Cordina's Royal Family Collection

by Nora Roberts

  “I’ve heard a great deal about it.” Gabriella had been kidnapped there while it had still been an overgrown plot of land. “I’d love to see it for myself.”

  “Then we’ll arrange it.” Reeve spoke quietly as he lit a cigarette. “You’re enjoying your visit so far?”

  “Yes, I am.” Their eyes met and held. “Cordina is a fascinating country. It has a fairy-tale aura perhaps, but it’s very real. I’m particularly interested in visiting the museum.”

  “I think you’ll find we have some very unusual exhibits,” Armand put in.

  “Yes, sir. I did some research before leaving England. I have no doubt that my time in Cordina will be an education.”

  Marissa toddled over, still a bit unsteady on her year-old legs, and held her arms up. Hannah placed the child in her lap.

  “Your father is well?” Reeve asked her through a haze of smoke.

  Hannah jangled her pearls to entertain the baby. “Yes, thank you. It often seems that the older I get, the younger he gets.”

  “Families, no matter how large or how small, are often the focus of our lives,” Reeve said quietly.

  “Yes, that’s true,” Hannah murmured as she played with the baby. “It’s a pity that families, and life, aren’t as simple as they seem when we’re children.”

  Bennett sat relaxed in his chair and wondered why he thought if he could read between the lines, he’d discover a great deal more than small talk.

  “I wasn’t aware you knew Hannah’s father, Reeve.”

  “Only casually.” When he leaned back, his smile was easy. “I heard that Dorian stole your yo-yo again.”

  “I should have locked it in the safe when I heard he was coming.” Bennett patted the slight bulge in his pocket. “I’d have given the little devil a run for his money, but he had an accomplice.” He turned his head to look at Hannah.

  “I’ll have to apologize for my son,” Gabriella’s lips curved as she lifted her glass again. “For drawing you into his crime, Lady Hannah.”

  “On the contrary. I enjoyed it. Prince Dorian is charming.”

  “We call him other things at home,” Reeve murmured. The woman was a mystery, he thought. The harder he looked for chinks, the fewer flaws he saw. “With that in mind, I think I’ll go out and look for the bunch of them. Adrienne’s at the age where you can’t be sure she’ll mind them or urge them to wade in the fountain.”

  Bennett glanced toward the terrace doors. “God knows what havoc they might have wrought in the last twenty minutes.”

  “Wait until you have your own.” Eve rose to take Marissa from Hannah. “You’ll spoil them rotten. If you’ll excuse me, I want to go up and feed Marissa.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Gabriella set her glass aside. “I thought we might talk over the plans for the Christmas Ball. You know I want to help as much as I can.”

  “Thank God I don’t have to beg. No, Hannah, please, sit and relax,” Eve continued as Hannah started to stand. “We won’t be long.”

  “See that you’re not.” Bennett took out the yo-yo to pass it from hand to hand. “Dinner’s in an hour.”

  “We all know your priorities, Ben.” Eve bent to kiss his cheek before she left the room.

  “I could use a walk myself.” Rising, Alexander nodded to Reeve. “I’ll help you round up the children.” They were barely out the terrace doors when a servant appeared in the doorway.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Highness. A call from Paris.”

  “Yes, I’ve been expecting it. I’ll take it in my office, Louis. If you’ll excuse me, Lady Hannah.” Taking her hand, Armand bowed over it. “I’m sure Bennett can entertain you for a few moments. Bennett, perhaps Lady Hannah would enjoy seeing the library.”

  “If you like to look at walls of books,” Bennett said when his father was gone, “you can’t do much better.”

  “I’m very fond of books.” Taking him at his word, Hannah rose.

  “All right then.” Though he could have thought of a dozen better ways to while away an hour, he took her arm and led her through the corridors.

  “It’s difficult to believe that the museum could have finer paintings than you have here in the palace, Prince Bennett.”

