Once Upon A Tiara

Certainly, they’d been too familiar. If she’d seen what had happened, Mrs. Grundy would have gone into a stuffy British form of apoplexy and probably have put Lili on the next plane home. But Lili hadn’t come to America to play it safe. She’d come for an adventure.

She tossed her head at Simon. “Why not?”

“This way, Princess,” he said, his fingers nearly, but not quite, touching her elbow.

She practiced her royally reserved face as they walked through a room lined with glass cases. Placed on velvet and satin backdrops, lit by subtle spotlights, all the finest pieces from the royal jewels of the Brunner monarchy were on display. Despite her position, Lili seldom had the opportunity to examine the jewels. On formal occasions, the three sisters might be allowed to wear one of the valuable pieces, but that was rare. She wasn’t particularly interested, either. Who wanted to be draped in history so valuable and weighty you had to be escorted by six guards and armed with an emergency panic button?

“It’s in here,” Simon said, exchanging a word with a uniformed security guard before entering a second, smaller room. A case with a glass dome had been set up in the center of the room to capitalize on the “Ah!” factor.

Despite her training, Lili wasn’t very skilled at curtailing her natural reactions. When she saw the famous tiara, nestled on a hillock of watered blue satin, she stopped and gave the obligatory exclamation.

Simon shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. He looked pleased with himself. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

Lili was in awe, as well as ah. “Yes, it’s something.”

“Have a closer look.”

She approached slowly. She’d seen the bridal tiara only twice before, at similar exhibitions in London and Spitzenstein, their capital city. Both times, she’d been a child, enchanted by the story of the long-ago prince who had so loved his betrothed, he’d commissioned the greatest jeweler in all the land to create a bridal tiara with the Vargas diamond, a gem of somewhat mysterious origins, as its centerpiece. Ever since, the tiara was only worn at royal weddings. Each new Brunner bride was given the honor, including Lili’s American grandmother, Adelaide, a simple country girl from Blue Cloud, Pennsylvania, who had married the crown prince of Grunberg exactly fifty years ago.

“It’s beautiful.” A delicately wrought construction of platinum and many tiny diamonds in addition to the spectacular center gem, the tiara was truly a work of art. Lili walked slowly around the case, looking at the piece from all angles. There was a thick velvet rope set up to keep onlookers out of touching distance, but that was mainly a psychological barrier.

She gave a little laugh. “How’s security?”

Simon’s face grew even more serious. He motioned around the dimly lit room. Lili realized that there were two more security guards, positioned in shadowed niches. “The case is alarmed, as well,” he explained. “Breathe upon the glass—it’s shatterproof, of course—and the entire museum will go into lockdown mode, alarms blaring.”

“I see how you were able to persuade my father to let the royal jewels out of the country for their first American exhibition.”

“Our museum is state of the art,” Simon said with pride.

“It’s new?”

“Brand-new. Cornelia Applewhite’s family provided a large portion of the funding, hence the unwieldy name.”

“I wonder what my grandmother would have thought about being celebrated in such a way.” Oversized blowup portraits of Princess Adelaide had been placed here and there as decoration. She’d been a beautiful, kind and graceful woman, but not one who’d enjoyed the spotlight, a vestige of her humble Pennsylvania origins. She had passed away from illness at sixty-one, when Lili was only six, followed in death three years later by her daughter-in-law, who’d perished in the skiing-vacation tragedy. All of Grunberg had mourned the losses.

“Blue Cloud is very proud of Princess Adelaide,” Simon said. “She’s their one claim to fame. The town officials are hoping that a museum dedicated to her memory will pull in the tourists.”

Lili understood. Her country was in much the same position. Her father’s advisors had even mentioned how beneficial a royal wedding would be to the economy. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“How did you come to be the curator? Are you a scholar of royalty?”

“Not in particular. My field of specialty was—is—Egyptology.”

Simon had put on a second pair of wire-framed glasses, but they did not disguise the evasive shift of his eyes. Lili grew more curious. “Then why are you here in Blue Cloud…?”

“It’s a fine job.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and tucked in the gaudy gold-and-blue King Tut tie. “Should we return to the reception?”

“There are many things we should do,” she answered in all solemnity. “Are you an eat-all-your-vegetables kind of guy?”

“No, I’m a burrito-takeout kind of guy.”

