Who was she kidding? A week wasn’t going to make a lot of difference. What was the old saying? Silk purse out of a sow’s ear. This whole scheme was ludicrous. No one in their right mind was going to mistake a midwestern librarian for a future queen. No one.
“If you’re ready, I’ll continue.” His voice slashed through her thoughts. But this time he wasn’t a mind reader. She’d never be ready. Never.
Her parents hadn’t raised her to rock the boat, but neither had they raised her to back down when the going got rough. And this definitely qualified as rough.
“Fine, finish your briefing, Major.” She glanced out the window as the limo slowed. “If I’m not mistaken that big, pink building on the hill must be the villa.”
His gaze followed hers. “It is.”
“Then you don’t have much time to tell me what I need to know.”
Jane waited, sensing the major wasn’t happy with her response, maybe with her whole attitude, but she didn’t care. And that in itself scared her.
She had always been aware of and sensitive to the needs of those around her. She’d had little choice in the matter. The only daughter of a couple who had long before given up on ever having children, her arrival into their lives was not a blessing as much as a shock. A little like a Christmas gift delivered too late and the wrong size.
Her earliest memories had been of needing to be quiet to let her father prepare for one of the college English classes he taught, or to wait for her mother to finish editing a manuscript. Her parents were both studious, quiet people who had taught Jane, and taught her well, not to cause problems.
But right then she didn’t feel accommodating or tolerant of others’ needs. Not one bit, and she guessed that the major sensed it, too.
“We’ll talk later. At the villa,” he announced before leaning forward to push one of the buttons lining the arm of his chair. “Stefan, I’d like you to drive to the side entrance rather than through the main gates.”
“Yes, sir,” came the quick response.
“Slipping me in through the side door?” Jane heard herself ask in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. Did hysteria come masked as sarcasm?
“I’m trying to make this as easy for you as possible.”
She found herself wanting to believe him.
“You’ll have a maid who’ll help you unpack your luggage.”
Great. She didn’t even know she had luggage.
“I’ll give you about an hour before I come for you.”
So she had a little over sixty minutes to pull herself together, she thought, watching as the limo slid smoothly beneath an arched entryway, into a cobblestone courtyard that might have been charming except for the barbed wire and glass spikes sprouting along the top of every wall and the absence of anything that might have served as a hiding space. Not even a pot of flowers broke the starkness.
The limo stopped too soon for her. But, between the look the major shot her and the actions of a uniformed man opening her door, it looked as if she wasn’t going to be allowed to linger.
Let the show begin, she thought, sliding forward to step into the bright, unadorned courtyard.
Less than ten minutes later she found herself in a bedroom the size of her whole apartment back in Sioux Falls. Cream-colored. Silken upholstery. A bed large enough to host a slumber party dead center in the room.
It was a fairy-tale room: tasteful, ultimately feminine and so quiet Jane was tempted to tiptoe across its polished wood floors.
“Mademoiselle Rostov, welcome home.” A young woman’s voice interrupted her perusal. “It is good to have you back.”
Jane spotted a woman standing in the doorway of an adjoining room the size of a small bedroom and froze. The woman could not have been too many years younger than Jane, but she carried herself with a quiet maturity. Maturity or wariness, Jane wondered, noting that the woman’s gaze did not rise from staring at the floor, nor did the welcoming words extend to her expression. If anything she looked as though she was waiting to be rebuked.
So, Major McConneghy, Jane thought silently, what am I supposed to do now? Never having had anyone wait on her, she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know this woman, or treat her with the same degree of familiarity as one addressed a waiter in a restaurant.
With a pithy thought regarding the major’s ancestors, she decided that when in doubt, do what felt right.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded like sandpaper, “I don’t recall your name.”
The woman started before quickly glancing up. “It’s Ekaterina, mademoiselle. Ekaterina Tabruz.”
Well, either Elena should have known this woman’s name, in which case Jane had already blown things, or the king’s fiancée would never have bothered to ask. Either way it was too late to go backwards.
“Thank you, Ekaterina. It seems as if I’ve heard so many names lately that they become jumbled in my memory.” That at least was the truth. Or part of it.
“Would mademoiselle wish me to draw her a bath or turn down the bed covers for a rest?”
This having-a-maid thing was going to take some getting used to, she realized, feeling too restive for either suggestion but not wanting to cause too much suspicion on Ekaterina’s part as to why her mistress was acting out of the norm.
“Actually, Ekaterina, what I’d like is to ask a few questions.” At the other woman’s immediate look of wariness, she added, “I’m feeling very disoriented and am sure you can help me.”
“Yes, mademoiselle.” Ekaterina bowed her head and folded her hands together in front of her. Not an auspicious sign for a friendly chat, Jane thought as she wandered toward the far side of the room and a set of French doors.
Opening the doors she immediately felt better, as the pine-and cedar-scented breeze drifted in. The cries of birds beyond the fortified walls sounded like a National Geographic soundtrack.
There was a small balcony, ringed by an elaborate wrought-iron railing and, Jane noted with a quick glance down its length, obviously connected to a room just beyond hers.
“Whose room is next door?” she asked the silent Ekaterina.
“It is the major’s, mademoiselle.”
“Major McConneghy’s?” Not that the news should have surprised her, but it did.
“Yes. He asked specifically that you be given this room. For the security. If you wish to choose another room at the villa you must ask it of the major.”
Like that was going to happen.
She tried a different tactic. “The villa seems different?”
“Different?” The maid’s face looked confused, until she nodded. “Ah, I understand.”
Jane was glad somebody did, because it sure wasn’t her.
“They said it was made to look like a Swiss home but maybe not so. I can show you around the rooms to see more if the major allows it.”
Jane breathed a silent sigh of relief. So she had not previously been at the villa. Which was good news. Too bad Mister I’ll-Protect-You forgot to mention this little detail. He had given her explicit instructions about the location of everything, but they all seemed to be jumbling in her head. If she hadn’t been here before it meant she could ask questions about the layout and not be expected to know how to find her way back through the labyrinth of halls and stairways she’d traveled earlier. At last, something was going