September! Rory gulped. In six weeks she was going to be officially engaged to a stranger. Panic threaded through her. She thought she was going to hyperventilate. As if sensing her distress, Brontë lifted her head and meowed, What’s up? as her yellow-green gaze met Rory’s.
Rory put the mug out of spilling range and huddled over her cat, shutting Sebastian out. She’d never been in love. But she wanted love in her marriage. The kind of deep, lasting love that she’d read about in books. A love that was respectful, nourishing and passionate. Could she really give herself to Prince Laurent without that? She didn’t even know what he looked like. Would she respect him?
“Rory?” Sebastian gently touched her hair.
Rory shivered as her scalp prickled with warmth. She resisted the urge to lean into his touch, to depend on his strength. He wanted her to marry his prince. “You can schedule the lesson for one-thirty. I…I’ll let you know if I change my mind about quitting my job. Now, please, just leave me alone. Tell my brother I’ll call him later.” She wasn’t quite ready to admit to herself—or to anyone else—that her life had unalterably changed.
HE LOUNGED BY THE POOL, the sun baking his skin and glinting off the gold medallion circling his throat, as if granting a benediction for a job well done. There had been no word yet on the news, but therein lay the brilliance of his work. The fatal accident could occur at any time. Science told him that the nuts he’d loosened on the chandelier wouldn’t hold for long. The vibrations caused by the simple opening and closing of the door should be enough to jar them loose. Then, bye-bye princess.
The first few bugle notes of “Taps” on his cell phone broke into his soliloquy. He reached for the phone on the poolside table beside the pinña colada he’d been sipping.
The caller’s tone was icy. “I was under the impression I’d hired the best. I could forgive the first error. But once again the princess has escaped the tragic accident you’d planned for her. Need I remind you that you will not receive the remainder of your fee until the job is done.”
“Chill. I am the best, which is why you have nothing to worry about. Do you think I only planted one booby trap? I always have a plan B. Even if she escaped being sliced to ribbons, it’s only a matter of time until the princess closes her pretty blue eyes and never wakes up. You can bank on that.”
Chapter Six
Rory felt a rush of homecoming as she slid the key into the lock of the Book Nook fifteen minutes before the store’s opening. She glanced back anxiously over her shoulder.
Heinrich hadn’t been able to supply her with a female bodyguard on such short notice, but the men assigned to her were wearing golf shirts and dress slacks. Franz, the hawk-nosed bodyguard, was feeding coins into the USA TODAY distribution box on the corner. The other bodyguard was parked in her red convertible across the street.
They had told her they would keep the bookstore under surveillance from different locations, occasionally entering the store to browse. If she left the store, they would discreetly appear. Heinrich had equipped her with a container of pepper spray that looked like a pen and a pretty little bracelet that had a panic button. All she had to do was press the button and they would come running.
It was a compromise she could live with. At least she wouldn’t have them constantly hovering over her shoulder while she was waiting on customers.
The shop bell tinkled cheerily as she pushed the door open and was instantly enveloped in the scent of books. Rory loved everything about the shop, from the cozy reading nook in the shop’s front window to the whitepainted custom-built shelves that lined the walls.
Rory locked the door behind her, flipped on the lights and went into the back office to plug the kettle in for a cup of pineapple Waikiki tea and to remove the cash for the till from the locked bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.
She hadn’t slept well last night. She’d been too worried about Brontë and the announcement of her engagement in September. She hadn’t felt hungry this morning so she’d taken a vitamin and brought a yogurt cup with her to work.
Monday mornings in the shop were traditionally quiet after the weekend rush. Her first task, once she’d hung the Open sign, was to tidy the shelves and stock any books that had arrived Friday afternoon, but Rory went to the travel section instead.
She selected the European travel guides and carried them to the front desk where she booted up the computer.
Time to do a little research on Estaire and Ducharme.
She looked up Estaire first.
