The Rebel King Read online

  "Rhia de Hayes," Rhia said, eyeing her assignment as she might a tiger who'd stopped suddenly in midspring and begun instead to purr and rub his head against her legs. The smile that had flared so unexpectedly in his fierce gray eyes to spread like sunlight over his rather austere features was intriguing, for sure, and she had to admit she liked it a lot better than the frown. But she didn't trust it for a moment. What it reminded her of was a limerick she'd heard somewhere, about a young lady who'd smiled as she went for a ride on a tiger. As Rhia recalled the limerick, when they'd returned from that ride the lady was inside, and the smile was on the face of the tiger.

  What is he smiling about? As if he knows something…as if he knows me. But we've never met before. Have we?

  Uncertainty wasn't a condition Rhia suffered often, or well. But so far this whole assignment hadn't gone as expected, and that had her feeling off balance. She liked losing control of situations even less than she liked being unsure of herself, and she meant to remedy that state of affairs as quickly as possible. Rhia de Hayes had never failed to complete an assignment successfully, and she wasn't about to sully that record now.

  Of course, none of her previous assignments had been quite like this one. Her specialty within the Lazlo Group was retrieving lost children of the rich, royal or famous, and while it was true that this was undoubtedly the offspring of a man who could claim to be all three of those things, there was nothing even remotely childlike about Nikolas Donovan.

  Except for that damn smile. There's mischief in that smile. Reminds me of a kid hiding a big ol' bullfrog behind his back.

  "So, Rhia de Hayes…they've sent you to 'bring me in,' I expect." he said as he handed back her ID. His eyes were veiled now, and his voice was that languid upper-class vaguely British drawl she'd always found so annoying. "What were you planning to do, conk me on the head, heave me over your shoulder and haul me back to Silvershire?"

  "I was plannin' on checkin' the place while you were gone." Rhia said, leaning heavily on the nasal Cajun twang of her childhood; she could out-drawl just about anybody on the planet, if that was the way he was going to be. She glared at him as she tucked the ID back in her inside jacket pocket, inadvertently allowing him another glimpse of the silk chemise that had apparently so unnerved him before. And she reveled in the spark of response that flared in his cool gray eyes. Veiling the triumph in hers, she said accusingly. "You came back early. I figured you'd be havin' supper out."

  "It was going to rain," Nikolas said with a dismissive shrug, "and I didn't have an umbrella. So, what was it you hoped to find hidden away amongst my socks and tightie whities? Guns, knives, explosives? Leaflets inciting the violent overthrow of the monarchy? Evidence of what a dangerous fellow I am?"

  "Oh, I think I know what a dangerous fellow you are." Rhia said, and instantly wanted to bite off her tongue. Not only was it an inappropriate comment to make to a royal heir, but the voice that uttered it had turned low and husky, become almost a growl. It wasn't as though she'd never heard such a sound coming from her own throat before-on…certain occasions, yes, but never under these circumstances. Not while on a job, put it that way.

  She wasn't sure which surprised her most, that or the small vibration that had begun to hum somewhere deep inside her chest.

  Half angry with herself, she tore away the clip that had held her hair clubbed tightly to the back of her head and shook the thick dark waves down to her shoulders.

  "You could easily have beat a hasty retreat when you heard me at the door," Nikolas remarked in a relaxed, conversational tone. "I assume you had an escape route planned. Why didn't you use it?" As he spoke, his gaze followed the motions of her hand and hair, his gray eyes heavy-lidded and amused, as if he knew exactly the effect he was having on her.

  Of course he knows, dummy. Rhia repressed a shiver as she became intensely conscious of the cool silk of her chemise licking across her hardened nipples. How could he not know, when the evidence was right here in front of his face?

  But to zip up her jacket now would be an admission of awareness she wasn't willing to make, and besides, she'd never been shy about her body. If it was going to go shivery and shameless over Nik Donovan, well…so be it. It wouldn't affect her ability to do the job she'd come to do.

  And, if it came to that, she was also well aware of the effect her body had on members of the opposite sex, and she wasn't above using it to distract an opponent, if the occasion demanded.

  When did the assignment become my opponent?

