Capturing the Crown: The Heart of a Ruler

“Oh, I know what my duty is,” she said quickly and with resignation. “I’ve known what my duty was since before I could adequately understand what the word itself really meant. But the doubts I have are about the prince himself. He seems neither to know, nor to care what his obligations are as far as maintaining at least a civil relationship with his future wife.” She pressed her lips together, digging deep for courage and resolve in order to get through this. “I’m not sure I can face marriage to a man who has so little regard for me that he does not even attend a ceremony meant to welcome me to his kingdom. A ceremony meant to honor us as a royal couple.”

Were those tears he saw in her eyes? God, he hoped not. He had no idea what to do when faced with a woman’s tears. He would much rather have spent an entire day arguing with the prince than five seconds in the company of a tearful woman.

All the more so because he was left with the odious job of having to defend the errant royal. “I’m sure he was unavoidably detained.”

To his surprise, Amelia laughed shortly. “Handcuffed to a bed?”

Only supreme control kept his jaw from dropping. “Princess—”

And then she laughed, really laughed. That light, airy sound that had already won a place in his heart. The same heart that had pledged its loyalty to the crown, to the prince. He felt guilty as hell and torn in two diametrically opposed directions.

“Don’t look so shocked, Carrington. I wasn’t raised in an eighteenth-century cloister.” She lowered her voice and seemed to draw closer, even though she didn’t move a muscle. “You, more than anyone, should know that.”

Was that the sound of approaching footsteps he heard? Russell looked around. He had no thought about himself, but there was the princess’s honor to be concerned about. “We really shouldn’t be seen talking like this—” he began to warn her.

A smattering of impatience crossed her brow. It occurred to him that Amelia was undoubtedly one of those types who looked magnificent when she was angry.

“Who shall I talk to? Madeline seems to have been charmed out of her shoes by one of the young dukes and the king is not exactly the person I can turn to with concerns about his son. The poor man looks put upon enough without having to listen to me voice my misgivings. Besides,” she confided, “I haven’t seen the king in more than half an hour.”

“That’s because he’s in his study.” He indicated the area just beyond the corner. “I just came from there. His Majesty requested that I find and bring back the prince.” Russell saw an odd expression filter across her face. He was unable to fathom it. Had he said something wrong? “What is it?”

This, Amelia thought, had to be the definition of irony. “I find myself in a very precarious position. I don’t know whether to hope that you do find him, or hope that you don’t. For me, it seems to be the epitome of a lose-lose situation.” But, because she was a princess and raised by her father to put her country before her own needs, Amelia rallied and then offered Russell a smile. “Of course I hope you find him. One should never misplace a prince. It’s bad for the country.”

As well Reginald might be, Russell couldn’t help thinking. He really wished that Weston could continue as king for years to come.

And then Amelia stepped back, as if to re-enter the ballroom. “I shouldn’t be detaining you, Carrington. Good luck.”

The way she’d said it, he wasn’t quite sure if she meant with his assignment, or something else. “With finding the prince?”

“With whatever it is you want to happen,” she corrected.

With that, Amelia turned on her heel and returned to the ballroom and to the mountain of responsibilities that were waiting for her just inside the door.

It was the last place Russell would have thought to look. It was the last place he did look, because it had seemed so improbable. So tame.

For the last twelve hours, Russell had gone from one club to another, methodically working his way from the more prestigious ones down to the clubs that no one willingly admitted, at least in public, that they frequented. The ones for which the phrase den of iniquity had originally been fashioned.

But no matter where he went, the story always seemed to be the same. Yes, the prince had been there, but no one had seen the prince within the last two days. When he questioned the men who were often with the prince about his whereabouts, they all claimed to believe that he was at some other place, with another set of cohorts.

Russell had to bank down the intense desire to shout at the men to sober up and do something meaningful with their lives. But that, he knew, was merely displacement. The words were meant for the prince.

Russell shook his head as he left the last establishment. At the prince’s present pace, Reginald would probably wind up bedding or at least propositioning every woman in Silvershire under the age of eighty by summer’s end.

He got back behind the wheel of his vehicle and slammed the door. Funny, he hadn’t realized how much he loathed the man until this very moment. Even animals in the wild were more monogamous than Reginald was, and he wasn’t even thinking of the ones who mated for life. Reginald mated for an hour, then went on, amnesia clouding his brain.

