The Secret Princess. Elizabeth Harbison

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      Chapter Two

      Franz Burgess, known as Will to his friends, went outside into the damp, cold air and got into the waiting limousine. He’d hoped to feel relieved by this point, but he’d known, going into this, that he might be disappointed. With everything he knew about Amy Scott—and he knew a great deal—he should have known her intelligence would make her cynical, at least give her a cynical reaction to his story.

      One thing he had not known, or prepared himself for, was his own reaction to her. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her he’d been captivated by her. He could have stayed all night, watching her eyes flash when she spoke, listening to her voice, observing her movements and the way her clothes hugged the soft contours of her body.

      It wasn’t simply that she was attractive. He had plenty of access to beautiful women. At times, he was even tired of beautiful women. They all seemed so vacant. But Amy Scott was different. Her coloring was like that of many women from his country, the pale skin and faintly pink cheeks. Yet she had something different, something extra. It was an unexplainable quality of magnetism that he’d rarely encountered. It was easy to imagine himself watching her for many years to come.

      If only he could persuade her that the story he’d told her was true. She was so perfect for the role. Her sharp intelligence, combined with her beauty, would make her an excellent princess. Yet she was skeptical. And despite financial difficulties that he knew about, she was strong enough to resist the temptation of being told she was a princess and would thus have no more bills and debtors to worry about.

      So he was going to have to bring out documentation, to try to convince her to accompany him back to Lufthania. It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew that already. But he’d budgeted time for that possibility.

      However, he hadn’t budgeted time, or prepared himself mentally, for the possibility that he couldn’t convince her. That would be a disaster for him. Yet it was looking entirely possible that he wouldn’t be able to. He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t come back to Lufthania with him.

      His entire life depended on it.

      The first thing Amy did after Franz Burgess left was call her parents. They both got on the line and for half an hour they discussed the situation. Amy was surprised that her parents didn’t immediately dismiss the idea that she might be a princess.

      To the contrary, her mother was ready to believe it. “I’ve always thought you were more regal than most people,” she said.

      “What are you talking about?”

      “Well, you were never too fond of doing the dishes, and it was darn near impossible to get you to clean your room.” She laughed. “I always thought it was a queen complex, but princess will do.”

      Amy was glad for the levity. In the end, they agreed that Amy would see Franz Burgess’s evidence in the morning and make a judgment based on that. If he was on the up-and-up, they reasoned, he must have some pretty compelling evidence. She could hear him out and call them back with the additional facts.

      Meanwhile, her father would call the Lufthania embassy and see if he could verify the existence of Franz Burgess.

      After that, they would decide together what Amy should do.

      This plan made Amy feel a lot better, and she spent the rest of the night looking for any information she could find on Lufthania.

      First, she checked her stock for any books that might make even slight mention of Lufthania. Since it was a very small country and didn’t hold the international cachet of, say, Monaco, no books were devoted to it entirely, but she recalled several references to it in some of the books on Germany and Switzerland. It was little more than a footnote, but when she looked through an out-of-print volume on the region, she was able to find a slender chapter devoted to the country and its history.

      The book was written in the late 1940s and had no reference to the coup d’état Franz Burgess had told her about. However, it did go into a bit of detail on the royal family, Prince Josef, Princess Lily and their daughter, Princess Amelia. The young princess was pictured playing in the snow with a St. Bernard puppy.

      It was difficult to distinguish the girl’s facial features, so when Amy imagined she looked familiar—perhaps similar to the image mirrors had held of Amy some twenty years ago—she chalked it up to an overactive imagination.

      Still, she read and reread the pages, scouring for every mention of Lufthania, and she kept returning to the picture of the little girl.

      Then she tried the Internet. The story of the coup was there, but no pictures. She also found some official government documents that appeared to be written in a Germanic language, and a couple of personal travel diaries written by people who had happened through a corner of Lufthania on their way to someplace more famous, but that was all. There was nothing solid to persuade Amy to believe Franz Burgess’s story.

      Yet as difficult as it was to believe it could be true, it managed to touch Amy’s heartstrings. What could be better for the girl who had spent a lifetime wondering who she really was and where—if anywhere—she’d truly fit in, than to find her family history and home all in one shot? To find a long, documented family tree? One with golden apples, no less.

      She read through the night and far into the wee hours of the morning, stopping occasionally to refill her coffee mug, or gaze at the snow in the hazy glow of the street lamp. She’d always enjoyed the cold weather more than the heat. Did that mean anything? Was it significant somehow? Did it prove the fantastic story?

      The questions swirled around in her mind like snow on the wind until her eyelids grew heavy and the words began to blur before her.

      She fell asleep without even realizing it until the sunny white glare of morning cut through the store windows and woke her just in time to see the long black limo pull up outside.

      He was back.

      Amy stood up quickly, raked her hand through her hair and threw open her desk drawer to look for a piece of gum to make up for not having time to brush her teeth.

      He tapped on the door just as she was tossing the wrapper into the trash.

      She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself before walking, as regally as she could, to the door and letting him in.

      “Good morning,” he said, a smile in his eyes. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