Her Unforgettable Royal Lover

by Merline Lovelace

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sleep well, my darling.”

  Her heart tripped, but she didn’t ask him to expand on that interesting translation. She settled for snuggling closer to his warmth and drifting into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  Natalie woke the next morning to the sound of hammering. She pried one eye open and listened for several moments before realizing that was rain pounding against the roof. Burrowing deeper under the featherbed, she resurfaced again only when an amused voice sounded just over her shoulder.

  “The dog and I are going for our run. Coffee’s on the stove when you’re ready for it.”

  She half rolled over. “You’re going out in the rain?”

  “That’s one of the penalties of being adopted by a racing hound. He needs regular exercise whatever the weather. We both do, actually.”

  Natalie grunted, profoundly thankful that she wasn’t invited to participate in this morning ritual.

  “I’ll bring back apple pancakes for breakfast,” Dom advised as he and the joyously prancing Agár headed for the door. “Then we’ll need to leave for the appointments at the embassy and the Tax and Customs Administration.”

  “And shopping,” Natalie called to his back. “I need to shop!”

  The prospect of replenishing her wardrobe with bright colors and soft textures erased any further desire to burrow. By the time Dom and Duke returned she’d showered and dressed in her one pair of jeans and tank top. She’d also made the bed, fussed with the folds in the drapes and dust-mopped the loft’s wood-plank floors.

  Her welcome smile slipped a little when the runners tracked wet foot- and paw-prints across the gleaming floors. She had to laugh, though, and hold up her hands against a flying spray when the hound planted all four paws and shook from his nose to his tail.

  She and Dom feasted on the pancakes that he’d somehow protected from the rain. Then he, too, got ready for the morning’s appointments. He emerged from the bathroom showered and shaved and looking too scrumptious for words in jeans and a cable-knit fisherman’s sweater.

  “You’d better bring the Canaletto file,” he advised.

  “I have it,” she said, patting her briefcase. “I made copies of the key documents, just in case.”

  “Good.” He held up the jacket she’d pretty much claimed as her own. “Now put this on and we’ll go.”

  Natalie was glad of its warmth when they went down to the car. The rain had lessened to a misty drizzle but the damp chill carried a bite. Not even the gray weather could obscure the castle ramparts, though, as Dom negotiated the curving streets of Castle Hill and joined the stream of traffic flowing across Chain Bridge.

  The US Embassy was housed in what had once been an elegant turn-of-the century palazzo facing a lush park. High metal fencing and concrete blocks had turned it into a modern-day fortress and long lines waited to go through the security checkpoint. As Dom steered Natalie to a side entrance with a much shorter line, she noted a bronze plaque with a raised relief religious figure.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Cardinal József Mindszenty, one of the heroes of modern Hungary. The communists tortured and imprisoned him for speaking out against their brutal regime. He got a temporary reprieve during the 1956 Revolution, but when the Soviets crushed the uprising, the US Embassy granted him political asylum. He remained here for more than fifteen years.

  “Fifteen years?”

  “Cardinal Mindszenty is one of the reasons Hungary and the United States enjoy such close ties today.”

  Dom’s Interpol credentials got them into the consular offices through the side entrance. After passing through security and X-ray screening, they arrived at their appointment right on time

  Replacing Natalie’s lost passport took less than a half hour. She produced the copy of her driver’s license Dom’s contact had procured and the forms she’d already completed. After signing the form in front of a consular officer and having it witnessed by another official, the computer spit out a copy of her passport’s data page.

  She winced at the photo, taken when she’d renewed her passport just over a year ago, but she thanked the official and slipped the passport into her tote with an odd, unsettled feeling. She should have been relieved to have both her memory and her identity back. She could leave Hungary now. Go home to the States, or anywhere else her research took her. How stupid was she for wishing this passport business had taken weeks instead of minutes?

