‘You’re taking us to the palace?’ Rose asked.
‘Would protective custody mean a palace?’ Nick asked.
‘It might,’ Rose said. ‘Protection doesn’t mean dungeons.’
‘There’s dungeons in the palace,’ someone called.
‘Your sister surely wouldn’t put us in a dungeon?’ Nick said, forcing his words to sound lightly amused. ‘That’s hardly a family thing.’
‘We’re not a very close family,’ Rose said, sounding dubious.
‘Look, failing to send Christmas cards hardly deserves dungeons,’ Nick said. ‘Does it, Julianna?’
‘I’m the Princess Julianna,’ Julianna said, but she sounded worried.
‘And I’m going to be your brother-in-law,’ Nick said, sounding astonished. ‘Surely we don’t have to be formal in the family? You don’t want to call your sister Princess Rose-Anitra, do you? Which you’d have to if we wanted to be formal, as she’s just as much a princess as you are. Maybe even more as she’s the Crown Princess.’
Whatever Julianna and Jacques had expected, it wasn’t this. The conversation included the crowd. There were cameras, and the journalist was taking furious notes. The journalist was backing into the crowd as she wrote, and the crowd was closing in around her, cutting her off from sight.
The photographer was still shooting, and there were a few other cameras in view as well. This was being documented, whether Jacques willed it or not.
And Jacques didn’t like it one bit. ‘This is a fiasco,’ he yelled, staring round him in impotent fury.
‘No, it’s a picnic,’ Rose said, clinging to Nick’s hand proprietorially. ‘These people have been really welcoming. But if you have other plans for us…’
‘Take them,’ Jacques growled, and the uniformed men moved in, surrounding them as if ready to seize them-or stop them escaping.
‘Hey, we’re coming, Julianna,’ Rose said, still sounding amused. ‘There’s no need for your men to make an effort on our behalf. Coming, Nick? I think we’re expected to go in that car.’
And before anyone could stop her she’d tugged Nick forward and slid into the Rolls Royce.
Nick slid in beside her. He was bemused, but his mind worked fast, and he was totally appreciative of what she’d done. With one swift movement she’d given Jacques and Julianna an invidious choice. They could haul Rose and Nick bodily from their car and toss them into one of the black cars that had been following-where they’d been clearly intended to go.
They could join them in the Rolls, intensifying the impression of family.
Or they could use one of the black cars themselves.
Nick sank into the soft leather of the Rolls, looked out and saw indecision on Jacques’ face. And fury.
This was no game. They were playing for huge stakes here. Did Rose have any idea what she’d just done?
The stakes were upped about a millionfold. Jacques was being forced to state his case right now. Should he treat them as undignified prisoners, when Rose had just reminded the crowd that Julianna was her sister? Should he treat them as equals by climbing into the car with them? Or should he follow calmly behind?
Jacques looked apoplectic.
‘Come,’ Julianna said uncertainly, and tugged her husband forward towards the Rolls.
‘No,’ Jacques said, and sneered, slapping his wife’s hand away. ‘Let them go. Take them straight to the palace, as they said. Let them have their delusions of grandeur before they leave this place for ever.’
And he slammed the Rolls’ door after Nick.
‘Hoppy,’ Rose said urgently, realising too late that her dog was still outside the car. ‘Please…Hoppy!’ she yelled.
‘Take them away,’ Jacques growled, and then, as Hoppy dived forward from where he’d been snoozing after a surfeit of sausages, Jacques drew back his booted leg and kicked him. Hard.
‘Drive,’ he yelled, and the car moved forward.
‘You realise we’re in trouble,’ Nick said. They’d driven in silence for three minutes, and it seemed he was the first to have found his voice again.
‘Hoppy’s in trouble,’ Rose whispered, sounding close to tears. ‘He kicked him.’
‘Yes, but he’s okay.’ He’d twisted and seen as they’d left the clearing. ‘The little boy with the collie pup was picking him up.’
‘He was alright?’
‘Yes,’ he said, although he couldn’t be sure.
‘He hates us,’ Rose said in a small voice, and all the bravado had gone. All of a sudden she looked small and vulnerable, and…afraid? No, not afraid. Just sad. ‘They both do. Julianna’s my sister, and they both do.’
‘I’m not sure that Julianna does. Jacques, yes, for what you represent.’
‘Which is?’
‘A threat to his future.’
‘You think we should go home now?’
He smiled but it was a tiny smile. What had they got themselves into?
There was no friendly driver here. Their driver was in the same uniform as Jacques, albeit with less bars on his sleeve. He looked grim and businesslike, and there was no way they could talk to him through the sealed glass-partition.
The car was speeding northward into the city. Nick glanced behind them to see a stream of official cars. Black ones. There were outriders on motorcycles.
‘Yorkshire’s looking good,’ he confessed, but at that Rose firmed and looked behind them and out at the outriders, and she set her face.
‘No. No, it doesn’t.’
‘Hell, how bad was it?’
‘You ever delivered a calf in a sleet storm in Yorkshire in February?’
‘Um…no.’
‘Dungeons are okay,’ she said. She took a deep breath. ‘They’re a sight better than being a breeding mare.’
‘A breeding mare?’
‘Never mind,’ she said flatly. ‘That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.’
‘My foster mother used to say that about toothache,’ he muttered. ‘And I’m dead scared that what’s in front of us isn’t toothache.’
‘Hey, you’re not supposed to scare me,’ she said, still subdued but trying to sound indignant. ‘You’re the diplomat. Talk your way out of this.’
‘I’m not exactly sure that’s possible,’ he said. ‘I can’t talk us out of this Rolls. Let’s see where they put us next before we test my talking powers.’
She subsided back against the leather cushions. Her behavior back at the river had been brilliant, he thought. Yes, he was supposed to be the diplomat, but her diplomacy-and sheer effrontery in staring her sister and brother-in-law down-had been amazing.
But she was paying for it now. Reaction was starting to set in. Her face had paled, and when he glanced at her hands he saw she was clenching them together to stop them shaking.
He swore and moved across and tugged her against him.
She froze. ‘We…We’re not play-acting now,’ she muttered.
‘You mean I don’t have to act like your husband? No,’ he said grimly. ‘But I do have to act like we’re two people in trouble and I should have known something like this would happen.’
‘How should you have known?’
‘I’m a big boy. I just gave Erhard the benefit of the doubt-he said there wouldn’t be major problems, and I-’
‘Of course there would be major problems,’ she said, astounded. ‘We’re trying to wrest the throne.’ Then she paused. ‘But you aren’t thinking major problems in the way I’m thinking major problems, are you? Major problems to me are being escorted to the airport and told to leave.’
‘I guess there are more major problems than that.’
