"I'm sure that will be most acceptable."
"To you? Or to the people of Karolya?" Adam asked.
Maximillian, Lord Gudrun, grinned. "I was charged with one last request by the late Prince Christian. A request I was not certain I could manage. But Princess Giana came to me two nights ago and told me that while she was quite prepared lo do her duty to the people of Karolya, if her proposal went unanswered, she wanted me to help her find a way to follow her heart. When I asked what she meant, she told me that she had chosen you to be her prince consort and that if you wanted I he position, my duty would be to convince the Karolyan government to accept you. If you refused her offer, my duty was to find a way to help her abdicate, for you were her heart and she was bound to follow you." Tears sparkled in Max's eyes as he faced Adam. "Her father's, Prince Christian's, last words to me were: 'Tell Giana never to be afraid to follow her heart. Promise me, Max. Promise you will help her find a way.' " He smiled a satisfied smile. "I have fulfilled my promise and done my duty."
Max picked up the telegram and handed it back to Adam. "1 took the liberty of sending a telegram in your name to the marquess of Templeston yesterday morning. You received this reply this afternoon."
Adam opened the telegram and read: "The marquess of Templeston will be arriving at Balmoral, Scotland, as a guest of Her Majesty, Victoria Regina, by the Grace of God, Queen of England in two days time. He invites you and the members of your senior household to travel to Balmoral under the protection of Her Majesty, the Queen, where you will be granted an audience. He is most eager to view the locket, your documentation, and discuss your request. Signed Ashford, Marquess of Everleigh." Adam looked over at Max.
Max stood at attention and clicked his heels together in the military fashion. "I should like to accompany you, sir."
Adam smiled. "I should like that as well," he said, gently, "but I'm afraid it's not possible."
"I am a senior member of the household," Max said.
"You are, indeed," Adam answered. "But you are also the only witness to the murders. We cannot risk your life. You must stay here with the princess where it's safe."
"Who will you choose to accompany you, sir?"
"Gordon," Adam answered, "and Josef."
Max gave a quick nod, then sat down on the leather chair. "You will require this documentation, sir." He propped his left foot on his right thigh, then bent and twisted the heel of left boot. It swung open to reveal a hollow compartment filled with bloodied parchment paper. Max carefully lifted it out and handed it to Adam. "Might I suggest that the princess also compose a letter of introduction for you that contains her signature and official seal?" He didn't have to mention the seal still locked around Giana's waist to convey his intent.
Adam understood. "Her official seal might be hard to manage," he answered.
Max met his gaze. "I am sure she and we, may rely on your discreet assistance."
Giana joined Adam in his bedchamber later that evening. Adam looked up as she entered the room. She was fresh from her bath and the scent of orange blossoms clung to her hair and to her nightgown.
Wagner entered silently behind her. He, unfortunately, did not smell entirely of orange blossoms, but of a more pungent odor of orange blossoms and wet dog. Adam wrinkled his nose at the smell.
"I bathed him, but it is raining outside. He will smell better once he dries."
Adam wasn't as certain, but he pretended he believed her.
She looked at him. "I tried to stay away," she said. "But I could not."
"I'm glad you didn't," he said.
"I promised myself I would not try to persuade you into accepting my proposal, but..." She glanced down at her bare toes, unable to finish her sentence.
Adam reached out, took hold of her hand and pulled her toward him. "It's all right, Princess," he said, kissing her eyes and cheekbones and throat before finally kissing her lips with a passion that left her breathless. "I've made my decision."
Giana was so nervous her breath caught in her throat. "Have you?"
He nodded.
"And ..." She prodded.
"And as a result, I've been invited to Balmoral for the weekend," he said.
"Why?"
"I've a meeting with the current marquess of Templeston."
Giana gasped, then waited on pins and needles, for Adam to continue.
"I've decided to accept your offer, George, and I'll need your locket so Templeston can authenticate it." Giana didn't reply. She simply stared at him until he reached over, gently took her face in his hands, and leaned down to kiss her. When he finished kissing her, he said, "I'll also need a letter of introduction with your signature and seal. After my meeting, Victor won't be able to hurt you, and you won't have to worry about him anymore."
"You want to be prince consort?"
She stared at him.
He grinned. "If the offer's still open."
She wrinkled her brow. "Are you certain, Adam? Are you certain you wish to take on the responsibility? I have yet to secure my throne," she babbled. "I may have to fight to secure it. And it is possible that I will not succeed it securing it at all. Do you understand?" She stared into his eyes. "If I do not succeed the throne, I cannot keep my promise and reward you with the title."
"Are you trying to talk me out of it?" he asked. "Because I warn you that it won't do you any good." Adam shrugged his shoulders. "Until I met you, I never cared much for people with titles."
Giana opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her. Her mouth formed a perfect O of surprise.
Adam took advantage, leaning down to kiss her once again. "I want to marry you. The only promises I'll hold you to are the ones you make on our wedding day."
"Oh, Adam!" Giana unfastened her locket and handed it to him and promptly burst into tears.
"Is that a yes?" Adam dropped the locket into his pocket for safekeeping moments before Giana wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him and kissed him again and again until he was dizzy with the scent and feel of her.
