Capturing the Crown

“Father, have you heard about the prince?”

The king’s expression was grim as he nodded. “Terrible thing. Terrible thing,” he repeated. “King Weston is beside himself. I tried to do what I could to comfort him, but this is a matter that will take a great deal of time for him to come to grips with. I’m told he collapsed when he received the news.”

Russell felt a pang of guilt, but since the king had not addressed the remark to him, he said nothing.

“Reginald was his only son.” Amelia moved so that she stood with her back to Russell, blocking him from her father’s access. This was a private matter, but since it concerned Russell, she couldn’t very well ask him to leave. And her father’s bodyguards had been with the king for years. They were more like fixtures than men. Amelia drew herself up, asking a question she felt, in her heart, she already knew the answer to. “Will we be going home now, Father?”

Her father looked at her, a puzzled expression furrowing his brow. Behind her, she could almost feel Russell’s gaze penetrating her back. “Why?”

“Because we came for a wedding and now that Reginald is dead—”

Roman cut her off. “Prince Reginald is dead,” he agreed. “However, the alliance between Gastonia and Silvershire can and will still go forward.” He looked at her intently, his gaze telling her she knew what was expected of her. “All that is needed for that to happen is for you to marry the next king of Silvershire.”

Something inside her felt as if it was shattering. She was tired of being the good little obedient princess, tired of always doing what was expected of her. “And if that were a pig, would you have me take its cloven hoof in my hand and pledge to be faithful to the pig until the end of my days?”

Shock registered on her father’s face. It echoed in the faces of his two bodyguards. She had no doubt that behind her, Russell didn’t look like the picture of tranquillity, either. But she didn’t care if any of them were shocked. There was a great need for her to speak her mind.

For a moment, the king looked as if he didn’t know what to do with her. But when he spoke, his voice was patient. “You’re overwrought, Amelia. I understand. However, nothing has really changed in the absolute sense. You have to think of the good of your people. Gastonia is a small, relatively defenseless country. Without the armed support of Silvershire, it could easily be taken over by any one of a number of countries. You are a princess, you cannot think with your heart.” And then Roman looked at the tall man standing behind his daughter. “And, from what I just heard, as well as information that has been brought to me,” he emphasized, “I believe a union between you two would not be entirely displeasing to either of you.” He looked directly at Amelia and color crept up into her cheeks. Roman continued. “That the walls have ears is not merely an antiquated expression, my dear. I daresay that everything we do, whether we believe it’s in private or not, becomes a matter of record.” His meaning was quite clear as he looked from his daughter to the man he assumed would be king. “In addition to the main necessity for this marriage, for the sake of your reputation, Amelia, this marriage has to go through. Are we agreed, Carrington?”

Although his question was directed at Russell, it was Amelia who ran interference. “It might seem a little callous to the people of Silvershire if the wedding goes ahead on schedule, only with a different groom.”

Roman dismissed the idea. “Nonsense, the people love a fairy tale.” His expression became serious. “What they wouldn’t like is turmoil and unrest. Having the well-beloved princess marry the good Duke of Carrington will be just what they like, what they need. Gastonia will have its treaty and you will have a man you have already shown a preference for. And you, Carrington,” he spared Russell a look, “will have your crown.”

If the monarch only knew how little that meant to him, Russell thought. He knew the time for him to speak was now rather than later. “What if I don’t want the crown?” Russell posed.

Roman looked at him as if he had just said that he had a strong desire to be flogged. “Not want the crown? How absurd. Dear boy, everyone wants the crown.”

Russell had been taught to agree with royalty. To acquiesce whenever possible. But it wasn’t possible. Not if there was a chance that he did not have to submit to this. He wanted a way out. Not because of a forced marriage, but because of a forced coronation.

“I don’t,” he said simply. “There’s far too much attention attached to it. It would mean living the rest of my life in a fishbowl.”

The king laughed shortly, shaking his head as if he was suffering someone who was simpleminded.

