“Did you let my parents think I was dead, too?”
“No, actually, I didn’t. You were quickly teaching me compassion, and giving me back the feelings of a parent. I thought I would never feel such things again. Your mother had already died of natural causes, but I sympathized with your father and sent him a missive several months later to tell him I would keep you safe until he found out who wanted you dead.”
“He’s alive?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes.”
“He’s that one other person you just referred to, who knew you failed to complete that job?”
“Yes, the only one I ever told.”
“Thank you for letting him know.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m not even sure he got my missive. And the news of your disappearance traveled so fast, I heard of it before I got too far from Lubinia, since I was delayed by the necessity of finding a nursemaid for you who would be willing to travel with us. Your father only thought you had been stolen. I don’t doubt he expected you back after he satisfied a demand for ransom. My missive may have been harder for him to bear because it indicated that you wouldn’t be returned to him until he eliminated the enemies who had tried to harm him by killing his daughter.”
“So my death was only to be a means of hurting him?” she guessed.
“Of course.”
“But eighteen years have passed, Poppie. In all this time he didn’t find out who did this?”
“He’s a good man, but in matters of intrigue, he has proven to be utterly incompetent,” Poppie said with some disdain. “He had to have known who his enemies were back then, yet no confession was ever obtained.”
“How do you know? Do you know who it was?”
“No, I would have told him if I did. But I rarely ever dealt directly with my employers. They were typically too fearful of having a finger pointed at them later, for having hired an assassin. Some of my clients came cloaked, disguising their voices. Most of them sent lackeys to hire and pay me. A few times a voice would whisper to me from the shadows and a purse of gold would be tossed at my feet. I didn’t care. They were making me rich and I was living a dead life, devoid of happiness, devoid of anything to care for—until you entered my life.”
“How have you kept apprised of what my real father has or hasn’t done? Or is he English? No, that was a stupid question. Of course I’m not really English. You wouldn’t hide me in the same country you took me from.”
He raised a brow. “Assumptions, Alana?”
She blushed. “Ignore them and answer the original question please.”
“I monitored our country indirectly. I joined a gentleman’s club that catered to European émigrés and was also frequented my members of His Majesty’s Foreign Office, who knew the latest information about foreign affairs. They were willing to share that information as long as it was common knowledge in those countries rather than anything secretive.”
“This was your source of information?” she asked incredulously.
“It was a safe way to find out what was going on without drawing attention to us. And it did produce results. It took four years before your father’s name was mentioned, but it wasn’t the news I sought, merely that he had remarried finally. When you were seven, there was another tidbit, that with so much time having passed, it was now presumed you were dead.”
Two things occurred to her immediately. Poppie didn’t really want to give her back, and her father, with a new wife, probably didn’t want her back.
“How could you be so passive about finding out what was going on in our homeland? How could you leave it to chance like that?” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you go back yourself and find out for sure?”
“I wasn’t going to leave you for that long a time or take you with me. Our homeland isn’t exactly close to England.”
“I don’t believe you! Admit it. You love me too much. That’s why you haven’t made any real effort to find out if it was safe to return me to my father.”
He didn’t try to calm her. The tender smile he gave her was from the heart. “You are correct that I love you too much. But I honestly didn’t think I would have the care of you for this long. I thought a few years at the most. After that, I thought each year would be the last. After ten years, I began to teach you in earnest to protect yourself, because I still thought I wouldn’t have you much longer. But I was no longer leaving it to chance. I was alarmed when I learned your father presumed you were dead. I thought about sending your father another missive, to assure him you were still alive. But again, I couldn’t be sure it would reach him. So I assumed my old ways of secrecy instead and hired someone who didn’t know who I was, didn’t see my face, couldn’t trace me in any way, and could find out exactly what I wanted to know.”
“Did he?”
He nodded. “There had been a mock funeral. There was no pretense of it being otherwise. It was only a formality to put your memory to rest.”
“That’s—morbid!”
“It was a clear statement that all hope was gone that you would ever be recovered. But the investigation wasn’t over, it was renewed with vigor, in fact, as if you had only just been killed. Having lost all hope, your father finally wanted revenge. Understandable, if a bit late. But I was told that an effort was still being made to find out who had set this plot in motion.”
“You could have just taken me back. You could have let my father protect me. You should have, when I was still a child, before—”
“He didn’t protect you from me, Alana,” Poppie cut in sharply to remind her. “You were too easy to get to. I was not going to take that chance with a life I came to value more than my own.”
Just enough defensive umbrage was in his tone to give her pause. He sounded so sincere, yet how could she believe all this? Death plots, assassins, stolen babies. If this tale was true, didn’t he realize he’d waited too long to tell her? She was an adult. This was her home, not some foreign place that had no meaning for her. And she had no interest in knowing her real father, whom Poppie disparaged as incompetent and incapable of protecting her.
“Why did you wait this long to tell me all this?” she demanded.
“I couldn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t want you growing up knowing who you were, and thinking you were so important that you didn’t need to learn anything from others. I wouldn’t have told you now except—”
“Important? Who am I?”
