After a moment of silence, Helga hesitantly touched the top of Alana’s hand with her fingers and asked, “Are you really my daughter?”
Alana smiled but didn’t get to say anything. Someone was pounding on the door and, so sharply, Helga started and jumped to her feet in alarm.
“That would be for me,” Christoph said, and immediately stepped outside the room.
Alana tried to reassure her mother. “He sent his men here ahead of us yesterday. They probably just want to make sure he arrived safely through the storm. And his men, they are rather ba—” She started to say barbaric, but realized Helga might not appreciate that, being Lubinian herself, so she amended, “Bossy.”
That didn’t exactly relax Helga enough to get the color back into her pale cheeks. Alana understood why her mother might fear Poppie, but she hoped Helga wasn’t going to feel it every time there was a knock at her door. Alana thought about arranging a meeting between them. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but Poppie could assure Helga that he’d meant her no harm.
Then Christoph reentered the room, his expression so grim that Alana rose to her feet. He took Alana’s arm and started leading her to the door.
She resisted, pulling back from him. “Don’t be so rude. Where are you taking me?”
“We must return to the city. The palace was attacked this morning just before dawn.”
Chapter Forty-One
ALANA WAS SURE CHRISTOPH wouldn’t have paused at the door to her mother’s room if she hadn’t chided him for being rude. But he turned to Helga and said, “The king was unharmed, the attack quickly beaten back. I am needed in the city, but I will bring your daughter back to visit another time.”
Downstairs, Alana saw that the sleigh had already been summoned, and Christoph’s five men were already mounted, ready to follow in their wake. Christoph carried her out to the sleigh, climbed in himself, and after pulling her close to him wrapped the two of them in blankets. As soon as the sleigh shot forward, she said, “So the rebels are bolder than you thought?”
“This had nothing to do with that. King Ernest’s grandson Karsten—you remember him, the man at the festival you found so charming—he was severely beaten.”
“He started the attack?”
“No, some of his men who were furious that he’d been attacked and suspected me or the king of ordering it were able to get into the ward late last night. They were just a handful, but enough to quickly clear the back wall with the immediate help of those ready to climb over it to join them. Because it wasn’t quite dawn yet, they actually thought they could slip through the ward, all twenty of them, and enter the palace before they were spotted. Fools. They never got off the wall.”
“You’re angry because you weren’t there, aren’t you?”
“No. Every time I leave the palace, it’s with the knowledge that an attack could occur. But when I leave, security is doubled, so I was sure if anyone was stupid enough to attack, they would fail. And they did. I am angry that this seems a desperate attempt because of what your guardian has stirred up. He nearly beat the Bruslan heir to death!”
“You don’t know he did that,” she said uncomfortably.
“Of course he did. No one else would dare.”
“If he did, it proves that Karsten isn’t responsible. Poppie would have killed him if he thought he was.”
“I told you I never thought Karsten knew anything about the abduction. He was a child back when you were taken and he might be a man now, but he’s very self-confident and straightforward. It’s not his style to deal with assassins and spies. He’s the kind who would hire mercenaries for a rebellion.” Christoph smiled mirthlessly. “Or launch an outright attack like he just did. No, there are so many elder Bruslans still living who are more likely to have ordered the princess’s death.”
She tried to point out a bright side. “Well, it was a failed attempt. Maybe they’ll stop harassing you with rebels after this.”
“Or build a real army, now that they think Frederick has played his hand—to their detriment.”
She didn’t say she thought that might be a good thing, that it could finally force the king to take action against that branch of his family which he despised anyway. Her life had been affected by his reluctance to do so.
Instead, she asked, “Why didn’t you let me stay at the chalet to visit with my mother? You don’t need me to deal with the aftereffects of that attack.”
“I won’t—can’t leave you alone when your life is still at risk. But you didn’t really want to stay there.”
She blushed, grateful that he probably wouldn’t see it with the blanket half-covering her face. If he was looking. She didn’t peek up at him to see.
How had he guessed? She hadn’t even fully realized how uncomfortable she’d felt at that meeting with her mother until now. However, she did know that she would have wanted to visit longer if she’d felt better about it. Now she felt totally confused.
Not once had the relaxed, happy woman who had laughed over being given gifts by the king reappeared after Christoph had informed her that her daughter was alive. Helga had been fearful the entire time. Because she thought she might lose her place at the chalet now? Alana couldn’t reassure her that wouldn’t happen, but why would Helga even worry about it? She’d still saved a princess and lost her own daughter for eighteen years because of it.
Alana tried to explain to Christoph what she was feeling. “It’s not that I didn’t want to stay, it was—I thought some natural feelings would well up in me when I saw her, like love. And when I first saw her, I actually felt some kind of bond for a few moments. But her reactions . . . I don’t know, I just don’t feel any closeness to her at all. We are strangers. I should have realized it could be like that. I suppose it’s even normal after so many years. She might have given birth to me and has mourned my loss all these years, but she is just a stranger, after all. That is normal, isn’t it?”
