Chapter 38
A lexandra
Footsteps drummed Lancaster House’s wood-panelled entrance hall, and I spun around, relief filling my heart. Raphael hadn’t answered my call, nor could I find him. After leaving Dad, I’d searched outside, but he was nowhere in sight.
But it wasn’t Perkins returning him to me. Instead, he brought Jackson.
I stared wide-eyed at Raphael’s friend, like he could produce my boyfriend from his back pocket. “Do you know where he is? I’ve been trying to find him.”
“Not sure. All I know is he assigned me shadow duty.”
“I thought you’d be hunting down the photographer?”
He fell into step with me, and we made for the arched exit. It felt strange for Raphael to have just disappeared. Definitely for him to not answer his phone. I didn’t like it. Pausing before we went outside, Jackson explained the crowd of people who’d arrived at the café which was to the far south of the grounds.
My shoulders sagged. “Then it was Johnnie.”
He pulled a face. “It feels too easy. I saw him there, sitting in the middle of it. He was brazen. I’ve only seen pictures of the man, but he was easy to identify. Like he didn’t care if he was seen.”
His phone buzzed, and both of us jumped. He snapped to answer.
“Wait. I’m going to put ye on loudspeaker. Alex is with me.”
He tapped the screen then held it between us.
Valentine spoke. “The gift shop is packed, and your man Will is here.”
My mouth fell open. “Both of them? They were both in on it?”
Another call flashed on Jackson’s screen. A group call from Ben. Jackson switched to accept, keeping it so I could hear.
“Dori and I got the photographer. Straight outside the front gate.”
“Oh my God.” I clasped my hands to my mouth.
Dori chimed in. “I had him on the ground with a knee in his back. For good measure, I shoved his face in the mud. After what he put you through, I wanted to do more, but Ben said I had to chill.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
Ben answered. “He’s broken the law. We’ll keep him until the police arrive.”
Perkins morphed out of the shadows. “May I suggest your team bring the infidel inside? I have a solution.”
Ben agreed, but a cacophony of sound built around him. “Alex? There’s a real crush going on out here. Sorry to say your team leader is in the middle of it.”
“Riss as well? They were all in on it?” I’d expected her to turn up with Sir Reginald, but what were the chances those photographers were at those gates when others had followed real leads elsewhere?
Because they’d been told. By her.
The events of the past several weeks took on a darker hue. Every member of my team had been conspiring against me. All of them in the pay of who could only be Sir Reginald and for reasons I couldn’t even guess at.
Then the other implications hit home. A crowd outside the gates meant someone would eventually tell my father. I’d left him to make his phone call in private, while I’d tried to find Sir Reginald, but I needed to handle this. I just wished I had Raphael with me.
“I’m going to go out and do my public appearance now,” I told the team. “Jackson, can you come with me? I’ll make it brief so they go away.”
“Actually, I don’t think you will.” A figure stepped into the open doorway, his face shadowed until he shifted into a patch of light.
Sir Reginald had found me.
Jackson muttered something into his phone but didn’t budge from my side. Shock stole my breath. I’d wanted him to come. Riss being here should have been indication enough. Anger cramped my belly.
“You have some nerve talking to me like that,” I bit out. “You endangered my life. You paid someone to drug me. Was it also you who scared me in Ossington? Why bother?”
He dipped his head. “No, Your Royal Highness. You misunderstand. I have merely arrived with your team to return you safely to London.”
The three corrupt bodyguards at different corners of the estate had been my idea, but under his control, it looked like a sting operation so I couldn’t leave.
“Then it’s true. Why on earth do you think I’d go back?”
“Come, come, your holiday is over and your boyfriend has walked away.”
I stared. “Raphael? No, he hasn’t.”
Jackson’s expression of incredulity backed up my thoughts. Raphael would never leave me. But where was he?
Sir Reginald continued. “It has always troubled me when members of the family do not pay the appropriate respect to what they owe the Crown. King Philip entrusts upon me a great deal, and I do not take that lightly. If we need visibility throughout the year with trivial headlines of a princess in a frock to keep the attention of the British public, then that’s what we shall deliver.” He angled his head like a snake about to strike. “What you’ll deliver. I believe I’ve made my position clear.”
I took a step, furious. “You’re deluded. Dangerous. When my cousin finds out what you’ve done?—”
“Oh, your cousin won’t care about that. Only that we get the results, which means you getting back in the fucking helicopter with me and doing as you’re told.” His eyes gleamed as he delivered his killer blow. “Or your ex-boyfriend’s real name gets splashed all over the afternoon news, and your father loses his home. Can I speak plainer?”
Perkins recoiled in shock.
I swallowed a bitter sense of loss. He had no remorse and complete certainty over what he’d come here to do.
At the doorway, Ben marched in with Dori and Valentine, the latter holding a photographer with his wrists caught behind his back. Sir Reginald’s eye bulged.
At once, several people started speaking.
But it was a booming voice at the top of the sweeping staircase that silenced us all.
On the first landing, my father stood, resplendent in his blue smoking jacket and with antlered stag heads on the wall either side of him. “Alexandra, I assume this is the new security team you’ve appointed? Perkins, would you assist them in locating the brig?”
The brig was my father’s dungeon, used in previous centuries to house local villains.
“At once, sir.” Perkins bowed his head and indicated for Valentine to follow him. Then he paused and gestured at a now-silent Sir Reginald.
Of all the people in the world the private secretary was afraid of, there were only two. The king, and the king’s uncle.
“That one, too, sir?” Perkins asked.
My father gave a ratty tap of his toe. “Obviously. Lock them both up until I’m ready to deal with them. I have other business to attend to and do not expect to be disturbed.”
Sir Reginald squawked in protest, but Ben was already on him and strong-arming him after Valentine and the photographer.
I squeaked in shock and got out of their way, Dori coming to my side and Jackson staying with me as I restarted my heart and followed them to another staircase and down.
Perkins took a set of old, thick iron keys off a hook on the wall and unlocked two stone-walled rooms with barred doors. Ben and Valentine thrust one man in each, and Perkins twisted the keys in the locks.
Sir Reginald flew at the bars of his cell, spittle forming around his lips. “You cannot keep me here.”
Perkins didn’t flinch. “Actually, His Royal Highness is designated Constable and has the power of arrest. Ye committed a crime, as did your friend.” He addressed the sullen photographer who hadn’t made a peep. “Your brazen confession enabled your arrest. If ye have a complaint, take it up with the police when they arrive.”
He pocketed the keys then ushered us all out.
I wanted to laugh, or to enjoy Dori’s story of his exploits in tackling the photographer. But more, I had to find Raphael.