To Protect a Princess by Jess Michaels

Chapter 23

If the carriage ride out of London had felt like it lasted a lifetime, the one back to the city felt like it took but a snap of the fingers. Ilaria leaned against Jonah’s arm, watching out the window as the buildings multiplied all around them, the traffic slowed the rig, the sounds of merchants and residents shouting and laughing and living their lives pierced the barrier and reminded him that he couldn’t hide anymore.

As the scenery changed, so did everything else. The sense of duty this remarkable woman had abandoned during their time in the country rose in her. He saw her transform from his lover back to a princess. It was something in the way she held herself, something in her expression that shifted. That placed her back out of his reach, just as she always should have been.

He felt her pulling away. Their conversations had dwindled, become less personal, especially in the last hour of the ride into the city.

He knew he had to separate himself just as much. Perhaps even more. With difficulty, he shifted, patting her knee before he moved to the opposite side of the rig. She stared at him as he did so, pain flashing in her eyes at the withdrawal.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “But I need—”

“I know,” she whispered. Then she leaned across the carriage and caught his hands. He couldn’t pull away as she lifted them to her lips and kissed his knuckles, then his palms. Her touch was so gentle, but it was like fire. “Whatever else, I will never be sorry.”

Relief washed through him at that. He prayed it would remain true for the rest of her life. He knew it would for him. “Neither will I,” he whispered, and scooted forward on the carriage seat so that he could kiss her.

Her breath hiccupped into his mouth on a strangled sob, his fingers flexing against hers as he tasted her deeply and slowly. Only when the carriage stopped did he do the same, leaning away from her just in time for the door to open. She blinked at the tears that filled her eyes and glanced toward the footman who had come to escort her out.

“Your—Your Highness,” he stammered, the color leaving his cheeks. “I didn’t realize you were returning today.”

Jonah wrinkled his brow at the statement. So odd considering the chaos this return should have created in the household, but perhaps Grantham had thought it best to keep things quiet. Jonah couldn’t fault him for that.

Ilaria took the young man’s hand and allowed herself to be helped out of the carriage. She didn’t glance at Jonah over her shoulder as she made her way toward the steps up to the door. It opened and the household butler, Greenly, executed a quick bow. “Your Highness, I am happy to see you.”

He sounded as confused as the footman had outside, and it made no sense. Perhaps some lower house servant wouldn’t have heard of her impending return, but one as elevated and on top of things as Greenly? There was no way he wouldn’t be aware.

The hairs on the back of Jonah’s neck began to rise in warning and he glanced around to ensure there were no hidden villains lying in wait.

“I will…I will ascertain where the family is,” Greenly said as Ilaria moved into the house before him.

“They are not expecting me?” Ilaria asked, and now she did look at Jonah. He shook his head ever so slightly, indicating he didn’t understand either.

“Not that I am aware of, Your Highness. Please…”

He motioned to the parlor off the foyer, and she stepped in with Jonah on her heels. When the servant had bustled off and they were alone, she turned toward him. “Why wouldn’t they know of our arrival?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “The messenger left late yesterday afternoon, heading back to London. On a fast horse, it shouldn’t have taken him very long. He should have been here before supper was served. Something could have waylaid him.”

She lifted a hand to her lips. “Or…or perhaps he was injured. Even killed to keep him from delivering his message.”

Jonah’s heart began to pound as he caught her arm and drew her away from the window, back into the foyer. He needed to get her away from the front of the house, he needed to find her family and figure out what the hell was going on. They had begun down the hall when Grantham, Remi, their mother and her mother’s secretary, Dashiell Talbot, stepped out of another room.

The queen saw Ilaria first and made a sound of surprise and joy. She rushed toward Ilaria and snatched her into an embrace. The queen smoothed her hands over Ilaria’s back, her fingers shaking as she did so, revealing her fear.

“You are here,” Giabella whispered. “It isn’t a dream or a lie.”

“I’m here, Mama, and I’m fine,” Ilaria reassured her as she pulled away gently and once again glanced at Jonah from the corner of her eye. “You were afraid?”

“Of course we were, especially after the attack on Sasha.” Giabella wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand, and Mr. Talbot stepped up to produce a handkerchief from seemingly nowhere. Queen Giabella glanced at him quickly and then back to Ilaria.

“Is she well?” Ilaria asked, gripping her mother’s hands.

“She is,” Grantham answered instead of the queen, and then took Ilaria’s hand to draw her into a brief embrace. “I’m so glad to see you.”

“As am I,” Remi said, and also hugged her. Ilaria kissed his cheek and squeezed his hand.

