Chapter Eight
As Mattias guessed, there were quite a few things Chey found interesting, not the least of which were the bronze statues of his ancestors. They stood in a segregated part of the park overlooking the ocean, carved in exquisite detail. Life sized, Chey got a good idea of what each man was like.
She took hundreds of photos consisting of the Queen's Pagoda, the playground, and rows of hedges that spelled out Latvala. Mattias drew a small crowd, and he paused several times to greet the citizens, hold a child, or shake hands.
The people seemed to genuinely love him. There was a reverence in the way they interacted that struck Chey as sincere and respectful. These were the emotions she tried to capture with her camera. Never mind that Mattias handled it all with easy aplomb, causing women both young and old to flutter their lashes and laugh behind their hands. Now and then he met her gaze and held it, before moving on.
Whatever else Chey had thought, she found Mattias charming and affable. It offset the magnetism that drew people like flies, or perhaps it enhanced it.
Either way, Chey reminded herself who he was, and of his status.
On the flight back to the castle, she was again tempted to confide in Mattias about the attack. The words hovered on the end of her tongue, ready to spill forth at a moment's notice.
By the time they landed at the private strip, the words remained unsaid. She couldn't decide why she found it so difficult to tell him the truth. Maybe she thought he would find something at fault with her, as if she'd drawn the unwanted attack upon herself. And maybe, too, she didn't want to tell him that the brood mare he was courting might be behind it.
That was a shock the Royal family wouldn't take well.
Or would they? Was this how the upper echelon of society worked? Thrived? Was subterfuge, threats, attacks and machinations merely another facet of their lives, like breathing?
Forced to at least consider it, Chey stared out the window of the limousine as it ferried them back to the castle. Mattias was companionably silent the entire ride. Now and then, Chey felt his gaze boring into the side of her head.
The gate rolled up to admit them. Cruising along the drive, the limousine came to a halt in front of the broad steps. Chey got out when the driver came around to open her door, and paused when she saw who stood on the top step to receive them.
Viia, with an expression straight from a striking viper, stared down from her lofty height. Attired in an immaculate skirt suit of dark gray and cream, her gaze landed on Chey and locked there.
Chey, caught in the snare of Viia's obvious displeasure, looked away when Mattias collected her elbow and guided her nonchalantly up the stairs. It was like being led right into the lion's den.
“Viia,” Mattias said, as calm and controlled as you please.
“Mattias.” Viia greeted him but never looked away from Chey.
“Miss Sinclair, thank you for your company. I look forward to seeing the photos you took today.” Mattias released Chey's elbow and smiled a rogue's smile.
Chey might have laughed at his blatant show of indifference to Viia's silent fury if it hadn't been for the attack the night before.
“And thank you for the invitation. I'm positive I couldn't have had a better escort. If you'll excuse me?” Chey, anxious to point out that it had been Mattias's idea to take her to town, as it were, dismissed herself from their company.
Viia did not deign to offer a parting goodbye.
With a guard holding the door, she disappeared inside. There were enough hours left in the day to grab a bite of dinner and go scouting the landscape for a place to have the next photo shoot. Later, when evening fell, would be time enough to edit the pictures she'd taken and turn them in to Urmas come morning.
If she planned to blockade her bedroom door while she worked, no one would be the wiser.
. . .
Chey escaped the castle at the crack of dawn the next morning. On horseback, she fled through the mist, dew flying off the hooves of her mare. After an evening locked and barricaded in her room, she was ready to spend time outdoors.
No matter how much make up she'd used, or how much ice she'd applied, the bruising was worse today than yesterday. A blight on her otherwise golden skin, it covered the entire side of her temple, the corner of her eye, and part of her cheek. There was no help for it.
Attired in jeans and a hunter green sweater with sleeves to her wrist, she was comfortable and warm enough with the slight chill pervading the air. A pair of hiking boots with a thick tread was her choice of footwear. Angled over her head and across her body, the strap of the camera case fit snug and secure. It was all she'd brought.
Slowing the mare to an easy canter once they entered the woods, Chey let the horse clop along with the reins loose between her fingers. She trusted the mare to find the best footing.
A good thing, too, because she was distracted with thoughts of Mattias and Viia. Of the attack. Of who might be watching even as she rode out this early in the morning. She was under no illusions that her comings and goings were being observed.
With any luck, whoever might be watching would lose her now that she was obscured by the trees.