“I told you, a Stindal.”
“That name means nothing to me,” she said in frustration. “Please be more specific.”
He tsked at her. “You know. Your studies were thorough. Your father is Frederick Stindal, the reigning monarch of Lubinia.”
After all the shocks she’d just absorbed, those words were a soothing balm because they proved none of this was real. She even began to laugh.
“This has all been a bad joke, hasn’t it? Are you testing my fortitude, my gullibility? Obviously I failed, royally—no pun intended. Good Lord, that’s a relief. You really had . . . me . . .”
Her words trailed off. Poppie wasn’t laughing with her, and his expression had turned more serious than she’d ever seen it. “This wasn’t an easy decision for me. I’ve been grappling with it for weeks. I always knew I would have to take you back someday to claim your birthright, but not until it was safe to do so. It infuriates me that it still isn’t safe! Yet I’ve had news that makes it imperative that we go back now.”
She leapt to her feet. “No! I won’t leave the life I love here, I won’t!”
“Alana, the old regime, the late king Ernest’s most fervent supporters, are trying to depose your father. They are using rebels to agitate the people to revolt, spreading lies that the king is ill and might soon die without a proper heir. It will come to war if—”
“Stop it!” she cried angrily, tears running down her cheeks. “I won’t listen to any more of this. How could you even ask that of me when you don’t care about that country any more than I do? Ho
w could you care? You’re an—an assassin! Oh, God!”
Chapter Five
SHE HAD RUN OUT of Poppie’s office and locked herself in her room. He had followed, but she was crying too hard to hear his entreaties to let him in, and eventually the pounding on her door stopped.
She just wanted to wake up, to once again have nothing to worry about other than Lord Adam Chapman and his intentions, and an introduction to society that seemed superfluous now, when she wanted to devote her life to teaching. . . .
The tears wouldn’t stop. She wasn’t waking up either. This nightmare was real.
Poppie had lied to her all her life. How could he possibly think she’d believe anything he said now, especially something so preposterous. A princess? He should have told her the truth, instead of a ridiculous tale like that. But she believed he was a killer. She tried to deny that, too. She tried so hard! But he wouldn’t tell her something that horrible unless it was true. Yet there had to be some other reason he wanted to take her back to Lubinia. It could be as simple as an old betrothal and her future husband was now demanding his bride. And Poppie must have changed his story midway when she’d revealed her contempt for their homeland, and her abhorrence to marrying anyone from it. But a princess? He should have known she wouldn’t believe that!
“Alana, open the door for me,” Annette called out. “I’ve brought your dinner.”
Alana stared hard at the door, then walked over to it and put her wet cheek against it. “Are you alone?”
“Certainly, why wouldn’t I be?”
Alana wiped her sleeve across her cheeks quickly and opened the door. She immediately moved away from it toward her bureau. She hadn’t put her pistol away yet. She took it out of her pocket now and dropped it into a drawer. So silly that Poppie insisted she carry it with her at all times, just because she knew how to use it.
Her pocket was still heavy. She’d forgotten about the carving Henry had given her—it seemed so long ago instead of just that afternoon. She set the soldier up on the bureau next to the figure of the young lady. Henry was so talented that the wooden female figure did actually look like her in one of her winter dresses minus a bonnet. Henry. Once more, tears filled her eyes. Would she ever see that dear child again? Or would Poppie forbid her to go to the orphanage now?
“You two had an argument?” Annette said from behind her as she slid a tray onto the low table next to the sofa. “I’ve never seen your uncle so distraught. It must have been very serious.”
Annette sounded worried. But Alana held her tongue. She wasn’t going to talk about those horrible revelations to anyone. Ever.
“Come, I brought my dinner, too, so I could dine with you. We’ll hold our plates. It will be good practice for the parties you will be attending where the hostess feeds you, but won’t seat you!”
Now Annette was trying to sound cheerful? There wouldn’t be any parties. Alana was probably going to have to leave this house, too. She couldn’t stay here knowing what she did about Poppie’s past. She’d seek out Lord Chapman. If she wasn’t wrong about his intentions, perhaps she could escalate his courtship and make it brief. Surely she could create some plausible excuse not to delay.
“Alana, please. Talk to me. I’ll mediate for you and your uncle so we can put this situation to rights. You’ll both laugh about being so silly.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever laugh again.”
She said that to herself. She wasn’t even facing Annette. The older woman shouldn’t have heard her. But Alana heard the gasp.
“This isn’t about Adam, is it?”
Alana swung around. “Why would you think that?”
Annette blushed. She looked so pretty. Someone should have snatched her up as soon as her husband died—well, after a decent interval for mourning.
“Because I know what he’s up to,” Annette admitted. “He’s been pursuing an acquaintance with you in an attempt to make me jealous. I’d hoped he’d stop being so foolish so I wouldn’t have to tell you what he’s doing.”
“Did Poppie tell you to say this?” Alana asked suspiciously.
“Certainly not. But your uncle is aware of the situation. I was forced to tell him what I should have told you sooner. Sit down, please. Let me explain.”