  * * *

  Their second appointment didn’t go as quickly or as well. Dom’s Interpol credentials seemed to have a negative effect on the two uniformed officers they met with at the NTCA. One was a spare, thirtysomething woman who introduced herself as Patrícia Czernek, the other a graying older man who greeted Natalie with a polite nod before engaging Dom in a spirited dialogue. It didn’t take a genius or a working knowledge of Hungarian to figure out they were having a bit of a turf war. Natalie kept out of the line of fire until the female half of the team picked up the phone and made a call that appeared to settle the matter.

  With a speaking glance at her partner, Officer Czernek turned to Natalie. “So Ms. Clark, we understand from Special Agent St. Sebastian that you may have knowledge of a missing painting by a Venetian master. One taken from Karlenburgh Castle during the 1956 Uprising. Will you tell us, please, how you came by this knowledge?”

  “Certainly.”

  Extracting the Canaletto file, she passed each of the officers a copy of the chronology she’d run earlier. “This summarizes my research, step-by-step. As you can see, it began three months ago with a computer search.”

  The NTCA officers flipped through the four-sheet printout and exchanged looks. Dom merely smiled.

  “If you’ll turn to page three, line thirty-seven,” Natalie continued briskly, “you’ll see that I did a search of recently declassified documents from the Soviet era relating to art treasures owned by the state and found an inventory of items removed from Karlenburgh Castle. The inventory listed more than two dozen near priceless works of art, but not the Canaletto. Yet I knew from previous discussions with Grand Duchess Charlotte that the painting was hanging in the Red Salon the day the Soviets came to destroy the castle.”

  She walked them through her search step-by-step. Her decision to drive down from Vienna to interview local residents. Her stop at the ruins and meeting with Friedrich Müller. His reference to an individual who’d inquired previously at the Red Salon.

  “Janos Lagy,” the older of the two officers murmured. He skimmed down several lines and looked up quickly. “You spoke with him? You spoke with Lagy about this painting?”

  “I did.”

  “And arranged to meet with him on a riverboat?”

  “That was his idea, not mine. Unfortunately, he didn’t show.”

  “Do you have a recording of this conversation?” Officer Czernek asked hopefully. “On your cell phone, perhaps?”

  “I lost my purse and phone when I went overboard.”

  “Yes, Special Agent St. Sebastian told us about your accident.” A frown etched between her brows. “We also reviewed a copy of the incident report from the metropolitan police. It’s very strange that no one saw you fall from the boat or raised an alarm.”

  “I was at the back of the ship and not feeling very well. Also, this happened in the middle of the week. There weren’t many other passengers aboard.”

  “Still…”

  She and her partner engaged in a brief exchange.

  “We, too, have a file,” she said, turning back to Natalie. “Would you be so kind as to look at some pictures and tell me if you recognize any of the people in them?”

  She produced a thin folder and slid out three eight-by-tens. One showed a lone figure in a business suit and tie. The second picture was of the same individual in a tux and smiling down at the svelte beauty on his arm. In the third, he strolled along a city street wearing an overcoat and smart fedora.

  “Do y
ou recognize that man?” Czernek asked, her gaze intent on Natalie.

  She scrutinized the lean features again. The confident smile, the dark eyes and fringe of brown hair around a head going bald on top. She’d never seen him before. She was sure of it.

  “No, I don’t recognize him. Is it Lagy?”

  The police officer nodded and blew out an obviously disappointed breath. When she reached over to gather the pictures, Natalie had to battle her own crushing disappointment. Lagy’s link to the Canaletto had been tenuous at best but she’d followed thinner threads. Suddenly, she frowned and took another look at the street shot.

  “Him!” She stabbed a finger at a figure trailing a little way behind Lagy. “I recognize this man. He was on the boat.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure. When I got sick, he asked if he could help but I waved him away. I didn’t want to puke all over his shoes.” She looked up eagerly. “Do you know who he is?”

  “He’s Janos Lagy’s bodyguard.”

