The Princess and the Duke (15 page)

“You were taking so long, I thought you might need some help,” he said in such a friendly way that Meredith felt superbly guilty. Particularly with the sharp, folded edge of the paper shoved inside her jacket gouging into her breast.

“Actually, I’m finished,” she said, and this time when she tried, the folder slid into its snug place within the box. She replaced the lid and carefully climbed down the ladder. “Thank you again,” she said.

The guard nodded and told her he would take care of the ladder. Then he escorted her up the stairs, and Meredith took the elevator to the main floor of the RII and headed straight for her office.

She closed the door, leaning against it, and pulled the paper from her jacket. It crinkled as she opened it, and she let out a shaky breath. She hadn’t imagined what she’d seen before the guard interrupted her.

The memo
was
from the RET, and it was directed to His Majesty, the King. It was undated, and contained only a very brief roster of names. She recognized some as members of the Royal Guard. Major Fox, for one. Lady Gwen’s deceased husband. But it was the name at the end of the list that jumped out at her.

Army Lieutenant P. Prescott.

She ran her fingertip along the edge of the paper, her thoughts scattered. When her phone buzzed, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Colonel Prescott is holding for you on line one. Mr. Valdosta on two.” Lillian’s disembodied voice sounded through the intercom.

Meredith’s fingers crumpled the memo. “Did, um, did the colonel say what it was regarding?” She spoke loud enough that Lillian would be able to hear her.

“No, Your Royal Highness.”

Of course he hadn’t. She headed toward her desk and picked up the phone. “Thank you, Lillian.” She swallowed and stared at the blinking buttons for a moment. She quickly jabbed the second line and canceled her dinner date with George Valdosta. He was understanding, which made her feel wretched, and he was disappointed when she carefully explained that she didn’t think she should go out with him at all.

“Is there someone else?”

“There could be, George,” she said truthfully. Even if Pierce wouldn’t allow himself to be involved with her, the truth was, she simply couldn’t bring herself to see anyone else. It had been the underlying reason she’d always remained uninvolved with anyone.

“This isn’t about my forwardness the night of your sister’s wedding. I apologized for that. I’d drunk too—”

“No, George, it isn’t that.” She could hardly blame him for being inebriated that night. Not when she’d had too much to drink, also, and emboldened by it had fairly thrown herself at Pierce.

“Well,” he said after a moment. “Tell whoever he is that he’s a lucky man.” Then he hung up, leaving Meredith staring at the blinking button that would connect her to the colonel.

She slowly pushed it.

“Do you have plans tonight?”

Her hands tightened over the receiver. “Good morning to you, too, Pierce.”

“Good morning,” he said obligingly. “Do you have plans?”

“Perhaps.”
Not any longer.

“Are they breakable?”

“Perhaps.”
I already did.

“Do you have any answers other than perhaps?”

She heard the smile in his voice, and her shoulders relaxed a little. “Perhaps.”

“Your parents should have sent you to sit in the corner more often.”

Her lips twitched. “What punishments did your parents mete out for your misdeeds?”

“None. My misdeeds came after they died. Will you meet me for dinner or not?”

Her free hand slowly flattened the memo on her desk. It had nothing to do with Edwin’s death, but anything that possessed Pierce’s name interested her. “Where?”

He named a restaurant in Sterling, and she ran her gaze down her schedule. “That’s one of my favorite restaurants,” she told Pierce. It had a spectacular view of the Penberne River.

“I know.”

She moistened her lips, wanting to see him. Fearing it would be just one more encounter that would end
with her feeling bruised. And today, she was feeling rather banged up thanks to her meeting with the King. “All right. I’ll meet you there. It’ll have to be later, though, as I’ve got an engagement this afternoon. Maybe eight?” There was no point in him coming all the way to Marlestone to collect her when she’d be traveling from the north, anyway.

“Fine. See you then.”

Her fingers tightened around the receiver. “Pierce, what’s this about?”

He’d already hung up, though, and all she heard was the dial tone.

She slowly replaced the receiver and tucked the memo she’d taken from her father’s personal papers into her purse.

