Romancing The Crown: Drew and Samira: Her Lord Protector

‘‘You told me that years ago. Not long after it happened, as I recall, though the disclosure was more along the lines of bragging than confessing. You were—’’

His cousin opened the door and shoved him through it.

When Drew passed through those doors again forty minutes later, he was alone. The suite reserved for the Harrington family lay in yet another wing. By the time he turned into the second-longest hall on his route, he was weaving, and after a while he realized he’d stopped moving altogether. Instead, he was leaning against one wall, staring at the paintings hanging on the other.

A Monet and one of Segatini’s rural scenes. He remembered them, but he couldn’t see them. It’s not my eyes, he thought. There were shapes, forms, colors. His brain had simply stopped processing the input.

A vague mental image of a sofa, brocaded and plump with pillows, rose in his mind. He wouldn’t have to stagger all the way to the bedroom. The sofa in the sitting room would do. Or the floor.

But not this floor. He was still in the hall. Blinking, he managed to focus, push away from the wall and take a few steps.

‘‘Drew? Are you all right?’’

Lorenzo. Turning his head, Drew saw his cousin about twenty paces away. Had Lorenzo seen him propped drunkenly against the wall? No, he decided. If he’d seen that much, he wouldn’t ask if Drew was all right. It would be all too obvious that he wasn’t. Drawing on the stubborn dregs of his pride, Drew shut the fatigue away once more, closing up the part of him that knew how few minutes remained before he collapsed. ‘‘I’m fine,’’ he said curtly. ‘‘More tired than I’d realized.’’

Lorenzo started toward him, frowning. ‘‘You look like hell.’’

‘‘I’ve been running short on sleep the last few days, that’s all. It’s caught up with me.’’

Lorenzo stopped in front of him. ‘‘You shouldn’t have stayed at the airport so long, flexing your muscles.’’

Drew couldn’t penetrate the fog well enough to read the other man’s expression. God, he wanted to be alone. Like an injured animal dragging itself back to its den, he craved the closed door that would shut out the rest of the world. ‘‘I was hoping for a medal. Something tasteful to wear on state occasions.’’

That earned him a grin, but it was perfunctory. ‘‘Yeah, such a glory hound you are. I’d intended to talk to you after reporting to Marcus, but maybe I should ask you now. You don’t look as if you’ll be upright much longer.’’

True. Though he was apt to go horizontal more dramatically than his cousin expected. ‘‘Ask me what?’’

‘‘About the woman Captain Mylonas found. Signorina Giaberti. Mylonas is an idiot, of course, but he may have accidentally turned up a decent lead. We don’t have any evidence against her, nothing that links her to any known terrorist groups, but she’s involved somehow, or she’s protecting someone who is. God knows her story doesn’t hold water.’’

It was hard to follow a thought long enough to reply sensibly. ‘‘What’s her story?’’

He snorted. ‘‘She’s psychic. Saw the whole thing in a dream.’’

Drew pictured her, the knowing eyes and amused mouth. The body, lush and firm and inviting. A small, distant flicker of sexual interest arrived with the image, along with a tinge of disgust. ‘‘As lies go, that one sucks.’’

‘‘It’s nonsense, of course, but there’s a certain superficial credibility. Her mother was burned as a witch.’’

‘‘Good God, Lorenzo, this isn’t the sixteenth century!’’

‘‘Not for you and me, maybe, but in some ways Montebello is one big village, and time moves differently in the village mind. Never mind that now. I can fill you in on her history tomorrow, if you agree.’’

‘‘You haven’t asked me anything yet.’’

‘‘I noticed a certain chemistry between you and the si¬ gnorina. I’d like you to pursue that. See her socially, get her to trust you. Talk to you. You’re good at that.’’

So he was. He couldn’t keep the distaste from his voice. ‘‘Pillow talk?’’

‘‘If that’s what it takes. I don’t want another bomb going off. Drew…’’ Lorenzo’s hesitation was brief. ‘‘You know what a powder keg we’ve been sitting on the past few months. The king kept us out of war by sheer force of will, but you’ll have seen what a toll it’s taken on him. Now that he considers the danger over, he’s…not as clearheaded as usual. I’m not going to tell him what I’ve asked you to do.’’