“When was the last time you had hot dogs?”

“Wednesday.”

“Is this evening too soon to have them again?”

“Tonight? Are princesses allowed to run away from their responsibilities on a whim? Don’t you have a shedjul to keep?”

“Mrs. Grundy has one. I don’t.”

“And the responsibilities?”

Lili sighed. “You are an eat-all-your-vegetables kind of guy.”

“I can’t be responsible for—”

She cocked her head. “I’m responsible for myself!”

“Then why do you have a bodyguard and a—What is Mrs. Grundy? Your baby-sitter?”

“Close,” Lili said, feeling a tiny bit snippety. “She’s my nanny.”

Simon put out his hands, as if he’d been knocked off balance. The velvet rope swung. “Your nanny?”

“She was my nanny. Now she’s my traveling companion.”

“You have a nanny.”

“No. She’s my social secretary.”

“A nanny.”

Lili narrowed her eyes. Had she thought Simon was amusing? He wasn’t. He was irritating. “My lady-in-waiting.”

“Jeez,” he said, running a hand through his mouse-colored hair. It was too short to stand up on end, except for the strands of the cowlick where his part ended in a swirl that showed a little too much scalp. “You live in a fairy tale.”

“I am a princess. I have a certain duty to my homeland. An image to maintain.” Regardless of her yearnings to be free.

“It’s difficult for Americans to conceive of such a thing. We’re an independent, egalitarian society.”

“I know. That’s why I was so excited to come here. There’s so much I want to see and do and taste and touch—” She stopped suddenly. If that was so, why she was wasting time with a self-described museum wonk? The adventure of her lifetime wasn’t in here, among the static displays. Artifacts might satisfy Simon Tremayne, but they’d never be enough for her.

“Don’t bother yourself about the hot dogs,” she said, giving him a brisk pat on the arm as she moved past him. “I’ll find my own way to them.” Her heels tap-tap-tapped across the polished floors as she hurried away.

“Wait,” Simon called, catching up. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t take you.” He held open the wide front door for her and she swept through with her head held high, as befitted a woman of royal blood.

“I’m sure I’ll manage on my own.” She looked over the animated crowd, the men in light-colored summer-weight suits, the women in hats and pretty dresses. A few of them had actually worn white gloves. Not even Amelia expected to put Lili in white gloves. “Perhaps I’ll find a dashing playboy among the guests to act as my escort.”

Simon muttered a response, but the mayor had spotted them and was shouting a hello, her arms in semaphore mode. Lili waved back.

“There’ll probably be a reception line,” Simon said, sounding as though he dreaded it as much as she. “Is your tongue up to it?”

“I won’t be kissing any babies.” She poked it out at him.

“Still swollen. Does it hurt?”

“Thum.” She closed her lips. “It hurts, but the ice helped a lot. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

She studied his cockeyed face. One brow was tilted higher than the other, his high-bridged nose was crooked, his lips were lopsided. Even the glasses sat slightly canted. But there was something about him—the warmth in his eyes, the smile creases that ran from his nose to his mouth—that made him attractive. He was the kind of man who wasn’t exciting, but who was strong and capable and quirky and kind. It would never be dull, talking to him. It might even be interesting to kiss him….

“If you’re recovered, Princess,” Mrs. Grundy said, from several steps away, “your public is waiting.”

“May we begin the introductions?” Mayor Apple-white intoned with a bit of an edgy chuckle. “The cakes are cut and the tea leaves are suitably steeped.”

Lili winked at Simon as she turned away. She gracefully descended the steps, her throbbing tongue curled against the roof of her mouth, her smile dutifully intact. The guests responded with a smattering of applause.

“Stay away from the flower beds,” she heard Simon say as the mayor swept her into the eager, pressing crowd.

SIMON DREADED this part of his job. There were curators who developed a slick schmooze, who knew how to curry favor with the right people to secure grants and gifts for their institutions. He couldn’t even identify the right people from the wrong, though anyone from Cornelia Applewhite’s lengthy guest list was a good bet. If it wasn’t for Corny’s exclusive Platinum Patron list, Simon would have raised no more cash than a pauper on the street.

