The Duke's Covert Mission

Lenny tucked his notebook back into his pocket. “Three days?”

“Yeah.” Jerome tossed the phone onto the empty couch and finished off his cigarette. “We’re to hold the princess here while he takes care of the ransom.”

A faint twinge of alarm made Cade step forward. Maybe it was the instinctive danger he felt at having to alter their original plan. Maybe it was his conscience kicking in. “Her family hasn’t been contacted yet?”

Jerome shrugged and reached for another cigarette. “He says it’ll take that long to negotiate the deal.”

“What deal? Don’t we get paid cash? And who’s he?”

Fire-man grinned. He took the time to cup his hands around his mouth and light his cigarette before answering. The bum knew all about power, but nothing about team leadership. “You’ll find out when I do. All I needed was that hundred-grand retainer fee to get this project started. Nab the woman in the red dress. Bring her here. Wait for the call. I can take orders for the kind of money we’re making on this deal. So can you. If he says to turn the little lady over in three days, that’s what we’ll do.”

Cade challenged him on the impracticality of blind faith in a man he’d never met. “You ever wonder what makes a man willing to commit treason and risk a lifelong prison term by kidnapping a member of the royal family?”

“I don’t know. You’re one of those royals. You could have the world eating out of your hand, if you wanted.” Jerome blew out a cloud of smoke and flashed his teeth in a smug grin. “But for the right price I finally turned you. For the right price, a man’ll do anything.”

Cade resisted the urge to cross the room and ram the cigarette down Jerome’s throat. “So we just sit here for three days and trust this guy to show up?”

Lenny rose, consuming a good portion of the room with his mammoth size. He, too, was clearly interested in Jerome’s answer.

“He’s coming here tonight to check out the merchandise. You can voice your concerns then.” Jerome spread his arms wide and shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t care why the man wants to do it this way—I’m just the hired help. As long as the money’s there, he has my loyalty.

“But I guarantee you, by Monday night, if I don’t get my million, her highness is dead. And so is he. And then his motive won’t make a damn bit of difference, now will it?”

Jerome left the room with a cloud of that sickening smoke trailing behind him. Lenny sat back on the couch and pulled out his notepad again. Cade strode into the kitchen, grabbed a bag of pretzels and sat at the breakfast bar. As he munched, he let his gaze stray to the bolted basement door.

The light snack gummed up his throat as he thought of the year-old C rations he’d given their prisoner. At least she’d been smart enough to take the food, though cautious enough not to trust him. She’d seemed so young. So frightened.

So innocent.

She was nothing like the world-savvy women he’d known over the years. Ling in Hong Kong. Rosa in Brazil. Elise in London and Jeanne back home in Korosol. He’d always sought out women who knew the score. Women who enjoyed a night of great sex when he was in town, but who never expected more than a few days of clubbing and dining and bedtime fun.

The woman in the basement looked as if she still believed in heroes and happy endings. She had the wide-eyed wonder and indignant shock of someone who expected to find good in people. She seemed more suited to pen pals and puppy love than that damned two-sizes-too-small red gown she’d poured herself into.

When was the last time he’d seen such a wide-eyed look? Big, beautiful blue eyes the same clear shade as the mountain lakes of his boyhood home.

Cade took a swallow of beer. Then another. And another, angrily reminding himself he had no business reminiscing about childhood memories or guileless blue eyes.

He had a job to do. And despite all the transgressions he’d committed in his life, he’d always taken pride in being very, very good at his job.

He pitched the empty bottle across the room into the box of trash and considered all that was about to happen to her, all that she had already endured. He made no excuses for being a part of that dangerous destiny, but he did make her a silent promise.

He hated men like Jerome Smython. Men who used others to fulfill their own avarice, men who bartered with people’s lives and fed on their fears to get that intoxicating rush of power over others.

Cade had done a lot of things in the name of getting the job done that weren’t exactly in line with the law. In fact, he was damn good at circumventing the authorities when he needed to. But breaking the rules and breaking someone’s spirit were two different things.

And that woman in the basement, though she was chained and frightened and clueless about the events unfolding around her, definitely had spirit. She’d stood to face him when she could just as easily have cowered in the corner. She’d made demands and called him rude when he refused to answer. He’d seen her spirit in the determined tilt of her chin.

It had nearly killed him when she finally bowed her head and surrendered to her fear of him. He’d had to be tough with her, he reasoned. He had a job to do. But he’d felt an alien urge to comfort her. He’d almost touched her, almost offered some lame platitude about bucking-up and hanging-in-there.

And then Jerome and Lenny had arrived on the scene. And just like that her spirit reasserted itself. She’d tilted that regal chin and faced the new attack, just as she had faced him.

