by Nora Roberts
or the twists of grief had passed.
Prince Armand sat behind his desk and listened to his son-in-law. Reeve MacGee was a man he respected and trusted. He was friend, he was family, and more. Reeve’s background in law enforcement and special services made him invaluable as an adviser. Though he had refused any offer of title or position of state, Reeve had agreed to work, quietly, in the capacity of security adviser for the royal family.
“There’s little more you can do to improve the security here at the palace without making a public statement.”
“I have no desire to make a public statement.” Armand passed a smooth white rock from hand to hand as he spoke. “The embassy?”
“The security’s been upgraded there, of course. But it’s my feeling that unless you’re in Paris, there’ll be no trouble there.”
Armand accepted this with a slight inclination of his head. He knew he had been the target in Paris, and was still living, always would, with the knowledge that another man had died in his place. “And?”
Reeve needed nothing else to know the prince spoke of Deboque. “The security at the prison is excellent. However, no amount of security can prevent Deboque from issuing orders. His mail can be censored, naturally, but he’s much too sharp to put anything incriminating in writing. He has a right to visitors.”
“Then we agree that the Paris incident and the smaller, less tragic incidents of the past few years are Deboque’s doing.”
“He planted the bomb, just as he orchestrated the theft of the Lorimar diamonds from the museum two years ago. He’s still running drugs while he sits in his cell. In three years, two if he manages parole, he’ll be back on the streets.”
Such was justice. Such was the law. “Unless we prove that through his orders, Seward was killed.”
“That’s right. And proof won’t come easily.”
“We sit here and talk about increased security. Defensive measures only.” Alexander crushed his cigarette into a mass of paper and tobacco, but his voice was calm. “Where is our offense?”
Armand held the white rock a moment longer, then set it on the desk. He understood Alexander better than anyone, the tightly controlled fury, the constantly blocked emotions. A father can feel regret even as he feels pride. “You have a suggestion?”
“The longer we sit and do nothing but defend, the longer he has to plan. He has a right to visitors under the law. We know that whoever comes to Deboque is tied to Deboque.” Each time he said the name it left a bitter taste on his tongue. “I’m sure Reeve can give us a report on each and every visitor in the past seven years.” He glanced at his brother-in-law and received a nod. “We know who they are, what they are and where they are. Isn’t it time we used that knowledge more forcibly?”
“They are under surveillance,” Armand reminded him.
“Surveillance on known members of Deboque’s organization did nothing for Seward.” The pain was still raw and still meticulously controlled by both father and son. Silence hung a moment, broken only by the click and flare of Reeve’s lighter. “We need someone on the inside.”
“Alexander is right.” Reeve blew out a stream of smoke. “It’s something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to. The problem would be finding the right operative, then getting him in. Infiltrating Deboque’s organization could take months.”
“It took him little time to plant his woman as Gabriella’s secretary.” Alexander’s resentment hadn’t faded after seven years, only evolved into a simmering need for retribution.
Reeve understood, acknowledged, then shook his head. “It’s easier to fake a security clearance, a background, records, than it is to gain a position of trust with a man like Deboque. He’s in jail now only through five years of Interpol’s concentrated effort.”
“And still he pulls strings,” Armand murmured.
“And still he pulls strings.” Reeve picked up his cooling coffee only to wash the taste of frustration from his mouth. “Even after we’ve succeeded in putting a man on the inside, it’ll take more time for him to establish himself in a position of trust. We need someone who can testify that Deboque himself gave an order.”
Alexander rose, needing to pace off the excess energy that came from swallowing his thirst for action instead of talk. Intellectually he knew Reeve was right. To successfully destroy Deboque would take time and patience. But emotionally … He wanted revenge, the grimly sweet satisfaction of it. Now, as always, he had no choice but to put his wants second to necessity.
“You have someone in mind?”
Reeve tapped out his cigarette. “I will have within a week.”
“In the meantime?”
“In the meantime I suggest we continue to upgrade our security, keep Deboque’s people under surveillance and prepare for his next move. It will come.” He spoke first to Alexander, then shifted his gaze, cool and calm, to Armand. “And it will come soon.”
Armand nodded. “I will leave it to you to contact Jermaine at the Paris embassy. Perhaps tomorrow you will have a report on your conversation with Linnot on palace security.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good. Now, I could be allowed a moment to ask about my grandchildren.” Armand smiled, and there was warmth in his eyes. His shoulders never relaxed.
