The Frog Prince (35 page)

“Then what’s the ‘special arrangement?’” says Roman.

“The Countess could not be crowned Queen.”

“Leigh doesn’t care about that kind of thing anyway,” he says, sounding hopeful and relieved.

Isabella doesn’t immediately respond. Finally she says, “
And
your children wouldn’t inherit the throne or any of your titles.”

“
What
?” Roman no longer sounds relieved, just really, really pissed.

“The throne would simply pass to your cousin.”

“Have you ever met Archduke Hubert?” says Roman. “He’s dumber than a bag of hammers.”

“It would be a legal marriage in every other way!”

“It sounds like it would make Leigh my legal mistress.”

“The people would probably accept it.”

“If I was that worried about poll numbers, I’d marry
you
,” Roman snaps.

I hear the sharp clatter of heels across the floor, a door being flung open so hard that it strikes a wall. I’m not sure if Isabella is running down the stairs or falling down them; from where we sit the sound is like a train going through a tunnel.

“Isabella!” I hear Roman call after her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that!”

More thumping and footfalls as Roman follows Isabella. The shouting fades into the distance before disappearing altogether.

“We should go back,” Mikhail whispers.

“You can go wherever you want,” I say, my words barely intelligible through my sniffling. I crawl forward towards the dead end. “I’m getting out of here.”

“The passage ends!” says Mikhail, pulling on my foot.

“No it doesn’t,” I say, feeling around for a hand-hold or a rope. “I know exactly where we are.”

Finally I see it: a metal plate with an indentation for fingers to slide into. I pull it open and look down onto the wooden platform of Roman’s service elevator, which makes perfect sense now.

I slide my legs around, and while Mikhail holds it open I lower myself down, my hands gripping the edge of the trap door. I let go and land as lightly as I can on the platform. Mikhail follows just as I’m pushing the button on the controls Roman finally got around to installing.

“You have any money on you?” I say, wiping the tears off my chin and blinking them out of my eyes.

“Of course,” says Mikhail, sounding worried.

“Good.” I step off into the empty kitchen and head for the exit behind the walk-in freezer. My keys jangle in the darkness. “Because we’re sneaking out and I need a beer.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I look up, somewhat unsteadily, at the constellation of Virgo marching across the horizon. That’s one of the nice things about Vienna…it’s about the same latitude as Colorado so the constellations at least feel like home.

Schönbrunn’s side entrance is brightly lit, so I know some poor bastard has been assigned to wait up for me. I brush by the sleepy-looking butler without saying a word, Mikhail following in my wake. “I’m going up a different way,” I say to him, my words slurring a little as I head for the hallway that leads to the museum level. “Less likely to run into anyone this way.”

Less likely to run into Roman
, I think to myself. No doubt the butler has notified Jason who has notified Roman.

“I’ll go with you.”

I shrug. I don’t say “suit yourself” because this doesn’t suit me at all. I thought Mikhail’s inhibitions were low before I added alcohol to the mix; I’ve spent the entire night fending off his advances. Hopefully none of the hundreds of pictures taken by the paparazzi (or our fellow revelers) tonight show him grabbing my ass. I make a half-drunk mental note to tell Roman that I wholeheartedly support sending Mikhail back to his gulag in Russia.

I’m about halfway up the Blue Staircase when Mikhail tries to take my hand.

“Leigh…”

For maybe the hundredth time tonight I pull my hand out of his. “Mikhail, we’ve both had too much to drink.” I stagger to the first landing and try to work my way between him and the bust of Emperor Franz Josef, destroyer of love and marriages.

“No,” he says, stepping right into my path.

I’m about to push him out of the way when he grabs my face and crushes his mouth down onto mine hard enough for me to feel his teeth behind his lips. With all the strength I have I push him away. “What are you
doing
?” I scream at him. “Have you lost your
mind
?” I lurch for the railing and start up the stairs a little faster than before.

“Leigh, I care about you,” he shouts after me. “I am in love with you! You must know it!”

