Inconceivable! Read online

  We continued down the hall.

  “We call this part of the palace ‘The Flat’ because it’s the family’s private apartment.” John opened a wide door on the right. “And this is my room.”

  He’s showing me his bedroom?

  I stepped into an elegant space. It had a high ceiling and green, textured wallpaper depicting several scenes. They all featured caricatures of Asian men in conical hats with long flowing beards and moustaches.

  A bed covered in a shiny green comforter took up one wall. A broad, light green rug provided a dose of warmth against the hardwood floors.

  I pointed to the bed. “King size?”

  “What else?” He winked, and my flirt-dar kicked into high gear. He didn’t invite me to the palace as a professional courtesy. We were in his bedroom for Pete’s sake.

  “That’s some serious wallpaper.” That’s right. Take your mind off his bed.

  “It is, and it’s there to stay. When your home’s a palace, it’s like living in a museum. I can’t very well tear down hand-painted silk wallpaper from China that dates back to the 18th century.”

  “Well, you could, but I bet you’d suffer the wrath of the Historical Preservation Division.”

  There was a sunken sitting area by the windows where a golden harp gleamed in the morning sun.

  “Do you play?”

  “A little,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

  “Would you play something for me?”

  “Sure. Except this really has to be off the record.”

  “Why? Afraid harp playing might ruin your playboy reputation?”

  “Something like that.”

  He sat on the little stool and tilted the instrument back so it rested on his shoulder. He extended his arms and fingers, and strummed the strings. The sound throbbed through the air, delicate but also seductive. The sight of his fingers plucking the strings with strength and skill gave me an unexpected twinge of desire.

  I sank into a small green settee and closed my eyes. The music was beautiful, so personal. He responded as he felt the melody and chord progression push faster in some spots, and then retreat to a slower and softer sound in others. The final notes hung in the air.

  “I hardly know what to say… except that’s amazing. How long have you played?”

  “I started taking lessons when I was nine, after Mom died. She used to play. It’s a way for me to feel connected to her.”

  This intimate revelation startled me; I suspected very few people ever saw this side of him.

  “You’re very talented. Why don’t you play with the Toulene National Symphony?”

  “There aren’t many things about myself that I can keep private. This is one of the few. Remember―this is off the record.” He smiled, but there was a warning in his expression.

  “Yes, completely off the record. Thank you for sharing this with me.” Disarmed by his openness, I felt compelled to reveal my new assignment. “And, if we’re being honest here, then I need to tell you something. My editor at The Morning Dispatch is making me write a blog about you and your family.” I physically cringed, crinkling my nose and squinting my eyes against whatever reaction my news might provoke.

  “What’s it called?”

  My toes scraped against the inside of my boots. “First-Rate Royals.”

  “So, you’re not covering the second-rate cousins?” His smile revealed total amusement.

  “I know. It’s a stupid name. It’s what the paper wants.”

  “Well, maybe the world will finally get a first-rate look at our family. The article you wrote from our interview was accurate and fair. That’s all we expect.”

  Expect? Had Tilda been right? Maybe he did invite me here to ask if I’d write stories to push his family’s agenda.

  He returned the harp to its resting, upright position. As he sat down beside me on the settee, my neck felt hot.

  “Hatty, I’m having a press event Tuesday to celebrate the opening of the new airport runway. I’d like you to come.” He gazed into my eyes with a sincerity that made my breath catch in my throat. The intensity of the moment bubbled with the secret chemistry of our attraction. Surely he felt it, too.

  “Sounds great. I’d like to cover it.” I looked down at my hands and blinked to clear my head. Chemistry or not, don’t expect any softball questions, buddy!

  “Excellent. I’ll look forward to seeing you there.” He stood and went to the door. “Let’s go see the library.”

  “Now you’re talking. Libraries are magical. I could spend hours surrounded by books. It’s like hanging out with your closest friends.”

  “Then you’ll love ours.”

  When we arrived in front of wooden double doors, John swept them open with exaggerated ceremony. The room had floor to ceiling bookshelves and a couple of those cool ladders that slide side to side.

  John led me to a book under glass. It was open to a page with elegant handwriting and an illustration of a slender bird-like creature near the top. Its body curved into a C with its arms jutting out to hold a long, straight horn that extended from its mouth to its tail.

  “This is a 14th century manuscript of the Magna Charta cum statutis. Scholars believe Phillipa of Hainault commissioned it for Edward III to celebrate their marriage.”

  “She commissioned a book for him? That’s so romantic. I’d swoon over that kind of gift.”

  “Romantic? Hardly. It’s a legal text.”

  I chuckled. “Maybe she wanted to start their marriage by laying down the law.”

  John looked at me, puzzled.

  “You’re not familiar with the expression ‘lay down the law?’”

  “Sorry.” He smiled, but still looked lost.

  “We use it a lot in the Ozarks. It means she was trying to show him who’s boss.”

  “If that’s what she was doing, she was ahead of her time by several centuries,” he said, lifting the glass.

