The Defiant Hero

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Ralph,” she heard the tutor say as she went into the room. “Like Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore.”

  Nothing. Nick didn’t even blink. And James had given them tickets to see Pinafore when they’d first arrived in England. Nick had loved it—he’d laughed his butt off.

  Eve poured them each a tall glass of lemonade as Ralph, undaunted, tried again.

  “Do you know I’m in line to be the king of England?” he asked. He was so focused on Nick, he barely even glanced up to thank her as she handed him a glass.

  “You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?” Nick scoffed. Bingo. Ralph had gotten him to speak.

  “It’s true.” Ralph set his glass down on the end table nearest him. “We’re distant cousins of the queen’s. In fact, my eldest brother’s an earl. And if he and all seventeen hundred and fifty-eight other members of the royal family die, I’ll be crowned the next king. But you don’t have to call me Your Highness. Ralph will do.”

  Nick was stunned. “You want me to call you by your first name?”

  “I thought that might be a good idea,” Ralph replied. “You don’t mind, do you? You Americans prefer informality, right? Just do me a favor and don’t pronounce my name the American way. Ralph,” he said, heavy on the L, then shuddered. “Sounds kind of like the noise your dog makes when he loses his dinner, doesn’t it?”

  Nick laughed but caught himself and stopped. “I don’t want a tutor,” he said flatly. “I don’t want to learn to read. I’ve gotten along just fine without it—at least everywhere but at that stupid school.”

  “Ah.” Ralph nodded in understanding. “Well, then.” He thought about that. “If you don’t want to learn to read, I can’t very well force you, can I?”

  Nick was completely unprepared for such a reasonable response. He didn’t know what to say and his evil eye faltered.

  “Tell me then,” Ralph continued. “What do you want to learn how to do?”

  Eve felt invisible. It was really pretty amazing. She was used to being the center of attention but neither Ralph nor Nick seemed to know she was even in the room. She crossed her legs with a whisper of silk, but Ralph didn’t so much as glance in her direction. Every fiber of his being was focused on Nicky.

  Who had crossed his arms and was back to glaring at Ralph, chin held at a decidedly aggressive angle. “I want to learn to box.”

  The Englishman didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even blink. “Excellent. My brother and I both boxed at school. Between us we had two pairs of gloves. I can ask my mother to send them—”

  “There are gloves out in the garage,” Nicky informed him. “Hanging on the wall.”

  “Better and better,” Ralph declared. “However, since it’s been some years, and since I’ve never actually tried to teach anyone to box before, we’ll need to make a quick trip to the town lending library to get a book on rules and technique. What say we go now?”

  “Now?” Nick’s voice cracked in surprise. “Well, sure.”

  “I wonder if your sister would drive us in that car of hers.” Was it possible he’d forgotten she was in the room? Eve cleared her throat and he looked over at her, his eyes dancing. He was enjoying himself. He’d gone up against her brother’s evil eye and had actually come out of it sparkling. “Oh, hello, Lady Eve. Unless this old place has its own library . . . ? “

  “It does.” Even more amazing—Nick was actually excited and letting his excitement show. “There are shelves and shelves of books,” he said in his regular voice, not that angry and dripping-with-scorn voice, nor even that dead, flat tone he used when he was forced to be at least partially polite to teachers and tutors. “More than you could count if you spent an entire week at it. And there’re ladders on wheels to get up to the top shelves.”

  “Well, then lead on, Nick old pal. Isn’t that what you Americans call each other?”

  They went down the hall at Nick-speed, and Eve had to run to keep up. She finally stopped and kicked off her high-heeled shoes, but by then she’d lost them. When she reached the library, they were already inside.

  Ralph was on one of the ladders, showing Nick how—if he pushed just so—gently though, not with a great deal of force—he could glide all the way from one side of the room to the other.

  “Any chance these books are in any kind of order?” the tutor wondered aloud as he climbed down to give Nick a turn.

  “They’re arranged by subject, fiction’s by author,” Eve informed him. James Hertford loved his books.

