Читать книгу Once Upon A Tiara - Carrie Alexander - Страница 14

EVEN BEFORE Simon turned, Chief Russell was gone, shooting through the crowd toward the disturbance. A woman in a feathered hat warbled like a particularly high-pitched ghost: “Oo-oo-oo-oo-oooh!”

Her squat husband was the one raising the ruckus. “Pickpocket! Pickpocket! They got into Dora’s purse.” He patted his behind. “Sonovabiscuit. My wallet’s gone, too.”

A shrill panic overtook the guests, with everyone checking their purses and pockets for missing valuables. A shout went up about another missing wallet. The chief and his force of one officer quickly took control, calming the crowd as they herded them under the tent like cattle.

Simon looked for Lili. She was fine, attended by the royal bodyguard. Her face was animated, sympathetic in expression, but with lively eyes and a high color in her cheeks. It figured that she’d enjoy the excitement.

The mayor spread loud platitudes, assuring the attendees that Chief Russell would take care of the “minor disturbance.” Mrs. Grundy and Wilhelm tried to coax the princess into the museum, away from harm. Lili, patting the distraught feather-woman’s hand, refused to go.

The guests milled around, gabbling and fussing. Despite instructions, a number were slipping away, heading off to the parked cars. Henry left the other officer in charge and went to round up the renegades.

Out of suspicion—or maybe mere curiosity—Simon looked around for the Tower of Hair who’d charmed Lili. Nowhere in sight. That was interesting…possibly.

Simon had begun to make his way forward to aid the police officer with crowd control when a plump woman in head-to-toe polka dots let out a squawk. She clutched at her throat. “My pearls,” she said, and fainted dead away—straight into Simon’s arms.

“Oof,” he said, catching her under the armpits. She was no bantamweight. Nor a middleweight. He nudged a knee into the small of her back to help hold her up.

“Oh, dear, poor Elspeth,” said a companion, tearing off the collapsed woman’s straw hat to fan her flushed face. “The pearls are a family heirloom,” she told the crowd, flapping. “Worth a pretty penny.”

“Somebody,” Simon choked out, jostling the woman’s sagging weight. “Help.”

A man grabbed Elspeth’s ankles and another wrapped his arms around her hips. They lugged her toward the tables. Simon meant to sit her upright in a chair, but the fellows holding the rest of Elspeth heaved her onto one of the abandoned tables. Splat—her polka-dotted rump landed in a plate of petits fours. A plastic cup of punch fell over, staining the paper tablecloth red as the spill crept toward the inert woman.

Cornelia was frantic. She whipped out a lace-edged handkerchief to sop up the encroaching flow of punch. Simon recognized the invalid at last. Elspeth Hess was tops on the Platinum Patron list. Losing her good graces would be disaster for the museum’s donor fund.

Corny looked at Simon and sputtered unintelligibly. “Watch over Mrs. Hess,” he said, not adverse to taking advantage of the mayor’s momentary loss for words to make his getaway. “I’ll go and see what’s happening.”

Henry had rounded up the defectors—the man named Stone among them—and was issuing commands and restoring order, directing the crowd to quiet down, to take seats and wait to be interviewed about the apparent pickpocketing incidents. He had an angry young woman by the elbow and wasn’t letting her go. She stood quite still, her chin tipped up in the air, a yellow flyer that matched the ones that were scattered about the grounds clutched in her fist. She was holding equally tight to her temper, but she looked ready to shoot sparks.

Simon approached cautiously. “I’m going to take the princess into the museum, if that’s all right with you, Chief Russell.”

Henry nodded. “That would be best.”

“If you need my help…”

“Not necessary. I’ve got another officer on the way to manage the crowd. We’ll have to take names and do as many interviews as we can on the spot.” The chief looked significantly at his captive. “I expect one of them will have seen something suspicious enough to warrant a body search. With any luck, we’ll find the stolen goods before the day is out.”

“A body search!” With a swish of her glossy hair and long loose skirt, the woman tossed her head. She set her hands on her hips. “Just you try it,” she said through thinned lips, her voice seething with haughty insult. Although her demeanor was all fiery outrage whereas Lili’s was sweet and fluffy as cotton candy, there was something about the pair of opposites that struck Simon as similar. Perhaps the quick tongue—too much of it in both cases.

“Body search,” the woman snapped at Henry. “I’ll give you a body search, Chief Russell.”

Henry was unperturbed, though Simon noticed how white his knuckles were where they clenched on his captive’s elbow. “Thanks for the offer, Ms. Vargas.” Henry’s mouth made a grim, flat line, betrayed by an infinitesimal twitch at one corner. “I can take care of the search. You only have to provide the body.”

