“No, they didn't, and the woman in charge of the Red Cross was very discreet. She knew it the moment she saw my passport. She said some of our cousins have worked with her before.”

“I'm glad she didn't say anything. I was afraid someone would.” If so, it would have been the least of her problems, although she wouldn't have liked it either, and was glad that she had been able to do her work undiscovered and undisturbed. It would have been such an intrusion to have photographers in her face, and offended all the grieving people. She had been lucky to remain anonymous throughout the trip.

She looked at her father long and hard then, and he sensed that something was coming that he wouldn't like. She tightened her grip on his hand and looked into his eyes. Hers were two bottomless pools of bright blue sky, very much like his, except that his were old and hers were young. And in hers he saw twin pools of hope and pain. She had seen too much for a girl her age in those three days. He knew it would take her a long time to forget all that she'd seen.

“I want to go back, Papa,” she said softly, and he looked startled, shocked, pained. “Not to Russia, but to work with the Red Cross again. I want to make a difference, and I can't do that here. I know I can't do it forever, but I want a year, six months … after that I'll do whatever you want. But for once in my life I want to do something that makes a difference, a big one, to someone else. Papa, please.…” Her eyes were filled with tears as he shook his head and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“You can do that with your mother's foundation, Cricky. You've had a shocking experience. I know what that's like.” He had gone to disaster scenes before, and seen the agony of people's grief. But he could not do as she asked. “There are many things you can do here. Work with handicapped children, if you like, or the poor in Vienna. Volunteer at a hospital for burn victims. You can soothe many sorrows, and console many aching hearts. But if what you're asking me is to go to dangerous countries, in high-risk situations, where you yourself are at risk, I just can't allow you to do that. I would worry about you too much. You're too important to me, I love you too much. And I owe your mother a responsibility here, too. She would have expected me to keep you out of harm's way.”

“I don't want to do those things here,” she said petulantly, sounding like a child again, but she felt like one with him. This was an argument she didn't want to lose, nor did he. “I want to go out in the world for once in my life, be like everyone else, work hard, and pay my dues, before I settle into this comfortable life forever, like Victoria, trying to decide which tiara to wear, and which dress, cutting ribbons at hospitals or visiting orphans and old people for the rest of my life.” He knew how much that life chafed, and he didn't disagree. But particularly as a woman, she couldn't go running around the world, risking her life in war zones, or digging ditches for the poor, to atone for the sins of being royal and rich. He knew better than anyone that she had to make her peace now with who she was.

“You've just come back from four years in the States. You had a great deal of freedom there”—in fact, more than he knew—“but now you have to accept who you are and all that goes with it. It's time for you to come home, not time to run away. You can't run away from this, Christianna. I know. I tried myself when I was young. In the end, this is who we are, and all that comes with it is what we must do.” It sounded like a death sentence to her as tears rolled down her cheeks, grieving the freedom she would never know or taste, the things she would never do. For this one year of her life, she wanted to be just like everyone else. Her father was saying that it was impossible for her. This was the one gift she wanted from him now, before it was too late. If she was ever going to do it, this was the time.

“Then why is Freddy still running around the world, doing whatever he wants?”

“For one thing”—her father smiled at her—“your brother is immature,” as they both knew, and then her father's face grew serious again. He knew this was an important subject to her. “For another, he's not in dangerous areas, or at least not technically or geographically, or due to circumstances like the ones you just experienced in Russia. Your brother creates his dangers himself, and they are far more harmless than anything you would encounter working for the Red Cross. You would spend a year, or however long, doing things like what you just went through. Nothing untoward happened this time, thank God, and you came to no harm. But you could have. If they had in fact blown up the school, without announcing it first, you could have gotten hurt, or worse.” He shuddered thinking of it. “Christianna, I am not sending you out into the world to be killed, or mauled, or exposed to tropical diseases or natural disasters, political unrest, or violence of any kind. I simply won't do it.” He was adamant about it, as she had known he would be, but she wasn't ready to give up yet. It meant too much to her now. And she knew that even if she went to work at her late mother's foundation, he would not allow her to travel to rigorous areas with them, even for visits. All he wanted was to protect her, but that was exactly what she was so tired of and didn't want.