And this was going to be their future ruler.

God had to have one hell of a sense of humor, Russell thought darkly, starting the car again.

He was out of places. Out of glitzy clubs and rundown holes-in-the-wall. He’d already checked with the airports and the harbor. The prince had not left the country by means public or private. Since Silvershire was seabound on all sides, that meant that he was here.

But where?

Deciding that when he reported to the king, he wanted to have been utterly thorough, Russell could only think of one more place to try. A place where he was fairly certain the prince wasn’t: his country estate. The king had given him the deed to the property on his twenty-first birthday. When the novelty of owning a country estate had still been fresh, Reginald had thrown there more than a few of what could only be politely referred to as orgies.

He himself had begun drawing the line then, Russell recalled. The very thought of what went on there turned his stomach. But Reginald seemed to thrive on those decadent gatherings. The more participants, the better.

Angry for the princess, for the country, Russell’s mood was black by the time he reached the estate.

As he’d expected, there was no one there. The only time there was any staff at the estate, aside from the gardener who was dispatched once a month and the housekeeper who cleaned on a weekly basis, was when the prince was in residence there.

He recalled that, just before he’d left for Gastonia, Reginald had told him that he would be visiting the estate. He’d thought Reginald was joking, but this was no time to leave any stone unturned.

The estate was shrouded in silence as the last rays of late-afternoon light receded. Russell disarmed the alarm and unlocked the front door. The prince had entrusted him with the code and a key to the estate as a token of their friendship.

A friendship, Russell thought as he closed the door behind him, that had long since lost its luster—if it had ever had any to begin with.

The house absorbed darkness with the thirst of a sponge. Russell turned on the light that illuminated the foyer and hallway beyond.

“Hello, is anyone here?”

His voice echoed back, mocking him as he crossed the marble foyer. The heels of his shoes meeting the stone was the only sound he heard.

This was useless. The Black Prince was probably holed up in some woman’s bedroom, waiting for his fourth or fifth wind. When it came to making love, Reginald was tireless. Too bad he wasn’t like that when it came to matters of state.

Russell paused, debating going back to the palace. And then he shrugged. He was here. He might as well check the bedrooms and the kitchen. That way, he could tell the king that he had looked everywhere he could possibly think of for the prince.

“Why don’t you just grow up, Reginald?” Russell said out loud in exasperation. “The princess is a beautiful woman. She’ll make you happy. And you, you should drop down on your knees and thank God that you, with your black soul, were still lucky enough to get such a woman.”

On the second floor, Russell marched up and down the hall, pushing open one door after another as he spoke, venting his frustration. “Your father’s right. It’s time for you to grow up and be a man for once in your life, not just some—”

The words caught in Russell’s throat.

The bedroom wasn’t empty. There was someone in the bed.

He hadn’t really expected to find the prince. At best this was just an exercise in futility to cover all the bases. But there he was, in bed, stark naked from all appearances, with a sheet draped over his loins, and sound asleep as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Damn it, Reginald,” he said in the familiar voice of a man who had been a friend for more years than he should have, “how can you just lie there like that? Don’t you know that everyone’s been waiting for you to turn up for the last two days? You didn’t come to the airport, you didn’t come to the gala. You’re supposed to be getting married in two days. How can you be—”

Exasperated, Russell abruptly halted what he felt was a well-deserved tirade. The prince was sleeping through it all, anyway.

With a weary sigh, Russell crossed to the bed and took hold of the prince’s shoulder, shaking it. Reginald was a sounder sleeper than most, especially when he’d been drinking, so Russell shook him again. There was still no response, no indication that the prince was waking up. His expression remained unchanged.

“Sleeping the sleep of the dead?” Russell mocked with no trace of humor. “Because it certainly isn’t the sleep of the just. Well, I don’t care how drunk you are, the king sent me to find you and find you I did, so come on, get up. Get up and get dressed, your father’s waiting. You’ve really done it this time with those ‘wild oats’ of yours and it’s going to take a lot to reverse all the bad press you’ve been getting.”

The prince remained inert.

Russell looked at him. Something wasn’t right.