Linda Needham (25 page)

“Lemonade! Gumdrops!” A vendor shoved through the crowd with a tray slung from his neck, causing a clot of thirsty people to stop right in front of them.

A rowdy column of boys called out to the man, pushing their way in front of Caro, knocking her forward and shouldering Drew backward.

And then he lost her, lost the heat of her against the palm of his hand.

“Caro!” Drew reached out for her, made a grab but missed, sending his heart racing in stark terror.

But she had recovered and was grinning when she looked back at him, separated from him no more than two arm lengths.

And then three.

“Drew?” She caught hold of her lower lip with her teeth, reached up to wave at him.

And then she disappeared into the crowd.

Vanished!

“Caro!” Suddenly frantic for her, Drew swam forward, shoving people aside one by one, gaining on her as she was hustled along by the mob just ahead of him.

Closer and closer until he need only push past one of the trumpet players and he would have hold of her arm.

But then the world slowed and he saw everything at once.

Caro pivoting toward something to her right.

The crowd parting for the briefest moment.

And Lord Peverel, small and ferretlike, saying something to her.

A movement of the man’s hand at his pocket.

And then a small flash of silver, his arm raised toward Caro.

“Nooooo!” Drew sprang forward across the top of
the crowd, crashing into Peverel and knocking the small pistol out of his hand.

Drew regained his balance and turned at the same time to find Caro wide-eyed and horrified, miraculously alive but still blocked from him by the crush of people.

In that same moment Peverel wriggled out of Drew’s grasp and dashed off toward an exit in the north end of the transept, slipping through the throng like the slithery weasel he was. Seeing that his operatives were quickly closing in on Caro, Drew took off after Peverel.

The bastard had broken out into the open air, bloody nimble for a man in his late sixties. Drew followed across the grass, his fury boundless, growing ever more treacherous as he quickly gained on the man.

He reached the western corner of the exhibition hall not ten yards behind Peverel. But the man’s stride was beginning to falter as he approached the steam plant.

“Stop, Peverel!”

Still the old man trudged on, slowing, stumbling, until Drew merely grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up against the brick wall at the back of the steam plant.

“Please, no, Wexford!” Peverel covered his face with his thin arms, whining, gasping for every breath, his muscles hanging like a ragdoll. “Don’t hurt me! Don’t!”

“You bloody bastard, I ought to kill you right here!” Drew shook the man by the shoulders, wanting to pummel him to a pulp but pinning him against the wall, forcing his head up. “You betrayed her! The
innocent princess you had promised to champion.”

“No, but I—” His pale gray eyes widened, the whites of them spidered in red. “I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean to have her murdered?” The man’s gaze dropped and Drew gave him another shake. “Look at me, Peverel. You hired assassins to kill her! Why did you hate her so much? What the devil did she do to you? Tell me before I kill you myself!”

“Please, please, Wexford! I don’t hate the princess. She’s—” Peverel’s lips were cracked and dry, his mouth working without a sound.

“She’s what? In your way? Worth some kind of fortune to you? What?” Drew shook him again, telling himself that the bastard wasn’t worth killing.

“I wasn’t supposed to tell—”

“Tell what?”

Peverel licked his lips. “The queen…She threatened to charge me with treason if…if…”

Drew leaned closer to Peverel. “If you revealed the secret of the princess’s birth? The truth?”

Peverel’s eyelids fluttered as he stared up at Drew. “Oh, God! You know too, Wexford?”

“Of course, I know, damn it! Your assassins put me on the case.”

Peverel was trembling uncontrollably, still breathless. “Does…does she know? The…the princess?”

“Yes, Lord Peverel, I know.”

Caro!
Drew’s heart stopped at the soft sound of her voice behind him, and started again to know that she was alive and safe.

“Princess.” He turned to her, not caring that he held the man with one hand, letting him slump against the wall. He wanted to enfold Caro in his arms, to kiss her senseless. To keep her always with him.

But Halladay and Casserly and two other agents had spaced themselves out a few yards behind her and she seemed fixed on Peverel, who was now leaning low against the wall, his head bowed, his gnarled hands covering his eyes as though Drew would strike him.

“Why, Lord Peverel?” she asked, quietly approaching him. “What did I do to you?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” He shook his disheveled gray head, still hiding his eyes. “You were kind. I was a fool, Princess Caroline.”

“You should have just asked me about the coffer, my lord.”

The shivering coward raised his hands and looked up at her. “But I thought you knew…about the box. The compartment in the bottom. That you would open it and find out…”

“Not until two days ago.”

“Oh, dear God.” Sloppy tears began to stream from the man’s eyes.

“You could have made up a story, my lord. Any story. I would have given it back, for as long as you needed it.”

