Alone With an Escort

by Angela Claire

  “Mostly, I gather,” he whispered back. “But there’s some kind of tribunal, as well, having to do with convicting the guy who was trying to kill me, us. My second cousin or something, sticking with the heartwarming family theme.”

  The three of them were shown to a lavish reception room of some kind, a marble globe the size of a big-screen T.V. dominating the room. Otherwise, the room was filled with a dozen gleaming throne-like chairs arranged in a semi-circle, one lone straight-backed chair set in the center, looking very naked. In front of the open side of the semi-circle was a high desk or bench, the ubiquitous gavel indicating this might be the tribunal room.

  As if he had asked the question out loud, Jack answered it. “This is the room where the tribunal will be held. We’ll get that over with first. It should be perfunctory. Maxwell has been arrested and Jonathon, you will just need to attest briefly to the attempts on your life and the call from Donovan to him reporting your death. No need to get too specific. This is a formality more than anything, but necessary to remove Maxwell from the hereditary line.”

  “What will happen to him?” Veronica asked.

  “One of the many societal improvements my father has put into place was abolishment of the death penalty, something not even all civilized countries have managed to do. So whereas before this he would have been put to death in a rather gruesome manner actually, now he’ll be sent to a very secure prison cell where he’ll live out the rest of his life in solitary. For Maxwell, such a spartan existence will be worse than death.”

  “Fortunately,” Jonathon said in an undertone.

  Jack then addressed him in his native language, “So Monica tells me you speak our tongue very well. Since she had a fairly thick accent when she tried, I’ll reserve judgment on that score. But if you feel comfortable enough, the proceeding and so your testimony should be in our language rather than English.”

  “It’s not our language, not mine, anyway,” Jonathon responded in his father’s dialect. “But I speak it fine so I don’t mind using it to testify.”

  “And without an accent,” his father noted with apparent approval.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Jonathon said in English. “Anyway, so are we doing this now? Do you strike a gong or something to convene and everybody strolls in wearing their sacred robes? And is Grandpa up there on the bench?”

  “I understand your sarcasm, but if you could curb it for the duration of this visit, it would be much appreciated.” Jack spoke in his own language as Veronica looked on.

  Jonathon realized he was being churlish. “Duly noted.”

  What was it about this situation that was turning him back into an adolescent?

  “And in response to your question, I shall go inquire. As I understood it, we were to be joined immediately by the members of the tribunal and the prisoner.” Jack started to head out a door buried in a wallpaper design of bluebirds then turned back. “And no, my father is too sick to attend. I shall be on the bench presiding.”

  “Isn’t that kind of stacking the deck? Does Max get a lawyer?”

  “You’re sticking up for the guy who tried to kill you?” Veronica asked.

  “No, but I’m—I don’t know what I’m doing.” He looked at her then at his father. “I don’t know what it is about you that makes me want to argue with you.”

  “It’s probably some oedipal thing,” Jack responded.

  “As if,” he scoffed and they both smiled, a brief respite of the tension. In an impulsive move to keep that going, Jonathon offered, “I’ll come with you. I wouldn’t mind looking around a little. Veronica?”

  “No, I’ll wait here if that’s okay.” The smile she gave him told him she wanted him to be alone with his father for at least a bit.

  He thought about objecting—it was a knee-jerk reaction to worry about her safety and not want to leave her unprotected—but he’d seen dozens of guards since they got here and the one man who wanted to hurt him and Veronica had really only wanted to hurt him. And this Maxwell was in custody, anyway. He’d be brought in soon in chains or handcuffs or whatever.

  In any case, he was going to have to start leaving her alone soon enough. He’d better get used to it if he wasn’t going to let her throw her life away by disappearing with him.

  “That’s fine,” Jonathon told her. “We won’t be long, will we?” he asked Jack.

  “No, we’ll be back shortly.”

