She went still. What was he doing, lining up a trap for her now? Poppie had a price on his head in this country, and even if he didn’t, they weren’t going to thank him for stealing and keeping their king’s daughter. They were going to execute him. And she wasn’t going to help see that happen.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE CAPTAIN WAS MAKING her wait again. As tactics went, it was a good one. She’d no sooner asked him what he meant by that remarkable statement, that he wouldn’t hurt Poppie, than he shouted for Boris.
“Feed this woman,” he’d told the servant, “and guard her with your life. No one gets in or out.”
Boris had winced as he moved to lock the door behind his master. So much for making use of his guilt if she deemed it necessary. And too bad Christoph had realized she might try to. But where did he think she’d go if she got out of there? Home? She might as well. She was at her wit’s end. She’d told him everything she could, and he still thought her an imposter, so she wouldn’t be preventing any war.
The food had been waiting for her. It was brought to the table immediately, much more than she could eat. Did they expect Christoph to return to share it? She didn’t. She guessed he’d gone to interrogate the thief again, or to send more men to the city to spy on Henry. But before Henry had come to the orphanage, he’d grown up on the streets of London. He knew how to elude pursuers, thieves, and anyone who was too intently watching him. She hoped he was still adept at it because she didn’t really think Christoph would imprison Henry if he didn’t get the results he was after.
And then Christoph did return while she was still eating. She wondered about his disgruntled look as he sat down opposite her and began to fill a plate from the wide assortment of platters Boris had brought out.
“Did the thief talk?”
“His name is Rainier and, yes, he was much more informative this session, after bargaining for his life in exchange for names. He admitted a man named Aldo paid him to infiltrate my guard just so he could keep Aldo apprised of our movements and anything else that our enemies might find useful. He also gave up the name of the other traitor, who has conveniently already deserted.”
“Well, at least you got one name. So why do you look displeased?”
“Because Aldo was killed the other night, so, in fact, I still have nothing.”
“You’re rid of two traitors. That’s an improvement over the situation yesterday.”
“Yes, there is that.”
“If Rainier bargained for his life, did he also admit he tried to kill me?”
“No, he maintains he only tried to frighten you. I’m inclined to believe him.”
“Believe a confessed traitor instead of me? Thank you very much,” she cried angrily.
“You don’t even try to see my dilemma, do you? Your tale isn’t remarkable. It has been told before with only slight variations.”
“I do see your difficulty, it just wasn’t anticipated. Poppie was sure that I’d be taken straight to my father, that he wouldn’t have any doubt of who I am. The bracelet was to prove it. Do you really think something that exquisite could be copied without the original being seen? The detail was too fine, the different gems a rainbow of colors. It was something my father would have recognized. But it was stolen, so instead I am faced with you and your doubt, which puts me in a similar dilemma.”
She ended with a sigh. He chose to ignore it to point out, “You realize of course that according to you, this story isn’t even your own but what Poppie told you. What if he lied to you?”
“He wouldn’t.”
“What if he did?”
She raised a black brow at him. “So he raised me for eighteen years with the intention of feeding me a fabrication? For what reason?”
“A man, any man, who would have the absolute confidence of a monarch would have power. Power is a very potent motivation.”
“True,” she allowed. “Yet eighteen years is too long, when one of us, me, Poppie, my father, might not have survived. And that would be assuming that in all that time my father doesn’t produce a male heir to be the next king.” She shook her head. “I know Poppie. He didn’t lie to me. I wish he had. Anything else would have been preferable to what he told me.”
“Contradicting yourself, Alana? You’ve already said he wasn’t the man you thought he was.”
“You’re taking what I said out of context and trying to give it a different meaning. His past is what shocked me. My past added to that shock. That doesn’t change who he is now, who he has been all the years I’ve known him.”
“You are amazing,” he surprised her by saying. “You have a ready answer for everything, don’t you?”
She gave him a slight smile. “You might want to ask yourself why. Ask yourself if you ever need to pause to think about the truth. Now if I was lying, then, yes, I’d have to agree I’m amazing.”
He laughed. “You don’t act at all like an eighteen-year-old, you know.”
She gave him a curious look for his humor, but merely asked, “What makes you say that?”
“Most aristocratic young women are barely adults at that age, yet there is nothing of the child in you.”
She laughed now. “Possibly because I was never treated as a child.”
“Never?”
She shrugged. “I suppose, despite how quickly Poppie came to love me, he was still mindful that one day I might be queen and treated me differently than he would other children because of it.” But an old memory surfaced, and she decided to share it. “Actually, there was one time he treated me as a child. I had sprained my finger on an outing in one of London’s parks. I cried like a baby. I think I was six. It was the first time I ever felt pain that severe. Poppie held me in his arms the whole time the doctor treated my finger, telling me silly things to take my mind off it. I did actually laugh, even with tears on my cheeks.”
“You still love him, don’t you?”
