[Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments (3 page)

Burke Giraudeau, heir to the throne of the principality of Montacroix and Chantal's half brother, shook his head in self-disgust. "It was my own fault," he muttered. "I never should have given you that damn challenge."

"Ah, but you did, brother dear," she said silkily, going up on her toes to brush her lips against his cheek. "I believe it's a case of being hoisted with your own petard." Her eyes were brimming with laughter. "Will it make you feel any better if I give some of the credit for my victory to my teacher?"

"Since I taught you everything you know about fencing, I suppose it might ease some of the pain."

There was something strange about Burke today, Chantal mused. He seemed distracted. Although she hated to admit it, his preoccupation had probably contributed to her victory, the first she'd ever scored against him.

"Anything to make my big brother happy."

"Anything?" he asked as he returned his foil to its place on the wall.

Chantal sighed as comprehension dawned. They'd been through this more times than she could count. "You're still insisting that I take some of Papa's security force with me to America."

Burke dragged his long fingers through his thick, dark hair. "I'm worried about you."

"So am I."

"Really?"

He looked so hopeful that Chantal experienced a twinge of guilt for teasing him. "I'm worried that I'm becoming horribly accident-prone."

"If they
were
accidents. Chantal, if those skiers hadn't been there…"

"But they were. And a woman could do worse than to get rescued by the entire Swiss ski team."

"You don't take anything seriously," he complained. "Here I am concerned for your safety, and all you can do is laugh at me. I'm beginning to wish the idea of this damn cultural exchange had never come up."

"But you were the one who said it would be good for me to go away."

"Perhaps I've changed my mind. If anything happens to you over there, I'd never forgive myself for convincing you to accept the president's offer."

Chantal loved Burke more than anyone in the world. Through the years he'd been her rock, her source of strength. She'd confided in Burke all her youthful hopes, as well as her fears. And it was Burke, alone, who knew her secret pain.

She crossed the room and put her hand on his arm. "But you were right, as you always are. Honestly, brother dear, as much as I adore you, there are times when it gets a little tiring to live with such a perfect person."

Burke felt the coiled tension slowly leaving his body. She'd always been able to dispel his dark, introspective moods, even as a Gypsy-eyed infant. The first time she'd reached out of the antique oak cradle and grasped his finger in her tiny but surprisingly strong fist, he'd fallen in love with her.

He would have had to have been deaf not to hear the pain edging her teasing words. Cupping her chin in his fingers, Burke lifted her gaze to his. "So it still hurts,
chérie
? Even now?"

Chantal could feel traitorous tears stinging her eyelids. Furious that she could experience such raw pain after all this time and determined not to let such destructive feelings get the best of her, she blinked them away.

Knowing she wasn't fooling her brother for a minute, Chantal nevertheless forced a smile. "Only when I laugh."

2

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Her plane was late. Not surprising, but irritating nonetheless. Although Caine had never considered himself a superstitious man, he took the fact that he'd been forced to cool his heels at Washington National Airport for the past hour as an ominous sign. That, along with the gray hair he'd discovered this morning, did nothing to improve his mood.

"You realize," Drew Tremayne offered as they waited for the Air France jet to land, "that the way this assignment is starting out, things can only get better."

Caine thought about the file locked in his top desk drawer, the file documenting the past twenty-nine years of Chantal Giraudeau's decidedly untranquil life. "If even half the stories about the princess are true," he countered, "I'll be lucky if I haven't turned entirely gray by the end of Her Highness's royal tour."

"It would have been a lot easier on everyone if she had agreed to overt security."

Caine grunted his assent. The first time he'd read through the papers detailing the various alleged accidents, he had shrugged them off as coincidences. The second time, a familiar feeling had made the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The third time through the file, he reluctantly came to share his chief executive's feelings. Someone out there was attempting to harm Montacroix's flamboyant princess.

As always, the terminal, which had once been criticized for being too large, was filled beyond capacity. Conversations in a myriad of languages filled the air. Diplomats complained about increased security measures while babies cried and children fussed, wiggling impatiently on molded plastic seats, their mothers alternately bribing them with ice cream and threatening them with corporal punishment.

Harried-looking businessmen staked claim to the banks of pay telephones along the walls and barked orders into the mouthpieces. Boisterous groups of teenagers—obviously civics classes from around the country, excited to be visiting the nation's capital—added to the din.

As Caine paced the floor, drinking bitter vending machine coffee he didn't want and watching out the window for the arrival of Chantal's flight from Paris, he realized that eighteen months of traveling with the president on Air Force One had spoiled him. The idea of spending the next three weeks in crowded terminals, crammed like sardines into the flying cattle cars that typified commercial airliners these days, was less than appealing.

The first thing Chantal did upon her arrival at Washington National Airport was to thank God the plane had landed safely. Although its downtown location was undoubtedly convenient—her tour book informed her that it was a mere three miles to the White House—she couldn't help questioning the wisdom of putting a major international airport in such a densely populated area. As they'd flown over that last bridge, she'd almost been able to see right into the commuters' cars. Still, it was a most attractive site, she decided, admiring the dark green riverbanks fringed with graceful willows.

As she stood up and prepared to leave the plane, she smiled at the bearded man seated across the aisle, one row behind her own first-class seat. He had been studying her surreptitiously for much of the overseas flight, but accustomed to such behavior, Chantal was not overly annoyed. On the contrary, she was extremely grateful that he hadn't intruded on her privacy.

After exchanging ebullient farewells with the flight crew, who professed to be unanimously thrilled to have the famous, or infamous, Princess Chantal on board, she gathered up her belongings and made her way to the cabin door.

