Princess in Peril

TWO

Levi didn’t like sharing the details of the planned attack with Isabelle. He didn’t want to cause her any more distress than she’d already experienced. But because she didn’t trust him, he didn’t know how else to impress upon her the gravity of her circumstances. Whether she trusted him or not, he needed her to follow his every instruction. Their lives would depend on it.

Now the princess stumbled and Levi held her arm more firmly to steady her.

“Alfred?” Isabelle repeated, disbelief in her tone. “He’s been part of my guard for four years.”

“I know, and a member of the royal army for sixteen years before that. We have been unable to determine when he joined the insurgents.”

“Where is he now?” Isabelle asked. “I should hope he was arrested and questioned.”

“He was floating in the Mursia next to the man who brought us the message.”

“Yet the insurgents still went through with the attack? If they knew enough to kill those men, they had to have known the note was intercepted.”

Levi could only guess at what their original plans might have been. “Perhaps they thought the longer they waited, the more time we would have to prepare a defense.”

“But if my father knew about this, why did my family stay in Lydia? Why didn’t we leave the moment the message was intercepted?”

With his head bent a little closer to hers in the darkness, Levi wished he could study the face of the princess entrusted to his care. “Surely you know the answer to that question.”

A resigned sigh was Isabelle’s only indication of emotion. “My father would never leave the throne. It would signal to the insurgents that he was a coward.”

Levi nodded. “They would see it as an open door to walk through and take the country.”

“Then why weren’t my brother and sister and I at least sent away? Why were we all in the same motorcade?”

“The three of you were originally supposed to be riding in the same car,” Levi reminded her. “Your father refused to call off the state dinner for the same reason he would never run away from his throne.” Levi had begged the king to send his children away for their own safety, but he understood King Philip’s reasons for keeping them there. They had argued about it well into the night. Levi was still exhausted from missing sleep.

Now he answered the princess patiently. “Your father believed that, with the message intercepted, the insurgents would change their plans and call off their attack. He feared that if he tried to send you away, they would see it as a sign of weakness and instead attack with greater force. He thought this would be the best way to keep you safe.”

Isabelle trembled. Levi realized that, on top of all that had happened, the damp cold of the catacombs was probably getting to her. With only narrow straps instead of sleeves, her dress surely did little to keep her warm.

As her regal posture sagged under the weight of all she’d absorbed, Levi slid off his tuxedo jacket and nestled it around her shoulders. He, too, feared for her family and what may have happened to them. She had surely guessed their fate, and Levi had no reassurances to give her. There was really very little hope for the Royal House of Lydia.

“We should keep moving,” he said softly after her trembling had given way to sniffling. “If we can reach other Sanctuary team members, perhaps they will have good news about your family.”

“Maybe I should try calling them.”

Levi sucked in a breath.

“Why not?” Isabelle pulled back from him.

“We don’t know who would answer your call, and we can’t risk the wrong people finding out where you are. For the same reason, I have no intention of using my phone until we reach a safe location. If Alfred was working for the insurgents, anyone could be.” He urged her on. “The best thing we can do right now is get you out of here.”

The princess took several deep breaths but made no move to head forward.

“You still don’t trust me?” he asked.

“I trusted Alfred.”

Levi nodded. “Perhaps you are wise not to trust me.” Her long hair, which had been piled high in an artful arrangement for the state dinner, had come loose, and a thick strand brushed his hand. “Can you open the light?”

She clicked her phone open, and her wide brown eyes stared fearfully up at him in its thin glow. Gently he pushed the loose hair back from her eyes.

“Your hands were burned,” she accused him as his fingers passed through her line of vision.

“I hadn’t meant for you to notice,” he apologized. “There is nothing we can do for them here.”

The princess straightened, as though drawing from a well of courage only a royal could tap. “Then we must get to a first aid kit. Let’s hurry.”

