Guarded Moments

by JoAnn Ross

  "It's natural for a father to worry about a daughter. Especially one as headstrong as the princess is reputed to be."

  Sebring shook his head. "Many years ago, when I was a young agent, I had the privilege of being assigned to guard Prince Eduard during his frequent visits to this country. Although the prince is admittedly an emotional man, he is also highly intelligent and incisive. Chantal is in grave danger, Caine, even if she does refuse to accept that fact."

  "Are you saying she won't be traveling with her own security?"

  "That's exactly what I'm saying."

  "No disrespect intended, sir," Caine argued carefully, "but if she won't even accept her own security people, what makes you think she'll accept a Presidential Security agent hovering over her all the time she's in this country?"

  "Therein lies the problem," the director admitted. "Chantal would hit the roof if she discovered that her father had gone against her wishes. You're just going to have to make certain she doesn't find out who you really are."

  "What?" Caine was on his feet, staring down at his superior. An order was an order. Those words that had been drilled into him first by his father, then later, during his plebe year at the academy. But dammit, some orders were just downright insane. And this one had to be the craziest of the bunch.

  "As you mentioned, Princess Chantal can be an extremely headstrong young woman," Sebring said. "Her father fears that if she were to learn that she were being guarded, she'd try to slip away in order to display her independence. It's a risk the prince is not prepared to take." His blue eyes turned resolute. "Nor am I."

  "So how am I going to stay close to her?" Caine asked, unreasonably frustrated. "And please don't tell me that I have to become this season's fiancé."

  Sebring laughed. "Don't worry, my boy, there are limits to the sacrifices you are asked to make for your country. Chantal will be told that you're a deputy under secretary of state, assigned to make her tour more comfortable. I'm also assigning Drew Tremayne to act as her driver."

  Drew was also a Presidential Security agent, and Caine's best friend. Under normal circumstances he would have looked forward to working with him on a special assignment. But baby-sitting? Behind his impassive features, Caine was seething. A damned flunky, he considered grimly. Subject to a spoiled brat's every whim. This assignment was beginning to make getting shot look like a cakewalk.

  "So," the director said as he pushed himself out of his black leather chair, "will you accept the assignment, Caine?"

  Did he have a choice? "Of course I'll accept, sir," Caine said evenly. "With pleasure."

  Rubbing his hands together as if he'd never expected any other outcome, James Sebring chuckled. "You've always been a rotten liar, Caine." Throwing a friendly arm around the younger man's shoulders, he walked him to the door.

  "The Montacroix ambassador will be hosting a reception for the princess the night of her arrival in this country," he said. "Although you'll ostensibly be attending as her escort, your prime responsibility is to keep her safe."

  "I'm sure everything will go smoothly, sir."

  Caine was damn well going to make certain it did. Maybe the princess was accustomed to throwing her weight around in Montacroix, but this was America. Here the product of years of European royal inbreeding didn't rank one iota higher than the offspring of a naval aviator from Waco, Texas, and a Back Bay debutante turned Harvard literature professor.

  "Spoken like a man who hasn't met Chantal yet." Sebring chuckled again. "By the time you finish this tour, Caine, you may have earned a second medal for your mother to hang on the living room wall."

  Although Caine had always thrived on challenges, the director's parting words were somewhat unsettling. As he left the building, his thoughts were not on the appealing warmth of the sun. Nor were they on the crowds of tourists chattering excitedly in a multitude of foreign tongues as they took in the plethora of monuments and government buildings.

  No, Caine's thoughts—as black and stormy as they were—were all directed toward one exotic and dangerously appealing package of trouble. Trouble that was headed his way.

  Across the Atlantic, in a century-old palace, Chantal Giraudeau was engaged in a battle royal. Although she was physically weaker than her attacker, she was no less aggressive, advancing in lightning-swift lunges, retreating just in time to avoid the cold steel of her opponent's foil. A deadly silence hung over the combatants, laced with an electric excitement that was almost palpable.