  They took the wallpapered door through a long corridor. “Testifying at this thing is not going to interfere with the story that I’m dead, is it?”

  “If it was, Monica would never have let you near here. No, the tribunal will know you are my son, but nothing else about you. It’s irrelevant to the case against Maxwell.”

  “But Maxwell knows who I am.”

  “He will not be given an opportunity to speak.”

  “That doesn’t sound very democratic.”

  “My father has made many strides while I was gone, but we are not yet completely there.”

  They reached the end of the corridor and took another door into another empty room.

  “How many rooms in this place, anyway?”

  “I’ve never counted them.”

  “It looks like you know your way around, though.”

  “I was raised here until I left to go to America with my mother.”

  “Your mother is American?”

  “Was. She passed some time ago.” Jack looked around the empty room they had arrived in. “I don’t understand. There should be someone here.”

  Jonathon’s antenna went up. “I’m going back to Veronica.”

  “I’m sure there’s no need.”

  But Jack didn’t stop him. He followed.

  When they got back to the tribunal room, they found Veronica sitting in one of the throne chairs in the semi-circle talking to a man next to her about Jack’s age, though Jonathon’s immediate impression was that he looked much older, his skin gray, his hair wispy, the pouch he was trying to contain in his gold uniform mammoth.

  Jonathon relaxed to find her safe, but only for a second since Jack tensed, grabbing Jonathon’s arm.

  Veronica looked over to them and smiled. Her smile lasted a second or two after her companion had clutched her waist, dragging her closer, and put a knife to her delicate white throat.

  “Maxwell,” Jack cautioned in their language, holding up a hand. “This will do you no good.”

  Maxwell!

  “Ah! The princes! I’m so glad to see you again, cousin, and to meet your very wily spawn.”

  “You hurt her, and I swear to God, I’ll cut you into a thousand pieces with your own knife,” Jonathon warned low-voiced and in English.

  Maxwell switched to English, as well, accented but understandable “Hurt her? I wouldn’t think of it. She’s going to be my passage out of here. This lovely young lady and I are going to that Gulfstream conveniently parked at the airport and if you value her safety, your highness, you’ll instruct the royal pilots to fly me at my direction. I have some very nice Swiss bank accounts I have set up for just this kind of eventuality and as you know, we have no extradition treaty with the Swiss.”

  “She’s not going anywhere with you.” Jonathon edged closer.

  “The whelp. Oh, yes, I know you are some fancy agent or some such thing, but it takes very little pressure to pierce the jugular. Move again and this will all be moot.”

  “And you’ll have lost your bargaining chip,” Jack pointed out.

  Just then, the doors burst open, armed guards about to storm in until Jack yelled for them to back off and close the door.

  And they did.

  Jonathon thought of all the dangerous situations Veronica had been placed in since she’d met him, every single one of them because of him, as it turned out. But she met his eyes with such calm, despite the knife at her throat, such trust that he would get her out of this threat safely, just like the others. He was humbled.

  And scared as shit.

  But h
e knew just what he had to do.

  And this time, he didn’t hesitate even for a fraction of a second.

  The move involved a suspension of time around the actor, a belief that they could almost shift in and out of the weave of minutes, seconds even. Jonathon had practiced the move many times, watched it on film just as many, but he still would have had trouble breaking it into its component motions. It was of one movement almost, and a thousand at the same time.

  The move resulted in the opponent turning his own weapon against himself. It worked as well with a knife as a gun.

  And when it was done, Maxwell’s throat was slit, and a witness barely would have seen Jonathon take a step forward, let alone wield the knife.

  Pushing Maxwell’s body away, Jonathon cradled Veronica in his arms.

  Jack shouted and the guards came in again.

  A terse conversation with the lead guard revealed that Maxwell had been released by a traitor only moments before.

  “Fine. Get him out of here,” Jack said and they took the blood-drenched body away.