His eyes grew wide in horror, as though he just realized that he’d taken a needlessly violent path, with an unthinkable destination. “I…I just…I didn’t think!”

Drew had had enough of the man’s drivel, yanked him back onto his feet. “So you decided that the solution to your pitiful personal problem was a dead princess. Three men dead because of your incompetence! Your arrogance!”

“You see I…I had no choice, Wexford.” Peverel looked from Drew to Caro, his eyes pleading, his
voice quaking. “I’d committed high treason. Me! A Peverel! Oh, my God!”

The man broke down completely, sobbing, sinking to the ground in a pathetic ball, his knees around his ears.

Drew turned away from the sickening sight of him, felt every bit as drained as the wily old bastard, though his outrage kept him on the edge, ready to lash out.

But Caro was there beside him, lacing her gentle fingers between his, smiling up at him. “A rather underwhelming villain, isn’t he, Drew?”

Drew couldn’t help but smile, touching her chin with the tip of his finger. “Hardly the international criminal I’d first suspected.”

“But you, my Lord Wexford, will always be the hero of my heart. Thank you.”

Oh, if they were only alone here in their own fairy tale, if they were free….

But reality was strewn about all around them. Peverel fallen into a heap at their feet, sobbing, a wall of agents standing guard not two dozen feet from them.

The rumble and hiss of the steam plant at their backs.

The exhibition.

Caro’s coronation.

The end of all things.

“Halladay!” Drew shouted, “you and Casserly take Peverel out of here, to Whitehall. I’ll follow you in a moment.”

“Be careful with him,” Caro said, as the two men lifted Peverel to his feet. He hung his head as he was hustled past her.

“Come, love, I’ll take you back to your subjects before I leave,” Drew said, hooking her hand around his elbow and starting off across the grassy expanse toward the so aptly named Crystal Palace.

“Then you’re not staying, Drew?” He heard the melancholy in her voice, though she looked every inch the regal princess, fully in control.

“Palmerston is inside the hall somewhere; he’ll want to be with me when we interrogate Peverel.”

“And then you’ll come home?”

Home.
How in the world had
home
come to mean Caro? And how was he going to live without her?

“I’ll see you as soon as I can, Princess.” He stopped with her just inside the entrance, wishing he could hold her hand, wishing he could kiss her. “Now, go on inside and enjoy your triumph. There’s Wilhelm now, waving at us. I’m sure your subjects are looking to celebrate with you.”

“Thank you, Drew.” Her eyes were a soft, clear blue, but teary and full of sorrow. “For everything.”

“It’s been the greatest honor of my life, Your Highness.” He left her while he still could.

C
aro spent the rest of the evening with her subjects, exploring the Great Exhibition, from gallery to gallery and back again, delighted with the Boratanian display, impressed by the amazing steam-driven machines that seemed capable of doing and making anything imaginable, without human intervention.

“Isn’t that the biggest elephant you’ve ever seen, Princess Caroline!” Oscar had been her constant companion during the tour, seeing the world from her arms.

“It is, Oscar, and I know just where to find the biggest bag of gumdrops! Come along, children!”

There were costumes from every country, a medieval court, raucous music, fine tapestries, timber from the dense Canadian forests, exotic smells, and the free-wheeling laughter of the children, all of it blending together to make an unforgettable event.

Caro did her best to keep Drew tucked quietly in
her heart, where she could take him out when she needed him. But he was such an insistent man, impossible to ignore, even when he was miles away and she was tucked up in her bed, listening for him to come home.

But the caseclock just kept ticking away the minutes, counting out the last of her days with him.

The last of her nights.

“I love you, Drew.”

He was in her dreams, but distantly, a sea of people bobbing between them. She could never quite reach him, never got to feel the power and heat of his hands meeting hers.

I love you, Caro!

Drew?

Farewell, my princess…my love.

Drew!

She woke with a start, reaching for him, a sliver of brilliant daylight falling across her face from the window.

“Drew!” She left the bed with a leap, opened the bookcase then knocked properly on the secret door.

Princess to warrior.

Because it was the day before her coronation and, though she’d learned the worst about her past, Drew had been right about her destiny. Being born into a royal family was strictly a matter of chance and was no guarantee that the person would have the wisdom to rule.

When he didn’t come to the door, she called his name and knocked again. “Drew, are you dressed?”

Feeling a rising panic, Caro opened the door and found nothing of Drew. His bed was made up. His clothes were gone as well as his shaving gear. Even
the scent of him had disappeared, as though he’d never come through her life.

Less than a ghost.

Her heart breaking into bits, Caro bathed and dressed and went downstairs, hoping to find him in the investigation room.

But that, too, had been restored to its previous condition, the wall map gone, the files, the clerks. All the furniture back in place.

“Excuse me, your highness, but will you be taking breakfast here in the parlor?”

