The Duke’s Covert Mission

by Julie Miller

  The first notebook he’d picked up revealed that Lenny had joined the kidnapping plot as an inside man for the KDF. He perceived such manipulation of power as typical of a corrupt political system.

  Cade had taken his gun apart and cleaned it, then reloaded two fifteen-round magazine clips by the time Ellie finished reading Lenny’s second notebook.

  “‘W.R.’—that has to be Winston Rademacher—” she reasoned out loud, “‘entered Sonny’s house, 4:00 p.m.”’

  Cade wrapped up his weapon and laid it on the table beside the lamp. “He must have been at Sonny’s cabin when he called to change your delivery time.” Rademacher had certainly been thorough in covering up his client’s identity. “He planned to off us all along—whether you could identify any of us or not.”

  “The last thing Lenny wrote is ‘Unify with king’s man.”’ She looked up and met his gaze beyond the lamplight. “Do you think he knew you were working undercover?”

  “I don’t know. He was smart enough to realize that Easton wouldn’t just let his granddaughter go for a ransom.” In his head, he tried to play back any clues he might have dropped that would have given his identity away to Lenny. “Easton appointed me as acting ambassador to America because he’d been receiving anonymous threats about naming a successor to the throne. He wanted somebody in place with a little bit of power, but…” He had known all along why Easton had picked him for this job. “He wanted somebody believable in place who could be persuaded to join any treasonous plans.”

  Instead of agreeing to the idea that his infamous reputation preceded him, she did a typical Ellie thing—the unexpected. “That shows how much Easton trusts you.”

  He ignored the kind words that battered at his long-held understanding of himself and his talents. “To my knowledge he told no one else. Not even his advisor, General Montcalm, the captain of the Royal Guard.”

  “Okay.” She reasoned things out along with him. “So Lenny was basically spying for the KDF. Do you think he found out who hired Rademacher to kidnap me—I mean, Princess Lucia?”

  “Lenny’s notebook clears the KDF. That leaves me with one other suspect.”

  “Who?”

  “Markus Carradigne.”

  Ellie snapped her fingers and jumped off the bed. “That’s it!”

  “What?”

  “I was trying to remember a conversation I’d overheard. Lucia had brought the red dress to the Carradignes’ penthouse to show us before she donated it to charity. That was before she and her sisters decided to help with my Cinderella fantasy.” Cade followed her movements as she paced. “Winston and Quincy Vanderling, their butler, were arguing about something in the hall. I stopped because I didn’t want to interrupt. I guess word got out that she was rejecting the gift, because I heard Winston specifically say that Lucia was to keep that dress, compliments of Prince Markus. She was to wear it and have a wonderful time at the ball.”

  Cade stood. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. “He set up Princess Lucia.”

  Ellie faced him. “You were told to kidnap the woman in the red dress.”

  “Lucia gave you that dress.”

  “Prince Markus had Lucia kidnapped.”

  “Prince Markus.” Cade loved it when he was right.

  “But how do we prove it?” she asked. “Hearsay won’t stand up in court.”

  We? Ellie paced again. Cade was learning how her personality worked. The way she showed she cared was by helping others. Her parents. Easton. Lenny. Even himself. He decided it was time someone did something for her.

  And he knew exactly what it should be for his Cinderella.

  He picked up the old transistor radio Ellie had found. It played mostly static, but it worked. “I’ll get a confession from Rademacher.”

  “You shot him.”

  “I hit him in the shoulder. I hurt him enough to make him bleed, not to kill him.”

  “You can’t go back. He has Tony Costa with him. And Jerome. Any one of them could kill you.”

  He didn’t downplay her legitimate concern. But he was pretty good with a gun himself. And he had something more than money motivating him to complete this mission in one piece. “I can’t do anything about it tonight, anyway. Rademacher has had to regroup to tend his wound. And the rain with no moon makes it virtually impossible to track us—or them.”

  “But in the morning?”

  The pallor on her cheeks tugged at his heartstrings. She definitely needed to stop worrying about other people’s problems for a change. “We’ll worry about the morning when it comes.”

  He took the notebook from her hand and set it on the table. He turned on the radio and scrolled through several different versions of static until he found one station playing American country music. It was a little twangy for his tastes, but the song was perfect. The woman singing even mentioned the word that had popped into his head a moment ago.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Cade took a deep breath. He didn’t have to gear up for this task. He wanted to do it. More than anything, he wanted to do this for Ellie.

  He turned around and treated himself to her wide-eyed look of wonder. Remembering one of the few things his mother had taught him, Cade clicked his heels together and bowed at the waist.

  When he straightened, he extended his left hand. “May I have this dance?”

  The expression on her face transformed from shock to hope to frowning doubt as her shyness kicked in. “Are you sure?” She tried to use the radio as an excuse. “That’s not really a waltz.”

  “You can’t be too picky about your fantasy. It’s either that or me singing. You haven’t heard me sing, have you?”

  She laughed. A rich, warm chuckle that filled his soul with joy.

  Yeah. She was smiling now. Everything felt perfect.