  I leaned forward for a closer look. It was hard to imagine someone creating such intricate pictures and lines of text by hand without making any mistakes.

  “We have this text on loan from Harvard until Monday. Curators from the national history museum are coming to get it, so they can put it on public display for six months.” He replaced the glass.

  “Wow. The perks of being royal.”

  “My father’s a student of history. They brought this here at his request. He’s always chasing some rare book or document.”

  After the library, we peeked in a large sitting room, three small parlors, a billiard room, and a casual breakfast area where the family members eat their meals in a more normal atmosphere. At Belvoir, that meant enjoying toast and fried eggs prepared by the cook while checking email on your phone. If my run-in with the paparazzi was any indication, the royals rarely experienced anything close to normal life when they left the palace. Next, he took me down several flights of stairs into a cellar area and flicked on a naked bulb overhead.

  “These are the subterranean tunnels. During various wars, my family hid valuables down here and even sheltered prominent allies who needed protection. Now, they’re abandoned.”

  I gazed into the three tunnels. Absolute darkness sat like a wall just a couple of feet from where we stood.

  “This is Creepsville.”

  John touched my arm, making me jump. “You’ve got chicken skin.”

  “What?” I looked down at his hand holding my arm under the light. “Oh, you mean goose bumps. Yes, well. I bet a group of ghost hunters would have a field day down here.”

  “They’ve requested access to these tunnels. We get petitions from psychics and the like every year asking to investigate Belvoir, and we reject all of them.”

  “You’re no fun. Wouldn’t you like to know if there are spirits in here?” At the word spirits, a fresh crop of goose bumps sprouted on my arms.

  “The only spirits we care about come in bottles. Let’s move on.”

  We finished our tour above ground, stepping onto th
e wide stone patio out back. The peacocks had moved farther into the yard, beautiful even with their tails stowed.

  “What’s going on over there?” I nodded to a small section where three men were clearing out dry brush.

  “That’s going to be a garden. Granny has high hopes for it next year.” He calls the queen Granny? I thought it had to be Queen Mum or something.

  “Even though today’s tour is off the record, may I do a blog post about your grandmother’s intentions to start a garden?” It was such a lame story, but it was better than leaving empty-handed.

  He squinted as he looked toward the small, dry patch of weeds and bushes. It appeared incapable of producing anything luscious and green.

  “Yes. But let me have the public affairs office draft a press release.”

  “Wait. If they do a press release, everybody will have the story. Have them send it to me first and give me a five hour lead. Can you live with that?” It’s like we were haggling over the price of produce at a farmer’s market.

  “Sure. I’ll let them know.”

  “And tell the palace not to send out any pictures of the guys over there. Let me break in my new phone by snapping a few photos. At least that way, I’ll have something no one else does.” I smell an exclusive!

  “Aren’t you Miss Bossy Boots?” His voice rose with mock shock and I laughed at the nickname. It was completely out of character for him to say that, but also adorable.

  “Bossy Boots? You have no idea.”

  “Sounds like he definitely wants something from you.” Tilda huffed into the phone as she paused mid-run to hear the details of my palace visit.

  “No! Everything’s on the up and up. He showed me around and invited me to cover his presser Tuesday at the airport.”

  “Hatty. That project is a huge waste of money. If you go, you have to hold him accountable for the budget overruns and delays. His father forced the Department of Administration to hire a company that’s run by close friends of the Meinrad family. In fact, they probably own part of it.”

  “Yikes. I’m sure the other reporters will ask those questions before I have the chance to chime in.”

  She choked out a laugh. “Don’t count on it. The royals almost never take reporters’ questions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you get to ask him questions, it’s likely to be one-on-one after the event. He almost never opens the floor for reporters to shout questions at him.”

  My thoughts flipped into overdrive as a blurry idea came into focus: he’s letting me ask questions because I’m an intern. He thinks I have no idea what I’m doing. That ticked me off. I began mapping out a plan to prove him wrong.

  “Okay. I’m stopping by your office Monday to get some background. Let’s bust this boondoggle wide open.”

  he granite tomb. That’s what staffers called the National Assembly building, referring to the dimly lit hallways and cave-like alcoves. After an hour-long briefing with Tilda on the airport runway debacle, I left her office and headed to the library. I wanted to do some more research for my investigative story.

  Of all the odd nooks and unusual spaces in this building, the library was my favorite. Gilded columns fit for a church conferred a holy status on the books lining the shelves between them. Ceiling art mimicking the heavens added to the spiritual aura. Libraries were my second home. As the daughter of a third grade teacher, I spent many hours sitting between floor-to-ceiling book shelves at her school, and even once fell asleep among the stacks. Come, and I will give you rest.

  My ankles wobbled a skosh when my heels melted into the thick carpeting. I headed to the back room, a less impressive space, where I could search through the property deed archives.

  I’d scanned the volumes on two other occasions, spreading out the old registers on the floor around me. As much as I loved how Toulene’s history unfolded with each entry, I needed to know a specific fact: who owned the land where the smelter sat near Kortrijk? This bit of information was one of several missing pieces in my story. Scientists from my university were also digging, literally turning shovels full of dirt to see if toxins were leaking from the plant into the soil. Others were investigating the incidents of disease and illness in the vicinity of the smelter. For my part, I was keeping tabs on the researchers and talking to neighbors.

