The Surprise Princess (27 page)

“When he died, his two older sons started fighting over the throne. It got nasty. One was killed and his family fled the country.”

“Your ancestors?”

“Nope. So that left Felix as king. Only the fighting had weakened the already flimsy army, and the next country that came sweeping through knocked him right off the throne and abolished the Royal House of Grunnard.”

“And his descendants moved to Wyoming.”

“Nope. You’re jumping ahead, Princess Katie. Got to learn to let a story unfold in its own time.” She chuckled, but he didn’t seem to hear. “Felix didn’t have any descendants. His dead brother did, though, and that line led on down to a guy named Prince Stefan Carlos, who was maybe ten years older than me.”

“He’s another possible candidate as heir, right? So he’s your cousin?”

“Cousin by a thread. And, yeah, he
was
a candidate,” he said sourly. “But now we go back to Grunnard, because he had a third son. Youngest of the ones that survived childhood – I’m telling you, I saw that family tree and not many reached that point. Anyway, this son was a real rebel. Always in trouble. But the icing on the cake was when he’d tried to overthrow Grunnard.”

“He tried to kill his own father to become king himself?”

He grinned. “Nah. Tried to push Grunnard off the throne and make the country a republic. When he failed, Grunnard banished him. He first came here to Bariavak, stayed with a prince who’d known him from childhood. But, strange as it might seem, his king-dumping ways made the king here nervous, so he shooed him out. That’s when the third son changed his name and moved to the United States, ending up in Wyoming Territory. Got married, had kids. They got married, had kids. And so on, until you come to me, the oldest son of the oldest son, of the oldest son, right on back to that third son.”

“What an amazing heritage.”

“I never knew about it. There was some family story that old Harvey – that’s the name the third son picked — had a title back in Europe, but to tell the truth, his credibility wasn’t the best. I suspect everyone thought it was a tall tale.

“And, hell, even if we had known about his title, the place doesn’t exist anymore as a separate country. So who’d think it mattered? And then this distant cousin I’d never met, never heard of gets himself killed and—
bam
my life gets turned upside down. You know how that is.”

She nodded with feeling.

“Yeah, I bet you do,” he said with surprising gentleness. The gentleness was gone from his next words. “One day you’re a cowboy with a little spread of your own, home from the wars at last. Course you still get together with some of your old unit. So you’re at a weekend gathering, catching up, and telling tales. Then somebody knocks on your hotel room door in Sherman, Wyoming – damned early, too, and it had been a full night with a fair amount of lubrication to keep the reminiscing going strong – and this somebody tells you you’re a prince.

“I thought I must’ve been a hell of a lot drunker the night before than I’d thought I was. If Hunter hadn’t been there with the guy from Bariavak, I never would’ve believed him. They wanted me to throw my life over all because of an as—uh, jerk.”

“Who was the jerk?”

“Stefan Carlos. Apparently he ran around with the beautiful people being a professional prince. And died in a stupid jet-ski collision.”

She smiled. “Stupid? Because jet-skiing isn’t as risky as being a cowboy or, um, war?”

“It was the way he did it. Jackass was killed in a road-rage incident on a jet-ski. From what I’ve read he instigated it, he accelerated it, and he had no right to expect any other outcome. Never once thought of what he was doing to anybody else,” he finished glumly.

She patted his arm. “It’s a dirty job, being prince, but somebody’s got to do it.”

“It gets worse. According to some experts I’m not even Prince of Gelicia, because it’s a title of pretence. How do you like that? Prince of pretence. Prince of a country that doesn’t exist, and taking the leavings of some guy named Stefan Carlos who was a bully on a jet-ski — I told them to forget it.”

“How’d that go?”

He shook his head. “Hunter Pierce doesn’t give up.”

“I know.”

They exchanged commiserating looks before Karl picked up his tale. “So, he says come meet somebody in Washington. Turns out it’s King Jozef. He starts telling me the family history and showing me photographs and paintings, and darned if one doesn’t look like my sister. Turns out that was the king’s mother as a girl, who was related somehow or another to Grunnard. And then King Jozef says it was his ancestor that my great-grandfather stayed with in Bariavak. They’d been boys together and there was this bond…”

“He’s persuasive, isn’t he?”

