Royal Protocol (Crown & Glory Book 3) Page 4

  He took her response as a no and tried to ignore how soft her mouth looked without the pale-peach lipstick she’d worn yesterday. He’d obviously caught her dressing. Something she hadn’t quite managed to fully accomplish. She was without makeup, which made her look temptingly touchable. She hadn’t had time to restrain her hair, which made her look even more so. She wore no necklace, no earrings—and she’d missed the top button of her jacket.

  Trying to ignore the latter, he held out the paper.

  She took it from him, looking faintly puzzled at its importance.

  When she read the headline, her flawless skin lost a hint of the natural peach that blushed her cheeks.

  Utter disbelief washed her delicate features as she looked back up. “Is this true? It can’t be,” she concluded, before he could respond. “How is this possible?”

  “The part about Prince Broderick isn’t true,” he assured her, wishing she weren’t standing so close. Standing in front of her as he was, towering over her, he could see a small strip of her champagne-colored bra. The scalloped lace lay taut against the firm swell of her breast. A small bow centered with what looked like a tiny pearl rested at the base of her cleavage. “He isn’t in power. The queen is. As for the rest of it, it’s quite accurate.”

  Incredulity and concern turned her voice to nearly a whisper. “The king is in a coma? From what? And why wasn’t Her Majesty notified last night?”

  He could practically see the wheels spinning in her mind. But whatever else she was about to say seemed to vanish like woodsmoke in a coastal wind, when he reached over and slipped his fingers beneath the lapel of her jacket to fasten the button himself.

  The glimpse of her breast was entirely too tantalizing. But the feel of that soft swell beneath his knuckles nearly made his mind go blank.

  His glance jerked to hers, their eyes colliding, his fingers still brushing her skin. In the space of a heartbeat, the air turned as heavy as the atmosphere on the island when clouds rolled in from the sea with a blast of wind, thunder and jagged bolts of lightning. Electricity snapped. Her breath stalled.

  “It was distracting,” he muttered, and finished what he’d started by sliding the oyster-colored disk into place.

  He could swear he felt her heart slam against her breastbone. He knew his own wasn’t beating too steadily. But as he slowly pulled back and let his hand fall, his only thought was that he couldn’t believe what he’d done. He never took liberties with a woman who hadn’t made it clear that she wanted his touch. And this woman, the queen’s best friend and lady-in-waiting, had never given him reason to think anything other than how glad she would be to see him leave.

  He had no idea what she was thinking at the moment, however. Or what she was about to do. She took a step back, her hair draping forward to hide the hint of heat in her cheeks as she glanced at the paper she still held.

  “It says he has encephalitis,” she murmured, focusing on the one word that jumped out as her lungs began to function again. The headlines had shaken her, but she felt rattled beyond belief by his touch. It felt as if he’d branded her. The feel of his knuckles still burned her flesh. More disconcerting still had been the way that initial jolt of heat had shot straight to her toes.

  Duty demanded her concentration. Latching on to it, she did her best to ignore her scrambled senses and the rather uncertain way Harrison was watching her. “I must tell Her Majesty about the king.”

  “She already knows. She was told days ago,” he said, confusing her further still.

  “But I saw him in the garden just yesterday.”

  “We had tried to keep the king’s condition from the public,” he said, thinking the queen could explain later, “but Her Majesty needs to be informed that the public now knows. There will be a press conference within the next couple of hours.”

  The queen had known? Gwen thought—only to suddenly realize why Her Majesty had seemed so ambivalent about her duties of late.

  “Of course,” she murmured, wishing her friend had confided in her, wishing she knew why she hadn’t. Wishing the air in the room were easier to breathe.

  She could practically feel the tension radiating from the admiral’s big body. It snaked around her, through her, as tangible as the warmth still lingering on her skin.

