“You were saying . . .”
Yes, he was saying . . . What was he saying? “Yardley recalled his brother saying Princess Alice moved to London in the twenties, after the war, and married an RAF officer.”
“She never said a word, at least to me, about her life in London. I was four and five when my grandparents died. As I got older, Gram talked a lot about Hessenberg and her childhood love of painting . . . She had mild dementia in her early nineties so stories were interwoven with truth and fable and I didn’t pay much attention. The older I got, the older she got. I loved sitting with her, holding her hand. But by then, she was in her late nineties, hard of hearing, and sleepy.” She smiled softly. “Very sleepy.” Miss Beswick shifted her gaze to him and Tanner felt a bit like he was drowning in pools of blue. “She was the sleepy princess.”
“Leaving Hessenberg, two world wars, living in Brighton, then London, losing her husband . . . all painful seasons in her life. Maybe she tried to forget.”
“The letter to Otto said as much. That she wanted to forget her past and all of its death.”
Tanner turned to the fairy tale’s last page, his gaze landing on the Starfire #89. “Miss Beswick—”
“Okay, Tanner, please. Call me Reggie. Or Regina. Miss Beswick makes me sound like a spinster.”
“She painted a Starfire #89. Did you know her uncle—your uncle—commissioned the original Starfire #89? He paid for its engineering and production. He put it in its first race. Against Henry Ford’s #999.”
His brief time as Minister of Culture had so far centered on Augustine-Saxon history. It served him well now.
“I knew about the car but never that my great-great-great-uncle commissioned it to be made. I didn’t know about him at all.” Miss Beswick, rather, Regina studied the picture. “The princess is putting a bag of something in the trunk. Wonder what that means?”
“I’ve no idea. But this stable and the car are long gone by now, Miss Besw—Regina.” Her name felt good on his lips. “The Nazis occupied some of the island during the second war. If the Starfire was still there, they’d have found it and shipped it to Germany.”
“But there’s only one Starfire #89 in a German museum, and it’s documented as number seven, the last one made, and sold by the owner at an auction.”
“I can’t tell you.” He closed the book. “I’m your entail chap, your royal family and Hessenberg historian, but the whereabouts of an ancient auto, I’ve no idea.”
She sighed, taking the notebook and flipping through the pages. Her shoulders rounded forward with weariness.
“This stinks. How can I go back to being just Reggie, have-tools-will-restore-your-car, Beswick while the idea of being a real princess floats around in the back of my head? What am I supposed to do with this?” She waved the fairy tale at him. “I feel like half my life is a lie.”
“Not a lie, Regina. Just incomplete.”
She collapsed back into the chair. “None of this makes sense. Why didn’t she tell me?”
Tanner held up the fairy tale. “What do you think this is, Regina?”
She made a face. “Tanner, I’m too tired, too confused—”
“Regina, look. A book. An offering, an avenue of communication. Fairy tale, parable, letter, novel, e-mail, blog, whatever. Words communicate. Your gram was communicating truth to you through this story.”
“If she wanted me to know the truth, why didn’t she just come out and say it? Why hide it in a fairy tale? And the bigger question is, what did Mama know? Because when Gram painted this, Mama was alive and well and the true heir.”
“There are some mysteries we may never know the answer to, Regina.” A passion fueled his thoughts, and Tanner slipped down to one knee next to her. “But this book is for you, about you . . . You
are
the princess in the story, more or less. Your gram is telling you who you are. Look at the last line. ‘Believing that one day they would be found when salvation came.’ She means you. The one who can save Hessenberg, save your gram’s legacy. You are her treasure, her heritage. There’s your truth.”
Regina pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead with a deep sigh. “What truth ever started with ‘Once upon a time,’ Tanner?”
He laughed low and rose to his feet. “Resist all you want, but you know I’m right.” He retrieved two waters from the mini-fridge. “You are the princess, the heir to the Hessenberg throne. No doubt, fear, or once-upon-a-time can change the truth.”
“I keep waiting for someone to show up with an, ‘Aha, we got you!’ ” She reached for the water bottle he offered and twisted off the cap.