A woman like that, innocent to the games and cruelty and power plays of a man like Jerome, would expect this all to turn out right. Despite coming face-to-face with the chauffeur’s dead body, she’d expect to stay safe.

Cade found himself making a rare, foolish promise.

He’d do that for her. He could do nothing to stop the chain of events her kidnapping had already set into motion—he didn’t want to. He wanted to find out who was paying them for the job.

But he could keep her safe.

It was his responsibility, after all.

Because Cade knew something Jerome and Lenny didn’t.

They’d kidnapped the woman in the red dress, all right.

But the wrong woman was wearing that dress.

He’d met Lucia Carradigne Montcalm at her sister CeCe’s wedding a couple of months ago. It had been a big affair, a princess marrying an American millionaire. Lucia had made a bit of a spectacle of herself at the reception.

The woman chained in the basement had a lot of class, but she wasn’t any princess. She wasn’t even a Carradigne. She seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t place her. Maybe he’d met her at an embassy function. Or back in Korosol.

Cade eased his conscience with the promise of keeping her identity a secret. She might not understand or appreciate the importance of that favor—but he did.

Because if Jerome and Lenny and the man on the phone even suspected she wasn’t Princess Lucia, they wouldn’t just break her spirit.

They’d kill her.

“HE SAYS THEY’LL kill her.”

His Royal Highness, King Easton of Korosol, hung up the phone and sank wearily back into the ornate mahogany chair, feeling every one of his seventy-eight years.

He’d sent men into war, weathered the lean years of a budget crisis with his people and worked tirelessly to ensure his country’s future by selecting the best possible successor to the throne. He’d buried a wife he loved and neglected his family in America in order to carry out his responsibilities to the citizens of Korosol.

But nothing had drained him the way that phone call had.

Maybe it was his age. Or the rare blood disease that was slowly sucking the life out of him.

Maybe it was the guilt of asking a trusted friend to make a sacrifice for Easton’s beloved homeland.

If Ellie was here, she’d know the right thing to say or do to cheer him up. The girl spoiled him silly, and like an old fool, he let her. Eleanor Standish had proved a much more valuable resource than just a sensible, reliable secretary. She read his moods, saw to his comfort, quietly went about working her miracles and taking care of him so that he could take care of his country.

And now… He didn’t even want to think about what the poor girl must be going through.

Easton sat up straight in the chair and surveyed the select group of men he’d summoned to the study of the Carradignes’ Manhattan penthouse. He pulled off his glasses and set them on the desk before him.

“I was afraid of something like this when I came to America. Afraid of putting my family in jeopardy. But Ellie’s all right for now. I’ve been given until midnight Monday to answer the ransom demand.”

His closest friend and advisor, retired general Harrison Montcalm, crossed his arms and assumed a pose that reflected his military background. “Any idea who’s behind this?”

“The man’s voice was altered with a mechanical device. He sounded like a robot.” He’d have to be a heartless robot to endanger Ellie’s life.

A steely voice cut across the room. “What’s the ransom? Whatever it is, we’ll pay it, right? How much?”

Easton looked up at the blond man marching toward him, a man fired up with a thirst for action. Nicholas Standish couldn’t be blamed. Hell. If Easton was forty years younger, he’d charge after Ellie himself.

But Harrison offered them both a sobering reminder. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“What do they want?” Nick asked.

“My throne.” There was a curse, a gasp of shock, even a condolence, before a deathly pall settled on the room. Easton listened to the forced, steady breathing of the other men. He placed his hand on his chest to subdue the pounding of his own heart. He had prayed the transition of power from one ruler to the next would never come to a crisis like this. “Whoever they are, they want me to step down from the throne. And, of course, they made mention of several million dollars.”

The fourth man in the room, Devon Montcalm, a younger, taller version of his father and captain of the Royal Guard, stepped forward. “Do you think it’s the Korosolan Democratic Front? My sources tell me their funds are nearly depleted.”

“Possibly.”

Nick braced his fists atop the desk and leaned forward. “I thought they’d agreed to use peaceful means to resolve their differences with the monarchy.”

Easton shook his head. “It wouldn’t be the first time a political faction has used violence to speed along the process.”

As usual, Harrison offered a prudent course of action. “You want me to get ahold of Remy Sandoval?”

Easton pulled out his handkerchief to clean his glasses while he considered the offer. He had a suspicion as to who was behind this kidnapping. But until he had absolute proof, he didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. After several tense, uninterrupted moments he stood and put on his glasses, preparing himself to do business both mentally and physically. “Yes. Sandoval’s still their party’s spokesman. I’d like to know if everyone in the KDF is cooperating with the truce, or if there’s someone from the old guard he can’t control.”

Easton reached out and laid a comforting hand on Harrison’s shoulder. “I know this is difficult for you. I appreciate you stepping in and filling the role you always have for me. I know you were looking forward to your honeymoon.”

