Chapter 32 Scruples Evaporate
Scruples Evaporate
MARC
“And you, Madam, should prepare yourself for a press conference,” Torbald spits. “I intend to reveal her online identity tomorrow.”
Ella tears at my fingers, trying to get me to release her.
No chance. The exposure of her gamer tag and social media handles will be a dark day for the monarchy, but it wouldn’t be in the same league as strangling her mother’s minister.
I pick Ella up and throw her over my shoulder, jogging silently down the hall.
When a door opens behind me, I dive into a supply closet, shutting us in.
“You can’t fight him,” I say.
“Did you hear?” she says, trying to get past me. She dodges. I weave.
I shake the flashlight on my phone, illuminating the narrow space, and catch her close.
“Sorry, Ells. There is not a prayer you’re going to get past me.” She starts scaling my height, which would be the right time to tell her that she’s the love of my life, and that we should get down to sorting out the logistics—if she would just stop moving for a second.
She wedges herself over my shoulder with a grunt, pushing against my shoulder blade, and brushes the doorknob with her fingertips. I carry her out of reach. “You can’t beat up the prime minister.”
I slip her forward until we’re eye to eye, and sense the moment her breathing shifts from murderous to physically aware. She’s attracted to me, and maybe we could use our time more wisely. I could press my luck and—
No. I shake my head and peel her off me, one limb at a time. There is a risk of rushing her when she’s in the wrong frame of mind. I have to be strategic.
“Did you hear?” she repeats, sinking on a stack of cardboard boxes, her mouth trembling. “She’s going to fight. For me.”
She toys with her fingernail, rubbing the smooth tip against her thumb. I catch it and she lets me hold her hand a minute while her thoughts are elsewhere.
“I didn’t think she was capable of that.” Her lips twist. “She hasn’t forgotten, right? That I’m not even one of the good princesses?”
Ella looks up when my fingertips skim her cheek. “She knows she just destroyed her bargaining position to protect a mouthy, online gamer, right?”
Excuse me. My mouthy, online gamer. We’ve wasted too much time already, and I want to skip to the part where she realizes she loves me.
“I have to do something,” she says. “Now.”
I look around the cramped closet. I mean, my lips are right here.
“Take me somewhere,” she says, grabbing my wrist. “I have to think.”
We end up at a coffeehouse on the road to Lindenholm.
The building has the spare modern lines of a frame house, with black cladding in stark contrast to the brilliant green of the sun-dappled grove.
The interior is warmly lit, and a single barista—backed by high shelves filled with vinyl records—takes one look at our faces, briefly registers Ella’s princessness, and puts on a Coltrane album.
She takes our order and directs us to a private booth next to a large window.
I ought to feel like I’ve caught my breath, but when Ella is sitting opposite me, I am not calm.
The coffee arrives with a plate of warm danishes.
Last week I would have been pouring advice about diplomacy into her ears, but now the prime minister is targeting my princess.
In the last hour, I went from feeling a duty to keep her from killing Torbald to wanting to dig the hole she buries him in.
Apparently, I inherited the ruthlessness—and the limited imagination—of my Hanaya ancestors; always with the burying.
“He’s winning,” she says, watching the sunlight shift through the window.
“He’s not winning.”
“No? Freja is out of the succession. My position will be gone or radically curtailed tomorrow. Alma is going to have to be so careful to roll this thing out with Jacob, because having bagged a couple of hunting trophies, the prime minister won’t stop trying for more.”
I don’t tease her about the dream of California sunshine and bottomless mimosas. If Torbald wins, that could be her future. I brush her cheek. She doesn’t lean into it as she used to, but leans back and takes a drink.
“So what’s our plan?” I ask, dropping my hand.
“My plan,” she corrects.
I ignore that. “How do we take him down before he takes you down?”
“There’s no need to involve you in my ruin.”
I lift the mug and blow a cooling breath across the coffee, ruffling the surface “Hypocrite,” I whisper.
Her back straightens. “That’s the second time you’ve called me that.”
The window frames a green and delicate wood, reclaimed from wildness with careful tending.