She turned toward the familiar voice, shocked to find her butler Sebring and not Mr. Runson.

“Oh…Sebring!” Her mouth went dry. “Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed your holiday.”

Sebring grinned. “Oh, yes, Your Highness, we all did. You were most generous with us! An unexpected holiday in Brighton! How could we not enjoy ourselves?”

“So…everyone has come back?” And Wheeler was gone, and Tweeg and Mackenzie and all the others whose kindness and expertise she’d come to admire.

“To the last gardener, madam. And we’re ready to serve you. Shall I bring your breakfast here?”

Another day of losses and change. “I’ll have a tray in the library. And thank you, Sebring.”

The house was too quiet, with the children at their morning classwork and the men doubtlessly somewhere practicing their part in tomorrow’s processional.

And no sign of Drew.

She missed him everywhere, in her heart and in the library, his advice and his strength.

Tears clouded her vision as she stumbled to her desk. She wiped at her eyes and sat down, almost missing the tented note beside her inkstand.

Her hands shook as she opened it.

Caro put her head in her arms and wept.

But the day sped by quickly, the coronation activity level increasing by the hour, until the early evening had her running between Queen Victoria’s marshal-at-arms giving her instructions in the parlor, her subjects in the library, the children’s drawings in the dining room, the seamstress in her bedchamber, the flamboyant Chef Soyer in her kitchen with his menus and assistant cooks.

Gracious!

It wasn’t until she had tended to everyone and was heading upstairs toward her bedchamber for a restless night that she noticed a light in the east-wing sitting room. She found Wilhelm talking quietly there with Karl and Johannes.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Enjoying the quiet?”

“Ah, Princess,” Wilhelm said, standing with the
others as she entered the room, “resting up for tomorrow.”

“That’s just what I was going to do.” She suddenly remembered Lord Peverel, the loss of his guidance, her need for a familiar face or two. She sat down in a chair beside Johannes. “I was just thinking that I’m going to need all of you with me after the coronation.”

“And we’ll be there at the reception to do whatever you need us to do, Your Highness.”

Wilhelm clapped his palms on his knees as he sat. “Soon to be Her Majesty, Empress of Boratania.”

Empress. Could her lost mother ever have expected her to bear that title? Would she be amazed? Proud?

“It’s not the reception I’m thinking of, gentlemen, though I do hope you’ll take full advantage of the celebrations. It’s afterward, when we return to Boratania that I’ll be needing your wisdom and guidance.”

“Ours?” they said as one.

“I’ll be putting together a privy council, and I can’t think of six more qualified men to appoint.”

“Privy council?” Johannes sat hard. “Us? Are you sure, Your Highness?”

“Very sure.” More certain now than when she entered the room. “I’ll need a chancellor and someone to administer the treasury and the courts. The six of you embody the best of Boratania’s past and a zeal for the future. You’re fair minded and modern and loyal.”

“We do love Boratania, Your Highness—”

“Please think it over, Karl.” Caro stood and started for the door. “Talk it over with the others. I don’t want to pressure any of you, but I do think I’m right. Good night, gentlemen.”

She smiled to hear their stunned enthusiasm as she hurried down the hall toward her chamber.

After all, an empress had the right, the obligation, to choose a suitable council.

And she was quite sure that Drew would approve of her choice.

“You’ve been three times up the side aisle, Drew,” Jared said from his leaning post just inside the unused west door of St. George’s Chapel. “You’ll wear out the queen’s good stone floor with your pacing.”

“I’m not pacing, Jared,” Drew said under his breath. Though he stopped and jammed his fists into his coat pockets, not yet able to take a seat among the others who had been filling the nave for the last half hour. “I’m just ready to be finished with it all.”

Anything to stop the empty aching in his chest.

He was a bloody coward for not staying behind to accompany Caro to her coronation today. Though he couldn’t have ridden with her inside her carriage; ceremonial protocol would have kept him way in the rear of any caravan.

And yet he could have skipped out on Palmerston’s meeting about his next mission and stayed around Grandauer Hall yesterday to give Caro a bit of moral support.

But there was danger there and temptation beyond his will to resist. His job was done. Best to move on.

“I’m proud of you, Drew!” Jared clapped him on the shoulder. “You caught the villain in the nick of time. Peverel will spend the rest of his miserable life in a cold Scottish prison. Your princess is still alive, and in just a few minutes she’ll be crowned the empress of Boratania.”

And she’ll be lost to him forever.

“Yeah.”

Jared was studying him with a raised brow. “Bloody hell, Drew. She’s the one, isn’t she?”

“The one?” Drew found himself standing in front of the Urswick Chantry, staring at nothing in particular, waiting for the sound of Caro’s entourage on the stairs from the undercroft.

“Dangerous to fall in love with a princess, Drew.”

