Princess Ever After (Royal Wedding Series) (44 page)

“But I’m staff. Propriety and all, you know.”

“Y–you’re also . . . one of my only friends.”

It took a moment, but his arms encircled her. “You’re home, safe and sound. The evening song was lovely. So very lovely.”

Regina shuddered through her last sob. “We don’t have to tell the others about this. Our moment.”

“It’s our secret, Your Majesty.” He stepped aside, waiting for her to start forward. “The entire security force is out looking for you,” he said. “I’ll ring Mr. Burkhardt. Let him know you’ve arrived home.”

“Thank you.” Up the steps, she was suddenly exhausted, hungry—and cold.

“Chef has a hearty wild-pheasant-and-rice soup simmering on the stove. I’ll send it up to your room. Are those puffs from Loudermilk’s?” He pointed to her bag.

“Yes, the baker, Ben Loudermilk, saved me, Jarvis. He really did.”

“Shall I arrange to have him to tea?”

“Oh please, that would be awesome.”

Jarvis opened the door for her, but Regina paused on the stoop. “Why were you so kind to me? I came here a stranger, an American, an interloper into your world, your government. Half this country hates me. But you’ve treated me like a princess from the first day.”

“Because it’s what I do. Serve the princess.” He glanced away, toward the garden lights. “You remind me and all of us who we
are as a people.” His eyes shone when he faced her. “I’ve a renewed appreciation and love for my country, for my own heritage. I’m grateful.”

“Guess we’re all getting a refreshed glimpse of our destiny.”

“Of that I have no doubt.” Jarvis touched his hand to his chin, lowering his gaze. “What you did today in the midst of chaos showed true courage and wisdom. I knew then. You are a true princess.”

In her suite, a fire flickered in the fireplace. Reggie removed the coat she’d never even had a chance to take off at the Fence & Anchor. But her bones were aching for a hot bath. Her stomach grumbled for a bowl of Chef’s wild-pheasant-and-rice soup.

But as she passed the window, she caught a glow among the dark forest trees.

“What?” She pressed her face to the window. There it was, in the exact same spot as before.

Snapping up her coat, Reggie headed out, running into Serena. “I’ll be back.”

Daggum, she was going to find out what was hidden in the woods if it was the last thing she did. And if the woods contained anything like in a ’70s slasher movie, it might be the last thing she’d ever do.

Through the kitchen, she fired out the back door, then backtracked for a flashlight before making tracks for the trees.

What kind of trick or hologram lurked in her woods? Her panic in the midst of the riot had somehow morphed into I-dare-you courage.

Ducking into the forest, slapping aside limbs and vines, Reggie kicked through the brambles, squinting through the darkness toward the swirling light. The air about her face was warm
while cold air circulated around her legs. Contrast. Everything around her shouted contrast. Shouted impossible.

But with God, all things are possible.

Suddenly, she was free of the brambles, bursting into a grass-carpet clearing with a red-and-gold-leaves path, leading her to a glow and an old red stable.

Gram’s stable.

Reggie gasped as she moved through the dancing, twirling light particles. The same thick, oily fragrance from her oath ceremony, from the Fence & Anchor, permeated the atmosphere.

God is here.

“This is incredible.”

Cutting off her flashlight and tucking it into her pocket, she swirled in the beams with both hands. They jumped and bounced, as if aware she stood among them.

At the stable door, Reggie raised the latch with a surge of anticipation and shoved the door open. The light from outside swooshed in, filling the low structure and stirring another kind of fragrance.

The fragrance of life. Of hay and barley, as if a stable hand had just finished his chores.

Reggie moved down the wide center aisle, peeking into the stalls, her boot heels thudding. There were three stalls on either side, and a work space with something large under a faded green canvas was at the far end.

As she grabbed the canvas, the old material crunched in her hands. She jerked it to the ground, and a cloud of dust puffed from the coarse threads.

The glow she loved but could not explain had begun to fade, so Reggie retrieved her flashlight from her hip pocket.

