[Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments (14 page)

As much as he wanted her, Caine wasn't wild about being included in the long list of Chantal's various lovers. "Does that bother you?"

"Only that it's not true." Repairing the damage as much as possible, Chantal closed the compact with a click. "I believe we're expected in the parlor for Blair's famous petits fours," she said, denying him an opportunity to respond. In truth, she was not certain that her self-esteem could handle another one of Caine's polite rebuffs.

Watching her struggle to regain her composure, Caine admitted to himself that making love with Chantal Giraudeau would be easy. But falling in love with her would be, as his grandmother O'Bannion would have so shrewdly pointed out, a completely different kettle of fish.

The house was dark. Quiet. The distant rumble of thunder echoed on the horizon. Chantal lay in bed, inhaling the faint scent of lilacs in the air as she tried to untangle her feelings for Caine O'Bannion.

She hadn't been with a man—hadn't wanted to be with a man—since the day she'd finally thrown in the towel and walked out on Greg. After the devastating years she'd spent trying to survive the sham of her marriage and the pain of the inevitable divorce, Chantal had encased her heart in a thick block of ice. It was safer that way, she'd assured herself, and she'd been right.

Then she had come to America and met a man who possessed his own personal blowtorch.

There'd be no sleeping tonight. Pushing the covers aside, Chantal rose from the bed and padded barefoot to the window. She'd just started to push the draperies aside when she heard the soft, plaintive cries of a kitten coming from somewhere behind the wall. Remembering what Blair had said about secret passages, Chantal began to run her fingers over the floral wallpaper, searching for an entrance. Nothing. Not even a ripple in the smoothly applied paper. The kitten's cries increased.

It had to be here somewhere, Chantal thought, turning on the bedside lamp. Wooden angels sounding trumpets were carved on the fireplace mantel, and as Chantal traced the lines of their gowns with her fingertips, there was a slight grinding sound and the back of the fireplace slid open. "A walk-in fireplace," she murmured. "How ingenious." Ducking her head, she entered the secret doorway.

"Here, kitty," she whispered, not wanting to wake up the other members of the house at this late hour. "Come here, kitty."

The secret passage was as dark as midnight and as cold as a witch's heart. Chantal shivered and had just about made up her mind to go back for her robe and a light when she heard the frantic mewing again. "Here, baby," she called out softly as she turned a corner that took her faraway from the light and comfort of her bedroom. "Come to Chantal. Here, kitty."

Without warning, she felt something come up behind her. Something too large, too solid to be a mere kitten. When a strong hand clamped over her mouth, forcing a scream back into her throat, she began to struggle, kicking backward with her bare feet, hitting out wildly with her hands. Her fingernails scraped a bloody path down the side of her assailant's face, and she felt his hold on her ease as he spewed off a string of harsh, guttural curses.

Just when Chantal thought she might actually have a chance to escape, something rigid came crashing down on her head. A flash of lightning exploded behind her eyes. Then everything went black.

9

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Caine was huddled in the front seat of the car across the street, watching the Sherwood house.

"I hate this," he muttered.

"I don't know what you're complaining about," Drew said. "At least you were invited to dinner while your long-suffering partner was reduced to eating take-out burgers and fries."

"Anything fancier than a fast-food taco would be wasted on you," Caine countered, cringing as his partner tore open a bag of chocolate-covered raisins.

"True enough," Drew agreed with resolute good humor. "But I do thank you kindly for the petits fours."

Caine wondered if the cleaner would be able to get the chocolate frosting out of his suit-jacket pocket. "Anything for a pal. Damn, it's cold tonight." The temperature was making his shoulder ache; he rubbed it.

Drew noticed Caine's gesture. "Why don't you go back to the hotel? I don't mind pulling a little extra duty."

"I'm staying."

"Suit yourself." Drew poured them both a cup of coffee from the thermos he kept in the back seat. "Got it bad, huh?"

Caine didn't answer immediately as he took a tentative sip of the steaming, too-sweet drink. He should have known that Drew would pour half the sugar bowl into the thermos. "She's different from what I expected."

"Different good, or different bad?"

Caine considered the question. That Chantal was even more beautiful than she appeared in photos definitely lined up on the plus side of the ledger. That she was genuinely nicer and more intelligent than he'd thought were other pluses. What she was doing to his mind, however, was something he hadn't counted on. Caine decided that the unsettling feelings he'd been experiencing lately definitely belonged on the negative side. But he wasn't able to come up with any other minuses to balance out his ledger.

"Just different. You should have heard her during cocktails. The princess played that crowd like a faith healer at a tent revival. Hell, she probably collected more for her Rescue the Children Fund in ten minutes than you and I make in a year."

"Sounds as if the lady's got a future selling water purifiers if she ever decides to get out of the princess business."

"It's not a business. If you're royalty, you're royalty for life."

"And that's what's bothering you, isn't it? That when all this is over, she'll still be a princess. While you're a glorified civil servant."

"Our worlds are light-years apart."

"Did I ever tell you about my granddaddy Billy Joe Tremayne?" Drew asked, popping a handful of raisins into his mouth.

"The one who did time for shooting that federal revenuer he caught nosing around his still?"

"Nah. That was my uncle Buster Joe Tremayne. And he didn't exactly shoot him. He just winged his hat a little."

"Pumped it full of buckshot, if I remember the story correctly."

"Better the guy's hat than his head. Besides, according to the story, it was a bowler. Can you imagine what kind of blamed fool would wear a bowler in the back Tennessee hills? The way I figure it, the guy deserved what he got."

