“Lady Arynak mentioned none of this to you?” Miklos asked.
NOT REALLY. JUDI SAT ramrod straight on the leather seat, not allowing her shoulders to slump. Don’t let them see you scared.
The limousine felt smaller than a Mini Cooper. The prince had what could be called an imposing presence, his intense energy filling the space and then some. Grainy pictures in tabloids were one thing. Sitting face-to-face with all that charisma was vastly different, heaven help her.
She wondered for a second if anyone had ever naysayed him. That probably didn’t happen too often. A man like him wouldn’t be used to resistance from women.
“My aunt is a sweet old lady.” She sounded defensive even to her own ears, but couldn’t help it. She loved Aunt Viola. Who was sweet. Too sweet, even. She had a tendency to say whatever anyone wanted to hear. But, hello, that was exactly why she was so very likable and had a gazillion friends.
“She did bring up from time to time that I should visit Valtria.” But Judi had always put it off, focusing on her studies at first, then on her career. And her aunt had mentioned marriage, urged her more and more often lately to consider that it might be time to start thinking along those lines, but Judi had been reluctant.
Not that she was commitment-phobic, although she’d been accused of just that by more than one ex-boyfriend. But it did seem that everyone she’d ever truly loved always ended up dying. Her mother when Judi had been three, her father when she’d been five, her stepmother when she’d been ten.
Maybe she was scared to fully fall in love and commit to a man. And her aunt hadn’t pushed or played matchmakers like older family members or some of her friends. She just wasn’t the pushy kind, which Judi very much appreciated. Having someone like Aunt Viola by her side was wonderful when life was filled with one harsh reality after another.
Like the fact that her parents had sold her out to some prince when she’d been a toddler!
He seemed annoyed but held it in check and remained studiously polite, a man who fully knew the meaning of aristocratic restraint. Which she appreciated. He was overwhelming enough as it was.
“Look, we’re both adults. We should be able to figure something out.” There had to be something she could say to make him see how absolutely crazy this all was.
He watched her as if trying to see inside her. “The country needs our alliance,” he stated simply.
His very presence demanded that she curtsy and say Yes, Your Highness. But in addition to her Valtrian heritage, she also had her indomitable American stepmother’s spirit in her. She called on that.
“That’s not up for negotiation.” She did her best to remain calm and match his cool demeanor.
Her father had been a high-profile political figure, then her stepmother after him. They’d both been dragged through the mud. If there was one thing she’d known for sure at an early age, it was that she would never become a public figure when she grew up.
“If I can make the sacrifice, why is it that you cannot?” His masculine, sensuous lips flattened. “A true daughter of Lord Marezzi would never refuse her duty.”
I would and I will—just watch me, Buster, she wanted to say but had a feeling that she would get better results by remaining civil and rational. She needed time. Delay. “I believe we really need to talk about this. I’m going to need time here. And a lot of questions need to be answered.”
He watched her darkly for a long moment. “Agreed.”
So he was willing to negotiate. It saved her from having to jump from a moving car and run for the hills. She felt a small sense of relief, the first since she’d gotten off the plane.
“You will consider the situation?” His face remained impassive, but his eyes betrayed that he wasn’t too happy with her.
Not that she was all that thrilled with him, either. “Yes.” The situation she would consider. Marriage to him, she would not.
Even if he wasn’t that bad to look at: raven-wing black hair and dark slate eyes, a straight, aristocratic nose and a powerfully built soldier’s body. Which, really, she should have been too angry to notice. It annoyed her to no end that she had. So he was handsome. So who cared?
He was archaic.
An arranged marriage. In this day and age? Who was he kidding?
Maybe he was crazy. Not a raving lunatic, but slightly off. Madness ran in the royal bloodlines of several European countries; she remembered that from history class. Just her luck. A whole, perfectly fine country, and the first person she ran into was their off-his-rocker prince.
They slowed for a sharp turn. She opened her mouth to talk some reason into the two men, but what happened next froze her. She watched the scene unfold, her body immobile from the terror she felt.
Two cars plowed through traffic and pulled to a screeching halt next to their motorcade. Two men got out. One pointed a grenade launcher at the limo behind them that was supposed to carry her entourage but was empty instead, save for the driver. The guy blew it to pieces.
Just blew it up without warning.
Fire shot to the sky.
Car parts rained to the pavement.
She might have screamed. She couldn’t hear her own voice, deafened by the explosion.
The guy pointed the grenade launcher at their car next.
If she’d had command of her limbs, she would have been hiding under the seats by now.
The prince opened the door and got out with murder on his face to confront the armed men. He stood tall and straight, focused on the attackers. “This is not necessary. I will come of my own will and listen to your demands.” His voice was clipped, betraying the restraint it took for him to just stand there.
He let himself be disarmed, but with enough tension radiating from him that she thought his control might break at any second and he would attack. She felt disconnected from the whole scene as if she were watching it on a movie screen. Her mind was numb with shock.
“No further violence is necessary.” His voice was tempered steel.
