[Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments (10 page)

"Chantal?"

"Oh, please, let us not waste time with foolish games. Not when Chantal is in such grave danger." Her voice was calm, but Caine could detect an undercurrent of fear.

"Look, Princess—"

"Please, call me Noel," she interjected.

"The thing is, I have no idea who or what you're talking about. Besides which, I'm a little busy right now. If you really want to talk, I'll have to get back to you, okay?"

"But…" Her voice drifted off. "I see," she said thoughtfully. "That is very clever, Mr. O'Bannion. I should have realized that you would want to confirm that I am who I say I am before talking with me. Papa says the president assured him that you're exemplary at your job."

Instinct, along with the mention of the president, told Caine that this woman was exactly who she said she was. Experience kept him cautious.

"I'll call you when I have more time to talk."

"Of course," she agreed smoothly. "I'll be waiting for your call, Mr. O'Bannion."

Caine hung up, exchanged a look with Drew as he counted to ten, then dialed the private number he'd been given upon accepting this assignment.

Noel Giraudeau answered on the first ring. "You're very prompt, and cautious. You've no idea how that eases my mind, Mr. O'Bannion."

Her voice was a great deal like her sister's, but more restrained, more soothing. From the file photos, Caine had deduced that pretty, ice-blond Noel was cool to Chantal's hot.

"I'm glad to hear that," he said sincerely. "Is that what you were calling for? To check me out?"

"Gracious, no." She sounded flustered. "You come highly recommended. I wouldn't think—"

"Then why did you call?"

"To beg you to stop Chantal from going to Philadelphia tomorrow morning."

"You of all people must know that it's difficult to get your sister to do anything she doesn't want to do," Caine pointed out. "And of all the cities on the tour, she's looking forward to Philadelphia the most."

He didn't bother to add his irritation about her sudden, last minute decision this afternoon to stay at the home of an old friend. The hotel they'd booked was secured; he and Drew had seen to that. Her friend's house, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity. And that alone made it dangerous.

"I am aware of that, Mr. O'Bannion. But you must stop her just the same."

"No disrespect intended, Princess, but why?"

"Because they are going to make another attempt on her life!" This time she didn't try to conceal the fear that had a grip on her throat. "In Philadelphia. And Mr. O'Bannion, I'm terrified that this time they'll succeed."

She'd definitely captured his interest. Caine took a pad of paper from the desk drawer, a silver pen from his pocket. "Okay," he said in a calm, authoritative voice, "why don't you calm down and start at the beginning."

6

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"So tell me, Princess," Caine said, "what makes you believe your sister's in danger?"

"If she weren't in danger," Noel Giraudeau replied calmly over the long-distance telephone lines, "you wouldn't be sleeping in the next room. By the way, Mr. O'Bannion, do you carry a gun?"

Caine wondered if she was one of those people who thought that the bad guys obediently put down their weapons the moment you flashed your ID. "It goes with the territory, Princess. Now about your sister—"

"Have you ever had to shoot anyone with that gun?"

"Princess—"

"Noel," she reminded him. "And I'd really like to know, Mr. O'Bannion."

If he'd had any questions about this woman's identity in the beginning, Caine no longer harbored a single doubt. Her tone of voice was vastly familiar—her quiet self-assurance brooked no argument. It was an order. Softly spoken but couched in stone. Deciding that he'd only draw the conversation out longer by refusing to answer, Caine considered that if one princess was proving troublesome, two were a royal pain in the neck.

"The maniac who tried to kill the president didn't walk away."

There was a short, significant silence as Noel considered his words. "Good," she said finally. "I'm glad to know that you've been tested." Her tone became grave. "Because someone may die before all this is over, Mr. O'Bannion. And I don't want it to be my sister."

"If you want me to protect her, perhaps you'd better fill me in on what you know," he suggested with more patience than he was currently feeling.

"Of course. But first, what do you know about my grandfather?"

"Not a thing."

"I thought not. The summer of his twenty-first year, Phillipe Giraudeau, my grandfather, went on holiday in Aries after his graduation from Cambridge. The trip was a gift from his father."

"I see," Caine murmured, wondering just how long this little family saga was going to drag on.

"It was during this holiday that he fell instantly and passionately in love with a Gypsy flamenco dancer. Unfortunately, his father, Prince Leon, did not feel a flamenco dancer was an appropriate wife for the future regent of Montacroix."

"I suppose that's not so surprising."

"I suppose not," Noel agreed. "What my great-grandfather hadn't counted on was Phillipe marrying Katia in Spain without his blessing. Great-grandfather Leon was furious. He threatened to disinherit Phillipe."

It crossed Caine's mind that Phillipe may have been the first Giraudeau to have taken what his family considered a highly unsuitable bride, but as Chantal's own father had proved, he was not to be the last.

"Which, of course, he couldn't do because of the male line of ascendancy," he said.

"That's right. So you have studied our country's history, after all."

"A bit. And as delightful a love story as this is, Noel, I still can't see what it has to do with Chantal."

"I'm getting to that," she replied with equanimity. "Of course, once my father was born, Great-grandfather Leon welcomed the young couple back with open arms. So Montacroix's future was assured and Leon stepped down, allowing Phillipe to take his rightful place on the throne, an act that caused not a little dissension."

"Oh?"

"You see, my Grandmother Katia had been born with the gift of second sight. This caused some of her detractors to accuse her of being a witch. Her husband and children, however, learned to trust in her uncanny intuition."

Comprehension slowly dawned. "Intuition that has been passed down to her granddaughter."

