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“Yes.” She found the shirt she wanted and pulled it down.
“And you want to make him happy before he…”
He swallowed his next words even before she snapped her head around and ordered curtly, “Don’t say it!”
He bit his tongue. That was a stupid thing to have thought, even if he never actually got the words out. He didn’t mind annoying her about things he didn’t think she should care so much about, but to annoy her about her father was just plain counterproductive.
“Well, he would like to see you become the future first lady of the land, wouldn’t he?” he amended lamely.
He tried to think of what he knew about her father. Marallis had been considered an up-and-coming advisor in his own father’s regime. From what he’d been able to glean, the king had recognized his superior abilities and planned to place him in a top job. And then the rebellion had swept over them, and it turned out Vaneck Marallis had signed on with the other side. Was it any wonder he should feel betrayed by the man? He was the enemy. He very likely gave the rebels the inside information they needed to win the day. There was no little corner of his heart that had any intention of working on forgiveness for the man.
“Okay, it’s getting late,” she said impatiently. “I have to go check on my father.”
“Because he’s ill?”
“Because he’s very ill.” She knew she needed to elaborate, but when she tried to speak, her throat choked and she had to pause, waiting for her voice to clear again. “I always go in to see him for a few minutes at this time in the afternoon.” She looked at him. “When I get back, we’ll have to decide what I’m going to do with you.”
“Will we?” His grin was ample evidence of his opinion on the matter, but she turned away and didn’t bother to challenge him.
Going to her clothes rack, she pulled out a trim, cream-colored linen suit with slacks and a crisp jacket and slipped behind a privacy screen to change into them. He watched as she emerged, looking quietly efficient and good at whatever job she might be attempting. And ravishingly beautiful at the same time. He’d never known another woman who impressed him as much as this one did. Once again he had a pressing urge to find a way to take her with him.
It wouldn’t be impossible. She thought he would have to get her past the guards, but she was wrong. He had his own way into the castle and he could easily get her out. But only if she was at least halfway cooperative. It was up to him to convince her to be.
“I don’t have time to decide what to do with you right now,” she told him, her gaze hooded as she met his eyes. “I have to go check on my father, and it’s getting late. You stay here and hold down the fort. I’ll be back in about half an hour.”
“I may be here,” he offered casually. “Or not.”
She hesitated. She didn’t like that answer. “Tell me now, are you going to stay here and wait, or are you going to go looking for Leonardo and get killed?” she demanded of him.
He laughed shortly. “I think I can handle myself around your so-called fiancé,” he said dismissively.
Her gaze sharpened and she looked seriously into his eyes. “Watch out for Leonardo. He’ll kill you without batting an eye.”
“Are you serious? That prancing prig?”
She shook her head. “Don’t be fooled by his veneer of urbanity. He’s hard as nails. When I suggested you might be killed, I meant it.”
He searched her eyes for evidence that she really cared. It was there, much as she tried to hide it. He smiled.
“I’m not too keen on the ‘killed’ part. But as for the rest…”
She glanced at her watch. Time was fleeting. “I’m running out of time,” she told him. “Go out and wait in the courtyard. I just have one last thing to check.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
She looked pained. “None of your business. I do have my privacy to maintain. Now go out and wait.”
He walked out into the lush courtyard and heard the door click shut behind him. Turning, he could see her through the glass door, walking back into her closet again. Probably changed her mind on what to wear, he thought to himself. And he had a twinge of regret. He didn’t have all that much time here and he hated to think of missing a moment with her.
Did that mean he’d given up on the kidnapping? No. Not at all. Still, there was more to this trip than just seeing Pellea.
He scanned the courtyard and breathed in the atmosphere. The castle of his ancestors was all around him. For a few minutes, he thought about his place in history. Would he be able to restore the monarchy? Would he bring his family back to their rightful place, where they should have been all along?
Of course he would. He didn’t allow doubts. His family belonged here and he would see that it happened. He’d already found two of his brothers, part of the group of “Lost Royals” who had escaped when the castle was burned and had hidden from the wrath of the Granvillis ever since. There were two more brothers and two sisters he hadn’t found yet. But he hoped to. He hoped to bring them all back here to Ambria by the end of the summer.
He turned and looked through the French doors into her bedroom and saw the huge, soft bed where he’d spent most of the two and a half days when he’d been here before. Memories flooded back. He remembered her and her luscious body and he groaned softly, feeling the surge of desire again.
Pellea was special. He couldn’t remember another woman who had ever stuck in his mind the way she did. She’d embedded herself into his heart, his soul, his imagination, and he didn’t even want to be free of her. And that was a revelation.
