The Reluctant Princess Page 3
That eyebrow inched upward again. “Are you trying to goad me, Princess?”
She opened her mouth to deny that—and then shut it before she spoke. She had a sense that to lie to this man was to lose all hope of getting anywhere with him. She said, quietly, “Yes. I was goading you.” She swallowed and then made herself add, “I apologize.”
He gave her an infinitesimal shrug.
She looked up at him from under her lashes, head lowered modestly, “Please. I really do want to know. Did you speak with my father yourself? Did he tell you in person to come here and get me?”
An excruciating parade of seconds went by. Finally, the Viking said, “Yes.”
“And what did he say, when he gave you your orders?”
“I have told you what he said. That he wanted to see you, that he would explain all once you were at his side.”
“But why does he want me there?”
“He didn’t tell me. And there is no reason he should have told me. A king is not obligated to share his motives with those who serve him.”
“But he must have said something.”
Hauk had that look again, that carved-in-stone look. The one that told her she’d gotten all the information she was going to get from him.
Well, too bad. She wanted some answers. And maybe, if she handled this right, she could make him give them to her. “You’ve said more than once that you are at my service.”
“And so I am, Princess Elli.”
“Wonderful—and I want you to know, I do understand that, while you serve me, you serve my father first.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“So that would mean, if something I ask of you doesn’t affect your ability to do what my father wants, you would do my will. You would, as you said, serve me.” She waited. She knew, eventually, he would have to say it.
And eventually, he did. “Yes, Princess Elli.”
A slow warmth was spreading through her. She knew she had him now. “And when my father gave you the order to bring me to Gullandria, did he also instruct you not to tell me what he had told you?”
“No, Princess. He didn’t.”
“Then, since what I ask does not conflict with my father’s wishes, I want you to serve me now and tell me what my father said to you when he ordered you to come for me.”
Oh, she did have him. And yes, he did know it.
He sat ramrod straight in the chair. “His Majesty’s instructions were brief. I was to be…gentle with you. First, I was to ask you to come with me. I was to tell you what I have told you, that your father wished to see you, to speak with you, that he would explain everything once he had you with him.”
She knew the rest. “And if I said no, he told you to kidnap me and bring me to him, anyway.”
Hauk looked offended. “Never once did he use the word kidnap.”
“But that is what he expected—I mean, it’s what you’re doing. Right?” For that she got a one-shoulder shrug. She sat forward. “But why didn’t he at least call me? Why couldn’t he ask me himself?”
“Highness, you ask of one who has no answers. As I told you before, a king doesn’t concern himself with ‘whys’ when giving orders to his warrior. Your father has said that all will be revealed to you in time and His Majesty is a man of his word.”
“But I don’t—”
“Your Highness.” Those frosty blue eyes had a warning gleam in them now.
“Hmm?” She gave him bright, sweet smile.
He looked as if a series of crude Norse oaths was scrolling through his mind. He said softly, “Patience is a quality to be prized in a woman. It would serve you well to exercise a little of it.”
In a pig’s eye. “Think about this, Hauk. Just think about it. My father told you he would prefer that I went willingly. And I am seriously considering doing just that.”
“You’re considering.”
“Yes. I am. I truly am.”
He might be the strong, silent type, but he wasn’t any fool. He knew where this was headed. He said bleakly, “You’re considering, but there is a condition.”
“That’s right. And it’s a perfectly reasonable one. I want you to call my father and let me talk to him.”
Chapter Three
She wanted to talk to her father.
Hauk couldn’t believe it. The woman was too wily by half. She’d led him in circles until she had him right where she wanted him—with his head spinning. And then she’d made the one demand he wasn’t sure he could refuse.
It was removing the gag that had done it. He never should have made such a fool’s move. But his lord had tied his hands—as surely as Hauk had tied hers.
Bring her, but do it gently. Coax her, but use force if you must.
The instructions were a tangle of foggy contradictions. And that put Hauk in the position of abducting her—and also having to listen to whatever she had to say.
The cursed woman was still talking. “Hauk, come on. I know you have to have a way to get in touch with him—a beeper? A phone number? A hotline to Isenhalla? It’s so simple, don’t you see? I want you to call the number, or whatever it is, and let me speak with my father.”
Hauk didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing. He sat still in the chair and said not a word.
Silence and stillness didn’t save him. Princess Elli rattled on. “My father wants me to come to him, period. But first and foremost, he hopes I’ll come to him voluntarily. And that’s perfectly understandable that he would want that—any father would, after all. And if a phone call will do that, will make me agree to go, then wouldn’t it be my father’s will that you call him and let me speak with him?”
Why wouldn’t the infernal woman shut up? Though Hauk had never before questioned the actions of his king, how, by the ravens of Odin, could he help but question them now?
The king’s orders echoed in his head. First ask the woman to come—and then force her if she refuses. And don’t forget—be gentle about it.
