Royal Protocol. Christine Flynn
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assure you that is not our intention. We will find him,” he insisted, because the alternative wasn’t one he was willing to accept. “Our analysts are already working on the note to see where it came from. Intelligence is also profiling every radical and subversive organization that might feel threatened by that alliance.”
Gwen’s glance caught his. “Who brought it?” she quietly inquired. “The note. Who delivered it here?”
“Please answer her,” the queen asked when he hesitated.
“A commercial courier service delivered it to the royal offices for King Morgan. We’re checking now to see who paid for the delivery.
“We’re taking care of everything,” he assured the older woman, wishing the younger one would leave. “But we’ll have to speak later about what remains to be done regarding the alliance.” He paused, a muscle in his jaw jerking, as it tended to do when inner frustration leaked out. It would have been so much simpler to take care of all his business with the queen right now. But, right now, because of the petite blonde staring icicles at him, he couldn’t. “It’s no longer safe to speak by telephone. There’s too much risk of conversations being intercepted,” he explained, ignoring the chill. “It will be best if we meet to talk.”
The queen said nothing. She simply stared at him long enough for him to get the feeling that the alliance was the last thing on her mind before giving him a rather numb nod.
“Please keep me informed,” she murmured.
“I will.”
“About my son,” she clarified.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he replied, and watched her give her lady-in-waiting a look of pure distress before she walked regally across the antique Aubusson carpet to the tall double doors.
Harrison could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees in the time it took her to step into her salon and close the door with a dignified click.
“I’ll let myself out,” he muttered, and turned on his heel.
Gwen would have been more than happy to let him leave on his own. As shaken as Marissa had looked to her, she would much rather have gone after her friend, but duty demanded that she escort the queen’s guest from the room.
“Her Majesty wouldn’t hear of it,” she returned politely, and turned ahead of him. “I’ll see you to the door.”
She was fairly certain he’d expected her to stay put. He was, after all, the sort of man who ordered and expected people to obey.
She tended to bridle around any man, other than the king, who automatically expected such total deference. There were many like him in the circles in which she moved. Her own father being one of them. Yet, even her father wasn’t as hard or ruthless as the admiral was rumored to be.
To be fair, ruthless or not, she knew that if anyone could be counted on to find the prince it would be the man following her across the room and the men he commanded on the Royal Elite Team. The RET consisted of the best of the best, the cream the king himself had skimmed from his Royal Intelligence Institute with its top scientists, doctors, military and economists. All were at the admiral’s disposal.
“May I ask something of you, Admiral?” Feeling as protective as a sister of the woman she had served for the past ten years, she reached for the gilded handle of the door. “For Her Majesty?”
“Put that way, I can hardly refuse.”
“Then, please,” she requested, overlooking the flatness, or maybe it was the fatigue, in his tone, “don’t burden Her Majesty with details of the trade alliance.”
His eyebrows knit into a single slash. “Excuse me?”
“The alliance,” she repeated, wishing he wouldn’t frown at her with such displeasure. “It’s the king’s project. All the queen needs right now is information about her son. You should speak with His Majesty about anything else.”
Her tone was faintly disapproving, her manner utterly calm and certain. At that moment, with her cool guard firmly in place and the soft vulnerability he’d glimpsed nowhere in sight, she looked very much like the very proper matron of a school for incorrigible young boys.
He was in no mood for a reprimand. Or to be told what he should or shouldn’t do, something that seldom happened to him, anyway. Taking her hand from the latch, surprised to find her slender fingers so warm, he replaced it with his own and turned to face her.
Despite the way she clasped her hands in a knot, the way she looked up at him made her seem every bit as regal and poised as their queen.
“Lady Corbin,” he began, his tone a shade shy of patient, “I realize it’s your job to protect Her Majesty from whatever she doesn’t wish to deal with around here. You screen her visitors and answer her mail and do whatever is required of you to insulate her from what takes place beyond the scope of her duties and these walls. But there are forces at work here about which you haven’t a clue.”
Most people would have backed down. The faint-hearted would even have backed away. Remarkably, admirably, she did neither—though he did catch a telltale hint of color rising beneath her maddeningly calm facade.
“And those forces would be?”
“Nothing you’re cleared to know about.”
“The alliance with Majorco is hardly top secret, Admiral.” Years of training kept her tone even, her manner unfailingly polite. He wouldn’t have any idea that she was practically gritting her teeth. “The queen and I have been planning the state dinner to celebrate its signing for the past two months. Everyone from the royal printers to the kitchen staff knows about it.”
“I’m not talking about the alliance.”
“Then what are we talking about? The alliance is what I asked you not to bother Her Majesty with.”
He caught a hint of her perfume again. The scent was subtle, warm. Like the air on a tropical island when flowers scented the sensuous breeze.
Distracted, annoyed because he wasn’t a man who distracted easily, he took a step closer—for no reason other than to prove she had no real effect on him at all.
“We’re talking about matters to which even the king’s council isn’t privy,” he informed her, ignoring the unwanted tingle of heat low in his gut. “But just so you’ll have some idea of what is going on, a special team will be arriving any minute to tap in to Her Majesty’s telephone lines. It’s possible that Prince Owen’s captors have her personal phone number and will try to make contact that way. It’s no secret how close she is to her children.”
His voice dropped like a rock over Penwyck’s sheer cliffs. “They will also be tapping the telephone in your apartment,” he informed her, failing to mention that telephone communications of all staff with access to the royal residence would be monitored. “Where are your rooms?”
A flicker of hesitation passed through her eyes. “Directly upstairs.”
“Then, I imagine they’ll do yours right after they’re finished here. One never truly knows who one can trust.”
He was baiting her. Deliberately. Gwen caught the odd glint in Harrison’s eyes as he waited for her reaction. Refusing to give him the satisfaction, she bit her tongue, swearing she almost perforated it in the moments before he released his visual hold and pulled open the door.
An instant later he was striding out down the long, wide hall, guards jerking to attention as he passed.
The guard near Gwen remained stiffly still, his eyes straight ahead, his rifle at his side. Not until she started to close the door did he reshoulder the weapon in three motions as quick as they were precise.
As he did, Gwen noticed the black holster resting against the red wool of his jacket. He was also wearing a side arm.
It had been