“They’re hellions.”
The laugh came as both appreciation and relief. “I thank God for it. Perhaps one day our biggest concern will be that Damien has dug up the kitchen garden.”
The knock came fast and hard. Armand’s brows rose only slightly at the interruption, but his body was braced. Because Alexander was already standing, Armand gestured for him to answer. The moment the door was opened, Eve stepped forward.
He saw it immediately, the ice pale skin, the too large eyes. He heard the breath come quickly through her lips as he stood, half blocking, half shielding her.
“Alexander.” She reached for him because the need and the gesture were natural. He was safe. She thanked God for it even as the sickness rose in her stomach at the thought of what might be.
Gabriella put a hand on her arm. “We need to speak with Father. Where’s Bennett?”
“In Le Havre until tomorrow.” Alexander needed no explanation. The look in Eve’s eyes, the tone of his sister’s voice were enough. Without a word he stepped back to let them through.
Eve forgot protocol and formal greetings as she hurried forward. She went directly to Armand’s desk. He’d risen, but even through her nerves she saw he stood as prince, not as friend.
“Your Highness, I received a phone call at the center only minutes ago. You must release Deboque from prison within forty-eight hours.”
The veil fell over his eyes—Eve could have sworn she’d seen it fall. “Is this a demand or advice?”
Before Eve could speak, Gabriella again laid a hand on her arm. “A warning was issued through Eve. She was told that if Deboque wasn’t released, a member of the royal family would die.”
Where was the emotion? Eve wondered as she watched the prince. Where was the fear for his family, for himself? He watched her calmly, then gestured for her to sit. “Alexander, I think Eve could use a glass of brandy.”
“Your Highness, please, I’m not the one you have to worry about. No one’s threatening me.”
“Please, sit down, Eve. You’re very pale.”
“I don’t—” But the slight increase in the pressure of Gabriella’s fingers on her arm stopped the protest. She cleared the frantic words away with a long breath and tried again. “Your Highness, I don’t believe this was an empty threat. If Deboque is still in prison two days from now, there will be an assassination attempt on one of you.”
Alexander placed a brandy snifter in her hands. She looked up and, for a moment, forgot everyone in the room but him. It could be you, she thought with a sudden wave of terror. If he was killed, her life would end.
As soon as the thought jelled, shock followed. Already pale cheeks blanched. She looked away quickly to stare into her
brandy. But she saw the truth. She loved him, had always loved him, however impossibly. Before she’d been able to deny it, block it out. Now that he was in danger, her feelings rushed from her heart to her head.
“Eve?”
She pressed her fingers to her eyes and waited for her head to stop swimming. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
Reeve’s voice was patient. “It might help if we had the exact wording of the call, or as close as you can remember.”
“All right.” It helped, somehow it helped, to strain her mind and back away from the less tangible. She sipped brandy first, hoping it would settle her. “First he asked for me by name.”
“You’re sure it was a man?”
She started to answer quickly, then stopped. “No. No, I’m not. The voice disturbed me right away because it was so mechanical. Not like a machine, but as though it were being run through one.”
“Very possibly was,” Reeve murmured. “Go on.”
“He said … something like I was close to the royal family and I should tell them to heed a warning. When I asked who it was he said … ‘a seeker of justice.’ I’m sure of that. Then he said there’d be only one warning. François Deboque was to be released from prison within forty-eight hours or a member of the royal house of Cordina would die.” She compressed her lips a moment, then drank again. “I told him only a coward delivered a warning anonymously.”
She didn’t notice the glint of approval in Armand’s eyes as he sat watching her, or the hand Alexander laid on the back of her chair. His fingers stroked her hair, and though she didn’t feel it, she calmed.
“He only repeated that it was a warning and a promise.”
“What was the accent?” Reeve asked her. “American, European?”
As if to force the memory out, she pressed two fingers to her temple. “There wasn’t one, not a noticeable one. The voice was very flat and slow.”
“Did the call come through the switchboard?”
Eve used the snifter to warm her hands as she looked back at Reeve. “I don’t know.”
“We should be able to check that. If Eve’s been used once, she may be again. I’d like to tap that phone and put a guard on her.”
“I don’t need a guard.” She set the brandy aside with a natural arrogance that had Armand measuring her again. “No one’s threatened me. Your Highness, it’s you I’m worried about. You and your family. I want to help.”