One of these days, she might not jump when Pierce called. But not this day. She had too many questions she wanted him to answer. And she knew deep inside that her questions had little to do with the real reason she kept heading back toward him.

“I
said I liked the open terrace. I didn’t expect you to have it cordoned off from everyone but us.” When Meredith arrived at the restaurant, it had been to the sight of the owner waiting for her car. He’d directed Bobby to park in the private lot in the rear of the old stone building, before escorting her to the terrace where Pierce was already seated.

He’d risen when she spoke. “I didn’t want to be interrupted.”

“Obviously. I was brought up the back stairs via the kitchens. It’s a wonder the chef and his staff weren’t required to wear blindfolds.” She sat down when he held her chair and thought she must be imagining the graze of his fingertips over her shoulder before he returned to his seat on the other side of the tiny table.

“You don’t look any worse for wear from the rain yesterday.”

“Well, my shoes were a write-off.” She smiled slightly. “But the rest of me survived. What about your car?”

“I should’ve sold it long ago. No point in having a convertible if the top won’t go up when it rains.”

“The car belonged to your parents.”

“I don’t remember discussing that with you.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s true, isn’t it?” She waited for his nod, then picked up the crystal water goblet and looked at the river, which glimmered in the moonlight. “Some things about you are clear as can be. One thing that isn’t, however, is what this—” she waved her hand, encompassing the dinner table “—is about. I’m beginning to equate you with hunger. We’ve had enough meals together, lately.”

“Fitting, as I’ve been hungry for you for years.”

She swallowed. Carefully set down the water glass. “What’s going on? Why did you ask me to meet you here?”

“Because I know the owner and I can trust that he won’t let any avid photographers anywhere near us.”

“You saw the picture in the paper this morning.”

“My secretary saw it.”

“So did the King.” She squared the heavy silver flatware with the edge of the table. “He wasn’t pleased.”

Pierce’s eyes seemed to sharpen. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing I care to get into.” She shook it off. “He was in quite a temper, actually, though not necessarily over the photo. He’s feeling the strain of the negoti
ations. We all are.” She glanced up as a waiter appeared. “Go ahead and order,” she told Pierce. “I’d just like something light. I’m still stuffed from lunch, I’m afraid.”

He did so, and waited for the waiter to retreat before speaking again. “Speaking of lunch, I hear you went to North Shore this afternoon.”

“Keeping tabs on me?”

“Are you going to throw that dinner roll you’ve clenched in your hand at me if I admit that I was?”

She smiled faintly and placed the crusty little roll on her bread plate. “I guess that depends on the reason you were keeping tabs on me.”

“Part of the job, Your Royal Highness.”

She made a face. “Do you
like
bruising my ego?” She’d spoken lightly, but Pierce didn’t look any more amused than she felt. “I attended a wedding shower for Lissa Lowell. She’s on staff at Sunquest. She’s an old friend of mine. I met her fiancé. He’s a physician also. Private practice.” She knew she was chattering but couldn’t seem to stop. “I wasn’t going to go, at first, because I had a meeting with the chancelor of Penwyck College. But he canceled. Flu, apparently. It’s going around.”

“That’s all you went up there for? A wedding shower?”

“Yes. Well, I did stop in to say hello to Major Fox. He’s not well at all. In addition to the Alzheimer’s, Lissa told me his heart is failing.” She hesitated. “He doesn’t have long.”

“Did he talk?”

“Yes. He kept mistaking me for my mother, actually.” She frowned. “Telling me—her—how sorry
he was for Edwin’s death. If he’d been more lucid, I would have asked what he remembered about it, since he’d probably been living with his son on Majorco around that time.” She shrugged. “As it was, he kept confusing Penwyck with Majorco. It’s very sad. I’ve got Lillian pulling together some numbers on what the RII is putting into research for the disease. Whatever the RII is doing, it isn’t enough,” she said.

“He’s seventy-two,” Pierce said.

“And ought to have another twenty years.” She toyed with her crystal water goblet. “Lissa—Dr. Lowell—she told me that his son doesn’t even visit him. That Major Fox is basically alone. I hate the thought of it.”

“He’s getting the best of care at the facility.”

