Her Unforgettable Royal Lover

“Where are you staying?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Where are you staying?”

Good Lord! Was he hitting on her? No, he couldn’t be! She was most definitely not his type. According to Zia’s laughing reports, her bachelor brother went for leggy blondes or voluptuous brunettes. A long string of them, judging by the duchess’s somewhat more acerbic references to his sowing altogether too many wild oats.

That more than anything had predisposed Natalie to dislike Dominic St. Sebastian sight unseen. She’d fallen for a too-handsome, too-smooth operator like him once and would pay for that stupidity for the rest of her life. Still, she tried, she really tried, to keep disdain from seeping into her voice as she tugged her arm free.

“I don’t believe where I’m staying is any of your business.”

“You’ve made it my business with this nonsense about a codicil.”

Whoa! He could lock a hand around her arm. He could perp-walk her to the door. He could not disparage her research.

Thoroughly indignant, Natalie returned fire. “It’s not nonsense, as you would know if you’d displayed any interest in your family’s history. I suggest you show a little more respect for your heritage, Your Grace, and for the duchess.”

He muttered something in Hungarian she suspected was not particularly complimentary and bent an elbow against the doorjamb, leaning close. Too close! She could see herself in his pupils, catch the tang of apricot brandy on his breath.

“My respect for Charlotte is why you and I are going to have a private chat, yes? I ask again, where are you staying?”

His Magyar roots were showing, Natalie noted with a skitter of nerves. The slight thickening of his accent should have warned her. Should have sent her scurrying back into the protective shell she’d lived inside for so long it was now as much a part of her life as her drab hair and clothes. But some spark of her old self tilted her chin.

“You’re supposed to be a big, bad secret agent,” she said coolly. “Dig out the information yourself.”

He would, Dom vowed as the door closed behind her with a small thud. He most definitely would.

Two

All it took was one call to arm Dom with the essential information. Natalie Elizabeth Clark. Born Farmington, Illinois. Age twenty-nine, height five feet six inches, brown hair, brown eyes. Single. Graduated University of Michigan with a degree in library science, specializing in archives and presentation. Employed as an archivist with Centerville Community College for three years, the State of Illinois Civil Service Board for four. Currently residing in L.A. where she was employed by Sarah St. Sebastian as a personal assistant.

An archivist. Christ!

Dom shook his head as his cab picked its way downtown later that evening. He envisioned a small cubicle, her head bent toward a monitor screen, her eyes staring through those thick lenses at an endless stream of documents to be verified, coded and electronically filed. And she’d done it for seven years! Dom would have committed ritual hara-kiri after a week. No wonder she’d jumped when Sarah put out feelers for an assistant to help research her book.

Ms. Clark was still running endless computer searches. Still digging through archives, some electronic, some paper. But at least now she was traveling the globe to get at the most elusive of those documents. And, Dom guessed as his cab pulled up at the W New York, doing that traveling on a very generous expense account.

He didn’t bother to stop at the front desk. His phone call had confirmed that Ms. Clark had checked into room 1304 two days ago. And a tracking program developed for the military and now in use by a number of intelligence agencies confirmed her cell phone was currently emitting signals from this location.

Two minutes later Dom rapped on her door. The darkening of the peephole told him she was as careful in her personal life as she no doubt was in her work. He smiled his approval, then waited for the door to open.

When neither of those events happened, he rapped again. Still no response.

“It’s Dominic St. Sebastian, Ms. Clark. I know you’re in there. You may as well open the door.”

She complied but wasn’t happy about it. “It’s generally considered polite to call ahead for an appointment instead of just showing up at someone’s hotel room.”

The August humidity had turned her shapeless linen dress into a roadmap of wrinkles, and her sensible pumps had been traded for hotel flip-flops. She’d freed her hair from the clip, though, and it framed her face in surprisingly thick, soft waves as she tipped Dom a cool look through her glasses.

“May I ask why you felt compelled to come all the way downtown to speak with me?”

Dom had been asking himself the same thing. He’d confirmed this woman was who she said she was and verified her credentials. The truth was he probably wouldn’t have given Natalie Clark a second thought if not for those little nose quivers.