He wiped her tears off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "You know I've heard it said that genuine princesses never cry."
"Who is crying?" she demanded, taking his hand in hers and leading him toward the bed.
"You are, Princess."
Giana shook her head. "Those are not tears," she answered. "They're exclamations of joy."
"In that case..." he whispered in her ear, "spread the joy. Let's consummate this deal."
Adam followed her down onto the mattress, then rolled over to find Wagner resting his head on bed. He watched as the dog lifted a paw, and attempted to settle in beside them.
"Oh, no, you don't," Adam said. "Off!"
Giana giggled as Wagner retreated ever so slowly and walked around to the foot of the bed. "I think you hurt his emotions."
"Feelings," Adam translated. "I may have hurt his feelings, but he is not sleeping with you tonight. He'll have to learn to get used to it."
"We are not going to be sleeping," she informed him. "We are going to be practicing."
"Practicing what?" he asked, curiously aroused by the inflection of her words.
"The skills I learned the last time we shared a bed."
"You're going to be a very busy woman," he said. "For it takes time to perfect those skills."
"Wagner is going to be very busy as well," she said. "As soon as you issue his orders."
Adam snapped his fingers and pointed to the door. "Wagner! En garde."
Wagner trotted to the door and lay down in front of it.
"That is better," Giana said, lifting the hem of her nightgown and pulling it over her head. The light from the lamp reflected off the gold at her waist and around her neck as she crawled onto Adam. "Have you any orders for me?" she teased.
Adam snapped his fingers and pointed to the member that was already standing hard and erect. "Princess! En garde!"
Chapter 30
The Bountiful Baron is the ideal Americ
an. He journeyed west to find his fortune and succeeded where others failed. He is a self-made man.A millionaire, a gentleman and a frontier hro.
—The First Installment of the True Adventures of the Bountiful Baron: Western Benefactor to Blond, Beautiful, and Betrayed Women written by John J. Bookman, 1874.
Four days later, Adam boarded the express train from Kinlochen to Balmoral for a journey that would take half as long as the journey to London. O'Brien had wanted to accompany him, but Adam asked him to stay behind and look after George. Just in case.
O'Brien had agreed, so Gordon and Josef went in his place.
The three of them were escorted off the train at the station and driven to the castle. They departed the coach at the front door where they were allowed admittance by a butler.
"How do you do, Mr. McKendrick? I am Lord Everleigh, Lord Templeston's associate." Everleigh greeted Adam at the door, then led the three men to the marquess of Templeston's temporary office.
Gordon Ross and Josef Sommers remained outside the room, waiting beside the door to Lord Templeston's office while Lord Everleigh ushered Adam inside.
"I shall be down the hall should you require my assistance, sir," Everleigh spoke to the gentleman seated at the massive desk, then quietly withdrew, leaving Adam alone with the other man.
"Good afternoon, Mr. McKendrick. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Andrew Ramsey, the sixteenth Marquess of Templeston, was a big man, older than Adam expected, and still quite handsome and youthful despite his advanced years. He pushed himself to his feet and came around the desk to shake Adam's hand.
"Likewise, sir." Adam sketched a low bow.
"You have come about the missing princess." Lord Templeston returned to his chair.
"Yes, sir," Adam replied. "I have come on her behalf."
"Princess Giana is claiming to be a granddaughter of my late father?" Lord Templeston's inquiry was more statement than a question.
"Yes"
"I suppose you have proof?"
Adam reached into his waistcoat pocket, retrieved the gold-and-diamond locket, the document Max had given him, and the letter George had written and affixed with the State Seal of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya. "Her Highness sent this to you and a note for her godmother, the queen. She asked that you read her letter first." He handed the letters, the proof Max had given him, and the gold locket to Lord Templeston.
The marquess studied the wax seal binding the edges of the letter together, then opened it and read:
My lord Templeston, I have entrusted my most precious possessions and my life to the man you see standing before you in hopes that you will grant me my heart's desire. He carries my locket—a locket 1 am certain you will recognize. My grandmother presented it to my mother when my mother came of age and my mother, Princess May of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya, presented it to me along with instructions to present it to the sitting English marquess of Templeston or his representative should I ever find myself in need. I send Mr. Adam McKendrick to present it to you today, because I find myself in desperate need of assistance in regaining my homeland.
You may know that my mother was born Lady Caroline Frances Alexandra May Barracksford, daughter of the marquess and marchioness of Barracksford. What you may not know is that, my grandmother, the marchioness of Barracksford, was once a Parisian actress. . .
Lord Templeston closed his eyes, vividly remembering the day he had stood in the study of his London town house and listened as his father's solicitor, Martin Bell, had explained the terms of the codicil to his father's will. It had happened so many years ago—more years than the young man standing before him had been alive—but the memory was as fresh in Lord Templeston's mind as if it had happened yesterday.
"There is a codicil to your father's will. He named several. There were more than one."
"More than one what?" Drew had asked.
"Ladybirds." Martin cleared his throat.
"On the yacht? " His father and his father's latest mistress had died in a yachting accident and Drew remembered wondering how many more mistresses he might have aboard and how many more of his father's mistresses might need to be buried in the family cemetery.
