Page 79 of Duke, Actually
“Max!” Seb seemed surprised, though Max couldn’t think why—he knew Max and Dani were arriving today.
“Everything appears to be in order, Mr. von Hansburg,” said the security officer. He nodded at Max. “Lord Laudon.”
“Max, you remember Torkel Renner, the royal family’s head of security? He was—”
“Having a look at this window,” Torkel said. “There will be wedding banners hanging from the windows, and a preliminary inspection turned up the fact that the latch on this one is broken, which is a security concern.”
“A broken window latch on the third floor is a security concern?” Max asked. Though he supposed he shouldn’t be questioning the palace’s longtime head of security. One probably attained that position by being attuned to details like window latches.
“We can’t be too careful,” he said in a monotone. “There will be lots of guests on site.” He had that flat affect that FBI agents always did in American movies—his face seemed made of stone. Max half expected him to whip out a pair of sunglasses and an earpiece. “Everything seems in order here.” He nodded to both brothers and departed.
Max moved farther into Seb’s suite and sat on a sofa. “I didn’t expect to find you’d arrived ahead of me.”
“I left rather abruptly last night. I suppose I should have texted you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because you would have told me to wait until morning, and I... did not want to do that.”
“Did something happen with Father?”
“No, no. I simply decided to leave. I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“I worry about your driving over the mountain in the dark, that’s all.”
“Oh, that was... not a problem.”
Hmm. Max’s Mr. Benz theory was looking more and more plausible. Benz had a way of making things happen. Pictures of unicorn onesies disappeared; people were spirited away over mountain ridges in the dead of night. “What do you think of Mr. Benz?”
“The equerry?”
“Yes. He seems even more uptight than usual, with all this wedding to-do.” Max tamped down a smile.
Sebdidsmile—ha. “Well, he and Leo seem to have struck up an unlikely friendship, and Leo tells me Benz is a secret aficionado of American jazz.” Seb looked at the door. “You might expect that with someone like Torkel, but Benz?”
Max lost his battle with the stifled smile. “I’m on to you, you know.”
Seb heaved a big, annoyed sigh of the sort he used to when they were boys and sank onto the sofa next to Max. “Really?”
“Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”
“Nothing can ever come of it, anyway.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“He’s a member of the palace staff!”
Yes, but not really. Benz was from an old, distinguished family, as the men behind the throne generally were. “You’d have to come out for this to be more than a theoretical discussion. Which, for the record, if you want to do, I am wholeheartedly and unreservedly behind you.”
Seb sighed again, but this one was more defeated-sounding. “I’m afraid of him, Max.”
They were talking about Father now. “I know.”
“I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be the kind of man who’s afraid of his father.”
“Well, you have reason to be.”
“So do you. But you’re not afraid of him. You’re not afraid of anything.”