A Royal Engagement: The Storm WithinThe Reluctant Queen Read online

  ‘My name is Grace Hunter and I have a letter of introduction from Professor…’ Her words shrivelled up in a throat suddenly drier than the fountain outside, and it might very well have been clogged with stranded sea nymphs and beached dolphins.

  Where was the crotchety old hermit she’d been expecting? The modern-day Robinson Crusoe complete with beard and tattered clothes? Someone who matched the air of neglect that shrouded the rest of this barren island and its crumbling castle? But there was nothing tattered about the man who stood looking out of the window across the room from her now, nothing neglected.

  ‘…Rousseau.’

  The name fell heavily into the empty space between them. He stood still as a statue, his hands clasped behind his stiff back, clad in a suit tailored so superbly to his tall, lean body it almost looked part of him.

  But it was his profile that captured her attention, and the clear similarities to his forebears lining the portrait gallery. His strong nose and resolute jaw, and the unmistakable mark of the Counts of Volta, the clearly defined dark hairline that intruded in sharp points at his temples. And he was every bit as powerfully beautiful as those who had gone before. Which made no sense at all…

  She swallowed. ‘Count Volta?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ACROSS the room she saw the flare of his nostrils. She heard his intake of air. She was even convinced she saw the grind of his jaw as he stared seemingly fixedly through the window. And then he turned, and the truth of his scars, the horror of his injuries, confronted her full-on.

  A jagged line ripped down one side of his face from the corner of his eye through his jaw and down his neck, where it thankfully disappeared under the high collar of his jacket.

  She gasped. She’d seen scars before. She’d witnessed the results of man’s inhumanity to man during a year where youthful idealism had sent her to one of the world’s hell-holes and spat her out at the end, cynical and dispirited. She’d thought she’d seen it all. And she’d seen worse. Much worse. And yet the sheer inequality of this man’s scars—that one side of his face would be so utterly perfect and the other so tragically scored by scars—it seemed so wrong.

  His eyes narrowed, glinting like water on marble. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?’

  Chastened, she blinked and scrabbled for the pocket of her briefcase and the letter from the Professor she’d come armed with. ‘Of course. Count Volta, Professor Rousseau apparently tried several times to contact you last night to tell you that she couldn’t make it.’ She pulled the envelope free and crossed the floor to hand it to him.

  He looked down at the letter in her hand as if it was a poisoned chalice. ‘You were not invited here.’

  ‘Professor Rousseau’s letter will, I’m sure, explain everything.’

  ‘You are not welcome.’ He turned back to the window, putting his back to her. ‘Bruno will arrange for your immediate return to the mainland.’

  His decision was so abrupt—so unjust!—that for a moment she felt the wind knocked out of her sails. He was dismissing her? Sending her away? Denying her the opportunity of working on the most important discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls for no reason?

  No way! ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ The words burst from her lips before she’d had a chance to think, a chance to stop them. ‘I am here to do a job and I will not leave until it is done.’

  He spun round and once again she was confronted with the two sides of him—each side of his face so different, each side compelling viewing, the masculinely perfect and the dreadfully scarred. Beauty and the beast, it occurred to her, co-existing under the one skin.

  ‘Did you hear me? I said Bruno will arrange for your return.’

  It was all she could do not to stamp her foot. ‘And I said I’m not leaving!

  One arm swept in a wide arc. ‘I have no dealings with you. My arrangement was with Professor Rousseau.’

  ‘No. According to the documents, your arrangement was with her business, Archival Survival. When the Professor was unable to come, she contracted me.’

  He grunted, no way about to concede the point. ‘So what is her excuse for being unable to fulfil her contractual obligations herself?’

  ‘If you’d read this letter you’d know. Her mother is in hospital after suffering a major stroke and she’s rushed to be with her while she clings to life. Admittedly, as excuses go, that’s pretty thin. Clearly it’s more about inconveniencing you.’

  If his eyes were lasers, she figured, with the heated glare he gave her she’d be wearing holes right now, and she wondered if she’d overstepped the mark. She’d grown up in a family that prided itself on being straight-talking. Over the years she’d learned to curb that trait while in civilised company. The Count, she’d already decided, for all his flash clothes and a portrait gallery full of titled ancestors, didn’t qualify.

  ‘I expected an expert. I do not intend spending a week babysitting someone’s apprentice.’

  She sucked in air, hating the fact it was tinged with a hint of sandalwood and spice, with undertones of something else altogether more musky, hating the possibility that it might come from him, hating the possibility that there might be something about him she approved of when the rest of him was so damned objectionable.

  But that was still okay, she figured, because finding something she might possibly like only made her more resentful towards him. ‘Seeing you refuse to read this letter, where all the facts are set out in black and white, perhaps I should spell it out for you? I have a Masters in Fine Arts from Melbourne University and a PhD in Antiquities from Oxford, where my thesis was on the preservation and conservation of ancient texts and the challenge of discerning fraud where it was perpetrated centuries ago. So if there’s an apprentice on this island right now, I don’t think it’s me. Does that make you feel more comfortable?’

  He arched one critical eyebrow high. ‘You look barely out of high school.’