  Nick was riding the ladder back and forth now. “You’re the first tutor who’s ever taught me anything useful,” he proclaimed.

  “Then we’re off to a fabulous start. Tell me, if this were your library,” Ralph called up to him as he quickly scanned the shelves, “would you file Boxing under Boxing or Sports?”

  “If this was my library,” Nick pronounced, “I’d toss all the stupid books out in the yard and use this room for a theater. Or maybe a zoo.”

  “See now, I like it just as it is—as a library. Because even though I’m rusty when it comes to boxing, as long as I know how to read, I can find a book, read it, and relearn everything I might’ve forgotten and— Aha!” Ralph said, triumphantly pulling a book from the shelves. “A Gentleman’s Guide to Boxing. Just the thing! Come quick, Gentleman Nick, and show me those gloves and— No! I’ve a meeting in town with my new landlord. And I must pick up my trunk—it’s coming in via train. I really just stopped in to say hello. Classes don’t officially begin until tomorrow. Which is good actually. It gives me time to read this book.”

  “But aren’t you staying here?” Nick asked. “With us? This place has forty bedrooms at least and—”

  He cut himself off, the funniest look on his face. It was the first time in his entire life that he’d ever implored a teacher to stay.

  Lord, Ralph Grayson was good. Nick was completely enthralled and totally unaware that the lesson he’d just been given had little to do with mastering the library ladders and everything to do with the mighty power of books.

  “Why don’t you go dust off those boxing gloves,” Ralph told the boy. “I’ll be back in the morning, first thing. I promise.”

  In a flash Nick was gone.

  Leaving Eve alone with Ralph.

  “I’m sure you’re probably wondering whether I’ve gone completely mad.” He was gazing down at the book he still held, but now he glanced up at her, amusement in his eyes.

  “No,” she said quietly, “I’m not.”

  He smiled at her. Now that Nick was gone, she was the focus of all that energy and intensity. It made her heart feel as if it had lodged in her throat.

  “Good,” he said. “I hope I’ll see you tomorrow, too. I don’t suppose you also harbor a secret yearning to learn to box?”

  Eve laughed, suddenly giddy with hope that this would work out, that this man truly was the answer to all of her and Nicky’s prayers. “No, but I don’t suppose you’d teach me how to sail? James bought Emily a yacht for a wedding gift, only she gets seasick, so they’re probably going to sell it. I’d love to go out in it at least once before they do and . . .” She was babbling. She sounded like a ten-year-old. If she didn’t shut up, he’d guess that she wasn’t twenty after all, and then she wouldn’t have the power to . . .

  Make him leave.

  She didn’t want him to leave.

  But she would. Sooner or later, he’d get down to the business of trying to teach Nick how to read. And then even he’d get frustrated and end up calling Nicky stupid.

  It was senseless to hope that he’d be any different. Because hope only hurt. It lifted you up, sure, but then, when dashed, it dragged you lower than you were when you started.

  Hope stank.

  “Would you like me to drive you back into town?” she asked as she walked Ralph toward the door, hoping he wouldn’t notice the sudden rush of tears to her eyes. Maybe in the close confines of the car, if she gazed at him from underneath her eyelashes, he would
try to kiss her.

  And then she’d have all the ammunition she’d need to use against him.

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I have to get used to the bike ride, and anyway, it’s not that far.”

  As if he’d just read her mind, his gaze dropped to her mouth for just a second. But then he looked back into her eyes and his always-ready smile faded. “Are you all right?” he asked softly. “I know this can’t be easy for you, with your parents’ death still so recent.”

  He’d said death. He’d actually said the word, instead of trying to soften it up and make its horror and ugliness into something polite by using some asinine euphemism like “passing.”

  Eve liked Ralph Grayson so much, it hurt. “Thank you,” she managed. “I’m . . . all right.”

  They’d reached the front hall and he paused, turning to face her. “I understand now why Mr. Hertford made arrangements for me to have lodgings in town. You’re almost unbearably lovely.”

