He smiled. “Your mother hosted a dinner party—that’s when we met. For a nineteen-year-old, she was incredibly poised. Everyone believed she was older, of course. I remember she captured the attention of everyone there. I thought Colonel Rainsley was going to embarrass himself, to be honest.”
“Rainsley was there? Senator Rainsley?”
He nodded. “That’s right. Your mother ended up being good friends with Brianna, though I don’t think she ever confided the nature of her marriage. But they had music in common.”
“And why did you end up involved with a married woman?” Carrie asked.
He sighed. “Of course, that was my downfall. I could see even at that party that something was broken between the two of them. He was so much older than she was, and she was terrified of him. But I had no idea how serious it was. Remember that back then, she was not much older than Andrea.”
Fascinated at this view of a mother she’d never really understood, Carrie leaned forward and said, “What … what was she like?”
George-Phillip smiled, his eyes twinkling. “She was fierce. Passionate. Your mother loved music … did you know she’d played for the National Youth Orchestra? She smiled, even when she was falling apart inside. She was fiercely protective of you girls. When we first met it was just Julia, of course. What a little rascal. Two years old and full of fire. I think your mother would have gone to hell and back to protect her. Adelina was the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”
Carrie shook her head. “I find that difficult to believe. All of it.”
“Can you imagine any other reason she stayed with him all those years? Other than to protect you?”
“Tell me more.” Carrie’s words were a demand. She felt an urgency to ferret out this woman who she’d never known.
George-Phillip shrugged. “We weren’t together very long then. A few short months. Richard spent much of the spring going back and forth from Afghanistan and Pakistan, trying to bury any backlash from the Wakhan massacre before it destroyed him. We took advantage of that. Whenever we were in public—not often—Julia acted as chaperone. I finally rented a studio apartment in Chevy Chase, not far from your condominium. We could meet discreetly there. She was terrified Richard would find out and harm her brother, or harm Julia.”
He closed his eyes. His voice shook unevenly as he said the next words, “I married, many years later, but I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved her. I’ve regretted it my entire life that I did not just—take her. That I didn’t fight hard enough, or strong enough to pull her away from him. When I think about how much he hurt her, how changed she was when I met her again in China, so many years later…”
He shook his head, bringing his hand to his mouth. “I would do anything.
Anything
. To take it back. To protect her.”
“Why did you leave? Was it because you found out she was pregnant?” Carrie didn’t voice the words,
with me.
But they fell in the room anyway.
George-Phillip shook his head. “No … Carrie. Adelina broke it off with me without explanation in late April ’84. I swear to you, I didn’t know you existed until 1996.”
“Tell me. What happened in China?” Carrie’s demand was sharp.
By the time Prince George-Phillip got off the airplane in China—commercial, of course—and cleared customs, he’d been en route for more than seventeen hours, thanks to an unnecessary layover in Paris. He was hot and tired and desperately needed a good night’s sleep.
That, unfortunately, was not to be. A young woman, perhaps twenty-five, waited for him at the end of the terminal with a cardboard sign discreetly labeled “GP.” He’d been told to expect her. Wendy Li was a British citizen, born in Cambridge, but her parents were native Chinese. She spoke fluent Mandarin. Purportedly a protocol officer for the Embassy—she was, in fact, the deputy chief of station for MI6. She was exceptionally young for that role, but the combination of an internal shakeup and her own expertise had catapulted her career forward.
“Hello, Your Highness,” she said. “Is this all your baggage?” She directed an assistant to collect the bags. “Come this way.”
“Thank you. Miss Li, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
George-Phillip was thirty-three years old, and his actual job in China was to be the chief of station for the MI6 in China—the most senior position he’d held to date. His “official” position was Senior Attaché with diplomatic service, a job with so few specifics that he could do virtually anything he needed. Like Wendy—and anyone else who works for the secretive intelligence organization—he required an official, diplomatic cover for his job, which was, of course, to spy on the Chinese.