He’d told himself the disdain she’d wiped off her face so quickly had triggered his cop’s instinct. Most of the scum he’d dealt with over the years expressed varying degrees of contempt for the police, right up until they were cuffed and led away. His sister, however, would probably insist those small hints of derision had pricked his male ego. It was true that Dom could never resist a challenge. But despite Zia’s frequent assertions to the contrary, he didn’t try to finesse every female who snagged his attention into bed.

Still, he was here and here he intended to remain until he satisfied his curiosity about this particular female. “I’d like more information on this codicil you’ve uncovered, Ms. Clark.”

“I’m sure you would. I’ll be happy to email you the documentation I’ve…”

“I prefer to see what you have now. May I come in, or do we continue our discussion in the hall?”

Her mouth pursing, she stood aside. Her obvious reluctance intrigued Dom. And, all right, stirred his hunting instincts. Too bad he had that meeting at the National Central Bureau—the US branch of Interpol—in Washington tomorrow. It might have been interesting to see what it would take to get those prim, disapproving lips to unpurse and sigh his name.

He skimmed a glance around the room. Two queen beds, one with her open briefcase and neat stacks of files on it. An easy chair angled to get the full benefit of the high-definition flat-screen. A desk with a black ergonomic chair, another stack of files and a seventeen-inch laptop open to a webpage displaying a close-up of an elaborately jeweled egg.

“One of the Fabergé eggs?” he asked, moving closer to admire the sketch of a gem-encrusted egg nested in a two-wheeled gold cart.

“Yes.”

“The Cherub with a Chariot,” Dom read, “a gift from Tsar Alexander III to his wife, Maria Fyodorovna for Easter, 1888. One of eight Fabergé eggs currently lost.”

He glanced at the researcher hovering protectively close to her work, as if to protect it from prying eyes.

“And you’re on the hunt for it?”

“I’m documenting its history.”

Her hand crept toward the laptop’s lid, as if itching to slam it down.

“What have you found so far?”

The lips went tight again, but Dom was too skilled at interrogations to let her off the hook. He merely waited until she gave a grudging nod.

“Documents show it was at Gatchina Palace in 1891, and was one of forty or so eggs sent to the armory at the Kremlin after the 1917 Revolution. Some experts believe it was purchased in the 1930s by Victor and Armand Hammer. But…”

He could see when her fascination with her work overcame her reluctance to discuss it. Excitement snuck into her voice and added a spark to her brown eyes. Her very velvety, very enticing brown eyes, he thought as she tugged off her glasses and twirled them by one stem.

“I found a reference to a similar egg sold at an antiques shop in Paris in 1930. A shop started by a Russian émigré. No one knows how the piece came into his possession, but I’ve found a source I want to check when I’m in Paris next week. It may…”

She caught herself and brought the commentary to an abrupt halt. The twirling ceased. The glasses whipped up, and wariness replaced the excitement in the doe-brown eyes.

“I’m not trying to pump you for information,” Dom assured her. “Interpol has a whole division devoted to lost, stolen or looted cultural treasures, you know.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Since you’re heading over to Paris, I can set up a meeting for you with the division chief, if you like.”

The casual offer seemed to throw her off balance. “I… Uh… I have access to their database but…” Her glance went to the screen, then came back to Dom. “I would appreciate that,” she said stiffly. “Thank you.”

A grin sketched across his face. “There now. That didn’t taste so bad going down, did it?”

Instant alarms went off in Natalie’s head. She could almost hear their raucous clanging as she fought to keep her chin high and her expression politely remote. She would not let a lazy grin and a pair of glinting, bedroom eyes seduce her. Not again. Never again.

“I’ll give you my business card,” she said stiffly. “Your associate can reach me anytime at my mobile number or by email.”

“So cool, so polite.” He didn’t look at the embossed card she retrieved from her briefcase, merely slipped it into the pocket of his slacks. “What is it about me you don’t like?”

How about everything!

“I don’t know you well enough to dislike you.” She should have left it there. Would have, if he hadn’t been standing so close. “Nor,” she added with a shrug, “do I wish to.”

