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“I’ve hoped for this day, Lance.” He struggled through another coughing spasm. “I’ve prayed you would return healthy in mind and body. Le bon Dieu heard me.”
What his parent saw was a shell of the man he once was. Lance wouldn’t want him to know what lay beneath.
“Now that I’m back, we’re going to work on your getting well. Anything you’re worrying about, I’ll take care of.”
His father smiled through his tears. “Am I dreaming?”
Lance had trouble clearing the lump in his throat. “Non, mon père.”
It was long past time he started helping his remarkable father who needed Lance to shoulder more of the responsibilities. His parent had not only raised him from birth, ten years ago he’d been wise enough to give Lance his freedom without making him feel guilty. In the end, that freedom had brought Lance back home of his own free will.
The reason that had driven him away in the first place no longer mattered. Since that time life had delivered him a blow from which he would never recover whether he lived at the far ends of the earth or at home. At least here he could be of use to his father.
“The nurse is making signs you need to rest. She says you’ve had too many friends come by and they’ve worn you out, so I’m going to let you sleep now.”
“Don’t go.”
“I just want to have a word with the staff, but I promise I’ll be back to stay in here with you tonight. Percy will stand guard, won’t you.”
The dog moaned in response.
“Do you know he won’t leave me? Henri has to force him to go out when it’s necessary.”
Percy’s love for his master was touching. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
A couple of years before Lance had joined the military, his father had found a stray puppy of mixed breed near to death in the forest. Some cruel person must have dropped it off to die, but his father brought him back to the château to nurse him. They’d been inseparable ever since.
“Are you settled in your suite down the hall?”
“Oui.”
“We—” He stopped long enough to cough again. “We have a visitor.”
A frown marred Lance’s features. “Someone’s staying at the château?”
“Yes.” He would have said more, but another coughing spell took over.
As far as Lance was concerned, whoever it was needed to leave. His gracious father didn’t know how to say no to anyone. His second marriage was proof in point. Right now he was too ill to realize what was good for him. Lance hadn’t come home any too soon to take charge.
Kissing his father on either cheek, he nodded to the nurse then left his father’s suite to go in search of Henri who was devoted to his parent. He found him in the foyer closing up the château for the night.
Lance approached him from the right since the head of the staff couldn’t hear out of his left ear. Years earlier Henri had been a young groomsman at the stable when a hunting accident had occurred. After being released from the hospital, Lance’s father had brought him into the château to take care of him. He’d been in his household employ ever since.
“I understand there’s a guest staying at the château, Henri.”
The older man turned and nodded. “Oui. A Madame Fallon.”
His shuttered gaze searched Henri’s. “Someone ‘special’?”
“Your father insisted I put her in la chambre verte.”
Lance was stunned. The green room had always been off-limits to guests in order to preserve its treasures. This meant his sixty-seven-year-old father could have become romantically involved.
Even if this woman was worthy of him, which Lance knew wasn’t possible, his father had gone too far. Lance had to admit to being surprised his parent hadn’t mentioned her before now. But after the disaster of his second marriage, maybe he was too worried over his son’s reaction to tell him anything on that score.
“Has he known her long?”
“He met her at Easter, but she’s only been at the château a week.”
Lance had come home for that holiday on a chance twelve-hour leave, but there’d been no mention of her then.
A week was long enough for his parent to have become infatuated. He ground his teeth. What hold did this woman have over his father? He’d buried his heart with Lance’s mother and had waited until his mid-forties before marrying a second time.
That travesty of a union had lasted less than a year. Long enough to scar his father, or so Lance had thought…
A blackness swept through him. “What’s your opinion of her, Henri?”
“She’s been good for your father.”
Such praise coming from Henri, the soul of discretion, was unprecedented. Evidently she’d deceived Henri, too.
“When was the last time Corinne was home?”
“Last month. She’s on holiday in Australia right now.”
That meant she wasn’t privy to this latest information about his father’s interest in another woman. He could only imagine her reaction when she found out. As for her knowing Lance had returned…
He patted Henri’s shoulder. “Thanks for all your care of him. Now that I’m home on a permanent basis, bring any concerns to me.”
The other man smiled. “It’s good to have you back. Your father has been living for the day.”
If Brigitte hadn’t already gone to bed, she’d volunteer certain details about his father’s relationship with this latest predator. Unlike her husband, Henri, the housekeeper had no qualms when it came to expressing her opinions.
Any feelings of guilt Lance suffered for having been away this long were overshadowed by anger that another toxic female was already sleeping under their roof, counting the seconds until his father made her his third wife.
In need of a drink, he went to the kitchen for coffee first. Much as he’d like something stronger, he would opt for pain-killers in lieu of alcohol to tamp down the pain of a recent injury. However there was no medicine, no drink to wipe out the agony of shattered dreams.
From the first day of her arrival, Andrea had been told she could help herself to anything from the modernized kitchen no matter the hour. Brigitte insisted the cook wouldn’t mind.
Taking her at her word, Andrea found some fresh brioche under a glass cover and ate one over the sink so she wouldn’t spill crumbs on the stone floor. Since neither coffee nor fruit juice sounded good, she ended up drinking potable water from the faucet.
As she was standing on tiptoe to put the glass back on the baker’s rack, someone pushed open the kitchen door and came in. She assumed it was Brigitte about to make hot tea with honey for the Duc.
“I hope Geoff’s better tonight,” she called over her shoulder.
“We’re all hoping for that miracle.”
Andrea stilled for a moment.
That deep voice with the heavy French accent—she’d heard it before. Just a little while ago in fact.
Her heart began to thud before she spun around to face the man she’d met in the forest. The quick motion caused her golden-brown hair to float about her shoulders before settling.