“Very.” It wasn’t a compliment. “And he’s going to be unhappy if I don’t get you back for this dinner.”

“Where is Katie?”

“Hello to you, too, Andy,” Brad muttered into the phone.

He propped the soles of his bare feet against the edge of his coffee table. His grandmother hated feet on her furniture. And his were particularly bad right now since he’d weeded Katie’s yard today after mowing and edging.

How was that for a pathetic act of rebellion? Doing something his grandmother couldn’t see to furniture that wasn’t hers.

“Never mind that. Where’s Katie?”

“You know where she is. I suspect you’ve known from the start, probably from Carolyn or C.J. For sure you know where she is now, because I can hear the TV in the background reporting what she’s doing in Bariavak.”

He happened to have the same show on, which he’d muted before answering the phone.

“She’s all alone in that foreign country and now there’s this prince after her. How could you leave her to these foreigners?”

“He’s an American. And she’s with her grandfather.” Plus, apparently this prince was some kind of relative, though not the king’s nephew.

“He’s a
prince
– that’s not American. And you sent her off—”

“She went. I didn’t send her.”

“Well, you better apologize for whatever you did that sent her off that way—” He’d be damned if he apologized for loving her. “—when you see her on the team’s trip over there, and you better hope it’s not too late with this prince—”

“I’m not going. I’ve got recruiting assignments,” he lied.

That didn’t stop his grandmother for more than a quarter of a second. “Well, when are you going after her?”

In a way, he preferred this to the careful conversations he’d endured with people around Ashton these past weeks. In another way, he didn’t.

“I’m not.”

“Bradford Alan Spencer—”

Do you Bradford Alan Spencer take Katharine Mary Davis…

“Don’t make this a big deal, Andy. We worked together and—”

“Go ahead, lie to me. Tell me she was just a girl you work with when I know she wasn’t. But—.”

“Andy—”

“I know that girl loves you. Gave herself away when I pretended to be criticizing your being a coach. You should have heard her. Oh, yes, she loves you. And you love her. So go ahead and lie to me, but don’t you lie to yourself.”

King Jozef had used most of their dinner together to instruct her on Bariavak’s diplomatic history with Turkey. She had to leave soon, so she was almost out of time, and she needed to get this on the record.

“Grandfather,” she said quickly, before he could start on Italy. “I’ve learned enough in these weeks about your methods to recognize you’re pushing Karl and me together. You must stop.”

“You don’t care for Prince Karl? But you seem to have such pleasure in each other’s company. I believe you go to a play tonight as his guest, is that not so?”

“That doesn’t mean we’re headed for a wedding, the way that awful gossip website said. And now TV is picking it up.”

“When you are queen, you will understand such trivialities—”

“No.”

“Now, do not be squeamish. It is natural I will die and you will ascend to the throne.”

“No.”

“Katrina—”

“I am Katie. When you die, I will still be Katie. But I don’t believe I will ever be queen.” She hadn’t meant to get into this. Not yet. But perhaps this needed to be said even more than the hands-off warning about her and Karl.

“You are my granddaughter—”

“Yes, I am. And I hope you will remain my grandfather.”

“Of course. Nothing can change that. As nothing can change that you are destined to become Queen Josephine-Augusta.”

“Grandfather, we cannot remake the past. We cannot try to capture what might have been. Princess Josephine-Augusta would have been raised here, living and absorbing the history, the rites, the role.”

“You have learned a great deal already. In no time you will—”

“I don’t want to, Grandfather. I don’t … I won’t be a queen.”

He stood and stared out the window, hands behind him. “What shall I do? What shall my poor Bariavak do? I am undone.”

She held her tongue, watching.

He looked over his shoulder. “You say nothing?”

“I’ve seen you use that maneuver two other times since I came here, and it did not turn out well for your verbal opponents.”

He glared for a slice of a second, then roared out a laugh. “I have taught you too well.”

“You are a wonderful teacher.”

His laughter faded into a sigh. “Or you have learned too well. But still you think to leave me with an abyss before the future of Bariavak.”

