Elizabeth Harbison - The Secret Princess

Amy swallowed a very large lump in her throat, but it didn’t go away. She felt her lower lip tremble, and pressed her lips together to stop it. She didn’t want to cry. She’d spent a long time not crying about those missing first years and the parents she’d lost. Somehow it had felt disloyal to Pamela and Lyle Scott to even think about her biological parents, and the fact that Pamela and Lyle never mentioned them either seemed to corroborate that.

So for more than two decades Amy had dismissed those thoughts from her mind over and over again until, finally, she rarely had them anymore.

And now this man—this stranger—came in and churned all those emotions up again.

Seeing her distress, Franz pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’m so sorry to touch on such a tender subject, but you need to know that you belong in Lufthania.”

Amy dabbed her eyes with his handkerchief and tried to smile. “Look, you must have the wrong person. I’m no princess.”

“As I understand it, you have no memory whatsoever of your life before the accident.”

“Who told you that?”

“I’ve done a lot of research in trying to find you.”

“I’m not sure I like that.”

He gave a half shrug. “It was necessary. Now, you can’t very well say that you’re not the princess if you don’t remember who you are.”

“It just defies logic,” she argued. “I have an ordinary life. An ordinary business, with ordinary bills that need to be paid.”

He smiled. “That doesn’t preclude your heritage.”

She sighed. “Look, what would royalty have been doing driving through Dentytown in an old Chevy, for Pete’s sake?”

“They didn’t want to be found.”

“Well, surely they could have traced my mother’s DNA during—” she paused and took a short breath “—during the autopsy.”

He shook his head. “Not in those days. It would, of course, be possible now. In fact, that’s exactly what I have in mind.”

She stepped back involuntarily, as if he might pull a syringe out of his pocket. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

“For you to go back to Lufthania with me and have your blood tested with DNA samples from your grandparents. The laboratory can have the results back four to seven days after the test.”

She gave a shout of laughter, then, when he remained solemn, asked, “Are you serious?”

“Quite.”

“You want me to go to Lufthania? Just leave my life behind and go jetting off with some guy I don’t even know on the basis of a ten-minute story I find unbelievable? No thanks.” She laughed and tried to imagine her parents’ reaction to such an announcement and laughed again. They’d probably be up from Florida within three hours. “No way.”

“Are you not even a little curious?”

“No. This is crazy. And even if I were, why couldn’t I just give blood here? Go to my own doctor and have him take blood and send it to your lab technicians or whatever? Why on earth should I have to leave the country for such a routine test?”

“Because we are not talking about a simple paternity test,” he explained patiently. “This is to confirm your position as royalty. The reigning monarch of a nation. There must be witnesses to the blood test, witnesses who can confirm and swear that you were present as the test subject.”

She still didn’t get it. “Can’t you have witnesses here?”

“It would be impractical to fly a number of witnesses here rather than to simply fly you there. To be honest with you, I didn’t anticipate having to persuade you to go.”

“What woman in her right mind would just blindly go along with this?”

“One who is open to the facts. One who wants to know where she comes from.”

“Well, I do want to know, of course. But I’m not prepared to just jet off to a foreign country and dive in as the long-lost princess when I don’t even speak the language. I don’t even know what the language in Lufthania is!”

“It’s German.”

“Well, there you go. I don’t speak or understand one word of German. How could I possibly become the princess there?”

“Your birthright has nothing to do with the language you speak. You have been in this country for nearly a quarter of a century. Naturally, much of your heritage has been lost to you.”

“Much of my heritage,” she repeated, unconvinced. She thought of her father, always practical. What would he do? One answer hit her suddenly. “I’m not even sure of your heritage. Do you have any proof that you are who you say you are?” She should have asked that the moment he walked through the door.

“Of course.” He stopped and pulled a wallet out of the inner pocket of his dark overcoat. He handed it to her.

On top, there was a photo identification card with his name and vital statistics, as well as the designation Secretary in Service of His Highness, Prince Wilhelm of Lufthania.

Amy wouldn’t have known a legitimate Arizona driver’s license if she saw it, much less a legitimate Secretary in the Service of His Highness, Prince Wilhelm of Lufthania ID card, but she couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Did you get this at some carnival or something?”

He did not smile. “I did not.”

She handed it back to him. “Well, sorry, but that doesn’t convince me of anything. I’m not leaving the country on the basis of your story so far.”

“And if I gave you satisfactory evidence of my contention?”

He looked so serious that she had to stop and think. “Maybe—maybe—I would agree to this crazy plan. But I would need to have pretty hard evidence.”

He looked amused. “You’re very like your mother, Amelia.”

“It’s Amy,” she corrected him absently.

“No, it’s Amelia. Princess Amelia Louisa Gretchen May.” He smiled sadly. “However, your parents simply called you Amé.”

“Amé,” she repeated, numb. The name, as he pronounced it, held some resonance for her. It echoed through cobwebbed chambers of her memory. Amé. Amy. She could almost hear it. It was easy to see why the paramedics had assumed the woman was saying “Amy.”

For her own part, Amy had not spoken a word for the first four months after the accident. After ruling out autism, psychologists had attributed her silence to the trauma. If Mr. Burgess’s story was correct, though, it could conceivably be because she hadn’t understood the language.

But that was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

“Are you all right?” he asked, concern etched in his features. “Can I get you some water? Do you have brandy here?”

Despite her shock, she had to smile at the idea of having a bottle stashed somewhere. “No, I don’t. I’m okay. It’s just…obviously, this is all a bit of a shock. Not that I believe it,” she was quick to add. “But I’m willing to listen if you’ll tell me everything.”

He nodded. “I will. But not now. You look very tired tonight.”

Now that he mentioned it, she was exhausted. This brief conversation had taken a toll on her energy. Besides, she needed time to call her parents, to get their advice and opinions. It was late now, but she’d call, anyway. “Can you come back tomorrow morning? With this proof you say you have?”

“Of course. For now, why don’t you let me take you home? I have a car right out front.” He gestured toward the wide plate-glass window, through which Amy could see a long black limousine parked out front.

“No, thanks. I only live a couple of blocks away and, frankly, I could use the walk.”

“It’s quite inclement,” he pointed out.

The snow was falling heavily now, billowed by the occasional gust of wind.

“Then you’d better get that boat out of here before it gets stuck,” Amy said. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll be here from 10:00 a.m. until at least five or six.”