  ‘I’m twenty-eight years old. But don’t take my word for it. Perhaps you’d like to check my passport?’

  Dust motes danced on the slanted sunlit air between them, oblivious of the tension—dust motes that disappeared with those slanting rays as the sun was swallowed up by a cloud and the room darkened. She resisted the urge to shiver, resisted that damned illogical brain cell that suggested there was some connection between the Count’s dark looks and the weather. And instead she decided that his momentary silence meant assent.

  ‘And so right now I’d like to get to work. After all, I believe you want this text taken off your hands as soon as possible, and we’ve already wasted enough time, don’t you agree? Perhaps you could arrange someone to show me to the documents so I might get started?’

  He scowled as he took the letter from her hands then, scanning its contents, finding everything was as she said and finding nothing to arm him with the ammunition to demand she leave.

  He wanted her gone.

  He didn’t want women around the place. Not young women, and definitely not halfway to pretty. He had his fix of women once a month, when the launch brought across a local village woman. He never asked her name; she never offered it. Each time she would just wait for him naked in the guest-suite bed, then throw back the covers and close her eyes…

  And afterwards the launch would take her back to her village, considerably better off than before she had made the crossing.

  No, Alessandro had no need for women.

  He shrugged and tossed the letter down on his wide desk. What did it matter what the letter said or didn’t say? ‘I said you are not welcome here, Ms Hunter.’

  She stiffened to stone right where she stood, her mouth pursing. ‘Dr Hunter, actually. And I will ensure my stay is as brief as possible. I have no desire to stay any longer than necessary where I am not welcome, I can assure you.’

  He sniffed at the correction as he regarded her solemnly. She looked like a woman who had no desires, period. Sure, she was younger than the dried-up Professor, but
with her scraped-back hair and that pursed mouth, and in khaki pants and T-shirt, it wasn’t as if she was anything like the women who had once graced his arm and his bed.

  God knew, another twenty years or so of staring into her desiccated papers and she’d probably be as dried up and crusty as the Professor. Maybe he had nothing to worry about.

  And she was right about one thing: he did want the find off his hands as quickly as possible. If the Professor proved unable to do it personally because of her ailing mother someone else would have to be found, all of it spelling delay after delay.

  He ground his teeth together. The longer he waited, the more likely news of the discovery would filter out. The last thing he wanted was the media sniffing around again, turning the place into some kind of fish tank.

  ‘Then make your assessment as brief as possible and make us all happy by leaving.’ He turned back to gaze out of the window again, knowing she would do exactly that. People always ran from him. And then he frowned, remembering the way her big blue eyes had stared at him…

  Yes, she’d been shocked. But where was the revulsion? Where was the pity? Instead she’d examined him as one might regard some kind of science project.

  And the snarling beast inside him didn’t like that notion any better.

  ‘I’d like to see the book now.’

  He turned back, surprised she hadn’t changed her mind and taken the opportunity to flee while his back was turned. She was surprisingly feisty, this one, holding her ground when many men twice her age and size would have gone running for the hills. Did she want the opportunity of examining and documenting this discovery so much that she had somehow summoned the will to fight for it? Or was she always this feisty?

  Her eyes held his, bright and blue and cold as ice. Once women had looked at him with lust and desire. But that was long ago. There was no lust in Ms Hunter’s eyes, no desire—or at least not for him. But there was something else he read in them. The yearning to become famous? Probably. This discovery, if it proved authentic, would probably make a young conservator’s career.

  ‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,’ he said.

  She blinked—a fan of black lashes against her peaches and cream complexion. And it occurred to him that it was almost a shame to condemn such translucent skin to the Professor’s wrinkled fate. ‘Pardon?’

  A rap on the door and the reappearance of Bruno curtailed any response. ‘The boat wishes to leave,’ he grunted. ‘Are you finished with the girl?’

  And with the question came Alessandro’s first smile of the day. In one way he was—though not the way his valet was clearly expecting. He’d agreed she could stay, and this meeting was now over. He’d planned to have Bruno take her to the book. He’d need to have little more to do with her. But was he finished with her?

  Maybe not.

  What would it take to make her run? What would it take to shake up those frosty blue eyes and strip off that sterile scientific cladding she wrapped herself so tightly in and see what really lay beneath? Besides, if he admitted the truth, he could do with a little entertainment. The woman might provide some mild amusement. She was only here for a few days. What possible harm could it do?

  ‘No, I’m not finished with our charming guest, Bruno.’ And this time he directed his words at her. ‘In fact, I do believe I’ve scarcely begun. Come, Dr Hunter, and I’ll show you to your precious documents.’

  She left her luggage and briefcase where he directed, following him through a tangle of passageways, down wooden stairs that shifted and creaked under their footfall, and then down again—stone steps this time, that were worn into hollows by the feet of generations gone before—until she was sure they must be well below ground level, and the walls were lined with rock. And finally he stopped before a door that seemed carved from the stone itself.

  He tugged on an iron ring set into the stone. ‘Are you scared of the dark, Dr Hunter?’ he asked over his shoulder, and she got the distinct impression he would love it if she were.

  ‘No. That’s never been a particular phobia of mine.’