And for a moment, she wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince the attackers or himself.
“I’ll go with you. We leave them here,” he stated.
“Everyone’s coming.” One guy kept his gun trained on the prince while another reached in and yanked Judi from the safety of the limo.
Faced with a grenade launcher, she didn’t have it in her to resist. She went like a rag doll.
The chancellor scampered to the far end of the expansive seat and wedged himself in. They would have needed a crane to move the man. The attacker pointed the grenade launcher at him.
She caught the prince shift on his feet and get ready to make his move, so she prepared to duck, knowing all hell would break loose in a second. But then, unexpectedly, the ceremonial army guard opened fire. Bullets pinged off the pavement and the cars.
The kidnappers gave up on the chancellor, and Judi was unceremoniously shoved into the back of a van, along with His Highness. Then the van took off, the attackers returning fire, swerving all over the road so badly that she banged against the van’s side.
She grabbed on to the one thing available for leverage—the prince. She could feel the flexing of an impressive amount of muscle under his military jacket, but there was no time to appreciate that now. The van swerved as bullets exploded all around it.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
She’d been wrong, she thought. The prince wasn’t the only nut in the place. The whole country was insane.
She so should not have come here. She yelped as the gunfire intensified. She could see little in the dim van, the prince’s wide chest pretty much filling her field of vision. She prayed that the bullets wouldn’t break through the back door and hit them. She hung on even tighter as he put an arm around her and braced them with his feet to stop from bouncing. He held them both safe by sheer strength and will.
She was not impressed. All she could think of was that she should have gone with her first idea and celebrated her twe
nty-ninth birthday in Puerto Vallarta instead.
HIS HANDS WERE TIED behind his back and he was blindfolded, but his feet were free, so Miklos walked his prison to get a sense of it. When he bumped into something, he turned around to feel it. A chair. Which he catalogued as a possible makeshift weapon before he moved on.
“Where are we? It’s freezing,” Lady Judit asked from somewhere nearby.
“Up in the mountains.” He had no idea beyond that. The van had had no windows, and the men had blindfolded them before taking them out of the vehicle and into a building. He figured about two or three hours had passed since their kidnapping.
“The country’s security forces are out in full force looking for us. And probably most of the army. General Rossi would see to that,” he said to reassure her. “Lady Judit—”
“For heaven’s sake, can you at least call me Judi?” she snapped.
She really did have a difficult nature. “Judi. Please do not fear. I’m going to protect you.” A prince remained valiant under all circumstances. A lesson drummed into the six Kerkay brothers from early childhood by the chancellor.
She snorted.
Which drew him up short. He didn’t think a true princess would snort. Yet he couldn’t deny that he kind of liked her irreverent, spirited nature. Heaven help him. He would have been able to appreciate—he corrected himself—an irreverent and spirited nature in about any other woman, but not his bride, who would be a princess of the kingdom.
He moved forward and bumped into a table, thought about Chancellor Hansen. Worry filled him for the old man. There’d been a gunfight after he and Judi had been thrust into the van. He wondered how the chancellor had fared.
“Why did they bring us here?” she was asking.
He wasn’t sure he should tell her. But the fact was, she was here now, her life in jeopardy because of him. She deserved to know. He finally reached a wall and moved alongside it, turned his back to feel for a window with his tied hands.
“I was informed this morning that there’s an assassination plot against my brother, the crown prince.” As if Arpad hadn’t had a rough-enough month already. His chopper had nearly gone down two weeks before, due to malfunction. He’d been on his way to a ceremonial troop inspection. He was lucky he was still alive.
In hindsight, fresh suspicion arose that the accident could have been planned. But no, a special investigative team had gone over every last screw of the chopper after the incident. Miklos had read their report. Thoroughly.
“I’m in the army. Of the six princes, I’m the most involved with security. Could be whoever is behind the plot wants me out of the way so it’d be easier for him to get to Arpad.”
A long silence followed his response. Then, “Why am I here?”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said with regret.
“Funny, but I’ve had that feeling ever since the plane landed,” she said in a droll tone.
The corner of his mouth twitched up. Her sense of humor was refreshing. And she stayed relatively composed under duress. She hadn’t become hysterical at any point during the kidnapping—another trait that might come in handy for a future princess. Which she refused to consider, and for a split second he wondered if he could afford to let that whole issue drop. He hadn’t really wanted a bride. He wanted a reluctant bride even less.
And she was nothing like the duty-bound daughters of the Valtrian aristocracy. Whoever he married wouldn’t simply be his wife—she would be a princess of the country. She would have endless duties and responsibilities. And she would be expected to fulfill every last one of them. She would be expected to make sacrifices for the people.
If he were the only other person involved, he would have been willing to respect her explicitly worded wishes in the matter. But their union went beyond him; it involved the whole country. And despite some misgivings on his part, he couldn’t give up his hopes for their grand peacemaking alliance. The country needed that.
“I’m truly sorry that your introduction to Valtria is like this. It’s a wonderful country. I wish your arrival could have been different.”