‘‘He wouldn’t stand for it, would he? Too bloody unchivalrous.’’ Colors were starting to fade as the gray at the edges of his vision blurred into the rest. He could scarcely think beyond the need to be alone. ‘‘Of course I’ll do it. Why not?’’

Chapter 3

The flame was blue-white with heat—but tiny. Small enough to be safe. The woman guiding that flame wore a canvas apron over pink chinos and tinted safety glasses. No jewelry, no makeup. Her black hair was tied in a rough knot at her nape, though curly bits escaped to frisk around her face.

The worktable she was bent over was cluttered. Tongs, tweezers, wire cutters, a two-inch nail and a tiny hammer, spools of silver wire and several thin golden squares crowded the surface directly in front of her. Small wooden and plastic boxes lined the back of the table, and more tools hung on the pegboard on the wall behind it. A draftsman’s adjustable light was clamped to the table’s edge. A vise gripped a silver arm cuff, three inches wide and partially worked, at the front of the table.

The little soldering iron kissed the air beneath the bit of wire Rose held, kissed and retreated in a butterfly’s insubstantial salute. Silver beaded and fell, directed by a subtle flick of her wrist.

‘‘Natala Baldovino is at the market,’’ Rose’s aunt Gemma announced gloomily from the doorway.

‘‘I thought you were watching the shop.’’ Rose released the button on the little soldering iron. The flame died.

‘‘I needed pancetta for the carbonara sauce, and some olives. Pietra offered to go. I think she has her eye on the youngest Christofides boy.’’

‘‘Pietra has her eye on both Christofides boys, along with any other male who crosses her path. She doesn’t mean anything by it. Nothing serious, at least.’’

‘‘I’m not sure the young men realize that. She said Natala Baldovino had already made the rounds.’’

Rose studied the way silver swirled over gold in a stylized, intricate yin-yang design on the arm cuff and nodded, satisfied. ‘‘I suppose Signora Baldovino is allowed to buy olives.’’

‘‘If that had been her purpose, I’d have no objections,’’ her aunt observed in a fair-minded way. ‘‘But you know it isn’t. You know what she’s saying.’’

Rose had a pretty good idea. She also cherished some hope of finishing the cuff—and avoiding the lecture Gemma had been trying to deliver ever since the police released her yesterday. She loosened the vise, turned the cuff and tightened it again. ‘‘I’m thinking of using mother-of-pearl here, for the moon.’’

‘‘Very pretty, dear. It reminds me of that new ring.’’

‘‘What new ring?’’

‘‘Didn’t I tell you? A rather flashy young woman brought it in yesterday morning. An American.’’

‘‘You bought a ring for the shop.’’ Rose inhaled a slow breath for patience as anxiety bit. The shop did well normally, but this summer hadn’t been normal. The possibility of war with Tamir had discouraged tourists, sales were half what they’d been last year at this time, and her bank balance hadn’t been this low since she’d first opened the shop.

Now it might be in the red. ‘‘You didn’t check with me. You know you have to check with me before you buy anything.’’

‘‘How could I? You were in jail.’’

Defeated, Rose swiveled on her stool.

Her aunt stood in front of the desk Rose used when she couldn’t avoid paperwork any longer. Gemma Giaberti was a small woman, plump and firm as a pear, with black hair coiled high on her round head. She had cow’s eyes—big, brown and placid, with extravagant eyelashes. Her skirt was long and full, the color of moss. Her blouse was white and embroidered. Today she wore only two necklaces, a baroque locket of about the same age as her house, and an intricately worked chain her niece had made for her two years ago.

‘‘I wasn’t in jail,’’ Rose said, studying those placid eyes with suspicion. ‘‘I spent hours at the police station because Mylonas is an idiot, but they didn’t put me behind bars. How could they? They have no evidence of any wrongdoing.’’

‘‘Of course not, but that isn’t stopping Natala Baldovino from passing around her version of events.’’

‘‘Maybe the gossip will bring people into the shop.’’ When her aunt just blinked at her in polite skepticism, Rose grimaced. ‘‘I know, I know. They’re more likely to put a rock through the window.’’

‘‘Oh, surely not. No one’s done that in years, have they? Except for the Peterson boy, and really, I don’t think he counts. He threw rocks through everyone’s windows until he went into the army.’’ Gemma clucked her tongue. ‘‘Rose, your head is hurting. You forgot to eat lunch again, didn’t you?’’