It warmed Jonah to see her reconnect to them this way. They were not allowed much public affection as a family, but behind their doors, he could see they adored her.

“I need to see Sasha,” Ilaria whispered. “Please, I must.”

Giabella nodded and took her arm. “We’ll come back shortly, gentlemen,” she said, and Ilaria allowed herself to be hustled away. Jonah tracked them as they went, and only when she was gone from his sight did he turn toward the king.

“You didn’t know we were coming,” Jonah said as he followed Grantham, Remi and the queen’s man, Mr. Talbot, into the study they had exited from a few moments before.

“No,” Grantham said, pacing the room restlessly.

Talbot said nothing, but went to the sideboard and began preparing drinks. Jonah stepped toward the king. “The messenger never returned to you?”

Grantham gave him a strange look. “What messenger?”

“The one who came to us to deliver your message about the attack on Sasha,” Jonah said. “I sent him back here last night to tell you we were returning. If he didn’t arrive, I must think he was waylaid…or worse.”

Grantham was just staring at him, unspeaking, and then he shook his head. “Captain Crawford, I didn’t send a message to you and my sister about the attack on Sasha. I don’t know what messenger you’re talking about.”

* * *

Ilaria felt her mother trembling as they entered Sasha’s chamber just up the hallway from her own. There was a figure on the bed along the back wall, the firelight dancing across her.

“Sasha?” Ilaria breathed.

The lump on the bed moved and Sasha’s head lifted. Ilaria’s stomach turned. The left side of her friend’s face was a mass of bruises. She had clearly been struck multiple times.

“Sasha,” Ilaria sobbed, and raced to her. Sasha opened her arms and drew her in.

“Hush, I’m safe,” Sasha whispered. “I’m fine.”

Giabella snorted her derision and reached out to trace a gentle finger across the damage. “We are very lucky, my love,” she said softly.

Sasha touched the queen’s hand, and for a moment Ilaria felt their connection. Giabella had, after all, been as much a mother to Sasha as to Ilaria. And though she could be cool and distant, the perfect queen, none of her children had ever doubted her love for them. It was written all over her face right now.

“I’ll leave my two girls alone,” she said gently. “And see what Captain Crawford is talking about with the king, Remi and Dash.”

“I’ll be down shortly,” Ilaria said.

Her mother nodded and then slipped from the chamber, leaving her and Sasha alone. Ilaria perched on the edge of the bed next to her friend and shook her head. “Tell me.”

Sasha closed her eyes with a weak, shuddering sigh. “Very well,” she whispered.

There was a moment of silence, and Ilaria realized Sasha was trying to find the words, trying to fight the tears that now sparkled in her eyes. And her chest hurt with how terrified she had been.

“Unless you don’t want to,” Ilaria whispered, pushing her slippers off and coming around to get into the bed with her, as they had done hundreds of times as little girls. She put her arm around Sasha and rested her adopted sister’s head on her shoulder.

“I need to,” Sasha said. “The danger is to you, after all. Not me.”

“I knew it was my fault,” Ilaria breathed. “I’m so sorry, Sasha.”

“It’s not your fault.” Sasha shook her head. “I was…I was out. Don’t ask me more about it. I was out and I stepped onto a terrace, and suddenly there was a man there, coming toward me, his arms raised and his gaze wild. He stopped short when he got close enough to see I wasn’t you.”

“Did he have a piercing stare?” Ilaria whispered, thinking of the man who had approached her, attacked her, at the Donville Masquerade.

“Like he could see down to my every fear.” Sasha let out a soft moan. “I tried to back away, but he was too fast. He was enraged that he’d been tricked. That he thought I was you and I wasn’t. He hit me so hard I fell and…and then everything gets dark and quiet and painful. I don’t know what happened next until I woke up in Thomas’s arms. He saved me.”

“Thomas?” Ilaria repeated, trying to think of who they knew with that name. A servant, perhaps?

Sasha looked at her. “The Earl of Bramwell.”

Both Ilaria’s eyebrows lifted. “I…oh!”

“Yes.” Sasha’s gaze darted away. “He knew you were in hiding, he knew I was pretending in your place at things like the opera and a few other events. He and I were much thrown together, you see.”

Ilaria wasn’t certain of what to say. There was something in Sasha’s tone. Something she understood, because the tremor was much the same as the one in her own voice whenever she spoke of Jonah. But that couldn’t be true. Sasha couldn’t care for Bramwell.

Not when the inevitable would still happen. Had to happen.

“I’m glad he was there,” Ilaria said at last. “We owe him everything for saving you.”