  He didn’t say the words as if he were only teasing. He spoke them almost reverently, as if they were the gospel truth, and for a moment Eve was thrown.

  She’d never received such a forward compliment before.

  What would her mother do?

  She’d play it as if it were a flirtation. She’d throw out her chest, look at him from underneath her eyelashes, and flirt shamelessly back. “By any chance, are you asking me to have dinner with you?” Eve said the words, but it was her mother’s voice she heard.

  And Ralph laughed—the way men had laughed with her mother. Deep and rich and intoxicatingly warm, his laughter seemed to wind its way around her. And for the first time, Eve understood why her mother had enjoyed making her collection of men laugh.

  “Yes, actually,” Ralph said, “I suppose I am. Are all American women always so direct?”

  “Not all,” she countered. “Just . . . the interesting ones.” That was a line stolen from one of her mother’s movies, right down to the little hesitation after the word just.

  “So will you?” he asked, his eyes all but throwing sparks. “Have dinner with me, Eve?”

  Oh, dear Lord. Was that enough? The fact that he’d asked her out? Or would she actually have to go out with him, too, to hold it against him later?

  She wanted to go and yet she didn’t.

  Eve opened the front door, hoping he wouldn’t notice that her cheeks were flushed. “I’m making you late for your appointment.”

  “Hmmm. Suddenly not so direct . . .”

  “Maybe you should ask me again sometime, when it doesn’t seem so much as if it were my idea.” Another of her mother’s saucy lines—this one not from a movie, but from real life. Eve had heard her mother say it to more than one handsome man. She’d practiced saying it herself, into the bathroom mirror. This was the first time she’d ever made it all the way through without laughing and rolling her eyes.

  “Fair enough.” Instead of going out the door, Ralph stopped right next to her, close enough for her to feel his body heat. He didn’t speak for several seconds, until she looked up at him. “I don’t suppose it’s been long enough yet to qualify as again sometime . . . ?”

  Up close, his eyes were a remarkable swirl of green and brown. And while he’d clearly shaved this morning, she could already see the shadow of stubble on his chin and cheeks. This was not some mere boy she was dallying with. This was a grown man.

  Wordlessly, quite terrified, she shook her head no.

  “It hasn’t been that long since you’ve been out of school, has it?” he asked.

  Again Eve shook her head. If only he knew . . .

  “Me, neither,” he told her. “And, you know, I really miss it. I would’ve liked to have been a student forever, just always keep learning. But you don’t have to be in school to do that, do you?”

  She found her voice, afraid he’d think her some kind of an idiot if she just kept shaking her head. “I guess not.”

  “This summer, I’d planned to learn the history behind the caves here on Thanet,” he said, still in that hypnotizingly gentle voice, “maybe explore some of the Roman ruins on the island. I was looking forward to that. But suddenly I seem to have developed an intense fascination with the New World.”

  He was going to kiss her. She’d seen men looking at her mother the way Ralph was looking at her right now. He leaned closer and . . .

  “Well,” she said loudly, stepping back, away from him, giving him her most blinding smile as her heart pounded. “See you tomorrow, then.”

  Ralph blinked. And stepped back.

  She knew she’d confused the heck out of him.

  Well, tough, because he’d confused her, too.

  “Right,” he said. “Until tomorrow.”

  Eve watched him ride away, down the long, picture-perfect drive toward town. She sat heavily on the steps, her knees still trembling, as she both dreaded and anticipated the coming day.

  Seven

  SIX O’CLOCK.

  It started as the smallest of sounds, over in the far corner of the room, up by the ceiling.

  It was a buzzing. Just the faintest hint of a noise.

  Then it got louder and it was accompanied by a small amount of plaster, just a dusting, falling from the ceiling into one of the bathroom stalls.

  Osman Razeen glanced up, but then quickly looked away.

  He thought it was a rescue team—coming to blast them free and to blow Meg away.

  Meg would have thought so, too, except that it was six o’clock, and John had done everything but flat out tell her he’d be back at six. Sharp.

