Loe raamatut: «Claiming His Princess: Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask»

To Paul, with love.

And “a big kiss” to Anne-Emmanuelle for her wonderful friendship and even more wonderful French translations. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

AVA GLANCED OUT of the car window at the sparkling summer sunshine bouncing off the exquisite French countryside and wished herself a thousand miles away. Maybe a million. That would land her on another planet where no one knew her name. Where no one knew the man her father had expected her to marry was about to marry another woman, and felt sorry for her in the process.

‘It’s time you stopped messing around in Paris, my girl, and came home to Anders.’

That particularly supportive comment had come only this morning, making her blood boil. His condescending words filled her head, drowning out the singer on the car radio who was warbling about wanting to go home. Home was the last place Ava wanted to go.

Not that her father’s anger was entirely unexpected. Of course he was disappointed that the man she had been pledged to marry since she was a child had fallen in love with someone else. the way he’d spoken to her—‘A woman your age doesn’t have time to waste!’—as if turning thirty in a year meant that she was over the hill—made it seem as if it was her fault.

But Ava wanted to fall in love! She wanted to get married! She just hadn’t wanted to marry Gilles—a childhood friend who was more like a brother to her than her own—and he hadn’t wanted to marry her. The problem was they had played along with their fathers’ archaic pledge for a little too long, sometimes using each other for a fill-in date when the need arose.

Oh, how her father would love to hear that… Somehow, after her mother’s death fifteen years ago, her relationship with him had disintegrated to the point where they barely spoke, let alone saw each other. Of course if she had been born a boy things would have been different.

Very different.

She would have had different choices. She would have been Crown Prince, for one—and, while she had no wish at all to rule their small European nation, she would at least have had her father’s respect. His affection. Something.

Ava gripped the steering wheel of her hatchback more tightly as she turned onto the narrow country lane that ran alongside Château Verne, Gilles’s fifteenth-century estate.

For eight years she had lived a happy, relatively low-key existence in Paris; finishing university and building her business, stepping in at royal functions when her brother Frédéric had been absent. Now that Gilles, Marquis de Bassonne, was set to marry a friend of hers, she had a bad feeling that was all about to change.

Ava crinkled her nose at her uncharacteristically gloomy mood. Gilles and Anne had fallen in love at first sight two months ago and were happier than she’d ever seen either one of them before. They completed each other in a way that would inspire songwriters and she wasn’t jealous.

Not at all.

Her life was rolling along just fine. Her art gallery, Gallery Nouveau, had just been reviewed in a prestigious art magazine and she was busier than ever. It was true that her love-life was a little on the nonexistent side, but her break-up three years ago with Colyn—the man she had believed she would eventually marry—had left her emotionally drained and a little wary.

At nearly twenty years her senior he had seemed to her to be the epitome of bourgeois intellectualism: a man who didn’t care about her heritage and loved her for herself. It had taken a couple of years to figure out that his subtle criticisms of her status and his desire to ‘teach’ her all that he knew made him as egotistical and controlling as her father.

And she really wished he hadn’t popped into her mind, because now she felt truly terrible.

The only other times she’d felt this miserable had been during gorgeous evenings wandering by herself along the Seine, when she was unable to avoid watching couples so helplessly in love with each other they couldn’t walk two paces without stopping to steal another kiss.

She had never felt that. Not once.

She frowned, wondering if she ever would.

After Colyn she had been determined only to date nice men with solid family values. Men who were in touch with their feelings. But they hadn’t inspired much more than friendship in her. Thankfully her business kept her too busy to dwell on what she lacked, and if she was getting older…

Pah!

Stamping on even more mood-altering thoughts, she adjusted the volume dial on the radio and wasn’t at all prepared when she put her foot on the brake to slow down for a bend in the road and nothing happened. Imagining that she had put her foot on the accelerator instead, she’d moved to correct the oversight when the car hit a patch of gravel and started to slide.

Panicking, she yanked on the steering wheel to keep the car straight, but the car had gathered momentum and in the blink of an eye it fishtailed and rammed into some sort of small tree.

Groaning, Ava clasped her head where it had bounced off the steering wheel.

For a moment she just sat there. Then she realised the engine was roaring, took her foot from the accelerator and switched the car off. Her ears rang loudly in the sudden silence and then she caught the sound of one of her tyres spinning in midair. Glancing out through the windscreen, she realised her car was wedged on top of a clump of rocks and heather plants in full bloom.

Talk about a lapse in concentration!

