The Duke’s Covert Mission

by Julie Miller

“Yes. Day after tomorrow, I think.”

  His second son, James, had been a delightful child, but Easton had never quite understood his wandering ways as he’d gotten older. He’d married three times. All for love. Certainly for the adventure. He’d moved to the American West and become something called a wildcatter. Though there was no big game involved in the profession, he’d heard there was oil and money and the thrill of instant success or sudden failure.

  James was the least royal of all his children, but he had always seemed the happiest. He fathered four children, two by each of his last two wives. “Tate and Tucker are the older pair of James’s sons,” he explained now, taking note of Ellie’s nervous pacing. “Dillon and Wyatt are the younger ones. Maybe they’ve adopted some of that brash American spirit and can infuse the monarchy with some of that modern energy.”

  Ellie stopped pacing when she realized he’d stopped talking. She tried to appear interested in his news. “I hear Wyoming is a wide-open state. The mountains and plains there sound like my home in western Korosol.”

  Easton shook his head at the wistful longing in her voice. Love was wasted on the young. If wise old men didn’t step in from time to time, there’d be no more wise old men. And Ellie was naive enough that he couldn’t rely on subtleties.

  He clasped her by the shoulders and looked down into her dirt-streaked face. “Ellie, I love you like one of my own granddaughters. I’m sorry for what you mistakenly had to endure. But I’m grateful to you. Your country is grateful.”

  “I’d do it again for you, sir.”

  “I won’t ask you to. If you like, I’ll send you home to your family in Korosol. It hasn’t been easy, but I can manage without you for a while.” When that offer didn’t earn a smile, he knew what he had to do. “Of course, if there’s something else you’d rather do…at the embassy, perhaps?”

  At last some life sparked in her pretty blue eyes. “Could I go there now? After I clean up? Tonight?”

  He nodded. “I’ll have the car brought around for you.”

  “Thank you.” What the devil? She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

  After she danced out the door, Easton pulled that special cell phone from his pocket and placed a call.

  A king’s work was never done.

  ELLIE RODE IMPATIENTLY up the elevator at the Korosolan Embassy to the top floor, where the acting ambassador’s apartments were located.

  A shower and shampoo made her feel presentable again, but then she’d dressed so quickly in her hurry to get over here that she hadn’t taken the time to put in a new pair of contacts or think about what she should wear.

  Cade had seen her in a gown that didn’t fit, men’s clothes that didn’t fit and two small towels that didn’t fit anybody. She wasn’t sure what one wore to a seduction, anyway. The plain cotton nightgown beneath her trench coat would just have to do.

  When the elevator announced her arrival at the eighth floor, the old shy Ellie knew a moment of doubt. She was nervous. What if she messed this up? She was excited. She’d always longed for adventure, and this was the most impulsive thing she had ever done. She was afraid. What if Cade didn’t want her? What if she’d misread that longing in his eyes that touched the same longing in her?

  The door started to close again, startling Ellie from her thoughts. She punched the door open button, her decision made.

  She wanted this night with Cade.

  In the real world. Just the two of them. Without watching their backs or worrying about king and country.

  She wanted to kiss Cade senseless.

  And she wanted to tell him she loved him.

  Then it would be up to Cade how her adventure played out.

  He answered the door on her first knock.

  He stood there, staring at her as if she was some kind of apparition. He, too, had showered. His black hair glistened like polished coal. He was barefoot, shirtless, bandaged and clean-shaven, revealing the boyish dimples that softened the harsh cynicism lining his face.

  He wore a loose-fitting pair of jeans. Unsnapped at the waist.

  Ellie’s gaze slid to that spot, and a remembered heat pulsed in her veins and raised the temperature in her breasts and belly.

  She should profess her love. She should say something. But all she could do was stare. And remember. And wish.

  “Ellie.”

  He said her name in that helpless way that reminded her why she loved him in the first place.

  Then he gathered her in his arms and kissed her. She combed her fingers into his still-damp hair and held on as he picked her up and carried her—into his office. Not the romantic boudoir she had imagined. An office. Big walnut desk. Bookshelves.

  He set her down.