If he survived this summer…
No, he couldn’t promise anything, not even to himself. After all, her father was the man who had betrayed his family. He couldn’t let himself forget that.
But where was she? She’d been gone a long time. He turned back and looked at the closed doors to her dressing room, then moved to them and called softly, “Pellea.”
There was no response.
“Pellea?”
Still nothing. He didn’t want to make his call any louder. You never knew who might be at the gate or near enough to it to hear his voice. He tried the knob instead, pushing the door open a bit and calling again, “Pellea?”
There was no answer. It was quite apparent she wasn’t there.
CHAPTER THREE
ALARM BELLS RANG IN Monte’s head and adrenaline flooded his system. Where had she gone? How had she escaped without him seeing her? What was she doing? Had he overestimated his ability to charm, compared to Leonardo’s ability to hand out a power position? Was she a traitor, just like her father?
All that flashed through his mind, sending him reeling. But that only lasted seconds before he’d dismissed it out of hand. She wouldn’t do that. There had to be a reason.
The last he’d seen of her she was heading into her large, walk-in closet at the far side of the dressing room. He was there in two strides, and that is when he saw, behind a clothing bar loaded with fluffy gowns, the glimmer of something electronic just beyond a door that had been left slightly ajar.
A secret room behind the clothing storage. Who knew? He certainly hadn’t known anything about it when he’d been here before.
Reaching in through the gowns, he pushed the door fully open. And there was Pellea, sitting before a large computer screen that was displaying a number of windows, all showing places in the castle itself. She had a whole command center in here.
“Why you little vixen,” he said, astounded. “What do you have here? You’ve tapped into a gold mine.”
She looked up at him, startled, and then resigned.
“I knew I should have closed that door all the way,” she muttered to herself.
But he was still captured by the computer screen. “This is the castle security system, isn’t it?”
She sighed. “Yes. You caught me.”
He shook his head, staring at the screen. “How did you do that?” he asked in wonder.
She shrugged. “My father had this secret room installed years ago. Whenever he wanted to take a look at what was going on, he came to me for a visit. I didn’t use it myself at first. I didn’t see any need for it. But lately, I’ve found it quite handy.”
“And you can keep things running properly on your own?”
“I’ve got a certain amount of IT talent. I’ve read a few books.”
He looked at her and smiled. “My admiration grows.”
She colored a bit and looked away.
“So you can see what’s going on at all the major interior intersections, and a few of the outside venues as well. How convenient.” His mind was racing with possibilities.
She pushed away from the desk and sighed again. “Monte, I shouldn’t have let you see this.”
“You didn’t let me. I did it all on my own.” He shook his head, still impressed. “Are you going to tell me why?”
She sighed again. “There are times when one might want to do things without being observed. Here in the castle, someone is always watching.” She shrugged. “I like a little anonymity in my life. This way I can get a pretty good idea of who is doing what and I can bide my time.”
“I see.”
She rose and turned toward the door. “And now I really am late.” She looked back. He followed her out reluctantly and she closed the door carefully. It seemed to disappear into the background of paneling and molding strips that surrounded it.
“See you later,” she said, leading him away from the area. “And stay out of that room.”
He frowned as she started off. He didn’t want her to leave, and he also didn’t want to miss out on anything he didn’t have to. On impulse, he called after her, “I want to go with you.”
She whirled and stared at him. “What?”
“I’d like to see your father.”
She came back towards him, shocked and looking for a way to refuse. “But you can’t. He’s bedridden. He’s in no condition…”
“I won’t show myself to him. I won’t hurt him.” He shook his head and frowned. “But, Pellea, he’s one of the few remaining ties to my parents left alive. He’s from their generation. He knew them, worked with them. He was close to them at one time.” He shrugged, looking oddly vulnerable in his emotional reactions. “I just want to see him, hear his voice. I promise I won’t do anything to jeopardize his health—or even his emotional well-being in any way.”
She studied him and wondered what she really knew about him. The way he felt about her father had been clear almost from the first. He was wrong about her father. She’d spent a lot of time agonizing over that, wondering how she could make him understand that her father was just a part of his time and place, that he had only done what he had to do, that he was really a man of great compassion and honesty. Maybe this would be a chance to do just that.
“You won’t confront him about anything?”
“No. I swear.” He half smiled. “I swear on my parents’ memories. Do you trust me?”
She groaned. “God help me, I do.” She searched his eyes. “All right. But you’ll have to be careful. If you’re caught, I’ll claim you forced me to take you with me.”
He smiled at her sideways, knowing she was lying. If he were caught, she would do her best to free him. She talked a good game, but deep down, she had a lot of integrity. And she was at least half in love with him. That gave him a twinge. More the fool was she.
