When she opened her door for Poppie, he said, “Don’t forget the bracelet.” He paused as he looked her over. “So beautiful—as always. Your father is going to be so proud today, to claim you as his own.”
“I wish I were your daughter instead.”
He hugged her so tightly she worried he might think it would be the last time he ever could. “No more than I, princess, but never doubt that you’ll always be the daughter of my heart. Now come.” He set her back from him. “Fetch the bracelet. You can keep it in your purse for now. And perhaps you should wear that pearl brooch I gave you last year, to complement your dress.”
She nodded and moved to her trunks. Her purse was already heavy with the money Poppie had given her and her smallest pistol, but the bracelet was nearly weightless, it was so tiny. She took out the small jewelry box, but then she gasped, noticing immediately that the latch was bent, completely pried away from the wood.
She swung around. “I—I think I’ve been robbed.”
Poppie came to her side. “Robbed? When?”
“It had to be yesterday. I’ve been checking my jewelry box every morning before my trunks are loaded onto the coach. The contents are too valuable not to. You look,” she said with dread, unwilling to open the box herself.
He did. When she saw his frown, she grabbed the box back from him. It was empty except for Henry’s two small carvings. That soldier who’d searched her trunks yesterday! He’d stolen all her jewelry. At least he’d been too stupid to see any value in the carvings, so he hadn’t taken them, too.
Poppie was having the same thought. “That man was on top of the coach too long. I should have guessed, should have had you check your belongings before the soldiers got too far away. That commander seemed competent enough in handling his men, if easily fooled. He would have made fast work of getting your jewelry back.”
“Unless we were the ones fooled and they were all thieves.”
He chuckled. “All angles? Excellent, Alana. That didn’t occur to me. Doubtful, but indeed possible. But let’s hope not, because your father can easily find out which of his men were sent to that pass chasing rumors and can get your jewelry back. A band of thieves, however, won’t be as easily found. And come to think of it, we’d probably be dead now if they had been thieves. It would be all too easy to hide a crime in that pass, with such a deadly drop over the cliffside. But in either case, no one will know what they have in that bracelet.”
She was beginning to feel angry over the loss of not just the bracelet, but every piece of jewelry Poppie had given her over the years. “Simple stupidity?”
“No, a man can be brilliant, but that doesn’t help if, like most Lubinians, he can’t read, so the inscription will mean nothing to him, even if he noticed it. And he isn’t likely to sell the jewelry immediately. He’ll want to make sure no fingers are pointed his way when our ‘lady’ discovers the theft.”
“Of course fingers will be pointed. We know exactly who the culprit is.”
“Yes,” Poppie agreed. “But he’ll be confident that his word will outweigh ours because we portrayed ourselves as servants, and servants separated from their mistress are sometimes tempted—you get the idea.”
She huffed and put the nearly empty box back in her trunk and slammed the lid down. “That was my proof of my true identity.”
“Princess, you are the proof. You have the facts and you can still describe the bracelet in detail. Such an expensive trinket was probably given to you by your father before he retreated to mourn your mother’s death, so he will remember it. You may also look like your mother. Remember, try to avoid mentioning my real name, but do tell them that Rastibon abducted you as they will be familiar with that name and it will lend authenticity to your account. And keep in mind, the king and his advisers will want to believe you because you will put an end to these rebel agitators, when they’ve obviously been unsuccessful tracking them all down.”
Chapter Nine
AS THEY RODE TO the palace, they traversed the main avenue, which was much wider than all the side streets and lined on both sides by shops and one- and two-story homes, no two alike. The shops didn’t appear to be as prosperous or as sophisticated as those in many of the other cities they’d passed through, and the homes were by no means as grand. But at least the capital wasn’t as primitive as Alana had been expecting.
When she noticed one of the fires burning at the side of the road, flickering from a stone pit, covered by a metal grate, she thought of Poppie’s tragic tale. She could almost see it happening, that accident that had changed his life so drastically and had ultimately affected her own.
“Better contained now and not so close to the road,” she heard Poppie say tonelessly, having noticed what she was staring at. “There were no metal grates before.”
She cried for the pain he had suffered back then, though she kept her face averted until her eyes dried. It released a little of her tension—until the coach stopped. But then Poppie eased it a little more by letting her see some of his own nervousness.
“Do I appear—normal?” he asked her.
Not like an assassin? was his real question, she realized. “Very dapper,” she assured him with a smile. “Like an English nobleman.”
“Then I do stand out?”
“No, not at all. Haven’t you noticed in our travels that the fashions throughout Europe are very similar to what we’re accustomed to?”
Alana wasn’t helping him relax, but she didn’t think anything would. Her tension didn’t stem from anything life-threatening. His did. He was taking a big risk escorting her into the palace, and she hadn’t been able to talk him out of it. But any man with her was going to be apprehended immediately as her abductor, once it was known who she was. While he did plan to slip away just prior to her audience with her father, something could easily go wrong. She knew it. He knew it. She wished she had been able to make him see reason, but he refused to leave her on her own until he absolutely had to.
A long line of people and vehicles was before the gates. It was soon apparent the line wasn’t moving into the palace yet. Some of the crowd began to disperse as a guard made his way down the line.
When he reached their coach, he brusquely stated, “Only town officials today.”
“And if our business isn’t with the king?”