The king must have believed that she would refuse, or else why send his warrior to get her? Perhaps if she’d had need of a bodyguard…
But there had been no mention of an outside threat. Therefore, if His Majesty had truly believed the girl might come willingly, he would have chosen someone other than a fighting man to fetch her, someone with a honeyed tongue, someone who knew how to coax and cajole, someone who could outtalk the woman sitting opposite him now.
“First and foremost,” the irritating princess repeated for at least the tenth time, “he wanted me to want to come. So what could it cost you to call? Nothing. But if you don’t call, and later my father learns that all I wanted to come voluntarily was a chance to—”
“All right.”
Elli couldn’t believe her ears. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Had she actually gotten through to him? She gaped at him. “Uh. You mean, you will? You’ll call him?”
He had that black bag right beside him. He reached into it and pulled out a small electronic device—it looked like some kind of beeper. He punched some buttons on the face of the thing, stared at it for maybe fifteen seconds and tucked it back in the bag.
And then he straightened in the chair and stared straight ahead.
Elli couldn’t stand it. “What did you just do? What is happening?”
He waited a nerve-shattering count of five before he answered, “I have contacted your father. Unless something unexpected keeps him from it, he will be calling here within the hour.”
Forty-three minutes later, the phone rang. Elli leaped to her feet at the sound, jostling the cats, who shot from the couch and streaked off down the hall.
“Wait,” the Viking commanded.
“But I—”
“Stay where you are.”
Every nerve in her body thrumming with excruciating anticipation, Elli stayed put. The Viking went to the phone. He checked the call waiting display and then picked it up. “FitzWyborn here…yes, my lord. She is here. She has agreed to
come with me, on the condition that she might speak to you first. Yes, my lord. As you will.” Hauk held out the phone to her. “Your father will speak with you, Princess Elli.”
Elli could not move.
That bizarre feeling of unreality had returned, freezing her where she stood. Surely this was all a dream. The father she had never known couldn’t actually be on the other end of that line. And, now that she thought about it, how could she possibly be certain that the man waiting to speak with her wasn’t an imposter? Hauk said the caller was her father, but his saying it didn’t necessarily make it so.
The Viking strode toward her. When he reached her, he opened his hand. On top of the blue-and-gold lightning bolt lay her phone. She took it, put it to her ear.
“Hello?” It came out sounding awful, whispery and weak.
“Elli.” The voice on the other end was gentle and deep. “Little Old Giant,” the voice said, so tenderly.
Little Old Giant. Nobody called her that. Nobody.
Except her mother, when she was a child…
“You’re my Little Old Giant, Elli, that’s what you are.”
“No, Mommy. I’m not a giant. I’m way too small.”
“But your name is a myth name. A name from the old, old stories that are told in the land where you were born.”
“In Gullandria, Mommy?”
“That’s right. In Gullandria. And in Gullandria, they tell the story of Elli, the giantess. Elli was a very old giantess—so old, she was old age itself. The Thunder god, Thor, was tricked into fighting her, though everyone knows…”
“You can’t fight old age,” Elli said softly into the phone.
Her father—and she knew it was her father now—laughed. He had a good, strong laugh. A kind laugh, warm and sure. He said, “Ah. Your mother has taught you something, at least, of who you are.”
Elli felt the tears. They burned behind her eyes, pushed at the back of her throat. Hauk had returned to his chair, but his ice-blue gaze was on her.
She looked away, dashed at her damp eyes and asked her father, “If you wanted to see me, why did you have to do it this way?”
“I need you to come, Elli. Please. Come with Hauk. Trust Hauk. He will never harm you and he will keep you safe. Let him bring you to me.”
“Father.” So strange. To be speaking to him, at last, after all these years. “You haven’t answered my question.”
There was a silence from the other end of the line. Elli heard static, in the background, thought of the thousands of miles of distance between her life, here, at home in Sacramento and her father, on the island of her birth in the Norwegian Sea. What time was it there? Late at night, she thought. Was he in bed as he talked to her, or fully dressed in some high-ceilinged study or huge palace drawing room?
He spoke again. “I have lost two sons. Is it so very strange that I would yearn to meet at last a daughter of my blood?”
“But why didn’t you just call me, ask me?”
“Would you have said yes?”
It was a question she couldn’t have answered five minutes ago—but that was before she heard his sad, kind voice calling her by the special name only he and her mother knew.
“I would have,” she said firmly. “In a heartbeat, I would have said yes.”
Hearing his voice did not, by any means, make everything all right. There remained great hurt in her heart, and bitterness, too. He had, after all, treated her and her sisters as disposable children. She knew something terrible had happened, all those years ago, between him and her mother, to make them carve their family in two, to send her mother fleeing back home to America with her three baby princesses, leaving her sons behind. Elli and her sisters had tried, over and over, to find out what had caused the awful rift. But their mother would not say.
