[Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments (24 page)

They tore around one last turn before pulling up a curving flagstone driveway, stopping in front of a six-car garage. Chantal stared, entranced.

Viewing the stone, old-world manor house, situated in a dreamlike setting among cypress and pine trees and a eucalyptus grove, was like going back in time to the elegance and and grace of the turn of the century. There were chimneys everywhere and formal gardens with flowing fountains. Giant marble sculptures flanked the massive front doors.

"It's not at all the home I would have expected you to own," she said as she entered the two-story, Italian-tiled entry.

"Oh? And what were you expecting?"

She shrugged as her wondering eyes took in the museum-quality sixteenth-century tapestry chair, the Sevres cachepots that held superb arrangements of freshly cut hothouse flowers, and a large, gilt-framed painting she recognized as Picasso's
Harlequin with a Glass
.

"I don't know. Something sleek and modern. All redwood and windows, I suppose," she murmured. "But this…" Her voice drifted off as she tried to recall what Stephan's house reminded her of. "Why, it reminds me of the palace on Lake Losange," she said as recognition dawned.

"That's very clever of you, Chantal," Stephan said, leading her into a vast formal salon. The enormous crystal chandelier sent sparkling rainbows winking over the Empire furniture and silk-draped walls covered with priceless paintings. A pair of fencing foils hung on one wall, their hilts adorned with precious jewels. "I had the architect design a facsimile of the palace, although unfortunately, with California property values being what they are, I was forced to decrease the scale."

His hand rested lightly on her back, and he was smiling down at her. Yet there was an edge to his voice she had never heard before. A hint of restrained anger that caused a frisson of fear to skim up her spine.

"I think I'd better call Caine now."

"Why don't we have a drink first." He walked over to where a bottle of champagne was chilling in a silver bucket.

"I'd rather call Caine." The sickly sweet smell of lilies in a Tiffany Favrile glass vase was beginning to make her head ache.

There was a slight pop as he pulled the cork from the bottle. As she watched, he poured the golden effervescent wine into a pair of thin-stemmed, tulip-shaped glasses.

"I'm afraid that's impossible,
ma chère
," he said, holding one of the glasses toward her.

She heard a sound behind her and whipped around, hoping against hope that it was Caine; that she hadn't outsmarted him, after all. That he'd come to rescue her once again. When she came face-to-face with the bearded blond man she remembered all too well from Philadelphia, her blood turned cold.

"You," she whispered.

Reaching out with a gloved hand, the man traced her lips with his thumb. "So, Princess," he murmured, trailing his treacherous hand slowly down her throat, "we meet again."

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"You look a tad nervous,
ma chère
," Stephan said politely. "Are we making you uncomfortable?"

Chantal swallowed, knowing that the horrible man could feel her fear under his fingertips. "What do you think?"

He shook his head. "And here I'd always thought of myself as a superb host. Speaking of manners, may I introduce my good friend, Karl. After his little failure in Philadelphia, he's been looking forward to meeting you again. Haven't you Karl?"

"Yeah."

The man's cold blue eyes gleamed as he intimately regarded her body; his blatant perusal made her flesh crawl. His narrow face still bore the angry red scratches inflicted by her fingernails when she had struggled to fight him off.

"I don't understand," Chantal protested. "Why are you doing this, Stephan?"

He smiled at her over the rim of his champagne glass, but his eyes held no warmth. "You are an intelligent woman, Chantal. Surely you can figure it out."

"You're the one behind all my accidents?"

"I can't claim credit for them all," Stephan said. "Only the fire." He shook his head. "Personally, I felt that was the most ingenious plan of all. It would have succeeded, too, had it not been for your lover."

A violence she never would have suspected was in Stephan seemed very close to the surface. Chantal tried to concentrate on what Drew had said about Caine. His dedication to duty, his professionalism. His unwillingness to fail at any assigned task.
Oh, please, Caine
, she thought as she struggled to get hold of her whirling thoughts,
please come. Quickly
.

"What makes you think Caine is my lover?" she asked, stalling for time.

"What do you take us for, Chantal? Fools? It is obvious to anyone with eyes that O'Bannion has been sleeping with you from the beginning. Karl has become quite jealous, in fact. Haven't you, Karl?"

As his fingers trailed slowly across her shoulder blades, the blond man uttered a guttural grunt Chantal took to be an affirmative response.

"I'm quite fond of Karl," Stephan confirmed conversationally. "Despite the fact that he has one unpleasant little quirk."

"'Quirk'?"

"Idiosyncrasy," he translated the unfamiliar word. "He enjoys inflicting pain upon women."

Chantal found the implacable cruelty in Stephan's eyes every bit as disturbing as Karl's alleged perversity. "Why do you want to hurt me, Stephan?" she asked quietly. "What have I ever done to you?"

"What have you done? Why, nothing,
chérie
."

"I don't understand." She backed away from the silent Karl, relieved when he remained where he was, watching her with unblinking reptilian eyes.

Stephan reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a pack of long, dark brown cigarettes. "You know that my Aunt Clea died six months ago," he said as he lit one of the cigarettes with a thin gold lighter.

Burke's mother. "Of course. Although I'd never met her, I was sorry to hear she'd died. At the time, the news seemed to hit Burke very hard."

"She committed suicide. Hung herself with her bed sheets."

"How horrible!" Chantal wondered fleetingly if her brother had been told the truth and decided that he hadn't. She and Burke shared everything; he would not have kept such disturbing news to himself.

Stephan exhaled slowly, eyeing her through a veil of thick blue smoke. "Her father was the one who discovered her, during his monthly visit to the sanitarium. Did you know that he never stopped visiting her? For thirty-five years he made that unhappy trek from Montacroix to Switzerland in order to visit the beloved daughter your father had locked away so he would be free to marry his American slut."