  ‘How fortunate,’ he said, sounding as if he thought it was anything but. Then the door shifted open and she got a hint of what was to come—a low, dark passageway that sloped down through the rock. When he turned to her the crooked smile she’d seen in his office was back. ‘Every castle should have at least one secret tunnel, don’t you think?’

  ‘I would have to say it’s practically de rigueur, Count Volta.’

  His smile slipped a little, she noted with satisfaction, almost as if she hadn’t answered the way he’d expected. Tough. The fact was she was here, and with any luck she was on her way to the missing pages of the Salus Totus. Although what they were doing all the way down here…

  A slow drip came from somewhere around her, echoing in the space, and while she wished she’d at least grabbed a jacket before descending into the stone world beneath the castle, it was the book she was more worried about now.

  ‘You are taking me to the book?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But what is it doing down here?’

  ‘It was found down here.’

  ‘And you left it here?’

  His regarded her coldly, as if surprised she would question his decision. ‘The caves have guarded their treasure for centuries. Why would I move it and risk damaging such a potentially precious thing?’

  Plenty of reasons, she thought. Like the drip that echoed around the chamber, speaking of moisture that could ruin ancient texts with mould and damp. Something so ancient, even if it proved to be a forgery, should be kept where the temperature and humidity could be regulated and it would be safe from things that scuttled and foraged in the night. She didn’t expect the Count to necessarily know that, but she would have expected him to have had the sense to move the find somewhere safe.

  Inside the chamber there was just enough light to see with the door open. She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but then he pulled the door closed behind them with a crunch and the light was swallowed up in inky blackness and there was nothing for her eyes to adjust to.

  Afraid of the dark? No, she wasn’t, but neither did she like being holed up in it. Not with him. She could hear his breathing, she could damn well smell that evocative masculine scent of his, and she dared not move for fear she might brush against him in the dark. She heard the scratch of something rough, caught a hint of phosphorus and saw a spark that burst into flame atop a torch he held. The shifting yellow light threw crazy shadows against the walls, illuminating a cable running overhead with light bulbs hanging sporadically.

  ‘You couldn’t have just turned on the lights, I suppose?’

  ‘A storm last night knocked out the cable from the mainland, which is no doubt why your Professor could not contact me. Power is back on in the castle, but the caves will take longer. Don’t you like the torchlight, Ms Hunter. I find it so much more—atmospheric.’

  He had just enough accent to curl around the word, transforming it in a way that turned it somehow darkly sensual—something that put a peculiar shiver down her spine. Peculiar, because instead of the chill she’d expected it warmed her in places she didn’t like to think about. Not around him. Shadows danced on the walls of the tunnel, light flickered against the unscarred side of his face, highlighting cheekbone and forehead and that sharply defined hairline, throwing his eyes into a band of black from which only a glint of amusement escaped.

  And she could tell he was laughing at her.

  Damn him.

  ‘It’s fine, I guess, if you’re interested in atmosphere. Right now I’m more interested in getting a look at those pages.’

  He gave a mock bow in the shadowed darkness. ‘As you command,’ he said, and led the way down the tunnel. Deeper and deeper through the winding channel through the rock they walked, footsteps echoing on the dusty floor, the yellow flame of the torch flickering in the cool air, lighting the way, but never far enough to see more than a few feet at
a time. They passed other tunnels that dived away, left and right, and she wondered how you would ever find your way out if the light went out and you were alone down here. She paused to look over her shoulder at one such intersection, trying to get a glimpse of the path behind, but the darkness had swallowed up the view, along with her sense of direction, and she realised that she’d never find her way out alone.

  Great. So she had no choice but to trust a man who didn’t want her here and seemed to delight in making her uncomfortable—a man who was leading her through a maze of tunnels a Minotaur would be happy to call home with nothing but a lighted torch to find their way.

  Bad call. Did she really want to think about Minotaurs and labyrinths now, when she was down here with a man whose broad shoulders filled the width of the tunnel? Especially when she thought about what had happened to the seven youths and seven maidens from Athens who’d been thrown into the labyrinth to their doom as a tribute to the Minoan king.

  Maybe she should have brought a ball of string…

  Something clapped down hard on her shoulder—his hand—and she panicked, every instinct telling her to flee. It was only its weight that kept her anchored to the ground.

  ‘You don’t want to get lost in here,’ whispered a deep voice in her ear, his breath fanning her hair, warm in the cool tunnel air. ‘We might never find you again.’

  She turned slowly, hoping to calm her face and her rapid breathing before he could see just how much he’d frightened her, but she was fighting a losing battle on slowing her heart-rate, given what his proximity was doing to her nervous system and his scent was doing to her defences. ‘You startled me,’ she admitted, licking her lips as she looked up at him in the torchlight, struck again by the difference between one side of his face and the other—one side all strong, masculine lines and sharply defined places, the other so monstrously scarred.

  His left eye had thankfully escaped the worst, she was close enough to see, and his strong nose and wide mouth were blessedly untouched. It was as if the skin of his cheek and neck had been torn apart and rejoined in a thick, jagged line that snaked up his throat and cheek and tapered to the corner of one eye.