“You are already in that bowl, son. And as for not wanting the crown, I’m afraid you have no say in the matter. The rules are written,” he pointed out. “And so is your destiny.”

“The rules,” Russell respectfully reminded him, “say that the king can change his mind.”

Roman exchanged looks with his daughter. There would be no help coming from that quarter. He might as well squelch Carrington’s hopes quickly, before they got out of hand.

“Right now, King Weston doesn’t know his mind at all. He is in the terrible place that grief takes a man. He and I have been friends a very long time—since before you were born,” he told his daughter. “In his time of grief, I know he would want me to keep things moving forward and move forward they shall.” There was a note of finality in his voice as he spoke for the other monarch. “You will marry Carrington, Amelia, and Carrington will be the next king. I will hear no more about it.”

So saying, King Roman swept out of the room with his bodyguards following closely behind him.

The room was very quiet for a moment. All that was heard was the sound of their breathing.

And then, because he couldn’t bear the position he found himself in, couldn’t bear the thoughts that were assaulting him, Russell broke the silence. “I could disappear,” he offered.

Amelia stared at him, uncomprehending. This was his homeland. “Why would you do that?”

As if it wasn’t written all over her face, he thought. As if her doubt wasn’t palpable. “To spare you. You obviously don’t want to go through with the ceremony.”

Didn’t he understand what he was suggesting? “If you ‘disappear,’ people will think that you killed the prince and succumbed to the guilt.”

“If I stay and marry you they might be inclined to think the same thing.” It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t, he thought. Except that until a few seconds ago, he had known which way he would have chosen to be damned. Now, he wasn’t so sure and it hurt more than he was prepared for.

“Which would you rather do?” There wasn’t so much as a hint in his eyes, she thought.

He shrugged his shoulders, looking away. “It doesn’t seem that really matters to anyone.”

How could he say that after the other night? She moved so that she was in front of him again. “It matters to me.”

He wasn’t sure if he truly believed that. Not after the uncertainty he’d seen in her eyes. He gave her his honest answer. “Then, Princess, I would rather marry you—and not be king.”

He really meant that, she realized. That made him a unique man. “That doesn’t seem to be a choice that’s on the table.”

“It should be.” She couldn’t read the expression that came over his face. “But then, if I wasn’t to be king, you couldn’t marry me, could you?”

Her heart froze as the thought she didn’t want to entertain returned to haunt her. Could knowing that she had to marry the future king of Silvershire make Russell kill Reginald?

Oh, God, how could she think he was guilty of murder? The man she had made love with was gentle, tender. The hands that had touched her so reverently weren’t the hands of a killer.

Were they?

“No,” she answered quietly. “I couldn’t. Not after my father had pledged my hand to the future king. But I could spare you,” she went on to suggest. He looked at her quizzically. “If I were the one to run away, you couldn’t marry someone you couldn’t find.”

Unable to resist the desire to touch her, he took her hand in his. “There’s no need for you to run away. You’re not the bad part of the bargain—the crown is.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “And your father’s right. If the public knows about us, or learns about us in the near future, then marriage to me is your only option.”

Was that it? No mention of love, of desire, even of affection? Just some old-fashioned sense of duty? She pulled her hand away and tossed her head. “I don’t have to safeguard my reputation, Carrington. This isn’t a hundred years ago.”

It wasn’t all that easy to shake off the mantle of royal expectations. “Then why are you to marry the next ruler of Silvershire?” Russell asked gently.

Momentarily stumped, Amelia blew out a breath. “Point taken.”

Touching her hand wasn’t enough. He wanted to take her into his arms, to kiss her and make love with her. But now, of all times, they had to keep a distance between themselves. Besides, he reminded himself, she harbored suspicion in her soul. He had to remember that and not let himself be ruled by his hormones. Or his needs.

He began to back away from her, out of the room. “Princess, if you’ll excuse me, I have a great many things to do.”