  Then her voice softened to a whisper that wound its way right into his heart. “I’d love to dance with you.”

  The blanket fell away as she placed her right hand within his and reached up to wrap her left hand around his neck. He shivered at the electric contact, though she was the one who might be cold. When he folded his hand around her waist, he thought he might drown in those big blue eyes.

  He stepped into the fantasy with her as he spun her around the small room. He might be wearing camo pants, instead of tails, she might be wearing towels, instead of jewels and a gown, but all he saw was Ellie. Smiling. If he never did another good deed in his life, he knew he could die a happy man because he’d made Ellie Standish smile.

  The towel at her shoulders got lost in a turn. But it gave him the chance to move a step closer. He splayed his fingers across the warm silk of her back and pulled her in so that their hips were touching. Each brush of her curves against his harder frame, each accidental touch as they continued to move in sync, stirred notions in his veins of a different kind of dance.

  The music on the radio changed and Cade altered the dance. He pulled the hand he clasped into his chest and held it over his heart. Ellie must have heard the same sensual tune. She slid the hand behind his neck up into his hair and pulled herself closer. Together they slowed their waltz to a simple back and forth sway in time with the music.

  And then the music didn’t matter anymore. Cade lifted her right hand to the back of his neck and encouraged her to hold on to him that way. To his mind and body’s delight, she took the suggestion and ran with it, sending all ten fingers dancing into the hair at his nape.

  It gave him the freedom to wrap both hands around her waist and pull her hips into the hardness below his belly. He squeezed his eyes shut and rested his forehead against hers, too overcome for the moment to continue the dance. He slid his hands down to her bottom and squeezed. He dragged them up to the strip of silk and elastic that crisscrossed her back, then repeated the process, plucking fine little tremors from her skin as if she were a priceless instrument.

  He stopped moving entirely and opened his eyes. He gazed down into hers and silently asked for permissi
on to take this dance to its ultimate conclusion.

  In answer, she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. His whole body contracted on one low, keening moan as the peach-tipped globes spilled out against his chest.

  “You’re beautiful, Ellie,” he said in a raspy voice, his straining body nearly reaching the climax of this seductive waltz. “So beautiful.”

  He angled his mouth to her lips and kissed her, played her. And then Ellie herself changed the pattern of the dance. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted herself into his kiss, rubbing those pebbled peaks into his chest.

  And then there was nothing to do but to see this feverish new étude through to the end. Cade scraped his beard along her cheek, then kissed and tongued his way along the sensitized skin down the column of her neck until he could feast on the purring hum in her throat.

  Ellie’s hands explored him at will, touching, testing, pressing, grasping. His shoulders, his back, his arms, his chest, his buttocks. Every needy, healing touch triggered a new sensation until his blood was pounding an erratic drumbeat in his ears.

  Ellie arched like a bowstring in his hands and he moved the dance lower. He palmed one breast. Squeezed it. Lifted it with his hand. He touched the tip with his tongue and then blew across it.

  “Cade!” Her fingers dug into his shoulders, seeking purchase as she rocked with a part of the dance she had never experienced before. He tormented the other breast with the same lusty attention, delighting in how quickly she learned the steps of mutual pleasure.

  Her skin flushed. Her chest rose and fell in an erratic rhythm. She ground her hips into his. She was ready. He was past ready. It was time.

  Strengthened by the power of her trust, humbled by the gift of her surrender, Cade swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed. He stripped what was left of their clothes and lay down beside her, pulling her back into his arms and resuming the dance of hands and tongues and lips and hearts.

  He slipped his fingers into her sweet, feminine folds and found her primed and tight and ready. When he rose above her and guided the tip of his shaft along the same path, he felt her arms stiffen slightly, holding him at a distance. He propped himself up on his elbows and tried to give her the space she asked for.

  Her lips were red and swollen with his kisses, her eyes the deepest blue he’d ever seen them. Her fingertips danced across his chest and doubt danced in her eyes.

  He stroked her hair. It had fallen loose from its braid long ago, thanks to his busy hands. Now he carried tendrils of it across her shoulders, offering her as much modesty as a woman with an aroused man lying on top of her could be afforded.

  “Am I too heavy for you?”

  She shook her head. She’d gone quiet on him again. But he wouldn’t do another thing if he wasn’t sure this was right for her, too.

  “I know I’m your first. If this scares you, if you want to change your mind…” It would kill him to leave her now. But the rain had left the air nice and cold outside. He could survive. If that was what she wanted, he could survive. He would always do the right thing by Ellie. “If you want to wait for someone else—”

  “No.” Her firm denial vibrated through her body. Those blue eyes flashed with anger. She framed his face in her hands and made sure he was looking her straight in the eye. “The reason you’re my first is because you’re the first man I ever wanted to be with. You’re the only man I’ve ever trusted enough to be myself with.”

  Her accepting him in such an intimate way was helping him to heal. In Ellie’s fierce, tender care, he could move beyond the hurts of the past. He could learn to trust again.

