Capturing the Crown: The Heart of a Ruler

He could feel it in his bones. Feel it just the way he had when he had been away at school and had suddenly sensed that his father had fallen ill. That his father needed him. He had no idea how he’d known, he just had. He’d come home just in time to be at his side when his father had died.

A gut feeling had prompted him then. And now he was experiencing another one.

Russell dropped down to one knee beside the bed, staring at the prince. “Reginald?”

The prince’s hand felt cold when he took it. The sensation registered the very same moment that he realized the prince’s chest wasn’t moving. Reginald wasn’t breathing.

Adrenaline raced through his veins as Russell tried to find a pulse. There was none. As he looked more closely at the prince, he had the sickening feeling that there hadn’t been a pulse for at least several hours. Perhaps even a day. The body was not stiff, but rigor mortis was a condition that came and then receded.

He needed an expert. He needed help.

“Oh, God,” Russell groaned under his breath. Rising to his feet, he took out his cell phone and quickly called the royal physician. The number was on his speed dial. The man had been summoned on a fairly regular basis for more than a decade, always to see to the prince after a lengthy spate of debauchery.

“What’s the matter?” There was a hint of irritation in the doctor’s voice once Russell had identified himself. “Is he hungover again?”

Russell glanced over his shoulder at the still form. “I’m afraid he’s much more than that, Doctor.” Rather than ask the doctor to come, he told the man what was wrong. “The prince is dead.”

“Dead?” the doctor echoed in a hushed voice throbbing with disbelief. Everyone associated with Reginald had come to believe that he had a charmed life. “How did it happen?”

Russell leaned over the body. There were no telltale marks to identify the cause.

“I have no idea. He wasn’t shot or stabbed and doesn’t look to have been strangled. Everything is neat and as far as I can tell, in its place. There’s no evidence of any kind of a struggle.” These days, with the preponderance of television crime programs that came to them thanks to the Americans, everyone was an armchair crime-scene investigator, Russell thought, and that included him.

“We’re going to need an autopsy.” He heard rustling on the other end. The doctor was preparing to leave. “Does the king know?”

“Not yet.” There was a reason why he had delayed that call. He was afraid of what the shock of Reginald’s death might do to the king. “I wanted to give you some time to reach him before I called. He’s probably going to need to be sedated.”

The doctor’s tone indicated that he was not so sure. “Don’t underestimate the old man. He’s a lot tougher than you think.”

“Even tough men have been known to fall apart and he hasn’t been looking too good lately,” Russell said quietly. “How long will it take you to get to the palace?”

The doctor didn’t need any time to consider. He’d made the trip often enough, both from his home and from his office. “Fifteen minutes.”

“All right. I’ll wait fifteen minutes, then,” Russell replied. “Once you see to the king, I need you to come here.”

“Of course,” the man agreed. “And here would be—?”

“The prince’s country estate.”

“I’m on my way,” the doctor promised.

His eyes never leaving the prince’s body, Russell slowly closed his cell phone and slipped it back into his pocket. A shaft of guilt pierced him. God help him, but his first thought was that Amelia wasn’t going to have to go through with the wedding.

He couldn’t think about that now.

There was a brocade armchair in the corner of the room beside the window. Russell dragged it over next to the bed and then lowered himself into it, his eyes never leaving Reginald’s body.

What a waste. What a terrible waste.

He thought for a moment of dressing the prince, of giving him a dignity in death that Reginald had turned his back on while he’d been alive. But he knew better than to tamper with anything. Although there were indications that the prince might just have finally taken the wrong combination of alcohol and drugs, this might still be considered a crime scene. It was bad enough that he had touched first Reginald’s shoulder and then the pulse at both the prince’s throat and his wrist. He didn’t want to compromise the scene any further.

Russell folded his hands in his lap and proceeded to wait for the longest fifteen minutes of his life. The minute hand on the ancient timepiece his grandfather had given him dragged by like a snail dipped in molasses working its way along a rough surface. It seemed almost frozen in place each time he looked at it.

Fifteen minutes took forever. But finally, the minute hand touched the sixteenth stroke. Russell flipped his cell phone open once again and called the palace.

It took several more minutes for someone find the king. He’d initially met with resistance when he refused to divulge the reason behind his call, saying only that the king was expecting it.

No father ever expected this kind of a call, Russell thought sadly.

As modern-thinking as the king was, Weston refused to carry a cell phone, feeling that it was too invasive. When he finally came on the telephone to speak to him, Weston was on one of the palace’s secured land lines.

“This is King Weston,” the deep, unmistakable baritone voice echoed against his ear.

God, I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. “Your Majesty, it’s Carrington.”

The king’s voice was immediately eager. “Did you find him? Did you find the prince?”

Each word felt like molten lead as it left his tongue. “Yes, Your Majesty, I did, but—”

“What did he have to say for himself?” the monarch demanded. It was obvious that although he had been indulgent for all of Reginald’s life, the king was finally coming to the end of his patience.

“Nothing.” Russell stalled for a moment, still concerned about the king’s health despite what the doctor had said. “Your Majesty, is the royal physician with you yet?”

“No, why should he—” There was a pause. Russell heard the sound of someone knocking and then a door being opened in the background. “Doctor, what are you doing here? Is someone ill?” the king asked, addressing the doctor.

“No, Your Majesty,” Russell answered for the physician. “The doctor is there to help you.”

“Help me?” the king echoed, confused. “Why would I need a doctor—?” Abruptly, a note of fear entered his voice. “Carrington, there’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

“I’m afraid there is, Your Majesty.”

Russell could almost hear the king holding his breath. As if by not breathing, that would forestall whatever bad news was coming. “It’s Reginald, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, it is.” It was as if the words refused to materialize, refuse to enter the atmosphere.

There was desperation in the king’s voice. He was stalling, trying to find a reason for this melodrama that he could live with. “What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into this time?”

There was no way to say this, no way to couch the words that had to come out so that they wouldn’t leave wounds, wouldn’t hurt beyond measure. In his heart, Russell damned the prince for living the kind of lifestyle that had brought him to this. Most of all, he damned Reginald for making him have to say this to the king.

“Your Majesty, Prince Reginald is dead.”

“No,” the king cried. “No! This is a lie, a trick. You’re not telling me the truth. Reginald is trying to play me, the way he always has before. So, what does he want? What does he hope to gain from all this?”

“Nothing, Your Majesty. This isn’t a hoax. I’m very sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but the prince really is dead. I found him at his country estate and he’s been dead for hours, perhaps more.”

He heard the receiver being dropped. And then the line on the other end went dead.

Chapter 9