Waking up in Vegas

Chapter Five



Max’s gaze drifted out the tall arched windows of the council room. Rain battered against the windows. God, but he missed the clear blue Californian sky.

He refused to think of the other things he missed. He’d only drive himself crazy.

“If that’s all gentlemen, then I’ll see you all at the coronation?” Albert’s dry voice cut through the fog of his thoughts. The other members of the cabinet murmured their assent and the meeting drew to a close. Papers rustled and chairs scraped on the hardwood floors.

Max stretched and rose from his chair, knotted muscles protesting, and turned to Albert, seated on his right. “May I have a private word?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

He still wasn’t used to being addressed this way. ‘Your Highness’ had been his father. In Napa, even the migrant farm workers had called him Max. ‘Your Highness’ made him feel old. He felt old a lot these days.

“I want to make a slight change to the coronation plans.”

Albert nodded, not quite able to hide his look of resignation. If he’d hoped Max would be a more pliable Arch Duke than Rik, he’d been sorely mistaken. In the two months they’d worked side by side, or more appropriately head to head, he’d had plenty of time to learn that while Max had not been raised to be the ruling Prince, he had strong ideas on what he wanted and a stubborn insistence on getting it.

And what Max wanted right now, he knew Albert wasn’t going to like. “I’ve decided that the coronation should be held in Waldburg.”

Albert choked. “You can’t be serious. Neustadt is our capital. The coronations always take place in the cathedral here.”

“Not always.” Max smothered a smile. No-one knew their country’s history better than he did. They were more than bedtime tales for him. These were the stories of his ancestors. “Waldburg was the seat of Westerwald’s power for a thousand years. Until the nineteenth century, every coronation was held in the castle at Waldburg. I want to return to that tradition.”

“But the church there will never hold all the dignitaries we’ve invited. And what about the public who will want to be there to celebrate the day?”

He’d grown up in the small medieval walled town on the banks of the Wester River. Everyone there knew him and those were the people he wanted around him when he pledged his life away, not a bunch of strangers. “There’ll be TV cameras broadcasting live. And those people who want to can travel to Waldburg. We’ll lay on buses and boats.”

Albert pressed his lips together. “I think this is a very bad idea. Your coronation is mere weeks away and the arrangements have all been made.”

“Then unmake them.” Max drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, but that was no excuse for winding up the people’s elected leader. “You are a meticulous planner, with a very capable support staff. I have no doubt you will be able to make the necessary arrangements. But the coronation will take place in the same place where my ancestors were crowned.”

Albert bowed and began to withdraw.

“And one more thing.” Max leached the emotion from his voice. “That matter I asked the secret service to look into…?”

Albert would not look him in the eye. “There has been no news. There’s been no word of her since she landed in Madrid.”

Max’s hands fisted as he fought back the anger. He had no one to blame but himself. He should have found her. He should not have left without talking to her.

But there’d been no time.

As it was, he’d walked into the press conference late. He’d walked straight into turmoil, and it still wasn’t over. Two months was not yet long enough for people to forget the salacious headlines. Rik was lying low somewhere avoiding the press, and their mother had escaped back to her childhood home in California. Max only wished he could do the same. He hadn’t truly appreciated what he’d had in his old life until it was irretrievably gone.

Instead, he was stuck here, fixing everyone else’s problems, alone.

The republicans’ calls to abolish the monarchy were louder than ever, the paparazzi stalked his every move, and no-one called him by his given name any more. And the worst of it was he could see no way out. No way back to the place he wanted to be or the person he wanted to be.

“Might I make a suggestion, Your Highness?”

He forced the darkness away and turned back to Albert with a brisk nod.

“Forget about her. There will be other women, far more suitable women.”

His eyes narrowed but he said nothing.

“Is there anything else, Your Highness?”

He shook his head. “You may go.”

Left alone in the vast council chamber, with its ornate gilded ceiling and wainscoted walls, Max wandered across to the high windows. The palace gardens lay below, now blurred behind a veil of rain. The formal garden led down in terraces to an artificial lake, which separated the Baroque palace from the equally formal town. Everything here was neat and organised, the streets laid out on a grid pattern, row after row of identical grey buildings.