  “Le Musée d’Art has a hundred and fifty-two examples of Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings, including two Corots, three Monets and a particularly fine Renoir. We’ve recently acquired a Childe Hassam from the United States. In return my family has donated six Georges Complainiers, a Cordinian artist who painted on the island in the nineteenth century.”

  “I see.”

  Noting her expression, Bennett laughed. “As it happens, I’m on the board of the museum. I may prefer horses, Hannah, but that doesn’t preclude an affection for art. What do you think of this?”

  He paused in front of a small watercolor. The Royal Palace was beautifully, almost mystically painted. Its white, white walls and turrets rose behind a pink mist that enchanted rather than concealed the building itself. It must have been dawn, she thought. The sky was such a delicate blue in contrast to the deeper sea. She could see the antiquity, the fantasy and the reality. In the foreground were the high iron gates and sturdy stone walls that protected the palace grounds.

  “It’s beautiful. It shows love as well as a touch of wonder. Who was the artist?”

  “My great-great-grandmother.” Pleased with her reaction, Bennett drew her hand into the crook of his arm. “She’d done hundreds of watercolors and had tucked them away. In her day, women painted or drew as a hobby, not as a profession.”

  “Some things change,” Hannah murmured, then looked back at the painting. “Some things don’t.”

  “A few years ago I found her work in a trunk in one of the attics. So many of them had been damaged. It broke my heart. Then I found this.” He touched the frame, reverently, Hannah thought. She looked from his hand to his face and found herself caught up in him. “It was like stepping back in time, generations, and discovering yourself. It could have been painted today, and it would look the same.”

  She could feel her heart moving toward him. What woman was immune to pride and sensitivity? In defense, she took a small step back. “In Europe, we understand that a few generations are only a blink in time. Our history stands before us, centuries of it. It becomes our responsibility to give that same gift to each new generation.”

  Bennett looked at her and found her eyes almost impossibly deep. “We do have that in common, don’t we? In America, there’s an urgency that can be exciting, even contagious, but here, we know how long it takes to build and secure. Politics change, governments shift, but history stands firm.”

  She had to turn away from him. It would only cloud the issue if she thought of him as a caring, sensitive man rather than an assignment. “Are there any others?” she said with a nod toward the painting.

  “Only a handful, unfortunately. Most were beyond repair.” For reasons he could only be half-sure of, he wanted to share with her things that mattered to him. “There’s one in the music room. The rest are in the museum. Here, have a look.” With his hand guiding her again, he took her down the hall into the next wing, their footsteps echoing off the mosaic tile.

  Leading her through an open door, Bennett took her into a room that seemed to have been fashioned to accent the white grand piano in its center.

  There was a harp in the corner that might have been played a hundred years before, or last week. In a glass case were antique wind instruments and a fragile lyre. The flowers were fresh here, as they were in every room in the palace. Trailing blossoms of jasmine spilled out of glossy, Chinese red urns. A small marble fireplace was swept and scrubbed clean with a pile of fresh kindling stacked as though inviting the match.

  With Bennett, she walked across an Aubusson carpet to look back in time. This painting was of a ball, festive in bright colors and bold strokes. Women, gloriously feminine in mid-nineteenth-century gowns, were whirled around a gleaming floor by dashing men. There were mirr
ors that reflected the dancers and doubled them while a trio of chandeliers glistened overhead. As Hannah studied it, she could almost hear the waltz.

  “How lovely. Is this room here, in the palace?”

  “Yes. It has hardly changed. We’ll have the Christmas Ball there next month.”

  Only a month, she thought. There was so much to be done. In a matter of hours Deboque would be out of prison, and she would soon learn if her groundwork had been clever enough.

  “This is a beautiful room.” Hannah turned. Keep your conversation light, she warned herself. Keep your mind light, for now. “In our country house there’s a small music room. Nothing like this, of course, but I’ve always found it so relaxing.” She wandered to the piano, not so much to examine it as to give herself distance. “Do you play, Your Highness?”

  “Hannah, we’re alone. It isn’t necessary to be so formal.”