Coming upon the lake, she ducked a low branch and straightened. A heavier veil of mist hung just above the water, floating like old ghosts. Surreal and slightly eerie, Chey panned a look left and right for Sander.
“You're late,” he said somewhere behind her.
Startled, Chey twisted in the seat. Sander leaned against the trunk of a large tree, arms crossed over his chest. The camouflage pants he wore fit his hips well, as did the snug, long sleeved shirt of indiscriminate green. A pair of sturdy boots, laced up the front, had a thicker tread than her own. He blended in with the forest, as she knew he'd meant to.
“I'm right on time. Should I have--”
“...what the hell happened?” Sander's amiable tone fled. In its place, something cold and unforgiving.
Chey turned the mare toward him so she wouldn't have to keep craning her neck around. He pushed off the tree, giving her a first glimpse of the shoulder holster he wore. It was the same color as his shirt and she hadn't noticed it upon first glance. His eyes were pinned on her face.
On the bruise.
“I accidentally bumped into the cabinet door. In the bathroom.”
“And does the cabinet door have knuckles?”
Chey arched a brow. How had he discerned that? “What?”
“You heard me. Who hit you?” He strode up and rested a hand on the mare's bridle. His eyes were sharp on the wound.
Chey shifted on the saddle. It creaked under her meager weight. What was she supposed to say to his adamant declaration? He'd caught her off guard with his forward assessment. And the longer she took to answer, the more guilty she probably looked.
Licking her lips, she toyed with the dark withers of the horse's mane.
“Chey...” There was a warning in his tone.
“Look, Sander. Can we just have our day? I've been looking forward to the canoe trip. I promise I'll explain everything afterward.” She met his eyes. His were sharp, taking in every detail.
“The river isn't going anywhere,” he pointed out. “It wasn't Mattias, was it?”
She shouldn't have been surprised Sander knew about her trip to the city yesterday. The entire castle and all the staff probably knew. It did surprise her he thought Mattias capable of such an act.
“Of course not. He's always a gentleman.”
“Always? That makes it sound like you've had several interactions with him.”
“Well, I do live at the castle,” she countered.
“And how many interactions have you had with Paavo?”
“...point taken. Paavo doesn't seek out my company.”
“And Mattias does?” Sander looked away from her bruise to her eyes. He didn't sound or look accusing, only curious. As if he was narrowing down suspects in his mind about who might have hit her.
“Once or twice. Don't say anything, but he wants me to capture some private, personal pictures of Viia. You know, candid, soft shots when she's not aware I'm taking them.” Chey stressed the business aspect of their impromptu meetings, and at the same time, asserted that she knew he was involved.
“I see. Who else seeks your company out?”
“You?” She couldn't help but add a liberal dose of sass to her reply.
Finally, he smiled. It wasn't the easy going smile she'd seen in the cabin, but it was a smile nevertheless. “Yes, but we both know I didn't strike you.”
“I don't picture you as the type to hit women. Just the type to tackle them off their horses.” A smile trembled at the corners of her mouth.
He eyed her, then laughed. A raspy, quiet sound that echoed over the water. “Half of that statement is true. You know which half.”
“I do. Now then. Can we go? I'll tell you what you want to know later.”
He stroked his hand down the nose of the mare, like he was considering it.
“Come on, Sander. What's done is done. Why waste a perfectly good canoe trip?” Chey couldn't believe she was cajoling him like this. The longer she sat there, however, the more time she wanted to spend in his company.
“I want every detail,” he said, turning away to issue a quiet whistle into the woods.
His horse threaded through the trees and went right to him.
“I don't make promises lightly. I'll tell you everything.” Chey wondered what he would do about it. As head of security, it was his job, probably, to interrogate people if there had been an attack. It made her nervous and she was thankful to put the confession off until later.
“You bet your ass you will.” He swung up into the saddle with little effort.
Chey laughed. “Did you ever think that maybe I just don't want to talk about it?”
He reined his steed around. “That goes without saying. If you'd wanted to talk about it, the entire castle would already know the details. You've tried to brush this under the rug for reasons I can only guess at.”
“Stop being so astute.” Chey chose to combat her nerves with light humor. Once she confessed, there was no going back. She didn't know exactly what Sander might do, but she suspected he was the type of man who wouldn't rest on his laurels. He was a man of action and conviction. Sander would, eventually, get to the bottom of it.
Maybe that was a good thing.
