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“Not fear, Your Highness,” he said, firmly, and then after just a moment’s hesitation, “but certainly apprehension”

“All right,” the prince conceded, “apprehension It renized at the Ritz concert Soestured at the chair in front of his desk, and Lancaster took it

“I had a call fro,” Lancaster said, without prearoup has appeared on their radar They’ve intercepted threads of so internet chatter It involves Havenhurst”

“A threat to Havenhurst?” Prince Edward asked, and a ripple of shock crossed his face Havenhurst was little more than a speck in the North Atlantic, two hundred kilometers from the North Channel Except for ancient scuffles with nearby islands, there had never been a risk to the kingdo froanization?”

The prince’s e to Madeline Nelson, an ordinary Aht an abundance of publicity to the Havenhurst, relatively unknown to the world before that The birth of their son, Prince Ryan Lancaster—nareat pride, after both Maddie’s father and himself—had cemented the royal couple’s celebrity status

Noith Maddie pregnant with the second royal baby, Lancaster was unco them endlessly and obsessively That obsession nized the celebrity was both a gift and an annoyance The gift was that it had benefited the econoon, and this small island nation The newfound fame meant both places could barely keep up with the demand for their exports, and that tourism had exploded

The annoyance was the cameras, the media attention, the stories and articles—sometimes true, sometimes false—were constant intrusions on the family’s privacy For Lancaster, it had created a need to co the royal family from a celebrity-besotted world

For the most part Lancaster, unflappable, took the new complexity of his duty to protect Edward and his family in stride

Until now

After Edward’s mention of the word fear, he had stripped his features of emotion He was pretty sure he looked, as always, as if his expression had been cast in stone, and gave away nothing And yet he had to admit, despite his denial, there was some uncomfortable truth to the prince’s observation

But then Edward had known Lancaster since they both were children He would read what others would not: the broered, the downturn of thea little too close to the hilt on his belt All spoke an unusual tension—apprehension—in a man who took extraordinary pride in his ability to remain calm

Lancaster took pride, too, in the fact that Edward and his family felt so safe precisely because Lancaster never did No ht see, never stopped watching, never relaxed his attitude toward his responsibilities to the royal family

“It’s not precisely a threat to Havenhurst,” Lancaster said, his tone deliberately measured “What’s come to the attention of Interpol is what appears to be a series of kidnapping plots”

“Kidnapping? Ryan?” Edward asked, his tone strangled, his understanding of the apprehension he had seen in Lancaster’s face suddenly solidified

Lancaster gave him a dark look that assured him of the safety of his family He would lay down his life to protect them, and an enemy would never meet a more formidable opponent