Levi took her cue and turned them down the next tunnel, which would lead under the centuries-old Cathedral where many Lydian saints were buried. The church had been built upon the rumored burial place of the original Lydia, an early leader in the Christian church whose conversion by the Apostle Paul was detailed in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Acts in the Bible. The nation of Lydia had been named for her house church, and the royal family, including Isabelle herself, could trace their roots back to Lydia’s family.

It was a reminder to Levi of the amazing lineage of the woman who held their only light as they walked through the darkness of the catacombs. Though he had long respected Isabelle from afar as he’d read about her humanitarian efforts as a princess, he was even more impressed with her in person. And she was even more beautiful than the newspaper photos he’d seen.

“Which way?” Isabelle asked when they arrived at the next fork in the tunnel.

It was a good question. Levi had studied hand-drawn maps of the tunnels, which were known only to a select few. Because King Philip had supplied the maps, Levi had assumed the whole royal family would be familiar with the layout of the catacombs. It surprised him that Isabelle was unaware of their very existence. Now he tried to recall the detailed twists and turns of the elaborate underground labyrinth.

The light from Isabelle’s phone dimmed. “Do you know which way it is?”

Finally able to picture he map in his head, Levi pulled her a little closer to him as they headed down the left-hand passageway. “This way, but let’s leave the light off if we can. We might need it more later.”

To his relief, Isabelle didn’t argue with him but shuffled along beside him as they made their way down the tunnel in dizzying darkness. He could only hope she would cooperate with him for as long as it might take to get her to safety. Their situation was difficult enough, and Levi desperately needed the mission to be successful.

Not only did he care about his mother’s home country and feel allegiance toward the Royal House of Lydia, but he also had a very personal reason why the mission could not fail. His father didn’t just work for Sanctuary International, he was its president. And he’d be retiring in another year. Everyone expected Nicolas Grenaldo to appoint one of his two sons to be president after him.

And that was just the trouble. Although Levi had spent four years in the Lydian army before going on to law school, he didn’t have any battle experience. He’d studied international law, thinking at the time it would give him the best possible background for leading an organization that helped people throughout the world. Too late he’d realized no amount of studying would earn him the respect and admiration of his peers within Sanctuary.

His little brother, Joe, however, had spent six years in the United States Marine Corps, followed by several successful and high-profile operations with Sanctuary. Joe had saved the lives of dozens of missionaries, political figures and refugees over the years.

Levi had saved no one. As the older brother, he should have been the natural choice to follow in his father’s footsteps. But as of right now, Joe was everyone’s favorite. Joe was a hero. Levi desperately needed this mission to go well if he wanted his father to see him as anything other than a scholar. And for that to happen, he’d have to have Isabelle’s cooperation.

The darkness was so complete it made his eyes hurt. Levi had almost begun to wonder if he’d missed the stairs when a gap in the wall left him grasping into the open air.

He stopped.

Isabelle snapped her light on just long enough to display a twisting set of stone stairs that curled upward and out of sight. Then she let the light die again before stepping forward onto the first stair.

“Wait,” Levi whispered, tugging her back. “We need to discuss our next step.”

As he pulled her back, she brushed near him, and this time, with her standing one step higher on the stone stairs, he felt her lose hair brush past his cheek and smelled her flowery fragrance, so different from the dank catacombs. He swallowed, refusing to allow himself to think about how close she was to him.

Levi had always known Isabelle was a beautiful woman, but he was in her life for a short time only, to fulfill a specific mission. He would behave with absolute decorum. She was, after all, a princess. And he’d been briefed privately by her father about the horrors of her failed engagement. Sympathy and respect stifled his otherwise-strong sense of attraction toward her.

She must have realized how close she’d gotten to him in the darkness because he felt her back away. He doubted she felt anything near the kind of attraction he did, but then, she’d already said she didn’t trust him. Perhaps it was best that way.

“What is your plan?” Isabelle asked.

He could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek and realized she hadn’t backed too far away from him after all. Still holding her arm with one hand, he analyzed their options.

