The Frog Prince (34 page)

“Mikhail says you guys are going to Paris this weekend,” he says tightly.

Ah, this is the source of his bad mood. “I’d rather not go,” I say. “It’s just some letters that are referred to in a diary. Mikhail can go alone to see them. They’re probably a dead end anyway.”

“He says you’re moving out of the palace.”

My pen freezes on the pad of paper. I spend a microsecond cursing Mikhail Romanov before looking up to respond. There’ll be plenty of time to curse him at leisure later. “Well, since I found the Rudolph tunnel and got that book advance I thought it’s time to get off the dole.” Seeing his expression I quickly add, “I won’t go far. There are some really nice apartments between here and the Hofburg.”

“Leigh, you don’t have to leave Schönbrunn. If you want I’ll have the palace charge you rent to live here.”
I sigh. “Roman, it’s not just the idea of having my own place.”

“What then?”

“It just…it just doesn’t look good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Living here is giving you a lot of bad press.”

He clenches his jaw. I know what’s coming now. “I told you not to read the papers,” he says.

Time for honesty. “When I say it’s giving
you
a lot of bad press, what I really mean is it’s giving
me
a lot of bad press. The papers are starting to refer to me as your mistress.”

Roman’s hands ball up into fists and he looks like he’s about to punch a hole in a wall. “Which papers?” he says.

“What does it matter?” I say. “My point is that your mother reads those papers.” My face gets hot just envisioning it. “
My
parents read the American papers. If have my own apartment, I can go back to just being your girlfriend.”

He pulls out a chair and sits down. He doesn’t say anything at first, just chews the inside of his lip. “You’re spending a lot of time with Mikhail,” he says finally.

This wasn’t what I expected. “Uh, yeah, I guess so. He’s been helpful getting access to archives and private collections. Being related to every royal house in Europe and Russian tends to open doors.”

“What I’m saying is that’s something else the press has been focusing on.”

I drop my pen and lean back in my chair. “Is that something
you’re
focusing on?”

He shakes his head. “I’m just saying that you have to look at the entire picture if you’re trying to see why you’re getting negative coverage.”

My thoughts come fast and furious.
Does the ‘entire picture’ include your every-other-week jaunts around Austria with Isabella?
Maybe the press wouldn’t consider me your mistress if they didn’t consider her your future wife
.

I don’t say any of this, just cross my arms and wait for more.

“There are pictures of you two going to dinner and shopping. You gave an interview together after you found the Rudolph tunnel.”

“So what? Mikhail helped me find the tunnel. It would have been unfair to pretend that I’d done it on my own.” I laugh once in exasperation. “He wouldn’t even take any of the book advance even though I offered it to him. He hasn’t asked to be listed as a co-author or acknowledged in any way.”

“I think he’s getting the acknowledgement he’s looking for in the press,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

“All I’m saying is that you need to be careful that you don’t make things worse. If you move out of Schönbrunn the press will jump to conclusions and say that we’re not together.”

“Well, that’s a helluva lot better than being a mistress!” I say, my voice edging into a higher octave with every word.

Roman stares at me, a puzzled look on his face. “Is that what you want?” he says. “For people to think that we’re not together?”

“Is that a serious question?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not even going to answer that.” I stand up and head for the front door, grabbing my keys off the kitchen counter on my way.

“Where are you going?”

“I forgot something in my office.” Big lie.

“Mikhail’s not in there. I saw him in the elevator on my way up.”

“Mikhail’s
not
what I left in my office,” I snap, slamming the door behind me.

I get in the elevator and take it to the ground floor. I corner the first security officer I see. “
Wo ist Jason?
Where is Jason?
”

He keys his walkie-talkie, but I just keep walking until I’m at the side entrance. Somehow Jason is already there waiting for me.

“Have you unlocked the secret to teleportation or something?” I say to him.

His face is stony. “I am a bodyguard, not a physicist.” He opens the door for me. “Should I call for a driver?”

“No, I’m driving myself. And no, I don’t want your opinion of that. It’s bad enough that you have to follow me around like a stalker.”

Jason looks back inside. “
Herr
Romanov is not coming with you?”