  She clutched her coat around her waist and tried not to show her disappointment when he circled the room and put the width of his desk between them. It was as if he needed some kind of shield to protect himself from her. As if physically distancing himself would allow him emotional distance, as well. He raked his fingers through his hair, standing it up in a spiky disarray that she longed to fix for him.

  “Um…” He swallowed hard. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down his throat and wondered what it would be like to kiss him there. “What are you doing here? Can I get you something?”

  He was nervous.

  Cadence St. John, Duke of Raleigh, decorated war hero and all-round tough guy, was nervous.

  Good. She didn’t want to be the only one in the room who wasn’t sure what to do.

  She declined his offer of refreshments. “I came to see you.” I want to seduce you, see if making love—if loving you—is just as good out here in the real world as it was in the backwoods of Connecticut. “I just want to talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “I want to thank you for saving my life. And for being there when I needed you. I don’t usually rely on anyone else.” She had to smile at the irony of it. “I’m usually the one other people rely on.”

  The tension in the room eased a notch. “I want to thank you, too,” he said. That velvet fog in his voice seeped into her brain and intensified his words. “You saved my life. And I don’t mean shooting Tony Costa. In here.” He pressed a fist over his heart. “You saved me in here. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”

  Grateful?

  A frisson of anger sparked along the nerve relays he had lulled with his soothing voice.

  Did he not believe that he deserved to feel something more than gratitude? Had the Winston Rademachers of the world convinced this brave, handsome, caring man that he was nothing more than muscle for hire? A gun? A rank? A name?

  “Damn you, Cadence St. John.”

  “Ellie!”

  She’d just cursed. For the first time since her father had scared the urge out of her as an adolescent, Eleanor Standish cursed.

  She was mad. She was more than mad. She was enraged that the world had hurt this man so much that he didn’t believe he deserved to be loved.

  She untied her coat and let it fall to the floor.

  “Ellie!”

  She had no idea what kind of picture she made in that translucent cotton gown with the soft glow of lamplight picking up the golden highlights in her hair and the peachy perfection of her skin. But it must have been a good picture.

  Cade’s eyes locked on her breasts and lit with hunger.

  It was all the encouragement Ellie needed. She walked around the desk, looped her arms around Cade’s neck—and kissed him senseless.

  Several minutes later, with her glasses on a bookshelf, her nightgown hiked up around her hips, perspiration beading between her damp breasts and Cade’s jeans jutting out with proof of his desire for her, Ellie came up for a breath of air.

  She was unsteady on her feet, but Cade’s big hands straightened her clothes, then settled at the flat of her back, supporting her. His chest expanded on an uneven breath, and his voice was hoarse from deep within his throat. “What was that for?�
��

  She touched the bandage over the mark she had made on his cheek and wished she could take back the pain he had suffered at her expense.

  “You need to be kissed daily by someone who loves you, and I want that someone to be me.”

  She dropped her gaze to the center of his chest and clutched her fingers into fists between them. That profession of love had sounded about as goofy and naive as a country girl whose experience with men was limited to her books and fantasies and one very long, very dangerous weekend.

  Maybe she should try a more sophisticated approach. “I kissed you like that because I want you in bed. I want to show you—”

  He pressed a finger over her lips and shushed her. He tipped her chin and replaced his finger with a calming, healing, soul-shattering kiss.

  “I like the first answer better. That’s my Ellie talking.”

  Dear heaven. It sounded very much as if he’d said something wonderfully possessive. “Your Ellie?”

  Now Cade hesitated. He pulled away from her and Ellie leaned her hips against his desk, feeling too unsure to stand on her own. In a series of rapid, machinelike motions, he handed her her glasses and lifted different stacks of paper from his desk to show her.

  “Look.” He put a legal-looking document in her hands. “There may be a way I can regain at least part of my father’s estate. I had our legal department fax over information about forgiving the debts of military personnel.”

  “That’s great.”

  Just as she reached the second paragraph of the document, he set it aside and placed a certificate in her hand. “It’s an investment of my mother’s, given to me one time ages ago when she was feeling guilty. I dug it out of an old trunk in the spare bedroom. I can cash it in and use it to buy a tract of land. It’s not enough to start building, but I could take out a loan for that.”