The woman’s cheeks flamed. Henry kept his eyes on her face, but Simon did not. It was obvious that she had a one hell of body, all right, even hidden beneath her fringed shawl, a loose blouse and long, layered skirt, cinched by a bright green sash that showed off her slender waist. She wore sandals and much jewelry, as flashy as the Emperors nightingale, right down to the rings on her toes. Not your average, everyday Pennsylvanian, but Simon wasn’t making any guesses. Maybe the Gypsy look was fashionable, for all he knew.

“Harassment,” the woman hissed.

“Not yet,” Henry said threateningly.

“Are you threatening me?”

Perceptive woman, Simon thought.

A muscle jumped in the sheriff’s jaw. “Depends whether or not your cohort slipped away with the goods.”

She inhaled. “My cohort?”

“The young man you were looking for in the crowd. Possibly working with.”

“I wasn’t. I told you. I’m here alone.”

“We’ll see.”

“What about Stone?” Simon said, interrupting the pair’s mutual glare. “He’s a stranger in town and he tried to get away when you told everyone to stay put. That’s suspicious, isn’t it?”

The woman shot Simon a grateful look.

“So did Reverend Anderson and Tommy Finch, the paperboy,” Henry said. “Don’t worry, Simon. I know how to do my job.”

“Of course,” Simon conceded. He had no good reason to suspect Stone. Or to be resentful. All there was between himself and Lili was a suspended hot dog date.

“If there’s anything you need,” he offered, before stepping away to search for Lili.

“There may be.” The police chief indicated his prisoner. His grip hadn’t loosened a notch. “I’d like a room to stash my suspect in.”

She smiled poisonously. “Why don’t you just handcuff me in the town square and let the townsfolk pelt me with rotten fruit?”

Simon snorted with laughter.

Even Henry had to smile. “I’m saving that for after the trial.”

“How nice to know I won’t be summarily executed without one.”

There it was again. Simon took another look at her. That thing—what was it? Peppery pride, scrappiness, inborn spirit?

“I’ll set you up with a room,” he said to Henry, more than eager to get back to the princess, his own sparring partner.

“Preferably one that’s secure, private and—” Henry scowled at his prisoner “—far away from the jewels.”

Simon went to Lili, which wasn’t easy because she was buttressed by her nanny and bodyguard. “How are you?” His glance skipped over Grundy and Wilhelm. “Everything okay here?”

Lili’s eyes sparkled. “What a to-do! I thought small towns were supposed to be boring.”

“Not this weekend.”

“We must move the princess away from the riffraff,” Mrs. Grundy said. A camera flash made her lips pucker. “Even more importantly, away from the photographers and reporters.”

Simon realized that a small number of media were circling like sharks, grabbing hold of the incident for what would no doubt be sensationalized stories and photos. The museum board had hoped for enough publicity to put their new facility on the map. Looked like they had it in spades.

“We can take her back to my office,” he offered.

“I am here,” Lili protested. “Don’t talk over my head as if I’m a child.”

Simon looked down at her. “Sorry.”

Her smile flickered from polite to genuine. “Apology accepted.”

“Form a wedge,” Wilhelm instructed. “We must move quickly.” Mrs. Grundy opened her satchel and removed a folding umbrella. With a snap, she opened it to full length, leaving the spokes and fabric furled. She dug the sharp tip into the ground, squared her shoulders and threaded an arm through the princess’s.

Simon took the other elbow. “Off we go, then,” he said cheerily. He was quite happy to be leaving the Tower behind, subject to interrogation, sans princess.

“No talking. No stopping.” Wilhelm took the lead position, parting the crowd like the prow of a ship. “No deterrence.”

“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” Simon whispered to Lili as they quickly moved out from beneath the tent and across the tarmac road.

She tittered. “Grunberg doesn’t have a Navy. We’re landlocked.” The reporters closed in on them, but were no match for Lili’s bodyguard. Mrs. Grundy’s bulk effectively blocked the photographers from getting good angles on the princess. When they pressed too close, she jabbed at them with the umbrella. The quartet swept up the steps and into the museum.

Henry and the woman, who was apparently his prime suspect, arrived on their heels. After assuring the security guards that all was under control, Simon made introductions. “Princess Lili, this is Henry Russell, the main man in Blue Cloud’s police department. He’s in charge.”

“Pleased to meet you, Chief Russell.” Lili offered him her hand. “Even if it is under trying circumstances. Was there honestly a pickpocket loose among the guests?”

