The Prince's Secret (The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) (12 page)

Chapter 3

S
OMEBODY RESCUES ME though.

No, it wasn’t Brandon Logan, the Hollywood actor who recently purchased Villa Buschi, but another big star. I’ll call him Matt Z. That’s not his real name of course. Nobody has the last name of Z. That would be absurd. But I’m not allowed to say his real name, because I signed this ridiculously long confidentiality agreement when I started my job. 
Thou shall not speak the name of any guest of Villa Buschi
, or something or other was written in bold print along with several other ridiculous requirements in a document full of legalese that was over 100 pages long.

Anyway, I swear, it’s him. One of the most important Hollywood stars of the moment, and he is rapidly untangling me from the airbag that has engulfed me like a giant marshmallow.

“Are you all right? Signora, are you okay?” he asks in an anxious voice as he undoes my seatbelt and pulls me from the vehicle. Unstable, I wobble to and fro. Briefly I think I might be dead. Matt looks really good. Like an angel. And he smells good, with a hint of pine, like the woodlands.

“Your airbag really scraped you up there,” he says and his eyes narrow in concern. Wait a minute, I know that look. It’s exactly the look he had in his last movie. The one where the terrorist tells him there’s a bomb in the building and he has five minutes to diffuse it, only the bomb is buried under five layers of concrete so that even his trusty Labrador retriever cannot sniff it out. That is precisely what he looks like now.

I stare at him. I just stare. I can’t even think about the blood that is trickling down my face. I mean there he is and he is exactly as they say in People magazine. He is captivating, and wholesome, and he smells so
darn
 good. I decide that I love him. Yes, I love him. Oh, but not in the romantic way. No, I love him as if he were my long lost brother.

I want to reach out and hug my long lost brother, but all I can do is sputter, “How did this happen?” I look around. My car is in a heap. It looks like a tin can that has been crushed. Did I hit the gate, I wonder? Did I forget to hit the button and the gate did not open and now I am dead and God has sent my long lost brother Matt to take me to heaven?

But I did hit the button—that much I remember
—
and the gate is wide open. I look at the Panda again, and I see that directly in front of it is a large Mercedes SUV with nary a scratch. It is only now that I notice Matt and I are not alone. Somebody is dabbing at my face with a fist full of tissues. It’s an uptight-looking, young woman wearing jeans, a sweater and bright blue horn-rimmed glasses.

“Does your head hurt?” somebody asks me. I am not sure who. A third person has emerged from the SUV—a sort of driver/body guard who wears a black suit and dark glasses.  I am so disoriented, I can’t tell which one of the three has spoken.

My head? No, it doesn’t hurt. It feels heavy though. I want to tell everybody that I need to lie down but I can’t quite manage the words. Instead, I stare at Matt and have an overwhelming desire to lean in and sniff that wonderful pine smell. So I do.

“Oh, wow!” says the uptight-looking woman, “She’s out of it.”

“Maggie, would you please map out the nearest hospital?” Matt says authoritatively. The uptight-looking woman nods her head. She whips out a bright, shiny, purple-clad Blackberry and begins to type madly with her thumbs. “Now if you’ll just come along with me,” Matt says as he takes hold of my elbow and guides me to the SUV. “I think we need to get you to a doctor. There now, that’s it, baby steps. Not to worry about a thing, my driver Carson will take us to the closest hospital.”

“I know the way, I live here,” I chime in, the heaviness in my head subsiding. “We need to turn around and head straight towards Arona, then take the first exit,” I gibber as Matt and Maggie both try to help me climb into the backseat of the Mercedes. Inside the SUV, Matt helps me fasten my seatbelt. “I’m so sorry, Signora,” he says, “we didn’t see you until the last second.” Carson mumbles something about it being impossible to see anything given all the trees and shrubs around the entrance of the villa. Then he turns the SUV around, mowing down several shrubs and a small pine as he does so. Deftly, he makes the left turn out onto the highway.

Less than thirty seconds later, Maggie decides she is done playing nursemaid and shoves the box of Kleenexes in my lap. I pull a tissue out of the box as the enormous Hollywood star, who is seated on my left, turns to me and says, “I am so sorry, Signora, with all the commotion, I haven’t even introduced myself.” He quickly adds, “I’m Matt so-and-so,” as if anybody, anywhere in the world, would not know.