  “If you will wake her and break the news of this to her yourself, I’ll come back to talk with her after I’ve met with the minister of foreign affairs.” He glanced at his watch, his other obligations clearly pulling at him. “There is much she and I must discuss.”

  Gwen gave him a nod, took a step back. As she did, his edgy glance fell to where her hand protectively covered the vee of her jacket.

  Silence echoed off the ornate walls. In the taut moments before his eyes lifted to hers, his jaw had hardened enough to shatter his back teeth.

  The silence was disturbing enough. But the banked heat in his gaze was knitting her nerves into a knot when one of the double doors behind her opened.

  She turned to see Queen Marissa cautiously watching them both.

  Chapter Three

  Queen Marissa stepped into the room. Her shawl-collared dressing robe of white Egyptian cotton was tied snugly at the waist and flowed in loose folds to the floor. Like Gwen, she hadn’t taken time with her usual chignon. She’d simply brushed her straight dark hair back from her striking and strained features. Faint shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes, attesting to her lack of rest.

  Clearly worried by their presence in her receiving room, she glanced between the mountain of tension in navy and gold braid and her surprisingly unfinished lady-in-waiting. The sight of Gwen looking less than her polished self seemed to alarm her even more than the early hour.

  “Gwen,” she insisted of her friend. “What’s going on?”

  “There’s been…”

  “A development,” Harrison supplied. “Your Majesty,” he added, because it would have been unpardonable not to.

  “A…development? Of what sort?”

  Relieved to have his attention off her, Gwen immediately handed him the newspaper. Seeming relieved by the reprieve himself, he deliberately avoided her glance as he took it and moved across the room. With his broad back to her, he dominated the feminine space as he handed the paper to the statuesque royal, who warily regarded its print.

  “We’ve had a security leak,” Harrison said, dutifully overlooking the fact that his queen was in her bathrobe as she stared at the morning headlines. The woman was unquestioningly beautiful and quite formidable in her own right. But unlike Gwen there was nothing about her that provoked him in anyway. She was simply his queen. The woman behind him was…temptation.

  “The public now knows that His Majesty is ill,” he continued, too focused on his task to question the admission. “There has been no change in his condition overnight. He rested comfortably,” he advised her, since the king’s condition was of paramount importance to them all, “and his status remains the same.”

  With a nod of his dark head, he indicated the paper that held the queen transfixed. “As to what we must do about that,” he proceeded, “Colonel Prescott is with Prince Broderick advising him now of the change in his…role…shall we say.” He wasn’t about to go into the bit of shuffle and switch they’d been playing. Not with Lady Gwendolyn listening. “Sir Selwyn will oversee his carefully worded statement about how he is here to represent the Crown in a ceremonial capacity.

  “The public will need a statement from you, too,” he went on to advise her, taking her silence for consideration. “The royal press secretary will issue a statement within the half hour, confirming the king’s condition. He will also clarify that due to the king’s incapacitation, without an appointed heir, the power of the monarchy passes to you.”

  To Harrison’s way of thinking, that was how matters should have been handled all along. It was how they had been handled ever since they’d had to involve her directly…days ago. The queen hadn’t been terribly pleased to know that the RET had ke
pt news of her husband’s condition from her, or to know that they had been acting on her behalf when the power should have come to her to begin with. But she knew her husband well, and she knew his men had had no choice but to acquiesce to his plan.

  Penwyck was not a democracy.

  “Your Majesty.” He paused, wanting to make sure he had her full attention as he reached the most important point of all. “It is imperative that you assure everyone that the business of the Crown will be conducted as usual. You need to offer that assurance as soon as possible.”

  The queen drew a deep breath, her slender shoulders rising beneath her robe. He felt sure she was about to agree. Time was of the essence. Everyone needed to act, and quickly.

  Instead she pinned him with a look of sheer incomprehension.

  “You’ve said nothing about my son.” The paper rustled as she dropped it to the beautifully painted occasional table between her and a dainty Queen Anne chair. “Do you know where he is? Do you know if he’s all right?”