I cut him off. “Mikhail, I’m
with Roman
! I’m in love with Roman! He’s your friend, for godsakes!” By now I’m at the top, a little out of breath and eager to make a run for my suite and pretend like this horrifying episode never happened.

From behind me Mikhail says, “You are nothing to him but a royal whore.”

About two heartbeats of time go by before I swing my arm back like an atlatl and let him have it, slapping him so hard that my hand vibrates like a tuning fork. Suddenly the floor seems to leap up and hit me on the back of the head. I hear the metallic clang of my car keys hitting the marble before the world grows grayish around the edges.

I can sort of see a fuzzy image of Mikhail standing over me, huffing and puffing with rage and I realize that he’s pushed me to the floor. “You heard him yourself!” he shouts. “He does not want you for a wife! You are a toy for him the way your guard is a toy for the princess. The Austrian people despise you!”

A spray of his spittle hits my face. I twist around and reach for the keys that I dropped, fumbling for the panic button. Before I can press it Mikhail snatches them out of my hand and tosses them away across the landing.

“Roman will not marry you,” he says, still bending over me, his hands on his knees. He’s given up the shouting at least. “His family will not permit it. And you will stay by his side, content to be his mistress?”

I sit up and slide backwards on my rear-end, away from his face. “There’s no way I could choke back my gag reflex long enough to let you touch me, you psychopathic asshole!” I shout at him even as I scramble backwards. I can’t tell if my words are slurred, or if this sudden turn of events has sobered me up. “You disgust me! I’d rather work the
streets
as a whore than be with you!” I brace my leg, ready to kick him in the face if he comes even an inch closer. “I’d rather live in Chernobyl!”

I’m scraping the bottom of my well of insults now, trying desperately to make a connection between the Cold War and his brutality when I see a blur of movement from the doorway and suddenly Mikhail is gone, flying through the air and crashing onto the marble at the top of the stairs. Roman is straddling him, his hand around his throat.

“
Du Hurensohn, ich bring dich um
!” Roman screams.

Mikhail’s face begins to turn purple. I try to say something, but my words come out garbled. There’s a huge commotion coming from the bottom of the Blue Staircase as Jason flies up the stairs two at a time, a gun in his hand. I shrink away from him, inching backwards against the wall.

Jason tears past me and points the gun at Mikhail’s head. “
Wenn Sie umziehen, schieße ich Sie
!”

I have no idea what either of them is shouting. My legs suddenly feel like overcooked pasta, and my ass bone feels like it’s been broken in half from the impact with the marble. I stare at Mikhail, who’s sitting against the railing, breathing heavily, his face a healthier-looking pink again as more guards rush up the stairs. Pretty soon I can’t even see Roman or Jason through the press of bodies on the landing. I assure those who bother to ask that I’m fine, and limp off to my room to tend to my sore butt and broken heart.

Chapter Thirty

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say, waving Jason’s hands away as he tries to help me out of the car. “Just let me get inside before they get out their telephoto lenses.”

It’s bad enough that some orderly took pictures of me in my hospital bed this morning before the slew of x-rays and the MRI and sold them to the tabloids and papers. On the upside, the photos did briefly raise my “favorable” ratings amongst the Austrian public by fifty-four percentage points. For a day or two I was ahead of Princess Isabella and had absolutely buried “Someone Else.”

I keep my sunglasses on once I’m inside to avoid making eye contact with the staff. So it’s no surprise that I almost collide with Roman as I limp around the corner by my suite.

“There you are!” he says, reaching out to hug me.

I shrug out of his hands and keep walking. “Gently, I’m still sore.” The fall on the marble didn’t break my coccyx, but it did rupture a disc in my lower back, making it painful to walk or sit or do anything besides lie flat on my back.

“Sorry, I’ve just been waiting for you for an hour. What took so long?”

“Security problems at the hospital. They couldn’t get the car out.”

“I wish you’d have let me come bring you home.”

“That would have just made everything worse.” I suppose he thinks I mean the media circus. Or maybe he hears the double meaning in my words.