Basically, he’d lucked into the Royal Jewels of Grunberg exhibition. A friend from grad school knew a translator who knew an attaché to the Swiss ambassador who oversaw the tiny neighboring principality. It hadn’t hurt that a couple of Princess Adelaide’s Blue Cloud cousins still lived on the family farm, either. Corny had worked the two old ladies like a bagpipe, huffing and puffing over the honor and privilege of the new museum hosting the exhibition on the fiftieth anniversary of Princess Adelaide’s marriage until whatever influence the Wolf sisters had with the royal family was brought to bear.

However it had happened, securing the go-ahead from the palace had been a coup for Simon. One he sorely needed, considering the ignominious past that had landed him here in the first place. He’d been “asked” to leave his previous job—his dream job—after he’d let the wrong woman cloud his judgment. Sticky-fingered Traylor Bickett had been the last straw in a short lineup of users masquerading as girlfriends. He’d promised himself never to be so gullible again. Unfortunately, all but one of his subsequent job applications had been refused.

Which was why he was stuck here. Curating an exhibit that was a royal pain.

The security setup was a nightmare, blowing his budget right off the start because he’d had to overcompensate for the previous mistake: one tiny scarab stolen from under his nose. Given Simon’s track record, the Grunberg officials had insisted on tripling normal security. Luckily, Corny had hosted a Platinum Patron party and persuaded her wealthy friends to pull out their checkbooks. With the influx of funds, Simon had been able to correct glitches in the system and hire another guard.

Even so, there were a thousand details to handle before the official grand opening tomorrow afternoon. The last thing Simon needed was to become preoccupied with the visiting princess.

Yet here he stood, drinking strong tea and popping tiny frosted cakes by the handful, watching as Lili greeted guest after guest after guest. Her smile never wavered. But it was a professional smile. Already he could tell the difference between it and the naughty little twitch of her lips that preceded her mischievous moments. For now, she was on her best behavior.

Alas.

Simon scanned the crowd. Socially inept or not, even he recognized that the party could use some livening up. He supposed it was proceeding exactly as the mayor had envisioned. That was the trouble. Corny prided herself on her old-world stodginess.

Lili’s laughter drew Simon’s attention. Darned if she wasn’t up on her toes, reaching a hand to the top of an overgrown young man’s lofty head. The Tower lowered his chin obediently. Her hand sank into his thick, curly hair. Thick? It was as dense as a jungle. The guy had twice as much hair as he needed. He could donate half of it to Charles Barkley and have enough left over to weave himself a hair shirt.

Simon edged closer. What was Lili doing?

“I heard they grew them tall in America,” she said admiringly. “Are you a basketball player, Mr. Stone?”

Simon missed the man’s response. His voice was a low rumble, an avalanche on a mountain. Figured.

“Ever since I saw Dallas play in the Super Bowl when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. The boots, the pompons—such fun.” Lili tilted her head back, listening to the Tower. Another peal of delighted laughter. “Oh, that’s football? And what about baseball? How do you keep all your odd sports straight?” She tapped him on the chest. “You Americans are so healthy and vigorous.”

Simon grabbed the shoulder of Blue Cloud’s solid, tenacious police chief, Henry Russell, as he walked by.

Henry was also a bachelor, only a few years older than Simon, though he was more of the plainspoken baseball-and-bowling type. They’d become well acquainted while coordinating their efforts to secure the safety of the jewels. Simon admired the man. There would be no screwups if Henry, who was in charge of the town’s small but well-run police department, had anything to say about it.

“Who’s that guy?” Simon asked. Henry knew every blade of grass and leaf of marijuana in Blue Cloud. You couldn’t filch a plastic jewel from a gum-ball machine without him hot on your trail.

Henry lifted the brim of his hat as if that would give him a better look. Simon had already seen the man’s blink-of-an-eye assessment.

“Tourist,” the sheriff said. “We’ve got a lot of them in town this weekend.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

“He doesn’t look suspicious to you?”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. His lantern jaw bulged. “Everyone looks suspicious to me.”

“He’s too slick, don’t you think?” The Tower was dressed in Amana or whatever they called that sort of unrumpled designer tailoring. Definitely the dashing playboy type.

Henry wasn’t perturbed at all. He scanned the crowd swarming in and out of the tent instead of keeping an eye on the suspicious snake who was charming Lili. “The princess seems to approve.”