I smile wide. I must look awful because Matt’s eyebrows draw together ferociously as he points to all the places on my face that are still bleeding. “You know, right there, on your forehead,” he says, and I raise a shaky hand to pat feebly at my wound. “Uh, that’s good, and now on your cheek, right there. And your chin too. My, you’re not a very big person, are you? That airbag tore you up.” Despite what he is saying, I am not thinking about my face or my injuries. What I am thinking is that outside of the absolutely cherubic faces of my children, Matt has the sweetest face I have ever seen in the world. And his woodland scent is so soothing.

I can’t help it. I stare at him and dab at my face. And sniff, discreetly.

“Which exit?” Carson asks, looking back at me.

What? “Um, this exit!” Oops, no that’s wrong, the next one. Jeez, where exactly is the hospital? I should know, but for some reason I’m feeling confused. The heavy feeling in my head returns. I continue giving bad directions, causing Carson to make numerous wrong turns, including accidentally sending him driving up a one way street in the opposite direction. I finally get us on the right track and all is going well until suddenly, as Carson is concentrating super hard at a rather nasty roundabout, I sit bolt upright and scream in a voice that could raise Julius Cesar from the dead—

“Luca e Matteo!”

This has the unfortunate and immediate side effect of causing Carson to take evasive action. He must have thought I was screaming “watch out” in Italian or something because he hits the gas pedal with full force. Fishtailing wildly, our SUV springs forward into the roundabout. At precisely the same time a Fiat Cinquecento comes whizzing around the corner.

There is a collective gasp as the car passes inches in front of our car. The unamused Fiat driver slows down as he sails by, just long enough to make an obscene gesture.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare everybody. It’s just that Luca and Matteo are my children, and I was screaming their names because I just remembered I was supposed to pick them up from school at four o’clock. Now they are probably standing abandoned and alone in the play yard—and what’s worse is that they are going to get kicked out of nursery school because I am constantly dropping them off and picking them up late.” I look over at Matt who nods as he pats one of my hands. He is such a wonderful human being. I can just tell.

Carson on the other hand looks like he may not be a wonderful human being. Matt tries to calm him down by having him take a few deep breaths. This appears to work, because a second later Carson shifts the SUV into first and drives cautiously to the other side of the roundabout. Meanwhile, I continue on with my life story. “You see,” I sniffle to the three of them, “at first I was only late in the mornings, but as my boss kept giving me more and more work to do, I became late in the evenings, too, and now it’s all one huge mess. I’m never on time.” I glance down at my watch and let out a huge sob. It’s already a quarter past four.

“She is going to k-kick them out of n-nursery school because I am always so l-l-late…” I begin to wail full force. Buckets of tears pour out of me. I gaze over at Maggie. She looks scared, like one does when they realize they are dealing with a crazy person; like I felt earlier today, when Francesca announced Silvio Berlusconi’s impending death. I can’t help it. I am scared for my children—are they alone? Has everybody gone home from the school and left them sitting on the curb? I don’t care if one of the world’s top actors is watching; I soldier on with the tears.

“And it isn’t like the headmistress doesn’t already hate me. She does. She hates me. For some reason there are certain people in the world who believe a divorce is always the woman’s fault. Especially here in Italy.” Matt and Maggie exchange a cautious look. “And she is one of them. She thinks a woman should forget and forgive a cheating husband—for the sake of the children. She has never come out and said so, but you can see it on her face. She’s always judging me.”

“Got it,” Maggie cuts me off. “I’ve got the hospital location.” She glares slavishly at her Blackberry screen.

“Carson,” she commands, “take the next turn—”

“STOP! OH SWEET MERCY, STOP!” I bluster.

Poor, dear Carson! He is now so thoroughly frazzled from being in one accident and narrowly avoiding another that he slams on the brakes, causing Maggie’s horn-rimmed glasses fly off her face. The SUV comes to an immediate halt; right in the middle of the street. Everybody’s eyes turn to me.

“My kids are here! Here! Stop!” I point animatedly at a concrete nursery school on our right. For a moment, Carson looks as if he is going to completely give up driving in Italy and hop out of the driver’s seat, leaving us all abandoned in the back of the SUV. I can tell by the look on his face that he is deliberating the merits of this idea as he retrieves Maggie’s glasses from the passenger seat. Behind us a queue of cars are forced to wait, their impatient hot-blooded drivers honking wildly.