  A tug of impatience tightened the muscles in Harrison’s broad shoulders.

  “We haven’t located him yet,” he was forced to admit. “But we have no reason to believe he’s been harmed,” he hurried to assure her, thinking that might help. “Intelligence is still working on it.”

  His impatience made its way to his jaw as his queen sank into the chair beside her. He needed her to get dressed, to meet with Selwyn, to address the kingdom. Sitting wouldn’t get any of that done. “Your Majesty,” he prodded, hoping to nudge her on.

  Incomprehension turned to sheer pain when she looked up at him. “You have no reason to believe he’s been harmed? How can you say that? There was a struggle in his room,” she reminded him, her voice suddenly, precariously close to cracking. “Of course there’s reason to believe he’s hurt. And all you can tell me is that they’re ‘working on it’?”

  There was moisture in her eyes, a thin ribbon of it that lay just above her lower lashes. The tears were sudden and totally unexpected, but they were definitely there. So was the telltale hint of pink on her nose that made him fear those tears might spill at any moment.

  A swift and certain unease had him at an unfamiliar loss for words. He had never seen the queen behave in any manner that couldn’t be described as stoic, reserved or regal. At the moment she looked frighteningly close to crying.

  He had been through battle with the allies in the Gulf War. He’d led covert missions as a young soldier. He knew the threat of nuclear war and the delicate game certain countries played with armed detente. But the combination of a woman and tears was the only thing he could think of that struck true fear in his heart. He’d been trained for those other circumstances. He knew the measures and countermeasures to mitigate loss and damage.

  He hadn’t a clue what to do with a distraught woman.

  His only defense was to pretend he didn’t notice.

  “I’m afraid it is, Your Majesty. As soon as there is anything else to report, I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime,” he continued, determined not to sound as anxious as he felt to turn her over to the woman he could feel staring at his back, “it would be best if you could meet with the king’s speechwriters as soon as possible to work on your statement.”

  The queen felt utterly betrayed. Gwen could see that, in the bow of her shoulders, the bend of her neck. Someone had kidnapped her son. Now someone close to the Crown had broken its confidence by conveying privileged information to the press. She looked the way Gwen imagined she had to feel—sick and completely overwhelmed.

  That was how she sounded, too, as she slowly rose and rested her hand on the back of the chair. “If you’d kindly arrange it, I’ll meet with the speechwriters in an hour,” she said to her.

  Gwen could barely get through some of those greeting-card commercials without choking up. Seeing her friend’s distress, her throat began to feel suspiciously tight. “Here or in the royal office?”

  “Here. Please. You might also have Mrs. Ferth start canceling preparations for the state dinner,” she added, turning to her rooms. “And I could use some tea and headache tablets.”

  Fully prepared to do as she’d been asked, Gwen gave an automatic little curtsy. But the door had no sooner closed behind the queen than Harrison blocked her path to the telephone.

  “That dinner can’t be canceled.”

  The burning in her throat gave way to a choke of disbelief as Gwen blinked at his very solid-looking chest. Certain she had misunderstood, she looked up at him as if he’d spoken in an utterly alien dialect.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can’t cancel, it,” he repeated, his tone as unyielding as his stance. “It’s too important.”

  “Considering everything else that’s going on, a dinner is too important?” Incredulous, she stared up at him, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. Thinking better of the position when his glance immediately dropped between her lapels, she settled for clasping her hands in front of her.

  “Calling these preparations off is the very first thing we should do, if for no other reason than to make Prince Owen’s captors think Penwyck isn’t going to sign the treaty. That would keep the prince safe. At least for a little while,” she amended, having no idea how his safety could be ensured after that.

  “It can’t be canceled,” he repeated flatly. “Just continue with your plans for the celebration.”