It was said so gently it almost brought tears to her eyes. Her guard went up immediately. Was this a new tactic on his part, appealing to her emotions? She didn’t allow him to know it worked.
She answered him with a question of her own. “How do you stop loving someone you’ve loved all your life? What he told me he used to do was horrible, but that isn’t the man I grew up with. I don’t know what else I can say to stress that he’s not like that anymore.”
“Isn’t he? Didn’t you say he came here to kill your enemy?”
“That isn’t the same thing at all. That’s protecting me—and my father. That, Captain, is doing your job for you.”
He didn’t get angry, he actually smiled at her. “That was a very good answer.”
She didn’t like his smile. It drew her eyes instantly to his mouth and made her think of other things. She wished he wasn’t so damned handsome. If he were old or ugly, or didn’t have such a finely made body, it would be so much easier to deal with him. But her attraction was too strong. It got in the way too often.
He suddenly said, “We are going to discuss how you might be innocent of all charges.”
That was an incredible statement for him and made her instantly suspicious. “So you can let me go?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“The point is keeping you out of prison when this is over—and perhaps your guardian as well.”
She sat forward abruptly with a frown. “You mentioned that earlier without an explanation. What exactly are you getting at?”
“I am inclined to think you have been duped, that the Bruslans’ advisers are now more intelligent than in the past to think of something like this.”
“Duped how?”
“Your guardian has been bought, or coerced, perhaps by threatening your life. He could have been fed this entire tale to use, including the name Leonard Kastner, who is well-known as a suspect in this case, as well as Rastibon, the most notorious assassin of the day. I do believe he’s Lubinian, perhaps one of the disgraced nobles who
decided to begin anew elsewhere rather than stay here in shame—which would fit what he told you when you were young. He could have kept in touch with old friends here, so the Bruslans could have found out about him and that he has a niece the right age. Think about it, Alana. Everything you have told me he told you, and only recently. And if he truly thought they would kill you if he couldn’t convince you of this tale, he would have used anything to embellish it, including that he used to be an assassin.”
She took a few moments to assimilate that, but it just didn’t add up. “If the Bruslans arranged that, then why the rebels, too?” she questioned. “Or are you saying the two plots are unrelated?”
“They are one and the same. Their propaganda has merely set the stage for your crowning performance.”
“But war?”
“If they can wrest the crown back, they won’t want total destruction. The more people who die, the less people they have to rule. This foment isn’t about war, Alana, it’s about making the people discontent with the present regime, so they’ll be ready to accept a Bruslan on the throne again. You were their final card to play. If you had succeeded, if Frederick actually presented you as his daughter, he would have been denounced for trying to trick the populace with a fake princess. This would have two possible results, an immediate riot that could end in his death, or the demand that he step down from the throne. That was the whole point of this, and you even said it yourself. ‘Use me to prevent war.’ Weren’t those your exact words?”
She was amazed by his theory. It actually sounded plausible, except that Poppie wouldn’t have gone along with something like that. He would have told her the truth and gotten her out of harm’s way, even if it meant leaving England to go into hiding somewhere else. He certainly wouldn’t have subjected her to the complete disbelief she’d been faced with, all based on a lie.
“I can see why you’d prefer this version over mine,” she said thoughtfully. “You’ve compromised your king’s daughter. You’ll be facing his wrath for that when I am finally reunited with him.”
“If that were true, then I would be forced to humbly beg your forgiveness.”
He was scowling just at the thought. Why, when he in no way believed that would ever happen?
“Do you even know how to be humble?” she asked curiously, then quickly assured him, “Not that I would forgive you, even if you managed some humbleness.”
His scowl got darker. “If you were the princess, then my family would once again be in disgrace because of me, and I would banish myself forever from Lubinia for so failing in my duty. Fortunately for my family, that isn’t going to happen.”
That absolute conviction that she found so exasperating was again in his voice. “I should agree with you and be done with this,” she groused. “But there is one little discrepancy between your theory and actual events which can prove that Poppie did tell the truth. I wasn’t going to mention it since he wasn’t sure it even reached my father. If it didn’t, you would claim that it’s a lie, which would have made you dismiss everything else I’ve said, too. But since that’s already the case, and I really can’t think of anything else to convince you, you might as well hear this now just in case it did reach my father.”
“Enough! Just tell me!”
Oh, my, Alana thought, he was definitely angry now. Just because she didn’t jump gratefully at his concession that she might be “innocent”? Or because she’d said she wouldn’t forgive him? She hadn’t realized how important it was to him for her not to be the princess at this point because of the way he’d treated her. Could that really lead to his disgrace? She ought to hope so, but the thought didn’t actually sit well with her.
“Alana,” he said ominously.
“All right! But I warned you this may lead to nothing. Several months after I was taken from the palace, Poppie was moved by compassion to send my father a message. He assured him that he would keep me safe until Frederick found out who wanted me dead. No one else would have known about that missive. If it did actually reach my father, it proves Poppie is who he said he is, and I am who he said I am.”