It wasn’t the glamorous job people would expect. Spying typically involved finding people in sensitive positions, determining their weaknesses, and exploiting them. Sometimes the weaknesses were simple—greed, sexual peccadilloes and other means of turning people against their country. Sometimes they were more complex: people who sold out their country believing they were patriots. The most useful asset MI6 had in the Chinese government was secretly a Christian convert who worked in the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The Chinese government, of course, suppressed Christianity along with all other religions. That oppression gave spies a wedge.
As they got into the chauffeured car, she said, “Forgive me, Highness, we do have one issue. Are you fully up to date on the tensions between China and the US?”
“Yes, unless something happened while I was in the air.” She was referring, of course, to the spying scandal erupting in the United States, which was severely straining relations in Beijing. Chinese intelligence operatives had stolen significant nuclear secrets from the United States, and as of yet no one knew the extent of the damage.
“Nothing new, sir. Except the American Ambassador had an extremely … tense … meeting with the Chinese premier today. There’s some concern that the Chinese may retaliate in some way, so most of the NATO allies and Australia will be attending a large reception this evening at the US Embassy. As a show of solidarity, sir. I’m aware how long you’ve been in the air—but the Ambassador would like you to attend.”
He frowned then said, “All right. I’ll need to shower and shave, and someone to press one of my suits. They’re certain to be rumpled. And perhaps some coffee.” George-Phillip didn’t typically drink coffee. But he’d been awake so long now it was necessary.
“Of course, sir.”
“Who is the US Ambassador anyway? Isn’t there a new one?”
“Richard Thompson, sir. Previously he was the US Ambassador to NATO.”
George-Phillip felt a chill. He didn’t answer, just murmured, “Hmmmmm.”
“Sir? You know him?”
Damn.
His expression had betrayed him. “I do. But it’s been many years. What’s your impression?” George-Phillip asked the question just to get her talking so he didn’t have to.
“Honestly, sir, something about him … bothers me. I’m usually a pretty good judge of people. But I can’t make him out. He’s stone cold.”
“Is he married?” George-Phillip didn’t breathe after he asked the question.
“Yes, Your Highness. Younger woman, her name is Adelina. They have five children.”
“Five? That’s quite a lot, isn’t it?”
Five? She’d had four more children with him? What the hell?
“I believe the last two were twins, they were born this April. Confidentially, sir … I think she’s afraid of him.”
“His wife?” he asked. He arched an eyebrow, trying to look surprised.
Wendy didn’t look fooled. She raised a skeptical eyebrow right back. “Yes. His wife. I think she’s afraid of him. You know her too, don’t you, sir?”
George-Phillip frowned. “You don’t miss very much, do you, Miss Li?”
She shook her head. “Very little. Is there something there we should be worried about?”
George-Phillip grunted. On the one hand, it wasn’t an appropriate question for a subordinate to be asking. On the other—she had a point. “No. There might have been, many years ago. But that’s long since over.”
The look of concern didn’t leave Wendy’s face. But she wisely chose to steer the conversation away from Adelina. “Thompson has been the Ambassador since last October. It’s been a difficult time—with the spying revelations, relations with China and the US are souring rapidly.”
“Indeed,” George-Phillip said. “Spying is one thing. Nuclear secrets are another. It’s difficult to blame the Americans for their response.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ninety minutes later, George-Phillip and Wendy Li arrived at the US Embassy compound and were cleared through the gate. He felt somewhat refreshed after the shower, but nothing would completely do it other than a lot of sleep. Which he was unlikely to get in the next couple of days. So be it. He had a job to do, and sleep wasn’t in the job description.
George-Phillip and Wendy were late, but not too much so. It never hurt to be close to the last to arrive anyway. As he walked into the ballroom in the Embassy, his eyes scanned the room and the sixty or more guests who were crowded in various circles and groupings.
He immediately recognized some faces. Rick Smith, the Australian Ambassador to China, and of course Ambassador Ronald Easton, who stood next to his American counterpart—Richard Thompson. Thompson stood in profile to George-Phillip. His expression was grave as he and Easton spoke. Richard had aged, his hair gone grey in the dozen years since they’d encountered each other. He must be in his mid-forties.