“If they do, I’m as goosed as you, Regina.” Tanner sat, picking up the notebook again. Something he saw on the back of
the car suddenly registered with him. Yes, there on the license plate. Princess Alice was a clever woman. “See this? RAB. Your initials if I’m not mistaken. And this.” He pointed to the emblem in the top right corner of the plate. “Princess Alice’s cipher with the Augustine-Saxon crown above her initials. She’s speaking to you loud and clear. She used to mark her cipher with a sapphire ring—”
“What did you say?”
“She’d mark her cipher with the shank of a sapphire ring. I know that—”
“Like this?” Regina retrieved a small jewel box from the larger box and opened it.
“Yes, like this.” Tanner examined the ring, raising it to the light of the lamp next to him. The sapphire stone surrounded by diamonds was set in an intricate filigree setting. “The Grand Duchess ring,” he whispered. “We thought it’d been lost. Grand Duke Earnest Wilhelm fashioned this ring for his wife in 1833. The sapphire came from Hessenberg’s own mines when they were producing some of the world’s best.”
“Then take it. It belongs to Hessenberg,” Regina said.
“No, the ring belongs to the royal family, Regina. It belongs to you.”
“But I’m not a royal, Tanner.” Her protests about her true heritage were weakening. “Besides, what would I do with that here?”
“Mark your seal on . . .”—he shrugged, grinning—“a new paint job for one of your autos.”
She laughed, and he loved hearing the melody of her heart. She reached for the ring as he passed it back. “What’s this thing worth anyway? Or do I want to know?”
“A quarter of a million pounds. Roughly. See the princess—”
“A quarter of a mill—shoot, Tanner, that’s like . . .” She held up the ring, calculating. “Three hundred and fifty thousand in dollars. Roughly.”
“The old Grand Duke spared no expense. The sapphire is over two karats and cut with the rare jeweler’s cut. Same with the diamonds, all flawless with the jeweler’s cut,” Tanner said.
Regina leaned toward the lamp behind her, offering the ring to the triangle of light falling from under the shade. “What’s so rare about the cut?”
“No one knows how to fashion it anymore. It was developed by a Jewish family in Germany. All very skilled and talented artisans. All killed, every one of them, in Dachau and Auschwitz.”
The words
Dachau
and
Auschwitz
raised the blinders on history’s dark past and the sins of men.
“Then the ring is priceless,” Regina said, low and tender. Thoughtful. “So much talent and knowledge was lost in the war. You can’t kill six million people—”
“Murder.”
“Murder six million people and preserve knowledge or hold on to culture.”
Tanner regarded her. Did she hear herself? Such an observation. And spoken like a true princess. “You’re making an argument for why we need you, Regina. To regain our heritage, our culture.”
“But I know nothing of your heritage or culture.”
“You carry the blood of your gram, your uncle, within you.”
Regina regarded the ring, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but I am not anyone’s hope of restoration.” She held the ring at arm’s length, one eye closed. “The filigree is so detailed. Like it’s trying to say something.”
“It is. It’s your gram’s cipher.” Tanner moved behind her and leaned over her shoulder. Soft wisps of her fiery hair burned his cheeks. “The shank was restyled for her when she became the Hereditary Duchess. See here? The
P
for Princess. Half of an
A
for Alice. And half of a crown. On the other side of the ring is the rest of the
A
and crown.”
“That’s extraordinary. And amazingly clever. I should come
up with some kind of cipher for the cars we restore.” She laughed. “A brand. Sear it on the undercarriage.”
“Yes, it’s quite clever. It’s the ingenuity of Earnest Wilhelm, passed on from Grand Duchess to Grand Duchess. It was a secret. Only the royal jeweler knew the cipher was embedded in the ring. When the Duchess sealed a letter or marked an official document with her seal, she added the cipher, usually in private, so no aides or staff discovered the secret.”
“So, the royal life is fraught with secrets and intrigue.”
“More than you know.” He could lean over her shoulder all night and never tire. His lips were inches from hers and his heart was alerting his whole body to her beauty.
“Really, you should take it home with you.” Regina returned the ring to its jewel case, shoving it to Tanner’s side of the coffee table. “What do you know about this?” She reached inside the box, bringing out a rather tattered, torn photograph. “Do you know him? He doesn’t seem connected to anything we’ve talked about so far.”
Tanner pinched the end of the photo between his thumb and finger. So this was the other half of the photo he found in
his
box.
“Your gram loved boxes, Regina,” Tanner said, walking into the bedroom and from his suitcase dug out the box he’d found at the palace, in one of the suites. The one he had carried to the office the other day, wondering how he’d discover the mystery of the box’s unusual contents.
