Once Upon A Tiara: Once Upon A Tiara / Henry Ever After

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Lili stopped. Oh. She’d been too steamed to notice.

“C’mon, Princess,” Trey coaxed. She had to give him a sliver of credit. He hadn’t abandoned her. She couldn’t even blame him for getting overly amorous; she had flirted. “I promise not to touch you,” he added.

She was tempted to accept the ride, but decided to hold her ground. Once a fool, and all that. “I’d rather not. There’s a farmhouse nearby. I remember passing it. I’ll go there and call for a cab.” Fiddlesticks. If she hadn’t been forced to sneak out, she could have borrowed Mrs. Grundy’s handy cell phone. That was what came of relying on others to handle the necessary details.

Trey said, grudgingly, “I have a phone. I can call for you.”

“I’d rather not be in your debt,” she persisted, although she was beginning to realize that she wasn’t entirely out of her predicament. The owner of the farmhouse might not be thrilled to be awakened by a stranger knocking at the door at midnight, even if the stranger was a princess. And the road was extremely dark and deserted. Whether that was good or bad, she wasn’t sure.

“Suit yourself.” Trey gunned the engine, then peered over his shoulder one more time. His white teeth flashed. “I suppose those VIP passes are out of the question?”

She almost laughed. Kissing Trey was worse than kissing a slimy toad—at least the toad didn’t kiss back. But there was something roguishly charming about the guy, for all his crudeness. Maybe…

She wondered if it was possible to accept his cell phone but not his overtures. Trey said, “Well? I’m getting cold,” then shrugged and peeled out with a squeal of the tires, tossing Lili a devil-may-care wave.

“Um, Trey?” she said.

It was a minute before the sound of the convertible died in the distance. Lili gathered her courage. This wasn’t a problem. No, it actually was, but she could handle it. They must have taxicabs in Blue Cloud, so she had every hope of getting back to the hotel with no one the wiser…except herself.

She’d walked several paces before certain unusual sounds penetrated her consciousness. She stopped, flummoxed. Music—very faint, but carried on the night breezes. In the opposite direction from the farmhouse. Maybe there was another house just down the road, its inhabitants obviously still awake.

Hmm. Lili turned back, her interest piqued. Was that a violin? Accompanied by a guitar? Not a recording. She drew closer to the source, driven to hurry. There were voices, and laughter. It was beginning to sound like a free-form party; exactly the kind of excitement and adventure that she’d wished for.

She smelled wood smoke. Saw the flicker of a bonfire. Tents in a field. Dancers. A Gypsy encampment…Jana’s people! Of course. Not unlike the bands of Romany who occasionally traveled through Grunberg and neighboring countries. She hadn’t realized until Jana Vargas’s appearance at the reception that there were Romany clans roaming America also.

Lili’s blood stirred. An evening in a Gypsy camp! What a treat to stumble upon. Jana had seemed sincere about welcoming Lili, even if there was some question about the Vargas diamond lurking between their families.

“AMELIA GRUNDY, HERE.”

“Whazzat?”

“Grundy. I’m with the princess.”

“Er…right. Lili.”

“Her Serene Highness, Princess Liliane of Grunberg.”

“That’s what I said.” Simon scrubbed a hand through his matted hair. He’d fallen asleep with an open book resting on his chest. Bad form for a swinging single bachelor. “Who’s this, again?” he said into the telephone, heaving up to switch on the bedside lamp. He righted his twisted glasses. “Grundy, you say?”

Why would the British nanny be calling him?

“The princess is missing.”

“Missing?” he echoed, suddenly feeling more alert.

“Since ten o’clock. It’s now half past twelve.”

“But you said you’re with her.”

“Not literally, Mr. Tremayne. She’s vanished.”

“For two and a half hours. That hardly constitutes an emergency, does it? The princess struck me as a lively sort of girl. She’s probably out having a good time.”

“Exactly.”

“Ah.”

“She shouldn’t be on her own,” Grundy said.

“Are you certain she is?”

“Evidence suggests she is not.”

The book on Simon’s chest became as heavy as a headstone. He knocked it aside. “What am I supposed to do about that?” He sounded crabby, but he couldn’t help it. Initially he’d thought that he and the princess had shared a moment. An understanding. Apparently not. Lili was cavorting, and it wasn’t with him. Stood to reason. The lovely princess was such a distraction that he kept forgetting about his rotten luck with women. Every one of his short list of relationships had ended with him being the chump.

“She’s of age,” he said.

“Only twenty-two. One mustn’t forget that she comes from a traditional society. She’s been protected all her life. This is her first time on her own—”

“Poor girl. No wonder she’s kicked away the traces.”

Grundy carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “She’s inexperienced, our Lili. Naive, one might say.” She fell quiet, but her silence was obviously expectant.

Inexperienced? Naive? That wasn’t his impression of the princess, Simon thought, recalling how she’d teased him with her “innocent” little stripper act. Was he missing a clue?

“I am worried,” Grundy said. “Princess Lili plays the flirt, but I do think she’d be susceptible to overtures from the wrong kind of gentleman.” She paused significantly. “One who is perhaps planning to ‘bag a trophy,’ I believe you’d say in the American vernacular.”

“Send the bodyguard after her.”

“I have, sir. However, I believe reinforcements are called for. Mr. Wilhelm has discovered from the concierge that the princess left the hotel with a stranger.”

“Was it the Tower?”

“Pardon?”