She blew out a breath and gingerly moved her limbs one at a time. Thankfully the car had been going too slowly for her to have been seriously hurt. A good thing—except she could picture her father shaking his head at her. He was always telling her to use a driver on official engagements, but of course she didn’t listen. Arguing with him had become something of a blood sport. A blood sport he was so much better at than her. It was one of the main reasons she’d snuck off to study Fine Arts at the Sorbonne. If she had stayed in Anders it would have been impossible to keep the promise she had made to her dying mother to try and get along with her father.

His earlier edict replayed again in her head. She couldn’t return to Anders. What would she do there? Sit around and play parlour games all day while she waited for him to line up another convenient husband? The thought made her shiver.

Determined to stop thinking about her father, Ava carefully opened the car door and stepped out into the long grass. The spiky heels of her ankle boots immediately sank into the soft earth.

Great. As a gallery owner it was imperative that she always look impeccable and there was no way she could afford to ruin her prized Prada boots. Since she’d decided a long time ago not to take any of her father’s money she didn’t have any spare cash lying around to replace them. Another decision that had displeased him.

She stood precariously on the balls of her feet and leaned in to retrieve her handbag. Her phone had fallen out and when she picked it up she saw the screen was smashed. Unable to remember Gilles’s mobile number, she tossed it back in the car in frustration. She could always call emergency services, but then her little accident would be all over the news in a heartbeat—and the thought of any more attention this week for ‘the poor jilted Princess’ made her teeth gnash together. Which didn’t help her sore head.

No. She’d simply have to walk.

But standing on the grassy verge with her hands on her hips, she realised just how far it was to the main gates. Her beloved boots would be destroyed. Not to mention how hot and sweaty she would be by the time she got there. This was not the graceful and dignified entrance she had planned to make. And if one of those media vans she had seen loitering a few miles back saw her…

Wondering just what to do next, she had a sudden brainwave. A sudden and slightly crazy brainwave. Fortuitously—if she could describe running her little car into a ditch in such terms—she’d crashed right near a section of the outer wall that she had played on with her brother Frédéric and her cousin Baden and Gilles during family visits to the château in her childhood. Scaling the wall as revolutionary spies had been their secret game, and they’d even scraped out footholds to aid their escape from imaginary enemies.

Ava felt a grin creep across her face for the first time that day. She had to concede it was a tad desperate, but with Gilles’s wedding only hours away that was exactly what she was. And, anyway, she had always loved to climb as a kid; surely it would be even easier as an adult?

‘There’s a woman stuck on the south wall, boss. What do you want us to do with her?’

Wolfe pulled up in the middle of an arched hallway in Château Verne and pressed his phone a little tighter to his ear. ‘On the wall?’

‘The very top,’ repeated Eric, one of the more junior members of Wolfe’s security team.

Wolfe tensed. Perfect. Most likely another interfering journalist, trying to get the scoop on his friend’s extravagant wedding to the daughter of a controversial American politician. They hadn’t let up all day, circling the château like starving buzzards. But none had been brazen enough to go over the wall yet. Of course he’d been prepared for the possibility—the reason they now had this little intruder in hand.

‘Name?’

‘Says she’s Ava de Veers, Princess of Anders.’

A princess climbing over a forty-foot brick wall? Wolfe didn’t think so. ‘ID?’

‘No ID in her handbag. Says she had a car accident and it must have fallen out.’

Clever.

‘Camera?’

‘Check.’

Wolfe considered his options. Even from inside the thick walls of the château he could hear the irritating whine of distant media choppers as they hovered just outside the established no-fly zone. With the wedding still three hours away he’d better extend the security perimeters before there were any more breaches.

‘Want me to take her back to base, boss?’

‘No.’ Wolfe shot his hand through his hair. He’d rather turf her back over the wall than give her even more access to the property by taking her to the outer cottage his men were temporarily using. And he would—after he had established her identity and satisfied himself that she wasn’t a real threat. ‘Leave her where she’s perched.’ He was about to ring off when he had another thought. ‘And, Eric, keep your gun on her until I get there.’ That would teach her for entering a private function without an invitation.

‘Ah…you mean keep her on the wall?’

When Eric hesitated Wolfe knew right then that the woman was attractive.

‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.’ For all he knew she could be a political nutcase instead of an overzealous journo. ‘And don’t engage in any conversation with her until I get there.’

Wolfe trusted his men implicitly, but the last thing he needed was some smoking Mata Hari doing a number on their head.

‘Yes, sir.’

Wolfe pocketed his phone. This would mean he wouldn’t be able to start the pre-wedding game of polo Gilles had organised. Annoying, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d offered to run security for Gilles’s wedding because it was what he did, and the job always came first.