It gave a brief account of the wealthy Austrian Prince Valcourt, who purchased the land from a bankrupt Falkenberg count in the 1700s and created the principality. The Falkenbergs had attempted to take back the land by force twice, but failed. It also described Estaire as a fairy-tale land of medieval castles, lush Rhine meadows and quaint villages. The capital city was Val des Monts. There was nothing about her father. They only mentioned that her brother Olivier was the ruling prince.
The books told her that Ducharme had a population that was sixty percent German-speaking and forty percent French-speaking. The German population affectionately called it Liebenfels, meaning charming rock. The small kingdom had once been part of the Roman Empire and its history had been molded by the armies that had marched across it and by the treaties and alliances the powerful Falkenberg family had made with France, Spain, Prussia, Bohemia and the Netherlands in the seven hundred years of their rule.
Rory winced, wondering how many of those treaties had been marriage treaties. She rubbed her temple, feeling the beginning of a headache.
She snacked on the yogurt she’d brought for breakfast as she looked up Ducharme’s official Web site on the Internet and clicked on an English version of the Web page. Pictures of cobbled streets, gracious fountains and mansions built by wealthy Renaissance burghers lined the top of the screen. She clicked on an inset picture of the royal palace Schloss Hohenheim, a magnificent blend of medieval and neo-Gothic architecture. The breath whooshed from her body.
Not in a million years could she imagine herself living there, much less sharing a bed with Prince Laurent.
She clicked on an inset picture of King Wilhelm—an imposing elderly man with iron-gray hair, black brows and a stern mustache. There were no pictures of Prince Laurent or other members of the royal family.
Next she tried an image search through Google. Over a dozen postage-stamp-size pictures appeared on the screen. Rory peered at the tiny pictures of the slender, dark-haired prince. Some were taken when he was a child, some were family groupings—the royal family of Ducharme she imagined—and some appeared to have been taken in his teen and adult years. She clicked on what she hoped was a recent photo to enlarge it. But the link took her to a page of German text and no picture. She tried the other images. The same thing happened. Frustrated, but determined not to be outsmarted by technology, Rory saved several of the pictures on the hard drive, then enlarged them on her own. Unfortunately, the photos were too grainy to tell whether her prince was totally hot or a total toad.
On a whim, she did a search on “Lorelei.” A chill brushed her skin when she realized what Sebastian had been reciting while she’d picked slivers of glass from his back. He’d been reciting a German poem written by Heinrich Heine of the legendary Rhine mermaid Lorelei, who sat combing her hair on a high rock overlooking the Rhine near St. Goarshausen. Her beautiful song lured boats to their doom.
Did Sebastian think she was a mermaid who would lure his prince to his doom?
The bell on the door tinkled. Rory hit the close button and summoned a smile as a sunburned man in his twenties wearing board shorts and a navy tank top stepped into the shop. His streaked blond hair was parted in a ragged line, and the blunt ends swept his jaw. He wasn’t one of her regular customers. She’d have remembered him.
“Hi, can I help you?”
His English was laced with a strong French accent. “Allo, mademoiselle.” He leaned comfortably against the counter. “I need some books
to read at the beach. Can you recommend something?”
“Fiction or nonfiction?” she asked.
His golden-brown eyes skimmed her with blatant interest, then grazed the travel books she’d spread out over the counter. “Fiction is more entertaining, non?”
“Okay, fiction. Do you like thrillers, mysteries, science fiction?”
“Something set in California.”
“We have a shelf with works by local authors. There’s a mystery set in a vineyard in the Napa Valley. And a thriller set in Los Angeles.”
She showed him to the section displayed on a table near the door. “Are you a tourist?”
“Yes. A lonely tourist.”
Rory flushed. Was he hitting on her? Maybe he meant bored. “You’re never lonely when you have a book to read.”
He selected several hardcovers off the shelf at random and handed them to her. “I’ll take these.”
“That was easy.”
His lips twitched in a cocky grin. “I am that kind of guy. Easy.”