  Jonathon pulled her to him, kissing her temple, her cheek, her throat and finally her so, so sweet mouth. When he could bear to pull away, he whispered, “I take my eyes off you for a second and what happens?”

  She gave a shaky laugh. “Don’t be a chauvinist! I was doing just fine on my own. He was a perfect gentleman until you two showed up. But I agree, no more taking your eyes off me. You’re going to be my personal bodyguard from now on.”

  He hugged her, unwilling to let her go.

  But he conceded to when Jack said, “By virtue of the fact that I can’t describe what you just did to overcome Maxwell, I believe that was the famous chicken-cluck sum butterfly?”

  Veronica let out a wild laugh, and he answered, “The situation seemed to call for it.”

  “Nicely done,” his father said. “And I’m sorry about Maxwell getting free. He apparently had more supporters than we had anticipated. Those responsible have been removed from the chateau and imprisoned.”

  “No tribunal then, I take it,” Jonathon said.

  “No, it’s academic now. But my father very much wants to speak with you, Jonathon.”

  Jonathon bent his forehead to Veronica’s. “Okay, but she comes along.”

  He wouldn’t face what his inability to let her out of his sight meant for his long-term plans. Not now. Not yet.

  “That’s fine. Father would like to meet Veronica, as well, I’m sure.”

  The bedroom they were shown into was dominated by an enormous bed inhabited by a man who may have looked small in comparison, but who no one would ever describe as small for some reason that Jonathon could not quite put a finger on. His grandfather was old, and shrunken a little in age, but he was so regal-looking that it was impossible to tell how big he really was.

  Jack went over and held his father’s hand. In English, he said, “Father, this is your grandson, Jonathon, and his woman, Veronica.”

  At the ‘woman’ reference, Veronica colored a little, but Jonathon liked it. Liked the possessiveness of it. They approached the bed. On closer inspection, his grandfather didn’t seem quite as ill as Jonathon had been told. He wore a pair of glasses perched on his shaved head and the newspaper on his lap indicated he’d been reading. Perhaps no one had told him about the kerfuffle with Maxwell escaping, but if they had he certainly seemed calm about it.

  “She’s not one of those agents, is she?” the old man asked in his own language.

  “No,” Jonathon responded in the same. “And she probably feels about the Agency the same way you do, I’m sure.”

  The wrinkles crinkled even further with a smile and his grandfather said, in English, “You speak our language very well. But we shall speak English so as not to exclude your lady friend.”

  “Thank you,” Veronica said.

  “I should have seen it years ago without the tests even. You look so much like my son.”

  At the comment, Jonathon glanced uneasily at his father. But hell, why not admit the obvious? “I guess it’s a lot better than having turned out tiny and red-headed.”

  His grandfather opened his mouth and Jack stopped him with a quick reminder. “Nothing on that subject, Father. You promised.”

  “So, I did. Well, young man, I wanted to personally apologize for having kidnapped you years ago.”

  Jonathon shrugged, realizing that all his family communications seemed to be bizarre. “In the scheme of things, consider it forgotten.”

  “And I wanted to thank you for, in a round-about way, bringing my son back to me.”

  “That wasn’t me, but, ah…” He didn’t know what to say on that subject. “I’m glad you had a good reunion.”

  “I’m staying,” Jack said. “I’ve hidden away long enough. I’m ready to assume my duties here. Maybe that’s why I came back to begin with, even if I told myself I wouldn’t. Father has promised to live at least another few years to help with the transition.”

  The old man laughed. “Well, I do feel better and, who knows? Maybe seeing my son again, my grandson, has cured me. After all, science isn’t everything.”

  “Don’t say that to Veronica. Those are fighting words. She’s a very eminent scientist,” Jack said.

  The old man had no eyebrows Jonathon realized, but if he had, they would be arching in surprise. “So young!”

  “I was hurrying through life,” Veronica said with a smile. “But I’ll be slowing down now.”

  Jonathon felt her statement with pain. They needed to talk.