“No, he’s not coming with me,” I say acidly. “And what’s with all the ‘
Herr
Romanov’ stuff? Why is it that you can call all my friends by their first name except Mikhail?”

He stiffens. “I prefer not to be on a first name basis with
Herr
Romanov.”

“Why?”

Jason clears his throat. “He has a…poor reputation throughout Europe.” I’m about to pounce on him for this vague bit of slander when he adds: “I do not like the way he looks at Isabella.”

It’s all I can do to not roll my eyes. Now that we share the royalty-commoner problem, you would think that Jason and I would be even closer. Instead, his hush-hush love affair with Isabella of Denmark has ruined our friendship, not so much because it’s Isabella, but because he can’t see—even after I’ve pointed it out several times—that Isabella is still carrying a candle for Roman.

“I’m not sure how
my
work partner ogling
your
girlfriend is a reason for me to stay away from him.”

I see a flicker of anger on his face before he sets his jaw and looks me right in the eyes. “Leigh,” he says softly, “I have spoken to Roman about Mikhail Romanov. He will be asked to leave the palace.” He pauses. “He will be asked to leave Austria.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I want to scream, to grab a nearby copper pan suspended from a hook and break something with it. “
Right
,” I spit, “
you’re
telling
Roman
that Mikhail needs to leave. You sure it wasn’t the other way around? Christ, Jason! Roman may not believe me, but you trail me like a blood hound twenty-four/seven. Mikhail’s just a guy I’m working with, okay? If I was screwing Mikhail Romanov, don’t you think you’d know it?
Verdammte Scheiße
!”

He ignores my cursing. “Leigh, I can assure you that it was not—“

“I don’t want to hear anymore!” I yell.

Our spat is interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. He fishes it out of his inside coat pocket and holds it to his ear. His lips press into a tight line. “
Ja,
she is here,” he says, and holds the phone out to me.

I’m wondering why anyone would call Jason to reach me when I realize that I left my cell phone back in my suite. “Hello?”

“Leigh, I found it!” says Mikhail.

Well, at least the identification of the caller explains Jason’s expression. “Mikhail, I’m on my way out,” I say.

He goes on as if I haven’t spoken. “We were looking for the secret passage inside the Oval Salon to continue west into the Stallion’s Room, yes?”

I freeze. “Yes…so?”

“It is meant to fool! The passage continues to the east, right over the top of the Small Gallery. “I’m certain that it connects the Oval and the Round Salons together inside the ceiling!”

I want to break into a dance and shout, but Jason is eyeing me carefully. “Interesting,” I say as calmly as possible. “I’ll be there in a moment.” I hand Jason his phone. “Sorry, I need to go check something. There’s no need for you to wait. I’ll call you if I need you later.”

“Of course.”

I’m nearly through the door of the kitchen when I hear Jason calling me. I turn around.

“Do you still have the panic button on your key ring?” he says.

I sigh and hold up my keys. “Happy now?” Unlike the panic button for other cars I’ve owned, this one doesn’t flash the lights and honk the horn to help you find your car at the mall. It’s a silent alarm that has a built-in GPS so Jason can find me in the event that I’m ambushed by a terrorist cell or, more likely, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Now I suspect that Roman is asking Jason to use it to find out when I’m with Mikhail and for how long.

Once I’m out of his sight I run through the hallways and up the Blue Staircase. I’m gasping for air by the time I get across the Great Gallery, my footfalls clattering on the polished floor like a trotting horse. I slow to a walk at the Small Gallery, and see Mikhail waiting for me at the doorway to the Oval Salon.

“You were right before!” he says, taking my hand. Instead of pulling me inside the Oval Salon and to the panel on the wall that leads to the staircase as I expect, we stay in the Small Gallery and end up in front of the second door there, the dummy that doesn’t open.

“Mikhail, it’s a false door,” I say, disappointed. I grasp the handle to show him that it doesn’t turn, nor does the door open. “The door is sealed to the door frame.”

“Perhaps it was built to fool the eye, but that does not mean it is not a door!” Instead of pulling on the handle, Mikhail wedges his fingers into the edges of the door frame and shakes the door back and forth. This movement pulls the door out of the wall about two inches, like a refrigerator being pulled away from the wall.