  Cracking open and carefully examining each register was my detective work. I. Loved. It. I may or may not have photoshopped a Sherlock Holmes pipe and hat onto my newspaper badge photo while I waited for an edit last week.

  As I settled onto the floor toward the very back wall, I heard the door open, and then close with a soft click. Footsteps coming toward me? Yes, but in the row next to mine.

  “Tell him he has to be more careful.” It was a man’s voice, hushed and rushed. “You’ve caught me at the assembly. Can we discuss this later?”

  I silently set aside the papers in my lap and raised up on my knees. I slid out a handful of books at my eye-level. Gazing over the books on the other side of the shelf, I saw dark pants.

  “Yes. Keep them away from each other.” The voice oozed irritation.

  I stood slowly, and removed another handful of books silently. Or almost. John’s eyes looked back at me through the narrow shelf space. I gasped and dropped the books, creating muffled thumps.

  “I need to go. See you soon.”

  John rounded the corner of my row. He wore his authority as well as he wore his dark suit. The determination driving his steps spoke to the power he wielded in this building. And all I saw was that impeccable hair, complete with the gorgeous bit of waviness in the front.

  “Imagine meeting you here.” I tried to sound contrite for spying.

  “You’re getting the hang of stalking royals, aren’t you?” An intensity infused his voice and he didn’t smile.

  “Hey, I was here first. Maybe you’re stalking me.”

  “How much did you overhear?”

  “Not much. You sounded pissed.”

  “Pardon? I’ve only had water and tea today.”

  Damn British slang! “I mean you sounded upset.”

  He exhaled, relaxing a little. “May I join you?” He gestured to the ground where my backpack sat slouched and several books lay open. “What could possibly interest an American journalism student back here?” He picked up one of the books.

  “Just a reporting project I’m doing that has nothing to do with any of you royals.” Thank goodness.

  “Will I see you tomorrow at the airport?”

  “Yes. Will I get to ask you questions afterward?”

  “You can ask me anything right now.” His voice was low and he gave me a half smile, a flirty little firework that invited me to respond in kind. But there was no way I was going to pass up the chance to ask him a tough question.

  “Why did your family pressure the Department of Administration to hire Hastert Construction for the project?”

  “God, Hatty! Don’t you ever give it a rest?”

  “Hey, we both live on-the-record lives.”

  In a blur, he sprang toward me, his hand swiping across my left shoulder.

  “Sorry. There was a spider on you.”

  “Ick. Thanks. Occupational hazard of hanging out in old buildings.”

  I peeked down at the offending creature. Spindly legs radiated from a body the size of a quarter. As I stared at the beast and scooted away from it, John took my hand and helped me up.

  “Okay. That was a close call.”

  “I’ll answer your questions tomorrow. All of them. Thank you for letting me interrupt your work.”

  A wave of shock pulsed through my body as I realized he was still holding my hand.

  “No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

  He squeezed my hand before letting it go. “Tomorrow.”

  stood by the mult box where the radio reporters had their recorders plugged into the sound system to capture the audio of the dedication ceremony. The guards had corralled print and r
adio journos into a segregated area at the back of the hangar. We still had a sightline to snap cell phone photos, but the photojournalists and videographers were up on risers in a separate area nearby. Mine was a fun bunch with their made-for-radio wardrobes and frenetic energy.

  When the event ended, Grimmy McGrim, aka Limo Guard, materialized and pulled down the rope that marked our area. He motioned to the reporters to exit, and everyone did. I hung back a moment. When all the journalists were gone, he nodded, and I followed him. In the hubbub of everyone leaving, no one noticed.

  He took me through a side door that led outside the hangar. A black car, maybe the same one that had picked me up Saturday, was waiting.

  “Come here often?” I asked the prince as I sat beside him in the back of the car.

  “Only when I want to escape the press.”

  “Thanks for letting me invade your space.”

  “It’s not an invasion. I invited you. We’re going to drive to the palace, and you can ask questions until we arrive. Then, I’ll have a car take you to the newsroom.”

  “Thanks. Okay. First question: why did your family pressure the Department of Administration to hire Hastert Construction for this project?”

  “Really? You’re going to start with that?”

  I looked at him expectantly.

  “You assume we pressured them. My grandmother merely sent the administrators a letter endorsing Hastert Construction because they have the strongest record of working with Turkish immigrants. We want to encourage these foreign workers to integrate into society, and employment is a big part of making that happen.”

  Okay. Sounded legit. Note to self: double check his assertions.

  “Your family owns part of Hastert Construction. Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

  “Double check your facts. No one in my immediate family owns a stake in the company. My cousin Gerhard Hohenstaufen of Germany is part owner but that hardly constitutes a conflict of interest. I stand behind my grandmother’s decision to recommend them for the project.”

  “The runway project ran over budget. Twice. Why?”