Christoph still sounded angry when he asked Leonard, “Why did you steal Helga Engel from my protection?”
Leonard snorted. “Admit it, she wasn’t under your protection, you were bringing her in to interrogate her. That was obvious.”
Christoph didn’t try to deny it. “She has a lot to answer for. But how did you find her on this road yesterday?”
“I had been looking for her. I didn’t know where to find her until you took Alana to visit her and made sure I learned of it. I was on my way to talk to her at the chalet, to find out why.”
“You’ll have to turn her over to me. The king and I need to speak with her. She told us lies. I need to find out what she really did and why.”
Leonard shook his head. “No, you don’t. She told me, I can tell you. She is under my protection now. I won’t allow her to be hurt.”
Christoph was silent for a moment. He’d just been told no! Alana held her breath to see if he’d insist on having it his way. But he finally said, “Then tell me.”
Leonard did, and Alana’s eyes got wider and wider the longer she listened. A romance between him and Helga? And while it wasn’t supposed to mean anything to him, because he’d just been using her as a tool for his job, it had turned out to mean more to him than he could have thought possible. It had changed how he had dealt with the nasty job of killing a princess. It had softened his heart before the fateful moment arrived.
It all came out, how Helga had made up the tale of switching the babies that very night when she woke up and found the princess gone. She did it out of fear for her and her daughter’s lives. And she got the other nursemaid to go along with her by convincing her she’d be blamed, too. Helga never dreamed the king would end up separating her from her daughter.
Alana squeezed Poppie’s hand, letting him know she didn’t blame the woman. She might have been separated from her real parent, but she’d had Poppie instead. How different she might be today if she’d grown up a spoiled princess. Impossible to know.
“I bear no grudge,” she said when he finished. “You can let her know that.”
Poppie smiled at her. Christoph wasn’t smiling and pointed out, “The woman deceived the king of Lubinia. She let him love the wrong child. She let him mourn that child when it died. All these years, he’s mourned her loss when she wasn’t even his.”
“He mourned the loss of a loved one, as you say, he loved the girl. Now he loves the right child. I kept his real daughter from him, Helga didn’t. And I did that because he and whoever your predecessor was, and you, never resolved the threat to her life.”
“I wasn’t here then.”
“You’ve been at your post long enough to have tried,” Leonard reasoned.
“He has tried,” Alana found herself saying in Christoph’s defense. “The one difficulty in all this time was the suspects are such a huge family, but more to the point, they are the king’s own relatives. And despite how many spies were sent into their stronghold, they never found out who was pulling the strings. That secret was too closely guarded. It obviously wasn’t the head of the family.”
Christoph added, “Nothing could be done back then anyway, it was too soon after the civil war to arrest any Bruslan. It would have led to another war.”
“I thought of that,” Leonard agreed. “And loving Alana as I do, I didn’t mind waiting. But I didn’t know it was presumed that Helga’s daughter was taken, that it became a royal secret that the presumed princess was safe. I knew none of that until Helga told me. If I had known, I might have brought Alana back sooner—or not. Who is to say in hindsight?” He ended with a shrug.
“About Helga,” Christoph said. “It’s unacceptable that you’ve hidden her. I must insist—”
“Don’t,” Leonard cut in sharply. “I will repeat, Captain, you can’t have her. I don’t care what she’s done, what you think she needs to be charged with. She’s been hurt enough, losing her child because of the king’s enemies. She’s already paid a high price. While I breathe, I won’t let you hurt anyone I care about.”
The two men stared at each other long enough that Alana became nervous and broke the silence herself, telling Poppie, “There’s something you should know, if you haven’t already heard. My father has chosen a husband for me.”
Leonard glanced at her with a frown. “So soon?”
“Yes, and the wedding is to take place soon, too.”
“Who?”
“Karsten Bruslan,” she said with a wince.
“No!” Leonard said furiously. “Give you to the very people who—”
“Frederick was already considering naming Karsten his successor before he knew Alana was alive,” Christoph cut in. “He may not have liked the prospect, but it would have been for the good of the country.”
“In the meantime,” Alana added, “Christoph here is my protector. He’s the only man my father trusts enough to keep me safe.”
Leonard looked at Christoph for another long moment, then nodded. “Yes, I see it in his eyes. He’ll protect you with his life. A much better recommendation for marriage, if you ask me, than a foolish effort to end a feud that many Bruslans don’t even remember.”
Alana blinked. Poppie would rather she marry Christoph?