Sasha dropped her gaze. “How were things with Captain Crawford?”

Ilaria wanted to press Sasha more, but she could see her friend didn’t want to speak on what had happened. Not at the moment.

She shifted. “Wonderful,” she whispered. “Brief. Over.”

Sasha reached out a hand, bruised on her palm, as if she had lifted it to protect herself in the attack, and covered Ilaria’s. “I’m sorry, love.”

“I am too,” Ilaria said. “I’m so sorry you were hurt because of me. But I’m glad Grantham sent word to bring me back. I need to be with you now, be with everyone. I need to stop this.”

“Grantham sent for you?” Sasha asked. “I didn’t realize he was doing that, though they certainly haven’t spoken to me about everything in the last two days since the attack. And what do you mean that you need to stop this?”

Ilaria stood up and leaned over to kiss Sasha on her uninjured side. “Don’t you worry about it, my dearest. Try to rest now and I’ll come back up later. Would you like me to sleep with you tonight? Like we used to do when we were little.”

“You snore,” Sasha teased.

Ilaria laughed. “I do not! I’ve never snored in my life—it isn’t what princesses do.”

Sasha smiled. “I would like your company.”

“Then I’ll see you later,” Ilaria said before she slipped from the room. But her smile fell as she headed back downstairs. No one was going to like what she was about to propose.

And she didn’t give a damn.

* * *

“What do you mean you didn’t send the message?” Jonah asked, his chest constricting with those words, those terrible words and all that they were beginning to mean.

Grantham shook his head. “I wanted to wait to write to Ilaria about Sasha until we knew she would be safe to return.”

“You should have seen the fight that inspired,” Remi drawled, taking a drink from Talbot and downing it in one slug. “This one actually got passionate for once.”

Grantham’s jaw tightened, as if he were ready to get passionate again. “We’ve gone over this a dozen times—if I told her, she would have rushed back, just as she apparently did. Sasha is not badly injured, thank God, and I didn’t want to further endanger yet another member of this family.” The two brothers glared at each other a moment, and then the king turned toward Talbot. “You didn’t send something, did you?”

“Don’t blame Dashiell,” the queen said as she came into the room and crossed to stand beside her secretary in an almost protective stance.

Grantham’s lips pursed. “It isn’t that outrageous a thought. You and Remi made yourselves very clear about your opinion on the matter. You might have asked Dashiell to go behind my back.”

“But I didn’t,” Giabella said. “I would never put Dash in that situation.”

The secretary cast a quick glance at her and then nodded. “Her Majesty is correct. I didn’t write anything.”

“The message was in your hand, King Grantham,” Jonah said, drawing the note from his pocket and handing it over to Grantham.

Grantham read it and shook his head. “I…I didn’t write this.”

“Which means it was a ploy to get Ilaria back to London,” Remi said softly.

Before anyone could say anything else, Ilaria stepped into the room, herself. She opened her mouth to speak but then looked at those around her, all pale and digesting the new information.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Jonah crossed to her, not caring how it looked, and guided her closer to her family. Softly, he explained what they had determined and watched as horror came over her features, fear. How he hated that, hated that she was drawn into such madness at all.

She held his stare for a long moment when he was finished and then let out a shuddering sigh. “There is only one thing to do,” she said.

The king nodded. “I agree. We must go home to Athawick.”

“No,” Ilaria said. “I must put myself out there in order to draw this villain in. I must make myself bait to end this once and for all.”

* * *

Ilaria expected the eruption that followed her statement and waited, not so very patiently, as it happened. Jonah staggered back, Grantham and Remi both began to shout, the queen shook her head and Ilaria could hear her speaking even though she couldn’t make out the words over the cacophony. Everyone seemed to have an opinion and all of them were of the same vein: a resounding no to her suggestion.

She let them go for a moment and then cleared her throat. “All of you yelling at once isn’t going to change my mind,” she announced over the fray.

Grantham strode forward and raised a hand, silencing the others. “Put aside this foolish notion, Ilaria. We’re going back to Athawick.”

He said it in his best kingly tone, the one people didn’t defy. But she put her hands on her hips and did just that. “You are the fool if you think that will do any good. These people, they are the rebels against you and your reign, yes?”

“Thanks to Mr. Rivers help, we have increasing evidence that is true, yes,” Grantham said.

“I still say it’s bollocks,” Remi muttered. “But no one cares about my opinion, I’m just the spare.”

Grantham glared at him as he stalked off, but then returned his attention to Ilaria. “They want you dead.”

“If that was all there was to it, I would be dead.”

