“Was Nanny with my mother in Paris? Was she with her when my mother become ill?”

“I’ve been told so, Your Highness. Her devotion toward Princess Elizabeth was complete.”

And distorted? Brie wondered. Somehow twisted? How many people would have had the opportunity to doctor that thermos of coffee? Forcing herself to be calm, Brie asked the next question. “Do you know if Nanny brought me a thermos of coffee on the day I went to the little farm? The day I was abducted?”

“Why, yes.” Janet hesitated. “She brought it to you here. You were taking care of a few letters before you left. She brought you the coffee, scolding you about taking a jacket. You laughed at her, promised her you wouldn’t leave without one and hurried her along. You were impatient to begin, so you told me we’d see to the rest of the correspondence later. You took the thermos and left.”

“No one came in?” Brie asked. “There were no interruptions from the time Nanny brought in the thermos to when I left with it?”

“No one came, Your Highness. Your car was waiting out front. I walked down with you myself. Your Highness …” Cautiously Janet held out a hand. “Can it be wise for you to dwell on such things, to pressure yourself with details like this?”

“Perhaps not.” Brie accepted the hand briefly before she turned to the window. God, how she needed to talk, to talk to a woman. How she needed to trust. “I won’t need you any more today, Janet. Thank you.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Should I order your coffee before I go?”

“No.” She nearly laughed. “No, I’m not in the mood for it.”

But she couldn’t stay inside, within the walls. Brie discovered that almost from the moment Janet left her. Thinking only that she wanted air and sun, Brie went out of her office. Though she hadn’t realized she’d planned it, she found herself drawn to the terrace where she’d walked with Reeve that first night. Where he’d first kissed her. Where she’d first begun to test the feelings sleeping, not too quietly, inside her.

It was different during the day, she thought as she walked to the stone wall and leaned out. Different, but it wasn’t any less lovely. She could see the mountains—stacks of rock, really—that sheltered Cordina from the rest of Europe. They had been a formidable defense in earlier centuries when foreign powers had lusted after the tiny country by the sea.

Then there was the sea itself, banked by sturdy stone walls. Here and there were cannons still at strategic points in the embankment, reminders of pirates and swift-sailing frigates and other threats from the sea.

Closer was the capital city itself, serene in its antiquity, content with its label of “quaint.”

She loved it. Brie didn’t need facts or details of the past to feel. Cordina was home and a refuge. It was past and future. Every day she lived there, she felt the need to be able to reach out and hold what was hers increase. Every day she lived there, her resentment at the block that prevented her from doing so grew.