptu” her ass.

  Halfway down the corridor leading to the parking court, Karl asked from behind her, “Are you going to slow up so I can keep up without needing a horse?”

  She spun around. “Were you part of that ambush?”

  “Me?” He was unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. His tie and the sash trailed out of one jacket pocket. “No way.”

  “Then why are you acting as King Jozef’s watchdog?”

  “From my angle it was a choice of hanging out with stuffed shirts all night or going to a basketball game. No contest.”

  She let out a breath. But she wasn’t ready to acquit him completely. “What do you think of what happened in there?”