The first glimpse of a chrome headlight nearly sank her to the ground. It couldn’t be. It just
couldn’t
.

“Oh my word. No, no, no. I can’t believe it.”

“Regina! Regina!”

She whirled around to see Tanner skidding through the stable door, his shirttail out, his tie askew at half-mast, and his normally neat, clipped hair going in every wild direction.

“Tanner, look, look. The Starfire #89. From the fairy—What happened to your eye?”

He snatched her into his arms and kissed her, gripping her so tight, pulling her into his heart, loving the star fire right out of her. Reggie swooned against him.

“I’m so sorry, so sorry. I tried to find you. I tried.”

“It’s okay, Tanner, it’s okay . . . Are
you
okay?” She brushed her fingers over his cut. “It’s not bleeding. Did this happen today? It looks almost healed.”

“Some lady caught me with her ring. Regina, you were brilliant, singing that song. We saw it on the telly.” He touched his forehead to hers. “Oh, love, when I’d lost you in the crowd . . . I thought I’d go crazy. I looked everywhere for you. But mostly I realized how madly I love you, Reggie.”

He kissed her cheek down to the curve of her neck until she thought she might decompose into a love puddle right there on the stable floor.

“Hey, wait a minute.” She gathered herself and pushed out of his arms. “How did you find me? Here, in the stable?”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I followed the light.”

“The light?” She squinted at him. “You saw the light? The swirling stardust?”

He grinned, his blue eyes snapping. “Yes, Reggie, I saw the light.”

She held his face, careful of his injury, and pulled him close for a kiss. “You called me Reggie.”

“Because that’s who I fell in love with. The girl chatting up the lawyer with motor oil running down her face. The girl with the song in the pub. The girl who quelled a riot with her voice.”

“What about the princess?” She fiddled with his collar, running her hands over the muscled curves of his shoulders. “Do you love her?”

“Very much.” He twirled her around. “I love Her Majesty too.”

“It is going to be complicated, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“That’s okay with you?”

“Is it okay with
you
?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.

He kissed her forehead. “Now, what’s this about a Starfire #89?” With his arm about her, he turned to the car.

“It’s the car in the fairy tale. It has to be Prince Francis’s Starfire #89.” She aimed her light over the sports car with its giant, exposed coils and single-seat chassis. “The original. Number one.”

“Hold on now.” Tanner walked around the car. “If this stable existed in 1914, how was it and the car not discovered?” He shined his light on the red, gleaming car.

For a moment, Regina couldn’t think. Only feel. This was what Gram was trying to tell her. Find the stable and the car. Then it will all make sense.

“Don’t you see? God hid it until the right time.” Reggie spun around, pumping her fist in the air, then rammed Tanner with an engulfing hug. The last chain of doubt broke from her heart.

Reggie chatted at top speed, explaining to Tanner about the car’s design, how the low, single-seat racer was modeled after Ford’s race car #999, built on a wood chassis with a whopping 50 horsepower engine.

Tanner inspected the smooth curve of the chassis, lowering his flashlight to inspect the paint. “It’s in incredible shape for sitting a hundred years.”

“The tarp saved it, I’m sure.” She glanced toward the rafters. “And I don’t see any leaks.”

But it was more than solid roofs and thick tarps that had saved
the Starfire—that had saved the kingdom. It was the hand of God. This was his fun way of saying, “See? I got this,” and Reggie felt it to her core.

Tanner inspected the open, big coil, eight-cylinder engine.

“Lev Goldstein broke Ford’s racing record by point one second in 1910.” She bent to inspect the engine next to him. “He blew the engine but not before wowing the racing industry with a speed of 102 miles an hour. Unheard of in its day. It would be years before any other racer came close.”

He brushed his hand over her shoulder. “I love your passion.”

“Tanner,”—she stood—“I’ve been thinking.”

“About . . .” He leaned to inspect the leather interior.

“I have to ask someone to form a government, right?”

“Yes, according to our old laws.”

“I want to ask Seamus.”