“It looks like it. We have two missing wallets and one ransacked purse. Possibly a stolen necklace. My officers will be searching the grounds thoroughly.”

Lili’s eyes widened. “Are the royal jewels safe?”

Henry and Simon exchanged a glance before the chief responded in an official tone. “I apologize, Your Highness, but I can’t give a one-hundred percent guarantee. In my estimation, today’s criminals are no more than petty thieves, out to take advantage of the holiday crowds. Only a sophisticated burglar could successfully lift the jewels.” He looked at Simon, who nodded in agreement. Henry relaxed—slightly. “Nothing for you to worry about, Princess.”

The chief’s suspect glowered at him from beneath a sheaf of dark, silky hair. A leaf clung to the disheveled tresses. Henry picked it off.

Tilting her head, Lili regarded the woman with interest. They were as opposite as Simon had assumed—one fair, the other dark; one well-dressed, polite and poised, the other brazen and belligerent in her flashy ornaments and cheap silks. And yet…there was that common bond. The moments of regal hauteur, ameliorated by an obvious zest for life.

Lili held out her hand. “Hello. I’m Princess Lili of Grunberg.”

“Oh, I know who you are.” The captive’s top lip lifted into the slightest of sneers as she swept her gaze up and down the blond princess. She clasped the royal hand, every inch the queen herself, despite her outer dishevelment. “I am Jana Vargas.”

Lili gasped. “Vargas?”

A nod.

“How peculiar, considering that the Brunner bridal tiara is set with the Vargas diamond! Have you ever been to Grunberg? Could you be related to someone who owned the diamond previous to my family?”

“No, I’ve never been to Grunberg. But some of my people were there…a long time ago.”

“Would I know of them?” the princess asked.

Jana dismissed the possibility with a small, ironic smile. “Not very likely. Romany folk don’t get invited to the castle for formal dress balls.”

Henry and Simon exchanged a second look. A confused one, for Simon’s part. Romany? Was Jana Vargas a true Gypsy, or simply playing the part for her own devices?

“Romany,” breathed Mrs. Grundy, under her breath. Her keen eyes clouded. For the first time, Simon saw her less than sure of herself. Perhaps even taken aback.

Lili must have noticed, too. “Amelia?” she asked. “Do you know how the Vargas diamond came by its name?” She looked at the others. “There’s quite a legend associated with the tiara, but I don’t recall why it’s called the Vargas diamond.”

Grundy’s expression closed. “I couldn’t say.”

“I could,” Jana Vargas said. She handed Lili the colored paper that had been crumpled in her left fist. “If you care to learn the truth…”

Lili glanced at the wrinkled flyer. Her face lighted. “A Gypsy carnival? Ooh, with fortune-telling!”

Grundy went pale.

Wilhelm put out a meaty hand, inserting it between the two young women. “Princess, I must insist.”

Grundy recovered. She moved deliberately in front of Jana, nudging the princess along after she’d snatched away the flyer. It fluttered to the floor. “Shall we go upstairs to regroup?” she said, a steely non-question. “Rodger, you may call for the car. We’ve had quite a day. It’s time we retired to our hotel. We shall send regrets to Madam Mayor.”

“Just when events were getting interesting,” Lili protested, although she allowed herself to be shepherded up the stairs.

“You may use the museum snack shop,” Simon told Henry as they followed, noticing that the chief had retrieved the paper and was examining it closely. “It’s empty and quiet. Three doors, but we’re keeping everything locked up tight, so they’re all inaccessible. Here’s the key.” He slipped a key from the ring he carried in his pocket. The same master key opened several doors in the working areas of the museum: storage, kitchen, supplies, lavatories. No state secrets there.

“I’ll get this back to you as soon as we’ve finished. I want to stash Ms. Vargas, here—” Henry still hadn’t let go of the woman’s arm “—while I oversee procedures outdoors.”

“Stash me?” Jana said. “I’m a human being, not a piece of luggage. You can’t detain me for no good reason.”

“I have reason. You may be a conspirator in the pick-pocketing scheme, which means it’s well within my bounds of authority to hold you for questioning. For the time being, consider yourself in police custody, Ms. Vargas. You will remain so until my suspicions are proved.”

“Or disproved,” she retorted with a double helping of sarcasm.

A troubled sympathy shone from Lili’s eyes when she looked back over her shoulder. Wilhelm and Grundy hustled her into the reception area of Simon’s office.