I gasp, expecting the solid wood to fall over and crush him. When nothing happens I look around his arm to see the hidden hinges that are now exposed on the side opposite the door knob. Behind the door it looks like a solid wall, but I’m not fooled; the Rudolph tunnel had the same cover. I reach out and push the plaster. A nearly seamless panel opens onto a dark tunnel. I can make out stairs a few feet inside.

“We need a flashlight,” I say, my voice strained with excitement.

Like a Russian Boy Scout, Mikhail pulls a pen-sized flashlight from his pant pockets and hands it to me. “Perhaps we should wait for the engineers to examine this first?”

“No way,” I say, defiant. I’m in a retaliatory mood. “We have to hurry before someone sees us on the security cameras and comes to investigate.”
Or Jason tries to track me
, I think. I bend down and hurry inside. “Can we shut the door once we’re in here?”

“I am not sure, I haven’t tried,” Mikhail says as he climbs in after me. “The question is how we can shut the door once the panel is–ah!” The panel has double hinges and opens into the tunnel as well. I back up so that Mikhail can swing it in far enough to reach the dummy door.

I hold the penlight steady until everything’s closed and we’re sealed in. “Let’s see where this goes.”

“Let me go first,” he says.

I shrug and let him pass me. He climbs the stairs carefully, testing each tread before continuing. I follow behind him, sidestepping the petrified husks of mice and trying not to inhale too deeply. For all I know, the Habsburg mice carried bubonic plague or smallpox.

“Should we continue?” he says once we’re at the top.

The penlight isn’t strong enough to light more than ten or fifteen feet of the passage in front of us, but it’s definitely heading east across the ceiling of the Small Gallery. “Absolutely. Just go slow…it’s a long way down to the marble floor.”

He takes my advice to heart, carefully testing the floor in front of him before placing any weight on it. I hold the penlight in my mouth to keep my hands free in case I have to swat a rat out of the way or jump clear of a sudden hole in the floor. Our progress is slow. Thirty minutes later the sound of his foot striking the floor changes, becoming deeper and more solid.

“I think we have crossed the Small Gallery. We must be somewhere above the Round Salon.”

“Ssh!” I hiss at him. I cock my head, sure that I hear voices. Yes, voices
and
footsteps.

That’s when I realize where we are, and I hear the last voice I expect to hear in Roman’s suite: Princess Isabella of Denmark.

“She’s moving out of Schönbrunn…why?”

I stiffen.
What in the hell is she doing in his suite?

“
Die Presse gibt ihr eine schwierige Zeit
,” says Roman. “The newspapers are saying that she’s my mistress.”

There’s a long pause. I envision Isabella, eyes closed, savoring the moment. “Do you think her moving out will help?” she says.

Roman sighs. “I don’t know. I think at this point there’s only one thing that will really make any difference.

The pulse of blood in my ears is so strong that I can’t tell if someone’s talking and I can’t hear them, or if Isabella is simply digesting this information. Turns out to be the latter. What comes out of her mouth next almost makes me swallow the penlight.

“Roman, you cannot truly believe that your family will let you marry Leigh Fromm.”

Roman’s voice turns ice-cold. “Isabella, for someone who claims to be in love with a bodyguard, you’re way out of line.”

Isabella ignores him. “Face it, Roman…the people just don’t like her. And she’s a commoner. Maybe this didn’t matter when you were a private citizen in the States. But marrying her now would be the fastest way to get rid of the monarchy.”

I’m expecting Roman to defend my virtue, or patiently explain that I don’t want to get married, or at least ask Isabella to leave. Instead he says, “I know.”

I rip the flashlight out of my mouth just in time to choke back a flood of tears. Speaking is impossible, so I jerk my head back in the direction we came. Mikhail’s face is a mask of shock. I’m about to crawl around him when I hear Isabella speak.

“You could ask the Parliament to allow a morganatic marriage,” she says. “There is precedence for it.”

My eyebrows pull together and I look over at Mikhail. He shrugs.

“Morganatic?” Roman says. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a sort of special arrangement between two people of unequal social classes,” says Isabella. “Emperor Franz Josef made his nephew, Archduke Ferdinand, marry Countess Sophie morganatically.”