"Anyway, Billy Joe fell in love with the daughter of a family the Tremaynes had been feuding with all the way back to the Civil War. But my grandpappy could recognize quality when he saw it, and when Fayrene Drummond came home on Easter vacation from that fancy Ivy League college up north, he knew she was the girl for him. When they eloped, both families hit the roof. But nine months later, when Fayrene gave birth to my daddy, the whole thing just kinda blew over."

He held the cellophane bag out to Caine, who reached in and absently took a handful of raisins. Caine wasn't at all hungry after that enormous dinner, but stakeouts were so damn boring. "I assume there's a point to this little saga."

"Of course. The point being that every family, royalty or not, has its little differences. Differences that can eventually be overcome. Besides, you don't even know whether or not Chantal's family would object to the princess marrying a commoner."

Caine practically choked on a chocolate-covered raisin. "Who said anything about marriage?"

"A guy could do worse…You know, life gets real humorous sometimes."

Caine tried to think of one humorous aspect of this situation and came up blank. "How's that?"

"I've been watching the two of you circle each other like a pair of my daddy's old hound dogs. Neither of you look all that dumb, yet if someone doesn't make a move pretty soon, the princess will be back home walking the floors in Montacroix, and you'll be snapping my head off in Washington. Hell, Caine, you can't deny that you're downright smitten with her."

"'Smitten'? What outdated Victorian dictionary did you get that from?" Caine muttered even as he secretly admitted the word fit perfectly.

Who wouldn't be smitten with Chantal Giraudeau? During the long, lonely nights, when he was all too aware that she was asleep on the other side of the door, he'd even fantasized about her settling down with him. But the idea of a princess marrying a guy like him was worthy of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen: a nice fantasy, but a fairy tale all the same.

"All right, so I'm attracted to her, okay? She's like no other woman I've ever known, and I'd love nothing more than to get out of this car right now, go up to her bedroom and ravish her until we're too exhausted and too satiated to move. Now that I've said it, will you just shut up and eat your damn chocolate-covered raisins?"

"Sure. But Caine?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't wait too long." He grinned. "She just might find out what a jerk you really are."

The night was silent; the street empty. Next door a dog began to bark and was immediately called back inside the house.

"Damn," Drew said suddenly.

Caine's own oath was just as short but harsher as he caught sight of the flickering orange light that had just appeared in Chantal's bedroom window. "Get on the horn and call the fire department," he said, throwing open the car door. "And the police. I'll get everyone out."

As he took off across the deserted street, Noel Giraudeau's nightmare flashed through Caine's mind.

The flashing lights lit up the night sky. Outside, on their front lawn, surrounded by hoses, David and Blair Sherwood gathered their children around them and watched in stunned disbelief as the fire fighters worked to save their beloved house. The curious had gathered on the sidewalk across the street, watching as the flames began to lick greedily at the roof.

Inside, Drew and Caine fought their way past the powerful streams of water being sprayed from the fire trucks as they tried to find Chantal.

"Dammit!" Caine shouted, his eyes stinging from the wall of smoke as he made his way up the still-intact stairs. "What kind of woman spends a fortune on antiques but won't put out fifteen bucks for a smoke alarm?"

Drew pulled off his soaked leather jacket and put it over his head. "How about a woman who doesn't want the fire detected?"

"No way. If Blair Sherwood had anything to do with this, she would have arranged to have her kids spend the night somewhere else." The smoke was becoming heavier. The floor was growing hot beneath their feet. "Besides, you didn't see her showing off this place today. She'd just as soon cut her own wrists as torch it."

They'd reached Chantal's room. Smoke burned Caine's lungs and he began to cough. The fire had obviously begun here; the four poster was afire and flames were ravenously devouring the curtains. But Chantal was nowhere to be seen.

"She must be in the passageway," Caine said, pointing toward the fireplace. "Blair said that's the way in."

Caine and Drew exchanged a look. Both men knew that if they were trapped behind the walls when the roof collapsed it would be the end for all of them.

"Let's go," Drew said.

On the other side of the wall, Caine could feel the heat and hear the roar of the fire as it ravaged the house. The narrow passageway was starting to fill with smoke, making their flashlights almost useless. As he crawled along, feeling in front of him, he found himself making deal after deal with God.

If he could only find Chantal, he'd never sneak another cigarette again. If she was still alive, he'd call his mother once a week, whether he had anything to say or not. If he could get her out of here safely, he'd give ten percent of his salary to Chantal's beloved Rescue the Children Fund every month for the rest of his life. He might even, he promised rashly as he heard the sound of the flames whipping across the roof, try going back to church.

He was trying to think up yet another bargaining chip when his hand suddenly came across something furry. The calico kitten, terrified by the events of the night, reacted instinctively, clawing a ragged path down the back of Caine's hand. He stopped in midcurse as he bumped into a seemingly boneless bundle of silk.

"I found her," he called out to Drew, who was following closely behind.

"Is she…?"

Directing the beam of his flashlight onto her face, Caine pressed his fingers against the side of her neck. "She's alive," he said, relief rushing over him.

Drew came up beside Caine and shone his own light over her, lingering on the blood staining the shoulder of her sea-green silk nightgown. "Looks like somebody bashed her a good one," he said, brushing her hair back and exposing a deep gash behind her ear.

"I'm going to find who did this," Caine vowed. His cold, quiet tone was more deadly than the loudest shout. "And when I do, I'm going to kill him."

"Why don't we get your lady but of here. Then we can worry about catching the bad guys." He ran his hands quickly, professionally over her body. "I don't think she's got any broken bones. Let's see if we can bring her to."

Caine lifted her up, cradling her in his arms. Beyond the walls the sound of the fire grew louder. Outside, the lonely wail of sirens continued to rent the air as even more fire engines arrived to fight the blaze.