Mary Buckham - The Makeover Mission

“That’s the most archaic—” she caught herself, flattened her fingers against her skirt and started again. “Then won’t the household know something is up when Ele—I mean, when I don’t do that this time?”

“We’re using the excuse that you’re tired from your long flight and justifiably concerned about security.”

“Where am I supposed to be flying in from?”

Another good question.

“You’ve been in Switzerland and France, visiting old school friends.”

“And recovering from my ordeal.”

“Exactly.”

“How many people know about this scam you’re running?”

“I prefer to think of it as a mission.”

“I bet you do.”

“Only the king, his head of state security, Eustace Tarkioff—”

“I thought the king’s name was Tarkioff?”

“Eustace is his brother.”

“Ah, nepotism at work.”

“As I was saying, only they, my team and myself know of our mission.”

“And me.”

“And you.”

She turned away from him again, her fingers taking up their pattern among the dress folds.

“Look, Miss Richards—” he began.

“Elena. My name is Elena. Remember?”

So maybe he shouldn’t be trying to offer comfort. Not when she sounded as hard as week-old ice. But he knew from first-hand experience what bravado often hid.

“All right, Elena. I know this is difficult.”

“Try downright impossible.”

“You did fine back there.” He nodded to indicate the airport they’d left behind. “You’ll do fine again.”

Her glance held fire as she replied. “I’ll do fine until I don’t recognize someone I should know, or say the wrong thing to the wrong person or pick up the wrong fork to eat with. There are a million ways I can slip up and we both know it.”

He’d be lying through his teeth if he refuted her words and he knew they both realized it, especially when she spoke again, her words pitched low, as if in speaking them aloud they might come true.

“The problem is you can’t be with me twenty-four hours a day and I can’t use the excuse of still being in shock for more than a day or two. You’ve got yourself a librarian here. That’s all. Not someone who’s been to a private school, who’s traveled through Europe, someone who—” she glanced down at the dress she wore, “who wears clothes that show more skin than I do in my swimsuit. I’m going to mess up here—sooner or later.”

She glanced away, her hands curled into tight balls of misery. “And when I do, some nameless, faceless person is going to notice and the whole thing is going to come crashing down around my head. If I haven’t been killed in the meantime.”

“That’s why we’re taking what time we can to prep you for the mission.”

“And how long will I have?” she asked.

“A week at the most.”

“And if I don’t have my…” she mumbled around the word, “…my role, or part or whatever you call it… What if I don’t have it down in this week or so?”

There were times, in the course of a number of missions, when Lucius had felt that he wasn’t going to pull through; that the end was just around the next crumbling wall, behind the next bend in the road. But never had he felt the frustration of helplessness so keenly. Every word Jane Richards spoke was on target and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make the problems go away.

He set the sheaf of papers he’d been holding onto the seat next to him. “There’s still option two.”

She glanced at him with contempt. Not that he blamed her. “You mean the one where I’m drugged and helpless?”

“The one where, if something bad was going to happen, you’d never know about it.”

He thought she might have sniffed, but her eyes were dry as she replied, “No, thanks, Major. I’d rather be led to my execution with my eyes open.”

“We’re doing everything in our power—everything in my power—to protect you.”

She looked away, wishing she could believe him. She believed he was serious in his declaration, but right now that didn’t feel like a hill of beans. But maybe with a little time? She watched small, closely spaced stucco buildings give way to open yards and smaller homes.

Who was she kidding? A week wasn’t going to make a lot of difference. What was the old saying? Silk purse out of a sow’s ear. This whole scheme was ludicrous. No one in their right mind was going to mistake a midwestern librarian for a future queen. No one.

“If you’re ready, I’ll continue.” His voice slashed through her thoughts. But this time he wasn’t a mind reader. She’d never be ready. Never.

Her parents hadn’t raised her to rock the boat, but neither had they raised her to back down when the going got rough. And this definitely qualified as rough.

“Fine, finish your briefing, Major.” She glanced out the window as the limo slowed. “If I’m not mistaken that big, pink building on the hill must be the villa.”

His gaze followed hers. “It is.”

“Then you don’t have much time to tell me what I need to know.”

Jane waited, sensing the major wasn’t happy with her response, maybe with her whole attitude, but she didn’t care. And that in itself scared her.

She had always been aware of and sensitive to the needs of those around her. She’d had little choice in the matter. The only daughter of a couple who had long before given up on ever having children, her arrival into their lives was not a blessing as much as a shock. A little like a Christmas gift delivered too late and the wrong size.

Her earliest memories had been of needing to be quiet to let her father prepare for one of the college English classes he taught, or to wait for her mother to finish editing a manuscript. Her parents were both studious, quiet people who had taught Jane, and taught her well, not to cause problems.

But right then she didn’t feel accommodating or tolerant of others’ needs. Not one bit, and she guessed that the major sensed it, too.

“We’ll talk later. At the villa,” he announced before leaning forward to push one of the buttons lining the arm of his chair. “Stefan, I’d like you to drive to the side entrance rather than through the main gates.”

“Yes, sir,” came the quick response.

“Slipping me in through the side door?” Jane heard herself ask in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. Did hysteria come masked as sarcasm?

“I’m trying to make this as easy for you as possible.”

She found herself wanting to believe him.

“You’ll have a maid who’ll help you unpack your luggage.”

Great. She didn’t even know she had luggage.

“I’ll give you about an hour before I come for you.”

So she had a little over sixty minutes to pull herself together, she thought, watching as the limo slid smoothly beneath an arched entryway, into a cobblestone courtyard that might have been charming except for the barbed wire and glass spikes sprouting along the top of every wall and the absence of anything that might have served as a hiding space. Not even a pot of flowers broke the starkness.

The limo stopped too soon for her. But, between the look the major shot her and the actions of a uniformed man opening her door, it looked as if she wasn’t going to be allowed to linger.

Let the show begin, she thought, sliding forward to step into the bright, unadorned courtyard.

Less than ten minutes later she found herself in a bedroom the size of her whole apartment back in Sioux Falls. Cream-colored. Silken upholstery. A bed large enough to host a slumber party dead center in the room.

It was a fairy-tale room: tasteful, ultimately feminine and so quiet Jane was tempted to tiptoe across its polished wood floors.