“I know.” She shook her head, sighing. “I told Lissa to call me if his condition changes in the least. I want to be there for him.”

“To do what?”

“Just
be
there. He needs someone, Pierce.”

“To sit with while he dies.”

“If that’s the only thing I can do, yes.”

His expression didn’t change. Meredith couldn’t tell if he was displeased. The servers appeared then, setting out everything—salads, steak for Pierce, lobster bisque for her, chocolate ganache—before quietly disappearing again. From below, they could hear the muted sound of other diners and the lilting strain of a piano.

Meredith slipped her spoon into the heavenly bisque. “Now. Why
are
we here?”

“Because I wanted to see you. And you wanted to see me. Otherwise, you’d have never canceled dinner
with George Valdosta to see me instead. You’re far too polite to put him off twice, even though he deserves it.”

She set down her spoon. “You knew about my dinner appointment.”

“Dinner date.”

“Whatever.”

“Yes.”

“So, this is what? Some sort of dog-in-the-manger thing? You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to get near me, either?”

“I think we covered the issue of whether or not I
want
you. The fact that you did meet me here was your own choice, Meredith.”

“I don’t think I like you very much right now.” She pushed away the bisque, what appetite she had gone.

Welcome to the club,
Pierce thought. He hated himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. For so many more things than she knew.

Her eyes were guarded, and he couldn’t blame her. He needed to be derailing her quest for information about Edwin, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d heard about her trek to the underground tunnel and her little trip through the archives. And while that didn’t worry him particularly, what did concern him was her trip to North Shore. But she was so honest. She’d already told him everything he’d needed to know without him having to do the slightest maneuvering.

“I did want to see you,” he said. “Just for me. Just because.” And that really was the unvarnished truth.

“No other reason?”

His eyes met hers, so clear. So true. And everything else just fell away. “None that matters,” he said quietly.

Her eyes softened. “Okay.” She picked up her spoon and began picking at her meal again. By the time they were wading through the impossibly rich ganache, she was smiling, her laughter soft, rich and full of life, as she told him about the scrapes she and her sisters and brothers had gotten into growing up in the palace.

“You were lucky,” Pierce said, selfishly absorbing the light that seemed to shine from her. “To have built-in playmates.”

“Was it lonely? Being an only child?”

He shrugged. “My parents often took in a church member in need, or a student, for one reason or another. I wasn’t exactly alone.”

She watched him, and he knew she saw through the excuse. He had been alone. He still was. And he wondered when it had begun wearing so thin that he could hardly bear it.

She’d set aside her dessert. “The music is always lovely here.” Her hair was down, and it stirred in the breeze, seeming to move in tune with the sounds from the piano that drifted through the softly lit terrace. “Isn’t it?”

Music was music. Some he liked, some he considered to be little more than noise pollution. “Want to dance?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Here?”

“I need to make up for the spring ball twelve years
ago when I was stupid enough to turn down an invitation to dance with a beautiful girl.”

Her cheeks colored. “We danced at Megan’s wedding reception.”

“That doesn’t count. You were tipsy.”

“That’s a polite way of putting it,” she said wryly. “Every time I looked over and saw you dancing with Juliet Oxford’s cleavage, I reached for another champagne. I had a headache the size of the sun the next day.”

He stood. “Well?”

Meredith eyed the hand he held out to her. “This isn’t an establishment known for dancing.” But she rose also. And if her hand trembled a little when she put it in his, they both ignored it.

They danced, slowly circling the terrace, under the cloudy night sky with the breeze drifting through, until the pianist downstairs took a break.

And then they returned to the table, and Meredith knew she ought to go, no matter how much she wanted to prolong her time with him. She picked up her purse. Toyed with the clasp, coming to a quick decision. “Pierce?” He was standing so close she could inhale the seductive scent of him. It seemed to fill her up. “Can I show you something?”

He nodded. His eyes were hooded as he drew a lock of her hair from his uniform where the breeze kept blowing it.

She swallowed and opened her purse, pulled out the paper she’d unthinkingly pinched from her father’s archives. “The RET rarely puts anything in writing.”

His eyes narrowed. “Very rarely.”