“I only go when no one else is there,” she was telling him. “I know when the nurse goes on her break and how long she takes.”
He nodded. He’d always known she was quick and sure at everything she did. He would have expected as much from her.
“Keep your eyes downcast,” she lectured as they prepared to head into the hallway. “I try to go at a quiet time of day, but there might be someone in the halls. Don’t make eye contact with anyone or you’ll surely blow your cover. You can’t help but look regal, can you? Take smaller steps. Try to slump your shoulders a little. A little more.” She made a face. “Here.” She whacked one shoulder to make it droop, and then the other, a tiny smile on her lips. “That’s better,” she said with satisfaction.
He was suspicious. She hadn’t held back much. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
“Giving you a whack?” She allowed herself a tight smile. “Certainly not. I don’t believe in corporal punishment.”
“Liar.” He was laughing at her. “Are you going to try to convince me that it hurt you more than it hurt me?”
She didn’t bother to respond. Giving him a look, she stepped out into the hallway, wondering if she was crazy to do this. But she was being honest when she said she trusted him to come along and see her father with her. Was she letting her heart rule her head? Probably. But she’d made her decision and she would stick to it.
Still, that didn’t mean she was sanguine about it all. Why had he come back? Why now, just when she had everything set the way it had to be?
And why was her heart beating like a caged bird inside her chest? It didn’t matter that she loved him. She couldn’t ever be with him again. She had a baby to think about. And no time to indulge in emotions. Taking Monte with her was a risk, but she didn’t really have a lot of choice—unless she wanted to turn him in to the guard.
She thought about doing exactly that for a few seconds, a smile playing on her lips. That would take them back full circle, wouldn’t it? But it wasn’t going to happen.
Don’t worry, sweet baby,she said silently to her child.I won’t let anything hurt your father.She said a tiny prayer and added,I hope.
Monte wasn’t often haunted by self-doubt. In fact, his opinions and decisions were usually rock-solid. Once made, no wavering. But watching Pellea with her father gave him a sense that the earth might not be quite as firm under his feet as he’d assumed.
In the first place, he wasn’t really sure why she’d let him come with her. She knew how the need for retribution burned in him and yet she’d let him come here where he would have a full view of the man, his enemy, lying there, helpless. Didn’t she know how dangerous that was?
It would be easy to harm the old man. He was still handsome in an aged, fragile way, like a relic of past power. His face was drawn and lined, his color pale, his thin hair silver. Blue veins stood out in his slender hands. He was so vulnerable, so completely defenseless. Someone who moved on pure gut reaction would have done him in by now. Luckily, that wasn’t Monte’s style. He would never do such a thing, but she didn’t really know that. She’d taken a risk. But for what?
He watched as the object of his long, deep hatred struggled to talk to the daughter he obviously loved more than life itself, and he found his emotions tangling a bit. Could he really feel pity for a man who had helped ruin his family?
No. That couldn’t happen.
Still, an element confused the issue. And to be this close to someone who had lived with and worked with his parents gave him a special sense of his own history. He couldn’t deny that.
And there was something else, a certain primal longing that he couldn’t control. He’d had it ever since that day twenty-five years ago when he’d been rushed out of the burning castle, and he had forever lost his parents. He’d grown up with all the privileges of his class: the schools, the high life, the international relationships. But he would have thrown it all out if that could have bought him a real, loving family—the kind you saw in movies, the kind you dreamed about in the middle of the night. Instead, he had this empty ache in his heart.
And that made watching Pellea and her father all the more effective. From his position in the entryway, he could see her bending lovingly over her father and dropping a kiss on his forehead. She talked softly to him, wiping his forehead with a cool, damp cloth, straightening his covers, plumping his pillow. The love she had for the man radiated from her every move. And he felt very similarly. She was obviously a brilliant bit of sun in his rather dark life.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Much better now that you’re here, my dear.”
“I’m only here for a moment. I must get back. The masked ball is tonight.”
“Ah, yes.” He took hold of her hand. “So tonight you and Leonardo will announce your engagement?”
“Yes. Leonardo is prepared.”
“What a relief to have this coming so quickly. To be able to see you protected before I go…”
“Don’t talk about going.”
“We all have to do it, my dear. My time has come.”
Pellea made a dove-like noise and bent down to kiss his cheek. “No. You just need to get out more. See some people.” Rising a bit, she had a thought. “I know. I’ll have the nurse bring you to the ball so that you can see for yourself….”
“Hush, Pellea,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m comfortable here and I’m too weak to leave this bed.”
