The Princess Problem, page 13
“I think a country we’ve never heard of is at least marginally more realistic than a land with a talking lion. Why?”
Her sister twirled—twirled like a Disney princess—out of her closet. “Every time I go in there, your clothes have magically multiplied.”
Kelsey got up to look inside her walk-in closet. Well, the very large room with cupboards and shelves and even an island full of drawers that they called a closet. The amount of skirts and dresses had doubled overnight. Again. As had the shoes and purses. It was strange. Magical indeed. She kind of wanted to put a cookie in there tonight and see if they turned into a half dozen by morning.
“Too many dresses. Way too many heels.” Still, despite her strong preference for comfy clothes, Kelsey’s built-in femininity couldn’t deny the absolute gorgeousness of the rainbow of couture apparel. “They are all ridiculously pretty.”
“Soft, too.” Mallory twirled back in and came out with a cashmere cardigan in pale green, stroking it like a kitten.
“Go pet your own clothes.” She started unmaking the bed to look for the phone. One princess perk that did not at all suck was the maid service. Oh, guilt still punched her in the sternum each day when Anya bustled around, folding her favorite fuzzy blanket from home and making the bed. But the guilt didn’t prevent her from enjoying it.
Mallory carefully set the sweater on the table by the window to refold it. “My closet doesn’t have the magical expansion pack.”
“Is that so?”
“Don’t get in a huff. I have the clothes I brought, as well as at least a dozen other outfits that they did provide me. Very generously. Remember, I’m not a princess.”
Gritting her teeth, Kelsey did, indeed, huff. “I would very much like to be able to say the same thing.”
“Still not feeling…regal? Special?”
“I…” She trailed off, remembering how she’d felt with Elias over the past few days.
He listened to her with an intensity that made her feel treasured and brilliant and, yes, very special. He didn’t just listen, but asked questions, too. The right questions that drew out the conversation whether it was about her demanding clients or her delight at the array of pastries presented at the daily tea with Duchess Mathilde.
“What?”
She perched on the dainty chair at the table, looked out the window at the acres and acres of manicured grounds and burbling fountains that evidently were her birthright.
Kelsey didn’t feel like she had a right to any of it.
And she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to turn into the sort of person who did.
“Mallory, you love me to pieces, but you wouldn’t call me special. I’ve never done anything to make myself stand out.”
“Stop it.”
Mimicking her sister’s tone, she said, “What?”
“Stop putting yourself down. You’ve spent the last six days whining about not being special enough to be a princess. You are special, Kelsey. You don’t have to have medals or trophies to stand out.”
“No, I do not feel worthy of an entire country hanging on my every move. I want to be the one watching other people’s spectacles unfold.” Deliberately, she turned away from the window. Geez, unless the phone was surfing the bed’s canopy, Kelsey had to admit it was gone. Not lost. No, she had a very strong idea that a certain sneaky bodyguard had asked Anya to confiscate it for him.
Mallory bent over, sticking her face right in front of Kelsey’s. Her long ponytail bobbed as she stayed sideways. “Why? I mean, sure, that was your original plan, but why not think bigger? Why not own this change in status?”
Big sisters were a pain in the butt, something Kelsey had always maintained, but now that she suddenly had two of them, she had twice as much proof. She pushed past Mallory and crossed over to the fireplace to get breathing room from this well-meaning but massively annoying inquisition.
“I sit in front of a computer screen all day. Alone, at home. I’m the poster child for unexciting and uninspiring.”
“Will you stop putting yourself down? You use your vivid imagination to create amazing designs all day.” Before Kelsey could rebut, Mallory held up her hand. “You have a huge heart. You always volunteer to help someone move, or hang out when they’re sick even if it means catching a bug yourself. You design original, marvelous birthday cards online for everyone.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who remembers to buy paper cards and send them three days early.” So old-fashioned, proper. Too bad Mallory couldn’t be the princess. She’d be far better at it.
Her sister didn’t take the I need space hint. Instead, she joined her at the fireplace, tracing a golden vein in the marble mantel. “Both ways make our friends smile. You’re the most loyal and caring person I know. You never had that teenage rebellion period with Mom and Dad because you didn’t want to let them down. You led the boycott of that bookstore that wouldn’t carry the books by Mr. Mason down the block just because they were male/male romance. You care about what is fair and just and right.”
“Ah. I’m Superman?”
“You’re definitely super. So stop worrying about being enough.” With a stern frown, Mallory thrust out her arms to point both index fingers at her. “Just do it.”
“Do what?”
“Care about people. Watch their lives unfold and cheer them on. The same thing you would’ve done in New York—just on a different scale.”
“Different country and continent scale. People over here speak multiple languages. They bop across borders for the weekend. I’m like an architectural miniature of that—1/64th to scale. I’ve never bopped away for adventures.”
“That’s because Mom and Dad were paranoid. They never let us go anywhere. You’d think we were living in twelfth century, barbarian-filled Gaul the way they didn’t trust any cities bigger than ours. The way they didn’t trust any people outside of everyone we already knew.”
