Linda Needham (21 page)

He caught Caro’s hand as they reached the door and gave it a squeeze before he put her fingers to his
lips. “Behave, madam! Trust no one that I haven’t introduced to you.”

“I promise.” She put her hand to her heart as though in pledge. “That goes for you, my lord.”

“I’ll do my best.” He felt her watching him as he hurried down the stairs away from her.

“Will you be back for supper, Drew?”

The woman who had wrapped her soft fingers around his heart was standing at the door in her homey skirts, shielding her eyes with her hand and beckoning him home for dinner.

Tempting him.

Rousing him.

“I’ll do my best, Princess.”

“Good, then I’ll see you at supper, my lord.” She grinned at him, waved, then slipped back inside, leaving a dark hole in the sky above him.

“Never saw a man look quite so cozy as you did right then,” Ross said to Drew as they tied the horses to the back of the carriage. “Except for you, Jared. Whenever you’re with your Kate. Gad, it’s a plague.”

Drew climbed into the carriage, his bones suddenly as weary as his soul. “You know me, Ross, I keep myself as far removed from royals as I can.”

Especially the warmhearted, generous, honorable ones.

God help me, I love you, Caro.

C
aro dashed through the rest of the day, her heart soaring every time she thought of Drew, and spiraling downward whenever she reminded herself that she had only a few more days in his company. Then he would be gone from her life.

Unless I steal you for myself, Drew.

It was only fair; he’d stolen her heart when she wasn’t looking.

She would have insisted on going to London with him, but he seemed determined to leave her here, even concocting a meeting with Palmerston so that he and Ross and Jared could take off without her. Besides, she still had plenty to do, getting the most precious of the Boratanian artifacts packed and ready in time for the opening ceremonies.

Wary of stray assassins who might be lurking around the next corner, she engaged three bodyguards to help her in the orangery; Runson, Mr. Wheeler and Henry, whose arm was healing very
nicely and who had been as difficult to keep in a resting mode as she was.

Within the hour the orangery was bustling with more help than Caro actually needed. Karl’s wife, Dorothea, and then Wilhelm’s wife, Gloriana, tended to the textiles, regaling her with their memories of Boratania.

And then the children came to join the fun, once they were finished riding their ponies across the estate.

And, of course, two by two, the men came to help and to chuckle about their part in the coronation ceremony, until the orangery rang with the sounds of celebration.

Eventually, the last few crates were carefully packed and the wagon loaded and the ties secured around the canvas to be taken to the Crystal Palace in the morning.

When supper arrived in the dining room, Caro watched the door as the soup came, listened for Drew’s footfall in the foyer all during the meal. But he didn’t come then, and didn’t come as she settled with her subjects into the cluttered comfort of her library to try to make sense of her dozen logbooks.

She’d gotten used to worrying about him, so she tucked it away in the front of her heart and bent over her logbook, soothed by the sounds of the children running about and the men playing chess.

“What’s this date here, Wilhelm?” Caro looked up from a line of Wilhelm’s carefully added script.

“Let me see, your highness.” Wilhelm hurried toward her from his bending over the chess game at the hearth table. “Now, where do you mean?”

“Here, where I wrote, ‘carved wooden figure of a
dun cow,’ you’ve added in green ink, ‘Old Delsee, tavern sign, Rumdorf,’ and is that date 1768 or 1763?”

“Ah, it’s 1763, Your Highness. The date my great-grandsire opened the tavern doors.”

“Isn’t it amazing, Wilhelm, to learn that the Old Delsee in Rumdorf belonged to your mother’s family. I’m just so grateful for all your help.”

“That’s checkmate again, Johannes!” Marcus bounced up from the settee and stuck out his palm. “And you owe me another shilling!”

Johannes shook his finger at Marcus. “One more game, Marcus. Double or nothing!”

She’d gotten so used to having her library look and sound like a market square on a midsummer holiday that she didn’t know what she was going to do without them all living with her every day.

“You’d better go break that up, Wilhelm,” Caro said, laughing at the lot of them, “before they start tussling on the floor.”

“My pencil broke, Princess Caroline.” Annora produced the broken point.

“You must be working very hard, Annora.”

“Teaching Oscar to write his name.”

Caro gave the girl another pencil from a drawer, and she went back to the pile of children in the corner.

Caro clarified Wilhelm’s date and then flipped to the next category in the logbook, leafing slowly through the pages, looking for telltale green ink.