  “Shouldn’t you save it?”

  Cade took that paper away, too, and replaced it with a small square of pink paper. A phone message. His mouth dimpled with boyish excitement. “Read it.”

  She read the note out loud. “‘Easton’s job offer. Take it.”’

  She looked up, confused.

  “I talked to Easton a couple of hours ago,” Cade said. “He’s grateful for my military service, but he asked if I’d serve my country in another way.”

  “You’re not going on another mission, are you?”

  Not a dangerous one. Not so soon.

  The paper fell to the floor as he captured her hands with his. “He just named me official ambassador to the United States.”

  “That’s wonderful, Cade!” Given time, she knew everyone would see his worth the way she and Easton did. “Congratulations.”

  But he wasn’t celebrating. He looked down at their hands, twining their fingers together, testing the fit of her hands in his. “If you give me time, I promise to show you I’m worthy of my title and the responsibility Easton is entrusting me with. I’m thirty-three years old. It’s time for me to come in out of the field before I slow down and start making mistakes, anyway.” His fingers tightened in an almost painful grasp. “If you’re patient with me, Ellie, I’ll show you I can be that good man you keep talking about.

  “Once I’m on my feet and I’ve made the St. John name respectable again, I want to ask you to marry me. If you’ll wait.”

  He held his breath and locked her in the depths of those beautiful indigo eyes. Ellie wanted to cry. She wanted to throw something. She wanted to set him straight.

  “And I thought I was the one who didn’t know how a relationship worked.” She pulled his hands to the back of her waist and walked into his embrace. “I don’t want to wait.”

  His welcoming smile vanished. His hands loosened their grip on her. “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do. I love you. This man.” She splayed her fingers over his heart and willed it to beat with steady self-assurance beneath her hand. “The man I made love to in that motel. The man who saved my life time and again. The man who brought me my glasses so I could see and who turned me over to my brother tonight because he thought that’s what would make me happy. You make me happy.

  “That other stuff doesn’t matter to me.” How could she make him believe her? And then she knew.

  She leaned over and swept all the papers and blotters off the top of his desk. “It’s after midnight. It’s time for your next kiss.”

  “I love you, Ellie Standish.”

  “I love you.”

  He followed her down and made quick, sweet, frantic love to her right there on the desk. The wood at her back was hard. The man above her even harder. Ellie loved his needy grasping hands. She pushed down his jeans. He pulled up her gown.

  Later they tested the leather couch. And much later, Cade took her to his bed.

  By the time the morning sun came through the bedroom window, Ellie believed he finally understood how she felt.

  She was finishing up a phone conversation with her old school chum and best friend, Jillian Grace. “You’ll love it, Jilly. King Easton is kind and sweet and needs to be pampered a bit. I worry about his health, but beyond that, working for the Carradignes is a wonderful job. You’ve always wanted to travel. So coming to America would be perfect for you.”

  “Recruiting your job replacement?” Cade walked up behind her, fresh and clean and naked from his shower. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck. Ellie scrunched her shoulders against the tickle of sensation his wicked tongue created on her bare skin. “Remember to invite her to the wedding.”

  He was doing it to her all over again, and she loved it.

  “And Jilly?” She stopped to catch her breath as his fingers found her breast. “Maybe you’ll find love, too.”

  She hung up and turned into Cade’s arms, turned herself into his kiss. When he left her lips to nuzzle the vibrations in her throat, he asked her about the phone call. “Are you really willing to leave a king behind and settle for a lowly duke?”

  Ellie cupped his face between her hands and held it close enough to see his eyes. “I’m not settling for anybody. To me, you’re not a commander or an ambassador or even a duke.” She moved her lips closer to his. “You’ll always be my Prince Charming.”

  He sealed the kiss and gave her his heart.

  And she would always be his very own princess.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Julie Miller for her contribution to THE CARRADIGNES: A ROYAL MYSTERY.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6750-7

  THE DUKE’S COVERT MISSION

  Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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  *The Taylor Clan

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