  “Yes, Father,” Jack said, “they will be taking over my private escape while I remain here.”

  That was the first Jonathon had heard of the fact that he would be escaping to the same place that his father had, wherever that was. But it made sense. He didn’t mind. For the first time ever, he smiled at his father.

  “Ah, Shangri-La,” the old man said.

  Jonathon and his father both nodded.

  * * * *

  After the visit with his grandfather, Jonathon asked Jack if they could have a room for him and Veronica to talk privately.

  “You can’t do this,” he said with no preamble when they were alone.

  “Do what?” Although she must have known what he meant by this point. He had been going tight and silent each time the ultimate after-death destination was mentioned.

  “I can’t let you give up your whole life for me.”

  “I thought we’d settled this.”

  “No, I just dropped it because I wanted to keep you with me until it was over. For your own safety.”

  She pursed her lips. “It’s all about my safety? Is that it? That’s why you don’t seem to want to let me out of your sight for two minutes?”

  He shifted. It was true. He was surprised he hadn’t followed her into the powder room when she excused herself a few minutes ago. But he sure as hell was waiting for her right outside it when she was done.

  “I admit…whatever you want me to admit, Veronica.” A pretty lame declaration of his feelings. “But I can’t let you disappear with me.”

  “Look, Jonathon. I have no family. I haven’t for a very long time.”

  “Your friends—”

  “I’ve always been so busy the only real friend I have is Mattie. And believe me, if she was standing here with me now, she’d be pushing me into your arms and out of the door with you.”

  “What would happen to your work?”

  “I could keep working. If I could do it in a barn, I could do it in a hut.”

  “If I know my mother, it’s not exactly a hut. Probably more like a chateau or some crap.”

  “And this is you talking me out of it?”

  “You could keep working, but what the hell would you do with it because you could never publish it. Ever.”

  She shrugged. “I’d send it to Mattie and Mattie could take the credit.”

  “She couldn’t know it was from you.”

  “I’m sure you just mean she c
ouldn’t know where I was. And she wouldn’t.”

  “I thought she was some kind of banker? How could a banker take credit for your work?”

  “You don’t know Mattie. She’d be accepting the Nobel Prize for chemistry before she was through.”

  “It’d be no life for you, Veronica.”

  “It would be if it was with you.” She looked at him squarely.

  He shook his head. “It’s the bizarre nature of the circumstances, the pressure of the last few days. Maybe you aren’t thinking too clearly.”

  “Or maybe I’m in love for the first time and, as inconvenient as it is, maybe it was meant to be.”

  Jonathon felt like a coward when she had been so brave. She put it all out there, not worrying about getting hurt. At least not emotionally. She was probably still a little worried about getting shot.

  “I’m a straightforward person, Jonathon. I know this thing between us is new and if we could just let things develop like normal people, we could be surer of it. But we’re not normal people and we can’t. And I don’t want to let it go. I’m telling the truth that I don’t want to go back to my old life. Because I’ve never been anything more than my work and I can do that anywhere. And if I can do it with the one person I know can make me feel like more than my work, then, well, I want to. And think of it this way, if it doesn’t work out, we can go our separate ways.”

  “I’m sure wherever the hell this place is, that won’t be so easy.”

  “I don’t care. You can’t convince me I don’t want to go with you. But you can convince me you don’t want me to. So, if you’re talking to me like this because you don’t want me to go with you, say it.”

  The door opened and slammed again, and his mother was all of the sudden with them.

  He and Veronica both looked at her in surprise.

  “What? Did you think I wasn’t going to say goodbye to you, Jonathon?”

  Jack was right behind her. “I tried to keep her out, but, ah, you know your mother.”

  Jonathon nodded. “Yeah.”

  He turned back to Veronica, who had just laid her feelings out there. Heartbreakingly honest. She was so vulnerable and sexy that he wanted to cry. But he couldn’t let her throw her life away.