Elli turned again toward the Viking sitting in her easy chair. She gave him her most defiant stare. Really, what was this crazy kidnapping plot of her father’s, if not his misguided way of fighting for a chance to make things right in their family at last? She wanted to go now, to meet her father face-to-face, to see the land of her birth. As it stood now, Hauk would have had to lock her up and throw away the key to keep her from going.
Her father said dryly, “Perhaps I was in error, not to call first.”
“You certainly were,” she chided him. “And what about Liv and Brit? Are you having them kidnapped, too?”
“No, Elli.” She could hear the humor in his voice. “Only you.”
“Why only me?”
He chuckled. “As a baby, you had curious eyes. I see some things haven’t changed.”
“So far, you’re just like this refugee from the WWE you sent here to strong-arm me.” She glared all the harder at Hauk and then accused into the phone, “You keep evading all my questions.”
“Come to me. You will know all.”
“That’s what he keeps saying.” He didn’t so much as blink. He was doing what he always did, sitting utterly still, staring steadily back at her.
Her father coaxed in her ear, “Elli, I do long to see your face, to talk with you at length, to get to know you, at least a little….”
Her throat closed up again. She swallowed. “I said I would come. I meant it.”
“Good then.”
“But first—”
Even through the static, she heard her father sigh. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Father, be reasonable. I can’t just…disappear. I have a life and my life deserves consideration. I have to get someone to feed my cats and water my plants. I have to call my principal at school, arrange for some family leave. And I have to see Mom and tell her—”
“Not your mother.” Her father’s voice was suddenly cold as the steel blade of Hauk’s knife. “Absolutely no.” It was a command.
Too bad. “There is no way I’m disappearing without explaining to her what I’m doing. She would be frantic, terrified for me. I could never put her through something like that.”
“If Ingrid knows where you’re going she’ll never allow it.”
“You don’t know that for certain—and besides, Mom doesn’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”
“I do know for certain. I’ve already approached her on this issue. She flatly refused me.”
That was news to Elli—big news. “You spoke with Mom about my coming to see you?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“A few days ago.”
“You…you called her? On the phone?”
“I did.”
“But you two haven’t spoken in—”
“A very long time.”
“She hasn’t said a word to me about it.”
“I don’t find that in the least surprising.” Her father’s voice wasn’t as icy as a moment ago—but there remained a distinct chill in it.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s quite simple. I called your mother. I asked that she send you and your sisters for a visit. She refused. I tried to get through to her. I pointed out that I’m your father, that I’ve waited all these years and I have a right to know my daughters. She wouldn’t listen. She told me that you and your sisters wanted nothing to do with me, that I was to leave you alone and stay out of your lives. And then she hung up on me.”
Elli knew for certain now that she wouldn’t leave Sacramento before she’d had a serious talk with her mother. “Father.” The word still felt strange in her mouth. “I’m an adult, past the age when my mother decides what I can or can’t do. I make my own plans. And I plan to come and visit you. It’s Monday night. Give me two days. By Thursday morning at the latest, I will be on a plane, on my way to Gullandria.” She added, with a meaningful glance at the Viking sitting still as a statue across from her, “You have my word of honor on that.”
There was a silence on the other end. Even the static stopped. And then her father said thoughtfully, “Your word of honor…”
“Yes. My word of honor.”
She felt irritation rising. “Why do you need to talk to—”
“Please, Elli. Put him on.”
Elli marched over to the Viking. “Here. Tell him my word of honor can be trusted.”
He took the phone. “Yes, my lord…yes…yes, I do…” He listened. His face remained expressionless, but something in the set of his jaw told her he didn’t much care for whatever he was hearing. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said at last and gave her the phone back.
She spoke to her father again. “Satisfied?”
Her father answered calmly. “I think we have an agreement.”
“We do?”
“That’s right, my daughter. Speak with your mother if you must. And be on that plane by Thursday morning.”
Elli smiled. “Great. Thank you, Father. I’m looking forward to seeing you at last.”
“And I’m looking forward to seeing you.” His voice was tender again. “So very much.” Then he added offhandedly, “Hauk will stay with you. He’ll see you safely to my side.”
The Viking was still staring at her. Elli spun away from him, stalked back to the couch and plunked down onto it. She sent a fulminating glance across the room before she muttered into the phone, “You have my word. There’s no need for—”
“Elli. He stays with you.” Her father’s tone was flat. Final.
She could speak flatly, too. “You know what this tells me, Father? You don’t trust my word.”
His tone softened and acquired a wheedling note. “Humor an old man. Please.”
Her father was in his early fifties. Old, by Elli’s standards—but not that old. “Oh, stop. I know you’re working me.”
“This is one point on which I cannot back down.” He was all firmness again. “Accept it. You will have the time you want to do whatever you say needs doing—including visiting your mother. But Hauk will not leave your side until he’s delivered you safely into my presence.”
“You think Mom is going to talk me out of coming, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“She won’t. I swear it.”
“Better safe than sorry. I do, after all, know your mother.”