“The man she met at the reception. Tall, well-dressed. Cleft chin. Freakishly hirsute.” Simon was feeling around on the floor for his trousers. He found a sweatshirt and put it on instead, right over his pajama top, holding the phone with his chin. “His name’s Stone.”

“Yes, I do believe that’s the one. I have a terrible feeling he’s not on the up-and-up.”

“Where’s Wilhelm now?”

“Searching for the convertible they drove away in.”

Simon thrust his arm, and the phone, through a sleeve, then brought it back to his mouth. “I’m going to hang up now and call Henry—Chief Russell.”

“My goodness, no. We can’t have the police involved. This must be kept discreet, lest the muckrakers get wind of it.”

“Henry will keep it off the record, if possible. The man’s a bloodhound. He’ll probably sniff the air once and know exactly where Lili—Her Highness—is. We’ll have her back to you in no time, none the worse for—” He stopped.

Inexperienced? Naive? Susceptible?

Was Grundy trying to tell him the princess was a virgin?

“Indeed,” said the Brit.

“Huh?” said Simon, feeling damn slow on the uptake. The hair on the back of his neck was tingling. Oddly, he suspected that Grundy had read his mind and responded in agreement.

“Indeed, the princess will return none the worse for the adventure. She always has before.”

Now that she’d hooked him, Grundy was sounding less urgent. Even complacent. “The princess has done this in the past?” Simon asked.

“On occasion.”

Then why call out the big guns? Simon shoved his left foot into the running shoe he’d found under the bed. He was searching through the clots of dust for the other when it struck him that he wasn’t the big gun. He was the mild-mannered museum dweeb, not the hero. He didn’t rescue damsels in undress.

So why in tarnation had the efficient and spookily perceptive Amelia Grundy chosen to call him?

AMELIA HUNG UP the phone, a small smile puckering her lips. Magic had been in the air the instant Lili met Mr. Tremayne—she herself had felt the thunderbolt that crackled between the young couple. But one had to be circumspect about these things, especially when it came to guiding impulsive young princesses. Mistakes might be made.

Not even “fairy godmothers” were foolproof. Look at the Princesses Natalia and Andrea—now there was a pair of stubborn young ladies!

“Patience,” Amelia whispered to herself. “Their time shall soon come.” Just as Princess Lili’s had.

It wasn’t for Amelia to force the issue. Better to be discreet, waiting patiently for Lili to blunder about blindly until the perfect moment struck. When it did, Amelia would ensure that the princess’s eyes were opened to her intended destiny.

Which wasn’t to say that in the meantime Amelia couldn’t give a nudge or two to point the reluctant Prince Charming in the right direction….

5

“THANKS A LOT,” said Henry. “I’d just gotten home. Didn’t even have time to take the uniform off.” Minutes after Simon had called, the police chief had driven up in a patrol car, wearing his uniform of a medium-blue shirt with the badge emblem on the pocket, and navy pants, not as crisp and perfectly creased as usual. But still not as rumpled as Simon, who could put a wrinkle in a concrete wall if he had to wear one.

Henry shook his head. “I knew all this museum malarkey would be a major pain in my keister. And it’s not even the weekend yet.”

“Technically, it is.” Simon tapped his watch face. “Past midnight.”

Henry glowered. “And I’m on baby-sitting duty.”

“Princess rescue unit would be more accurate.”

“Why do I have the feeling we’re rescuing someone who doesn’t want to be rescued?” Henry had scanned the streets as they drove through town, but now his attention was mainly on the road. They were traveling north on a wooded lane. Although Simon wasn’t privy to the reasons why, there was a dogged look on Henry’s face that said he knew what he was doing.

“The princess’s personal desires don’t seem to be a priority. It’s all about her public persona.” Simon looked out at the rolling hills, the forests, punctuated by the occasional stately brick house or family farm.

“How are we supposed to find her?” he asked, his voice betraying an edge of desperation. The idea of Lili frolicking with Stone somewhere out here in total isolation did not sit well.

“You’ll see.”

Simon glanced at Henry’s set jaw. “Sorry about this. I thought you’d want to be informed—” In his time in town, he’d learned that the police chief was the repository of all town gossip, accusations and petty squabbles, and Henry seemed to want it that way. “But maybe I shouldn’t have called, after the day you had—”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Then you managed to reapprehend your suspect?”

Henry had been more steamed than Simon had ever seen him when he’d returned to the museum to interview Jana Vargas and found the snack shop empty. Although the door was still locked, one of the small second-story windows had been left open—all of a quarter inch. Henry had spotted that at once. Simon obviously wasn’t a crime-stopper, but he hadn’t needed his college degrees to deduce that Lili was involved. The Gypsy woman had probably crawled out the window, saw it was too far to jump, then got lucky in finding the princess in the next room. Lili had removed her shoes and stood on the trash can to pass over the key, then slipped, crashing into the position he’d discovered her in. This afternoon, he hadn’t gotten the chance to explain his theory to Henry. The chief had raced off in pursuit of Jana Vargas.

Henry grunted. “My suspect walked into the station, bold as you please.”

“What?”

Apparently the chief wasn’t fully satisfied by the surrender. He shook his head in disgust. “Not even an hour after she’d escaped.”

“Then she’s still in custody?”

“Nope.” Henry shrugged. “I questioned her, but I had no good reason to hold her. No evidence. Her partner got away with the loot and we haven’t been able to pick him up. We don’t even have a clear ID on the guy. I couldn’t hold either of them for long, unless we can catch them fencing the necklace.”

“So why’d she turn herself in?”