“Yet this was.” She unfolded it and handed it to him. “Do you know what it’s about?”

He looked over the document. “Where did you get this?”

“Does it matter?” She closed her hands over his arm. “I told you I was good at research.”

“You’re also good at talking royal guards into letting you go where you don’t belong.”

“You knew.”

“Your Royal Highness—” he folded the memo and shoved it in his pocket “—there is nothing that goes on at the palace, the RII or the tunnel that I don’t know about.”

“And my father.”

“Undoubtedly, His Majesty will learn of your little expedition.”

She snapped her purse closed and tossed her hair. “I can handle my father.” Though her encounter with him that morning left more room for doubt than she’d have liked.

“Can you? Meredith, now is not the time to be poking into old matters. There are more important matters at hand.”

It was too much. First her father. Now Pierce. “Are you going to toss around barely veiled threats, too, if I don’t cease and desist?”

His eyes sharpened.
“Too?”

“My father didn’t take kindly to my query, either. My mother didn’t seem to mind so much, but she didn’t shed any new light, either.”

“You went to the Queen with your questions.” He didn’t look at all pleased by that fact.

“Why not? Nobody else will say anything new about Edwin’s death.”

“There is nothing new to say.”

“Well, it hardly matters, anyway.” She controlled her rising voice. “That memo doesn’t mention my uncle’s name. It mentions
yours.
And Major Fox’s. What’s it about? Does it have anything to do with what Major Fox said about you saving his life?”

He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “truths.” Then he nudged her into her chair and pulled his around to face her, sitting so close their knees brushed. “If I tell you about Major Fox, will you promise to drop this ridiculous hunt of yours?” His voice was barely audible.

She blinked. “I take exception to the label ‘ridiculous,’ but—”

“Meredith.”

“All right.” She felt like crying, and it
was
ridiculous. Because the reason she’d been interested in learning more about Edwin was simply that the mere mention of his name made Pierce react. She didn’t understand her father’s reaction and could only assume it was the stress of the upcoming alliance signings. But when it came to Pierce, she wanted to understand him more than she wanted her next breath.

Her mother had been right about Meredith. She wasn’t satisfied unless she picked apart every little thing until she understood it. And she needed to understand Pierce.

Needed
to.

“Promise me that you’ll keep it to yourself. With the negotiations going on, the last thing we need is
for Penwyck to look as if we can’t protect our own monarchy.”

She swallowed. “Pierce, I’d never do anything to jeopardize the alliances. Surely you know that. My father has been living for them for too long.”

His jaw tightened. “Truer words were never spoken,” he said wearily, looking around. “All right. But we can’t get into this here.”

“Then where?”

“My flat.”

She rose, feeling shaky. “Bobby has my car around back.”

He nodded. On the way out, he spoke briefly with the owner and then Bobby, and in minutes they were closed in the utter privacy of Pierce’s luxurious flat. But once she was seated on the couch, he didn’t seem anxious to pick up the subject.

“Pierce? The memo,” she prompted after watching him stand at the French doors, looking out.

His expression was inscrutable when he finally turned. “There was an attempted attack. When I was still a lieutenant, assigned to the palace.”

Her mouth dried. “An attack on the
palace?
”

“Yes.”

It was inconceivable. Of all the things she’d suspected,
that
hadn’t been one of them. “Why didn’t anyone know about it? Why weren’t we told?”

“His Majesty knew. The attempted attack was foiled. Obviously. Nobody else needed to know.”

“You did save Major Fox’s life, then. During the attempt.” He looked so impossibly grim as he nodded once that Meredith’s eyes flooded. “Was…anyone else hurt?”

“Yes,” he said gruffly, “and no, I am not going to break the King’s wishes and tell you who.”

“There were several names on the memo. Were they the people on duty that night?”

“Forget the memo. It’s unimportant.”

“We should have been told,” Meredith whispered. Her mind worked furiously. “Have there been
other
attempts to harm my father?”

He sat on the stone-topped coffee table facing her, much the way he had faced her at the restaurant. And worry coursed through her when he reached forward to slide his fingers through her hair, drawing it away from her face.