“I don’t believe that. What did you plan before you fo— Before we found each other?” As she shifted her sentence, he reached a hand to her, and she joined him to sit together on the window seat. “I won’t believe you hadn’t made meticulous plans to provide for Bariavak’s future.”

“An extremity that is unavoidable must be faced. But to accept an extremity when the natural remedy—”

“I can’t imagine being Bariavak’s queen.”

“It is this American who plays games who pushes you toward this unnatural decision.”

She smiled, trying to mask stinging in her eyes. “No. You and Brad are of one mind about my royal future.”

“Are we?”

“Don’t get that expectant look. It won’t do you any good. Not anymore than your efforts to hire Hunter have done.”

“Stubborn Americans. I am beset by them.”

“Karl’s not cooperating, either, huh?” she said with no sympathy.

“I do not despair of him,” he said with great dignity. “Nor of you. You shall have a great deal of time to prepare to become queen. I am very healthy now.”

“Even if I were willing to be queen, you wouldn’t like the result. I don’t mean the methods, and certainly not the violence—”

“All preamble. Now if you please, the
but
and then the meat of the dish.”

“But,” she said obligingly, “I am not unsympathetic to the ideals of the rebellion.”

He stiffened. “Those animals. Those murderers. Those—”

“Not all of them. As I said, I don’t agree with the methods – how could I? But I have read what they were seeking and I believe if I had been an adult then, I would have agreed with their goals. As Prince Leopold and Princess Sofia did. As—”

“And look what those animals did to them!”

“You say Bariavak must come first – the people and the country you serve so diligently. But in this one area your grief overwhelms all else. I do not believe that is the legacy Sofia and Leopold would—”

“Your
mother
. Your
father
.”

“I call them Sofia and Leopold in this discussion to separate from the emotion of that connection.”

“You say I do not? That emotion colors what I do?”

She raised one eyebrow, not needing to confirm with words.

“You will not abdicate a thousand years of— Enter!”

The door opened to Hunter, April, and Madame.

“We don’t want to interrupt,” April said. “But you said you’d like us to keep you company while Katie and Karl go to the play.”

“Of course, of course. We lost track of time, talking of when Katie becomes queen. Perhaps with a consort.”

“Grandfather—” Katie started with exasperation.

“Go, go now, you and Karl to your play. Hunter and April and Madame shall be my company.”

Katie kissed him on the cheek before departing, but April had seen something in her expression.

When the king brought the conversation around to his plans for the future – a future with Katie and Karl married and prepared to rule – she said, “Sir, it might not be the best strategy to push Katie so hard.”

“Bah. I have a great deal of experience at strategy,” he said.

“Not with Katie.”

“She is my granddaughter.” Clearly that settled the matter to him.

April glanced at Madame, but the older woman did not look up. However, she received a level look from Hunter she had no trouble interpreting. She did not say any more.

King Jozef smiled at Katie. “Where do you go now?”

At last it was Friday.
The
Friday. “To the airport. The Ashton team arrives soon.”

“No.” His smile was gone.

“It’s not too early. The plane lands in less than an hour. I can’t wait to see Carolyn and C.J. and all of them. I’ll help them get settled in the hotel, then—”

“I do not permit you to go.”

She stilled. “You do not permit me to?”

He gave a slight, impatient gesture. “You are young and unaccustomed to what is expected of you. I am instructing you.”

“It’s expected of me that I not be there to greet friends who are arriving in this country?”

“You will greet them in an appropriate manner at an appropriate time. It is important that the people of Bariavak see you in the proper way. Not among the bustle of everyday people at the airport.”

“Sir—”

“I ask this of you.”

A shaft of sunlight cut across his desk, catching his hands, showing the raised veins, the battering of age.

“Yes, Grandfather.”

She regretted her acquiescence.

Regretted it as hours went by that she could have been spending with her friends while waiting for the late afternoon reception.

Regretted it when word came from the king that she was to wear the Magda tiara. She understood its import to him, but that other time she’d worn it she’d felt like she had a bowling ball on her head, not to mention the near-disaster. The young woman who had brought the word – and the tiara – was only a messenger, so she couldn’t even argue.