The anger left Christoph’s visage. She wasn’t sure why, until he said, “You should have mentioned this sooner.”
“You know about it?”
“No, but I soon will.”
He left the room abruptly. With no doubt where he was going, she started to feel sick to her stomach with apprehension. If that missive did reach the king all those years ago, Frederick would be returning with Christoph. She would finally be meeting her father. . . .
Chapter Thirty
ALANA SAT AT THAT table in Christoph’s parlor too nervous to eat another bite of food, too nervous to even move. She almost hoped Christoph would come back and tell her, “Aha, another lie!”
That must have been his own thought when he left because he hadn’t appeared the least bit worried that his job might suddenly be in jeopardy. He’d probably been exaggerating anyway that it could be.
“Would you like a bath, lady?”
Boris had to ask that twice for her to finally notice him standing there. “No, I—yes, actually.”
He beamed at her. “The tub is filled for you in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen?”
“It is where we all bathe, the warmest room. You will have privacy.”
She felt too grimy not to accept. If she was quick, she could be done before Christoph returned. And the room was already empty for her, the large, round tub set near the oven, the pleasant aroma of bread baking floating toward her. She wished she could soak away all her worries, but she didn’t dare take any longer than necessary, and she’d never washed so quickly—and still wasn’t quick enough.
Even though she wasn’t facing the door, the draft on her wet shoulders warned her someone had quietly opened it. She glanced behind her, then sank lower in the tub. Of course it was him. No one else would dare.
“Do you mind?” she said scathingly.
“I don’t mind at all.”
He leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, grinning at her. There wasn’t enough water to completely cover her, so she pressed against the edge of the tub nearest him to hide what she could and lifted an arm over the rim to point suggestively at the door.
“I’d rather not,” he said, but when her eyes shot daggers at him, he sighed and straightened. “I suppose I can take a few moments to blacken Boris’s other eye, for putting you in a room filled with knives.”
“I heard that!” Boris yelled from the parlor.
She didn’t think Christoph was serious, but Boris must have thought so. The icy draft that soon swept into the room told them both that the servant had run outside, leaving the outer door open. Christoph swore and closed the kitchen door, leaving her alone again. She stood up, wrapped her wet hair in a towel, spared only a few seconds to dry off with another, then quickly dressed before he came back to embarrass her further.
She knew she wouldn’t find the king in the other room. Christoph wouldn’t have stood there ogling her if he was. And his humor had been obvious, so she had to assume Poppie’s missive had never reached her father. Which put them back to square one—no, back to Christoph using her to lure Poppie into his hands.
Disheartened, she walked slowly back to the parlor. Christoph hadn’t left to chase Boris down. He had set one of the dining chairs in front of the fireplace, which was crackling strongly with a new log in it, but he wasn’t sitting in the chair, just standing beside it.
“Come here,” he said.
She raised a brow. “So you can roast me again?”
“I didn’t expect to find you . . . wet and naked. You can’t imagine how much I wanted to join you in that tub. Even now, it is difficult to keep the thought away.”
She sucked in her breath before she wailed, “We had a bargain!”
“I’m not breaking it. This temptation is new and it’s not gone yet. So come here and let me occupy my hands drying your hair, then I might
be able to keep them off your body.”
That did not encourage her to approach him. But his words were stirring, making her realize she was in danger of that same temptation.
“That can’t happen again,” she said to him, but she meant it to be a reminder to herself.
He actually grinned. “Of course it can. Once tasted, there’s no longer a reason to deny ourselves such pleasure.”
His attitude infuriated her, so self-centered, so unmindful of anything but his own needs and desires. “Easy for you to say,” she said sharply. “You wouldn’t be bearing the consequences.”
“A child?” His expression turned intrigued, but ended in a beautiful smile. “I think I would like that. I take care of my own.”
“Excuse me while I fetch one of those kitchen knives.”
He burst out laughing. “Thank you. That definitely doused the—temptation. Now come here, Alana, and let me dry your hair. You can’t go outside until it is fully dry.”
She stilled instantly. “Outside? Poppie’s missive did reach him?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the king wants to see me now?!”
“He doesn’t.”
She felt almost light-headed, to experience such powerful emotions over mere seconds, the final one being utter dejection. She didn’t even wonder why that message hadn’t resolved this situation for her as it should have.
“Don’t look so sad,” Christoph said. “I have good news for you.”
“Let someone else tell me. I don’t like the way you deliver information,” she grumbled, but her curiosity got in the way. “What news?”
“Hair first.”
“You see!?” she hissed. “You are beyond exasperating. Why do I even talk to you?” She marched to the chair and sat down, but leaned away from him. “And don’t you dare touch my hair! I’ll dry it.”
She reached for the towel on her head, but he whisked it out from under her hand. “I have the comb—and the towel.”