And wondering how Drew was doing. If he was safely out of the range of bullets that were meant for her.

“‘A sculpture relief of Aphrodite—overlooked the tulip garden in Velkert Castle.’ Oh, my!” Someone had added, “One of a pair.”

So one was still missing! Good to know.

Caro paged through to the next section in the book and found more green ink beneath her own catalogue listing for the old coffer from St. Hildebrandt’s that she’d rescued from Lord Peverel.

Added after her own, “flat lid, trail of bees dancing along the edge,” were the words, “rumored to have held King Varik I’s crown, after 537; compartment hidden in bottom.”

“A hidden compartment?” Caro looked up from this very interesting development to the intense chess game across the room. “Pardon me, gentlemen. Which of you found the secret compartment in that old coffer?”

“I didn’t actually find the compartment, Your Highness,” Karl said, looking over the top of the game, “because I didn’t see the coffer. Must already be packed away.”

“How did you learn about the compartment?”

“Way back when I was a boy.” Karl squinted one eye toward the memory. “I remember the dotty old priest at St. Hildebrandt’s whispering something about the secret slot holding a lock of St. Mary’s hair. I only saw the coffer itself once, when it was paraded in front of us during the feast of St. Hildebrandt’s. And I never saw it open.”

A secret compartment, eh? Possibly not opened for centuries.

A tantalizing mystery that nagged at her for the next half hour until she couldn’t stand it any longer.

She left the library, still abuzz, lit a lantern and hurried out to the orangery to dig King Varik’s coffer out of its storage.

She unlocked the orangery and made her way into the undercroft to the crate marked
MISC. WOODEN WARE
. Moments later she was carrying the uninspiring coffer back upstairs to her worktable. She set it down beside the lantern.

Plain, unadorned but for a beehive in the corner and those Boratanian dancing bees.

“In the bottom.” She lifted the brass latch and opened the lid wide. “Still empty.”

“Princess!” Annora’s voice pierced the walls of the orangery just as the children came streaming around the crates and into the work area.

Robert Frederick reached Caro first and clapped his palms together. “We just saw lotsa bats coming out of the barn!”

Marguerite’s chin barely reached the tabletop. “What are you doing, Princess Caroline?”

“Is that a real treasure chest?” Oscar put his arms up for Caro to pick him up.

Resigned to her little crowd, Caro lifted the boy into her arms and sat him on the edge of the table. “It just might be, Oscar.”

The bottom of the wooden box did seem proportionately thicker than it needed to be, and lighter.

Frederick stuck his nose into the box. “But it’s empty, Princess, how can it have a treasure inside?”

“Not all treasure is the kind we can see, Frederick.” Caro closed the lid and turned the coffer over to examine the underside. “The box is supposed to have a secret compartment.”

Nothing out of place, no apparent levers or latches.

“Where do you think the secret’s hiding, Princess?” Marguerite tapped on the side of the box.

“I don’t know, but we’ll find it here somewhere.” Caro relatched the box, held it close to her ear, then shook it gently.

And heard the tiniest of sounds, a sluicing
click
that made her think of sea shells.

More determined than ever to solve the puzzle, Caro kept the latch closed and brought the lamp closer.

Which brought four little faces closer, four eager smiles, four pairs of bright eyes.

Suddenly thrilled by the mystery, by the everyday miracles that came in such small packages and in such dear company, Caro turned the coffer in her hands and studied every joint, knocked on every side, pressed every corner, until she was beginning to doubt the veracity of the priest at St. Hildebrandt’s.

Finally she held the sides of the box with both hands and used her thumbs to slide the lid backward about a half inch, causing a chorus of
Oooooh
s from her audience.

“It moved, Princess!”

“It did.” Caro’s heart was pounding as she pressed up on the bottom of the front panel and it miraculously slid upward two inches, revealing an eight inch wide by half-inch high slot that seemed to run six to eight inches into the box.

“What’s inside, Your Highness?” Oscar leaned over to look into the opening.

“Is it gold?” Annora tried to see inside.

“Candy?”

Not a treasure at all. “It’s paper, children.”

“Ahhhhh, phooey!”

“Paper?”

“Is it story time yet?”

“Soon, Oscar.” All this while Caro was trying to fish the thickly folded pages out of the slot with fingers that were starting to shake with excitement.