“My answer would be an opinion, which is irrelevant. I’ve never seen or heard of a situation such as yours to know how your experience compares. But perhaps the feelings you wanted to have are still missing simply because you always thought your mother was dead. From everything you said, it didn’t sound as if you would have had those feelings for Frederick either, though you thought he was your father for a longer time.”
“That was different. That was mixed feelings. I wanted to like him, but disparagement kept getting in the way. I think I even told you why, didn’t I? It was because Poppie, even loving him and swearing he was a good king, was contemptuous of him for not resolving the matter of who wanted me assassinated years ago. But that doesn’t matter anymore. I’m never going to meet him, so I don’t need to worry that I might insult him with my disdain. Most of my nervousness had stemmed from that, that I wouldn’t be able to conceal those feelings from him.”
“You understand now why there was no resolution?” Christoph said. “It was a branch of his own family that was suspected, and it’s a large family.”
She snorted. “Niceties don’t apply when lives are at stake, especially when the two branches of that family have been feuding for generations.”
“When we could never say who was pulling the strings? When without proof, banishing that whole family at that time could have brought the country to arms again? The Bruslans were long in power. They have many people still loyal to them, many that would have objected if an entire family was punished for the wrongs of just one of them. Do you really think we are that barbaric?” He added, “Don’t answer that.”
She sighed. He was correct in the point he was making. She knew he was. But he wasn’t the one they’d tried to kill. . . . She blinked. Neither was she. She’d just been an innocent bystander, as it were.
“That’s neither here nor there and none of my concern anymore, thankfully.”
“It’s still your concern as long as the king’s enemies mistake who you are and try to kill you.”
She frowned. “Which is why I’m le
aving Lubinia as soon as possible. As for my mother, good Lord, I actually felt more comfortable with your mother than with mine. But she is my mother. I do want to see her once more before I return to England, and without you standing there making her so nervous. I want to try to talk her into living with me, too, though you seemed to think she won’t want to. If she doesn’t, I can at least write to her after I’m gone. I’ll even come back and visit her next year—if you’ve arrested the perpetrators of this nasty plot, and I expect you to do exactly that now that you have a good reason to point fingers at the Bruslans after that attack this morning.”
“Do you?”
She heard the humor in his tone. She’d just complimented him, in a roundabout way. Not deliberately!
“Well, you do have culprits now, the older generations of the Bruslan family. Start your interrogations with them. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how to do your job. You have to anticipate that everything else might well unravel from what happened today, and I might add, you’ll have Poppie to thank for it if it does.”
She glanced over to see how he took that remark, only to find his head shaking in disagreement. “His actions provoked an attack on the palace, which is treasonous.”
She groaned. “Have it your way. But he is a wild card. The Bruslans are going to realize that Frederick had nothing to do with the attack on Karsten, that they actually have someone else to fear now. They might even figure out that it’s the very assassin they hired. He’s on your side, you know, not theirs, and he’ll use any means to get at the truth. Your hands were tied because the Bruslans have managed to keep secret all these years which of them were responsible for the assassination attempt on the princess. Poppie’s hands aren’t tied.”
“If you’re done singing your guardian’s praises, let’s get back to Helga.”
“I’d rather not. I’m very disappointed with how that meeting went. I’m going to need a little time to get over it.”
“Because you don’t think she’s your mother.”
She gasped. “Of course I do. That’s why it—” She didn’t want to finish.
“What?”
She clamped her mouth shut. But she knew he was waiting, albeit patiently. She finally spat out, “It hurt. It actually felt like she rejected me.”
He drew her closer to him. To comfort her? She did suddenly feel like crying, but that was unacceptable.
So it was more to reassure herself that she said, “It will be better next time.”
“If I allow another visit.”
“Allow!? Do I need to remind you that I stopped being your prisoner when you told me who I really am?”
“That is not exactly true.”
She sat up straight and faced him, letting the blanket drop to her lap. “What do you mean?”
“You are still the lure to Rastibon’s capture.”
“I’m sorry, but that isn’t grounds to detain me.”
He shrugged. “Here it is.”
Was he serious? Alana wondered. She was furious! He pulled her back into the crook of his arm. She struggled against him, but he won. She decided to never say another word to him. How the deuce had the barbarian ended up in the sleigh next to her?
Chapter Forty-Two
THE TRIP DOWN THE mountainside went much faster with no snowfall to contend with. Alana even caught some magnificent views while they were still at the higher elevations, but she was too angry to appreciate them. The sun wasn’t shining on the road they traveled because of the clouds clinging to the mountaintops, but it was shining down on the valleys below them.
Christoph let her stew in silence for the rest of the trip. He could have tried to justify keeping her in Lubinia against her will, even apologize for what he apparently felt was necessary. But he didn’t. He remained silent as well.