Now Rory knew he was hitting on her. She scurried back to the cash desk to ring up the purchase, feeling flustered. He handed her a gold credit card. She quickly rang in the purchase and checked the name on the card: Claude Dupont.
La Jolla was a wealthy enclave. While many of the Book Nook’s customers were well heeled and well traveled and of varying international backgrounds, the fact that Claude Dupont had a French accent put her mildly on edge. Was he from Estaire? Was he involved in a plot to kill her?
She felt the blood drain from her face. She practically thrust the bag of books at him, reddening when one of the books tumbled out onto the counter.
“I’m sorry.” She clumsily jammed the book back into the bag, watching him closely. If he even looked at her suspiciously, she was pressing the panic button.
His fingers brushed hers as he took the bag from her. A ripple of uneasiness washed through her stomach.
“Are you free, mademoiselle, for dinner? I would very much like to get to know you better. In my country, we dream of California girls during the long winter.”
Long winter? He must be French Canadian. Still, she wasn’t interested in Claude’s dreams. She just wanted him gone. “Sorry, I don’t date strangers.”
Claude propped an elbow on a travel book and gave her a cunning, pearly toothed smile. “Then it is very simple. I will make a point of becoming your friend.”
She looked over in relief as the door signaled the arrival of another customer. It was Franz, checking on her. Good ol’ Franz. Excellent timing.
Okay, maybe she was jumpier than she’d thought. Even though Sebastian had left a message on her answering machine that an electrician had found no evidence that her chandelier had been tampered with, she was grateful that he’d silkily maneuvered her into agreeing to the bodyguards.
Claude took one look at Franz’s don’t-mess-with-me expression and tapped two fingers to his forehead, saluting Rory. “Àbientôt, mademoiselle.”
Rory managed a tepid smile. Don’t count on it.
“Are you all right, Your Serene Highness?” Franz inquired politely after Claude had gone.
“I’m fine,” Rory lied, hugging herself. She turned back to her research. She didn’t like this fear that Sebastian and Olivier had instilled in her. Was she destined to spend the rest of her life being afraid?
BETWEEN CUSTOMERS she printed off the information she’d found on the Internet about Estaire and Ducharme, including the lineage of the Valcourts back to the first prince of Estaire. She’d also found an article on the Falkenberg royal family, although it was in German. With the help of a German dictionary, she was attempting to translate it.
She wasn’t making much progress.
She was happy to put it aside when one of her favorite customers dropped into the store at eleven-thirty. Stoop-shouldered, his skin freckled and weathered from the sun, Otto Gascon made a regular habit of dropping into the Book Nook to browse on Mondays and Thursdays before joining his cronies for lunch and an afternoon of chess.
Rory didn’t know much about him except that he was in his seventies, retired and a widower. He lived in her neighborhood and she occasionally saw him walking on the beach or sitting on a bench with a plaid blanket covering his lap, reading a book.
His watery-gray eyes met hers warmly. His brow was damp with perspiration as he doffed his straw hat with a gnarled, blue-veined hand. “Good morning, young lady. You are looking hale and hearty. I’ve come about a book.”
Rory laughed as he handed her a newspaper clipping from his wallet. Every week without fail, Otto brought in a review clipped from the book review section of the paper and requested a book. “I hope we have it.”
She wasn’t surprised to see he wanted a biography of a famous news anchor. Otto’s reading tastes leaned toward biographies, travel, books about the world wars and the occasional political thriller. “We don’t have it in stock yet, but it should be any day. I’ll set one aside for you.”
“Wonderful. I’ll just browse in case something tempts me.” He glanced down at the counter at the travel books and the German dictionary. “Are you plan ning a trip?”
“Actually, I’m trying to translate an article.”
“Do you speak German?”
Rory grimaced. “No, that’s what makes it hard.”
“Perhaps I could help. I’m a little rusty, but I should be able to manage. My wife was from Germany.”
“You never told me that.” Rory slid the article toward him. “Would you?”
