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

Henry’s eyes narrowed. His lantern jaw bulged. “Everyone looks suspicious to me.”

“He’s too slick, don’t you think?” The Tower was dressed in Amana or whatever they called that sort of unrumpled designer tailoring. Definitely the dashing playboy type.

Henry wasn’t perturbed at all. He scanned the crowd swarming in and out of the tent instead of keeping an eye on the suspicious snake who was charming Lili. “The princess seems to approve.”

Simon scowled. The stranger was holding up the receiving line. As they talked, Lili glancingly touched his arm, his shoulder…hell, she even flipped up the end of the guy’s subdued maroon silk tie and giggled a little.

The Tower put his hands on her waist, bent down, said something about her being a “tiny little package,” and squeezed. Simon’s face got hot. He wasn’t a violent man, but suddenly he wanted to use his fists like sledgehammers.

“Stone,” he remembered. “His name’s Stone.”

“Ah.”

“Does that mean anything to you?”

“Nope,” Henry said.

“Can’t you run the name through your, uh, system? I don’t like him.” He has too much hair. He has too many white teeth. He has too many hands on Lili.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Henry pledged. But his eyes were elsewhere, following a woman’s dark head through the crowd. Simon was too distracted by his own fixation to give more than a fleeting notice to the chief’s.

Until a sharp cry rose above the babble of the crowd.

“Pickpocket!”

3

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.