  “Meg.”

  It was John Nilsson’s voice.

  “Yes.” Somehow he’d figured out a way to drill a hole into the ceiling so they could talk without anyone overhearing or seeing. Maybe he’d scrambled or altered the signal being sent via all the cameras and mikes the FBI had put into place. It didn’t matter how he’d done it. It only mattered that no one knew.

  “I’m going to cut a bigger hole in the ceiling and come down,” he told her. “Don’t shoot me, all right?”

  “Promise me the people in this embassy don’t know this is happening,” she said, dizzy and sick from the knowledge that if John were lying and she believed him, Amy amd Eve would die. But, God, she wanted to believe him. “Promise me they can’t see or hear this.”

  “I promise.”

  Her hostages looked startled. They looked at each other, looked up at the ceiling, looked at her.

  “Then I won’t shoot you,” she promised John.

  Whether or not she shot Osman Razeen was a different story. Meg aimed her gun at Razeen’s heart as the buzzing sound started up again, louder this time. Her own heart was pounding.

  This was it. The moment of truth.

  She sat looking into her hostage’s eyes, picturing herself being charged with first degree murder, thinking about the terrible gamble she was taking with Amy’s life by not simply killing this man right here and right now.

  It wasn’t as if he were Mother Teresa. He was a terrorist.

  All she had to do was squeeze the trigger and he wouldn’t be a terrorist anymore.

  He wouldn’t be anymore.

  But once John dropped down through that hole in the ceiling, once he was in this room with her, she’d be past the point of no return.

  Her hands started to shake, and she set the gun down on the floor. She was already past the point of no return. What happened to her didn’t matter anymore. But she knew one thing for sure—if she were going to shoot Razeen, it wasn’t going to be by mistake.

  Meg hugged her knees into her chest, watching bits of plaster fall from the ceiling like snow now. But the main chunk of the ceiling was somehow pulled up and out, leaving behind a dark space that was soon filled by John’s face and shoulders.

  “May I come down?”

  He’d nearly always been so polite and well-mannered. Even when he was kissing her.

  She nodded, unable to speak. She knew he saw her gun on the floor.
He saw everything. He always had.

  “What’s going on?” the ambassador finally dared to ask as John pulled back and then lowered his legs and then the rest of him from the hole in the ceiling. He swung himself over the metal frame of the stall and dropped lightly, athletically, onto the tile floor.

  He started toward her, and Meg couldn’t stop herself.

  She started to cry.

  And John was there, down on the floor next to her, pulling her into his arms, onto his lap, holding her close.

  “They took Amy,” she sobbed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Christ, Meg, I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s going on?” the ambassador said again, louder this time.

  Nils let Lieutenant Paoletti handle it as the CO, his senior chief, and Sam Starrett also lowered themselves down into the K-stani embassy men’s room. Max Bhagat and several of the FBI agents weren’t far behind.

  He didn’t try to do more than hold on to Meg, all but ignoring the murmur of voices as Paoletti and Bhagat explained the situation to the three former hostages. Young daughter kidnapped . . . Meg under duress . . . only way to get the FBI’s attention . . . no one knows they’re in here . . . going to take them out through the ceiling, leave a tape loop running while they pretend to wait out the situation.

  He sensed more than saw Sam claim possession of Meg’s handgun. Sensed Sam reach out to touch Meg briefly on the back in a vain attempt to offer a little more comfort.

  Nils wanted to tell her it was going to be all right, but Jesus, he had no way of knowing that her daughter and her grandmother weren’t already dead.

  “I’m here,” he said instead, painfully aware of how little that might mean to her. He tried again. “You’re not alone in this anymore, Meg.”

  She clung to him, and he held her just as tightly, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head, wishing . . . Christ, he didn’t know what he wished.

  Maybe he wished that she could’ve been in his arms any place else in the world and at any other time but here and now.

  She wasn’t alone—to hell with that, too. A lot of good it would do her, to know she wouldn’t be alone as she buried her daughter.