Armand rose again, but this time came around the desk. With his hands light on Eve’s shoulders, he kissed both of her cheeks. “Your concern comes from the heart. My dear, we are grateful for it. You must allow us to have the same for you.”
“I’ll have the guard if it eases your mind.”
Her grudging acceptance made his lips twitch even now. She was not a coward or a fool, but as strong blooded—even headed—as his own children. “Thank you.”
If she noticed the irony, she ignored it. “What will you do?”
“What needs to be done.”
“You won’t release Deboque.”
“No, we will not.”
She could accept that, had expected no less. Capitulation didn’t stop threats. “But you will take precautions? All of you?” Her gaze slipped to Alexander and held. For an instant, perhaps only a fraction of an instant, her heart was in her eyes. He thought he saw more than concern, more than simple worry. More than he’d ever wanted anything, he wanted to step into what he believed was there and smother in the warmth. Instead he stood where he was, bound by breeding and necessity.
“It isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, that the House of Cordina has been threatened.” The pride was there; she heard it. But below that, simmering just beneath, she heard the hunger for violent and decisive action. She didn’t retreat from it, but turned.
“Gabriella …”
“Eve, we can’t allow threats to rule our lives. We have a responsibility to our people.”
“We belong to the people, petite.” Armand’s voice softened as he took both her hands. “The walls of this palace are not for hiding behind, but for defending from.”
“But you can’t just go out, go on as if nothing has happened.”
“All that can be done will be.” Armand’s tone was firmer now, a ruler’s. “I would not risk my family indiscriminately. We will not risk ourselves.”
She faced a solid wall. Armand, flanked by Alexander and Gabriella. Even Reeve ranged himself with them. She thought of Bennett, careless, carefree Ben, and knew he would have stood just as solidly with them. “I have to be satisfied with that.”
“You are as one of my own.” Armand kissed her hand. “I ask you as a father, as a friend, to trust me.”
“As long as I’m still allowed to worry.”
“You have my permission.”
There was nothing more she could do, nothing more she could say. No matter how close she was, she remained an outsider. “I have to get back to the center.” She picked up her bag, struggling against the knowledge that she could do no more than that. She cast a look at Reeve. “Take care of them.” With a quick curtsy, she hurried from the room.
Eve was halfway down the stairs, when she remembered she had no car. The small inconvenience had her pressing her fingers against her eyes and fighting back an urge to sob hysterically. Three deep breaths brought her back to order. Swearing, she decided that with the energy she had boiling inside, she could walk it.
“Eve. You don’t have a car.”
She stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up at Alexander. Did he realize how solid, how powerful, how completely confident he looked? He stood like a warrior, more ready to attack than to defend. He looked like a king, more ready to punish than forgive. Like a man more ready to take than to ask.
As he came down the steps, closer, still closer, she realized that was what she wanted. The strength, the control, even the arrogance.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Eve said it quickly, before common sense smothered the words.
He stopped on the step above her, rocked more than she could imagine by the breathless sentence. Her concern was a warmth that reached inside his skin and arrowed its way toward his heart. But he was a warrior, and his first move was always defense.
“My father gave you permission to worry. I did not.”
It was fascinating to watch her eyes, eyes so blue, go to ice in a matter of seconds. “Then I promise, I won’t offer it again. If you choose to take a dive into hell, I won’t even bother to watch.”
“You change from honey to vinegar quickly. Part of your charm.”
“I won’t offer charm any more than I will concern.”
“I don’t want your worry,” he murmured as he descended the final step. “But more. Much more.”
“That was all I was willing to give.” He had her boxed in neatly between himself and the banister. She wondered how he had managed it.
“I think not.” He cupped her face in his hands. This was what he needed, if only for moments at a time. To touch her, to challenge her, to forget there was a world outside the walls. “What you say with your mouth and what you say with your eyes are not always the same.”
She wouldn’t be obvious. She refused to be easily read. What she had felt that moment upstairs would be hers alone until she fully understood it. Perhaps the fact that she had felt it, and he had not, pushed her. “Have you forgotten Bennett?”
She didn’t wince, wouldn’t permit herself to, when his fingers tightened on her flesh. “You didn’t think of Bennett when you were in my arms. When you’re in my bed, you’ll think of no one but me.”