It would have been impossible to miss her. Clad in slender black flannel pants and a black cashmere turtleneck topped by a flowing yellow-gold wool cape, Chantal entered the terminal like Napoleon entering Berlin. All that was missing, Caine mused, was a uniformed honor guard and a flare of trumpets.

Drew whistled under his breath. "That is one good-looking woman."

"She also makes one helluva target," Caine complained. "I suppose it would have been too much to expect her to arrive in something a bit less flamboyant."

"That lady could make a burlap bag look good," Drew offered, standing up a little straighter.

Both men watched as Chantal strode briskly across the concourse, her dark eyes roving the terminal, inspecting then dismissing one man after another. More than one scrutinized and discarded male looked as though he'd give anything to be the person Chantal was looking for, including a summarily dismissed businessman who went so far as to move directly in front of her, as if hoping to change her mind.

Without breaking stride, Chantal flashed him an apologetic smile and edged to her right, easily making her way around him to stop directly in front of Caine.

"Mr. O'Bannion," she greeted him with a slight nod as she held out her hand. A brilliant canary-yellow diamond held claim to her ring finger; a small silver band circled her pinkie. "I'm sorry my plane was late." Their hands met in a brief, cordial, businesslike greeting.

"There must be two hundred men dressed in identical gray suits in this terminal," Caine said. "How did you know which one was here to meet you?"

"The president described your scowl perfectly."

Caine was irritated to know that he'd allowed his feelings to show. "That bad, huh?"

"Not really." There was something about this man—the hardness of his gunmetal-gray eyes, perhaps, or the sense of tautly leashed power surrounding him—that had Chantal feeling uncomfortably vulnerable…yet strangely safe at the same time. "I lied."

Caine's only response was an arched brow.

"The president didn't mention your scowl. But he did send my father your photograph along with a long letter stating all your qualifications," she explained. "I believe he wanted to assure Papa that you were a properly serious deputy under secretary of state who would prove a respectable chaperon for my tour."

"I wouldn't think a woman of your vast experience would require a chaperon, Princess."

It would have been impossible to miss the disdain on his face. Obviously, the man had already made up his mind about her, preferring gossip to fact. Well, she decided, if he was expecting the rich, spoiled princess of the tabloids, that's precisely what he'd get.

"You're quite right, Mr. O'Bannion," she said, giving him a calculating smile totally devoid of warmth. "I don't need a chaperon nearly as badly as I need someone to retrieve my luggage." She reached into her black leather clutch, extracted a stack of bright blue cardboard tags and held them out to him. "I assume that's to be your job?" she asked in a haughty tone that one of her ancestors might have used on a recalcitrant footman.

The flare of anger in Caine's eyes would have made a lesser woman flinch. Chantal held her ground, refusing to be intimidated by his blistering scrutiny.

"The limo's parked right outside in the VIP lot," he ground out as he snapped the luggage tags from her fingers. "Mr. Tremayne will be your driver while you're in this country," he said, indicating the smiling man standing beside him. "He'll get you settled in while I collect your bags."

Proper manners, drilled into Chantal by a rigid British governess who'd been with the family for two generations, were nearly her undoing. She started to thank him, then remembered that a princess—at least the type he thought her to be—need not acknowledge any effort on her behalf. "Please don't take all day," she instructed briskly. "Waiting around in limousines is such a dreadful bore."

The back-and-forth motion of his jaw indicated Caine was grinding his teeth. "I'll try not to dawdle, Your Highness."

"See that you don't."

As she walked away, Drew following on her heels, Caine could have sworn he saw an invisible crown perched atop her sleek sable head. Muttering a particularly virulent curse, he headed toward the baggage claim area, deciding that he'd take a dozen crazed would-be assassins over one snotty princess any day.

At least the driver was friendly, Chantal considered. Although his manner had been properly polite, his eyes had smiled at her in a way that almost made up for Caine O'Bannion's rudeness. Alone in the back seat of the State Department limousine, she thought about her reasons for coming to America. Burke had been the one who insisted all she needed to lift her spirits was some time away from Montacroix. An opportunity for a new lease on life. After giving the matter serious consideration, Chantal had agreed that a change of scenery might just do her some good.

The trick had been to find a place that held no painful memories, something easier said than done. Then the letter had come inviting Montacroix to take part in a cultural exchange program.

The offer, along with an opportunity to raise much-needed funds for the world's underprivileged children, had seemed the answer to a prayer. During the six months that she'd prepared for the exhibit, selecting works from remarkably talented yet still obscure European artists, along with the appealingly primitive artwork of the children, she'd managed to go hours, sometimes even days at a time, without dwelling on the past. By the time she'd boarded the Air France jet today, she'd felt as if she were standing on the brink of a bright new life.

And then she'd run smack into Caine O'Bannion and that cold, hard look of disdain she remembered all too well. Her husband had perfected that look, wielding it with brutal efficiency. After her divorce, Chantal had thought that she'd never have to see that look directed her way again. Obviously she'd thought wrong.

"Damn," she murmured, leaning her head against the back of the glove-soft leather seat and rubbing her throbbing temples with her fingertips. "What do I do now?"

"Since your welcoming reception at the Montacroix embassy is only a few hours away and you've had a long flight, I'd suggest going straight to the hotel for a nap," a deep voice beside her offered.

Lost in introspection, Chantal had failed to notice Caine's arrival. Now, as she lowered her hands to her lap, she reminded herself that it was important—vital—that she remain calm.