The Royal Pain
Authors: MaryJanice Davidson
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.For Julie Kathryn Gottlieb, who whines when
I don't dedicate a book to her.
Off my case, hose-face.
We are born with luck
Which is to say with gold in our mouth.
As new and smooth as a grape,
As pure as a pond in Alaska,
As good as the stem of a green bean
We are born and that ought to be enough.
âAnne Sexton,
The Evil Seekers
Treason and murder ever kept together.
âWilliam Shakespeare,
Henry V
A Sheldon can do your income taxes. If you need a root canal, Sheldon's your man. But humpin' and pumpin' is not Sheldon's strong suit. It's the name. “Do it to me, Sheldon. You're an animal, Sheldon.
Ride
me, bigâ¦SHELdon.” Doesn't work.
âHarry,
When Harry Met Sally
Thanks again to my wonderful family, who may well recognize parts of themselves in some of these pages but too bad, I've already spent the advance.
Extra thanks to my dad, the inspiration for King Al, who once explained to me that he could never run for president because the newspapers wouldn't print “fuck” and thus he would never be properly quoted. When I got over my startlement, I realized he was right. And once again, America was cheated of a great leader, all because the papers won't print the word “fuck.”
Also, thanks to Giselle, Stacy, and Jessica, who listen to my endless complaints and give excellent advice (chief of which: “Stop yer bitching”).
Thanks also to my sister, Yvonne, who reminded me what a bail is for and was kind enough not to give me shit about blanking on the word.
Thanks are also due to the exalted Kate Duffy, who edits her authors as gently as a sighing kitten and promotes them as savagely as a ravenous white shark. She works too hard and her bosses should give her a raise at once.
Finally, thanks to the readers who have been asking me whatever happened to those pesky Baranovs. You got me wondering, so here we all are.
As with
The Royal Treatment
, I've taken liberties and, as of this writing, Alaska still is not a country. However, it is possible to kill someone with a chair and nightmares do inevitably result.
The events of this book take place twenty-two months after the wedding of His Royal Highness Prince David to Lady Christina.
The Sitka Palace
2:32
A.M
.
“N
icky,
get down
!” Alexandria's father roared, and her little brother dropped like a rock and rolled away. There was no mistaking the command in that yell; she nearly fell to the carpet herself.
There was a sound, some odd sound she should have recognized but did not, and suddenly her father was staring at the two small, feathered darts sticking out of his chest. He staredâ¦
(What story tonight, Alex?)
â¦they all staredâ¦
(No, hon, that one gives you nightmares.)
â¦it was all happening so fastâ¦
(There's nothing to be afraid of.)
â¦and then her fatherâ¦
(We're going to be all right now.)
â¦her fatherâ¦
(There's no such thing as monsters.)
â¦slowly folded to the floor.
She heard another soundâthe flat, smacking sound of metal hitting fleshâbut she was too busy looking around, looking around forâ¦
There.
“Not s' fast without y'r pea shooter, eh?” she heard someone, Kurt? David? slur.
“Yâyou have to come with me, Prince Nicholas,” the monster said. He was reaching for her little brother, actually
daring
to
reach
for her brother after the gross assault upon her father. “Your place is with us.”
“Get the hell out of here, you traitorous piece of shit,” her older brother David ordered. Alexandria agreed wholeheartedlyâ¦to a point. “If you leave now, our security team might not blow your head off.”
Stay a while. Just a minute longer. I'll give you something to remember the Baranovs by, you prick.
“Us, sir?” her little brother, Nicholas, asked. As always in response to stress, he was overly polite.
She slipped out of one of her shoes. There was more talking, but it was background noise, it was how the ocean sounded to a starfish. Huge and irrelevant.
“My father is the true king,” Nicholas said, and that she did hear. Nicholas was a child, a brave and honorable one, but too young to know it was useless to talk sense to an extremist.
“Devon!” her sister-in-law Christina shouted, and Alexandria heard that, too, like the crack of a whip, again and again:
Devon. Devon. Devon.
“You'll never get out of here.”
Never.
She caught Nicholas's gaze, saw him glance at the gun, Kurt's gun, on the floor. She shook her head but he ignored her and bent for it. Thank God, Devon was distracted by Princess Christina.
“You've fucked up, it's done.”
Yes, it's done.
“You shot my daddy,” Nicholas said, and the rest of them noticed what she had just seen: he had the gun. It was steady in his small hands; the butt snugly against his left palm, right index finger on the far end of the trigger guard.
Yes, you shot my daddy.
“You shot my king and my sovereign, and you hurt my friend.”
Dad.
“So I'm thinking, it's only fair if I shoot you.”
Don't worry, Nicky. You won't have to. I'm going to fix him. I'm going to fix everything.
“Your Highâ”
The last thing Devon said. Fitting that it should be proper use of a title. Part of one, anyway. Her hands had closed over the banquet chair. Wood, not metalâbut she would make do. Her grip was firm, not sweaty. (The night sweats would come later, and stay forever.) She levered the chair up off the ground; it went easy, lighter than feathers.