Otto nodded. “Ah, I see. It’s an interesting choice in articles, although it’s three years old. It’s about King Wilhelm of Ducharme. He was asked when his son Prince Laurent, then twenty-seven, would succeed him to the throne. The king responded that he doesn’t believe in making his son wait until his death, but that he would like to see his son married and settled with children before he assumes the responsibility.”
Ice encased Rory’s heart. Sebastian had told her about the feud, but he hadn’t mentioned this.
Was Prince Laurent determined to marry her for altruistic reasons and the good of his country, or because his father was holding the treaty over his head and it was the only way he could get the crown?
Did it matter?
Otto peered at her. “May I ask what spurs your interest in Ducharme and King Wilhelm? Ducharme is a beautiful country. Excellent wines. Castles. The Rhine. Everything a young girl finds romantic.”
“It’s a long story, Otto.”
“I’m retired, my dear. I have nothing but time.”
Rory hesitated, tempted to confide in someone. She’d known Otto for years—well, for the two years she’d been working in the bookstore, anyway. But he wasn’t a stranger. He was a neighbor, and the fact that he knew German might prove helpful in figuring out what she was going to do about this marriage treaty. But her brother’s warning about telling anyone of her new status made her hold back.
“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t feel like talking about it today. Do you know anything else about the royal family of Ducharme?”
Otto frowned. “Well, the queen died years ago. Tragic. Some sort of illness. King Wilhelm never remarried. Prince Laurent has a reputation as a playboy. Lots of women. There’s a younger brother, Prince Leopold, I think. He’s a top-ranked soccer player.”
So Prince Laurent was a playboy. Her brother thought she was going to marry a playboy?
Rory had heard enough. It was about time she asked Sebastian some serious questions about Prince Laurent.
FIVE MINUTES BEFORE her shift at the Book Nook ended, Rory received a call from Sebastian.
“Come out the rear exit when you’re finished. The limo will be waiting.”
More cloak-and-dagger stuff. Rory didn’t bother asking about her car. She figured the bodyguards would take care of it. She’d planned to go to the bank after work with the check from her trust fund, but it would have to wait until tomorrow. “Will you be there, too?” s
he asked.
His voice was firm, reassuring. “Of course.”
Hearing his voice, Rory realized how quickly she’d come to depend on him, and how disappointed she was that he’d only given her one side of the story about his prince. Still, what had she expected? He did work for Prince Laurent. “Good, because I have a bone to pick with you.”
She hung up on him before he could respond.
Her knees trembling slightly and her fingers clutching the research she’d gathered, Rory walked out to the limo ten minutes later. Thank God nobody shot at her or pelted her with tomatoes.
She gave the bodyguard a nervous smile and slid into the limo’s icy interior.
Rory took a deep breath. For the rest of her life, every time she smelled sandalwood or linen, she would think of Sebastian. His inky eyes compelled her to look at him as if he suspected the hurt she carried. He was so incredibly handsome. So incredibly what she wanted, so completely not what she was allowed to have. The ache in her heart grew.
Okay, be smart, she told herself. Keep it business.
He bowed his head, his tone perfectly composed. “Your Serene Highness.”
“Sebastian.” She plopped the stack of papers onto the perfectly creased oatmeal-colored linen stretched taut over his sleekly muscled thighs. He was wearing a snowy, crisp cotton shirt and a yellow silk tie that brought out the blackness of his eyes.
Laurent was instantly on guard. In her white gauzy sundress, Rory resembled a goddess on the warpath. Her skin glowed with a dewy sheen, and her blue eyes sparked with lightning. The discomfort of the stitches in his back was superseded by the taut reaction of his body to her beauty.
Holding himself in check, he examined the pile of documents. “Is this the bone you wanted to break?”
“Not break. Pick. You pick a bone. And yes, this is it,” she snapped. “You neglected to tell me a few crucial pieces of information about Prince Laurent.”
Determined to Protect, Forbidden to Love Page 31