“We don’t know if the insurgents are aware of the catacombs or of the opening below the cathedral. I would assume not, but—” He hesitated.

“I would assume nothing, under the circumstances.”

Levi agreed. “We’ll make our way up the stairs in silence. I’ve never been through this way so I don’t know what we’ll find at the end.”

“Is it even passable?”

“Yes. Your father wouldn’t have allowed it to be marked as an exit if it wasn’t passable. But because we don’t know if it’s a sealed door or if your light will show—”

“I’ll keep my light off.”

“Good. Given the possibility of danger ahead, we can’t risk giving away our presence.”

“Extreme caution.” Isabelle concurred, and he could feel her head nod in the darkness.

Levi was acutely aware of the slight movement. She’d slowly allowed herself to lean closer to him. Did she realize how close to one another they now stood in the dark chamber? He tried not to think about his proximity to the princess.

The pressing danger provided excellent distraction. “We’ll proceed with extreme caution,” he echoed. “If at any point we encounter any person or anything that seems out of the ordinary, we’ll halt and assess the situation. If danger is apparent, we’ll retreat back the way we came.”

“And if we cannot retreat into the catacombs?” The princess tipped her head forward as she spoke, and Levi felt the softness of her hair come to rest near his jaw.

Levi didn’t feel he ought to push her away, yet the floral perfume she wore teased his nostrils. “Then God help us.”

Isabelle pulled back from him.

The cold air of her absence cleared his mind. He realized how his words must have sounded and rushed to explain. “We don’t know the size of the forces the insurgents have attacked with. If they take the cathedral and block our passage to the catacombs, then it would mean they’ve completely overwhelmed your father’s government, in which case I don’t know how we could possibly get you out of the country alive.”

“Out of the country?” Isabelle backed farther away from him this time. “You said my father didn’t want me leaving the country, that it would send the wrong message to the insurgents.”

“That was before the attack,” Levi corrected her. “You can’t expect to stay—”

“I will not leave!”

Levi’s hand flew out to cover her mouth. “Shh,” he hushed her, aware of how loudly her voice had echoed. She squirmed away from him. He hadn’t intended to clamp his hand over her royal mouth, but he couldn’t risk letting her voice give away their location when they didn’t know who might hear.

Cautiously he removed his hand.

Isabelle whispered angrily. “You said my father wished to avoid any sign of weakness—”

“They think you’re dead.” He tried to reach for her shoulder to pull her back so he could reason with her, but she batted him away. “Princess Isabelle.” He spoke her name with caution.

“The Royal House of Lydia is not dead. We live and we reign.”

Levi was reminded by the emotion in her words that she’d been raised with a profound sense of duty toward her people, an obligation of leadership that had been deeply ingrained since birth. It wasn’t in her to run away when her government was challenged. How could he make her understand that she had to do just that?

“Yes.” He spoke in the most soothing voice he could muster. “Yes, Lydia is ruled by your family, by the Royal House of Lydia.”

“I am not dead,” she choked.

He realized she was weeping. He didn’t blame her one bit. “You’re not dead,” he repeated, trying to think of what he could possibly say that wouldn’t make her more upset. What was there to say? It was likely the rest of her family had been killed. She had surely guessed that much already. As soon as the insurgent forces realized she had escaped, they’d come looking for her. But he couldn’t tell her that—not now—so he tried to reassure her as best he could.

“You’re not dead, Princess. You’re alive, and I will do everything in my power to keep you alive. But right now we don’t know what the situation is out there. If the insurgents have taken control of the city—”

“No!” Isabelle moved to push past him again. “No, they cannot take the city.” She turned as though she was going to stomp right up the stairs and demand to have rule returned to her.

“Isabelle.” He pulled her back against him and this time held her tight so she couldn’t do anything rash. He pressed his mouth near her ear as he had in the car and spoke calmly but forcefully. “The insurgents want you dead. As long as they think they have already killed you, they won’t come looking for you. If they learn you’re really alive, they’ll hunt you down. Your only hope for survival is to stay out of sight and get out of Lydia as quickly as possible—before they have time to search for your dead body and wonder why they can’t find it.”