She swung the chair sidearm
(“Honey, not like that. You're throwing like a girl. Yeah, yeah, don't go all PC on me. Do it like this.”)
putting every ounce of her one-fifty behind it.
The monster did not fall; he slammed against the wall. It wasn't what she was expecting at all; it was nothing like TV. Her hands and arms absorbed most of the shock of the blow and it would be days before she could raise her wrists above her shoulder.
The chair, as she had calculated, did not shatter. It was good wood, it held. But force had to go somewhere. She had been counting on it, and from the blood coming out the monster's ears, the force had gone exactly where she intended.
“There!” she said, her arms still vibrating. “That'sâ” Then he got up. The monster actually got up off the floor, blood dripping down his sideburns, moving steadily, not noticing he was mortally wounded. In her head, Alex screamed and screamed.
Devon brushed cake from his uniform and took the gun from Nicholas's nerveless fingers, shot her brother Davidâ¦
(this is wrong)
shot her other brother Nicky, shot her sister-in-law Christina. Took the chair awayâ¦
(it's not like this)
swungâ¦
(it didn't happen like this)
and the last thing she saw was the chair, descending. The last thing she knew was that she had failed. Everyone was dead and she failed.
The Sitka Palace
2:42
A.M
.
S
he didn't scream.
She never screamed.
She was cringing in her bed, bracing herself for the blow, and it took a minute or so to remember it was just the old nightmare, she had not failed, everyone was alive, she had not failed.
She had not failed.
Princess Alexandria, third in line to the Alaskan throne, pressed a hand to her mouth, hurried to the bathroom, and threw up.
Â
A
lexandria stole down the hall, took a left, nodded to an insomniac footman, and walked quietly into the nursery. But not so quietly that her sister-in-law, Christina, didn't hear.
The nursery was right next to David and Christina's bedroom, and after years of being on her own and looking over her shoulder, Christina slept about as deeply as a cat with ADD.
There was no night-nurse; there was barely a day nurse. (Christina had the charming idea that she should raise her own daughter, which was adorable, if common.)
Knowing she had permission, Alex scooped up the sweetly sleeping baby and cuddled her against her shoulder. Dara stirred but did not awaken and Alex simply stood over the crib, holding the baby and taking comfort in her warmth, her sweet milky smell, the fineness of her baby hair, the softness of her skin.
“Another one?” Christina whispered. She didn't whisper so as not to wake Dara; the baby didn't sleep, she hibernated. But Christina didn't want to wake her husband, who had a grueling day of ribbon cutting and Chardonnay drinking and penguin counting ahead of him. “What is this, the third time this week? And it's only Tuesday.”
Alex shrugged. She adored Christina, but did not discuss the dreams with her. With anyone. Well, almost anyone.
“Alex, for God's sake. You've got to get some sleep. When was the last time you got a full eight hours? Unbroken?”
Another shrug. Alex nuzzled the top of Dara's head. The baby shifted and snored on.
“Why aren't you taking the stuff Dr. Pohl prescribed? Don't shrug again or I'll pull all your long, beautiful hair out.”
She snorted. “You don't scare me, you're getting slow in your old age. And you know why.”
“Well, maybe I haven't bounced back from the baby as fast as Iâ”
“It's kind of late for jokes.”
“It's kind of late for
anything
. And here you've got a perfectly good prescription for sleeping pills in yourâ¦oh, God, you're just like your brother! He wouldn't take a Tylenol for an amputation. You guys.”
“What?”
“Come on. I get the whole âwe're a rugged band of royals who carved a country out of the harsh wilderness' bit, but would it kill you to pop an Ambien?”
“I don't have trouble getting to sleep,” she pointed out. “Just staying asleep. And I'm sorry I woke you.”
Now it was Christina's turn to shrug. “It's no big deal.
I
won't have trouble getting back to sleep,” she added, raising her eyebrows. She softened a bit when Alex made no reply. “Well, I normally would, too, tomorrow being the big day and all, but I didn't get a nap today andânever mind, it's boring. In fact, never mind about all thatâ¦listen, why don't you take her back to bed with you? That works sometimes.”
Alex grinned a little. “You're just trying to sleep in.”
“Well, it's a handy bonus, I must admit. Besides, the thing doesn't even start untilâ¦what? Noon?”
“One,” she corrected. “Sounds like someone hasn't read her program.”
“Great, one, even better. Hey, you just have to change her and feed her and entertain her until I wake upâ¦say, eleven-ish?”
“Nine.”
“Done.” Christina bent forward and planted a soft kiss on the baby's head. “Luck getting some Z's. Don't squish the baby.”
Offended, she said, “I would never.”
“See, you'd have a better sense of humor if you were getting a couple more hours a night.”
“Hush up.”
“I'm just saying,” Chris said, backing away.
Alex took Dara back to her room, carefully laid the baby on the left side of the bed (the bed had been pushed against the wall months ago for that express purpose), tossed all the pillows on the floor just in case, and pulled a blanket up to the middle of the baby's back. Dara snored on, oblivious.
Five minutes later, Alex was doing the same.