Simon scowled. The stranger was holding up the receiving line. As they talked, Lili glancingly touched his arm, his shoulder…hell, she even flipped up the end of the guy’s subdued maroon silk tie and giggled a little.

The Tower put his hands on her waist, bent down, said something about her being a “tiny little package,” and squeezed. Simon’s face got hot. He wasn’t a violent man, but suddenly he wanted to use his fists like sledgehammers.

“Stone,” he remembered. “His name’s Stone.”

“Ah.”

“Does that mean anything to you?”

“Nope,” Henry said.

“Can’t you run the name through your, uh, system? I don’t like him.” He has too much hair. He has too many white teeth. He has too many hands on Lili.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Henry pledged. But his eyes were elsewhere, following a woman’s dark head through the crowd. Simon was too distracted by his own fixation to give more than a fleeting notice to the chief’s.

Until a sharp cry rose above the babble of the crowd.

“Pickpocket!”

3

EVEN BEFORE Simon turned, Chief Russell was gone, shooting through the crowd toward the disturbance. A woman in a feathered hat warbled like a particularly high-pitched ghost: “Oo-oo-oo-oo-oooh!”

Her squat husband was the one raising the ruckus. “Pickpocket! Pickpocket! They got into Dora’s purse.” He patted his behind. “Sonovabiscuit. My wallet’s gone, too.”

A shrill panic overtook the guests, with everyone checking their purses and pockets for missing valuables. A shout went up about another missing wallet. The chief and his force of one officer quickly took control, calming the crowd as they herded them under the tent like cattle.

Simon looked for Lili. She was fine, attended by the royal bodyguard. Her face was animated, sympathetic in expression, but with lively eyes and a high color in her cheeks. It figured that she’d enjoy the excitement.

The mayor spread loud platitudes, assuring the attendees that Chief Russell would take care of the “minor disturbance.” Mrs. Grundy and Wilhelm tried to coax the princess into the museum, away from harm. Lili, patting the distraught feather-woman’s hand, refused to go.

The guests milled around, gabbling and fussing. Despite instructions, a number were slipping away, heading off to the parked cars. Henry left the other officer in charge and went to round up the renegades.

Out of suspicion—or maybe mere curiosity—Simon looked around for the Tower of Hair who’d charmed Lili. Nowhere in sight. That was interesting…possibly.

Simon had begun to make his way forward to aid the police officer with crowd control when a plump woman in head-to-toe polka dots let out a squawk. She clutched at her throat. “My pearls,” she said, and fainted dead away—straight into Simon’s arms.

“Oof,” he said, catching her under the armpits. She was no bantamweight. Nor a middleweight. He nudged a knee into the small of her back to help hold her up.

“Oh, dear, poor Elspeth,” said a companion, tearing off the collapsed woman’s straw hat to fan her flushed face. “The pearls are a family heirloom,” she told the crowd, flapping. “Worth a pretty penny.”

“Somebody,” Simon choked out, jostling the woman’s sagging weight. “Help.”

A man grabbed Elspeth’s ankles and another wrapped his arms around her hips. They lugged her toward the tables. Simon meant to sit her upright in a chair, but the fellows holding the rest of Elspeth heaved her onto one of the abandoned tables. Splat—her polka-dotted rump landed in a plate of petits fours. A plastic cup of punch fell over, staining the paper tablecloth red as the spill crept toward the inert woman.

Cornelia was frantic. She whipped out a lace-edged handkerchief to sop up the encroaching flow of punch. Simon recognized the invalid at last. Elspeth Hess was tops on the Platinum Patron list. Losing her good graces would be disaster for the museum’s donor fund.

Corny looked at Simon and sputtered unintelligibly. “Watch over Mrs. Hess,” he said, not adverse to taking advantage of the mayor’s momentary loss for words to make his getaway. “I’ll go and see what’s happening.”

Henry had rounded up the defectors—the man named Stone among them—and was issuing commands and restoring order, directing the crowd to quiet down, to take seats and wait to be interviewed about the apparent pickpocketing incidents. He had an angry young woman by the elbow and wasn’t letting her go. She stood quite still, her chin tipped up in the air, a yellow flyer that matched the ones that were scattered about the grounds clutched in her fist. She was holding equally tight to her temper, but she looked ready to shoot sparks.