An idea slapped Kelsey right in her frontal cortex. She gasped. “Do you think that was because of me? They instilled a feeling of smallness to keep me safe?”
“I think we don’t know anything about what our parents did or didn’t know about you. It’s pointless to guess.”
A knock on the door preceded the footman announcing Elias’s arrival. Kelsey flung it open. She’d put a stop to this sneakiness right now. “Perfect timing. Look, I’m onto you. You had Anya snitch my phone, didn’t you?”
“Good afternoon, Your Highness. Miss Wishner.” He nodded at each of them.
“Skip the formality. You’re in trouble, Elias. I’ve stayed off social media, per Christian’s order. So what’s with the disappearing act?”
“This is…unfortunate.” He slid his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket and held out her phone. “I’d hoped to return it before you realized it was missing.”
Even though Kelsey had leaped to the assumption Elias was behind it, seeing that he’d confiscated it was a whole different story.
Was it Christian who didn’t trust her? Or Elias, who was the only one in Moncriano that she did fully trust? Moncrian-an? Crap. She’d better ask Anya how to say it. Her maid filled her in on useful tidbits about the place, as opposed to the centuries-old history and etiquette lessons officially on her schedule. In return, Kelsey was educating her on worthwhile American music.
Kelsey patted both hands to her heart. Right at the very sedately cut neckline to her sedate white sundress topped with a sedate white cardigan. She wasn’t sure if they were dressing her as a princess or a virgin sacrifice to stave off a bad winter. “Isn’t my word that I wouldn’t post on Facebook good enough? You’re checking on me now?”
“No.” His facial features did an allover twitch of distaste, like he’d sniffed milk past the expiration date. “You’re not the one I’m trying to check on, Your Highness.”
Two “your highnesses” in a row. She’d thought they were past that now, what with the French kissing and excellent handsy-ness in the summerhouse. Not to mention a few other kisses they’d snuck in deserted corners. Therefore, Elias really must not want to fess up.
Too bad for him that wasn’t an option.
“That’s nonsensical. Who else would be on my phone?”
Elias placed the phone on the mantel, next to the beautiful clock that enchanted Kelsey every time she looked at it. When he turned back to her, his emotionless bodyguard mask was in place. “Miss Wishner, would you excuse us?” After another nod to Mallory, he gestured to the door. “Allow me to explain—elsewhere.”
Mystified, Kelsey left her suite and followed him to a wing she hadn’t yet explored. It was even more museum-like than her wing, with plush carpets that muffled their footsteps, tapestries on the walls and suits of armor standing sentinel. At the end of the hall, not one but two liveried footmen bracketed a pair of doors with what she now recognized as the royal family’s crest.
“What’s in there?”
“King Julian’s private apartments.”
Kelsey flashed back to her dad’s study at home. A corkboard hung on that door, covered with bad doctor jokes and cartoons he’d collected over the years. Things like your x-ray showed a broken rib, but we fixed it with photoshop and insomnia is a common diagnosis—try not to lose any sleep over it. The cheesier, the better. The door was never closed unless he was on the phone with a patient—and always opened again as soon as he hung up. Ed Wishner prided himself on always being available to his daughters.
Somehow she doubted that after a quick knock, it’d be okay to pop on into the king’s apartments. If the footmen would even let her within three feet of the door. The thought made her both miss her dad…and miss whatever relationship could have evolved over the years with the king. Was it even possible to start now and end up with something as close and vital as she was used to?
Elias pressed on the edge of the molding in the corner. And then the wall opened up.
She gasped. “There’s a secret door? This palace legit has a secret door? Why didn’t you lead with that instead of the tiaras and riches and private planes when you were trying to convince me to come here?”
“My apologies.” Elias gave her another formal nod, but this one felt sarcastic. Probably because she heard the laughter in his tone and saw the twinkle in his eyes. “If I tell you about the secret entrance to the dungeons, will that be enough to coerce you into staying?” He gestured for her to precede him up a spiral staircase.
“Dungeons? Aren’t those more for a castle rather than a palace?” Because Kelsey knew the difference now. Fortifications versus fancy housing.
“Extensive dungeons—more like a prison—are in castles. But you definitely want somewhere to toss wrongdoers while interrogating them. When the original structure was built in the 1600s, times were more violent. Less civilized.”
“Will you show me the dungeons?”
“There’s a private access to them from your suite. They were turned into a gym about eighty years ago. Also a pool and squash courts.”
“There’s no door to anywhere but the balcony…” Kelsey trailed off. This was the coolest thing ever. She couldn’t wait to tell Mallory. “There’s a secret passageway from my room?”
“From each of the royal apartments. God forbid anyone see the royal family wandering about in spandex and dripping sweat.” Elias pushed past her to fiddle with the latch on a wooden door. When that didn’t work, he put his shoulder into it, and the timbers creaked before opening. “I’ll be sure to get that fixed. Nobody really comes up here anymore, not since Queen Serena died.”
“This was her private spot?” Kelsey knew the answer before she’d taken more than three steps inside.
