Once Upon A Tiara: Once Upon A Tiara / Henry Ever After

Lili stopped. Oh. She’d been too steamed to notice.

“C’mon, Princess,” Trey coaxed. She had to give him a sliver of credit. He hadn’t abandoned her. She couldn’t even blame him for getting overly amorous; she had flirted. “I promise not to touch you,” he added.

She was tempted to accept the ride, but decided to hold her ground. Once a fool, and all that. “I’d rather not. There’s a farmhouse nearby. I remember passing it. I’ll go there and call for a cab.” Fiddlesticks. If she hadn’t been forced to sneak out, she could have borrowed Mrs. Grundy’s handy cell phone. That was what came of relying on others to handle the necessary details.

Trey said, grudgingly, “I have a phone. I can call for you.”

“I’d rather not be in your debt,” she persisted, although she was beginning to realize that she wasn’t entirely out of her predicament. The owner of the farmhouse might not be thrilled to be awakened by a stranger knocking at the door at midnight, even if the stranger was a princess. And the road was extremely dark and deserted. Whether that was good or bad, she wasn’t sure.

“Suit yourself.” Trey gunned the engine, then peered over his shoulder one more time. His white teeth flashed. “I suppose those VIP passes are out of the question?”

She almost laughed. Kissing Trey was worse than kissing a slimy toad—at least the toad didn’t kiss back. But there was something roguishly charming about the guy, for all his crudeness. Maybe…

She wondered if it was possible to accept his cell phone but not his overtures. Trey said, “Well? I’m getting cold,” then shrugged and peeled out with a squeal of the tires, tossing Lili a devil-may-care wave.

“Um, Trey?” she said.

It was a minute before the sound of the convertible died in the distance. Lili gathered her courage. This wasn’t a problem. No, it actually was, but she could handle it. They must have taxicabs in Blue Cloud, so she had every hope of getting back to the hotel with no one the wiser…except herself.

She’d walked several paces before certain unusual sounds penetrated her consciousness. She stopped, flummoxed. Music—very faint, but carried on the night breezes. In the opposite direction from the farmhouse. Maybe there was another house just down the road, its inhabitants obviously still awake.

Hmm. Lili turned back, her interest piqued. Was that a violin? Accompanied by a guitar? Not a recording. She drew closer to the source, driven to hurry. There were voices, and laughter. It was beginning to sound like a free-form party; exactly the kind of excitement and adventure that she’d wished for.

She smelled wood smoke. Saw the flicker of a bonfire. Tents in a field. Dancers. A Gypsy encampment…Jana’s people! Of course. Not unlike the bands of Romany who occasionally traveled through Grunberg and neighboring countries. She hadn’t realized until Jana Vargas’s appearance at the reception that there were Romany clans roaming America also.

Lili’s blood stirred. An evening in a Gypsy camp! What a treat to stumble upon. Jana had seemed sincere about welcoming Lili, even if there was some question about the Vargas diamond lurking between their families.

“AMELIA GRUNDY, HERE.”

“Whazzat?”

“Grundy. I’m with the princess.”

“Er…right. Lili.”

“Her Serene Highness, Princess Liliane of Grunberg.”

“That’s what I said.” Simon scrubbed a hand through his matted hair. He’d fallen asleep with an open book resting on his chest. Bad form for a swinging single bachelor. “Who’s this, again?” he said into the telephone, heaving up to switch on the bedside lamp. He righted his twisted glasses. “Grundy, you say?”

Why would the British nanny be calling him?

“The princess is missing.”

“Missing?” he echoed, suddenly feeling more alert.

“Since ten o’clock. It’s now half past twelve.”

“But you said you’re with her.”

“Not literally, Mr. Tremayne. She’s vanished.”

“For two and a half hours. That hardly constitutes an emergency, does it? The princess struck me as a lively sort of girl. She’s probably out having a good time.”

“Exactly.”

“Ah.”

“She shouldn’t be on her own,” Grundy said.

“Are you certain she is?”

“Evidence suggests she is not.”

The book on Simon’s chest became as heavy as a headstone. He knocked it aside. “What am I supposed to do about that?” He sounded crabby, but he couldn’t help it. Initially he’d thought that he and the princess had shared a moment. An understanding. Apparently not. Lili was cavorting, and it wasn’t with him. Stood to reason. The lovely princess was such a distraction that he kept forgetting about his rotten luck with women. Every one of his short list of relationships had ended with him being the chump.

“She’s of age,” he said.

“Only twenty-two. One mustn’t forget that she comes from a traditional society. She’s been protected all her life. This is her first time on her own—”

“Poor girl. No wonder she’s kicked away the traces.”

Grundy carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “She’s inexperienced, our Lili. Naive, one might say.” She fell quiet, but her silence was obviously expectant.

Inexperienced? Naive? That wasn’t his impression of the princess, Simon thought, recalling how she’d teased him with her “innocent” little stripper act. Was he missing a clue?

“I am worried,” Grundy said. “Princess Lili plays the flirt, but I do think she’d be susceptible to overtures from the wrong kind of gentleman.” She paused significantly. “One who is perhaps planning to ‘bag a trophy,’ I believe you’d say in the American vernacular.”

“Send the bodyguard after her.”

“I have, sir. However, I believe reinforcements are called for. Mr. Wilhelm has discovered from the concierge that the princess left the hotel with a stranger.”

“Was it the Tower?”

“Pardon?”

“The man she met at the reception. Tall, well-dressed. Cleft chin. Freakishly hirsute.” Simon was feeling around on the floor for his trousers. He found a sweatshirt and put it on instead, right over his pajama top, holding the phone with his chin. “His name’s Stone.”

“Yes, I do believe that’s the one. I have a terrible feeling he’s not on the up-and-up.”

“Where’s Wilhelm now?”

“Searching for the convertible they drove away in.”

Simon thrust his arm, and the phone, through a sleeve, then brought it back to his mouth. “I’m going to hang up now and call Henry—Chief Russell.”

“My goodness, no. We can’t have the police involved. This must be kept discreet, lest the muckrakers get wind of it.”

“Henry will keep it off the record, if possible. The man’s a bloodhound. He’ll probably sniff the air once and know exactly where Lili—Her Highness—is. We’ll have her back to you in no time, none the worse for—” He stopped.