"Oh, no," Martin reassured him. "On land."
He had breathed a sigh of relief. "How many?"
"He mentioned five. In addition to the young opera singer, there's a milliner in Brighton. An actress in Paris. A seamstress in Edinburgh. And a young woman in Northamptonshire. "
The young woman in Northamptonshire had turned out to be Kathryn Markinson Stafford, the current marchioness of Templeston, and the love of Drew's life. The actress in Paris had married another English marquess—the marquess of Barracksford—and had given birth to a daughter who had married a prince and who had given birth to a daughter of her own— Princess Georgiana of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya.
The daughter of his half-sister. A daughter who had been given a feminine form of his father's name. Georgiana. Drew opened his eyes and turned his attention back to the letter the princess had written.
I have known for some time that I had family in England, but my grandmother's, mother's, and my own, great source of pride was that we had never needed to call upon you for assistance. Were it not for the murder of my parents and the situation I find myself in today, I am quite certain that I would never have called upon you and would have carried this family secret to my grave. But today, dear sir, I require an extraordinary favor. Karolyan law requires that a Princess of the Blood Royal receive permission from her closest living male relative in order to marry.
As my uncle, you are my closest living male relative, and today, 1 ask that you grant me permission to follow my heart and marry the man I have chosen to be my prince consort—Mr. Adam McKendrick. Such a marriage would fulfill the requirements set forth in the Female Provision of the Karolyan Charter and would allow me to fulfill my duty and obligation to my country by reclaiming my rightful place on the throne of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya.
Her Serene Highness Georgiana Regina
Princess of the Blood Royal of the House of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya.
Beneath her signature was the wax impression of the Karolyan Seal of State.
Lord Templeston carefully refolded the letter and laid it on the blotter beside the letter addressed to the queen and picked up the remaining letter. All three letters bore the wax impression of the Karolyan Seal of State, but only one carried the signatures of the late prince and princess. Only one was stained with blood.
Lord Templeston raised an eyebrow in question.
"Lord Gudrun assured me that the blood was his," Adam said. "He secreted the letter inside his waistcoat pocket after he was injured and unfortunately, bled on it. He transferred it from his waistcoat pocket to a hollow compartment in the heel of his boot during the journey from Christianberg to Laken and it remained there until he presented it to me."
Templeston read the document from Prince Christian's private archives. It confirmed everything Princess Georgiana had written. The only thing left to authenticate was the gold-and-diamond locket. Lord Templeston scooped it off the desk and opened it, revealing the tiny likenesses of the marquess and marchioness of Barracksford and of Prince Christian and Princess May and the infant Princess Georgiana. It came as no surprise to Drew to discover that the marchioness looked enough like his mother to be her sister. All of George Ramsey's mistresses bore a striking resemblance to each other and to his dead wife. Drew studied the likenesses, then carefully slipped the portrait of the Barracksfords aside and found himself staring into the handsome face of his father, George Ramsey, the fifteenth marquess of Templeston. He looked down at his father's face, then carefully closed the locket and turned it over, searching for the jeweler's mark he knew would be there. "I haven't seen one of these in a very long time. It's authentic." Lord Templeston closed the locket and handed it back to Adam, then removed a document from a sheath of papers on his desk and gave it to him as well. "This is a copy of the codicil to my father'
s will. Please give it to my niece."
Adam glanced at the document. "May I?"
Lord Templeston nodded. "Please do."
Adam finished reading the codicil and looked up at the marquess. "He must have been an exceptional man."
"Yes, he was," Templeston agreed. "As you can see, Princess Giana is entitled to a substantial sum of money and..."
"She isn't interested in the money, sir, just in the permission," Adam told him.
"Permission granted," Lord Templeston said. "I'll put it in writing in case the question of permission arises once she returns to Karolya. Good luck to you, my boy," the older man said. "I'd gladly give my permission to protect Princess Giana from the likes of Victor—even if she weren't my niece. You're in luck, you know, because you're in Scotland. You can be married right away. Today if you like by the local vicar."
"Thank you, sir."
"My pleasure, my boy. Welcome to the family." Templeston stood up, walked around his desk and clamped his hand on Adam's shoulder.
"If there is anything I can do—" Adam began.
Templeston smiled once again. "Before you go, there is someone who would like to speak to you." He rose from his desk and walked across the room where he opened a door, then stood back to allow a small, round figure completely dressed in black except for her lace collar and widow's cap to enter.
A tall, brawny Highlander entered with her. Adam watched, in fascination, as the Scotsman moved into position, towering over her as he stood a few steps behind her, quite obviously guarding her back.
Lord Templeston closed the door, then bowed to the queen, and made the introduction. "Your Majesty, may I present Mr. Adam McKendrick?"
The queen held out her hand. "Mr. McKendrick."
Adam bowed over her hand and briefly touched her fingers the way he'd seen Lord Templeston do. "Ma'am."
The queen walked over to a chair and sat down, then motioned for the gentlemen to do likewise. Once they were seated, she wasted no time in getting to the heart of the matter. "You are an American?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"From Texas?"