He hated the city.

But now that the government had broken for the summer he was free at last to go home. To Waldburg, to the rambling castle overlooking the river and the vineyards. Waldburg, where castle and town lay intertwined and people he’d known all his life still called him ‘Max’. Now that his own family were gone, he longed to see even one friendly face.

His heart ached but he pushed the emotion away. He needed to focus on what had to be done. He needed not to feel.

At least in Waldburg, away from the endless meetings and duties and the need to put everyone else first, he hoped to be able to sleep again. He hadn’t slept well in two months, not without waking from tortured dreams to find himself alone in a vast canopied bed in a strange room.

Perhaps in Waldburg he’d be able to make sense of his life. Of the secrets and lies that made a mockery of everything he’d ever believed in.

His mother had been unfaithful to his father and their life together had been built on lies. Phoenix hadn’t cared enough to wait. Overnight, she’d dumped her cell phone and left the country.

Truth, destiny, true love – were they all a sham? He sighed and twisted away from the window. It seemed, increasingly, that every belief he’d held onto was nothing more than an illusion.

Phoenix placed an upturned chair on an empty table and continued to sweep. Her new boss, a young woman not much older than herself, entered the café from the kitchen. “You sure you don’t mind locking up for me tonight?”

Phoenix shook her head. “I’ll be fine. You go out and have some fun.”

Rebekah was newly married but she and her husband hardly had time together since he worked at the castle, and coronation preparations were taking his every spare moment. Phoenix had timed her arrival perfectly. Rebekah had been so desperate for extra help she’d overlooked the fact that Phoenix had no work permit. The job came with a tiny apartment too, which was just as well since the trip through Spain and France had pretty much wiped out her savings and the cash from Max.

Before she arrived in Westerwald, she’d got down to thinking of Max only about a dozen times a day. Was he back in Napa, making wines and rejoicing in his narrow escape from marriage? Or did he miss her?

But here in Westerwald she thought of him all the time. The moment she’d heard of a town with his name, she’d come straight here. She’d loved the rugged mountains of Spain, but here in the town of Waldburg she’d fallen in love with the vineyard-clad green hills on either side of the wide river and the town of half-timbered houses that clustered around the romantic castle. Even the town square with its giant fountain, where Rebekah’s café was situated, had a fairy tale quality to it.

Everywhere she turned here she was reminded of him, of the tales he’d told her.

She swept vigorously, not seeing what she was doing.

Had Max signed and filed the papers she’d sent to the vineyard? She hoped so. She hoped he’d moved on and that he was happy. Really, she did.

Even if, in the darkness and quiet of her room at night, the anger still festered that he’d left her. Or worse, those nights when the anger turned to grief, brutally reminding her that she was alone and that she could rely on no-one – that she had to find her joy in whichever way she could. Those were the nights she found the loudest, liveliest club in town and partied until dawn.

She brushed away the dark mood, and bent down to lift another chair and set it on a table-top. The chain around her neck swung loose of her shirt. She stuffed it back.

“What is that?” Rebekah asked.

“It’s nothing. A souvenir.”

“May I see it?”

Phoenix held up the chain and the ring that dangled from the end of it.

Rebekah stepped close to look, holding the ring reverently. “It’s a very good copy. It almost looks real.”

Whatever did she mean? “It is real, I think.” Phoenix frowned. “Actually, I don’t know much about it. A friend gave it to me.”

Rebekah pressed her lips together, expression thoughtful.

Phoenix slipped the ring back where it belonged, over her heart. “I wear it to remind me not to get too attached to anyone or anything.”

Rebekah frowned. “Why?”

“Because the man who gave it to me walked out without even saying goodbye. Because nothing ever lasts.”

“You’re in the wrong place for that, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“This castle, and the town and nation that’s grown around it, is more than a thousand years old, and still ruled by the descendants of the first nobleman who claimed this land for himself. Here, everything lasts.”

She couldn’t even comprehend a family with a thousand year history. She’d never even met her grandparents. Phoenix sighed. “Things, places, but not people.”

“One day you’ll find that someone meant just for you and it will last.”

“Does everyone in this country believe in fairy tales?” Phoenix rolled her eyes.

