The Frog Prince (27 page)

He takes my face in both hands and pulls me back to him, more forcefully now. I abandon my half-hearted attempt at translation and let him show instead of tell.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I don’t suppose anyone brought my suitcases up here, did they?” I say, raising my voice over the spray of the shower. I jump when Roman’s answer comes from just a few feet away.

“I put them by the bed.”

I lean back, peeking my head around the marble wall of the shower enclosure. Roman is standing in front of the mirror, cinching a dark blue tie flush with the collar of a button-up shirt. He sees me watching him in the reflection of the mirror and turns his head.

“What?” he says, eyeing me curiously.

I smile. “You look good. Did I miss the shaving?”

He rolls his eyes. “What is it with you and shaving? Yes, I shaved already. Some of us got up two hours ago,” he teases. “Hurry up, you’re going to miss breakfast.”

I move back into the stream of water and rinse the conditioner out of my hair. “I assume Great Grandma Maria’s secret attic isn’t on the palace tour?” I say, twisting the water faucets off. I envision a horde of tourists filing by the bathroom, watching me shower like some sort of
Homo sapiens royalis
zoo exhibit

“Definitely not,” he says. “Tourists never leave the Rosa Room.”

“What are we supposed to do when we want to get out of here? Wait for a gap in the line of tourists and make a run for it?”

“You’ll see.” He walks out of the bathroom without elaborating.

Ten minutes later I’m wrapped in a towel thick enough to be used as a blanket, digging through one of my two suitcases. I finally decide on a pair of snug, fawn-colored slacks and a low-cut cream bouclé sweater. I hold up a soft suede vest my mom made for me just before I left Denver, turning it from side to side to look at it from different angles. It has faux fur trim and burnished copper studs like the ones you find on a leather sofa. I’m not entirely sold on it, but I throw it on and jam my feet into a pair of brown and bronze suede patchwork clogs.

I blow my hair until it’s almost dry, then twist it up and clip it in the back. I decide to do my makeup later.

In the other room I hear Roman pick up the phone. “
Wir sind bereit
,” he says, and replaces the receiver. Suddenly, a deep rumbling erupts from the far side of the living room, and I hear the inexplicable rattle of silverware and dishes.

“What the–” I take a few steps backward until I can see through the doorway.

Roman crosses to the far wall and pulls on one of the wall panels. It swings open on hinges to reveal a dark shaft with metal cables as thick as my finger. The rattle of dishes is so loud now that I’m expecting something to shatter. I’m only mildly surprised when a fully set dining room table–complete with linen tablecloth, two lit candles and three silver serving dishes in the middle–rises into view.

The bottom of the platform in the shaft stops flush with the living room floor. The room is abruptly quiet. Roman gestures to the table. “What do you think?”

I stare at the table, dumbfounded. “Uh…what’s for breakfast?”

He grins. “Like I said, Great Grandma Maria didn’t like to be bothered by the servants when she came up here.”

A knock at the living room door startles me. Roman sighs.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

Instead of answering, Roman pulls the door open. I recognize the tall, hulking man from the night before. “
Guten Morgen
, Jurgen,” says Roman. He turns to me. “This is Jurgen, my…butler.” His mouth twists around the last word uncomfortably, as if he’s introducing his proctologist. “His job is to stand around, ignore my repeated requests to call me ‘Roman,’ and uncannily predict my needs. Right, Jurgen?”

“
Guten Morgen,
Your Majesty,” says Jurgen. He turns to me and inclines his head. “Good morning, Ms. Fromm.” After a pause he gestures to the table still tucked away inside the wall shaft and adds, “May I help you move the table, sir?”

The guy isn’t smirking or anything. It’s the best deadpan delivery I’ve ever heard.

Roman turns to me, making one final adjustment to his tie. “See?”

Breakfast turns out to be more like brunch. I wolf down an absolutely heavenly raisin-pear strudel, chasing it with an espresso-type brew Roman calls
mokka
. It has so much caffeine in it that I feel like I’ve snorted a line of cocaine right off the tabletop. Without missing a beat I dive into the
wiener schnitzel
and parsley potatoes.

