Dom had arranged for a rental agency rep to meet them. When the agent popped the trunk with a spare set of keys a tingle began to feather along her nerves. The tingle surged to a hot, excited rush the moment she spotted a bulging leather briefcase.
“That’s mine!”
Snatching the case out of the trunk, she cradled it against her breasts like a long-lost baby. She allowed it out of her arms only long enough for Dom to note the initials embossed in gold near the handle…and the fact that it wasn’t locked. Her heart pounding, she popped the latch and whooped at the sight of a slim laptop jammed between stacks of fat files.
“This must be yours, too,” the rental agency rep said as he lifted out a weekender on wheels.
She didn’t experience the same hot rush when the ID tag on the case verified the case was, in fact, hers. Maybe because when she opened it to inspect the contents they looked as though they belonged to an octogenarian. Everything was drab, colorless and eminently sensible. She tried to pump herself up with the realization that she now had several sets of clean undies in her possession. Unfortunately, they were all plain, unadorned undies that Kiss Kiss Arabella wouldn’t be caught dead in!
A check of the vehicle’s interior produced no purse, passport, ID or credit cards. Nor was there any sign of the glasses Dominic insisted she hadn’t really needed. They must have gone into the river with her. Hugging the briefcase, she watched as Dom transferred the weekender to his own car and provided a copy of the police report to the rep from the rental agency. In view of her accident and injury and the fact that there was no apparent damage to the vehicle, the rep agreed to waive the late return charges.
Natalie almost shivered with impatience to delve into the files in the briefcase but Dom wanted to talk to the people at the tour office first on the off-chance they might remember her. They didn’t, nor could they provide any more information than the police had already gleaned by tracking her credit card charges.
Natalie stood with Dom next to the ticket booth and stared at the sleek boat now little more than a speck in the distance. “This is so frustrating! Why did I take a river cruise? I don’t even like boats.”
“How do you know?”
She blinked. “I’m not sure. I just don’t.”
“Maybe we’ll find a clue in your briefcase.”
She glanced around the wharf area, itching to get into those fat files, but knew they couldn’t spread their contents out on a picnic table where the breeze off the river might snatch them away. Dom sensed her frustration and offered a suggestion.
“We’re less than an hour from Karlenburgh Castle. There’s an inn in the village below the castle ruins. We can have lunch and ask Frau Dortmann for the use of her parlor to lay everything out.”
“Let’s go!”
* * *
She couldn’t resist extracting a few of the files and skimming through them on the way. Each folder was devoted to a lost treasure. A neat table of contents listed everything inside—printed articles from various computer sources, copies of handwritten documents, color photos, black-and-whites, historical chronologies tracing last known ownership, notes Natalie had made to herself on additional sources to check.
“Ooh,” she murmured when she flipped to a sketch of jewel-studded egg nested in a gold chariot pulled by a winged cherub. “How beautiful.”
Dom glanced at the photo. “Isn’t that the Fabergé egg Tsar Alexander gave his wife?”
“I…uh…” She checked her notes and looked up in surprise. “It is. How do you know that?”
“You were researching it in the States. You told me about it when we got together in your hotel room in New York.”
“We got together in New York? In my hotel room?”
Dom was tempted, really tempted, but he stuck with the truth. “I thought you might be scheming to rip off the duchess with all that business about the codicil so I came to warn you off. You,” he added with a quick grin, “kicked me out on my ass.”
The Natalie he knew and was beginning to seriously lust after emerged. “I’m sure you deserved it.”
“Ah, Natushka. Don’t go all prim and proper on me. We might not make it to the inn.”
He said it with a smile but they both knew he was only half kidding. Cheeks flushed, Natalie dug into the file again.
* * *
She saw the castle ruins first. She could hardly miss them. The tumbled walls and skeletal remains of a single square tower were set high on a rocky crag and visible from miles away. As they got closer, Natalie could see how the road cut through the narrow pass below—the only pass connecting Austria and Hungary for fifty miles in either direction, Dom informed her.