  At his stubborn insistence, or maybe it was the order, the delicate arches of her eyebrows drew toward center. “I don’t believe the queen or anyone else cares to think about celebrating with the king ill, one of her sons off climbing mountains heaven-only-knows where, another son missing and an estranged member of the royal family standing in for the Crown. In case you didn’t notice, Her Majesty is upset.”

  She was upset, too—with the inconceivable turns of events, the uncertainty of their outcomes and with him. Especially with him. He’d shown no compassion whatsoever for their queen.

  He betrayed no sympathy for her now, either. “None of this is about people having a good time at a party,” he informed her, the frustration he’d held back finally taking hold. “It’s about perception and power and Penwyck’s credibility as a nation with the United States, Majorco and some two-bit subversives who don’t have the guts to play by the rules. The alliance will take place. It will be celebrated as planned. It’s what the king wanted, and it’s what he’ll get.”

  “At the cost of his son?” she demanded, still torn by the pain she’d seen in her friend’s face.

  For a moment Harrison didn’t say a word. With her eyes locked on his, he realized how easily she would be able to push him to reveal more than was wise to defend his decisions. Feeling a certain sympathy for the men who’d come up against Mata Hari, his irritated glance moved from the blue fire flashing in her eyes to the challenging tilt of her chin. When he realized he was staring at her incredibly tempting mouth, he jerked his glance back to hers.

  “You do your job,” he growled. “I’ll do mine.”

  “I take my orders from the queen.”

  Silence fell like a rock.

  In that echoing stillness, Gwen suddenly realized she was shaking…inside, where the man looming over her couldn’t possibly notice. But the nerves in her stomach were quivering all the same.

  She was normally utterly correct in protocol, and never would she have dreamed of challenging the man regarded by many as being nearly as powerful as the king himself. But as far as she was concerned, protocol had taken a royal hike about the time she had allowed him to button her jacket instead of pulling back to do it herself.

  Her only excuse for not having done just that was because he’d caught her so completely off guard.

  Her only excuse for not letting him know, even subtly, that she didn’t appreciate his boldness was that she didn’t want him to know she was still thinking about it. She didn’t even want to consider how he’d react if he knew he’d caused her to feel sensations she hadn’t f
elt in so long she’d forgotten they existed.

  His eyes darkened as he took a step closer, causing the quiver to catch.

  “If you won’t take orders from anyone but the queen,” he murmured, his voice deceptively, dangerously civil, “then it is up to you to convince her that the show must go on. If you don’t,” he warned softly, “the prince’s life will be worth less than this island’s dead coal mines.”

  He was close enough that she could see the individual spikes of his dark eyelashes. Close enough that she could see the small white scar just under the hard line of his jaw and the carved lines of his sinfully sensual mouth.

  He had just placed the prince’s life squarely in her hands.

  Realizing that, she swallowed a hint of alarm.

  “You’re not going to put that sort of responsibility on me.”

  He leaned farther into her space, turning alarm to panic. “I just did,” he told her, and reached for the handle of the door. “Make sure she’s ready in an hour.”

  Gwen wasn’t sure if it was fury or fear pumping through her veins as he walked out and left her staring at a carved medallion on the door. All she knew for certain was that she felt totally disconcerted by the events of the last twenty minutes—and that the man responsible for most of that unease possessed all the finesse of a tank.

  Make that a battleship, she mentally amended, making herself breathe deeply. Or a destroyer, or whatever those big hulking masses of steel were that left the sea so turbulent in their wake.

  She needed air.

  She needed an hour in the palace gym.

  She needed tea.

  The thought that the queen needed tea, too, had her moving immediately toward the phone. Gwen had always known her priorities, and those priorities took precedence over her own needs now.

  After ordering tea and toast from the cook, she placed three more quick calls, took a small bottle of analgesic from Mrs. Ferth’s desk and quietly opened the door to the queen’s salon. The anteroom was decorated much as the receiving room, only there were more family pictures here, and the desk was the queen’s.