The princess was a soft touch, Simon deduced. He remembered the weight and curve of her breast. Very soft.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Lili was saying to Mrs. Grundy when he entered the inner sanctum of his office. She brushed aside the woman’s solicitations. “Please stop fussing. No one came near me.” Lili’s eyes sought Simon’s. They danced with a saucy, provocative humor. “Alas, as Simon would say,” she added, lifting her brows at him.

“Princess!” Grundy aimed a narrow look at Simon. “Really, my dear, you’ll give Mr. Tremayne the wrong impression.”

She laughed. “Oh, I do hope so.” She clapped her hands. “And now, I’d like to freshen up. Mr. Tremayne, sir, I hate to be a bother, but would you please unlock the ladies’ room for me—again?”

Simon bowed. “Your wish is my command. After you, Princess.”

Lili stopped the older pair from following her. “I’ll be quite all right. Simon will stand guard.”

He patted his pocket. “I gave the key to Henry. Just a moment.” He rummaged in his desk. “Here’s a spare.”

The princess whipped the key from his fingers when he held it up. “Thank you, kind sir.” She put her nose in the air and swept from the office, stepping along the corridor with a sassy rhythm to her shoulders and hips. He was amused, knowing she was putting on the grand lady act for his benefit.

“I’ll do it,” she said when he tried to take the key from her. She turned it in the lock, then palmed it. Watching his face, she pushed open the swinging door to the lavatory with her backside. “I can wipe my bottom by myself, too.”

He nearly choked, recovering only as the door was swinging shut. “There’s a limit to my servitude, Princess,” he called after her, hoping for her Tinkerbell laugh. She did not disappoint. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, making a small gesture of triumph with his clenched fists. He might not make her swoon, but at least he could make her laugh.

He cracked an eye open. Oops. At the other end of the hallway, Grundy and Wilhelm were peering from the office door. Simon shrugged somewhat sheepishly and thrust his hands in his pockets. The party was a disaster and the museum’s funds were at serious risk. Didn’t matter.

One laugh from the princess and he felt like a million bucks.

Unfortunately, Simon couldn’t quite sustain his exhilaration when Lili still hadn’t emerged thirteen minutes later—he knew the time exactly because he’d been checking his watch. He paced the width of the corridor, counting under his breath. Another three minutes went by, excruciatingly slowly. Neither Grundy nor Wilhelm had budged. In fact, they were beginning to glare, as if he’d done something to delay the princess.

He went to the door and knocked. “Princess?”

No answer.

He put his ear to it. Silence—not even running water. The princess’s attendants were coming toward him now, craning their necks to hear. “Princess Lili?” he called, pushing the door open an inch. “Are you doing okay?”

There came a thud, then a crash. A female grunt. “Fiddlesticks!”

“Lili?” Simon burst into the room, followed by Wilhelm and Grundy. His first shocking sight of the princess sent him skidding to a stop, with the other two piling up behind him.

Mrs. Grundy pushed by. “Princess, what have you done now?”

“I think my foot is stuck,” Lili said. She was sprawled on the tile floor with her tight skirt rucked up around her hips, showing a good portion of a rounded, wriggling, panty-clad backside. One foot was trapped in a swivel-lid trash can, which lay on its side, a number of crumpled tissues spewing from its maw.

“Shall I call an ambulance?” Wilhelm said.

“Heavens, no!” Lili stopped wriggling and lifted her head and shoulders off the floor, her hands splayed on the tiles. She looked up at them with big, dark, glistening eyes, like an innocent baby seal. “Nothing’s broken. Just help me pull my leg out of here, for pity’s sake.”

Mrs. Grundy knelt awkwardly and tugged Lili’s skirt down a few inches. “However did you…?”

“It was an accident.”

Wilhelm crouched, his big hands outspread, hesitating to place them on the exposed royal thigh. He went for the trash can instead, giving it a wrench. Lili winced, twisting partway onto her side. “Ooh! Ouch! Wait!” Her gaze rose to beseech Simon. “Would you? Please? The lid is pinching the back of my thigh.”

“All right,” he said, kneeling beside her. He examined the…uh, situation. Grundy huffed at the insult, hurriedly unbuttoning her jacket. She threw it across Lili’s lower half.

Simon put his hand on her leg—on top of the scratchy tweed covering. Somehow, the princess had managed to insert her leg all the way down inside the can, but they should be able to maneuver it out easily enough. “Another fine predicament you’ve gotten us into,” he murmured to distract them all as he slid his hand beneath the jacket. Lili tensed as he reached around her warm thigh, his fingers gently probing. He pushed his flattened hand between her thigh and the lid, easing its bite on her tender flesh.

She sighed with relief. “That’s better.”