At the sleigh house where the trip had begun, he once again tossed her up on his horse for the short ride back to the palace. Not until his arms were cradling her again did he say without inflection, “You noticed how Helga never addressed you by name? What is her daughter’s name?”
No, Alana realized she hadn’t caught that. Good God, she didn’t even know her real name! She’d been too disappointed by Helga’s reaction to the news that she was still alive. Helga didn’t even give her one hug! Good Lord, you’d think a mother would at least want to do that.
But still furious at Christoph for wanting to use her to trap Poppie, she merely mumbled under her breath, “She still wasn’t convinced.”
He snorted. She insisted, “I know you can’t help your suspicious nature, but you know very well it’s uncalled for here.”
“Isn’t it? She was frightened the moment I said you were her daughter. That wasn’t nervousness, Alana. That was pure fear. She was hiding something. And she was lying. It was obvious.”
“What the deuce could she be hiding other than her fear that she might lose her plush residence? That probably accounted for most of it, you know. And you never assured her that wouldn’t happen. Instead you demanded answers to what she probably explained long ago to Frederick to his satisfaction. You made her rehash all of that pain! I only wanted to know what had prompted her to switch the babies. Besides, she seemed most fearful when Poppie was mentioned. Of course she’d be terrified of him, after what he did.”
Alana thought she’d made perfectly good points that might not have occurred to him, certainly good enough to end whatever maggoty suspicion he was having, because he said no more about it. But when they were back in the ward, he didn’t ride his horse to his quarters and leave her there. He stopped in the middle of the ward, handed the mount over to a guard, and, after putting her on the ground and taking her hand, began dragging her straight to the palace!
Immediately she knew why. “Oh, my, God,” she yelled behind him. “I know what you’re doing. Stop! I don’t want to be his daughter, I’d rather be Helga’s.”
“You don’t get to choose.”
“Don’t you dare tell him! You’ll get his hopes up for nothing. There has to be a perfectly good explanation for why Helga was so reticent and afraid that has nothing to do with me. She was just too nervous to say. Probably because you were there.”
“I’m not going to tell him anything—yet.”
“Then why are you taking me into the palace!”
“For you to meet him. He will want to apologize to you himself, for such a long separation from your mother.”
Christoph was lying! She knew he was! She fought him really hard, to free herself from his grip. She even slipped on the hard-packed snow so he ended up dragging her on the ground for a second before he stopped to help her back up, then picked her up and carried her the rest of the way.
That’s how he took her into the palace, and he didn’t set her down once they were inside. Down the corridors he carried her, through the commoners’ anteroom, straight into the next chamber. It wasn’t the throne room as she’d thought, but a wide passageway with some rooms off it, a carpet down its center, and at the end another set of double doors, which she was pretty certain did lead to the king. As it was early afternoon, Christoph obviously expected Frederick to be in there.
She tried one last time in a pleading voice, “Please, don’t.”
“I have to” was all he said.
He didn’t have to knock to gain entrance; in fact, the guards at all the doors had been opening them immediately for him as he approached. His step was brisk, his expression each time she glanced at him grimly determined. Still Christoph didn’t put her down when he passed through the last set of doors. But he barked orders for the room to be cleared. She heard the quick shuffling of feet. Not one complaint. He was head of palace security, after all, so apparently, his business, no matter what it was, took precedence.
Alana didn’t look to see who was left in the room with them. She’d hidden her face against his chest the moment those last doors had started to open. But then he did set her down, and she gave him a furious glare that might have lasted in
definitely if he hadn’t turned her abruptly about to face away from him.
He didn’t need to hold her there. She froze, staring at the man she’d seen in the small portrait in the commoners’ anteroom, a bit older, but she’d stared at that painting long enough to recognize him now. He came to his feet on the raised dais where two thrones sat. He was regally garbed, though informally, without a crown on his head. At the moment he was merely looking at Christoph for an explanation. But Christoph didn’t say a single word. That’s when the king’s eyes lit on Alana and moved no further.
“My God,” Frederick said, awestruck.
He was looking at her in such wonder, he didn’t have to say anything else. She felt it, too, felt it the second she saw in his expression that he knew exactly who she was. It was indescribable, the emotion that welled up in her because of it. She had only hoped to feel a smidgen of this when she came face-to-face with her parent, her real parent. She had no idea she’d be overwhelmed with it.
Papa.
She only formed the word on her lips, was afraid to say it aloud. If her bubble burst and she was somehow mistaken in what she was feeling, based solely on his reaction to her, the disappointment would crumble her. But he was already moving toward her, and she took a few steps to close the distance between them. Then she was engulfed in his arms, and warmth and love were in the word when she repeated it.
“Papa.”
She was crying. She couldn’t help it. And laughing. She couldn’t help that, either. And Frederick wouldn’t let go of her, was holding her too tight, but that was all right, too. It didn’t even matter to her anymore that he was a king. Nothing could disturb this newfound happiness—not even the vague sound of Christoph swearing behind them.
Chapter Forty-Three