“I didn’t realize there weren’t actually any wieners in
weiner schnitzel
,” I say, poking at the breaded veal cutlet on my plate. It’s served with a ramekin of lingonberry jam, reminding me of the meatballs we had in Sweden. “And what’s up with Europe and lingonberries? Is it like America’s apple pie?”

Roman scrapes up the last bit of Schnitzel off his plate and pops it in his mouth. “I’ve never been in favor of the word ‘lingonberries,’” he says through his food. “Sounds too much like ‘dingleberries,’”

“Uh…gross?” I say, raising my fork-f of food towards him to show him that I’m still eating.

Roman flips his wrist and pulls his shirt sleeve away from his watch. “Damn, I’m late.”

He looks over at my plate, now almost empty. “We need to get you and your suitcases back to your apartment. I had to have Jurgen do a pre-dawn commando raid to get them up here without any of the staff seeing.” He moves his chair back and stands up.

My fork stops mid-bite. “My apartment? Aren’t we staying here until they move you?”

Roman circles the table to where I’m sitting. “For the sake of appearances we had to make sure you had your own suite.”

“Why? Because of the press?”

He bends down to kiss me on the cheek. “No, because of my mother. She got here this morning. We’ll be meeting her for dinner right before the, uh, ceremony.”

“Oh.” I immediately lose my appetite. Now all I can think about it getting back to my assigned room before his mother finds out that I’m a shameless hussy. I toss my napkin on the table and get up.

“Just leave those here,” he says as I’m reaching for my luggage by the bed. “Jurgen will take them back to your room.”

Good idea
, I think. Knowing my luck, I’d end up rolling my baggage past tourists, Roman’s mother, and the palace butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. Photos and eye-witness accounts of my walk of shame–complete with my pantyhose spilling over the side of my purse–would be in the tabloids by dinnertime.

“Oh, right,” I say. Roman hasn’t moved from his spot by my chair. “So, how do we get out of here again?”

He steps over to the shaft in the wall where the table materialized and gets on. “This way,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow. “You want me to get on a two hundred and fifty-year-old service elevator?”

He holds his hand out to me. “C’mon. I’ve been riding it up and down for a week. It’s totally safe.”

Reluctantly, I step onto the platform beside him. Roman stomps his foot three times in rapid succession like an overenthusiastic tango dancer, and we drop into the dark shaft. Just when I’m about to freak out, light spills over our feet and we slide to a stop inside a bustling kitchen. The staff must be used to His Majesty materializing like Bruce Wayne from the Bat Cave, because no one even looks our way.

I follow Roman out into the hallway where Johanna Rettenwender is waiting for us.

“
Guten Morgan
,” I say to her.

She smiles widely, obviously pleased by my attempts to speak the language. “
Guten Morgan
,
Frau
Fromm.”

“You can call me Leigh,” I remind her.

“Of course.” She turns to Roman and fires off a few sentences in German.

I see Roman’s eyes flicker to me, and then back to Johanna. He responds with a few curt words before turning to me. “If you need anything dry cleaned or pressed before tonight, let Johanna know,” he says.”

“My mom sent some dresses a few days ago,” I say.

Johanna nods. “They arrived the day before yesterday. We had them cleaned and pressed. No doubt you saw them in your room.”

I wait for her to add:
We’ve taken the liberty of sewing scarlet letters to everything
.

“Oh, um, yeah…thanks,” I stammer. Out of the corner of my eye I see Roman smirking. I clear my throat. “I might need to go buy some shoes once I decide what I’m going to wear.”

“If you wouldn’t mind arranging that,” he says to Johanna. “And make sure Jason goes with her.”

I roll my eyes. “Like I could just roll away on the palace Vespa,” I say. “I don’t even know where I’m going.”

“I would be happy to make some phone calls,” says Johanna. “There will be no problem arranging for a shop to see you privately.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I think it’s easier if I just show up unexpectedly.”

I can see Roman getting ready to argue with me. “Leigh, the paparazzi—”

“Will find me anyway,” I finish for him. “Closing a shop just so I can try on a few pairs of shoes will only make it more obvious. There’d probably be a reporter already there holding a pair of Jimmy Choos for me.”