She recognized her error at once. Men like Dominic St. Sebastian would take that as a challenge. Hiding a grimace, Natalie attempted some quick damage control.

“You said you wanted more information on the codicil. I have a scanned copy on my computer. I’ll pull it up and print out a copy for you.”

She pulled out the desk chair. He was forced to step back so she could sit, but any relief she might have gained from the small separation dissipated when he leaned a hand on the desk and bent to peer over her shoulder. His breath stirred the loose tendrils at her temple, moved lower, washed warm and hot against her ear. She managed to keep from hunching her shoulder but it took an iron effort of will.

“So that’s it,” he said as the scanned image appeared, “the document the duchess thinks makes me a duke?”

“Grand Duke,” Natalie corrected. “Excuse me, I need to check the paper feed in the printer.”

There was nothing wrong with the paper feed. Her little portable printer had been cheerfully spitting out copies before St. Sebastian so rudely interrupted her work. But it was the best excuse she could devise to get him to stop breathing down her neck!

He took the copy and made himself comfortable in the armchair while he tried to decipher the spidery script. Natalie was tempted to let him suffer through the embellished High German, but relented and printed out a translation.

“I stumbled across the codicil while researching the Canaletto that once hung in the castle at Karlenburgh,” she told him. “I’d found an obscure reference to the painting in the Austrian State Archives in Vienna.”

She couldn’t resist an aside. So many uninformed thought her profession dry and dull. They couldn’t imagine the thrill that came with following one fragile thread to another, then another, and another.

“The archives are so vast, it’s taken years to digitize them all. But the results are amazing. Really amazing. The oldest document dates back to 816.”

He nodded, not appearing particularly interested in this bit of trivia that Natalie found so fascinating. Deflated, she got back to the main point.

“The codicil was included in a massive collection of letters, charters, treaties and proclamations relating to the Austro-Prussian War. Basically, it states what the duchess told you earlier. Emperor Franz Joseph granted the St. Sebastians the honor of Karlenburgh in perpetuity in exchange for defending the borders for the empire. The duchy may not exist anymore and so many national lines have been redrawn. That section of the border between Austria and Hungary has held steady, however, through all the wars and invasions. So, therefore, has the title.”

He made a noise that sounded close to a snort. “You and I both know this document isn’t worth the paper you’ve just printed it on.”

Offended on behalf of archivists everywhere, she cocked her chin. “The duchess disagrees.”

“Right, and that’s what you and I need to talk about.”

He stuffed the printout in his pocket and pinned her with a narrow stare. No lazy grin now. No laughter in those dark eyes.

“Charlotte St. Sebastian barely escaped Karlenburgh with her life. She carried her baby in her arms while she marched on foot for some twenty or thirty miles through winter snows. I know the story is that she managed to bring away a fortune in jewels, as well. I’m not confirming the story…”

He didn’t have to. Natalie had already pieced it together from her own research and from the comments Sarah had let drop about the personal items the duchess had disposed of over the years to raise her granddaughters in the style she considered commensurate with their rank.

“…but I am warning you not to take advantage of the duchess’s very natural desire to see her heritage continue.”

“Take advantage?”

It took a moment for that to sink in. When it did, she could barely speak through the anger that spurted hot and sour into her throat.

“Do you think…? Do you think this codicil is part of some convoluted scheme on my part to extract money from the St. Sebastians?”

Furious, she shoved to her feet. He rose as well, as effortlessly as an athlete, and countered her anger with a shrug.

“Not at this point. If I discover differently, however, you and I will most certainly have another chat.”

“Get out!”

Maybe after she cooled down Natalie would admit flinging out an arm and stabbing a finger toward the door was overly melodramatic. At the moment, though, she wanted to slam that door so hard it knocked this pompous ass on his butt. Especially when he lifted a sardonic brow.

“Shouldn’t that be ‘Get out, Your Grace’?”

Her back teeth ground together. “Get. Out.”