Once outside, Wolfe found Gilles and his merry band already waiting for him at the stables, the horses groomed and saddled and raring to go. Wolfe ran his gaze over the roguish white Arabian that Gilles had promised him. He’d missed his daily gym workout this morning and had been looking forward to putting the stallion through his paces.

Hell, he still could. Taking the reins from the handler, he swung easily onto the giant of a horse. The stallion shifted restlessly beneath his weight and Wolfe automatically reached forward to pat his neck, breathing in the strong scent of horse and leather. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Achilles.’

His mouth quirked and Gilles shrugged. ‘Apollo was taken and he’s a bloody contrary animal. You should enjoy each other.’

Wolfe laughed at his aristocratic friend. Years ago they had forged an unbreakable bond when they had trained together for selection on an elite military task force. They’d been there for each other during the tough times and celebrated during the good. Inevitably Gilles had started sprouting reams of poetry and Greek myths to stay awake when they’d spent long hours waiting for something to happen. By contrast Wolfe, a rugged Australian country boy, had used a more simple method. Sheer grit and stubborn determination. A trait that had served him well when he had swapped special ops for software development and created what was currently the most sophisticated computer spyware on the planet.

Wolfe Inc had been forged around that venture, and when his younger brother had joined him they’d expanded into every aspect of the security business. But where his brother thrived on the corporate life Wolfe preferred the freedom of being able to mix things up a little. He even kept his hand in on some of the more hairy covert ops some governments called consultants in to take care of. He had to get his adrenaline high from something other than his beloved Honda CBR.

‘Always the dreamer, Monsieur le Marquis,’ he drawled.

‘Just a man who knows how to have balance in his life, Ice,’ Gilles countered good-naturedly, calling Wolfe by his old military nickname. He swung onto the back of a regal-looking bay. ‘You should try it some time, my friend.’

‘I’ve got plenty of balance in my life,’ Wolfe grunted, thinking about the Viennese blonde he’d been glad to see the back of a month ago. ‘No need to worry your pretty head on that score.’

Achilles snorted and tossed his nose in challenge as Wolfe took up the reins.

‘I won’t be joining you just yet. I need to check on an issue that’s come up.’ He kept his tone deliberately bland so as not to alarm his friend, who should be concentrating on why he was signing his life away to a woman in matrimony rather than why a woman was currently sitting on one of his outer walls. ‘Achilles and I will join you in a few.’

The horse pulled against the bit and Wolfe smiled. There was nothing quite like using all his skills to master a difficult animal, and he wondered if Gilles would consider selling him. He already liked the unmanageable beast.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that much easier to scale a high brick wall as an adult, Ava conceded. In fact it had been downright scary and had shown her how unfit she was. Her arm muscles were aching in protest. It hadn’t helped when she’d discovered the ancient chestnut tree she had been relying on to help her down the other side had been removed, and then two trained security guards wielding machine guns had happened upon her.

She hadn’t considered that Gilles would have hired extra security for the wedding, but in hindsight she should have done. Naturally the men hadn’t believed her about the car accident, and now all she needed was for one of those media helicopters she could hear to zero in on her and her joyous day would just about be complete.

It was all Gilles’s fault, she grouched to herself, eyeing the uneven terrain at her feet where the magnificent tree had once stood. And surely they’d raised the height of the wall since the last time she’d climbed it as a tearaway twelve-year-old.

Shifting uncomfortably, she eyed the two killers camouflaged in street clothes below, glad she was conversant in English. She knew no self-respecting Frenchman would ever be seen mixing flannel with corduroy. ‘If you would just check a couple of hundred metres up the road you’ll find my car and realise that I am telling you the truth,’ she repeated, struggling to hold back the temper her father had often complained was as easy to strike up as a match. Which actually wasn’t true. It took special powers to induce her to lose the plot.

‘Sorry, ma’am. Boss’s orders.’ That from the one who looked slightly more sympathetic than the other—although that was like saying snow was colder than ice.

‘Fine. But I have a headache and I’d like to get down.’

‘Sorry, ma’am—’

‘Boss’s orders,’ Ava finished asininely, wondering what the two men would do if she decided to jump. Not an entirely practical option since she would likely break her ankle.

It had clearly been an oversight on their part as children only to whittle footholds on one side of the wall. A mistake no self-respecting spy in their right mind would have made!

Ava briefly closed her eyes and gently tested the injury on her forehead. It felt so large she was sure the House of Fabergé would weep to get their hands on it.

A wave of irritation threatened to topple her off the wall and impale her on one of those raised guns, and as much as she told herself it was irrational to be irritated with these men, since this whole situation was her own fault, she couldn’t dispel her growing agitation. In truth, she felt like a fool sitting atop Gilles’s wall like a silly bird.

