The Makeover Mission (20 page)

Suddenly McConneghy was at her side, his hand beneath her elbow,
guiding or maneuvering, she didn't know. Her legs felt rubbery and it seemed
like a long way across the courtyard and up that waterfall of steps.

"I'll send up a tray of food for you."

"I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat. It's not going to do anyone any good if you
collapse from starvation."

"But I'm not—"

"Do what I tell you."

The man was getting on her nerves. One minute kissing her
senseless, the next acting as if nothing had happened; dictating with one
breath and being overly solicitous and concerned with the next. Did they teach
confusion as a psychological weapon? If they did this guy was good. He was
better than that, he was the best.

"I'll try." There, that should keep him happy and off
her case. At least for a little while.

"Don't try—do." They'd drawn even with the double-wide
palace doors. "I won't be joining you for dinner."

Of course it wasn't disappointment she was feeling. It was relief.
Wasn't it?

"Will the king visit me?"

He must have heard something behind her words because he waited
until they'd crossed the front foyer then pulled her to a stop, out of the
reach of eager ears.

"You'll be dining alone."

She held back her sigh.

"When do I see you again?" She wished it sounded a
little less breathless, but it was too late to steal back the words now.

"Tomorrow morning. I'll be in a meeting till late this
evening."

There was nothing more to say. And yet they stood there, his gaze
seeming to ask something of her, his hand still anchoring her arm, his body
shielding her from any curious onlookers who might cross the far hallway.

When he broke the silence, she didn't think he said the words he
meant to say.

"You'll be all right?"

"Yes. Fine. I'm fine." At least she would be if she
could escape to the haven of her room, away from the intensity of his gaze.

"Till tomorrow then." He released her arm and turned
away. Only then did she remember the words spoken by the king the night before.

"McConneghy," she uttered his name and watched him pause
as if preparing for a blow. Yet when he turned toward her his expression
betrayed nothing.

"Yes?"

She stepped closer, meaning her next words for his ears alone.

"There was something else Tarkioff said last night that I
think you should be aware of." She knew they were both thinking of
earlier, of the lake and her accusations.

"What was it?"

"He said if you no longer pleased him, then accidents could
happen."

"Accidents?"

"I think he meant that you could get hurt."

"That is not news. It's part of my job description."

Was the man being dense on purpose?

"Lucius, the king said that if he chose, Vendari could become
a dangerous place for you."

She didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't his slow smile. One
that looked almost sad. "Then I'll have to share with the king that
Vendari is already a dangerous place for me. A very dangerous place."

With that he walked away.

She stood as if rooted to the floor, wondering why she expected
sanity in a day that had started rocky and gone downhill from there. Obviously
she was dealing with a madman. It was the only plausible answer.

She turned to limp to her room. It was there she found the small
bag lying in the center of her bed. A brightly woven bag she'd last seen in the
hands of the woman hours earlier. A bag smelling of crushed herbs and promising
felicity and long life.

The man had done it again.

Hours later, her sense of disorientation hadn't dwindled. The
doctor had told her she'd be sporting a few colorful bruises and scrapes, as if
she hadn't figured that out for herself. Dinner had gone off without a hitch,
though it was lonely in her bedroom with only her own thoughts: convoluted,
jarring, discordant thoughts. Thoughts that refused to disappear no matter how
she wrestled them.

How could they disappear when all it took was a look at the
connecting door between her room and McConneghy's to trigger images better left
buried? Images that built upon one shared kiss. She never would have thought of
herself as possessing a wild imagination, but she was painting some pretty
graphic and erotic images of what might have happened if Mister Control hadn't
pulled back.

Darn the man, anyway. If only she could lump all the churning
emotions within her and blame them on raging hormones or lust. Not that either
had ever been a problem before, but maybe she was susceptible to cool mountain
breezes and hard-eyed men with wounded gazes. But it was more than that, a lot
more. It was enough to keep her tossing and turning once she'd gone to bed, the
thought of sleep impossible.

For a while she'd grabbed on to the Stockholm Syndrome as a
possible solution to her internal turmoil. True, she technically wasn't a
hostage becoming emotionally attached to her captor, but for all intents she
was vulnerable to McConneghy as her ticket to survival. And it was a
documented, scientific fact that the position created unusual responses often
confused with attraction, co-dependence and even infatuation.

But darn it, she wasn't feeling infatuation. She had absolutely no
trouble seeing McConneghy's less than sterling qualities: his tendency to
assume command and expect to be obeyed. And his ability to communicate left a
lot to be desired, especially when you were on the receiving end of one of his
terse, need-to-know non-answers. And what about his way of getting high-handed,
blaming her for getting out of line when it was all his fault? No, it was
definitely not infatuation she felt for Lucius McConneghy.

But then what was it? She didn't think it was love, it couldn't
be. Love was soft and warm and gentle and McConneghy made her feel none of
those things. True, she didn't have a lot of experience in the love department.
She'd learned early on that her parents might have wanted a child at one time,
but they had never wanted her. Not a realization that created an atmosphere of
giving and receiving love.