More revelations today when she was already drowning in them? But Alana sat next to Annette. She even picked up her plate. Eating was the sensible thing to do, but she wasn’t sure she could manage it with so much turmoil rolling about inside her. Was Lord Chapman about to be removed as an option, too?
“You know I lost my parents,” Annette began. “My cousin was forced to take me in, but she hated having to do so, even for those few years until I came of age. She arranged parties for me. She wanted me to find a husband immediately and be gone from her house. I met Adam at one of those parties. I quickly fell in love with him. And he felt the same way.”
“Then why didn’t you marry him?”
“I thought we would marry. I was so happy. But then he confessed he felt he was too young to marry. That he hadn’t tasted life yet, whatever that meant. I was furious with him. We had a terrible argument. He was breaking my heart because he didn’t want to face responsibility yet? And I couldn’t wait for him even if I wanted to, not with my cousin insisting I accept the first offer that was made.”
“So you married Lord Hensen?”
“Yes, a man I didn’t even like. But at least he was kind. My misery was of my own making because I still loved another man. But then my husband died not even a year into our marriage, and his family showed me the door when they came to rip apart his estate. My cousin wouldn’t take me back again either. I was forced to find a job, but no one would hire me. I was either too young or too pretty. I sold everything I had of value just to get from meal to meal. Your uncle found me crying in the park. I’d just sold the last of my clothes other than what I was wearing. I was facing a life of poverty—or worse. He spoke to me quietly to find out what was wrong. He offered me this job. He gave me back my dignity and peace of mind. He saved me, and I’ll always be more grateful than either of you could know.”
Alana didn’t want to hear how kind Poppie was. It was all a pretense! Annette had no idea—nor would she. Alana could never tell anyone that she’d been raised by an assassin. The founder of an orphanage, the rescuer of genteel ladies, the man who had changed his life to save her from people who wanted her dead—no! Lies, lies, and more lies. What could she believe anymore?
Tears were pouring down her cheeks again. Annette saw them and misunderstood.
“Oh, dearest, he has trifled with your affections, hasn’t he? This is my fault. I should have—”
“What? No, really. Lord Chapman has been very proper and polite. He did mention he’s ready to marry now, but perhaps he hoped I’d convey that to you? Why exactly do you think he’s trying to make you jealous?”
“Because he came here to see me. He begged me to forgive him for his past mistake. He asked me to marry him now. But it’s too late and I told him so. He can’t break my heart and then show up years later and expect to be welcomed with open arms. So he went straight to your uncle and asked permission to court you. I followed him. He was trying to force my hand. I could see it in his expression. And he did, but not as he hoped. I confided in your uncle instead and told him exactly what I’ve told you. He showed Adam the door and warned him not to see you again. But he has. Mary has told me how often he stops you on the street.”
“Which has made you jealous?” Alana guessed. “And prolonged your anger?”
“No, I—” Annette stopped. She looked embarrassed and confused and regretful.
Alana realized now that Lord Chapman had never been interested in courting her. Compared to everything else she’d learned today, it didn’t matter to her all that much. But Alana could see that he meant a great deal to Annette, who hadn’t just been one of her tutors and a chaperone all these years, but also a good friend.
“You should forgive him,” Alan
a said. “He’s not the man he used to be. He’s ready for responsibility now. He’s ready to make you happy in the marriage you wanted. Don’t throw that away when he loves you and you still love . . . him.”
Alana blanched. You should forgive him. Not the man he used to be. He loves you. Oh, God, what had she done?
She ran out of her room and downstairs. Poppie was still in his office, but standing in the middle of the room. He looked so broken, so pained, as if he’d lost everyone in the world who mattered to him. And he had. She’d done that by condemning him for what he’d done instead of remembering the man he’d become, the one who had atoned for his past in so many different ways.
“I’m sorry!” she cried as she ran to him, right into his open arms. “I didn’t mean to react so—so—”
She couldn’t continue because she was sobbing. Annette, who had followed her downstairs in alarm, quietly closed the door behind them, while Poppie held Alana close, gently soothing her, letting her release all of the emotions that were pent up inside her.
“Shh,” he finally said. “It was my fault for telling you everything at once. It was too much. And I expected you to hate me now.”
“No! I don’t! I love you, Poppie. Nothing will ever change that.”
“Then you can forgive me?”
It was hard to say yes, but not so hard to say, “I know you’re not like that anymore. You’re good and kind, and you’ve helped so many people.”
She felt his relief as he hugged her more tightly. She leaned back so he could see she was sincere. His eyes were moist, too, as he tenderly wiped her cheeks with the back of his fingers. She still felt a sense of dread about the other things he’d said. She couldn’t let him think she was willing to go to Lubinia when she wasn’t.
“Poppie, please, at least tell me that some of what you said was a lie,” she beseeched him now. “Please tell me I’m not the daughter of a king.”
“I can’t do that,” he said sadly.
She closed her eyes. “Everything I love is here in London. I don’t want to leave. I want to teach. I want to help people as you have.”