"The president assured my father that you were very bright, Mr. O'Bannion. I do hope that you also believe— even a little—in clairvoyance." Her tone rose a little at the end, turning her softly spoken statement into a question.

Although he would be the last person to describe himself as a fanciful man, through the years certain inexplicable incidents had led Caine to believe that there were forces in the universe that science had not yet begun to explain.

Like the woman who walked into the Washington, D. C., police station five years ago claiming to have information concerning the kidnapping of a prominent British diplomat's two-year-old boy. The case had driven the cops crazy for years; there'd been no clues and every lead they had managed to uncover had resulted in yet another dead end.

Yet Margaret Reed, who'd only moved to the city a month prior to her visit to the department, and who alleged never to have heard about the kidnapping had described the child in startlingly accurate detail. She'd also given them a description of the kidnapper—a former pediatrics nurse at D.C. General Hospital—and an address of a red brick house where they could be found.

The woman was unable to name the city, and it seemed that every city and town in America possessed an Oak Street, so it took a while to locate the house. But five days later, Phoenix police, responding to a request from the Washington department, called to say they'd found the now seven-year-old child watching television inside a red brick house that was identical in every way to the one Mrs. Reed had described.

If that hadn't made Caine a believer, his own experience would have. In the predawn hours of the day of the assassination attempt against the president, he'd awakened in a cold sweat, a nightmare still reverberating in his head. The face of the man holding the gun was still vivid in his mind's eye as he reported for work. And later, when he saw that same unforgettable face in the crowd lining the sidewalk outside the hotel where the president was to speak, Caine didn't hesitate to push the president out of the way even as he pulled his own revolver. As he lay in Walter Reed hospital, waiting impatiently for his wound to heal, Caine realized that his early-morning dream had prevented the country from suffering a horribly painful tragedy.

"I like to think of myself as open-minded," he answered finally.

"You've no idea how happy I am to hear that," she said. "I had a dream last night, Mr. O'Bannion. A dream about Chantal. She was lying in the dark, surrounded by clouds of thick, dark smoke. I could hear her calling out to me, and I tried to save her, but a wall of flames kept me from reaching her."

Her words, spoken with a quiet intensity, had the effect of making the hair on his arms stand on end. "How do you know it was Philadelphia?"

"Because, over her cries and the roar of the flames, I could hear a bell tolling. That's how I found her in the first place, you see, by following the sound of the bell."

"The Liberty Bell."

"I saw it, famous crack and all." This time her softly modulated voice trembled a bit at the edges. "Chantal must not go to Philadelphia, Mr. O'Bannion. You must stop her."

Once again Caine considered exactly how difficult it was to talk Chantal out of anything. "I'll do my best."

Her relief was evident. "Thank you, Mr. O'Bannion. We all are very grateful to you."

As he replaced the receiver on its cradle, it crossed Caine's mind that the family would have a lot more to be thankful for if Chantal returned safe and sound to Montacroix eleven days from now.

Reminding himself that he had a busy day ahead, he attempted to get some sleep, but instead he kept staring at the ceiling, seeing Chantal's exquisite face, surrounded by flames, in the plaster swirls overhead.

Chantal had always slept well in hotel rooms. This trip, however, was proving different. She tossed and turned, finding sleep to be elusive as the past ten days with Caine kept running through her mind over and over, like scenes from an all-night movie.

She couldn't stop thinking about him. At first light, during their early-morning runs, she'd noticed how their strides were so perfectly matched and couldn't help wondering if everything between them would be such a close and perfect fit.

During the long and wearying days, as she extolled the genius of the various artists represented in the exhibit, she'd make the mistake of glancing across the room and her gaze would collide with his—steady and watchful. Invariably, their eyes would hold, and in that suspended moment there would be a flash of heat so brilliant, so warm, that she was amazed they hadn't set the museum on fire from spontaneous combustion.

After that initial argument over where she would be eating her evening meal, he'd done his best to guide her to some wonderfully authentic ethnic restaurants, but although she was certain that the food was every bit as delicious as promised, she hadn't tasted a bite. All her attention had been riveted on Caine, on the smallest of details, like the lines fanning outward from his eyes, or the cleft splitting his chin, or the way his long, dark fingers curved around the handle of his coffee cup.

Afterward, driving back to the hotel in the limousine, Chantal would sit beside him, drinking in a dark, masculine scent that owed nothing to shaving lotions or expensive colognes but was his alone, and wonder what his lips would taste like on hers. How those strong, capable hands would feel on her body…

Damn, she thought, sitting up to punch the plump goose-down pillow into a more acceptable shape, he had no right to take over her mind this way. She still couldn't believe the rash way she'd thrown herself at the man. Now that the seductive moment had passed, Chantal could admit to being grateful that he'd rejected her. Making love with Caine would have created problems she was not prepared to deal with.

If it had merely been a physical attraction, Chantal would have had no trouble handling it; she had, after all, been practicing self-denial for most of her life without any great difficulty. She'd simply thrown her passions into her work, experimenting with new styles, new textures, playing with pen and ink, chalk, flirting with misty, dreamy watercolors for a time before finally returning to her first love—oils.

Before coming to America, her mind had been filled with new ideas, and had it not been for this tour, she probably would have locked herself in her studio, working feverishly around the clock, ignoring her family's insistence that she stop to eat, until all her visions were safely captured on canvas. That was the way she worked. Unrepentantly impulsive, she'd always painted in mad dashes as inspiration struck.

Logical Burke, on the other hand, would mull over a problem for as long as it took, looking at all sides before acting. And Noel, despite her amazing gift of clairvoyance and her romantic streak, was as practical and unfrivolous as a Montacroix farm wife.