With a little gentle coaxing and a handy hairpin, she finally hooked the creased edge and started tugging gently against whatever was still catching it up.

Great heavens, it could be anything! And very old. Scripted in the distant past, hidden to share with the future. Possibly in a language that she couldn’t read.

“Here it is, children!” The packet popped out into her hands, and became four pieces of paper of different sizes and type, each folded singly, then the group folded together into a packet.

“Some goofy treasure, that is!” Robert Frederick said. “Let’s go back to the barn and look at the bats.”

“Tell us a story, Princess!”

The best kind of treasure. Caro couldn’t stop her fingers from fumbling as she unfolded the first page.

“King George, again?” Caro muttered.

“Did a king write a letter to you, Princess Caroline?”

“In a way, Annora.” But a very long time ago.

There were the other papers in the bundle that she desperately wanted to look at. But the lantern light was horrid here in the orangery and there were all the little fingers getting bored and looking for more coffers to open.

“Come children! It is story time, after all.”

“Yaaaaayyyyyy!”

Delighted with this new mystery, Caro quickly closed up the secret panel, reset the coffer lid, then opened it to the main compartment and shoved the bundle of papers inside.

Tucking the coffer under her arm, she led the children back to the house. Her hopes that Drew had returned from London were dashed when Runson met her with a message as they came through the side door. “His lordship won’t be back until later tonight, Your Highness.”

Caro’s heart sank. “Did he say how late?”

“No, but, don’t you worry about him, Princess Caroline. He’ll be back as soon as he can, and sound as a bell.”

“Is it story time yet, Princess Caroline?” Oscar was
standing at the library door, holding a large book by the Grimms, and surrounded by the other children.

Johannes came up behind them. “Now, children, you’ve plagued the princess long enough tonight—”

“Actually, Johannes,” Caro said with a smile, “it’s two minutes past story time!”

They followed her into the library and gathered around her on the settee like little rabbits.

“
The Six Swans
!” Oscar said, starting to climb into Caro’s lap. Caro cringed, expecting a flash of pain at her side, surprised that she could so easily take the boy’s weight, even with all his scrunching and wriggling.

“
Brother Lustig
!” the two girls shouted. “No!
The Wolf and the Fox
!” They settled on
Iron Henry
and then easily talked her into four more.

She’d convinced the adults that she would be fine with the children, so they had all gone upstairs. Oscar had fallen asleep during the first story and the others were yawning by the time clever Gretel shoved the ugly old witch into the oven and rescued Hansel from certain death.

“Gretel’s as brave as you are, Princess Caroline!” Robert Frederick said, groaning as he yawned and stretched.

“Princess Caroline is lots braver, Frederick!” Annora closed the big book and clutched it against her chest. “She’s been saving Boratania for us, all by herself, for a long, long time. Haven’t you, Princess Caroline?”

“I’ve had a lot of help, Annora. You’ve helped me, and your papa has, and Oscar and Marguerite.”

“And Oscar’s grandpapa!” Marguerite said. “And ’Rasmus and Lord Wexford.”

“And me!” Robert Frederick jumped to his feet and saluted. “When I grow up, Princess Caroline, I want to be your best soldier ever! I won’t let anyone hurt you. Ever!”

Tears pooled in Caro’s eyes. This dear little boy, so willing to defend her.

“I want to be the minister of the horses!” Annora leaped up and pranced around the settee.

Oscar yawned loudly and stretched out on Caro’s lap. “Can I be your pudding minister, Princess?”

Caro leaned down and kissed him on his sleepy forehead. “You can be anything you want, Oscar. Especially my pudding minister.”

“What about you, Lord Wexford?” Annora had stopped her galloping behind the settee and was looking toward the library door. “What do you want to be?”

Drew! Home and whole!

Her heart pounded madly at the sight of him standing in the doorway, so towering and fierce that she lost herself for a moment in the burning darkness of his eyes.

“Do you suppose there’s any job in the cabinet for me, Annora?” Drew smiled at the children as he entered and lowered himself into the chair directly across from Caro.

“Ummmm,” Annora said, coming around the settee to seriously study Drew. “Minister of…of…hedgehogs!”

“Hedgehogs?” Caro said, adding a laugh.

Drew nodded. “Of course, hedgehogs, Princess. After all, they’re quite small, prickly…”

“And sooo cute,” Marguerite added, leaping over
Annora to plunk down on Drew’s knee. “And they need someone to look after them!”