“But the Royal House of Lydia has never given over control of the country. It is my royal duty—”

“It’s your duty to stay alive.” As he held her tightly, he felt some of the fight leave her. “You can’t reclaim the throne if you’re dead. If you let me get you out of here, we can negotiate your rightful return to the throne.”

“How can I run from my people like a coward?”

“Your only other option is to face near-certain death. Who will defend your people then?”

He felt her war with that decision as he held her, his arms still firmly rooting her in place lest she suddenly take off up the stairs.

Finally she told him in a determined voice, “I still don’t trust you.”

“It doesn’t matter if you trust me. All I ask is that you allow me to protect you.”

A huff erupted from her nose, and her chin lifted off from where it had come to rest on his shoulder. “Have I made it that difficult for you?”

“You did seem determined to stay in the car long enough for the insurgents to hit it.”

“If you would have told me about the catacombs earlier—”

“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” he defended. He relaxed his hold enough to let her move half an arm’s length away but no farther. He still didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him. “There may be moments up ahead when I don’t have time to explain everything. Whether you trust me or not, you need to follow my lead. If I have to stop and argue with you at every turn, it will give the insurgents an unfair advantage. I fear we must move very quickly.”

Her shoulders rose and fell under his hands as she took a deep breath. “Up the stairs in darkness, through the cathedral and then what?”

“The U.S. Embassy is across the street. They should be able to help us get out of the country.”

Isabelle was silent. Levi could tell she was weighing her response. Based on the background information he’d been given, he could guess at what might be the cause of her silence.

“I know you don’t care for the American ambassador,” Levi began.

“Stephanos Valli remains in this country solely to retain the good will of the American government. If it were up to me, he would never be allowed to set foot in Lydia again.” Her words seethed with barely repressed anger.

“We need the Americans to help us get you out of the country alive. If Valli was headed to the state dinner, it’s likely he won’t be anywhere near the embassy. His staff can get us out of the country.” Levi had never met Stephanos Valli, but he understood that the American ambassador had Lydian ancestry and ties to the most powerful people in their area of the Mediterranean. Valli had negotiated the engagement of the princess to one of those people, a billionaire businessman named Tyrone Spiteri. The engagement had ended in scandal. Levi had never been told the details, but he understood Isabelle’s bitterness toward the ambassador for his hand in such an embarrassing experience.

And Isabelle obviously wasn’t ready to risk an encounter with Valli, though it had been two years since her engagement to Tyrone Spiteri had ended. “I have many friends who could possibly help us,” she suggested.

“Do you know them better than you knew Alfred?”

She tensed, and Levi could feel her head shaking regretfully in the darkness.

“I suppose,” she whispered softly, “we can’t trust anyone because we can’t be sure of whose side they’re on.”

“The Americans should be trustworthy.”

“Perhaps.” For a moment she sounded overwhelmed, but she seemed to draw quickly from that royal well of strength. “Let’s get moving then. I still intend to find a first aid kit if we can.”

Levi was impressed with how quickly she made up her mind and how silently she made her way up the stairs. He counted seven, eight, nine steps before his head knocked into something solid.

“Stop,” he whispered quietly as a breath while moving to shield her head.

His burned fingers were momentarily squeezed between her high-piled hair and the obstruction. Tears sprang to his eyes but he stifled an exclamation. Finding her ear beside him, he whispered, “There’s an obstruction above us. It may be a trap door. I’m going to try to lift up.”

He eased his shoulders up against it, but even when he began to apply greater force, nothing budged.

“Does it have a latch of some sort?” Isabelle whispered back. He could feel her hands skirt past him in the darkness, and a moment later he heard a soft click. “Try it now,” she whispered.