Adelina wasn’t standing with Thompson, which was a good thing. After a moment, George-Phillip found her. She was standing near the back wall of the ballroom, talking with a young girl. Adelina’s back was to George-Phillip. She looked much the same, her back still well toned, exposed in a backless dress. After five children, her body had changed, of course—broader hips and larger breasts. She was lovely. He froze, unable to focus clearly as he looked at the young woman.
Fourteen
, he guessed. Curly brown hair, large pretty eyes. Julia. She wouldn’t remember him, of course—she’d been a mere toddler when he last saw her. She’d turned into a beautiful young woman.
For a moment he gave into a fantasy that she was
his
daughter, that he and Adelina could have had children. But of course, that was impossible.
Five
children. He wondered if she’d finally been emotionally seduced by her husband.
For the last decade and more his mother had constantly harped at him. Get married. Have a child. But he’d kept a false hope, all along, that one day she would leave him, that a miracle would happen and he would be with the woman he loved. But at the moment he saw her again for the first time, he didn’t feel that longing, he didn’t feel that love. What he felt was
anger
and
hurt
and
grief
he hadn’t imagined he was capable of.
“Your Highness! Welcome to Beijing.”
Startled, George-Phillip averted his eyes from Adelina and Julia, only to come face to face with Ronald Easton, the US Ambassador, and Richard Thompson.
Automatically, a smile lit across George-Phillip’s face, though it was no more sincere than the friendly face Thompson showed.
“Ambassador Easton! Ambassador Thompson! A pleasure to see both of you again!”
Easton smiled. “Prince George-Phillip, I’m pleased to have you here. So you know Richard?”
Forcing his thoughts away from Adelina, he replied. “Indeed. Ambassador Thompson once hosted me for a
very
interesting dinner at his condominium in Washington, DC.”
Julia was walking away from Adelina now. Likely leaving, she was young to attend a diplomatic ball of this nature. Adelina turned around and her eyes locked on his. The shock was obvious. Her eyes widened and watered, and a hand involuntarily covered her mouth. Almost instantly, however, a mask descended on her face, her hand dropped to her side, and she looked away.
“Perhaps, then, you can settle a friendly wager for us,” Easton said. He stank of whiskey. “Richard here maintains that it was the advances of John Hawkins on ship building that allowed for English settlement of the Americas. But I have the correct answer—that it was the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. What do you say?”
Easton was a boor. But he was the Ambassador. “Both answers are equally true, Ambassador—the defeat of the Armada would not have taken place had it not been for the improvement in ship building.”
“Spoken like a true diplomat, Your Highness,” Thompson said. His eyes were cold and his voice low. “You used a lot of words and avoided the question entirely. Bravo.”
Thompson was decidedly unfriendly. Did he suspect George-Phillip’s affair with his wife? Or was it something else entirely? Had he somehow guessed George-Phillip’s involvement in the investigation of the massacre at Wakhan? Whatever it was, even Easton noticed, his face sobering as he heard Thompson’s tone.
The three men engaged in small talk, maddening small talk, as George-Phillip kept his eyes everywhere
except
on Richard Thompson’s wife, who moved from group to group like a good hostess: entertaining, friendly but not too friendly, a smile always on her face.
Finally, George-Phillip managed to offer his excuses and step away from the two Ambassadors. Unable to face any more meaningless conversations, he stepped into the hallway, needing to have a few moments of solitude. His eyes scanned the hallway looking for the water closet.
He was almost at the end of the hallway when he heard her voice behind him.
“George-Phillip.”
He froze, his spine rigid. He couldn’t show his face. He
couldn’t.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Adelina.”
He heard her footsteps, heels clicking on the marble floor, as she approached. He slowly turned around.
“I … I…” her voice trailed off.
“You miss me?” he asked. “You’re sorry for breaking it off with no explanation? You’re sorry you broke my heart? What is it?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
His shoulders sagged. “What am I to say?”
“Just … tell me you’re well.”
George-Phillip felt his eyebrows twitch, and he narrowed one eye, trying to hold in the wave of emotion that flooded him. He looked up at the ceiling, unable to control his grief. “I must go, Adelina. Please … just…”