  Despite his size, the man's fencing style was smooth, almost graceful, and even with his face hidden behind the wire mesh of his mask, Chantal could sense his self-confidence. A confidence, she admitted furiously, he was entitled to. He wasn't even breathing hard, while her own heart was pounding a million miles a minute. Beads of perspiration glistened above her full upper lip as he deftly parried her attack without missing a beat.

  She managed to parry his riposte, trying to remember to stick to the basics. No flash. No showing off. Just simple—hopefully deceptive—plays that might lull her attacker into a false sense of security. Changing the mood, she began relying more heavily on defense: retreating, forcing him to close the gap. Slowing the pace allowed her to get a much-needed second wind.

  "It isn't going to work, you know," the man chided from behind his mask.

  Chantal retreated as he moved forward in a lazy, supremely confident offense. "What?"

  "Attempting to throw me off by changing tactics. You forget—I know you. Perhaps better than you know yourself. You're not the type of woman to resort to purely defensive measures for very long." There was a sudden clash of metal as his blade found hers.

  Damning him for being right, Chantal struggled to ignore his softly spoken words. "I hadn't realized I was so predictable," she snapped, parrying quickly, determined to prevent him from claiming victory.

  He laughed at that. A deep, rich laugh, thick with an easy masculine arrogance she found even more infuriating than his accusation. "More so than you like the world to believe, ma chère."

  Her stamina was fading. Chantal knew that if she was to win, she would have to make her move soon. Other-wise, his superior strength and speed would prove her downfall. Although it took an effort, she refused to allow him to draw her into a verbal battle, saving her energies for the field of combat.

  She knew that by continuing her defensive measures, there was a chance her opponent would make a mistake. Even the most skilled fencers were capable of misjudging distance or underestimating their opponent. But this was not a man who made mistakes, nor was he apt to underestimate anyone. Especially not her; of all the men who had passed through her life, this man had remained. As he had maddeningly pointed out, he knew her well.

  Putting aside her careful techniques, Chantal suddenly went on the attack, lunging toward him with a flash of gleaming steel, the tip of her foil headed toward his chest. Taken by surprise, he could not muster a defense, and the hit landed unanswered against his white jacket.

  "Witch," he said, pulling off his mask in order to shoot her a mock glare.

  As Chantal took off her own mask, she realized that her head was drenched. Damn. She'd have to wash her hair again before the bon voyage party at the royal gallery. "You're just angry because I finally beat you," she pointed out with a saucy grin, and at that moment she was worlds away from the pouty, sex-kitten teenager who had threatened to set European movie screens on fire.

  "You cheated."

  "I did not." She tossed her damp hair over her shoulder. "Admit it, Burke. I outsmarted you."

  Burke Giraudeau, heir to the throne of the principality of Montacroix and Chantal's half brother, shook his head in self-disgust. "It was my own fault," he muttered. "I never should have given you that damn challenge."

  "Ah, but you did, brother dear," she said silkily, going up on her toes to brush her lips against his cheek. "I believe it's a case of being hoisted with your own petard." Her eyes were brimming with laughter. "Will it make you feel any better if I
give some of the credit for my victory to my teacher?"

  "Since I taught you everything you know about fencing, I suppose it might ease some of the pain."

  There was something strange about Burke today, Chantal mused. He seemed distracted. Although she hated to admit it, his preoccupation had probably contributed to her victory, the first she'd ever scored against him.

  "Anything to make my big brother happy."

  "Anything?" he asked as he returned his foil to its place on the wall.

  Chantal sighed as comprehension dawned. They'd been through this more times than she could count. "You're still insisting that I take some of Papa's security force with me to America."

  Burke dragged his long fingers through his thick, dark hair. "I'm worried about you."

  "So am I."

  "Really?"

  He looked so hopeful that Chantal experienced a twinge of guilt for teasing him. "I'm worried that I'm becoming horribly accident-prone."