But she knew love came slowly, built over time, contained trust
and caring, at least that's how she'd always pictured it. It didn't happen over
days, with a man who hoarded secrets like a miser's gold, who was willing to
use her even while he told her he was protecting her, and who no doubt would
laugh himself silly, if he ever did laugh, if he knew the train of her
thoughts.

She wouldn't blame him, either. She could hardly believe she was
even thinking such things. Wasn't she in enough of a mess, far, far from anyone
who knew her or might be able to help her, set up to be a decoy for a woman
she'd never met, on behalf of a country that wasn't her own, without being
betrayed by her own emotions?

With a sigh that floated across the dark room she sat up in bed,
threw off the linen sheets and reached for her robe. It wasn't much of a robe,
not like her sturdy flannel job back home but, she doubted Elena Rostov wore
anything that didn't shout seduction.

The French doors along one wall of her room, and the stillness of
the night beyond them beckoned. Anything to chase away her thoughts, even a
moonlit balcony that could have been straight from a Romeo and Juliet scene.

As she opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony shared by
her room and the one next door, the night air felt cool against her fevered
skin. A storm must be in the offing because it felt humid, thick with
anticipation, charged with the same electricity that kept her from sleeping.

It cocooned around her as she stepped into its inky darkness, the
balcony floor rough against her bare feet, the sound of the wind sighing
through cypress trees beyond the palace gates, a random breeze lifting her hair
from where it lay heavy against her back.

She leaned forward, pressing her palms flat against the waist-high
railing, feeling the solidness of its iron beneath her curled fingers. The bark
of a dog wafted on the breeze. Such a familiar sound. One she'd expect to hear
in Sioux Falls, but not here in late August while she stood in a gossamer-thin
gown in the silence of the night. Overhead, a thousand stars glowed and she
felt alone. So very alone.

"Couldn't sleep?"

The familiar voice startled her with its closeness. She turned to
glance toward its sound, surprised in some ways to see the dark outline of
Lucius silhouetted against his own open balcony door, not surprised at all in
others. Maybe her earlier thoughts had conjured him. But if they had, he
wouldn't be standing half in, half out of his doorway, and she wouldn't be all
the way across on her side of the balcony, feeling very tongue-tied and
awkward.

As if he translated her very wish, or maybe it was fear, he
stepped from his room, not moving next to her, though anything within a
football field was too close.

Her fingers curled over the iron railing, sure to leave imprints
where it bit into her skin. She felt her whole body tense, a fight-or-flight
survival mechanism she recognized but couldn't suppress. He'd made her feel
that way from the first moment she'd seen him and it had only increased over
the time she'd known him.

"You were quiet on the drive from the lake."

"I think I was tired."

"And yet you can't sleep."

She shrugged, looking away from him, sure he could see too much
that she wasn't ready for him to see. "It's so peaceful out here. You can
forget…" The words trailed off. She thought he knew what she wanted to
forget.

Silence slid between them, a silence deep enough that she could
hear the pattern of his breathing behind her. Its slow, even pace acted like a
rasp along her nerve endings, a painful torture scraping her too-tight
emotions.

"I used to study the night sky when I was growing up. My grandfather
taught me the names of most of the constellations."

It was the first time he'd volunteered any of his past with her.
She didn't want to read too much into the casual comment, even as it was
strange to think of him as a little boy, not as intense, as focused, as sure of
everything.

"Where did you grow up?"

"Houston, for the most part."

That surprised her. "But you don't have a Texan accent."

"We traveled a lot when I was young. Never stayed in one
place long enough to acquire an accent."

She glanced at him again, noting the way he stood casually, but
still aware, like a large cat that could be still and yet poised to leap at any
moment His gaze was focused on the sky, but she didn't doubt for a moment he
knew exactly what was happening around him—including her staring at him.

"Were your parents transferred a lot?"

"Military. My father was an air force fighter pilot."

That made sense. She could see him growing up in a military
family.

"And why Houston?"

"He was killed in a training mission when I was about ten. My
mother's family was from Houston so we ended up there." There was no anger
in his tone, no bitterness or regret, but she couldn't help feeling all those
things for him. "It's a McConneghy tradition."

He'd lost her there.

"What's a tradition?"

"The military. Since the first McConneghy arrived in the
States they've served their country."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Since the Civil War. Shamus McConneghy paid for his family's
passage from Ireland with the money he was given to fight in another man's
place."

"Fight and die?"

"I don't think he planned it that way."

Duty and obligation to country must have been passed to him
through the gene pool.

"Tell me some of them managed to fight and come home."

There was enough of a pause for her to know she didn't want to
hear the answer.

"My great-great-grandfather was only wounded in the Spanish
American War. It took him two years to die of the injuries."

"And the others?"

"They did their duty."

She couldn't help but wonder if the wives and children of his
ancestors had had any say in the cost of that duty. Or were these women
stronger and braver than she could ever imagine herself?

"Is your mother still in Houston?"

"No. She died of cancer when I was in college."

"I'm sorry. That must have painful for you both."

"She kept it pretty much to herself. Until the end."

She thought of her own parents. They'd both passed away within
months of each other shortly before she graduated from college, but then it had
been expected. They'd been in their late forties when they'd had her so she'd
always accepted that she would be alone as an adult, and possibly sooner. But
to have your parents taken from you without being prepared for it was hard for
her to imagine.