  “I’ve always considered the use of titles as proper rather than formal.” She didn’t want this, she thought quickly. She didn’t want him to close that gap of rank between them.

  “I’ve always considered it annoying between friends.” He walked behind her to touch her lightly on the shoulder. “I thought we were.”

  She could feel his hand right through the neat linen of her dress, through the skinny silk strap beneath and onto her flesh. Fighting her own private war, she kept her back to him. “Were what, sir?”

  He laughed, then both hands were on her shoulders, turning her to face him. “Friends, Hannah. I find you good company. That’s one of the first requirements of friendship, isn’t it?”

  She was looking up at him, solemn-eyed, with the faintest blush of color along her cheekbones. Her shoulders seemed so strong under his hands, yet he remembered how soft, how delicate the skin along her jawline had seemed.

  Her dress was brown and dull, her face unpainted and unframed. Not a hair was out of place and yet he got a flash of her laughing, her hair unbound and her shoulders bare. And the laughter would be for only him.

  “What the devil is it about you?” Bennett muttered.

  “I beg your pardon—”

  “Wait.” Impatient, as annoyed with himself as he was with her, Bennett stepped closer. As she stiffened, he held his hands up, palms out as if to reassure her he meant her no harm. “Just be still a moment, would you?” he asked as he lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers.

  No response, show no response. Hannah repeated it over and over in her head like a litany. He didn’t press, he didn’t coax or demand. He simply tasted, more gently than she’d had known a man could be. And the flavor of him seeped into her until she was all but drunk with it.

  His eyes remained open, watching hers. He was close, so close she could catch the scent of soap on his skin. Something that brought images of the sea. Hannah dug her fingers into her palms and fought to keep from showing him the turmoil within.

  God, she wanted. How she wanted.

  He didn’t know what he’d expected. What he found was softness, comfort, sweetness without heat or passion. Yet he saw both in her eyes. He felt no driving need to touch her or to deepen the kiss. Not this first one. Perhaps he already knew there would be others. But this first one showed him an ease, a relaxation that he’d never looked for in a woman before.

  He was man enough, experienced enough, to know there was a volcano inside of her. But strangely, he had no desire to push it to the eruption point, yet.

  Bennett broke the kiss simply by stepping back. Hannah didn’t move a muscle.

  “I didn’t do that to frighten you.” He spoke quietly, for it was the truth. “It was just a test.”

  “You don’t frighten me.” He didn’t frighten the woman he could see, but the one within was terrified.

  It wasn’t quite the answer he’d wanted. “Then what do I do to you?”

  Slowly, carefully, she unballed her hands. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Your Highness.”

  He studied her another moment, then spun away. “Maybe not.” He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck wondering why such an unassuming, placid woman should make him so tense. He understood desire. God knows he’d felt it before. But not like this. Never quite like this.

  “Dammit, Hannah, isn’t anything going on inside of you?”

  “Of course, sir, a great number of things.”

  He had to laugh. He should have known she would put him in his place with logic. “Call me by my name, please.”

  “As you wish.”

  He turned back. She was standing in front of the glistening white piano, hands folded, eyes calm and quiet on his. He thought it the most ridiculous thing, but knew he was very close to falling in love. “Hannah—”

  He’d taken no more than two steps toward her when Reeve walked into the room. “Bennett, excuse me, but your father would like to see you before dinner.”

  Duty and desire. Bennett wondered if he would ever find a full merging of the two. “Thank you, Reeve.”

  “I’ll take Lady Hannah back in.”

  “All right.” Still, he paused and looked at her again. “I’d like to talk with you later.”

  “Of course.” She would move heaven and earth to avoid it.

  She remained where she was when he left. Reeve glanced over his shoulder before he came closer. “Is there a problem, Lady Hannah?”

  “No.” She drew a deep breath, but didn’t relax. “Why should there be?”

  “Bennett can be . . . distracting.”