His searching gaze watched her, taking in every inch of curves before it looked into the dark velvety-brown of her eyes. Like scorching blue flames, his flared in recognition.
He needed a shave and was still dressed in fatigues. The collar couldn’t hide a thin white scar that ran up the side of his bronzed neck. She hadn’t noticed it in the semidark of the forest. At the mere thought of how he came by it, a shudder ran through her body.
If her instincts didn’t deceive her, he was not pleased to discover that the trespasser he’d confronted earlier was inside this château, helping herself to the food.
“Who are you?” he asked in a grating voice that managed to disturb her already sensitized nerves.
“Andrea Fallon. It appears the groundskeeper neglected to let you know Geoff had a guest.”
He poured himself a cup of coffee from the cafetière and drank part of it, studying her over the rim. His gaze was insolent as well as bold. He had no shame.
She averted her eyes. A man who lived a life-and-death existence as he must have done, had dispensed with civilized pretense a long time ago.
“Did you give my camera to the guard at the gate?”
“No,” came the unequivocal answer. “I’ll return it to you later.” He swallowed the rest of his coffee and put the cup in the sink.
“Morning will be fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to look in on Geoff.”
“Not yet,” he muttered. The next thing she knew he’d placed his body between her and the door. His hand grasped her wrist so she couldn’t leave.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” she cried, trying to pull away from him. But his grip was far too strong. At five foot six and only a hundred and twenty pounds, she was no match for his steel-like strength.
“My question to you exactly,” he bit out, drawing her nearer until she felt the warmth from his rock-hard body. The male scent of him was as erotic as it was unexpected. “What are you? All of twenty-two compared to his almost seventy years?”
When Andrea figured out what he was implying, she couldn’t prevent the incredulous laugh that escaped. “Not that it’s any business of the hired help, but Geoff and I are friends!”
“No doubt you’d like it to be more.” He pulled her against him until she was crushed against every line and sinew of his body, sending fire through hers. She moaned in disbelief this was happening.
“Who made you his personal watchdog?” she cried, far too aware of their breath mingling, let alone his long, sooty lashes and the lines of experience bracketing his sensual mouth. No man had a right to be this attractive, yet so utterly offensive at the same time.
“Since his second marriage never took.” She thought she saw pain interspersed with anger flashing from his eyes. “If you think I’m about to let him enter into a third with someone young enough to be his granddaughter, you’re deluding yourself.”
He’d pushed her too far. She couldn’t refrain from baiting him. “Sometimes age isn’t as important as kindness and love.”
His lips twisted unpleasantly. “Especially when you’re looking at a fortune after he’s dead.”
“Is that why you stay in his employ?” She flashed him a mocking smile. “Are you hoping there’ll be something in it for you?”
The minute the question was out, she regretted her lapse of control and tried to jerk away from him without success.
“Why not…if you’re offering,” he drawled.
A thrill of fear raced through her body. Too late for escape, she couldn’t avoid the hard mouth that descended on hers.
Caught off guard, her gasp of surprise enabled him to drive deeper in a kiss so intimate and all-consuming, she was shaken to the foundations. For a dizzying moment the sensations he aroused caused her legs to lose their strength.
At the very second she found herself clinging to him so she wouldn’t fall, he gripped her upper arms and propelled her away from him.
It infuriated her that while she was out of breath and disheveled, he stood there mocking her with a devilish smile, seemingly unfazed by the encounter.
When she tore herself from his grasp, the force of it almost caused her to trip on her flight from the kitchen. She dashed through the hall and up the stairs of the château, needing to reach the safety of Geoff’s suite.
CHAPTER TWO
A NEW nurse had come on duty. She smiled and nodded to Andrea, indicating her patient was up to a nocturnal visitor.
Approaching his bed, Andrea could see he was doing better. His oxygen tube had been taken away. Since last night he had more color and the slight wheeze in his chest didn’t seem as noticeable.
Still trembling from her experience in the kitchen, she pulled up a chair next to him and put a hand on his arm, willing her heart to stop slamming against her ribs.
Whether in the Duc’s employ or not, the stranger had crossed a line tonight with his primitive behavior. To manhandle a woman the way he’d just done was grounds for dismissal and a lot worse if Andrea had anything to say about it.
Without upsetting Geoff, she would learn what she could about the other man from Henri. He would know what should be done and would be discreet in handling the situation so she wasn’t bothered further.
“Geoff? It’s Andrea.”
His eyes opened. They had more life than before. He really was improving. Nothing could have pleased her more.
“You sound out of breath, ma chérie.”
Under the circumstances a little white lie wouldn’t hurt. “I just returned to the château and wanted to see you first.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” He patted her hand. “I have the most wonderful news.”
“The doctor must have told you you’re on the mend at last!” she interjected.
“It’s a fact I’m feeling better, but this is something else. My son has come home for good. I couldn’t speak about him or his work before tonight because it was classified. But now I can tell you. For the last ten years he’s been serving in various regions of the world as part of our military’s elite force.”
A slight gasp escaped her throat. With those words Andrea realized she’d already met his only offspring. No wonder he’d appeared in the kitchen as if he owned the place. It explained his presence on the grounds.
Wasn’t France’s elite force even more deadly than its special forces?
The moment he’d emerged so noiselessly from the pines, she’d sensed the difference about him. She had living proof he was even better trained and more dangerous than she’d first supposed.
His uncivilized behavior downstairs appeared to be the result of too much time spent doing unspeakable things for far too long.
“Earlier tonight while I was wondering when I would see him again, and hopefully in one piece, he appeared in my room and told me he’d performed his final service for the country. It’s over. Grâce à Dieu. Now he and Corinne can be married.”
“Corinne?”
“The daughter of my second wife.”
Andrea blinked. She supposed some stepbrothers and sisters did marry, but she couldn’t imagine it.