I don’t care, because from where I am, I can see Luca and Matteo sitting on the sidewalk next to their diaper bags with the angry headmistress looming behind them, puffing a cigarette. I feel a tidal wave of relief wash over me. The boys look completely unscathed.

Once again, Carson takes a few breaths and calms down long enough to recover his senses. Then, being the professional that he is, he maneuvers the car out of the road and over to the curb. Before he comes to a complete stop, I scramble over Maggie’s lap in a desperate attempt to exit the car.

“Sono qui, sono qui,” I yell to them, tripping as I emerge from the SUV. Both my children look at me in alarm. That’s right, I almost forgot. My face is a pulpy, bleeding mess. Matteo begins to cry in distress and Luca actually screams. The headmistress, however, seems oblivious to my head wounds and goes all red in the face as I rush over to claim my children. I give her a tentative smile, but she glares back with such ferociousness that I think her head might pop off her tightly-clenched body.

Once again I am saved by Matt. He steps out of the car and comes around. His star presence is so radiant, so intoxicating, that the mere sight of him causes that sourpuss of a headmistress to practically inhale her cigarette.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Matt tries to calm the children. “Your mother has had a little accident, but now she is fine. We are taking her to the hospital to get her bandaged up.” Which must sound like “blah okay, okay, blah blah blah bladdity blah” to Luca and Matteo. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I haven’t taught my children any English. Quickly, I translate it into Italian and the boys look visibly relieved. The headmistress, however, looks as if she couldn’t give a flying fig about what happened to me. In fact, she seems to have forgotten that I am even standing there. All that is in her field of vision is Matt. He offers her his hand and apologizes profusely—in English—for having disturbed her school. She doesn’t have the slightest idea what Matt is saying, but she knows exactly who he is. Gently she reaches out to shake his hand and I see her go weak; her knees begin to buckle and she looks like she might actually go down. My head is throbbing so badly at this point; I don’t have time for this. Matt lets go of her hand and ushers the three of us back into the SUV. As we prepare to take off for the hospital with Luca and Matteo sitting on our laps (unsafe, I know, but totally necessary at that point), I turn around in my seat and notice that the headmistress is still standing there on the curb, looking as if she has just shaken the hand of St. Peter himself.

Coming in Winter 2015 from Julie Sarff, the following is an e-arc and has not been edited or proofread, grammar and punctuation errors will exist.

A un jor d’une Acenssion / Fu venuz de vers Carlion / Li rois Artus et tenu ot / Cort molt riche a Camaalot / Si riche com au jor estut

              Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot the Knight of the Cart

Prologue

Edeline was barely five years old when Merllyd sent the babe into the future. It happened on one of the blackest days in Anglian history. Mordred had defeated the child’s father at the battle of Mons. Anglia and the united tribes of Breton stood on the brink of defeat. The heir to the throne had to be spirited away to safety by the most powerful wizard in the world, lest Mordred’s armies moved north to sack the city of Oundle and the fortress of Camaalot. At over 600 years old, Merllyd was no fool. Before he hid the princess some 1600 years in the future, he put a trace on her.

Edeline vividly remembered that day. The weather was terrible; so blustery that the flags on top of the castle stood straight out in the never ceasing wind. Edeline was out walking in the rose garden with her governess when the summons came for her to join Merllyd in his office. She remembered being surprised to find Merllyd sitting in his humble wooden chair, saying soothing words to the tiny baby he held wrapped in a plain brown blanket.

Normally Edeline found Merllyd’s office spellbinding. It was full of glittering whirligigs, perpetual motion machines, a full-scale replica of the heavens and an odd wooden clock that barked orders every hour on the hour such as “Get up now, you rot!” and “Eat your sandwiches before the blarg gets them!” But today she didn’t give the objects a single glance. Today she could tell by the severity etched in Merllyd’s face that something serious was afoot. She watched quietly as Merllyd read an incantation off of a piece of yellowed parchment. It was not a Latin incantation, it was written in runes and Merllyd was speaking in a language Edeline had never heard before.

“Oh!” she cried with a mixture of surprise and alarm when a wisp of smoke rose up from the babe’s chest. Merllyd wasted no time. Taking a small glass vial from a drawer in his desk, he captured the smoke. He fastened the glass tube with a golden stopper and then read a second incantation off a scroll that he stretched out lengthwise on his desk. This time his words caused the vial to be physically absorbed into a small crystal orb on the tip of his walking stick. Once inside the glass sphere, the stopper dissolved as if it had been made of ice rather than precious metal. Slowly, the smoke swirled out of the vile. It floated here and there around the orb until it, too, faded away into nothingness. 