* * *

As a cab hauled him back uptown for a last visit with the duchess and his sister, Dom couldn’t say his session with Ms. Clark had satisfied his doubts. There was still something he couldn’t pin down about the researcher. She dressed like a bag lady in training and seemed content to efface herself in company. Yet when she’d flared up at him, when fury had brought color surging to her cheeks and fire to her eyes, the woman was anything but ignorable.

She reminded him of the mounts his ancestors had ridden when they’d swept down from the Steppes into the Lower Danube region. Their drab, brown-and-dun-colored ponies lacked the size and muscle power of destriers that carried European knights into battle. Yet the Magyars had wreaked havoc for more than half a century throughout Italy, France, Germany and Spain before finally being defeated by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I.

And like one of those tough little ponies, Dom thought with a slow curl in his belly, Ms. Clark needed taming. She might hide behind those glasses and shapeless dresses, but she had a temper on her when roused. Too bad he didn’t have time to gentle her to his hand. The exercise would be a hell of a lot more interesting than the meetings he had lined up in Washington tomorrow. Still, he entertained himself for the rest of the cab ride with various techniques he might employ should he cross paths with Natalie Elizabeth Clark anytime in the near future.

He’d pretty much decided he would make that happen when Zia let him into the duchess’s apartment.

“Back so soon?” she said, her eyes dancing. “Ms. Clark didn’t succumb to your manly charms and topple into bed with you?”

The quip was so close to Dom’s recent thoughts that he answered more brusquely than he’d intended. “I didn’t go to her hotel to seduce her.”

“No? That must be a first.”

“Jézus, Mária és József! The mouth on you, Anastazia Amalia. I should have washed it with soap when I had the chance.”

“Ha! You would never have been able to hold me down long enough. But come in, come in! Sarah’s on FaceTime with her grandmother. I think you’ll be interested in their conversation.”

FaceTime? The duchess? Marveling at the willingness of a woman who’d been born in the decades between two great world wars to embrace the latest in technology, Dom followed his sister into the sitting room. One glance at the tableau corrected his impression of Charlotte’s geekiness.

She sat upright and unbending in her customary chair, her cane close at hand. An iPad was perched on her knees, but she was obviously not comfortable with the device. Gina sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, holding the screen to the proper angle

Sarah’s voice floated through the speaker and her elegant features filled most of the screen. Her husband’s filled the rest.

“I’m so sorry, Grandmama. It just slipped out.”

“What slipped out?” Dom murmured to Zia.

“You,” his sister returned with that mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Me?”

“Shh! Just listen.”

Frowning, Dom tuned back into the conversation.

“Alexis called with an offer to hype my book in

Beguile,” Sarah was saying. “She wanted to play up both angles.” Her nose wrinkled. “My former job at the magazine and my title. You know how she is.”

“Yes,” the duchess drawled. “I do.”

“I told Alexis the book wasn’t ready for hype yet. Unfortunately, I also told her we’re getting there much quicker since I’d hired such a clever research assistant. I bragged about the letter Natalie unearthed in the House of Parma archives, the one from Marie Antoinette to her sister describing the miniature of her painted by Le Brun that went missing when the mob sacked Versailles. And…” She heaved a sigh. “I made the fatal mistake of mentioning the codicil Nat had stumbled across while researching the Canaletto.”

Although the fact that Dom’s cousin had mentioned that damned codicil set his internal antennae to vibrating, it didn’t appear to upset the duchess. Mention of the Canaletto had brought a faraway look to her eyes.

“Your grandfather bought me that painting of the Grand Canal,” she murmured to Sarah. “Right after I became pregnant with your mother.”

She lapsed into a private reverie that neither of her granddaughters dared break. When she emerged a few moments later, she included them both in a sly smile.

“That’s where it happened. In Venice. We were supposed to attend a carnival ball at Ari Onassis’s palazzo. I’d bought the most gorgeous mask studded with pearls and lace. But…how does that rather obnoxious TV commercial go? You never know when the mood will hit you? All I can say is something certainly hit your grandfather that evening.”

Gina hooted in delight. “Way to go, Grandmama!”

Sarah laughed, and her husband issued a joking curse. “Damn! My wife suggested we hit the carnival in Venice this spring but I talked her into an African photo safari instead.”