  She faced this one unflinchingly and inhaled deeply, and smiled at the slight but unmistakable hitch she detected in his breathing. "I'd planned on coming back and knocking on your door. Talking to you-you know, like a civilized human being, one to another? Figured since I was already here I might as well save some time, see if I could persuade you to do the right thing and come back with me voluntarily."

  Nikolas folded his arms on his chest. He was smiling too. now. a lazy, arrogant smile that caused an immediate and automatic elevation of her hackles. "And if that didn't work?"

  She gave her head an airy toss and broadened her smile to a 'gator grin. "I planned to conk you on the head, throw you over my shoulder and haul you back to Silvershire."

  He laughed, briefly but out loud, something she suspected he didn't do often. He made no comment, though, as the promised rain chose that moment to announce its arrival with a rush of cool wind that set the curtains to dancing and carried a mist of droplets into the room. Nikolas straightened and strode quickly to the balcony doors. He closed and latched them and twitched the curtains across the black rain-spangled glass, then turned to give her a leisurely up-and-down appraisal.

  "It would appear you also are without an umbrella," he said mildly, lifting one eyebrow-an ability she lacked, and coveted. "I seriously doubt you'll find a taxi just now. Since I suppose this means you'll be staying for dinner, may I offer you a glass of wine?"

  She shook her head, both in bemusement and in refusal of the offer of wine-she had no intention of letting anything slow her reflexes or cloud her judgment, not with this man. And although he seemed completely at ease. now. and was being effortlessly charming, she thought again of the smiling tiger.

  She decided it wouldn't be necessary to tell him she had no intention of calling a taxi. or. in fact, of leaving him at all. Fact was, she wasn't about to let Nikolas Donovan out of her sight until she had delivered him safely into the arms of his father, the king of Silvershire.

  Chapter 2

  Rhia stood in the entrance to the apartment's tiny kitchen and watched the recently discovered "lost" heir to the throne of Silvershire take a stoppered bottle of wine out of the tiny refrigerator.

  He turned to make an offering gesture toward her with the bottle. "Are you quite certain you won't join me? It's rather nice for a rose, actually. Fellow who lent me this flat comes from a wine-making family down in Provence-he's left an apparently bottomless supply."

  She shook her head, and he responded with a shrug that seemed to her more French than British. It was what came of growing up in an island kingdom located halfway between those two countries, she thought, as she watched him pour himself a half glassful and lift it to his lips. She couldn't imagine why observing that mundane activity should make her mouth water; she wasn't terribly fond of wine. She seldom drank at all, but when she did, she preferred bourbon whiskey. Straight.

  His eyes, meeting hers above the rim of his glass, crinkled suddenly. He lowered the glass. "Oh, hell-of course, you're on the job, aren't you? Do forgive me. Perhaps a glass of water? Cup of tea?"

  "I'm from South Louisiana." Rhia said drily "We Cajuns aren't all that much for tea." Well, hell, if he was going to play the British fop again-badly overplaying it, in her opinion, and she didn't know what his game was or whether to be amused by it or annoyed-she figured her trailer-park Cajun could trump his Oxford Brit any day of the week.

  "Ah, yes-coffee would be your drink of choice. I imagine. Made with-wh
at's that other…" He snapped his fingers impatiently.

  "Chicory," she grudgingly supplied, then tilted her head. "How'd you come to know a thing like that?"

  His chuckle was dry, his smile sardonic. "I know a little about a great many things, my dear." He waved the wineglass in a sweeping gesture. "My education has been…shall we say, eclectic? Wide-ranging?"

  "An education fit for a man who would be king," Rhia said softly.

  He snorted-a most unprincely sound. "An education attained courtesy of some very good scholarships and a lot of hellish hard work, which I doubt could be said of most royals." He paused, and his lips curled with disdain he made no effort to hide. "Not the one I knew personally, at any rate."

  "Reginald, you mean. Yes, you two were at Eton together, weren't you?"

  "And Oxford." Nikolas gazed at his wine as if it had gone sour. "Look, I am sorry he's dead-God knows I wouldn't wish for anyone to be murdered that way-poisoned, I mean-but the man was an arrogant, insufferable prick, if you want to know. And not fit to govern a frat house, much less a country."

