who cleaned on a weekly basis, was when the prince was in residence there.
He recalled that, just before he’d left for Gastonia, Reginald had told him that he would be visiting the estate. He’d thought Reginald was joking, but this was no time to leave any stone unturned.
The estate was shrouded in silence as the last rays of late-afternoon light receded. Russell disarmed the alarm and unlocked the front door. The prince had entrusted him with the code and a key to the estate as a token of their friendship.
A friendship, Russell thought as he closed the door behind him, that had long since lost its luster—if it had ever had any to begin with.
The house absorbed darkness with the thirst of a sponge. Russell turned on the light that illuminated the foyer and hallway beyond.
“Hello, is anyone here?”
His voice echoed back, mocking him as he crossed the marble foyer. The heels of his shoes meeting the stone was the only sound he heard.
This was useless. The Black Prince was probably holed up in some woman’s bedroom, waiting for his fourth or fifth wind. When it came to making love, Reginald was tireless. Too bad he wasn’t like that when it came to matters of state.
Russell paused, debating going back to the palace. And then he shrugged. He was here. He might as well check the bedrooms and the kitchen. That way, he could tell the king that he had looked everywhere he could possibly think of for the prince.
“Why don’t you just grow up, Reginald?” Russell said out loud in exasperation. “The princess is a beautiful woman. She’ll make you happy. And you, you should drop down on your knees and thank God that you, with your black soul, were still lucky enough to get such a woman.”
On the second floor, Russell marched up and down the hall, pushing open one door after another as he spoke, venting his frustration. “Your father’s right. It’s time for you to grow up and be a man for once in your life, not just some—”
The words caught in Russell’s throat.
The bedroom wasn’t empty. There was someone in the bed.
He hadn’t really expected to find the prince. At best this was just an exercise in futility to cover all the bases. But there he was, in bed, stark naked from all appearances, with a sheet draped over his loins, and sound asleep as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Damn it, Reginald,” he said in the familiar voice of a man who had been a friend for more years than he should have, “how can you just lie there like that? Don’t you know that everyone’s been waiting for you to turn up for the last two days? You didn’t come to the airport, you didn’t come to the gala. You’re supposed to be getting married in two days. How can you be—”
Exasperated, Russell abruptly halted what he felt was a well-deserved tirade. The prince was sleeping through it all, anyway.
With a weary sigh, Russell crossed to the bed and took hold of the prince’s shoulder, shaking it. Reginald was a sounder sleeper than most, especially when he’d been drinking, so Russell shook him again. There was still no response, no indication that the prince was waking up. His expression remained unchanged.
“Sleeping the sleep of the dead?” Russell mocked with no trace of humor. “Because it certainly isn’t the sleep of the just. Well, I don’t care how drunk you are, the king sent me to find you and find you I did, so come on, get up. Get up and get dressed, your father’s waiting. You’ve really done it this time with those ‘wild oats’ of yours and it’s going to take a lot to reverse all the bad press you’ve been getting.”
The prince remained inert.
Russell looked at him. Something wasn’t right.
He could feel it in his bones. Feel it just the way he had when he had been away at school and had suddenly sensed that his father had fallen ill. That his father needed him. He had no idea how he’d known, he just had. He’d come home just in time to be at his side when his father had died.
A gut feeling had prompted him then. And now he was experiencing another one.
Russell dropped down to one knee beside the bed, staring at the prince. “Reginald?”
The prince’s hand felt cold when he took it. The sensation registered the very same moment that he realized the prince’s chest wasn’t moving. Reginald wasn’t breathing.
Adrenaline raced through his veins as Russell tried to find a pulse. There was none. As he looked more closely at the prince, he had the sickening feeling that there hadn’t been a pulse for at least several hours. Perhaps even a day. The body was not stiff, but rigor mortis was a condition that came and then receded.
He needed an expert. He needed help.
“Oh, God,” Russell groaned under his breath. Rising to his feet, he took out his cell phone and quickly called the royal physician. The number was on his speed dial. The man had been summoned on a fairly regular basis for more than a decade, always to see to the prince after a lengthy spate of debauchery.
“What’s the matter?” There was a hint of irritation in the doctor’s voice once Russell had identified himself. “Is he hungover again?”
Russell glanced over his shoulder at the still form. “I’m afraid he’s much more than that, Doctor.” Rather than ask the doctor to come, he told the man what was wrong. “The prince is dead.”
“Dead?” the doctor echoed in a hushed voice throbbing with disbelief. Everyone associated with Reginald had come to believe that he had a charmed life. “How did it happen?”
Russell leaned over the body. There were no telltale marks to identify the cause.
“I have no idea. He wasn’t shot or stabbed and doesn’t look to have been strangled. Everything is neat and as far as I can tell, in its place. There’s no evidence of any kind of a struggle.” These days, with the preponderance of television crime programs that came to them thanks to the Americans, everyone was an armchair crime-scene investigator, Russell thought, and that included him.
“We’re going to need an autopsy.” He heard rustling on the other end. The doctor was preparing to leave. “Does the king know?”
“Not yet.” There was a reason why he had delayed that call. He was afraid of what the shock of Reginald’s death might do to the king. “I wanted to give you some time to reach him before I called. He’s probably going to need to be sedated.”
The doctor’s tone indicated that he was not so sure. “Don’t underestimate the old man. He’s a lot tougher than you think.”
“Even tough men have been known to fall apart and he hasn’t been looking too good lately,” Russell said quietly. “How long will it take you to get to the palace?”
The doctor didn’t need any time to consider. He’d made the trip often enough, both from his home and from his office. “Fifteen minutes.”
“All right. I’ll wait fifteen minutes, then,” Russell replied. “Once you see to the king, I need you to come here.”
“Of course,” the man agreed. “And here would be—?”
“The