‘And where is this boss of yours?’ she queried, injecting her voice with a calm she was far from feeling.

‘Coming soon, ma’am.’

So was Christmas. In four months’ time.

A low rumble of thunder brought Ava’s head around as she tried to locate the sound. Her view was hampered by soaring parkland trees and wild shrubbery, and the only thing visible in the distance were the rounded red brick towers of the château and a picture-perfect blue sky beyond.

Then a flash of white amongst the trees caught her attention, and she couldn’t look away as a purebred stallion galloped into view. Ava’s eyes drank in the beautiful creature—and then she felt slightly dizzy as her eyes took in its handsome rider.

Windswept sandy hair was brushed back from a proud face with a strong nose and square jaw, wide shoulders and a lean torso rippled beneath a fitted black polo shirt, and long, muscular legs were outlined to perfection in white jodhpurs and knee-high black riding boots.

She sensed he was absolutely furious, even though he hadn’t moved a well-honed muscle. His narrowed eyes were boring into hers with the intense focus of a natural hunter. Even when the horse stamped impatiently beneath him, its nostrils flaring and its tail flicking with irritation, the man remained preternaturally still.

Ava’s heart pounded and she found her fingers gripping the stone wall for support. Heat was turning her limbs soft. Of course it was the sun making her hot, not the ruthless-looking warrior staring at her with an arrogance that bordered on insolence.

‘Are you the reason I’m still on this wall?’ The confrontational words were out of her mouth before she’d known they were in her head and she could have kicked herself. She had meant to be pleasant, to make sure this ordeal was over as quickly as possible. She knew instantly from the firm jut of his jaw that she had well and truly put paid to that.

Wolfe didn’t move a muscle as his eyes swept over the fey gypsy on the wall. He’d been wrong. She wasn’t attractive. She was astonishingly attractive, and his soldier’s eyes noted everything. High cheekbones, honey-gold skin, eyes as dark as night and thick sable hair pulled into a ponytail, wisps from which floated around a lush, sulky mouth that looked as if it was waiting to be kissed.

By him.

Impatiently discarding the unexpected thought, he let his eyes drift lower over a white cotton shirt the gentle breeze was using to outline her rounded breasts, and fitted jeans that hugged long slender legs. And bare, stocking-clad feet!

Achilles swatted the air with his tail, as if he too was disturbed by the vision, and then Wolfe registered her haughty, royally pissed-off question and recovered himself. She was an intruder, and she was ruining a rousing game of polo, and if she was upset she could stand in line.

‘No.’ He shot her a cursory look. ‘You are the reason you’re still on that wall.’

Ignoring her hissed exhalation he swung out of the saddle and approached his men. He could feel her eyes following him and wondered at their exact colour, immediately irritated at the irrelevant thought.

He waited for Eric to fill him in on how they had come across her, and then indicated for him to pass over the leather handbag he held in his hand.

‘Is the gun absolutely necessary?’

Her slightly bored question floated down from the wall.

‘Only if I have to shoot you with it.’ He didn’t bother looking at her when he spoke. ‘And keep your hands where I can see them.’

‘I’m not a criminal!’

He ignored her little outburst and inspected her handbag. ‘Find anything interesting in here?’

‘No, boss. Usual women things. Lipstick, tissues, hair clips. No ID, as I said.’

He heard her exasperated sigh. ‘I already told your watchdogs I had a car accident and my purse must have fallen out of my bag.’

‘Convenient.’

‘For whom? You?’

Wolfe gave her a stare he knew from experience made grown men think twice. ‘You have an awfully smart mouth for someone in your predicament.’ And he wished she would close it. The husky quality of her lightly accented voice was having an adverse effect on his body.

‘I am Princess Ava de Veers of Anders and I demand you let me down from here immediately.’

Wolfe ran his eyes over her again, just for the sheer pleasure of it and because he knew it would put her on the back foot. ‘What are you doing on a wall, Princess? Learning to fly?’

‘I am a guest at this wedding and you are likely to lose your job if you insist on leaving me up here. I’m probably sunburned by now.’

‘By this watered-down version of the sun?’ And on that golden skin? ‘Unlikely. And honoured guests usually approach by the main gates. What outlet do you work for?’

Her brow crinkled. ‘I don’t—’

‘Newspaper? Magazine? TV station? Nice camera, by the way. Mind if I take a look?’

‘Yes, I do.’

He dumped her handbag on the grass and started checking through her photos.

‘I said yes, I do mind.’

‘Whether I look or not isn’t contingent on whether you mind.’

‘Why bother asking, then?’