“Did you want to come up to my new suite?” he says? “They finished everything yesterday. It’s much bigger, much more comfortable. I even caved in and bought a new couch.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m really tired and just want to go to bed.” I don’t need to look up to see the hurt on his face.

Luckily I’m already in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, sparing me from having to change in front of him. At least he won’t have to see the bruises on my back. I hiss as I ease myself down onto my bed.

Roman rushes over to the bed. “Let me help you!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I’ve been saying this like a broken record for twenty-four hours. Sooner or later I hope to believe it.

I lay on my side and curl into a ball. Roman pulls the covers over me. I let my eyes drop closed and pretend to sleep. I feel the weight of his body next to mine and his hands on my hair. Every once in awhile he whispers “
Ich liebe dich.
”

Eventually I fall asleep for real, but he doesn’t know the difference.

*****

I’ve been back at Schönbrunn for two days, and still I’m a coward pretending to sleep. The doctors tell everyone that the pain medication for my back is making me tired, but in reality I’ve been flushing the pills down the toilet since I left the hospital.

Roman comes in often to check on me. Sometimes he sits on a chair next to the bed, sometimes lying in the bed with me. Right now I’m alone. The shades and curtains have all been drawn and my bedroom is like a tomb. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. A line of light widens across my wall as someone opens the door to my suite. I jam my eyes shut and press my face sideways into my pillow.

“Leigh?”

I hear Jason’s voice and I sit up. “I’ll be right out,” I say, my voice cracking from disuse. I throw a robe over my pajamas and squint against the light from the lamp he’s turned on in the living room.

“You look…tired,” he finishes lamely.

I snort. “I hope that’s not your idea of a compliment.”

He smiles. “
Sie sehen wie Scheiße aus
.”

“I feel like shit,” I agree with a smile. “At least now you’re being honest. And I get to learn some new curse words so everyone wins.”

He sits down on the couch, suddenly serious. “I wasn’t sure if you would talk to me.”

“Why would you think that? If I’d listened to you none of this would have happened.”

He exhales like he’s been holding his breath. “I should have given you a better explanation for my warning.”

“It’s okay, Jason. It’s not your fault.” I look at my hands as the silence descends. “What happened to Mikhail?” I say finally.

He mutters something in German that sounds something along the lines of
I should have shot him when I had the chance
. “The Russian embassy flew him out of the country yesterday once he proved that he had diplomatic immunity.” He clears his throat. “He has been accused of far worse than this before, although he usually escapes charges by offering financial settlements to the victims or relying on his family connections to get the charges dropped. Neither the victims nor their governments are willing to speak against him, but we found out enough to be on our guard. We didn’t honestly believe he would turn on you in such a manner. Mikhail was very careful to limit his bad behavior to women outside of royal circles.”

In other words, Mikhail only verbally and physically abused commoners. Like me.

I shrug. “It could have ended worse for me.”

“That’s true,” he says, looking sorry all over again. He stands up. “Have you eaten today? Would you like me to bring you something? Or would you like me to call Roman and let him know you’re awake?”

I pull my robe tight around me. “No, that’s okay. I’m just going to go back to bed. These medications make me so tired.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will. And thanks. You know, for….well, you know.”

“Let me know if you need anything,” he says again and closes the door.

Chapter Thirty-One

“I won’t let you get an apartment,” says Roman. “It’s not safe. Jason agrees with me.”

“It wasn’t so safe for me here at Schönbrunn either,” I say, flipping the channel on the television in my new, high-security suite.

Roman closes his eyes. We’ve had this discussion at least once a day for the last week, and I know he hates it when I throw this elbow at him from off the top rope.

“If I just understood why you want to move out so badly…”

“I’ve already explained this to you multiple times.”

“Come on, Leigh. Isabella says that the newspapers–”

“I
especially
don’t want to hear what Isabella has to say. Why is she even still here? Doesn’t she have a throne to keep warm back in Denmark somewhere?”