The mare picked her way along the trail behind his horse, shaking her head and mane out.
“It's my job.”
“So? You could pretend indifference.”
“What kind of a man would that make me?” he asked, ducking a branch.
Chey ducked it, too. “An indulgent one.”
“But that's not what you really want.”
“How do you know what I really want?” Chey stared at the back of his head. He'd pulled the top half of his hair into a small ponytail again. The rest hung loose around his neck.
“If you didn't want someone to know the truth, you wouldn't have shown your face in public. You would have claimed the flu and stayed in your room to heal as much as possible.”
“I can't do that. I have to work.”
“Mm, not a good enough excuse. Everyone gets sick. You could have made a plausible argument until the bruise faded. Instead, you lied.”
“Everyone else bought it but you,” she pointed out.
He twisted his shoulders to glance back. A brief moment of eye contact before facing front. “Really.”
She wasn't sure she liked the implication. “You don't sound like you believe that.”
“Because I don't. Even Ingel wouldn't buy that load of crap.”
Chey scoffed. “She didn't say otherwise.”
“She's head of the house staff. What do you think she's going to say?”
“Mattias didn't say anything, either.” Which wasn't exactly true. He'd seemed suspicious of her 'cabinet' story.
“He knows better. Trust me. A five year old child would know better.”
In the face of Sander's conviction that someone had hit her, Chey decided maybe she shouldn't have fabricated a tale about the bruise after all. Now they were all going to think she lied on a regular basis.
“If it makes any difference, I respect that you're attempting to either protect who did it, or spare someone the humiliation of discovery. It's just not the right choice if whoever it is needs reprimanding.”
She couldn't decide if it was the words or his tone that prompted the sudden confession.
“They showed up in the night. While I was sleeping. Pinned my head down with a blindfold and stuck a knee in my chest. Made it hard to breathe.” At some point, she became aware that the mare stopped walking and that his steed had, too. He turned in his seat, staring back at her.
“I tried to fight back, but each time they applied more pressure with their knee. He, or she—I'm not sure which—told me that I had to stop taking late walks through the castle. That I shouldn't spend any more time with Mattias. They said there are eyes everywhere, and if I didn't do as they said, that they would plant false evidence in my room. Some Ahtissari artifact and blame the theft on me. Or,” she paused to swallow and meet his eyes. “That a long fall down the stairs was a common occurrence in the castle.”
Sander turned his steed around. Approached slowly, until he was side by side facing the opposite direction so he could look directly into her eyes.
“Then they took the blindfold away but before I could see who it was, they backhanded me. That's how I got the bruise, Sander.”
He didn't say anything for a full minute. Chey started to wonder at his silence. Finally, he spoke.
“Do you have any ideas who it might be? Has anything else happened to spark suspicion in your mind?”
“Yes.” She saw no reason to lie. Not now. “Mattias showed me the Queen's garden--”
“Even though you both knew it was off limits?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Go on.”
“I took a few pictures. We had only just arrived, more or less, when Natalia found us there. She...she was...” Chey hesitated to out the girl for her drinking.
“Drunk,” Sander guessed.
“That's right.” Maybe it wasn't the secret Chey thought it was. “And very angry I was there. She threw her glass at me.”
Sander arched a brow. He ran his hand under his horse's mane and gave the strong neck a pat. “Did it strike you?”
“No. She missed. All the same, she was unhappy I was there. So I suppose she had some motive. The other is...Viia. Due to the nature of the threats regarding Mattias and myself, and the venomous stares she's been giving me, she's the other that came to mind. Beyond that, I don't know.” Chey watched Sander's expressions. He looked thoughtful, considering. And not judgmental.
“Tell me your impressions of your attacker. Off the cuff, first things that come to mind. Don't think too hard about it,” he said.
Chey shifted in the saddle. “I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. But they were strong enough to pin my head down, at least. I didn't get the impression of...size. What am I trying to say...” She trailed, struggling to define what she meant.
“It wasn't the same as if I was leaning over you,” he guessed.
Chey realized he was right. “Yes, exactly. I didn't have the impression of bulk, of someone obliterating the rest of the room.”
“Good. What else? Just say whatever strikes you. Often your subconscious picks up more than you realize.”
“They were angry. Frustrated.”
“How so?”
“It was the terse way they whispered. You know how when someone is irate and speaking in clipped syllables? Even with the accent, I noticed it.” She hadn't pinpointed that until Sander goaded her into speaking freely of the attack.
