The Duke's Covert Mission. Julie Miller

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      A dangerous glint replaced the amusement in his dark eyes. “You don’t. You might be used to calling the shots back home at the castle…” The notion registered that he didn’t know Lucia had never lived in a castle. But then, these men didn’t know Lucia at all, or they wouldn’t have mistaken the plain brown mouse that she was for the vibrant, blond Lucia. “…but around here, I’m in charge.”

      “The call?” the big man prompted, already striding toward the stairs.

      “I’m on it, Lenny.”

      Lenny. The big man was named Lenny. Jerome was the short and smelly jerk with the all-too-friendly hands. The silent one was Sinjun. She didn’t know how the information could help her, but she filed it away, anyhow.

      “Don’t worry, sugar. I’ll be back to keep you company. I have a phone call to make. I’ll bet there’s somebody wondering where you are.”

      Jerome and Lenny climbed the stairs and disappeared without another word. Sinjun spared her one final look, then headed up after them.

      “Wait.”

      At the last moment Ellie acted on the desperate need to escape. Dragging her chain behind her, she scuttled to the bottom of the stairs in time to see the door close and hear the dead bolt slide into place.

      Exhausted, confused and more frightened than she had ever been in her life, Ellie sank to the floor and let the tears she’d fought finally overtake her.

      Jerome was a mean little man. Lenny was an immovable force. Both were dangerous. Of that she had no doubt. She’d had firsthand experience with their easy violence. And yet neither one of them spooked her the way Sinjun, the silent panther of a man, and his intense blue eyes had.

      I’ll bet there’s somebody wondering where you are.

      True. Several people would wonder where Princess Lucia had disappeared to if she’d vanished. Her new husband. Her sisters. Her mother. King Easton himself, Lucia’s grandfather.

      But Eleanor Standish?

      She’d been easy to overlook her entire life.

      Would anyone be missing her?

      Chapter Two

      Cade St. John locked the basement door behind him and pulled off his ski mask. He wiped his sleeve across his sweaty brow and combed his fingers through his hair, settling it into neat waves across his crown. Whenever it got beyond the crewcut stage, it had a tendency to curl and fan above his forehead, giving him a deceptively youthful look that belied his thirty-three years—and masked a life experience that on some days qualified him for retirement.

      Days like this one.

      Are you going to kill me, too?

      The woman’s voice and those sad, accusing eyes had struck a nerve.

      Dammit, that wasn’t supposed to have happened—taking out the chauffeur like that. No one was supposed to get hurt. This job was already unraveling from the original plan. Cade wasn’t naive. That meant he’d been too damn arrogant to think he could control this gig with a loose cannon like Jerome Smython calling the shots.

      Jerome was just a middleman with delusions of grandeur. Whoever had hired the three of them had been stupid enough or callous enough to give Jerome free rein with his temper. Maybe if Cade knew who the boss really was, he could argue his case.

      Problem was, Cade didn’t know who had hired him.

      Big problem.

      He tossed the mask onto the countertop extension that served as a kitchen table and headed straight for the half-size refrigerator. If he was in charge of this operation, he’d be wearing a ball cap and dark glasses. But then, he wasn’t in charge. He did have a few useful connections, though. He knew his way around guns and explosives, and could drive an untraceable getaway car from Manhattan to the Connecticut countryside in record time.

      “Sinjun. Hand me a beer.”

      Cade shrugged off his instinctive response to a man like Jerome Smython telling him what to do.

      Two weeks ago Jerome had come into Cade’s office at the Korosolan Embassy in New York with one very interesting proposition.

      Let’s kidnap a princess.

      Cade might possess a royal title himself, but it was no secret that his family was bankrupt. That his late father had gambled away his inheritance. That the lands they had once owned had been auctioned off to make an inroad into Bretford St. John’s accumulated debt. That Cade’s mother had found herself a wealthy Texas oilman to keep her in jewels and furs, and written off Korosol—and her son—in the process.

      So Cadence St. John, Duke of Raleigh, former army officer, acting Korosolan ambassador to the United States, accepted the lure of a one-million-dollar payoff for services rendered and signed on to Jerome’s “proposition.”

      Cade pulled out three beers, twisted off the caps and carried them into the living room, where Smython and Lenny Gratfield had made themselves comfortable on two mismatched couches. He crossed to the scarred window that overlooked the woods surrounding the abandoned house where they were hiding, and pretended an interest in the gray-green surface of the lake beyond the trees.

      But with just a shift of his eyes, he could keep an eye on the other two men by watching their reflections in the window. He took a long swig of beer to cool his throat and quietly studied them. He’d already run a background check on his two compatriots—a basic rule of survival meant knowing who you were dealing with. They were mercenaries who’d received some of the best training on the planet as former members of the Korosolan Army. He’d gone through the same training himself when he was twenty-one. But it was an old habit of his—always watching. He’d gotten himself out of sticky situations, kept himself alive more times than he could count, by simply keeping an eye on everything going on around him.

      Jerome lit one of his imported European cigarettes and kicked his feet up on the frayed ottoman that doubled as a coffee table.

      Lenny peeled the stocking cap from his shaved head and pulled out a thin black notepad. He jotted something down. Was the big guy keeping a journal? Writing a friend? Recording expenses? Cade had noticed a zenlike calm about him, a quiet sense of purpose that bore up well under Jerome’s hot-tempered actions. Fire and ice, Cade had dubbed them.

      But while Jerome’s interest in kidnapping Princess Lucia seemed to be rooted in nothing more complicated than old-fashioned greed, he couldn’t say the same for Lenny. The big guy didn’t share Jerome’s interest in fast cars and big yachts and the women they attracted. He hadn’t figured Lenny out yet. And until he did, Cade would keep an especially close eye on the man.

      Cade checked his watch. As the big hand hit the twelve, Jerome’s cell phone rang. Right on cue. He swallowed another drink of the cold, bitter brew and turned, showing a mild interest in the expected call, but wishing he had an extension to eavesdrop on.

      Mr. Fire of the hot temper and smoky stench waited for the second ring before picking up. “Three o’clock,” he said. “I like punctuality.” His thick chest shook as he laughed at his own clever greeting, and Cade wondered if the caller found Jerome as amusing as Jerome did. СКАЧАТЬ