  "Ah," said Rhia, smiling slightly, "but he never got the chance, did he? And, as it turns out, he wasn't even the prince after all."

  Instead of answering, he took a quick gulp of wine and set his glass down with a careless clank. Turning abruptly, he opened a cupboard door and took out an espresso maker which he placed on the countertop, plugged into a wall outlet and set about filling with an ease and efficiency that spoke of some degree of familiarity with the process.

  Watching the movements of his hands, Rhia felt again that odd little quiver beneath her breastbone. His glossy dark hair might be in need of a trim, and a day's growth of beard might be shadowing his jaw, but there was no denying the grace in the lines of his body, the power in the breadth of his shoulders, the authority in the set of his chin, the intelligence in those intense gray eyes. And all of it, she thought, completely natural to him.

  It must be in his genes. Even here, in this little bitty kitchen, making coffee for uninvited company, he looks like he was born to be a king.

  "You can come in and sit down-I promise not to bite you." He threw the brittle invitation over his shoulder as he worked, and Rhia gave a guilty start, as if his long list of royal attributes might include the ability to read minds.

  She shook her head and smiled, but stayed where she was. Prince or not, the kitchen was too small a space to hold two people who weren't already on intimate terms.

  Intimate. The word sprang into her head from out of nowhere and sat pulsing in her brain like the neon lights on a Mississippi River casino boat.

  "Tell me something." He gave her another look, this one as shaip and keen as any scrutiny she'd ever received from Walker Shaw, the shrink who'd done her psych evaluation when she joined the Lazlo Group. "How does a nice American girl from Louisiana come to be working for Corbett Lazlo?"

  She gave him back a smile she knew would dazzle but tell him nothing. "Ah, that's a long story."

  Still his gaze lingered, intent enough to kick-start that hum in her chest again, and, as they often did when she felt ill at ease, her fingers went of their own volition to the small silver charm that hung from a narrow chain around her neck, nestled in the hollow at the base of her throat. She rubbed it idly as she watched Nikolas shrug and go back to measuring dark roasted coffee beans into the grinder.

  He switched it on, and for the next few seconds the racket made conversation impossible. The grinding completed. Nikolas poured water into the espresso machine, closed and secured the lid and punched a button. He turned back to her, then, and picked up his glass of wine and the thread of conversation he'd temporarily put aside.

  "Might I ask what your specialty is with the Lazlo Group? You do seem an unlikely choice of field agent to send after a notorious suspected terrorist." This time a smile crinkled the corners of the eyes studying her across the rim of the wineglass, though it didn't diminish their intensity one bit.

  "My specialty?" Her smile was small and wicked. "I locate and retrieve lost children."

  Caught in mid swallow, Nikolas gave a sputter of laughter and quickly lowered his glass. He touched the back of his hand to his mouth and managed to say in a choked voice. "A lot of call for that, is there?"

  "Unfortunately, yes." She wasn't smiling now.

  "I'm well aware of the sad state of the world." Nikolas said, matching the new seriousness of her tone as he stared at the contents of his glass. He'd been enjoying himself entirely too much, he realized, given the fact that it was this woman's intention to fetch him back to Silvershire whether he wanted to go or not. That he could enjoy himself at all. under any circumstances, was surprising in itself. It had been rather a long time since he'd found anything in his life amusing. "I meant in the context of the Lazlo Group, of course. Isn't their clientele pretty much limited to the rich, royal or famous?"

  "Theirs is," she replied shortly. "Mine isn't."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning, the ability to take cases pro bono when it suits me is one of the conditions of my…shall we say, employment agreement."

  "I'm impressed." He was, too. He hadn't thought there was anybody on the planet who could dictate terms to Corbett Lazlo, and that included royalty. He sipped wine while he studied the woman lounging with easy grace in his kitchen doorway. Tall and lithe, but curvy as well-truly an amazing body, as he had ample reason to know, and he really did need to discipline his mind past those recent memories of her. Under the circumstances, they were proving entirely too distracting. He couldn't afford to be distracted with this one; he had a feeling if she'd intended to take him by force he'd already be hog-tied and on a plane bound for Silvershire, so it was a safe bet she must have something else up her sleeve. "I gather, then, that you're quite good at what you do. Might I ask how you go about it-this business of finding lost children?"