  The air in the small office suddenly simmered with rigidly suppressed excitement. Natalie looked from Czernek to her partner to Dom and back again. All of them, apparently, knew something she didn’t.

  “Clue me in,” she demanded. “What have you got on Janos Lagy?”

  The officer hesitated. A cop’s natural instinct to hold her cards close to her chest, Natalie guessed. Tough! She wasn’t leaving the NTCA until she got some answers.

  “Look,” she said mutinously, “I’ve chased all over Europe tracking the Canaletto. I’ve spent weeks digging through musty records. I whacked my head and took an unplanned swim in the Danube. I didn’t know who I was for almost a week. So I think I deserve an answer. What’s the story on Lagy?”

  After another brief pause, Czernek relented. “We’ve had him under surveillance for some time now. We suspect he’s been trafficking in stolen art and have unsubstantiated reports of a private collection kept in a secret vault in his home.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, I am not. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to gather enough evidence to convince a judge to issue a search warrant.” Patrícia Czernek’s lips parted in a knife blade of a smile. “Based on what you’ve told us, we may be able to get that warrant.”

  Thirteen

  After all she’d done, all she’d been through, Natalie considered it a complete and total bummer that she was forced to sit on the sidelines during the final phase of the hunt that had consumed her for so many weeks.

  The task force gathered early the morning after Natalie had ID’d the bodyguard. As tenuous as that connection was to Lagy and the missing Canaletto, when combined with other evidence NCTA had compiled on the banker, it proved sufficient for a judge to grant a search warrant. Dom left the loft before dawn to join the team that would hit the banker’s villa on the outskirts of Budapest. Natalie was left behind with nothing to do but walk the hound, make another excursion to the butcher shop, scrub the shower stall, dust-mop the floors again and pace.

  “This is the pits,” she complained to the hound as the morning dragged by.

  The Agár cocked his head but didn’t look particularly sympathetic.

  “Okay, okay! It’s true I don’t have any official standing that could have allowed them to include me in the task force. And I guess I don’t really want to see anyone hauled off in handcuffs. That would cut a little too close to the bone,” she admitted with a grimace. “Still,” she grumbled, shooting another glance at the kitchen clock, “you’d think certain people would find a way to let me know what’s happening.”

  Dominic couldn’t contact her directly. She knew that. Natalie’s phone was at the bottom of the Danube and the loft didn’t have a landline. He could’ve called his downstairs neighbors, though, and asked Katya or her father to relay a message.

  Or not. There was probably some rule or protocol that prohibited disseminating information about an ongoing investigation to civilians.

  “That better not include me.”

  The bad-tempered comment produced a nervous whine from the hound. Natalie stooped to scratch behind his ear.

  “Sorry, Duke’ums. I’m just a little annoyed with your alter ego.”

  * * *

  Annoyed and increasingly worried as morning crawled toward noon, then into the afternoon, she was seriously contemplating going downstairs to ask Katya if she could use her phone when she heard the heavy tread of footsteps on the outside stairs.

  “Finally!”

  She rushed to the door, startling the dog into a round of excited barking. One look at Dom’s mile-wide grin sent all her nasty recriminations back down her throat. She could only laugh when he caught her by the waist and swung her in wide circles. The hound, of course, went nuts. Natalie had to call a halt before they all tripped over each other and tumbled down five flights of stairs.

  “Dom, stop! You’re making me dizzy.”

  He complied with a smooth move that shifted her from mostly vertical to horizontal. Still wearing a cheek-splitting grin, he carried her over the threshold and kicked the door shut as soon as the three of them were inside.

  “I assume you got your man,” she said.

  “You assume right. Hold on.”

  He opened the fridge and dipped her almost vertical again. Squealing, she locked her arms around his neck while he retrieved two frosty bottles from the bottom shelf, then carried her to the sofa. He sank onto the cushions with Natalie in his lap and thumped his boots up on the coffee table.