“You and me both,” she groused, then asked, “Why do the people want the crown prince dead?”
“Not the people. Some people. Three businessmen in particular.” The three men who led the so-called Freedom Council. “We have three major ethnic groups in the country: Italian, Hungarian and Austrian. There are some businessmen who would like to destroy the monarchy, divide the country along those ethnic lines and make their own republics.” How little she knew about the country was truly disappointing.
“Which would be led by these powerful men?”
At least she was catching on quickly. “Right. Each would have a small republic. They could then rewrite the laws to suit their best interests, anything.”
“Why?”
“More power. More money. When Arpad takes over, he’s changing the country to a constitutional monarchy. Already, preparations are being made. The next step after that is joining the European Union. That will change everything. Not all EU regulations will be favorable for all current Valtrian business practices.
“The bottom line is, for the Freedom Council the time is now or never. It’s easier to take out the royal family now and gain control of the country than try to take out a whole parliament once constitutional monarchy gets here.”
“Don’t the people understand that they’re being manipulated?”
“There’s a lot of propaganda out there right now to create tension along ethnic lines. That’s all people see.” He felt such regret over that, and wondered if, not having grown up in Valtria, Judi could understand.
“For as long as I can remember, we were simply Valtrian,” he explained. “Now everyone is seeing themselves as Italian or Hungarian or Austrian, and centuryold grievances are being dredged up.”
“The whole divide-and-conquer thing. And political instability brings economic instability, of course,” she added.
So she did get it. He went on, encouraged. “The economy is suffering already. And the Freedom Council is doing its best to convince the people that it’s because the upkeep of monarchy is too expensive.”
“You’ve said Freedom Council more than once. What is it?”
“That’s what the rebel leaders are calling themselves. Pretty ironic, actually. Under their mercenary government, the people would be anything but free.”
She remained silent for minutes. “I wish I knew more about Valtria.”
“How much were you told of our history?”
“My father used to talk to me about it. But he died and—I was too young to remember.”
“And your aunt Viola?”
“For the most part, she just tried to convince me to move back here. Gently,” she added. “She doesn’t like to say things she knows I don’t want to hear.”
He rolled his eyes beneath the blindfold.
Then he turned his head toward the door when he heard it open.
Something clanged to the floor.
The door closed again.
“What do you think that was?” she asked.
“Food.” He hoped.
And got a sudden idea just as she asked, “What are we going to do?”
“Escape,” he answered. “But we’ll have to get the blindfolds off first.” He moved toward her. “Keep talking so I can figure out where exactly you are. Just say something. Anything.”
“For my thirtieth birthday I decided to visit the country of my ancestors and discover my heritage. At the airport I was kidnapped by a deranged prince—”
“Greeted by an eager groom,” he corrected as his head bumped into hers.
“Then I was kidnapped by other deranged men,” she finished.
“What, that wasn’t in the brochure?” He made an attempt to lighten the mood between them. “People pay extra for extreme vacations like that.”
Then his lips were on her cheeks, her skin silky soft. And they both fell si
lent.
He ignored the heat that flashed through him and zipped straight to his groin. He moved his mouth up to the blindfold, grabbed the material with his teeth, breathing in her exotic flower scent. She held herself ramrod straight.
“Relax. I’m not trying to seduce you.” And just for the hell of it, he added, “Yet.”
But he could envision it in crystal-clear detail all of a sudden. Her tangled up in his sheets. Naked. Under him.
“I don’t want you to confuse me with those women who throw themselves at the feet of handsome princes.”
Disappointingly, her voice held no trace of passion. Instead, he got the distinct impression that she was mocking him.
“You’re in no danger of that.” He pulled the blindfold off all the way at last. “Your turn,” he said, waiting impatiently to see again.
A moment passed before he could feel her velvety lips on his left cheek, an inch or two above his mouth, next to the blindfold. Her firm breasts pressed against his shoulder as she leaned into him. She moved her mouth. The blindfold moved next, a scant centimeter only before it slipped from her teeth. She had to fit her lips to his skin again.
He didn’t mind the delay.
Then the blindfold was off at last, around his neck. She looked up, and they were nose to nose, her lavender eyes staring into his, her soft breath fanning his face.
“At least you think me handsome. That’s a start, I suppose.” Utterly ridiculous how pleased those words she’d let slip made him feel. A foothold, that was what they were. Something he could stand on while he fought to gain more ground. Courting a woman couldn’t have been that much different from conducting a military campaign.
She blushed a brilliant red, right to the tip of her ears. The response was so charming, he couldn’t help but smile at her. Maybe he was gaining ground already.
But she was gathering herself fast, her eyes narrowing, her mouth opening, no doubt with a snappy comeback. He couldn’t let her spoil the moment. He couldn’t give up the ground he’d gained; he wouldn’t give up an inch. That was not the path to victory.
So he leaned forward and kissed her.
Her lips were even softer than her cheeks, although she immediately pressed them together and pulled back. He followed and dragged his mouth across hers.
Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch Page 19