They weren’t going to hide Alana’s presence. The palace would soon be buzzing with the news that she’d been returned from the dead, as it were, and she’d been warned to answer no questions about it from anyone, that Frederick would make an announcement later, after conferring with his advisers.
Christoph remained behind with Alana when Frederick left to tell his wife the good news. Alana would be joining the royal couple tonight for dinner after she was settled in her new rooms.
She supposed she ought to thank Christoph. She might have returned to England, blithely unaware that she was Frederick’s daughter after all, if not for Christoph’s suspicious nature. But he was standing there so stiffly. The word dutiful came to mind. Did he find it onerous that he’d been ordered to be her protector? He hadn’t seemed to mind it before—when she wasn’t a princess. He’d even alluded to his duty never having been so pleasant before!
“Is something wrong?” she asked him as he took her arm to escort her to her new quarters.
“What could possibly be wrong? You are where you should be, and I am your humble servant.”
Her eyes narrowed at the sarcasm she detected. “So it’s to be like that, is it? Are you angry because I was right all along and you obstinately refused to see it?”
He was dragging her along behind him by then in his typical fashion. He didn’t answer, probably because it had been an unfair question, asked in annoyance. But she dug in her heels. She didn’t like this stiffly silent attitude of his at all.
“What?” he finally said, having stopped when she did.
She glanced up at him. Still so damn handsome he could dazzle her. But the outer shell didn’t make a man. What was inside did, and he definitely had a brute inside him that he’d let out much too often. When she was his prisoner, she reminded herself. Well, mostly. But there was that gentle, sweet side of him, too. . . .
She sighed to herself, but said to him, “Nothing,” and moved forward again.
The room she’d been given was too lavish, she thought, but then it was fit for a princess, she supposed. She didn’t feel like one yet, didn’t think she ever would. Big, too much room, two maids already waiting to serve her. All she did was unpack and change her clothes for dinner—and sit on the big, fluffy bed for a while in a daze with her thoughts.
Then the knock came at the door. She was suddenly excited about seeing her father again, and meeting his wife. But it was him standing there, just as still and stoic as before, and that just brought her mood back down.
“Why do you have to escort me?” she demanded as she stepped out of the room. “I’m in the palace finally, I don’t need you guarding me in here—”
“Be quiet,” he cut in, though he didn’t appear annoyed. “You complain too much—Princess.”
“With good reason! Your attitude has been abominable since you turned me over to my father. If you don’t want to protect me anymore, just tell him so. I’m sure you think you have much better things to do, and I even agree.”
“I have been given my orders. Do not tempt me from them.”
She frowned, not quite understanding what he meant. “Tempt you to abandon your duty? Of course you won’t. But you obviously don’t like having to continue to guard me so closely, even to the point of escorting me about the palace. I’ll discuss it with my father tonight if you won’t.”
That brought a frown to his face as he took her arm to lead her down the hall again. “Leave it go. It’s my duty now to protect you, not just my wish to do so, but my duty. You need to get over your grievance with me and accept that.”
She clamped her mouth shut. Her biggest grievance with him was his treating her like a stranger—no, like a princess! Completely annoyed now, she tried to walk ahead of him even though she didn’t know where she was going! But when she saw the eight guards standing at attention outside the wide double doors, it was a pretty good guess that she could stop there.
The guards didn’t open the door for her, not with their captain by her side. But Christoph didn’t either. When she glanced at him, he was lifting off a pouch she hadn’t noticed that he’d hung over the hilt of the saber he wore on his hip. He handed it to her.
“This was delivered to me today, found in the house of the thief’s parents.”
It was a ratty pouch, not hers, and must have belonged to that guard. When she looked inside it, all she saw was glitter. Her jewelry.
“The bracelet?” she asked.
“No, apparently someone else got there before my men did.”
“Guessing I was back wasn’t enough, I suppose. They wanted proof.”
“You still think Rainier tried to kill you when he’s admitted everything else except that?”
“Which is the bigger offense?”
“True.”
“Not that it matters now, when my presence is no longer a secret,” she said, unable to hide her nervousness over that.
He started to touch her cheek, but drew his hand back. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Alana.”