Tanner snapped upright. “What? No, Reggie, no. I forbid it.” He stormed around the back of the car toward her, tripping over the tarp. “He’s a slime. I blame him for the riot today, what with all his meddling and media futzing. No, you can’t.”

“First of all, I don’t think you can forbid me. Can you?”

“As one of your advisors—”

“Second of all, Tanner, he knows this country, he knows the structure and the people. They like him. The half that hates me likes him. The half that hates him likes me. Together, we make a whole team.”

“He will stab you in the back, Reggie.”

“More than he’s already tried?”

“Yes! He’s only shown us the tip of the iceberg. He’s a weasel and the people deserve better. You deserve better.”

“Look around you.” She motioned to the stable. “We just found a magical, unexplained glow in the woods hovering over a never-seen-before red stable in which we find probably the original Starfire #89, and who knows what all is in here. If I can’t have
faith that God has my back in being Princess of Hessenberg, if I can’t trust my heart telling me to make peace with Seamus—and yes, I’ll pray about it—then let’s just call it quits and go home.”

She reached for him. “Tanner, I was a car restoration girl in Tallahassee, Florida. And God, in his mercy, saw fit to make me—weak, broken me—a princess. How can I not afford some of the same kindness and faith toward Seamus? What if God wants me to be as generous to him as he’s been to me? Besides, what’s the old adage? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

He sighed, a funny look crossing his face. “I went to St. John’s to look for you this afternoon.” He braced his hands on his hips. “And this bishop came out to tell me you were all right. Then he said something to me that made my chest feel on fire . . . like he might have been the Lord himself. He said to tell you hi, by the way.”

“Tanner, our whole world has been flipped inside out. Yours. Mine. The duchy’s. Seamus’s.” She touched his arm, knowing more than ever she was right about the governor. “I at least want to talk to him. Before he has me arrested.”

He regarded her for a long second, then nodded. “Fine, but I want to be there.”

“I’d have it no other way.” She kissed his cheek. “I love you, Tanner.”

He drew her into a warm, cocooning hug. “Love you back, Princess.”

So, the car. Reggie slipped from Tanner’s embrace and walked around the car. “I can’t believe it . . . I just . . . it’s a miracle. Say,”—she held out her hand, wiggling her fingers at him—“I lost my phone in the riot. Can I borrow yours?”

“You lost your phone?” He took out his mobile and pressed it to his ear. “Louis, contact Mr. Beswick in America and have him cancel Regina’s phone plan. Get her a new one.” He made a face at her as he hung up and passed over his cell. “How did you lose your phone?”

“The riot. Now, shh, this is a sacred moment. I’m taking a picture to send to Al. He’s going to die, just die.” Her heart fluttered
just imagining Al’s face when he got this text. But wait . . . Reggie lowered the phone.

“I should just ship him the car. Let him restore it. He’d be so surprised. He was always saying to me, ‘No Starfire #89 is ever going to find its way down to Dixie.’ Well, ha!”

“But he closed the shop.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to tinker around. I know him. And he’d move heaven and earth to work on the Starfire #89.”

“If you’re sure, I’ll see what we can do about moving it.” Tanner moved to the back of the car, tipping his flashlight. “Didn’t the fairy tale have the princess stashing something in the boot? There’s a small one back here.”

“Yeah, it did. And, Tanner, you don’t have to do everything for me. Just point me in the right direction and I can see about shipping the car.” Reggie bent down to feel for the release. The small door bounced open and she aimed her flashlight inside. “There’s a leather bag in here.” She reached for it. “Feels like books. Wouldn’t it be like my ancestors to leave me books? Not that I mind, but personal effects would’ve been nice.”

Kneeling down on the canvas with Tanner next to her, Reggie passed him her flashlight and unbuckled the straps.

“A scarf . . . a blue scarf . . .” She pulled it free. “Tanner, I think it’s the one Gram wore in her portrait. There’s something wrapped up in it.” Reggie brushed the dust from the tarp before peeling away the scarf.