  But she still hadn’t relaxed, still hadn’t told him what was wrong. They were safe for the night. If she wanted this and he wanted this, then what was the problem?

  “Ellie, honey, talk to me.”

  When she pushed at her glasses in that nervous gesture, he pulled them off and set them on the nightstand. They were close enough for her to see every nuance of his expression, and there was nothing she needed to hide from him.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Oh, honey.” His relief was a tangible thing, shaking through his body, stirring himself against her. “You are doing everything right.”

  “But—”

  “No.” He kissed her mouth. “Listen to me.” He kissed her breasts. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she tried to hide her reaction to his touch. “The best thing about making love with you is that…it’s with you.”

  He kissed her full on the mouth and entered her in one sure stroke. He felt her barrier, broke past it, swallowed her gasp of pain. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding himself still, giving her time to get used to the size and sensation of being joined like this.

  “I’m not.”

  Then she smiled. And Cade knew everything was going to be all right. She wrapped her arms around him, wrapped her legs around him, too. Together, they resumed the inevitable dance.

  When she cried out his name and convulsed around him, Cade emptied himself into her and let the love he felt for her fill his empty heart.

  Sometime later, with Ellie nestled against his chest in a sound, secure sleep, and the steady patter of the ever-present spring rain to keep him company, Cade thought about all the reasons he and Ellie could never be together. A good woman like her could do better than an outcast like him. Should do better. She might accept him despite his reputation, despite having nothing to offer her beyond a sullied name and days and nights of worrying whether he’d come home to her in one piece—or not at all. She accepted him.

  But the rest of the world wouldn’t accept them.

  He wouldn’t put her through the kind of scorn and abandonment he’d endured. She’d given him the precious gifts of her body and her faith in him. He wouldn’t reward her by destroying that gentle soul of hers the way his had been destroyed.

  But for now, tonight, he fell asleep dreaming that she was his.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ellie never thought she’d be looking at the cabin where she’d been held hostage for three days. But here she was, lying on her belly in her stiff, muddy clothes behind an arch of exposed tree roots, keeping watch over the ramshackle structure, the ancient outdoor bathtub and the empty fire pit.

  Connecticut, Cade had finally told her as they hiked around the body of water called Tyler Lake. She’d been kidnapped in Manhattan and transported to the rolling hills and tree-studded slopes of northwest Connecticut. Beautiful, she thought.

  She never wanted to see this place again.

  Ellie had insisted that time was critical, and when Cade would have taken her back to Manhattan first, she’d assured him that completing his mission was more important. And this time he wouldn’t be working alone. She could help. Torn between duty to her or his country, Cade had been reluctantly swayed by her arguments.

  Her assignment now was simple. Watch the house while Cade snuck his way inside and scouted around. If anyone showed up while he was in there, she was supposed to scream.

  But what if the danger was already inside with him?

  The SUV with the front tires that Cade had shot out yesterday was still parked in the gravel driveway. Had Tony Costa driven Winston Rademacher to a hospital before returning to his cabin and trying to gun them down? Or was Rademacher inside? He’d had a gun, too. Was Costa tracking them? And where was Jerome?

  Ellie sank to the ground with a silent groan and offered a silent prayer for the umpteenth time that morning. Keep Cade safe.

  She’d waited twenty-six years to fall in love with a man. Yesterday morning she’d worried that she’d given her heart to a traitor. This morning she knew her heart belonged to a hero.

  Did he know that? Did he understand that she had waited to give herself to the man she loved? Or was she supposed to say the words? And did Cade even want to hear them?

  She knew he’d been around women before. Maybe all he wanted was a fling. Could she be sophisticated enough to give him h
er heart and her body and then let him walk away when he needed to? Maybe he wouldn’t even notice her, once she got lost in a crowd of beautiful, accomplished women.

  She didn’t understand men. She didn’t understand love. The only thing she understood right now was how frightened she was. Not for herself. Not anymore. For Cade. He’d been hurt so much already in his life—losing a father he’d truly loved to suicide. Facing off against self-serving snobs like Winston Rademacher who enjoyed throwing the St. Johns’ tragic history in Cade’s face—even using it as a means of extortion.

  Despite all that, Cade still protected her. He was true to his word and loyal to his king. He made her body ache with sweet passion and filled her heart with pride and love.

  “Come on, Cade,” she whispered urgently. She steadied her glasses on the bridge of her nose and surveyed the area around the cabin again. Where was he? Shouldn’t she be hearing voices? Or, heaven forbid, gunshots?

  They’d come back to capture their enemy and learn the truth.

  So where was the enemy?

  As if she had the power to summon, the back door banged open. Jerome’s filthy-mouthed curses filled the air as he limped out ahead of Cade. “I tell you, I don’t know where he is.”

  He didn’t need his walking stick to support his sprained ankle because Cade had him by the scruff of the neck, half-dragging, half-carrying him over to the fire pit.

  Cade pushed him down on the nearby stump. “You do know why Sonny’s on the team, don’t you?”

  “Backup,” Jerome replied with a taunting sneer, as if he thought he had some kind of advantage. “In case somebody like you screws up.”