  This time when her eyes met his, she made certain they were slightly amused. A layer, the thinnest of the layers of her outer covering was dismissed. “I’m not easily distracted, particularly when I’m working.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Reeve said easily enough. He was still looking for flaws and was afraid he might have found the first in the way she had looked at Bennett. “But you’ve never worked on an assignment quite like this one.”

  “As a senior agent for the ISS, I’m capable of handling any assignment.” Her voice was brisk again, not the voice of a woman who’d been moved, almost unbearably, by a kiss. “You’ll have my report by tomorrow. Now I think we’d better join the others.”

  She started by, but he took her arm and stopped her. “There’s a great deal riding on this. On you.”

  Hannah only nodded. “I’m aware of that. You requested the best, and I am.”

  “Maybe.” But the closer it came, the more he worried. “You’ve got a hell of a reputation, Hannah, but you’ve never come up against anyone like Deboque before.”

  “Nor he anyone like me.” She glanced toward the hallway again, then lowered her voice. “I’m an established member of his organization now. It’s taken me two years to get this close. I saved him two and a half million by seeing that that munitions deal wasn’t botched six months ago. A man like Deboque appreciates initiative. In the last few months, I’ve been planting the seeds that will discredit his second in command.”

  “Or get your throat cut.”

  “That’s for me to worry about. In a matter of weeks, I’ll be his right hand. Then I’ll serve him to you on a platter.”

  “Confidence is an excellent weapon, if it isn’t overdone.”

  “I don’t overdo.” She thought of Bennett and strengthened her resolve. “I’ve never failed with an assignment, Reeve. I don’t intend to begin with this one.”

  “Just make sure you keep in contact. I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I don’t trust anyone.”

  “I understand perfectly, because neither do I. Shall we go?”

  Chapter 4

  Hannah’s plans to avoid driving with Bennett to Le Havre were neatly demolished. She’d justified her decision by convincing herself she could detail more useful information by concentrating on the palace. In order to remain behind, she’d come up with the credible, if unoriginal excuse of a headache.

  Hannah had deliberately waited until Alexander had finished breakfasting with his family so that she could
speak to Eve alone. It took Eve less than ten minutes to turn it on her.

  “It’s no wonder you’re not feeling yourself.” Eve sipped tea in the sunny nursery while she looked over her schedule. “I’ve kept you cooped up ever since you arrived.”

  “Don’t be silly. The palace is the size of a small town. I’ve hardly been cooped up.”

  “However big it is, it still has walls. A nice drive along the coast is just what you need. Bernadette.” She glanced up at the young nurse who was preparing to take Marissa for her morning walk. “Would you see that Princess Marissa has a hat? It’s a bit breezy out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Eve held out her arms for her daughter. “Have a nice time, darling.”

  “Flowers,” Marissa said, and laughed at her own voice.

  “Yes, pick some flowers. We’ll put them right here in your room.” She kissed both of Marissa’s cheeks then let her go. “I hate not being able to take her for a walk this morning, but I have a meeting at the Center in an hour.”

  “You’re a wonderful mother, Eve,” Hannah murmured when she saw the concern in Eve’s eyes.

  “I love her so much.” With a long sigh, she picked up her tea again. “I know it’s foolish, but when I’m not with her I think of dozens of things that might happen, that could happen.”

  “I’d say it was normal.”

  “Maybe. Being who we are, what we are, just magnifies everything.” Unconsciously, she rested her hand where even now her second child slept. “I want so badly to give her a sense of normalcy, and yet . . .” Eve shook her head. “There’s a price for everything.”

  Hannah remembered Alexander saying almost the same thing in referring to his wife.

  “Eve, Marissa is a lovely, healthy and happy child. I’m not sure they get any more normal than that.”

  Eve stared at her a moment, then dropped her chin on her open palm. “Oh, Hannah, I’m not sure how I got through the last two years without you. Which brings me right back to where we were.” Briskly, Eve refilled Hannah’s cup. “You came here to visit and so far I haven’t given you a moment’s free time unless you were handcuffed to me. That makes me feel very selfish.”