Harrison’s grim look matched his own. “Well, considering it’s my wife who was their intended target…” A riot of fiercely protective emotions surfaced before his rigid mask of propriety returned. “I’ve put Lucia in a safe place, and Devon’s posted twenty-four-hour security.”

“I’ve put a guard on everyone in the immediate royal family,” added Devon.

Father and son exchanged a look of purpose and promise before Harrison turned back to the king. “I’ll go make those phone calls.”

As Harrison left to make contact with the Korosolan Democratic Front, Nick jumped to his feet. “Isn’t it a little late to beef up security? The damage has already been done. I know I’ve been out of the country for several years, but is this how you handle a crisis? Make some phone calls? Bide your time? My sister could be dead already. What were your granddaughters thinking, dressing Ellie up and sending her out—”

“Standish,” Devon warned.

“She knows nothing about these kinds of men. She never left the ranch. All she knows are her books and her dreams.”

Easton absorbed the tirade, placing the blame for Ellie’s kidnapping squarely on his own shoulders. “She’s not a child anymore, Nick. Ellie hasn’t seen much of the world, I know. But she’s smart. Resourceful.” Around a conference table or behind the scenes of the royal court, he amended silently. Easton did worry that his shy guardian angel might be way out of her league in this crisis. But he reassured them both. “She’ll be all right.”

And then he did what he did best. He took charge.

“Devon. Put your best men on alert. I may need your help.”

“Already done, sir.”

Nick turned and headed for the door. “I’m going after her.”

“No.” Easton said the bold, bleak word with all the rank and authority of a royal pronouncement. Certainly, as a former mercenary, Nick Standish had the qualifications to make an incisive strike into an enemy stronghold to rescue his sister. But Easton would play this game his way. He would not be swayed by terrorists or fear or even a brother’s love.

While he could not reveal all that had transpired over the phone, he could do a little to lessen Nick’s concern.

“I already have someone on the job.”

He just hoped it was someone he could trust.

ELLIE’S EYES WERE on fire. She’d been wearing her contact lenses for more than twenty-four hours, and her eyelids felt dry and gritty. The bout of crying hadn’t helped. Her sinuses were plugged, and the salty tears had only aggravated her condition.

Her condition. Ha!

She was chained to the floor of a damp, dusty basement, wearing dirty, uncomfortable clothes, eating unappetizing food, and having little else to do besides imagine the potentially gruesome outcome of her kidnapping.

And the indignity of doing her business in a bucket made an outhouse seem like a luxury!

If she was a woman who cursed, she’d have damned her captors over and over. But Ellie was a woman of thought, not reaction. Her quiet personality gave her plenty of time to consider her choices before making a decision. There was a security in that planning, a sense of control over her own destiny.

She’d already considered the option of popping out the lenses and easing the irritation in her eyes. But that would put her at an even greater disadvantage.

She’d been a bookworm by the age of five, worn glasses since the end of second grade. Before she was twelve, she’d devoured the entire Nancy Drew mystery series. As she got older, her tastes turned to the classics—Jane Eyre, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. As an adult, travelogues and romantic-suspense novels gave her a vicarious thrill of adventure.

All those books might in some small way have prepared her for dealing with criminals and difficult men, but they had also taken their toll on her eyesight. Combined with all the years she did the accounting for her parents’ ranch and the computer work she did for King Easton, Ellie’s vision was a myopic disaster. Even in good light, without her glasses or contacts, her vision was limited to mere inches. In dim light she was virtually blind.

Physical discomfort and tearing eyes were a small price to pay for at least having the opportunity to see danger when it headed her way.

The click of a key in the lock at the top of the stairs put her on instant alert. She rose from the stool and pulled the blanket more firmly around her naked shoulders. The tread on the stairs was too light to be Lenny’s, too deliberate to be Jerome’s. That meant…

“Sinjun.”

She had hoped to catch him off guard by calling him by his name. But he acted as if she hadn’t even spoken. Her masked visitor dropped two bundles at her feet and glanced back over his shoulder at the stairs.

He knelt beside her, made quick work of a few knots, then flung open a sleeping bag. He picked up what she could now see was a knapsack. Ellie shuffled to the right to avoid being pushed aside when he stood.

She took a deep breath and steeled her nerves to try again. “Excuse me. I—”

“Act like you’re asleep.”

“What?” The sound of his voice startled her as much as the odd request.

“Move it now, lady.” The crisp command in the hushed velvet voice fluttered along her skin.

Ellie hugged the blanket more tightly around her, conquering the urge to bolt to the end of her chain. She rolled her neck, pulled up her chin and remembered she was supposed to be a princess. “So. He deigns to speak to me.”