“You’ll know to listen to her next time,” the duchess sniffed, although Dom would bet she knew the moment could strike as hot and heavy in the African savannah as it had in Venice.

“I don’t understand,” Gina put in from her perch on the floor. “What’s the big deal about telling Alexis about the codicil?”

“Well…” Red crept into Sarah’s cheeks. “I’m afraid I mentioned Dominic, too.”

The subject of the conversation muttered a curse, and Gina let out another whoop. “Ooh, boy! Your barracuda of an editor is gonna latch on to that with both jaws. I foresee another top-ten edition, this one listing the sexiest single royals of the male persuasion.”

“I know,” her sister said miserably. “It’ll be as bad as what Dev went through after he came out on Beguile’s top-ten list. When you see Dominic tell him I’m so, so sorry.”

“He’s right here.” Hooking a hand, Gina motioned him over. “Tell him yourself.”

When Dominic positioned himself in front of the iPad’s camera, Sarah sent him a look of heartfelt apology. “I’m so sorry, Dom. I made Alexis promise she wouldn’t go crazy with this, but…”

“But you’d better brace yourself, buddy,” her husband put in from behind her shoulder. “Your life’s about to get really, really complicated.”

“I can handle it,” Dom replied with more confidence than he was feeling at the moment.

“You think so, huh?” Dev returned with a snort. “Wait till women start trying to stuff their phone number in your pants pocket and reporters shove mics and cameras in your face.”

* * *

The first prospect hadn’t sounded all that repulsive to Dom. The second he deemed highly unlikely…right up until he stepped out of a cab for his scheduled meeting at Washington’s Interpol office the following afternoon and was blindsided by the pack of reporters, salivating at the scent of fresh blood.

“Your Highness! Over here!”

“Grand Duke!”

“Hey! Your lordship!”

Shaking his head at Americans’ fixation on any and all things royal, he shielded his face with his hands like some damned criminal and pushed through the ravenous newshounds.

Three

Two weeks later Dominic was in a vicious mood. He had been since a dozen different American and European tabloids had splashed his face across their front pages, trumpeting the emergence of a long-lost Grand Duke.

When the stories hit, he’d expected the summons to Interpol Headquarters. He’d even anticipated his boss’s suggestion that he take some of the unused vacation time he’d piled up over the years and lie low until the hoopla died down. He’d anticipated it, yes, but did not like being yanked off undercover duty and sent home to Budapest to twiddle his thumbs. And every time he thought the noise was finally dying down, his face popped up in another rag.

The firestorm of publicity had impacted his personal life, as well. Although Sarah’s husband had tried to warn him, Dom had underestimated the reaction to his supposed royalty among the females of his acquaintance. The phone number he gave out to non-Interpol contacts had suddenly become very busy. Some of the callers were friends, some were former lovers. But many were strangers who’d wrangled the number out of their friends and weren’t shy about wanting to get to know the new duke on a very personal level.

He’d turned most of them off with a laugh, a few of the more obnoxious with a curt suggestion they get a life. But one had sounded so funny and sexy over the phone that he’d arranged to meet her at a coffee bar. She turned out to be a tall, luscious brunette, as bright and engaging in person as she was over the phone. Dom was more than ready to agree with her suggestion they get a second cup to go and down it at her apartment or his loft. Before he could put in the order, though, she asked the waiter to take their picture with her cell phone. Damned if she hadn’t zinged it off by email right there at the table. Just to a few friends, she explained with a smile. One, he discovered when yet another story hit the newsstands, just happened to be a reporter for a local tabloid.

In addition to the attention from strangers, the barrage of unwanted publicity seemed to make even his friends and associates view him through a different prism. To most of them he wasn’t Dominic St. Sebastian anymore. He was Dominic, Grand Duke of a duchy that had ceased to exist a half century ago, for God’s sake.

So he wasn’t real happy when someone hammered on the door of his loft apartment on a cool September evening. Especially when the hammering spurred a chorus of ferocious barking from the hound who’d followed Dom home a year ago and decided to take up residence.