“There, the trace is complete,” Merllyd said, removing the orb from the tip of his walking stick with a small twist. “This is for you to watch. You must be careful never to drop it,” he added, handing it to Edeline. “Now open the trap door, child. My hands are full.” Edeline put the orb carefully into the pocket of her cloak before tugging at a round brass handle underneath a Turkish carpet in the corner of Merllyd’s office.

“Pull, child, pull hard,” Merllyd encouraged. Straining with all her might, Edeline finally managed to open the door. Merllyd climbed down first. Gingerly, Edeline followed. Carefully they picked their way along wet, slippery steps that were carved into the rock. Although Camaalot was a castle with no rival --designed to beguile the eye by its sheer beauty-- its oubliette was as damp, desolate and drafty as any castle in the world. It was as damp, desolate and drafty, Edeline was sure, as the dungeon in the awful Castle La Bete. Yet this oubliette had never been used to hold prisoners. Instead it lead to an underground river, the same river that fed the moat above.

“Be stalwart of heart, Edeline of the five dragons,” Merllyd commanded when she was startled by the sight of rats scampering in the shadows. “Remember who you are --daughter of Brine, second in line. A smarter child I have never met. Never seen anyone learn their letters at three. The future holds grand things for you, my dear. Always remember that the King, who has so bravely lead our men into battle this very day, is not your only kin. I am, as of this very moment, your adopted uncle and guardian. Now hold the babe a moment. The light from above is too faint. I cannot see what I’m doing.”

The child’s weight was such a welcome heaviness --the young Princess smelled sweet, like the talcum that was imported by traders from Gaul. On this particularly blustery day the baby was a little over a year old, and even though she still did not have any hair on her head, her eyes were a light blue.

Edeline watched in fascination as Merllyd produced a flash of lightning from his fingertips. With his hands he shaped the lightning into a glowing fire ball that hung directly above their heads. After which, Merllyd fished about in the pockets of his long robe. He pulled out a succession of things: a large wishbone, an assortment of toffees, a percussor, a handful of chives, a small book titled “Reeducating Durn: How I Got My Winged Reptile to Obey My Every Command,” and finally a badly-weathered scroll that was frayed at the edges. Every object but the last was discarded on the wet rocks at his feet.

“Quick, Edeline, give me the babe,” Merllyd insisted and Edeline did as she was told, exchanging the baby for the scroll Merllyd held out to her.

“That’s it, take it. Good. Now unroll it and hold it up for me to read. A little higher, please.” In a deep, booming voice he began to read. Edeline glanced about in the darkness. From the river came a strange bubble of a noise as a small boat began to rise slowly out of its depths. When it surfaced, she could see it was badly dinged, and missing all but a bit of paint, so that only three letters remained of whatever had been written on it. “C-u-d,” Edeline said reading the letters, her younger self trying to make some sense of everything that was happening around her. She watched the small rowboat bob up and down on the current and the blood in her veins ran cold; this boat did not look safe for a long passage. In fact, this boat did not look safe for a short passage. None of this seemed to deter the wizard. Merllyd tucked the babe’s woolen blanket tight about her body before placing the infant inside. Edeline was sure her heart completely stopped for a second as she watched both the boat and the baby drift away. She glanced up at Merllyd and a tear rolled down her cheek.

The five-year-old Edeline understood the implications of everything that was happening around her completely: the King had died. More huge, moist tears rolled down her cheek, and she was comforted when Merllyd lay a consoling hand on her shoulder. She soldiered on with her tears, until the aged wizard bent down and looked her directly in the eye. “One day, when it is safe, I will bring the Princess back. I promise. Until that day you must watch this tracing glass as often as you can. In it you will see what the baby sees –and you must report back to me regularly. Now, my dear child, if you’ll excuse me there is one more thing I must do to ensure the babe’s safe passage in her new world. I must send a caretaker to look after her. Make haste; take the orb back to your room. Show it to no one. I shall come to you when all is safe. Go child, begin your constant vigil.”

“I will always keep a constant watch,” Edeline murmured her loyal reply.