  "If they were accidents. Chantal, if those skiers hadn't been there…"

  "But they were. And a woman could do worse than to get rescued by the entire Swiss ski team."

  "You don't take anything seriously," he complained. "Here I am concerned for your safety, and all you can do is laugh at me. I'm beginning to wish the idea of this damn cultural exchange had never come up."

  "But you were the one who said it would be good for me to go away."

  "Perhaps I've changed my mind. If anything happens to you over there, I'd never forgive myself for convincing you to accept the president's offer."

  Chantal loved Burke more than anyone in the world. Through the years he'd been her rock, her source of strength. She'd confided in Burke all her youthful hopes, as well as her fears. And it was Burke, alone, who knew her secret pain.

  She crossed the room and put her hand on his arm. "But you were right, as you always are. Honestly, brother dear, as much as I adore you, there are times when it gets a little tiring to live with such a perfect person."

  Burke felt the coiled tension slowly leaving his body. She'd always been able to dispel his dark, introspective moods, even as a Gypsy-eyed infant. The first time she'd reached out of the antique oak cradle and grasped his finger in her tiny but surprisingly strong fist, he'd fallen in love with her.

  He would have had to have been deaf not to hear the pain edging her teasing words. Cupping her chin in his fingers, Burke lifted her gaze to his. "So it still hurts, chérie? Even now?"

  Chantal could feel traitorous tears stinging her eyelids. Furious that she could experience such raw pain after all this time and determined not to let such destructive feelings get the best of her, she blinked them away.

  Knowing she wasn't fooling her brother for a minute, Chantal nevertheless forced a smile. "Only when I laugh."

  2

  Her plane was late. Not surprising, but irritating nonetheless. Although Caine had never considered himself a superstitious man, he took the fact that he'd been forced to cool his heels at Washington National Airport for the past hour as an ominous sign. That, along with the gray hair he'd discovered this morning, did nothing to improve his mood.

  "You realize," Drew Tremayne offered as they waited for the Air France jet to land, "that the way this assignment is starting out, things can only get better."

  Caine thought about the file locked in his top desk drawer, the file documenting the past twenty-nine years of Chantal Giraudeau's decidedly untranquil life. "If even half the stories about the princess are true," he countered, "I'll be lucky if I haven't turned entirely gray by the end of Her Highness's royal tour."

  "It would have been a lot easier on everyone if she had agreed to overt security."

  Caine grunted his assent. The first time he'd read through the papers detailing the various alleged accidents, he had shrugged them off as coincidences. The second time, a familiar feeling had made the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The third time through the file, he reluctantly came to share his chief executive's feelings. Someone out there was attempting to harm Montacroix's flamboyant princess.

  As always, the terminal, which had once been criticized for being too large, was filled beyond capacity. Conversations in a myriad of languages filled the air. Diplomats complained about increased security measures while babies cried and children fussed, wiggling impatiently on molded plastic seats, their mothers alternately bribing them with ice cream and threatening them with corporal punishment.

  Harried-looking businessmen staked claim to the banks of pay telephones along the walls and barked orders into the mouthpieces. Boisterous groups of teenagers—obviously civics classes from around the country, excited to be visiting the nation's capital—added to the din.

  As Caine paced the floor, drinking bitter vending machine coffee he didn't want and watching out the window for the arrival of Chantal's flight from Paris, he realized that eighteen months of traveling with the president on Air Force One had spoiled him. The idea of spending the next three weeks in crowded terminals, crammed like sardines into the flying cattle cars that typified commercial airliners these days, was less than appealing.

  The first thing Chantal did upon her arrival at Washington National Airport was to thank God the plane had landed safely. Although its downtown location was undoubtedly convenient—her tour book informed her that it was a mere three miles to the White House—she couldn't help questioning the wisdom of putting a major international airport in such a densely populated area. As they'd flown over that last bridge, she'd almost been able to see right into the commuters' cars. Still, it was a most attractive site, she decided, admiring the dark green riverbanks fringed with graceful willows.