Was it fear that roped into her stomach or anticipation? She knew already, somehow, that in his bed she would find everything she’d ever wanted and more than she might be able to bear. She wouldn’t buckle to him. If she could promise herself nothing else, she could promise herself that.
“I won’t be ordered into your bed, Alex.” With her eyes cool, her hands
steady, she pushed his fingers away. “I won’t come to you as long as you think I will be. You want your brother’s lover.” It hurt her, almost more than she could stand, so her voice was as sharp as shattered glass and just as jagged. “That’s an old story, and one that never ends satisfactorily for anyone involved.”
The accusation cut into him until the temper he warred against daily threatened to pour out. He stepped closer and found her as strong and straight as any foe a man could face. Desire raced with rapier swiftness through his system.
“You want me. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.”
“Yes.” She wouldn’t deny it. But her eyes were level and challenged the triumph in his. “But like you, I’ve learned to put my wants behind what’s necessary. One day, Alex, one day you might come to me as a man rather than a symbol. One day you might come to me with needs instead of demands.”
Whirling away, she started down the hall. “I appreciate the offer—of a ride, Your Highness—but I prefer to go alone.”
Chapter 7
Damn the woman! That was a thought that had leaped into Alexander’s mind more than once in a two-day period. She made him feel like a fool. Worse, she made him act like one.
He had never had any respect for men who used physical force to intimidate. Such men had no character and very little intelligence. Now it seemed he had somehow become one of them. No, there was no somehow about it, Alexander corrected viciously. It was the woman who had driven him to it.
When had he started backing women into corners? With Eve. When had he started entertaining thoughts of taking a woman whether she was willing or not? With Eve. When had he wanted a woman so badly she clouded his judgment and dominated his thoughts? With Eve.
It had all begun with Eve; therefore it followed that Eve was to blame for his bouts of irrationality.
Because he was a logical man, Alexander recognized the flaw in that deduction. When a man lost control, publicly or privately, he had no one to blame but himself.
But damn the woman, anyway.
Seeing the quick, ironic smile, Gilchrist, Alexander’s longtime valet, let out a small, silent breath of relief. Moodiness was something he expected and accepted from the prince. He could gauge within a heartbeat when to speak and when to remain silent. He’d never have lasted ten years otherwise. The smile meant more temperate weather was due, however briefly. Gilchrist knew enough to cash in on it.
“If I may say so, sir, you’ve not been eating well the past few weeks. If you don’t pay more attention to your diet, we’ll have to take your clothes in.”
Alexander started to brush this off as fussing until he hooked a thumb experimentally in his waistband. There was a full inch of give.
Damn the woman for making a wreck of him.
No more, he promised himself. The insanity stopped here. “I’ll see what I can do, Gilchrist, before you and my tailor lose face.”
“I’m only worrying about Your Highness’s health, not the fit of your clothes.” But, of course, he was almost as concerned about one as the other.
“Then I’ll have to promise not to give you cause to worry about either.” Preoccupied, he nodded for Gilchrist to answer the knock at his door.
“Your Highness.” Henri Blachamt had been Alexander’s personal secretary for eight years. Before that time he had served in Armand’s retinue. Even with twenty years total in service to the royal family, he remained elaborately formal.
“Bonjour, Henri. What impossible schedule have you lined up for me tomorrow?”
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness, your day tomorrow is rather full.”
He wouldn’t sit, Alexander knew, unless the prince seated himself first. Patient, Alexander settled himself on the arm of a chair. “Please sit, Henri, I’m sure that appointment book is quite heavy.”
“Thank you, sir.” After seating himself with a few of the fussy little gestures he was prone to, Henri reached in his vest pocket for small, rimless glasses. He settled them on his nose, straightened them, adjusted them, in a time-consuming ceremony Alexander would have tolerated from no one else.
His affection for the older man was very real and hadn’t dimmed since that moment twenty years before when Henri had slipped the young prince a piece of hard candy after Alexander had received a particularly grim lecture on decorum from Armand.
“You remember, of course, the dinner party at Monsieur and Madame Cabot’s this evening. There will be entertainment provided by Mademoiselle Cabot on the piano.”
“It isn’t possible to call that entertainment, Henri, but we’ll let it pass.”
“Just as you say, sir.” There might have been a glint of amusement behind the lenses, but Henri’s voice remained bland. “Council of the Crown member Trouchet