He nearly smiled at the exasperation in her voice. ‘Manners.’

She made a cute noise that said he wouldn’t know what manners were if they conked him on the head.

Frowning at the photos on her camera, he glanced up at her. ‘Nice celebrity shots on here. I repeat—what rag do you work for?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I am not a member of the paparazzi, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘No?’

‘No. I own an art gallery. Those were taken at a recent opening night. Not that it is any of your business.’

Wolfe rubbed his jaw and pretended to consider that. ‘Really? Given your current predicament, I’d say it’s very much my business.’

She looked as if she was holding on to her temper by a thread. ‘I do understand how this looks. And I even appreciate how efficient your men were at spotting me—’

‘I’m so happy to hear that.’

‘But—’ she carried on as if he hadn’t interrupted ‘—I am who I say I am. My car is a couple of hundred metres that way, and your men would already know this if they had bothered to go and find it instead of holding their weapons on me as if I was a terrorist.’

Wolfe handed the camera to Eric. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He didn’t bother to hide the contempt he felt for her type. Haughty princesses—real or imagined—who thought their needs took preference over everybody else’s. ‘Did I forget to tell you? My men take orders from me, not you.’

Her pout turned even sexier. ‘Convenient.’

He wasn’t in the frame of mind to appreciate her wisecrack and nearly reconsidered his need to verify her identity before tossing her back over the wall.

‘Eric. Dane. Take the Jeep and find her car. If it exists.’

She sniffed at his instructions and shifted her bottom on the wall. She must be completely uncomfortable by now. Serve her right.

‘I told you to keep your hands where I could see them.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Do you think it might be at all possible that I could wait on the ground for your men to return? I promise not to overpower you while they are gone.’

The air seemed to buzz with the antagonistic heat she imbued him with, and her accent lent her sardonic words a sexy edge. She was a wicked combination of beauty and spirit, and not even the way she spoke down to him was enough to keep his libido at bay. A truly annoying realisation.

‘I think I can handle you.’

Her eyes dropped to his mouth and Wolfe felt a kick of lust all the way to his toes. He waited, breathless, for the heat in his groin to dissipate, but if anything it got worse. Then her eyes blazed into his and the chemistry he’d been trying to ignore sparked like a live wire between them.

The way her eyes widened he thought perhaps she had read his thoughts, but that was impossible. Fourteen years in the business and Wolfe knew how to hide what he was feeling—hell, he’d learned how to do that by the time he could walk.

Perhaps she’d just felt the same burn he had. And had liked it just as little, if her wary gaze was anything to go by. Which gave him a moment’s pause. If she was a journalist—or, worse, some sort of political stalker—she’d have already used that connection to manipulate him, not shy away from it as if she’d just been singed.

His eyes took in wrists that looked impossibly slender within the cuffs of her masculine-style shirt, then moved down along fine-boned hands and nails buffed to perfection. She didn’t do hard labour. That much was obvious.

He knew instinctively she was who she said she was. It was in her regal bearing, the swanlike arch of her neck, in her sense of entitlement and the way she looked at him as if he was staff. His mother had often looked at his father like that and Wolfe had always felt sorry for the poor bastard.

She shifted again, her eyes on the ground. ‘Do you have any suggestions on how I might get down from here?’ And with a degree of dignity, her tone seemed to imply.

‘Perhaps you’d like me to unfold my trusty ladder from my back pocket?’ Wolfe mocked. ‘Oh, dear. Left it at home.’ He opened his hands, palms facing upwards. ‘Guess you’ll just have to jump into my arms, Princess. What a treat.’

His horse snickered and her eyes used the excuse to glance at the stallion before returning to his. ‘Channelling your inner Zorro?’ she asked sweetly.

His lips twitched. ‘Only because I left my Batman tool belt at home.’

‘With Robin?’

Despite his less than stellar mood he chuckled. ‘Cute. Toss down the boots first.’ The last thing he wanted was to be stabbed by one of those dangerous-looking heels, and by the gleam in her eyes that was exactly what she was considering.

‘I have a better idea. Why don’t I just go back down the way I came up?’

‘No.’

Her lips tightened. ‘It makes perfect sense. I can—’

‘Try it and I will shoot you.’

‘You don’t have a gun.’

‘I have a gun.’

She paused, her stillness telling him she was weighing up whether he was telling the truth or not. Her eyes slid down his torso and over his legs and he felt a rush of unexpected excitement, as if she’d actually touched him.

‘You are being overly obnoxious about this,’ she fumed.

‘Not yet, I’m not.’ Wolfe barely managed to suppress his rising aggravation at this physical response to a woman he already didn’t like. ‘But I’m getting close.’