He ignored her attempt at sarcasm and pulled out a battery-powered lantern. He set it on the stool and turned it on, flooding the basement with a warm glow that softened the harsh glare from the bare bulb over the stairs. He dug into the knapsack for something else, sending another darting look behind him, apparently oblivious to her presence only a foot away.

She tried to scoot around his shoulder and at least talk to the eye holes in his stocking cap. “I want my glasses. Keep whatever else is in my purse, but I need to remove my contacts.”

He turned on her then, nailed her with that dark-blue gaze that at once frightened and compelled. “Is that what’s wrong with your eyes?”

He’d noticed her eyes?

Her fingers flew to her temple self-consciously. Now that she had his full attention, an attack of shyness squeezed her throat, and she was unable to push any words past it.

Men didn’t notice details about her. Men didn’t notice her, period.

Precious seconds swept by in silence as their gazes locked. His, questioning, searching. Hers, hoping for understanding, wishing she hadn’t been cursed with an inordinate self-awareness that made her analyze every look, every word, before responding.

“I—”

But the opportunity to plead her case had been lost.

“Lie down,” he ordered.

The words were like shock therapy to her frozen systems. “I beg your pardon?”

“Lie down.” He climbed halfway up the steps, lifted the knapsack above his head and wrapped it around the lightbulb where it dangled at the end of its wire. The perimeter of the basement was plunged into darkness, and the circle of lantern light, now the only source of illumination, seemed to shrink.

Sinjun swung the bag against the wall. The bulb shattered inside. Ellie sank to her knees, seeing his actions as a demonstration of what those strong hands could do to her if she didn’t cooperate. He rolled up the bag with the broken glass and tossed it beneath the stairs. “If you want to stay alive, you’ll do exactly as I tell you.”

In a perverse trick of psychology, fear sent fire through her veins and unlocked her ability to talk. “You have no right to speak to a princess that way.”

Suddenly he was on his knees in front of her. He snatched her by the upper arms when she tried to scramble away, lifted her inches off the floor. He held her like that, suspended by his incredible strength, and dragged her right up to his chest.

Ellie put her hands out to protect herself. The heat of him seared her palms through his shirt. But it was like shoving against a brick wall. He pulled her so close she could feel his hot breath through the knit mask. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’re not Lucia Carradigne.”

Time froze for an instant. Ellie just hung there, supported by Sinjun’s hands and the link to those hypnotic blue eyes.

The shock wore off a heartbeat later and Ellie pounded her fists against him. “No! Let go of me.”

They wanted a princess. If they knew the truth—no one paid ransom for royal impostors—she was as good as dead.

He shook her once, pulled her impossibly closer. Now the heat of the man singed her from chest to thigh. He dipped his mouth to her ear and stilled her struggles with words, instead of strength. “Right now, that’s just our little secret. But if you don’t do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you…”

His voice trailed off with a brush of wool against the shell of her ear. A chill rippled down her spine, leaving a path of goose bumps in its wake.

“How did you know?” She could barely hear her own whisper. “I suppose you want something from me now. I don’t have much money. The gown and jewelry were borrowed.”

“Shh.” He set her down and Ellie collapsed onto her folded-up legs. “We’ll talk later. Company’s upstairs.”

He moved his hands to her hair and began pulling out pins, freeing what was left of her upswept style and fluffing the tendrils to fall around her face and shoulders. Her breathing came in shallow gasps at the feel of strong fingers sifting through her hair and dancing across her scalp in what felt like a caress. In the aftermath of his controlled show of strength, his quick, gentle touches made her tremble with inexplicable emotion.

She was smart enough to know these were not tender reassurances. The purposeful stroke of his hands wasn’t intended to soothe.

Yet she did feel comforted by his touch, reassured by his gentleness. It might be a naive, horrible trap to fall into, but Sinjun’s touch gave her strength.

Enough strength to realize that, no matter his motive for keeping her identity a secret, she needed to play along in order to survive the next few minutes of her life.

She made no protest when he guided her down to the sleeping bag.

“Act like you’re asleep.” He brushed her hair down so it hid her face, then covered her with the blanket. “Keep your face to the wall and don’t move. In this light, I don’t think anyone will question your identity.”

“Why are you doing this?”

For the first time she could hear voices at the top of the stairs. Lenny’s deep one. Jerome’s nasty laugh. And a third man—someone soft-spoken and deliberate with his words. Ellie huddled in the shadows, staring at the rusted-out furnace. At first she didn’t think Sinjun would answer her.

But then she heard his velvety voice, blending in with the darkness around them. “We all have our own agendas.”

The door opened and Ellie closed her eyes.

What was Sinjun’s agenda?

And had she just been transferred from one untenable situation to another now that she was completely at his mercy?

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