“What do you mean?” Jonah asked, tone choked.

She allowed herself to look at him, and she wavered slightly. He looked so broken, so desperate to protect her, just as he had been protecting her almost since she set foot in London. And now she was asking to take that duty from his hands, to offer herself as sacrifice.

“Jonah, they knew where I was,” she said, now speaking only to him even if the rest of the room could hear. “They brought a message to us. If they wanted me dead, just dead, they could have easily done that. They want to do something public, something loud.”

He held her gaze for a moment, then turned toward Grantham. “She is correct. Every attack on Ilaria has been in a public sphere. A message to you.”

“But one with no demands,” Remi said. “Almost as if they just want to be known. Which doesn’t really align itself with the idea of rebels, does it?”

“Oh, you know so much about rebellion now, Remi?” Grantham asked.

“Most definitely, it’s my specialty,” Remi said, slamming his glass down. “And when I do it, I do it so that you know what I want. What I am. Who I am. Don’t I? I don’t just rebel so that you look at me, I rebel so that you see me.”

Grantham’s chest lifted and fell—Ilaria could see he was trying to calm himself. Then he inclined his head. “Fine. But rebels or not, whatever the motive, the action is the same. These people keep coming after our sister, so what would you have me do, Remington?”

Ilaria stepped up between them, holding a hand up to Remi even as she faced Grantham. “Don’t ask him. Ask me.”

Grantham’s face crumpled a little and he refocused on her. “Father would have…”

“Father would have asked no one.” She touched her brother’s hand gently. “But you are not Father. So ask me, Grantham. Ask me.”

He shut his eyes briefly and then nodded. “What would you have me do, Ilaria, to protect you? To end this?”

“Going home will change nothing,” she said. “If these people are trying to undermine your reign, then they followed us to London and they will follow us home. And if they are trying to do something else, like Remi implies, then they’ll do the same. We need to end this, once and for all. And since I am the center of it, though I don’t know why, I must have some part in it.”

“Do you truly not know why?” Grantham asked. When she shook her head, he leaned forward and cupped her cheek. “Because if I lost you, Ilaria, a part of me would die. You are my baby sister, you are my frustration and my joy. And I cannot lose you.”

She blinked up at him as tears filled her eyes. In the last few years especially, she and Grantham had grown more distant. It made sense that as he took on more duties, took the crown, that it would happen. But right now she looked up into his eyes and saw the older brother she had adored all her life. The one who had gotten her into, and out of, scrape after scrape. The one who had kept her secrets so her father didn’t explode. The one who smiled and laughed far more freely than he could now.

“You won’t lose me,” she said softly. “Because this time we’ll create a situation we control. I’ll know there’s danger, and Jonah will be there with me. And he’d never let anyone harm me.”

Jonah cleared his throat. “I would not, Your Majesty. Ever.”

He moved to stand beside her, and his hand touched the small of her back briefly before he let it fall away. The touch electrified her, though. Gave her strength and faith.

Grantham let go of her and stepped back, looking at the two of them together. “It seems there is a great deal to discuss about your time in the country.”

“But not now,” Ilaria said, arching a brow. “And not ever if you intend to pound your chest about things that are none of your business. I know my duty, Grantham.”

“And what is your duty?” her brother asked.

“To do whatever it takes to protect this family, this crown,” she said. “No matter what I will lose in the process. Now let me do it.”

Grantham seemed to consider it a moment, but before he could speak, their mother moved toward Ilaria. As Jonah stepped aside, she wrapped an arm around Ilaria’s waist.

“The princess is correct,” Giabella said. “As much as I hate to see my daughter in danger, nothing else is working. These fiends seem to be one step ahead of us—even the intrepid Marcus Rivers and whatever connections he has cannot seem to find them. So let’s get ahead of them for once. Let Ilaria do as she suggests.”

The color left Grantham’s face and Remi jolted forward. Together, they both gasped, “Mama!”

“We all make sacrifices for our country,” Giabella said, her gaze going distant. “You cannot require less of your sister out of some sense of chivalry. There will be guards, no matter what we do. And Captain Crawford will not be parted from her, it seems.”

“Not until she is safe,” Jonah said.

Grantham paced away, his hands gripping in and out of fists at his sides. His expression was unreadable as he faced Ilaria again. “Very well. I can see you will not be turned from this and I am not fool enough to fight a war I cannot win. What is your plan, Ilaria? What do you have in mind of what to do next?”

She turned toward Jonah. “Would Mr. Rivers be amenable to helping us further?” she asked. “Because I think I have a plan that just might work.”