She wanted to ask him to stay. To hold her. To tell her one last time that he had nothing to do with the prince’s death. Her heart said one thing, her mind, taught to be suspicious, said another.

And she had also been taught to keep a tight rein on her emotions, so she merely inclined her head as he took his leave, saying nothing to stop him from going.

Russell had never felt more trapped in his life. He did not want to be king. Not once, in all the time that he had been growing up, had he entertained the idea of being king, even in passing or in jest. Reginald was only a year older than he was, in excellent physical health and vital and vibrant. It had never entered his mind that Reginald would not someday take the crown and be King of Silvershire.

Even though he’d felt that the prince was the wrong person for the responsibility, he had not once thought that he would make a better ruler than Reginald. He hadn’t thought about being ruler at all, despite all of his schooling and qualifications, despite the fact that he cared about matters of state and Reginald wasn’t interested in anything larger than the bust size of the woman he was currently with.

He, a king.

The very idea would have been laughable if it weren’t so equally painful, Russell thought as he made his way down the palace corridor. What kind of a ruler would he make, anyway? He had betrayed the most sacred of trusts. Asked to bring back his future king’s bride, he had slept with her instead.

Not exactly qualifications for ascending the throne.

How could he possibly be expected to lead a country if he couldn’t even lead himself? If he couldn’t control himself? Just now, back in that room with the princess, in the middle of it all, he had found himself thinking how beautiful she looked. How much he wanted to make love with her. Fine thoughts to be having when the prince’s body was barely cold.

Damn it, this wasn’t a time for angst and self-doubt. This was a time for action. The prince was dead and his first priority was finding about the circumstances that had led up to that event. His second would undoubtedly involve generating some sort of a cover-up of those circumstances, if for no other reason than to save the king public embarrassment and humiliation. The monarch had suffered enough of that already, thanks to Reginald’s escapades. Enduring more of the same was not something that the king should be asked to go through.

There were intrigue and tangled webs no matter which way he turned, Russell thought. The fact that there wasn’t a single living soul at the prince’s estate was odd, to say the least. Reginald had always been surrounded by hangers-on and parasites. And there was the matter of the royal bodyguards. Where were they? Why hadn’t they remained with the prince? He doubted very much that they had scattered of their own volition. Had Reginald ordered them away? Or had they been done away with in order to get to the prince? These and other questions begged for answers.

What had happened in the time he’d been away in Gastonia, making preparations to bring the princess back to Silvershire?

And losing his heart in the bargain, he added ruefully.

Russell sighed quietly to himself as he made his way up the spiral staircase. It was a damnable offense against all that he was raised to believe in, but in the shadowy recesses of his heart, he had to admit that he was relieved that Amelia was no longer going to have to marry Reginald for the sake of duty. The late prince would never have loved her, never have treated her with the kind of respect she deserved as a princess and as a human being.

His head throbbed. In a perfect world, he would have been able to marry Amelia with no strings attached, with no stain of doubt and suspicion attached to the union. But the world, he had learned long before he became the prince’s shadow, was far from perfect. And this present situation he found himself in was apparently the best that he could hope for. To take the crown if he hoped to take the princess.

And what of the princess? Would she ever look at him without wondering if he’d had a hand in Reginald’s demise? More than anything, he wanted to wipe away the suspicion shimmering in her eyes that was in danger of becoming a wall between them.

Somehow, he promised himself, he would find a way to turn everything else around and make Amelia believe that he had nothing to do with Reginald’s death.

That he even had to entertain the thought hurt. She should have believed, without being told, without having it proven to her, that he was innocent.

The way to prove his innocence, he knew, was to find out exactly what had happened down to the last-minute details. He needed to learn who was with the prince in those final days and hours. And most importantly, he needed to learn if any of those people had been instrumental in having the prince killed.

His steps had brought him before the king’s suite of rooms. Given a choice, he would gladly have left the monarch to his grief, but time was of the essence and they needed to get things moving. He wasn’t sure if the ruler had processed what he had told him earlier about securing the operatives of the Lazlo Group. His grief and shock could have erased all memory of the suggestion.