  She managed to keep from pelting him with questions while he offered her one of the dew-streaked bottles of pilsner. When she shook her head, he popped the cap and tilted his head. She watched, fascinated, as he downed half the contents in long, thirsty swallows. He hadn’t had time to shave before he’d left. The beginnings of a beard shadowed his cheeks and chin. And his knuckles, she noted with a small gasp, had acquired a nasty set of scrapes and bruises.

  “What happened to your knuckles?”

  “Lagy’s bodyguard ran into them.” Something dark and dangerous glinted in his eyes. “Several times.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We had a private discussion about your swim in the Danube. He disavowed any responsibility for it, of course, but I didn’t like the way his lip curled when he did.”

  She gaped at him, her jaw sagging. She’d been alone so long. And so sickened by the way Jason had tried to pin the blame for his illegal activities on her. The idea that Dom had set himself up as her protector and avenger cut deep into her heart. Before she could articulate the chaotic emotions those bruised knuckles roused, however, the hound almost climbed into her lap.

  She held him off, but it took some effort. “You’d better give him some of your beer before he grabs the bottle out of your hand, and tell me the rest of the story!”

  He tipped the bottle toward the Agár’s eager jaws. Natalie barely registered an inward cringe as pale gold lager slopped in all directions. Duke dropped the empty bottle on the floor and was scooting it across the oak planks to extract the last drops when Dom launched into a detailed account.

  “We hit the villa before Lagy had left for the bank. When Czernek showed him the search warrant, he wouldn’t let us proceed until his high-priced lawyer arrived on the scene.”

  “Did Lagy recognize you?”

  “Oh, yeah. He made some crack about the newspaper stories, but I could tell the fact that a St. Sebastian had showed up at his door with an armed squad made him nervous. Especially when I flashed my Interpol credentials.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “We cooled our heels until his lawyer showed up. Bastard had the nerve to play lord of the manor and offer us all coffee.”

  “Which you accepted,” she guessed, all too mindful of the Hungarian passion for the brew.

  “Which we accepted,” he confirmed. “By the time his lawyer arrived, though, we’d all had our fill of acting polite. His attorney tried to posture and bluff, but folded li
ke an accordion when Czernek waved the search warrant under his nose. Apparently he’d gotten crosswise of this particular judge before and knew he couldn’t fast-talk his client out of this one. Then,” Dom said with savage satisfaction, “we tore the villa apart. Imagine our surprise when infrared imaging detected a vault hidden behind a false wall in Lagy’s study.”

  When he paused to pop the cap on the second bottle, Natalie groaned in sheer frustration.

  “Don’t you dare drink that before you tell me what was in the vault!”

  “See for yourself.” Shifting her on his lap, he jammed a hand in the pocket of his jeans and extracted a folded printout. “That’s just a preliminary inventory. Each piece has to be examined and authenticated by a team of experts.”

  Her hands shaking with excitement, Natalie unfolded the printout and skimmed the fourteen entries.

  “Omigod!”

  The list read like a who’s who of the art world. Edgar Degas. Josef Grassi. Thomas Gainsborough. And there, close to the bottom, Giovanni Canaletto.

  “Did you see the Canaletto?” she asked breathlessly. “Is it the one from Karlenburgh Castle?”

  “Looked like it to me.”

  “I can’t believe it!”

  “Lagy couldn’t, either, when Czernek called for a team to crate up his precious paintings and take them in evidence.”

  She skimmed the list again, stunned by its variety and richness. “How incredible that he managed to amass such an extensive collection. It must be worth hundreds of millions.”

  “He may have acquired some of it through legitimate channels. As for the rest…” Dom’s jaw hardened. “I’m guessing he inherited many of those paintings from his grandfather. Karlenburgh Castle wasn’t the only residence destroyed in retribution for their owners’ participation in the ’56 Uprising. Mladshij Lejtenant Lagy’s company of sappers would have been only too eager help take them down. God knows how many treasures the bastards managed to appropriate for themselves in the process.”