  As she stood up and prepared to leave the plane, she smiled at the bearded man seated across the aisle, one row behind her own first-class seat. He had been studying her surreptitiously for much of the overseas flight, but accustomed to such behavior, Chantal was not overly annoyed. On the contrary, she was extremely grateful that he hadn't intruded on her privacy.

  After exchanging ebullient farewells with the flight crew, who professed to be unanimously thrilled to have the famous, or infamous, Princess Chantal on board, she gathered up her belongings and made her way to the cabin door.

  It would have been impossible to miss her. Clad in slender black flannel pants and a black cashmere turtleneck topped by a flowing yellow-gold wool cape, Chantal entered the terminal like Napoleon entering Berlin. All that was missing, Caine mused, was a uniformed honor guard and a flare of trumpets.

  Drew whistled under his breath. "That is one good-looking woman."

  "She also makes one helluva target," Caine complained. "I suppose it would have been too much to expect her to arrive in something a bit less flamboyant."

  "That lady could make a burlap bag look good," Drew offered, standing up a little straighter.

  Both men watched as Chantal strode briskly across the concourse, her dark eyes roving the terminal, inspecting then dismissing one man after another. More than one scrutinized and discarded male looked as though he'd give anything to be the person Chantal was looking for, including a summarily dismissed businessman who went so far as to move directly in front of her, as if hoping to change her mind.

  Without breaking stride, Chantal flashed him an apologetic smile and edged to her right, easily making her way around him to stop directly in front of Caine.

  "Mr. O'Bannion," she greeted him with a slight nod as she held out her hand. A brilliant canary-yellow diamond held claim to her ring finger; a small silver band circled her pinkie. "I'm sorry my plane was late." Their hands met in a brief, cordial, businesslike greeting.

  "There must be two hundred men dressed in identical gray suits in this terminal," Caine said. "How did you know which one was here to meet you?"

  "The president described your scowl perfectly."

  Caine was irritated to know that he'd allowed his feelings to show. "That bad, huh?"

  "Not really." There was something ab
out this man—the hardness of his gunmetal-gray eyes, perhaps, or the sense of tautly leashed power surrounding him—that had Chantal feeling uncomfortably vulnerable…yet strangely safe at the same time. "I lied."

  Caine's only response was an arched brow.

  "The president didn't mention your scowl. But he did send my father your photograph along with a long letter stating all your qualifications," she explained. "I believe he wanted to assure Papa that you were a properly serious deputy under secretary of state who would prove a respectable chaperon for my tour."

  "I wouldn't think a woman of your vast experience would require a chaperon, Princess."

  It would have been impossible to miss the disdain on his face. Obviously, the man had already made up his mind about her, preferring gossip to fact. Well, she decided, if he was expecting the rich, spoiled princess of the tabloids, that's precisely what he'd get.

  "You're quite right, Mr. O'Bannion," she said, giving him a calculating smile totally devoid of warmth. "I don't need a chaperon nearly as badly as I need someone to retrieve my luggage." She reached into her black leather clutch, extracted a stack of bright blue cardboard tags and held them out to him. "I assume that's to be your job?" she asked in a haughty tone that one of her ancestors might have used on a recalcitrant footman.

  The flare of anger in Caine's eyes would have made a lesser woman flinch. Chantal held her ground, refusing to be intimidated by his blistering scrutiny.

  "The limo's parked right outside in the VIP lot," he ground out as he snapped the luggage tags from her fingers. "Mr. Tremayne will be your driver while you're in this country," he said, indicating the smiling man standing beside him. "He'll get you settled in while I collect your bags."

  Proper manners, drilled into Chantal by a rigid British governess who'd been with the family for two generations, were nearly her undoing. She started to thank him, then remembered that a princess—at least the type he thought her to be—need not acknowledge any effort on her behalf. "Please don't take all day," she instructed briskly. "Waiting around in limousines is such a dreadful bore."