This time when Levi applied pressure upward, the ceiling moved silently, though the space above seemed to be just as dark as the tunnel they’d come from. With only a slight rustle from her evening gown, Isabelle slid through the opening, and Levi followed after her, closing the door softly after they were both out.

Isabelle’s hand traveled up his arm, and he felt her fingers tug on his earlobe. At her prompt he leaned down and she whispered silently into his ear. “Should I try my light?”

Feeling for her hands, he covered the light, then nodded. “Go ahead.”

The light came on and slowly he allowed more of its miniscule glow to shine. The two of them looked around at the statues and marble plaques, their blank-eyed stone faces deeply shadowed.

Isabelle shivered at the sight of the stone faces, whose forms hid the ancient bones of her ancestors. “The mausoleum,” she whispered. They’d toured it once when she was very young, but no one had been buried under the cathedral in several generations, so she’d had no cause to visit it again. Her sole impression was that it was a frightening place cluttered with dead upon dead, which seemed to go on forever.

But then, she’d been only about eight years old when she’d made that tour. Surely it wouldn’t be so frightening now that she was twenty-four.

Her light dimmed, and she snapped the phone shut again. Although complete darkness shrouded everything from her sight, she was acutely aware of the looming stone figures and tried not to imagine their blank eyes staring back at her through the darkness. She had to remember that the insurgent threat against her was far more real than her fears of the dark and the dead.

“Do you know your way around in here?” Levi asked in a hushed whisper.

“No. Do you?”

“I’ve never been down here before.”

“I visited once, but it was a long time ago. All I really remember is … “ The memories stumbled through her mind, tripping over themselves like the patent-leather shoes she and her sister had worn as they traveled hand-in-hand through the tour, nearly running in the end, chased by fear, wanting only to find the sunlight. She stepped instinctively closer to Levi, the only human figure in the room who lived and breathed. “I didn’t like it.”

“Do you know which way we should go?”

Isabelle searched the long-buried memory, sorting through the fright to find some tidbit that could help them. “We came in through the back of the church and came out at the front. The mausoleum runs the length of the cathedral, with family crypts branching off on either side.” She pulled his tuxedo jacket more tightly around her. “Most of these bones are more than a thousand years old. No was has been buried here in generations.”

“So we should try to find the central hallway?”

“That much shouldn’t be difficult. Then we go one way or the other. The trick will be not to get sidetracked, or we could end up wandering around here—” Her voice broke off as she heard a distant boom, the first sound to penetrate the deathly stillness.

“The trick will be to avoid detection.” Levi’s words were spoken in a near-silent breath by her ear.

Isabelle also tensed, listening to the sound Levi had obviously heard. Distantly, echoes reverberated through the still air. Footsteps? And muffled voices.

“Search every corner.” The command rose above the sound of footsteps—many sets of footsteps. Someone was in the mausoleum looking for them!

Isabelle grabbed Levi’s arm and whispered, “What are we going to do now?”

“The footsteps are all coming from the same direction. We need to run the other way.”

Isabelle raised her hand to open her phone again and light their way, but Levi’s fingers quickly closed over hers.

“No. No light.”

“I can’t see where I’m going.” Isabelle protested in near-silence as Levi tugged her along beside him.

“No light,” Levi repeated. “It will lead them straight to us.”

They shuffled forward, and Isabelle couldn’t help but wonder if they weren’t leaving a trail of footprints for their pursuers to follow. But tourist groups went through the mausoleum several times a week, if not several times a day. Hopefully their footprints would blend in.

For a few moments they bumped along in darkness, here and again meeting the rounded sides of cold stone statues or the walls themselves. Then Isabelle’s peering eyes were shocked as the bulbs that ran along the central hallway illuminated.

“They’ve turned the lights on,” she whispered softly, her words nearly drowned by the echoes of boots on stone floor and the muffled shouts of the approaching men.

Because the branching crypts weren’t lighted, she turned toward the light of the central hallway.

Levi pulled back on her arm. “They’ll see you.”