Find a Christian store

<< Go Back

Protecting the Prince (Brides of Belles Montagnes) (Volume 3)

By Carol Moncado

Order Now!

Tony Browning stepped off the plane in Athmetica, the capital city of the Sovereign Commonwealth of Athmetis. The unseasonable weather caused heat to roil off the tarmac in visible waves and threatened to give Tony heat stroke. The suit he wore was suitable for the current weather in Ravenzario but much too warm for Athmetis. Why hadn’t he thought to check the temperature?
For this trip, he was on his own. No chauffeur would meet him at the airport. No car would whisk him away to his destination. In fact, no one official knew he was here. He’d used his position as Queen Christiana’s head of security to gain diplomatic status in the island nation, but only because it afforded him less hassle. If, as he suspected, he ended up in the United States, he’d travel even more conventionally.
Once through the airport, skipping baggage claim, he hailed a taxi and took it to the hotel, in a village a few kilometers away, where he’d stay for the next couple of days.
If he couldn’t find any sign of the young prince and his nanny here, he’d move on to the next location on his list.
“Sir?”
Tony blinked as the driver got his attention. “Yes?”
“We’ve arrived.”
He shook himself out of his stupor. “My apologies.” Tony started to open the door, but paused. “Are you familiar with this area?”
“Of course!” His chest puffed up, as though offended Tony would ask such a thing. “I rode my bike around the entire village as a child. You want to go somewhere, I know the best way to get there.”
“You grew up here?” Could this be the stroke of luck he needed?
“Two streets over. My Yaya worked at this very hotel.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rex Cromer, sir.”
“Rex, can I hire you for the next couple of days?” Confusion filled the other man’s face. “I need a guide who knows this area well. You would need to be on call twenty-four hours a day, but you will be well-compensated.” Tony named a figure he knew would entice the other man.
“What’s the catch?” Rex’s eyes narrowed.
“No catch. I’m doing research into some people I believe came here in late 1999 or very early 2000. I need to find them. They may or may not still be in the area, but if at all possible, I need to know where they went.”
Could Rex’s eyes narrow any further? “Why? Are you a hit man?”
Tony laughed. “Quite the opposite. They ran from a family member who was quite dangerous. He has finally been put in prison for life. It is safe for them to come home, but no one knows exactly where they are anymore. I know where their first destination, here in Athmetis was supposed to be, but beyond that, we don’t know.” Time to lay most of the cards on the table. “To be honest I’m not even completely sure what names they used, just that they didn’t use their real names.”
He could see Rex turn the proposal over in his head. “Very well. You were to have been my last fare for the day, and I have two days off. You should talk to my Yaya. She’s known everyone in this area for the last sixty years or longer.”
Within ten minutes, Tony had been ushered into Yaya’s home. After exchanging pleasantries, he got down to business, pulling photos out of his pocket. “Do you remember seeing either of these people around the turn of the century?”`
Yaya took the photos and examined them carefully with the help of a magnifying glass. “So young,” she murmured as she held the photo of Prince Nicklaus. “So sad.”
“So sad?” Tony’s heart constricted. Had something happened to the prince and his caretaker in the intervening years? They hadn’t even considered that possibility.
“So sad his parents died so young.” She looked up and stared Tony in the eyes. “His sister and he were the only remaining members of their immediate family, no?”
She knew? How?
Yaya must have seen the questions in his eyes. “Rex, please get our guest something to drink.”
“Of course, Yaya.” His gaze shifted between Tony and his grandmother, but he left.
“Who are you?” she demanded as soon as Rex was out of earshot. “Why do you want to know about these two people?”
Tony pulled out his credentials. “I am the head of Queen Christiana of Ravenzario’s security detail, ma’am.”
She took them and examined them closely. Satisfied, she returned them. “Very well. You may call me Yaya.”
He bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment.
“Do you believe in fate?” she asked.
Tony shook his head. “No, ma’am. But I do believe in divine guidance. I believe the Lord leads us places we need to be, when we need to be there.”
“It is why your queen is still alive.”
“Correct. She was sick when the car...”
Yaya waved a hand. “No. I read the papers, young man. I saw the stories about Henry Eit.” She spit into the planter next to her chair. “No good, that man. I know this for many years. But, if the papers are to be believed, the only reason you were finally able to arrest him was because Duke Alexander overheard something he should not have, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then you understand when I tell you I believe God brought you to the right taxi driver today.”
Tony blinked slowly. “What do you mean?”
“Come. I show you.” Yaya slowly stood. Tony reached for her to give her a hand, but she waved him off.
He followed her to the courtyard and toward a decorative door, covered with hanging plants. One of Yaya’s wrinkled hands reached through the greenery and did something Tony couldn’t see. The door swung open revealing a small room behind it. He looked at Yaya. “What is this?”
“This is the place Michaela and Nicklaus stayed when they fled Ravenzario.”
***
Michelle Metcalf set her suitcase down next to her bed. It was good to be home.
“Michelle?” Nicholas’s voice carried up the stairs. “Where do you want the rest of this stuff?”
“I don’t care,” she called back. “We’ll deal with it later.”
There was a thump followed by quick steps up the staircase. Nicholas rounded the corner into her room. “You glad to be back, Mom?”
He’d been in her care for twenty years and had called her mom most of that time, but it never failed to both make her uneasy and fill her with love. It was good that he called her by name, too. It reminded her he wasn’t really her son.
“The cruise was wonderful.” She smiled as he flopped onto her bed. “Thank you for the gift.”
