Free Affaire Royale by Nora Roberts Page B

answering letters.”
    “Three days a week you go to the headquarters of the AHC. Personally, I wouldn’t want to handle the influx of paperwork. You’ve been bucking the National Council for eighteen months on an increase in budget for the Fine Arts Center. Last year you toured fifteen countries for the Red Cross and spent ten days in Ethiopia. There was a ten-page spread in
World
magazine. I’ll see that you get a copy.”
    She picked up the rose again, running her finger over the petals as she rose to pace. “But am I clever at it?” she demanded. “Do I know what I’m doing, or am I simply there as some kind of figurehead?”
    Reeve drew out a cigarette. “Both. A beautiful young princess draws attention, press, funds and interest. A clever young woman uses that and her brain to get what she’s after. According to your diary—”
    “You’ve read my diary?”
    He lifted a brow, studying the combination of outrage and embarrassment on her face. She’d have no idea, he mused, if there was any need for the embarrassment. “You’ve asked me to help you,” he reminded her. “I can’t help you unless I know you. But relax—” Reeve lit the cigarette with a careless flick of his lighter. “You’re very discreet, Gabriella, even in what you write in your personal papers.”
    There was no use squirming, she told herself. He’d very probably enjoy it. “You were saying?”
    “According to your diary, the traveling is wearing. You’ve never been particularly fond of it, but you do it,year in and year out, because it’s necessary. Funds must be raised, functions attended. You work, Gabriella. I promise you.”
    “I’ll have to take your word for it.” She slipped the rose back into the vase. “And I want to begin. First, if I’m to keep the loss of memory discreet, I need the names of people I should know.” Skirting around the desk, she took her seat and picked up a pen. “You’ll give me what you know. Then I’ll call Janet Smithers. Do I have appointments today?”
    “One o’clock at the AHC Center.”
    “Very well. I’ve a lot to learn before one.”
    *   *   *
    By the time Reeve left her with her secretary, he’d given Brie more than fifty names, with descriptions and explanations. He’d consider it a minor miracle if she retained half of them.
    If he’d had a choice, Reeve would have gotten in his car and driven. Toward the sea, toward the mountains—it didn’t matter. Palaces, no matter how spacious, how beautiful, how historically fascinating, were still walls and ceilings and floors. He wanted the sky around him.
    Only briefly, Reeve paused at a window to look out before he climbed to the fourth floor and Prince Armand’s office. A cop’s work, he thought with some impatience. Legwork and paperwork. He was still a long way from escaping it.
    He was admitted immediately, to find the prince pouring coffee. The room was twice the size of Brie’s, much more ornate and rigidly masculine. The molding on the lofted ceiling might have been intricately carved and gilded, but the chairs were wide, the desk oak and solid. Armand had the windows open, so that the light spilled across the huge red carpet.
    “Loubet has just left,” Armand said without preliminary. “You’ve seen the paper?”
    “Yes.” Reeve accepted the coffee but didn’t sit, as the prince remained standing. He knew when to rejectprotocol and when to bow to it. “It appears there’s relief that Her Highness is back safely and a lot of speculation on the kidnapping itself. It’s to be expected.”
    “And a great deal of criticism of Cordina’s police department,” Armand added, then shrugged. “That, too, is to be expected. I feel so myself, but, then, they have next to nothing to go on.”
    Reeve inclined his head, coolly. “Don’t they?”
    Their look held, each measuring the other. “The police have their duty, I mine and you yours. You’ve been with Gabriella this