“No wonder the Habsburgs were so anxious to have your ancestors hold it for the Empire.”
Only after they’d topped a steep rise did she see the village at the base of the cliffs. The dozen or so structures were typically Alpine, half-timbered and steep-roofed to slough off snow. A wooden roadside shrine housing a statue of the Virgin Mary greeted them as they approached the village. In keeping with the mingled heritage of the residents, the few street signs and notices were in both German and Hungarian.
The gasthaus sat at the edge of the village. Its mossy shingles and weathered timbers suggested it had welcomed wayfarers for centuries. Geraniums bloomed in every window box and an ivy-covered beer garden beckoned at one side of the main structure.
When Natalie and Dom went up the steps and entered the knotty-pine lobby, the woman who hustled out to greet them didn’t match her rustic surroundings. Dom’s casual reference to Frau Dortmann had evoked hazy images of an apron-clad, rosy-cheeked matron.
The fortysomething blonde in leggings and a tiger-striped tunic was as far from matronly as a woman could get. And if there was a Herr Dortmann hanging around anywhere, Natalie was certain he wouldn’t appreciate the way his wife flung herself into Dom’s arms. Wrapping herself around him like a half-starved boa constrictor, she kissed him. Not on both cheeks like any other polite European, but long and hard and full on the lips.
He was half laughing, half embarrassed when he finally managed to extricate himself. With a rueful glance at Natalie, he interrupted the blonde’s spate of rapid Hungarian liberally interspersed with German.
“Lisel, this is Natalie Clark. A friend of mine from America.”
“America!” Wide, amethyst eyes turned to Natalie. Eager hands reached out to take both of hers. “Wilkommen! You must come in. You’ll have a lager, ja? And then you will tell me how you come to be in the company of a rogue such as Dominic St. Sebastian.” Her laughing glance cut back to Dom. “Or do I address you as ‘Your Grace’? Ja, ja, I must. The whole village talks of nothing else but the stories about you in the papers.”
“You can thank Natalie for that,” he drawled.
The blonde’s brows soared. “How so?”
“She’s an archivist. A researcher who digs around in musty old ledgers. She uncovered a document in Vienna that appears to grant the titles of Grand Duke and Duchess of Karlenburgh to the St. Sebastians until the Alps crumble. As we all know, however, it’s an empty honor.”
“Ha! Not here. As soon as word gets around that the Grand Duke has returned to his ancestral home, the taproom will be jammed and the beer will flow like a river. Just wait. You will see.”
* * *
They didn’t have to wait long. Dom had barely finished explaining to Frau Dortman that he’d only come to show Natalie the ruins and aid her in her research when the door opened. A bent, craggy-faced gentleman in worn leather pants hobbled in and greeted Dom with the immense dignity of a man who’d lived through good times and bad. This, Natalie soon grasped, was a good time. A very good time, the older man indicated with a wide smile.
He was followed in short order by a big, buff farmer who carried the sharp tang of the barn in with him, two teenagers with curious eyes and earbuds dangling around their necks and a young woman cradling a baby on her hip. Natalie kept waiting for Herr Dortmann to make a
n appearance. When he didn’t show, a casual query revealed Lisel had divorced the lazy good-for-nothing and sent him packing years ago.
Dom tried his best to include Natalie in the conversations that buzzed around them. As more and more people arrived, though, she edged out of the inner circle and enjoyed the show. St. Sebastian might downplay this whole royalty thing, she mused as she settled on a bar stool and placed her briefcase on a counter worn smooth by centuries of use, but he was a natural. It wasn’t so much that he stood two or three inches above the rest of the crowd. Or that he exuded such an easy self-confidence. Or, she thought wryly, that he had already informed Lisel that he would pay for the beer that flowed as freely as the innkeeper had predicted.
He also, Natalie guessed, paid for the platters piled with sausages and spaetzle and fried potatoes and pickled beets that emerged in successive waves from the kitchen. The feasting and toasts and storytelling lasted through the afternoon and into the evening. By then, Dom had downed too much beer to get behind the wheel again.