I repeat the words I’ve been hearing for months.
“‘Marc, you have to get Alix onboard with running the estate. She’s dying to help you.’” I smile.
“You’ve been like a broken record all spring.
‘Don’t do it alone, Marc. Don’t carry it all on your own shoulders.
’ If that advice is so good, why aren’t you taking it? ”
Her lips curve with the shadow of a smile. “I only meant—”
I reach across the table, lacing my fingers with hers. She lets me touch her still. “The deal is that, when you have a couch to move, the people who love you are going to show up.” I want to say more, but there are too many briars between me and this princess to hack them away in one afternoon.
“Those sound like the words of a man who’s going to let his sister help manage his ancestral home,” she says, brushing her thumb across mine.
These marks of affection are unconscious to her, but I’m like an overheating server room with no kill switch.
When they open up my insides, everything will be melted.
Ella is right, though. I can’t palm Alix off with farmer’s markets when she could be doing more. “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll accept my sister’s offer to help if you accept mine.”
“I don’t need—”
“Or I could send her to America. I’m sure Alix will find fulfillment sitting on the board of an HOA in Miami, handing out citations for improper lawncare.”
She clicks her tongue and I tighten my fingers. “We both agree that the prime minister needs to be taken down a notch,” I insist. “You need help.”
She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t let go of me.
“I thought you said it was insane and reckless to consider toppling a democratically elected government, which (a) is weak sauce—Torbald’s governing coalition controls more than 57% of parliamentary seats, and they aren’t in danger of anything but boorish leadership—if anything, I’d be doing them a favor; (b) we live in a constitutional monarchy, and he’s undermining the monarchy part; and (c) you don’t really want to help. ”
I grin and glance away, my eye caught by a piece of framed artwork hooked to the wall. The bright red embroidery floss looks like a string of fate. It curves and tangles back in on itself in a bold, graphic typeface. Home is where them haters ain’t.
I release a laughing breath. From a narrow cot in Seong, to an oversized bed in a Handsel flat, to the cozy antique in Lindenholm, Ella has been with me all along. Home. When her walls are under attack, my scruples about what I owe my government and my oldest friend evaporate.
“You’re getting help whether you want it or not,” I say. She gives another light tsk. “I could execute a series of assignments tailored to my unique skill set.”
“You are a very good kisser.” She winks.
I love her.
“Anytime, of course,” I say, rocking our hands. “I mean that I can hide your digital footprint behind so many firewalls and false leads that they’ll still be looking for it when the glaciers melt.”
“Alright,” she surrenders, giving me a teasing two-fingered salute. “Do your duty. In the meantime, I’ll close out my SquadRun account and wrap up this business of Torbald’s whereabouts. Tonight, if possible.”
“How?”
“I’ve got an idea.” Her brows pucker and she takes a sip of coffee. “I wonder if Dahlia is in town.”
I take notes of our plotting in an app, giving her editing privileges (practically a declaration of my intention to love her forevermore, if she cared to notice), when a text message pops up on my phone.
“PM Announces Noon Presser to Reveal Identity of Trash Panda Princess”.
I turn the screen around to show her. We have less than twenty-four hours and we can’t afford to waste time.
When I drop her at the doors of the Summer Palace, I resist the urge to press a kiss on her lips.
Before my car makes it onto public roads I’m on the phone with Alix.
“Listen closely,” I say. “The woods next to the walled garden are to be regarded as hallowed ground—untouchable. Otherwise, you have the go-ahead to develop this hotel idea.” She squeals and I punch the volume down.
“Celebrate later. I have a bigger problem and I need your help.”
“I’m suited up,” she laughs. “Tom, too, of course.”
“Ella is in trouble. Her online activities are about to be exposed. Can you convince her team to mop up her SquadRun history?”
“How did you know—”
“You know the anonymous runt who keeps running interference in the castle sequences?”
The silence stretches and stretches until she makes a strangled sound.
“Alix,” I break through her questions. “One more thing. I’m trying to convince Ella to be my girlfriend, so any brainstorming you can do in that direction would be great.”