Russell raised his hand and knocked on the finely carved oak door. In a moment, Bostwick, the head of the king’s bodyguards, opened the door. The man was six feet three inches in both directions and bore a striking resemblance to a bulldog. He stood glaring at Russell, his body blocking access to the room.

Russell couldn’t help thinking that it was a lucky thing he wasn’t easily intimidated. Otherwise, Bostwick’s scowl would have sent him running to his own room. “Bostwick, I’d like to have a word with King Weston, please.”

The burly man remained unmoved. “The king is not seeing anyone,” the man replied in a voice that seemed to have made the journey from the bottom of his toes.

But Russell was not about to be put off, not this time. “Bostwick—”

“Is that Carrington?” The king’s voice: high, thin and reedy. He caught himself thinking that it sounded as if the monarch had aged ten years in the last hour.

“Yes, Your Majesty, it’s me. Carrington.” Russell raised his voice in order to be heard. “I need to speak with you.”

“Let him in, Bostwick.”

When Russell walked in, the first thing he noticed was the king’s appearance. The strain in the man’s face was incredible. He looked as if he had been to hell and back, sacrificing his soul in the process. It was difficult to believe this was the same man who had calmly gone over some plans with him just last night, before this whole business had started.

“Sit down.” He gestured toward a love seat. “What is it?”

“I think we should have the prince’s death looked into as soon as possible.”

“You said that earlier, at the estate,” the king reminded him. A sad smile played along his lips. “What? You think that I’m so grief-stricken that I’ve lost the use of my mind? I told you to proceed then, so by all means, proceed. Have this investigated. And when you find those who left my son in his hour of need, I want a complete accounting.” He ran his hand along his forehead, as if willing back the tears that continued to gather, threatening to unman him. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”

He half expected the duke to mention himself. Instead, Carrington said, “I know the name of an international agency, Your Majesty. They are impartial and their track record for getting results is excellent. It’s called the Lazlo Group. Corbett Lazlo has a team of highly skilled operatives who—”

Weston was vaguely familiar with the name. It was a covert group no government publicly admitted to knowing. To his knowledge, they took care of dirty laundry.

He suddenly felt very weary. Ever since he had been told of Reginald’s death, he’d felt himself tottering on the brink of abysmal despair. “Whatever you say, Carrington. I leave it to you.”

Russell inclined his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He paused for a moment, searching for a way to broach the subject delicately. There was none. He was forced to forge ahead. “Has the royal medical examiner been sent for yet, Your Majesty?”

Weston looked at him, a lost look in his eyes. The next moment, it disappeared. “What?”

“The medical examiner,” Russell repeated politely. “Have you sent for her?”

The king wandered over to a window that overlooked the courtyard. In darkness, there was nothing to look at but shadows. Shadows as dark as the bottom of his soul. “No.”

“I could do that for you—”

Weston turned from the window and looked at the man he had always thought of as a second son. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he felt a pang of guilt. He had no son. Not anymore. “Why?”

He and Bostwick exchanged glances. It was the first time he recalled ever seeing compassion in the latter’s eyes. The man had been with the king for several decades and although it was not obvious, he grieved for his ruler. “An autopsy will have to be conducted in order to determine the exact cause of death—” Russell began as tactfully as he could.

Horror registered on Weston’s regal face. “You mean cut him open?”

Russell felt as if each word were made of lead as he uttered it. “I’m afraid that’s the only way, Your Majesty.”

“Hasn’t the prince suffered enough?” Weston demanded. His voice broke.

“I promise you, sire, the prince won’t feel anything,” Russell told him.

Weston sighed, coming away from the window. “But I will. I will feel every cut, every incision.” The king paused, trying to compose himself. “When the queen died two days after giving birth to Reginald, I thought I could never hurt as much as I did then, losing her. I thought that I could never feel as lost as I did at the moment when her last breath left her body.” He turned to look at the young man who was destined to take his son’s place. “I was wrong. I’m not sure how I am going to get through this, Russell. Not sure at all.”