Roman chuckles. “Good point.” He checks his watch again. “I’m really late for that meeting.”

“So, lead the way.”

“Johanna, if you could meet me in the conference room in ten minutes?”

“Of course, sir.”

Roman grabs my hand and I half-run to keep up with his long strides. I wait until we’re in an elevator—a real one this time—before springing it on him.

“Isabella is going to be there tonight?” The ensuing silence stretches on for more than ten seconds as the elevator grinds slowly upward. I wait.

“How did you learn German so fast?” he says finally.

I smile. “It’s always been easy for me to learn languages.”

He looks at me sideways, incredulous. “What else can you speak?”

“I was fluent by the end of the first year of high school Spanish.” I shrug. “We live in Colorado. It was too easy to find people to practice on.”

“You said langua
ges
.”

“I used to be fluent in Latin,” I say as the elevator doors open. I get out, Roman two steps behind me.

“You were fluent in
Latin
,” he says slowly. He heads to the left, down a long, wide passageway of doors.

“I got bored with Spanish, so I took three years of high school Latin,” I say. “It’s the root language for most European languages. That’s probably why I’m picking up German so fast. Once you learn one language, it’s easier to learn others.”

“Who did you practice your Latin on?” he says. “Aren’t Ancient Romans a little thin on the ground, even in Colorado?”

“Very funny. I was fluent in reading and writing Latin, not speaking it. And I’ve forgotten most of it,” I say, thinking back to the motto on his bedroom wall in Colorado that I couldn’t translate. “Are you going to answer my question or do I have to repeat it in German?”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key. “Room key.” He stops in front of one of the doors and unlocks it. “This is one of those apartments that was rented out,” he says, pushing the door open. “It’s been completely renovated.”

I peek in as the not unpleasant smell of new carpet and paint rolls out into the hallway. It’s bright with sunshine, the high ceilings and tall windows mimicking those of the historical rooms and Roman’s temporary suite.

“You have a great view,” he adds. “You can see the Gloriette at the top of the hill.”

I roll my eyes and say, “
Herr, lass Hirn vom Himmel regnen
.”

Roman freezes for half a second and then starts cracking up. “Did Jason teach you that?”

I smile. “He said it to me all the time, mostly under his breath, so I finally asked him what it meant.”

“Did he tell you?”

My smile enlarges into a grin. “Something along the lines of ‘Oh god, let the sky rain brains.’”

Roman starts laughing again. “Yeah, that’s what it means. He shouldn’t talk to you that way though.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but he’s got two or three fully-loaded guns on him at all times.”

He catches my hand and raises it to his lips. “Isabella was my mother’s idea. Queen Margrethe and my mother have been friends their entire lives. Since she’s too sick to travel it would have been rude not to invite Isabella to the…ceremony.”

Roman refuses to voluntarily verbalize words like
royal oath
,
crown
, and
king
, replacing them instead with vague euphemisms like
the ceremony
,
the thing
, and
the Parliamentary vote
. This has become a source of great amusement for me.

I nod. “Okay, but why do they have to come to the thing before the ball?” My clever word choices go right over his head—he doesn’t even crack a smile. “I’m meeting your mother for the first time. I’m nervous enough already.”

“Mikhail and Menen will be there too,” he reminds me. “It’ll be fine.” I stiffen as he kisses me quickly on the lips. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

My retort is interrupted by the digital ring of my cell phone. While I dig around in my purse, Roman wisely makes his escape down the hallway. When I look up from the phone he’s halfway to the elevator.

“Hey, Jason,” I say into the phone. I walk into the suite and let the door close behind me. I’m standing in a combined living room/dining room. Down a short hallway I can see a cherry chest of drawers through the door of what must be the bedroom. Off to my right is a high granite counter with black metal and bamboo bar stools tucked underneath. Beyond that I can see a small kitchen. I drop my bag on the dining room table.

“G2 reporting for duty,” says Jason, his voice subdued. Johanna must have tipped him off about the shoes.

“I just need one pair of shoes,” I say. “We’ll be in and out.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you know where my apartment is?”

He snorts. “I’m your bodyguard, Leigh.”