Lisel had anticipated just such an eventuality. “You will stay here tonight,” she announced and drew an old-fashioned iron key from the pocket of her tiger-striped tunic. “The front bedroom has a fine view of the castle,” she confided to Natalie. “You and Dominic can see it as you lie in bed.”
“It sounds wonderful.” She plucked the room key out of the innkeeper’s hand. “But Dominic will need other sleeping arrangements.”
After Lisel Dortmann’s enthusiastic welcome, Natalie preferred not to speculate on what those arrangements might be. All she knew was that she wasn’t going to share a bed with the man—as much as she wanted to.
Nine
She took the narrow wooden stairs to the second floor and found the front bedroom easily enough. It contained a good-size bath and an alcove tucked under the slanting eaves that housed a small desk and overstuffed easy chair. The beautifully carved wooden headboard and washstand with its porcelain pitcher and bowl provided antique touches, while the flat-screen TV and small placard announcing the inn offered free Wi-Fi were welcome modern conveniences.
As Lisel had promised, the lace-draped windows offered an unimpeded view of the ruins set high atop the rocky promontory. The early evening shadows lent them a dark and brooding aspect. Then the clouds shifted, parted, and the last of the sun’s rays cut like a laser. For a few magical moments what remained of Karlenburgh Castle was bathed in bright gold.
She’d seen these ruins before! Natalie knew it! Not all shimmery and ethereal and golden like this but…
A rap on the door interrupted her tumultuous thoughts. Dom stood in the hall with the weekender he’d brought in from the car.
“I thought you might need your case.”
“Thanks.” She grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the window. “You’ve got to see this.”
He glanced through the windows at the sight she pointed to but almost immediately his gaze switched back to Natalie. Her eyes were huge, her face alive with excitement. She could hardly contain it as she turned to him.
“Those ruins… That setting… I went up there, Dom.”
Her forehead scrunched with such an intense effort to dredge up stubborn memories that it hurt him to watch. Aching for her, he raised his hand and traced his thumb down the deep crease in her brow. He followed the slope of her nose, the line of her tightly folded lips.
“Ah, Natushka.” The husky murmur distracted her, as he’d intended. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing wh…? Oh.”
He couldn’t help himself. He had to coax those lips back to lush, ripe fullness. Then, of course, he had to take his fill of them. To his delight, she tilted her head to give him better access.
He wasn’t sure when he knew a mere taste wouldn’t be enough. Maybe when she gave a little sigh and leaned into him. Or when her hands slid up and over his shoulders. Or when the ache he’d felt when he’d watched her struggling to remember dropped south. Hard and heavy and suddenly hurting, he tried to disentangle.
“No!”
The command was breathy and urgent. She tightened her arms around his neck, dragging him in for another kiss. This time she gave, and Dom took what she offered. The eager mouth, the quick dance of her tongue against his, the kick to his pulse when her breasts flattened against his chest.
He dropped his hands, cupped her bottom and pulled her closer. A serious mistake, he realized the instant her hip gouged into his groin. Biting down a groan, he eased back an inch or two.
“I want you, Natalie. You can see it. Feel it. But…”
“I want you, too.”
“But,” he continued gruffly, “I’m not going to take advantage of your confusion and uncertainty.”
She leaned back in his arms and considered that for several moments while Dom shifted a little to one side to ease the pressure of her hip.
“I think it’s the other way around,” she said at last. “I’m the one taking advantage. You didn’t have to let me stay at the loft. Or go with me to Dr. Kovacs, or get a copy of my driver’s license, or come with me today.”
“So I was just supposed to set you adrift far from your home with no money and no identity?”
“The point is, you didn’t set me adrift.” Her voice softened, and her eyes misted. “You’re my anchor, Dominic. My lifeline.” She leaned in again and brushed his mouth with hers. “Thank you.”
The soft whisper sliced into him like a double-bladed ax. Wrapping his hands around her upper arms, he pushed her away. Surprise left her slack-jawed and gaping up at him.