He smiled at her. “Mrs. Grundy? Could you reach in here and push the lid down to make more room? I’m sure I’ll be able to help Lili pull her leg free if we have another inch of space.”

Grundy pinched her lips tight and reached down. While the bodyguard held the can steady, Simon gripped Lili’s leg and slowly eased it out, trying not to look as she parted her thighs even wider to squirm free.

Grundy let go and the lid snapped back in place. She and the bodyguard were immediately at the princess’s side, helping her to her feet. Simon saw that Lili had lost both shoes, so he set the can on end and fished inside. No shoes.

He spotted them on a ledge by the sink. Odd. He retrieved them, wondering why she’d taken them off in the first place. “Your slippers, Cinderella.”

Grundy snatched the shoes away. “Let me help you into them, Princess.” She knelt.

Lili murmured her thanks, balancing herself with one hand on Wilhelm’s arm as she lifted her feet for Grundy. She looked at Simon. She was blushing. “I apologize, Mr. Tremayne. I didn’t intend to destroy your washroom. I was—” Her eyes flitted. “Well, you see, I was…”

“No explanations necessary,” Simon put in. He’d seen the open window, high up on the wall. “My museum is your museum.”

“You’re very understanding.”

“I make special allowances for royalty.”

She had the grace to look abashed. “It seems that I demand plenty. I will try to be on my best behavior tomorrow.”

He inclined his head. “We’re happy to have you on any behavior, Your Serene Highness.”

Her eyes rolled. “Oh, please. We’re definitely past that stuck-up claptrap. If you can’t remember to call me Lili, I won’t be able to eat hot dogs with you.”

“Then it’s a date?” he said quickly, refraining from adding an “Again?”

Lili tilted her tousled head. “Why not?”

Grundy cleared her throat as she stood. “What about the schedule?”

“The shedjul will survive, Amelia.” Lili stamped her newly shod feet, intercepting Simon’s amused glance. “You may be a prince of a guy, Mr. Tremayne, but I’m not allowed to surrender my feet to just anyone.”

He chuckled. A prince? Impossible. He’d always been the frog.

Mrs. Grundy took Lili’s arm, not unlike the way Henry Russell had taken Jana Vargas’s. “Enough of that, Princess. We really must be on our way.”

“Yes, we must.” Lili cast a lingering parting glance at Simon. “See you soon?”

He swallowed. “Indubitably.”

She stopped, pulling the key from an inside pocket of her short pink jacket. “I almost forgot.”

He took it, surprised that she still possessed it. Maybe his suspicions were wrong?

Had she fallen into the trash on her way out the window, or on the way in? Either way, he’d better go and find the chief. Henry should be told immediately that it was very possible the princess of Grunberg had been conspiring with a pickpocketing suspect. Simon could think of no other reason for Lili to have deliberately taken her shoes off and climbed through the window. Since she still had the key, she must not have been able to successfully pass it to Jana Vargas, in the snack shop next door.

THE LIMO AWAITED.

Lili stopped short, preventing Wilhelm from opening the door for her. “I wonder if you’d mind…” This was going to be delicate. “It’s been such an eventful day. I’d like a few moments of…quiet time.” She smiled hopefully at Mrs. Grundy, cutting her eyes in the direction of the front seat.

The older woman maintained a stony face. “As you wish, Princess Lili.”

Lili knew she wasn’t fooling Amelia for a second. But that didn’t matter, as long as she wasn’t betrayed to the authorities. For all of the former nanny’s lectures and reprimands, Amelia put the princesses’ desires above any other concern. She could be trusted with the most precious of secrets.

“You can scold me later,” Lili said, as Amelia joined the driver in the front seat. Wilhelm insisted on opening the door, but Lili stepped inside quickly so he wouldn’t see much of the interior. Fortunately, the limo was commodious enough to hold a marching band.

Wilhelm and the driver boarded the vehicle, shutting the doors behind them. Thunk. Thunk. The solid black privacy panel was in place, giving Lili complete solitude.

The car pulled away from the museum, moving slowly past the disordered remains of the reception. As they rounded the bend, Lili turned to watch through the back window. Simon Tremayne was loping down the steps in his gangly, loose-limbed way, his ridiculous Egyptian tie flapping in the breeze.

Lili knew he’d figured it out. And that he would tell. But that was okay. He was too late for the police chief to stop their getaway.

“Well,” she said to her passenger as she settled in. “You made it.”

Considering that she was a fugitive taking a limo ride in the company of a princess, Jana Vargas looked remarkably at ease. “Yes,” she said. “Nothing to it.”