"That's not the way it happened," she protested. "Clea was mentally ill. She'd been in the sanatorium for nearly five years when Papa met my mother."

"She was unhappy," he corrected. "And who wouldn't be? Living with a man who continually degraded her by sleeping with other women. By bringing his filthy whores into the palace."

"My father did no such thing!"

"Of course he did. Which is why my aunt had no choice but to end his worthless life."

"She tried to kill him?"

"He deserved it. Unfortunately, she failed and as a re was locked away so the truth could never get out."

"She was insane," Chantal repeated firmly.

"She was wronged!" Stephan roared, jabbing the cigarette into a crystal ashtray. Reaching into the drawer again, he pulled put a pistol and pointed it at her. "Eduard Giraudeau made my aunt suffer for years. He has made her family suffer. He is responsible for the death of an innocent, lovely woman. And now Clea's grieving father wants the bastard Giraudeau to know exactly how it feels to lose a daughter."

She remembered her father telling her that Clea's own mother had committed suicide in a mental institution, that insanity ran in the family. A fact that was all too apparent as Stephan approached her, undisguised malice glittering in his eyes.

"How can you talk this way? We have always been such good friends, Stephan." She put her hand out, schooling her voice to a calm, reassuring tone. "More than friends. When I was a young girl, I loved you madly." Perhaps "madly" wasn't the proper word, under the circumstance, she decided. "Wildly."

He shook his head. "You say you love me. But you sleep with O'Bannion."

Stall
, her fevered mind cried out, seizing the slim thread of opportunity. "I didn't realize that you still cared for me." Taking a chance, she reached over to put a supplicating hand on his arm. "Had I known you wanted me, Stephan, I never would have wasted my time with Caine."

She'd no sooner said his name when, as if conjured out of thin air by wishful thinking, Chantal caught a glimpse of Caine standing in the shadows of the foyer. He'd come. As she'd known all along he would.

"Dear, dear Stephan," she murmured, her voice half honey, half smoke, "don't you know that a woman never forgets her first love?" She was grateful for her youthful acting experience as she watched Stephan's eyes momentarily glaze over. He was obviously not immune to her gently stroking fingers. "Please, darling. Send Karl away so that we can be alone, just the two of us."

The spell snapped as quickly as it had been spun. "You're attempting to take my mind off what I must do," Stephan said. Although his eyes had cleared somewhat, Chantal could still see the madness glittering in their swirling depths. "You are no better than your mother, using your body to gain favors."

"That's not what I was doing," she protested.

"Of course it was. And it will not work. But don't worry, Princess," he said, caressing her cheek with the cold blue steel muzzle of the gun. "Karl and I will make certain that your last few hours are enjoyable."

The idea of either man touching Chantal made Caine's mind explode with fury. He wanted to kill them both, here and now, but unfortunately, Chantal was in the way. As if she'd read his mind, Chantal suddenly appeared to faint, folding bonelessly to the floor.

"What the hell?" Stephan burst out.

As the two men bent over her, Caine rushed into the room, bringing his revolver down toward the base of Stephan's skull. It might have been instinct, or perhaps he'd felt the faint whoosh of air, but Stephan ducked and rolled out of the way. Caine's blow connected with his shoulder, however, and the force dislodged the pistol, sending it skittering across the black marble flooring.

As Stephan reached for the gun, Chantal came alive. Jumping up and grabbing the gilded foil from the wall, she pointed it toward him. "Don't you dare move, Stephan," she warned softly, "or I'll kill you."

Not to be left out, Karl had pulled his own snub-nosed revolver and was pointing it at Caine.

"It appears that we have ourselves a standoff, O'Bannion," Stephan observed. "Even if you do manage to shoot Karl before he gets you, I'll still have Chantal."

"Brave words from an unarmed man," Caine said, watching both men carefully.

"You forget, I know Chantal. You wouldn't hurt a fly, would you,
ma chère
?" He glanced over at his pistol, just out of reach. "We have a treat for you, O'Bannion. You're going to get to watch your slut perform first with me and then with Karl. And when we're through with her, she's going to watch you die."

As he grabbed for his weapon, Chantal lunged, plunging the sharp tip of the foil into the back of his hand. At the unexpected pain, Stephan screamed, distracting Karl just long enough for Caine to kick the gun out of his hand.

Then Caine fell on the blond man and began using his hands with startling efficiency. This was the man who'd tried to kill Chantal. The man who'd left her in that smoked-filled house to die. Blind with rage, he drove his fists into the man's face again and again until he lay unconscious.

"Caine! Caine! Please stop. You're going to kill him!"

Through the roaring in his ears, he heard Chantal's frantic voice. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he turned around. She was standing there, her foil pressed against Stephan's chest, her eyes wide with fright.

"You want to be next?" he asked Stephan, picking up both guns from the floor as he walked over to where the man lay.

"You may think you've won, O'Bannion, but you haven't. Fate has decreed that I kill the bastard princess, and I will not fail."

"Don't look now, pal, but your plan's gone down the drain," Caine said, uncurling Chantal's rigid fingers from the foil.

"Destiny will not be denied!" Stephan shouted. "The princess must die in retaliation for Princess Clea's death."

"He really is insane," she said faintly as Stephan let loose with a long, incoherent tirade against her family.

"Mad as a hatter."

"Drew was right." Her smile, as she looked up at him, only wobbled slightly. "You are a hero. You saved my life."

He brushed his fingertips down her cheek. "Then we're even. Because you saved mine."