“Is that what this is about, Natalie? You’re so grateful you feel you have to respond when I kiss you? Perhaps sleep with me in payment for services rendered?”
“No!” Indignation sent a tide of red to her cheeks. “Of all the arrogant, idiotic…”
She stopped, dragged in a breath and tilted her chin to a dangerous angle.
“I guess you didn’t notice, St. Sebastian, but I happen to like kissing you. I suspect I would also like going to bed with you. But I’ll be damned if I’ll do it with you thinking I’m so pathetic that I should be grateful for any crumbs that you and the hound and Kissy Face Arabella and…” She waved an irate hand. “And all your other friends toss my way.”
The huffy speech left Dom swinging from anger to amusement. He didn’t trust himself to address her comment about Arabella. Just the thought of Natalie wearing the Londoner’s black silk put another kink in his gut. The hound was a different matter.
“This is a first,” he admitted. “I’ve never been lumped in the same category as a dog before.”
“You’re not in the same category,” she retorted. “Duke at least recognizes honest emotions like friendship and loyalty and affection.”
“Affection?” His ego dropped another notch. “That’s what you feel for me?”
“Oh, for…!” Exasperated, she twisted out of his arms and planted both fists on her hips. “What do you want, Your Highness? A written confession that I lay awake last night wishing it was you snuffling beside me instead of Duke? An engraved invitation to take his place?”
He searched her face, her eyes, and read only indignation and frustration. No subliminal fear stemming from a traumatic past event. No prim, old-maidish reluctance to get sweaty and naked. No confusion about what she wanted.
His scruples died an instant death as hunger rushed hot and greedy through his veins. “No engraved invitation required. I’ll take this.” He reached for her again and found her mouth. “And this,” he murmured, nipping at her throat. “And this,” he growled as his hand found her breast.
When he scooped her into his arms several long, mind-drugging moments later, his conscience fought through the red haze for a last, desperate battle. She was still lost, dammit! Still vulnerable. Despite her irate speech, he shouldn’t carry her to the bed.
Shouldn’t, but did. Some contrary corner of his mind said it was her very vulnerability that made him want to strengthen the
lifeline she mentioned. Anchor her even more securely.
The last thought shook him. Not enough to stop him, though. Especially with the moonlight spilling through the windows, bathing her face and now well-kissed lips in a soft glow.
His hunger erupted in a greedy, gnawing need. He stood her on her feet beside the bed and peeled away her clothes with more haste than finesse. Impatience made him clumsy but fired a similar urgency in Natalie. She tugged his shirt over his head and dropped hungry kisses on his chest as she fumbled with the snap of his jeans.
When he dragged back the thick, down-filled featherbed and tumbled her to the sheets, her body was smooth and warm, a landscape of golden lights and dark shadows. And when she hooked a calf around one of his, he had to fight the primal need to drive into her. He had to get something straight between them first. Thrusting his hands into her hair, he delivered a quick kiss and a wry confession.
“Just so you don’t think this is your idea, you should know I was plotting various ways to get you into bed when I came to your hotel room in New York.”
Natalie’s heart kicked. In a sudden flash, she could see the small hotel room. Two double beds. An open laptop. Herself going nose to nose with Dom about… About…
“You thought I was some kind of schemer, out to fleece the duchess.”
He went still. “You remember that?”
“Yes!” She clung to the image, sorting through the emotions that came with it. One proved especially satisfying. “I also remember slamming the door in your face,” she said gleefully.
“You do, huh?” He got even for that with a long, hard kiss that left her gasping. “Remember anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” she gulped.
He released her hair and slid his hands down her neck, over her shoulders, down her body. “Then I guess we’d better generate a few new memories.”
Natalie gasped again as he set to work exploring her body. Nipping her earlobe. Kneading her breasts. Teasing her nipples. Tracing a path down her belly to the apex of her thighs. She was quivering with delight when he used a knee to part her legs.
Her Unforgettable Royal Lover Page 10