The round shape gave the room away as the turret. Rather than furniture, the floor was heaped with pillows in faded, green-sprigged chintz. A low shelf by the far window was filled with well-worn paperbacks. On top were an assortment of candles, a crystal bud vase, and photos.
She rushed over and dropped to her knees. These weren’t official, posed photos. These were family shots. The queen with her children, all as babies. A very pudgy Christian, another with toddler Christian in a hilarious romper sticking his tongue out at baby Genevieve while the queen laughed.
And a third that had to be her, Valentina. Kelsey had never seen a baby photo of herself before. Her parents claimed they’d all been lost in a basement flood. She’d seen Mallory’s, but her own baby books didn’t start until she’d been more than a year old.
The queen…looked like her, which she’d already noted in the formal portrait in the throne room, but it was more evident in this photo. No crown or poufy hair. The queen—her mother—sat on a blanket at the edge of a lake. Christian and Genevieve were wrist deep in a bowl of grapes, both grinning with their mouths stuffed. And the utter happiness and love suffusing Serena’s face as she looked down at the tiny blond baby in her arms took Kelsey’s breath away.
Or maybe it was the thickening of unshed tears in her throat.
“Kelsey.”
“Yes?” She sniffed, and curled her legs beneath her.
“I need to tell you something. I need you to listen without flying off the handle until I get all the way through.”
Elias was wearing his very-serious-bodyguard face again. Even though they were very alone. That did not bode well. “Just a heads up that no woman on the planet likes to be told that a man is worried she’ll fly off the handle.” She held up a hand. “And don’t try and tell me it got mangled in translation.”
“Fair enough.” He closed the door. Stayed over by it, hands behind his back. “I’m the one who took your phone. Don’t blame Anya.”
“Okay.”
“I took it to put a recording…” It was the first time Elias seemed to be stuck on finding the right word in English. It was sort of adorable. “…a listening device in it.”
Not okay. Not adorable. Kelsey surged to her knees. Sort of. All the pillows making her wobbly reminded her of being a kid in a ball pit. “You bugged my phone?”
“Yes.” If Elias was any closer to the door, he’d be on the other side of it. “But not to listen to you. We want the ability to listen in when you talk to your parents.”
“Why?”
“That’s what you do with suspects.”
Kelsey crossed her arms, shook her head, and gave him the should-be-patented “you disappoint me” look learned at Cybill Wishner’s knee. “I told you, there’s no way they kidnapped me. They’re good people, Elias. They love me and Mallory. They devoted their lives to healing the sick.”
But he stood his ground. Elias crossed his arms. Ricocheted a patronizing, “you’re not as smart as you think” look right back at her. “They know something. You don’t have adoption records. Your birth certificate is forged—we checked. Oh, and, of course, your fingerprints prove you’re the child of King Julian and Queen Serena. The Wishners may have been good parents to you, but they are not innocent.”
“I’m sure if you let me talk to them, they’ll explain everything.” At least, that’s what she and Mallory had been whispering to each other every night, in an effort to stave off their growing fears. Because nothing added up about their loving, supportive parents stealing a baby.
“We’re giving them the chance to do that, which is what I needed to tell you. We had them taken into custody before you even left New York.”
“Custody?” She’d watched enough iterations of Law and Order to immediately flash to bars slamming them into a cell. With that distinctive, hollow, double bing that always accompanied it. “You had them arrested?”
“Yes. Arrested, then flown to New York and held for questioning while we were granted extraterritorial jurisdiction. Interpol, our own Intelligence and Security Agency, your FBI, and the Kenyan National Intelligence Service—all these agencies were a part of the search and thus now want to be a part of getting the answers. It has been…complicated to work through all the channels.”
Holy fuck. Her parents were sitting in jail right now because of her. Because, for whatever reason, they’d chosen to love her and raise her. Guilt almost outweighed her anger at not being notified. At least it solved the mystery of why they weren’t returning her calls. “Wait…Kenya?”
“That’s where your family was vacationing when you were abducted.”
Oh. She’d been to Africa? That fact was as surreal as the rest of this mess. Kelsey stood, letting her arms fall to her sides. “But they’re in jail? Why?”
“Because it is obvious the Wishners know something about the kidnapping, even if they were not responsible for orchestrating it themselves.”
Elias kept using their last name rather than referring to them as her parents.
It was obvious he’d brought her up here to this essentially padded room so that she could yell and flail at him to her heart’s content. Well, she didn’t want to disappoint. After kicking off her heels, Kelsey crossed to stand toe to toe with him.
Then turned her volume all the way up as if they were an entire floor apart. “Damn it, Elias, how could you not tell me?”
He flinched. Which, from Elias, was the equivalent of a normal person cowering in the fetal position under her targeted rage. “I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
“Don’t you dare retreat behind titles now. You can’t keep things from me.” She wasn’t an idiot. His duty was to keep her safe. Droves of people had the duty to figure out who took her in the first place. While Kelsey hated it as their daughter, she…accepted that her parents, at the very least, had to be questioned. And that all of that was out of her control, as well as Elias’s.
What was in his control was the level of honesty they shared.