  She smiled, the enigmatic little Mona Lisa smile he'd seen before. "Oh, the Lazlo Group has resources you can't even imagine." The smile vanished again-fascinating, the way it came and went, like the sun playing hide-and-seek with clouds. Something he couldn't identify flickered in her eyes, and her hand went again to whatever it was she wore on that silver chain around her neck. He couldn't quite make out what it was-something oddly shaped but familiar as well- and it was beginning to intrigue him.

  "And then," she went on in an entirely different kind of voice, "I suppose I probably just have the knack."

  "The knack?"

  She shifted, as if the door frame against her back had grown uncomfortable. "Instinct. You know-a sixth sense. I just always have been good at finding people. Particularly kids."

  "Ah. You mean, like second sight?"

  She gave him a brief, hard look. Suspected him of mocking her, he imagined. Which he wasn't; he'd seen too much of the world and of things in it that defied logical explanation to scoff at the unknown and unproven. When it came to the mysteries of the human mind, he preferred to keep his open.

  The espresso machine chose that moment to erupt with a gurgling, hissing cloud of fragrant steam, and the last thing he saw before he turned to attend to it was Rhia's lush pink lips tightening and her long slender throat rippling as she bit back and swallowed whatever it was she'd been about to say.

  Second sight? Yeah, that was what Mama called it. Her gift to me. Now it's the only thing I have of her, except my music and my memories. And this necklace.

  Rhia fingered it briefly as she watched her assignment- and host-pour steaming black liquid into a tiny cup and place it on the table along with a spoon and a bowl filled with sugar cubes, and was thankful for the lifelong habit of self-control that made her keep those thoughts inside.

  "I don't suppose you'd have any hot milk?" She kept her voice as bland as the request.

  He lifted that damned eyebrow. "Milk? Sorry."

  "That's okay. I'm adaptable." She pushed away from the door frame. It was only two short steps to the kitchen table, but her pulse quickened as if it
was a tiger's den she'd entered.

  She sat in the nearest of the two chairs and shifted it so the small arched window and its rain-blurred view of the Paris lights was at her back. She stirred a sinful amount of sugar into the espresso-she hated cubed sugar because it always seemed as though someone might be keeping count. How many, dear, one lump, or two? Yeah, right. How about…ten? Then she settled back with one elbow propped on the tabletop to watch the future king of Silvershire take eggs and a variety of other things out of the fridge and scatter them across the sink and countertop with the reckless abandon of a gourmet chef.

  The future king… How remote and unreal that seemed to her now, with her pulse tap-tapping away and that strange little vibration humming somewhere deep inside her chest and an intense awareness of silk slithering over her naked skin-because what, after all, could be more of a turn-on to a woman than watching a smolderingly handsome and mysterious man cook dinner for her?

  She took a cautious sip of the potent coffee-though Lord knew she didn't need any more stimulation-and tried to coax her mind into placing the man presently whacking merrily away at a pile of mushrooms into his proper setting, one that included his royal peers-the Grimaldis of Monaco…the DuPonts of Gastonia…the Dutch and the British royals. But her rebellious mind kept returning, like a drunk to his bottle, to the memory of what his body had felt like, out there on the balcony, lying full-length on top of hers.

  And why did that memory kindle another, one that flared bright for frustratingly brief moments, then before she could grasp it, vanished into the darkness of her mind like a lightning bug in a bayou summer night?

  "I'd give a lot more than a penny to know what you're thinking right now."

  Rhia blinked the heir to Silvershire's crown into focus and found him studying her with-naturally-one eyebrow a notch higher than the other, and a similar tilt to his smile.

  "It would take more than you've got to find out." she retorted, and gave up. for the moment, trying to think of him as royalty. After all, she reminded herself, at the moment he was merely Nikolas Donovan, college professor, rabble-rouser, rebel and fugitive, and she was the special agent hired to bring him in. "But," she added after a moment, "since you 're cooking me dinner, I guess I can give you one for free." She paused. "You have to know I feel a little odd about that- you fixing me dinner. Considering you're the future-"