Spring Fire. Vin Packer

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      “I’ll give you my business card,” she said stiffly. “Your associate can reach me anytime at my mobile number or by email.”

      “So cool, so polite.” He didn’t look at the embossed card she retrieved from her briefcase, merely slipped it into the pocket of his slacks. “What is it about me you don’t like?”

       How about everything!

      “I don’t know you well enough to dislike you.” She should have left it there. Would have, if he hadn’t been standing so close. “Nor,” she added with a shrug, “do I wish to.”

      She recognized her error at once. Men like Dominic St. Sebastian would take that as a challenge. Hiding a grimace, Natalie attempted some quick damage control.

      “You said you wanted more information on the codicil. I have a scanned copy on my computer. I’ll pull it up and print out a copy for you.”

      She pulled out the desk chair. He was forced to step back so she could sit, but any relief she might have gained from the small separation dissipated when he leaned a hand on the desk and bent to peer over her shoulder. His breath stirred the loose tendrils at her temple, moved lower, washed warm and hot against her ear. She managed to keep from hunching her shoulder but it took an iron effort of will.

      “So that’s it,” he said as the scanned image appeared, “the document the duchess thinks makes me a duke?”

      “Grand Duke,” Natalie corrected. “Excuse me, I need to check the paper feed in the printer.”

      There was nothing wrong with the paper feed. Her little portable printer had been cheerfully spitting out copies before St. Sebastian so rudely interrupted her work. But it was the best excuse she could devise to get him to stop breathing down her neck!

      He took the copy and made himself comfortable in the armchair while he tried to decipher the spidery script. Natalie was tempted to let him suffer through the embellished High German, but relented and printed out a translation.

      “I stumbled across the codicil while researching the Canaletto that once hung in the castle at Karlenburgh,” she told him. “I’d found an obscure reference to the painting in the Austrian State Archives in Vienna.”

      She couldn’t resist an aside. So many uninformed thought her profession dry and dull. They couldn’t imagine the thrill that came with following one fragile thread to another, then another, and another.

      “The archives are so vast, it’s taken years to digitize them all. But the results are amazing. Really amazing. The oldest document dates back to 816.”

      He nodded, not appearing particularly interested in this bit of trivia that Natalie found so fascinating. Deflated, she got back to the main point.

      “The codicil was included in a massive collection of letters, charters, treaties and proclamations relating to the Austro-Prussian War. Basically, it states what the duchess told you earlier. Emperor Franz Joseph granted the St. Sebastians the honor of Karlenburgh in perpetuity in exchange for defending the borders for the empire. The duchy may not exist anymore and so many national lines have been redrawn. That section of the border between Austria and Hungary has held steady, however, through all the wars and invasions. So, therefore, has the title.”

      He made a noise that sounded close to a snort. “You and I both know this document isn’t worth the paper you’ve just printed it on.”

      Offended on behalf of archivists everywhere, she cocked her chin. “The duchess disagrees.”

      “Right, and that’s what you and I need to talk about.”

      He stuffed the printout in his pocket and pinned her with a narrow stare. No lazy grin now. No laughter in those dark eyes.

      “Charlotte St. Sebastian barely escaped Karlenburgh with her life. She carried her baby in her arms while she marched on foot for some twenty or thirty miles through winter snows. I know the story is that she managed to bring away a fortune in jewels, as well. I’m not confirming the story…”

      He didn’t have to. Natalie had already pieced it together from her own research and from the comments Sarah had let drop about the personal items the duchess had disposed of over the years to raise her granddaughters in the style she considered commensurate with their rank.

      “…but I am warning you not to take advantage of the duchess’s very natural desire to see her heritage continue.”

      “Take advantage?”

      It took a moment for that to sink in. When it did, she could barely speak through the anger that spurted hot and sour into her throat.

      “Do you think…? Do you think this codicil is part of some convoluted scheme on my part to extract money from the St. Sebastians?”

      Furious, she shoved to her feet. He rose as well, as effortlessly as an athlete, and countered her anger with a shrug.

      “Not at this point. If I discover differently, however, you and I will most certainly have another chat.”

      “Get out!”

      Maybe after she cooled down Natalie would admit flinging out an arm and stabbing a finger toward the door was overly melodramatic. At the moment, though, she wanted to slam that door so hard it knocked this pompous ass on his butt. Especially when he lifted a sardonic brow.

      “Shouldn’t that be ‘Get out, Your Grace’?”

      Her back teeth ground together. “Get. Out.”

      * * *

      As a cab hauled him back uptown for a last visit with the duchess and his sister, Dom couldn’t say his session with Ms. Clark had satisfied his doubts. There was still something he couldn’t pin down about the researcher. She dressed like a bag lady in training and seemed content to efface herself in company. Yet when she’d flared up at him, when fury had brought color surging to her cheeks and fire to her eyes, the woman was anything but ignorable.

      She reminded him of the mounts his ancestors had ridden when they’d swept down from the Steppes into the Lower Danube region. Their drab, brown-and-dun-colored ponies lacked the size and muscle power of destriers that carried European knights into battle. Yet the Magyars had wreaked havoc for more than half a century throughout Italy, France, Germany and Spain before finally being defeated by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I.

      And like one of those tough little ponies, Dom thought with a slow curl in his belly, Ms. Clark needed taming. She might hide behind those glasses and shapeless dresses, but she had a temper on her when roused. Too bad he didn’t have time to gentle her to his hand. The exercise would be a hell of a lot more interesting than the meetings he had lined up in Washington tomorrow. Still, he entertained himself for the rest of the cab ride with various techniques he might employ should he cross paths with Natalie Elizabeth Clark anytime in the near future.

      He’d pretty much decided he would make that happen when Zia let him into the duchess’s apartment.

      “Back so soon?” she said, her eyes dancing. “Ms. Clark didn’t succumb to your manly charms and topple into bed with you?”

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