Simon approached cautiously. “I’m going to take the princess into the museum, if that’s all right with you, Chief Russell.”

Henry nodded. “That would be best.”

“If you need my help…”

“Not necessary. I’ve got another officer on the way to manage the crowd. We’ll have to take names and do as many interviews as we can on the spot.” The chief looked significantly at his captive. “I expect one of them will have seen something suspicious enough to warrant a body search. With any luck, we’ll find the stolen goods before the day is out.”

“A body search!” With a swish of her glossy hair and long loose skirt, the woman tossed her head. She set her hands on her hips. “Just you try it,” she said through thinned lips, her voice seething with haughty insult. Although her demeanor was all fiery outrage whereas Lili’s was sweet and fluffy as cotton candy, there was something about the pair of opposites that struck Simon as similar. Perhaps the quick tongue—too much of it in both cases.

“Body search,” the woman snapped at Henry. “I’ll give you a body search, Chief Russell.”

Henry was unperturbed, though Simon noticed how white his knuckles were where they clenched on his captive’s elbow. “Thanks for the offer, Ms. Vargas.” Henry’s mouth made a grim, flat line, betrayed by an infinitesimal twitch at one corner. “I can take care of the search. You only have to provide the body.”

The woman’s cheeks flamed. Henry kept his eyes on her face, but Simon did not. It was obvious that she had a one hell of body, all right, even hidden beneath her fringed shawl, a loose blouse and long, layered skirt, cinched by a bright green sash that showed off her slender waist. She wore sandals and much jewelry, as flashy as the Emperors nightingale, right down to the rings on her toes. Not your average, everyday Pennsylvanian, but Simon wasn’t making any guesses. Maybe the Gypsy look was fashionable, for all he knew.

“Harassment,” the woman hissed.

“Not yet,” Henry said threateningly.

“Are you threatening me?”

Perceptive woman, Simon thought.

A muscle jumped in the sheriff’s jaw. “Depends whether or not your cohort slipped away with the goods.”

She inhaled. “My cohort?”

“The young man you were looking for in the crowd. Possibly working with.”

“I wasn’t. I told you. I’m here alone.”

“We’ll see.”

“What about Stone?” Simon said, interrupting the pair’s mutual glare. “He’s a stranger in town and he tried to get away when you told everyone to stay put. That’s suspicious, isn’t it?”

The woman shot Simon a grateful look.

“So did Reverend Anderson and Tommy Finch, the paperboy,” Henry said. “Don’t worry, Simon. I know how to do my job.”

“Of course,” Simon conceded. He had no good reason to suspect Stone. Or to be resentful. All there was between himself and Lili was a suspended hot dog date.

“If there’s anything you need,” he offered, before stepping away to search for Lili.

“There may be.” The police chief indicated his prisoner. His grip hadn’t loosened a notch. “I’d like a room to stash my suspect in.”

She smiled poisonously. “Why don’t you just handcuff me in the town square and let the townsfolk pelt me with rotten fruit?”

Simon snorted with laughter.

Even Henry had to smile. “I’m saving that for after the trial.”

“How nice to know I won’t be summarily executed without one.”

There it was again. Simon took another look at her. That thing—what was it? Peppery pride, scrappiness, inborn spirit?

“I’ll set you up with a room,” he said to Henry, more than eager to get back to the princess, his own sparring partner.

“Preferably one that’s secure, private and—” Henry scowled at his prisoner “—far away from the jewels.”

Simon went to Lili, which wasn’t easy because she was buttressed by her nanny and bodyguard. “How are you?” His glance skipped over Grundy and Wilhelm. “Everything okay here?”

Lili’s eyes sparkled. “What a to-do! I thought small towns were supposed to be boring.”

“Not this weekend.”

“We must move the princess away from the riffraff,” Mrs. Grundy said. A camera flash made her lips pucker. “Even more importantly, away from the photographers and reporters.”

Simon realized that a small number of media were circling like sharks, grabbing hold of the incident for what would no doubt be sensationalized stories and photos. The museum board had hoped for enough publicity to put their new facility on the map. Looked like they had it in spades.

“We can take her back to my office,” he offered.

“I am here,” Lili protested. “Don’t talk over my head as if I’m a child.”

Simon looked down at her. “Sorry.”

Her smile flickered from polite to genuine. “Apology accepted.”