Rebekah laughed softly. “What is wrong with believing in fairy tales?” She laid her hand on Phoenix’s arm. “I hope for your sake you find that someone soon. It must be very lonely not having someone to love.”

Loneliness was a whole lot easier to deal with than loss.

“Go on, or you’re going to be late for your date with your husband.” She gave Rebekah a gentle shove towards the door. “And I can’t clean the floor with you standing on it.”

Rebekah chuckled and headed out the door with a wave. Phoenix set to work sweeping the floor. The mindless task gave her thoughts chance to roam, back to a motel apartment in Vegas, or even further, to that vineyard in Napa she’d never seen but could picture so perfectly.

She brushed aside the twinge of regret and focussed back on the task at hand. There was no point dwelling on the past. What was done, was done, and she was moving forward.

“It’s so good to have you home again.”

Max clasped his one-time playmate’s hand. “It’s good to be back. I’ve been away far too long.” He looked around the sunlit solar, once the private chamber of the medieval royal household. Lunch had been set ready for him on the long polished wooden table. A place for one.

He was sick and tired of eating alone, and even more tired of servants who eyed him suspiciously if he tried to start a conversation. Claus didn’t drop his gaze or leave a room backwards, and Max wanted to keep him talking with a need bordering on desperation. “You’re in charge here since your father retired?”

“Yeah. Unlike you, I never wanted to leave. I’m more than happy being the third generation steward of the castle.”

“I’ll gladly swap your job for mine. Though I’m sure you’re under a lot of pressure at the moment, what with the arrangements for the coronation. I’m sorry about that, but we had to do it in a hurry.”

“I hear the republican party have called for a referendum.”

Max nodded. “They’d have loved to postpone the coronation until after the vote. Their argument is that it’s a waste of state funds and if Westerwald gets rid of its monarchy, then the tax payers will be saved a great deal of money. They have a point, but Albert was adamant we get the coronation over and done with before the government re-opens after the summer.”

Claus grinned. “I agree. And since I’ll be out of a job if there’s no more monarchy, I’d better get back to work making this the best damned coronation in history. I’ve a meeting scheduled with the TV people to work out how they’re going to place their cameras in a medieval church that wasn’t designed for such things.”

Great. Another responsibility on his shoulders. Max owed it to all those people like Claus who depended on the monarchy for their jobs to make this coronation so spectacular (on a limited budget, of course) that the population would vote to keep him in power.

There were days he wished he could do what Phoenix had done – just up and leave and go exploring. There were even days he couldn’t give a toss what happened to the people of Westerwald.

He could be back in Napa cultivating new wines. Or in Spain, searching for Phoenix.

He shook his head. She’d done such a fantastic disappearing act, that she obviously didn’t want to be found. So much for better or for worse.

He shut down that line of thought. Albert was right. He should forget her. But memory had never been his problem.

And thinking of wives and weddings… “I hear congratulations are in order, and that you married recently.”

Claus’ face lit up as he smiled. “I did.”

Max’s heart lurched. He envied his friend’s joy. He’d known that happiness for scarcely a week before he’d lost it. He forced a smile. “Anyone I know?”

“Rebekah. She was in school with us.”

“Pig tails and freckles? Her parents owned the café on the square where we used to get ice creams after school?”

Claus laughed. “The café’s still there but Rebekah runs it now.” Max grinned. “And she doesn’t have pig tails anymore.”

Max had spent the first years of his schooling in a local school right here in Waldburg. His mother had insisted on keeping her children close. That changed when his grandfather died and his father acceded as head of state. They’d moved to the city, and he and Rik transferred to an elite private school. But they’d still spent their summers here in Waldburg and the friendships forged in those halcyon younger days had remained strong.

Claus clapped Max on the back and headed for the door. “If you need anything, just ring the bell. The housekeeping staff are standing by. Your wish is their command.” He paused in the doorway, suddenly serious. “I can’t believe I nearly forgot… you know the Waldburg rings?” he sucked in a breath, clearly unsure what to say next.

Max nodded to him to go on.