“What about smell? Did you catch a scent of anything?” Sander slowly circled his horse around her own.
Chey followed the animal as far as she could see to one side, then picked up on the other. Watching with her eyes. She frowned, thinking about his question. “I don't recall smelling anything.”
“Think hard. Something sweet, something masculine? A certain soap, sweat?” He didn't take his eyes off her as his horse clopped front to back and around again.
The methodical motion lulled Chey a little. “Nothing. I don't remember any scent associated with the event,” she finally said.
“All right. And you're certain you don't lean one way or another as far as a female or male voice?”
“No. It wasn't just whispering, but...I want to say they were speaking through something that changed their voice. Maybe. Or they did it on purpose to throw me off. It was so middle of the road that I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman at all.” That part frustrated Chey more than she wanted to admit. It would have been an easy clue to home in on.
“On a scale of one to ten, how hard did they strike you?”
Chey met his eyes and cocked her chin in consideration. “Seven? I've been clocked before. This person has some strength to them. It could have been stronger though. So I say about a seven.”
“Did the fist feel bigger or smaller?”
“I'm not sure. It didn't feel like a sledgehammer, but it also wasn't a feminine slap. They got their knuckles into it. My head snapped to the side with the force, so whoever it was has some decently honed muscles.”
“Very good. Just one moment.” Sander reined his steed out of the circles he'd been making and angled away while he took out his phone. He spent three minutes, no more, giving orders in his mother tongue.
Chey wished she knew what he was saying. Or who he was talking to. Would this change everything? Would the family send her home, thinking she was too much trouble to bother with? God, she hoped not. She hadn't worked long enough to pay back what money she'd already spent.
Sander tucked his phone away and guided the horse back her direction.
“What will happen now?” she asked.
“The appropriate people know. What I want you to do is pretend like everything is going as it would if you hadn't told me. Do the same things, take the same precautions. Don't let on that you've confessed, all right?” He brought his horse to a halt facing the opposite way again.
It gave her an excellent view of his face. His sharp eyes. “I can do that. The Royals won't send me home, will they?”
“No. We're going to take care of it. However, I can't have someone shadow you all the time or they'll know what's going on. So you're going to have to watch your own back in the castle. Try not to make it easy for someone to hurt you.”
“Well that makes me feel all fuzzy inside.” Unease brought out her natural sarcasm.
He smiled, but didn't laugh. “Yeah, it's not the best circumstances. Hopefully, they'll tip their hand sooner than later, and you won't have to worry about it anymore.”
“What about them planting a relic in my room and framing me for theft? I really don't want to go to jail.”
“We're aware. The security in the castle know what's going on. Two of them will be going through your room while you're out here with me to make sure no one has pre-planted anything in your absence. Sorry for the intrusive nature of their search, but it's for your benefit.” He swung the horse around and started off again through the forest at a brisk walk.
Chey noted that he wasn't heading back toward the castle. She kneed the mare into a walk. “Sander, wait. Where are we going?”
He glanced back. “Canoeing?”
“...after what I just told you?”
“There's nothing we can do but wait, Chey. Wait and check your belongings and work the investigation until a solid lead presents itself. And it will. One way or another, we'll find out who did this.” He sounded sure.
“I guess you're right.” Frowning, she let the mare pick her path behind Sander's horse. She watched how relaxed and at ease he was in the saddle, moving with the gait as if he'd been born with one foot in the stirrup. She supposed he probably had, with easy access to the stables his whole life.
“Right now, you're safer out here with me than anywhere else.”
“Unless the person starts taking pot shots at us again.”
“We'd know. There are extra security measures in place after the last incident. No one will be taking any unexpected shots at anyone today.”
“What you really mean to say is that other people know where we're going, and have cleared the way.” It made the most sense in Chey's mind, rather than spread the military out over thousands of acres of land.
He twisted his shoulders to look back, grinning. “Excellent deduction. Actually, they've cleared the way up to a certain point. No one but you and I know where we're going. If anyone was to try and follow, the guards would see.”
Chey smiled, a wry curve of her lips that lingered even after he turned to face front. “You think of everything.”
“I try. Come on. The fog is starting to burn away. I want to be on the water before it's all gone.” He dug his heels into his mount's sides, encouraging the horse into a canter once he hit a small trail.
Chey's mare automatically matched the pace. For now, Chey set aside worries and questions and concentrated on the trip ahead.