“Ours is dangerous work, Jared.” A bullet in his heart would have been kinder, quicker. “But then I knew that when I took Palmerston’s assignment.”

Though he hadn’t known that Caro would become a part of him, that she would take hold of his soul.

“You don’t have to stay for this, Drew. Kate and I can give your best to the new empress—”

“No, Jared. But thanks for trying. My assignment was to see Princess Caroline crowned empress, and I’m going to see it through.” Even if it killed him.

“And after that?”

Oblivion.

“Your coastal report, Jared, remember?” Drew slanted his friend the most suspicious glare he could muster. “Conveniently in Cornwall, I might add.”

“Near your much neglected home.” Jared smiled. “It was Kate’s idea. She thinks you need a rest. I think so, too.”

“Bloody hell, you’ve got the most scheming, meddlesome wife!”

“That’s just jealousy talking, my good man. You know as well as I do that Kate’s schemes invariably work out for the best. I’ve learned to go along with them.”

“Well, be sure to thank her for me.” An attempt at
sarcasm, but a few days of quiet while he compiled Jared’s bloody coastal reports for the Home Office sounded a bit too good to grouse about.

“You can tell her yourself, Drew, she’s sitting in the third pew with Ross.”

“Go join them, Jared. I won’t be sitting.” He planned to stay just long enough to see the crown placed on Caro’s lovely head, and then he would leave.

Cowardly, but he couldn’t bear more than that.

“As you wish, Drew.” Jared offered his hand. “Do take care. And I’m sorry.”

So am I.

Jared barely made it to his seat when the music began and Drew heard the fateful sound of footsteps coming up the stairs from the undercroft.

Caro! His princess.

Feeling like a bloody sneak thief, he moved halfway up the outside aisle of the nave, then stood beside one of the columns, a post that would give him a full view of the entire processional.

Close enough to hear for himself Caro swear the oath that would finally make her an empress.

A clean break. A slice through his heart.

Trumpets suddenly launched into a fanfare that arched through the fan vaulting, and Drew held his breath as the procession came into view at the back of the chapel.

Johannes and Wilhelm were at the lead of their two small columns of her loyal Boratanian subjects. Proud and determined, looking very capable, wise and ready.

His heart saw her before his eyes did, a brief glimpse as she moved into place behind them. Bits of
her that raised his pulse and brought a lump to his throat.

The organ music rose with the trumpets, then the procession started down the aisle in earnest.

God, she was beautiful. Regal and ready to take her place in history.

His Caro. Brave and good, unwavering and honest.

His heart clenched as he saw her scanning the crowd for him, subtly, her chin high, her eyes glinting brilliantly as they traveled the width of the nave. Her golden hair was piled in curls atop her head, crowned with a small circlet of diamonds that would soon be replaced by a more elaborate crown.

Her gown was snow white and flowing, sashed across her left shoulder in a rich purple. She was draped in a lush, blue cape that was edged in white fur. Diamonds glinted from everywhere, as though shards of moonlight had attached themselves to her for a better view of the sky.

And then her eyes found him across the heads of the congregation.

“Caro,” he heard himself whisper, a breathless prayer for her.

She smiled just for him, her eyes growing large and damp, glittering with unshed tears.

Then she passed him by, leaving him behind.

I love you, Caro.

Drew!
Caro had prayed and prayed that he would come today. But she hadn’t expected her heart to take off like a rabbit when she found him standing apart from everyone else. His jaw squared, his eyes haunted and fierce.

She had been perfectly fine when she left Grandauer Hall in the company of Queen Victoria’s
officials, had rationalized the facts, had sorted through and swallowed the falsehoods about her birth, fully determined to sacrifice the truth for the good of her people.

Who weren’t her people at all.

But she had arrived in the undercroft at St. George’s Chapel with a wicked dread churning in her chest, the stink of charred feathers, the metallic taste of lies.

Something was deeply wrong.

A lie was a lie. And such iniquity would only grow ever more evil over the years, more deeply woven into the fabric of Boratania.

And yet, here she was, artfully processing through a sea of dignitaries, kings and princes, dukes and margraves, moving inexorably toward the archbishop of Canterbury, in all his sacred and gleaming vestments, who would soon give his blessing to this travesty.

Then what?

Ahead of her, Johannes and Wilhelm reached the bottom of the dais steps and the procession came to a halt, just as they had practiced.

The music changed, and now she was supposed to walk between the two columns. Between these good men that she had come to love and respect. Men whom she could not lie to, who deserved better.

Men whose lives she was still responsible for, no matter that she wasn’t truly their princess.

And shouldn’t be their empress.

The archbishop was looking down the aisle at her over the top of his spectacles, nodding subtly at her to join him, when all she wanted to do was turn tail and run out of the chapel and into the street.