“Will you at least think about it?” she begged him.

“No, I won't,” he said, and then stood up. “I'll do anything I can and everything you want to make your life better and more interesting here. But forget the Red Cross, Christianna, or anything like it.” He looked at her sternly, bent to kiss her, and before she could say more, he strode out of the room. The discussion was over. And for hours afterward she sat alternately depressed and angry, fuming in her room. Why was he so unreasonable? And why did she have to be a princess? She hated being royal. She didn't even answer her e-mails from the States that night, which she usually loved to do. She had too much else on her mind, and had seen too much.

She avoided her father entirely for the next two days. She rode her horse, and went running with her dog. She cut ribbons at an orphanage and another home for the elderly. She read on tape for the blind, and spent time at the foundation, and hated all of it. She wanted to be anyone other than who she was, and anywhere other than at home in Vaduz. She didn't even want to go to Paris. Above all, she hated her life, her ancestors, the palace, her father when she dared. She didn't want to be a princess anymore. It felt like a curse to her, and surely not a blessing, as she had been told all her life. She called Victoria in London to complain to her, and she told her to come back. But what was the point of that? She'd just have to come back to Vaduz again, and everything waiting for her there. Her German cousins invited her to come and stay, but she didn't want to go there either. And she refused to join her father for a trip to Madrid, to visit the king of Spain. She hated them all.

She had been raging for two weeks, in a deep gloom, when her father came to her. She had been avoiding him assiduously for days. He was well aware of her misery, and looked bitterly unhappy himself, as he sat down in a chair in her bedroom. In deference to him, she turned the music down. She had been using it to drown out everything that was in her head, and her sorrows. Even Charles looked bored, as he looked up at her, wagged his tail, and didn't bother to get up.

“I want to talk to you,” her father said quietly.

“About what?” she asked, still sounding petulant and surly.

“About your insane idea of signing up with the Red Cross. I want you to know I think it's an extremely bad idea, and if your mother were alive, she wouldn't even have considered talking to you about it. In fact, she'd have killed me for talking to you at all on this subject.” Christianna frowned as she listened to him. She was tired of his trying to convince her of what a bad idea it was. She had already heard it, several times too often, which was why at the moment she wasn't speaking to him at all.

“I know how you feel about it, Papa,” she said somberly. “You don't have to tell me again. I've heard it.”

“Yes, you have, and so have I. So you can listen to me one more time.” He almost smiled to himself, thinking that he might rule a country and thirty-three thousand subjects, but he was having a much harder time reigning over one daughter. He sighed, and then went on. “I spoke to the director of the Red Cross in Geneva this week. We had a long talk. In fact, at my request, he came here to see me.”

“You're not going to buy me off by having me volunteer in an office,” she said angrily, glaring at him, as he fought not to lose his temper, and succeeded. “And I'm not going to give a ball for them, here or in Vienna. I hate things like that. I find them disgustingly boring.” She crossed her arms across her chest as a signal of her refusal.

“So do I, but they're part of my job. And one day they may be part of yours, depending on who you marry. I don't enjoy all that either, but it's expected of us, and you can't simply decide that you don't want to be who you are. Others have done that before you, and made a mess of their lives. Christianna, you have no choice but to accept your fate here. We're very fortunate in many ways.” His voice mellowed a little as he looked at her. “Besides, we have each other, and I love you very much. And I don't want you to be unhappy.”

“I am unhappy,” she stressed again. “I lead a thoroughly useless, stupid, spoiled, indulgent life. And the only time I've ever done anything meaningful or worthwhile was two weeks ago in Russia.”

“I know that. And I know you feel that way. I understand. A lot of what everyone does, in any job, is meaningless and superficial. It's very rare to have an experience like the one you just had, where you are truly helping people in their direst moments. You also can't make a life of that.”