“My father told me one of the rings went missing more than thirty years ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

Max nodded more slowly this time. He and Rik had been given the remaining rings on their eighteenth birthdays. The third ring had already been long gone by that time. In fact, the missing ring had become something of a family legend.

Or perhaps not a legend but another family secret.

“Rebekah thinks she might have seen it. She has a young woman working for her who has a ring like yours and Rik’s.”

A shiver chased down Max’s spine. There’d been rumours about what had happened to the third ring, each more implausible than the last. Was it possible it might finally be found and the mystery solved?

Though he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the answers. His family already had more skeletons in the closet than he’d ever suspected and he didn’t think he could deal with any more right now.

“Thank you for letting me know,” he said.

“See you later.” Claus’ cheerful farewell was a world away from the cabinet ministers’ formal bows. Max stretched his shoulders and felt a little of his tension dissipate.

He didn’t have time to go unravelling family mysteries anyway. He had a coronation to prepare, a mutiny to quell, and a frenzied media to suppress. That was enough for this week, thank you.

The royal family’s private apartments were naturally on the farthest side of the castle from the town, in the wing that overlooked the sloping vineyards rather than the river. It was quiet here, reminding Max far too much of the quiet of his grandfather’s sprawling, comfortable farmhouse back in Napa and making sleep even more impossible.

He gave up tossing restlessly in the enormous bed, threw off the sheets and began to dress. Usually when sleep eluded him, he burned off his frustrations in the gym. But unlike the palace at Neustadt, this castle had no private gym. He’d have to walk off his mood instead.

He threw on dark jeans and a black shirt and headed out.

The main entrance was well guarded and Security was no doubt under strict instructions to provide him with a bodyguard wherever he went. Since Max had no intention of being tailed as he walked, especially in this dark mood, he went downstairs to the kitchens instead. A single bulb burned low in the vast, empty kitchen.

There was a small unsecured casement window in one of the old pantries that overlooked the service lane leading to the now disused coal sheds. As kids, he and Rik had used it as an escape route out of the castle. Max prayed the window hadn’t been fitted with bars anytime in the last twenty years.

It hadn’t.

He slid open the window, holding his breath as the mechanism squealed in protest, then he leaned out to check the coast was clear. The lane was empty, so he squeezed out through the opening. It wasn’t as easy as it once was, but he managed to wriggle through and caught a low-hanging branch of the ancient tree that shielded the lane. At least the drop on the other side was shorter than he remembered.

He pushed the window shut, leaving enough of a gap so he could pry it open when he returned, and strode whistling down the deserted cobbled street, hands in his pockets, feeling free for the first time in months.

For the first time since he’d made that mad dash from Las Vegas.

A brisk wind blew between the buildings. Closer to the town square, the streets were more brightly lit and less eerily quiet, but many of the buildings were in darkness, the residents tucked in behind their shuttered windows for the night.

Waldburg was a sleepy town. Its one and only night club seldom stayed open past midnight. But it was a balmy summer’s night and the town’s population had doubled in anticipation of the coronation, or so the Minister of Tourism had informed him this morning. So he wasn’t entirely surprised to see a couple of restaurants around the town square still lit up, music playing, and people milling about the central fountain.

None of the revellers paid him the least attention. Clearly no one expected the nation’s new Arch Duke to be wondering the streets alone late at night.

Rebekah’s family café was closed though. The red and white striped awning was new, the painted sign on the windows fresh, and the tables and chairs outside had been packed away for the night, but it hadn’t changed.

A dim light burned inside, the kind of light that might be left on at night for security. As he was about to turn away, a figure crossed in front of it. Good, they were still up. Perhaps Claus and Rebekah would invite him in for a friendly drink. He was tired of being alone.

He hurried across the square to knock on the café door. There was no answer, so he tried the handle. The door opened. Security didn’t seem an issue for the locals.

The figure in the kitchen moved again. A woman, with hair tied up in a swinging pony tail, carrying a tray of wine glasses that refracted the light as she moved. For a moment, as her silhouette caught the light, his heart seized. Not Rebekah. But could it be possible?

The blood slammed through him and he knew that it was.

Not the third ring at all. Just the one he’d left behind in a bland motel room in Vegas.

Thank you, Destiny. He grinned, his faith restored for the first time in months.