Russell drew closer to him, silently offering him his strength, grieving not for the prince, but for the father he had left behind. “You will get through it because you are the king. And a very strong man.”

A bittersweet smile played along his lips. “Not so strong, Russell. Not so strong.” He looked down at the framed photograph he was holding. It was of the prince, taken on his tenth birthday. Tears gathered in the king’s eyes. “I should have stopped him. When he was getting out of control, I should have stopped him. Not indulged him. But I thought, hoped, that he would outgrow this reckless behavior.

“I had a bit of a wild streak myself before I was made the king,” he confided. “The weight of the crown sobers you. Makes you humble and makes you realize that your own wishes need to take a back seat to those of your people.” His voice all but drifted away as he said, “I thought that would come to him, as well.”

Obligation forced Russell to say words he didn’t truly believe for the king’s sake. “It might have.”

“But now we’ll never know.”

“No, sire, we won’t,” Russell agreed. “But we can know what happened to him. I know he would want you to find out the truth and if there is someone responsible for all this, the prince would have wanted you to bring them to justice.” He paused before adding, “Even if it means cutting him open.”

Weston nodded. “You’re right. Call this Lazlo. Tell him I want to find out every detail, no matter how small and insignificant, of my son’s last few days. Everything,” he underscored.

“And the royal M.E.?” Russell prodded gently.

Weston squared his shoulders. He began to look a little like his old self. “I would like to hold off on that for a few days. Just until after the wedding day has passed. I can’t explain it, I just don’t want my son to be cut up into pieces on the day he should have been married, even if they do put him back together again.” He looked at Russell for agreement, even though he did not expect to be contradicted.

Russell saw no reason to upset him further by pushing for a speedy autopsy. A few days shouldn’t really matter, not if the events leading up to Reginald’s death could be reconstructed. Reginald’s autopsy could be postponed for a while and conducted at a later time.

Straightening his shoulders, Russell bowed before the king. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

“As I wish.” Weston repeated the words. They rang ironically and mocked him as they drifted into oblivion. If things had gone according to his wishes, they would have arranged themselves so differently….

Pushing aside thoughts of weddings and coronations until he could better handle them, Russell quietly withdrew to place his call to Corbett Lazlo as Bostwick shut the doors.

Chapter 11

“And you suspect someone in the palace?”

The voice over the telephone was calm, resonant. It echoed slightly, the way voices over a speaker phone did. The echo did not diminish the effect. It was the same voice that had soothed distraught heads of state confronted with the kidnappings of loved ones. The same voice that had promised—and delivered—results in highly delicate government situations that the public had never even suspected.

Corbett Lazlo was a brilliant, enigmatic man very few people actually recognized. Those who did know him saw a tall, trim man with ice-blue eyes that conflicted with an almost boyish grin that even fewer were ever privy to. Some said he was an ex-CIA operative. Others claimed he was a bored genius with a love for challenges. Still others said he was the illegitimate son of a former French president and had cut his teeth on both foreign policy and espionage. No one knew for sure.

The only proven fact was that approximately twelve years ago, he had formed the Lazlo Group, an international team of highly skilled agents who specialized in, among other things, investigating the deaths of political figures.

The Lazlo Group was one of the best kept secrets of the free world. They were usually called in as a last resort, or when affairs were of such a delicate, discreet nature that no one else could be trusted to handle them.

Corbett Lazlo had no affiliation with any particular nation. He was a citizen of the world. His people did whatever was necessary to get the job done. There were never any questions asked by the party or parties who hired them. It was better that way.

The call Russell had placed to him had been rerouted several times so that Russell had no idea exactly where Corbett Lazlo was located. It was the way Corbett preferred it. Russell didn’t care. Lazlo’s location didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding out the series of events that led up to Reginald’s last day and death.