“I’m just bummed we had to wait so long to take it. It was supposed to be a way to get out of the Midwest during the winter, not when it’s almost summer.”
Michelle shook her head and gave him a mock glare. “You had classes, exams, and none of the cruises we wanted to take coincided with your spring break. Waiting until the semester ended was perfect.”
“I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let me get international texting on my phone while we were gone. I only sent Tessa three messages the whole time.”
Nicholas had saved for two years to buy them the cruise, but household expenses, including cell phones, were paid by Michelle’s job. The account filled with funds from King Richard prior to his death hadn’t been touched in many years. Not since they’d fled Athmetis weeks after the assassination. The money had been used to purchase plane tickets to the United States. Some of it she later used to purchase their first home. King Richard’s connections, including a couple of men whose names she still didn’t know, had helped her secure what she needed but once the plane landed in the U.S., they had been on their own.
Deciding a single woman with a young son and no visible means of income would be suspicious, Michelle took the first job she could find. The daycare provided her with a place for Nicholas to be with her at all times, but still be around other children. For months he didn’t even sleep in his own room for Michelle’s peace of mind and because of the nightmares that continued to plague him. Her own sleep had often been less than restful with fears for Nicholas’s safety always in the forefront of her mind. When she did doze off, she’d been hounded by dreams of her own.
The icy water. The king yelling at her to take Nicklaus and go. The fear of being found too soon. The fear of drowning. Of freezing as she tried to carry the terrified three-year-old to the safe house only she and the king knew about. The small, secret rooms in Ravenzario. The trail left to Athmetis. The short stay underground. Virtually no time outside of that little room for over a month. It had, quite literally, nearly driven her insane.
Michelle shook her head to clear it of the distant memories. Why were they suddenly in the forefront of her mind? “What?” she asked, dimly aware Nicholas had asked a question.
“I asked if you heard about the guy who used to live down in the Springfield, Missouri area?” He was used to her wool gathering, but he still seemed annoyed.
She hoisted the suitcase and set it on the bed next to him. “No, I don’t believe I did.”
“I heard some people talking about some rumors on the ship the day we boarded, but I forgot all about it until a minute ago.” He tapped on his phone. “Yep. There’s this guy from near Springfield who married some queen in Europe.”
A feeling of dread filled Michelle’s stomach. She’d carefully followed the goings on in Ravenzario and knew of the coincidence. What were the odds sweet Christiana would have married a man who lived less than four hours from her brother? She’d watched the wedding, even more astounded at the man chosen to walk the queen down the aisle. Michelle picked up one of the few remaining clean shirts and turned to put in her drawer. “I heard something about the wedding. Last fall, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. You watched part of it, didn’t you?” He went on before she could answer. “But apparently, he got shot just a little over a week ago.”
She couldn’t turn around. He’d see it written all over her face. “What?”
“Uh...” He must be reading an article. “So this Alexander guy married the queen last fall. I guess her uncle was a bad dude who’d been arrested, but he was given some kind of Easter pardon.”
A pardon? How had she missed that? She’d read about his arrest when it happened two years earlier and waited impatiently for someone to contact her, to tell her it was safe to finally return to her homeland, but no one ever did.
“He somehow got onto the palace grounds and tried to kill the queen. I guess she managed to get away.”
Michelle silently cheered her former charge. She always had been an ingenious little girl. The pictures from after the accident nearly broke Michelle’s heart.
“But Alexander - he’s a duke now, I guess - was fighting this uncle and got shot in the leg. He’s going to be okay and this time, the uncle was charged with treason.”
Could it really be safe? He’d gone after Christiana again. She knew that, after nearly two decades running the country, he had to have far-reaching tentacles. The stories a few months earlier about Christiana’s first fiancé proved that. The acquisition of an Easter pardon did so again. No. Until someone came to tell her it was safe, she wouldn’t tell Nicholas the truth, and they wouldn’t return. Until they had to.
“Mom?”
Nicholas caught her attention again and she turned. “What is it?”
Before she realized what was happening, he’d rolled off the bed and stood in front of her. “What’s wrong, Mom?”
“What do you mean?”
He gently wiped the tears off one of her cheeks. “You’re crying.”
She managed to give him a small smile. “I suppose I am.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to tell you before the cruise, but I learned something recently.” She hadn’t known before the cruise, but she didn’t want to tell him exactly when she’d received the information. “We’ve been safe here a long time, but it’s time to start thinking about moving.”
Nicholas crossed his arms in front of his chest. “What brought that up?”
“That comment you made about the pardon. I received word that one of the men who would like to harm us was pardoned not too long ago. I’d hoped to wait until I had more information to tell you, but that mention of it must have triggered something in me.” She hated lying to him, but she couldn’t tell him the whole truth. Not yet. She prayed he wouldn’t pick up on her duplicity.
“So we’re moving again?” He’d hate it, but he’d already resigned himself to the idea.
“I don’t know yet.” She reached for a Kleenex. “Let me do some research, and I’ll let you know soon.” The research would be more about where to go than if they would move. By the end of the month, they’d be settled somewhere new.

Order Now!

<< Go Back


Developed by Camna, LLC

This is a service provided by ACFW, but does not in any way endorse any publisher, author, or work herein.