He set it on the table next to Regina’s box, opened the lid, and retrieved the other half of the picture.
“Oh my gosh, she tore it in half. Put them in two different boxes.” Regina sighed, but with a smile. “Gram, were you a little upset at this boy?”
“Maybe she meant to give one half to the young man,” Tanner offered, tapping his half of the photo. “And keep one for herself.”
“Maybe. Or she was brokenhearted. Otherwise, why keep it
all those years? When she had two husbands?” Regina reached for the two halves, piecing them together, studying them, her questions defining her fine features.
“Perhaps it was love unrequited,” Tanner said. “There, turn over the photos. What does the writing tell us?”
“Let’s see.” When Regina bent to the light again to read the back of the photograph, her thick, sun-kissed bangs streamed over her eyes. At once she was both worldly and innocent, a tomboy with a feminine flair. Tanner breathed in and breathed out.
Steady, ole boy.
“Rein Friedrich . . .” She looked to Tanner. “Ring any bells? This was the spring of 1914.”
Tanner studied the man’s face while his private thoughts urged his heart to shut up about love and desire.
Focus on the task at hand.
“There was a Rein Friedrich who fought for the Kaiser in the first war. Jumped sides, he did, which was what the Grand Duke, Prince Francis, feared all along with Hessenberg’s young men.”
“Didn’t he fear the Germans? The Kaiser? Seems I remember something about that in a history class.”
“He did, but moreover, he feared the men of fighting age would join ranks with his cousin, the Kaiser, his rival. Francis wanted to fight with his Anglo cousins in England and Brighton. But Hessenberg’s strong Germanic influence divided the country in 1914.”
“So he abandoned ship.”
“Something like that, yes. But he wasn’t ready to lead in wartime anyway. Rein Friedrich, if this is the same chap, joined the German army, rose through the ranks until he eventually found himself in Hitler’s inner circle.”
“Gram saved a picture of a Nazi?” She moved the photo pieces apart, making a face, disgust sharpening her tone.
“He wasn’t a Nazi when this was taken,” Tanner said. “He was most likely a jolly university chap with the world at his beckoning.”
“Cocky and full of himself.”
“Aren’t all young men? Rein’s life ended with him swinging from a rope. He was sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials.”
Regina dropped the photo into the box. “What about this pendant?” She rested the piece in his palm.
“Looks like it’s been cut in half. And”—Tanner dug in his box—“like the picture, I have the other half here.” Tanner matched his half of the pendant to Regina’s. “It’s engraved with her initials. It’s a cipher pendant.”
“Do you think she wanted him to have the other half?” She held up her palm and Tanner settled his half of the pendant against her skin.
“Very well could,” Tanner said. “The picture was taken in 1914 before the war. She might have fallen for Rein. Maybe she tore the picture before the family fled, leaving it behind for him.”
“Do you think that’s what the fairy tale is about? Gram leaving things behind for him?”
“I don’t think Rein would never be the ‘salvation’ of Hessenberg. Besides, he obviously didn’t go off with the box, the picture, or the pendant. I found the box in the princess suite of the palace.”
She sighed, packing up the box. “More questions. Fewer answers.” Regina stood, collecting her box. “Gram,
grrr
, why didn’t you say something?”
“Regina, she did.”
“If you say to me the fairy tale is her ‘saying something’ . . .” She pointed her finger at him, her chin lowered, her eyes narrowed. “I might have to punch you.”
He laughed. “Have I rattled you that much?”
“Yes . . . no . . . It’s not you . . . I don’t know, Tanner. I don’t know. I can’t think.”
“You’re tired. Go home. Sleep.”
But she didn’t move past the chairs. “What . . . what would I have to do again? And for how long?”
Tanner started down this road tenderly. Slowly. “Go to
Hessenberg, of course. Meet with the king and other leaders, the prime minister and governor, go through the formalities—”
“Become the actual princess.”
“Yes, by reinstating the House of Augustine-Saxon. You’ll be the heir and princess, Hereditary Duchess—”
“Grand Pooh-bah and Chief Potentate?”
“If you’d like.” He wanted to laugh, wrap her against him, kiss the worry lines from her forehead, and promise her all would be well. She moved his heart in a way no woman ever had. Not even Trude.