The Makeover Mission (9 page)

When he pulled out her chair and she slid into it, her "thank
you" sounded like a cross between a hoarse croak and a hairball. Then she
forgot all about it as she caught his smile reflected from a dozen of the
mirrors. A smile she doubted he even knew he used. Charming. Inviting. The kind
of smile that made women forget about security, stability and thinking with
their heads. A big-time-trouble smile.

"There will be other dinners with many more guests." He
took a place opposite her and snapped open a damask linen napkin which should
have looked out of place in his strong hands, but didn't. "Tonight I
thought you might enjoy a quieter setting."

There was no enjoyment in it, she silently acknowledged, sliding
her own napkin from beside the china place setting to her lap. How could she
enjoy anything when everywhere she looked there was a reflection of her, but
not her. There was nothing plain or ordinary about the woman she saw mirrored
over and over again, exposed skin looking luminescent in the candlelight, eyes
too large in her face, her hair left free around her shoulders. This was not
the same woman who normally ate at a dinette table in the kitchen, a book
propped on the table before her, her cat twining himself around her ankles.

Maybe it was all a nightmare, and any moment now she'd wake up and
be where she should be, which wasn't in the formal setting of a baroque villa,
watching a servant fill her crystal glass with red wine.

But if it was a dream, where did Major McConneghy come from? There
was nothing in her wildest imaginings that could have manufactured the man
across from her. He'd changed from his khaki clothes into more formal wear, but
not a stuffy suit. He should have looked different, which he did, but not in
the way she expected.

Leave it to the man to look as at-home and competent in a
collarless shirt and unstructured suit jacket as he had in his earlier casual
outfit. The way he sat in his chair, calm, relaxed, tasting the wine and nodding
his approval to the servant as it lie did tills often—well, as often as he
arranged to abduct small-town librarians from their ordinary worlds.

"Don't you enjoy Bordeaux?" His question startled her
enough that she glanced at the fragile stemmed glass he held in his hands,
glanced at the touch, delicate but strong, rough against smooth, by which he
held it. An image that had her wondering if he'd hold a woman as carefully, as
gently, before she felt the heat steal into her cheeks and through her body.

With a deep swallow she reached for her own glass.

"I don't know if I've ever had a Bordeaux," she
admitted, making sure first there was no servant to overhear her statement. For
all she knew, Elena drank the stuff like water, so she didn't want to slip up
there. She raised the glass to her lips, and with a sip, part apprehensive,
part daring, she tasted, delighted to find it wasn't just one taste but a whole
range of tastes dancing across her tongue.

"Oh, this is good." The words came out as a whisper as
she traced her tongue where the wine had been. "I didn't think it'd be
like this at all."

Then she looked up, caught by the expression on the face of the
man opposite her. She might have thought she'd imagined the tense moments
between them before, but this time it wasn't an overactive imagination or a
long day. Not when the image was reflected back, again and again, by the
mirrors around her. As if in a kaleidoscope she saw his gaze lock on her lips
then slide lower, causing the wine she'd just sipped to feel like liquid fire
scorching her throat.

He looked like a man waging a war with himself, skin stretched
taut over his cheekbones, eyes narrowed, gaze hidden. She could feel her own
immediate response, one that nothing in her years as a librarian had prepared her
for. The fluttery feeling in her stomach, the sudden aching heaviness of her
breasts, the rasp of silk against sensitized skin with every breath she
inhaled. She felt hot and chilled at the same time, caught in a no-time space
that seemed to stretch out forever, but that must have lasted only seconds.

It was broken, like glass against a marble floor when, with a
sound that rivaled a cannon blast, a servant cleared his throat before entering
the room, a covered silver tray in his outstretched arms.

Jane very carefully set her glass down, thankful she managed it
without spilling its contents across the pearl-white tablecloth. She felt as if
she'd been caught in an indecent act and didn't know where to look, what to do
while her cheeks flamed and a trio of servants rustled around her, serving food
she neither saw nor smelled.

Automatically she thanked each and every one of them, surprised
when her dinner companion remarked, "You'll have them talking in the
kitchen for a week."

Her gaze shot up to lock with his, sure he was referring to the
servant catching her staring at him like an infatuated teenager, appalled that
she'd given herself away so easily. Until he added, "They're not used to
being publicly thanked for doing their job."

"Oh." She glanced toward the far doorway, feeling as if
she'd failed her first exam in the art of impersonating the rich and
sophisticated. "I didn't know."

"An error we can remedy. Tomorrow we'll focus on more of the
details to your position." He gave her a sharp-eyed look, not like the
earlier one, but said nothing more.

How was she ever supposed to impersonate Elena if she couldn't
even get through a simple meal? Not that the meal before them was simple. It
wasn't. It was exquisite, with a cold tomato-red soup, a salad of a dozen
different greens, a poached white fish sautéed in what smelled like a mango and
papaya sauce and more. And it all could have been sawdust as much as she was
able to taste any of it.

Each bite stuck in her throat, like a lump of ineptitude that
wouldn't go down no matter how much she swallowed. She'd taken to just moving
piles around on her plate when one of the women servers asked her, "It
does not meet with mademoiselle's approval?"

Before she could reply, the woman continued, "I will have the
cook prepare something new. Something better."

"Oh, no please." Jane reached her hand to the one
removing her half-eaten meal. "Please, it's a wonderful meal. It's just
been a long day."

When the woman looked at her as if she'd sprouted horns, Jane
glanced toward the major, who regarded them both. "Do something. I don't
want the cook to feel insulted."

He glanced from her to the servant and nodded his head. "Tell
the cook the meal was exquisite. As usual. Mademoiselle has had a long day so
we'll skip the dessert."

The woman nodded and silently retreated, still looking befuddled,
but before Jane could ask why, another person walked into the room. A man she
recognized only too well though she'd seen him only briefly, through a haze of
drugs and fear.

"It really is remarkable," Viktor Stanislaus Tarkioff,
King of Vendari, remarked, striding into the room, his medals shooting spears
of light with every step he took. "Simply remarkable."

He moved to stand across from her, placing himself behind and to
the left of the major, silently watching Jane as if gauging her reaction to his
nearness.

That alone kept her from revealing it. At least she hoped it did,
because she didn't think the king would appreciate knowing his pretend fiancée
loathed him right about then. Like a magnet for all the turmoil this man had
caused in her life, she fought twin needs. One to hurl something at him,
preferably something heavy, the other to run from the room, screaming at him to
find another way to fix his country's problem.

It wasn't helping matters that he was looking at her not as a
person, one unwillingly abducted from her home to travel half way across the
world to become a pawn in a dangerous political game, but as a tool. Nothing
more, nothing less.

Goose bumps crawled up her skin as his gaze raked over her,
impersonal enough, but leaving her feeling as if she was less than human.
Nothing like the way the major had made her feel with his look. Nothing.

"You have little to say?" His voice mocked, in spite of
its soft tone, lyrical with the accent of his country.

"Nothing appropriate for mixed company."

"That is good." He laughed, a sound rolling around the
room like an empty can. "I like a woman who looks like ice while she spits
fire."

Well, he'd gotten the wrong woman. There was no fire in her and
never had been. What he'd gotten instead was a small-town librarian who could
blow this crazy plan at any minute, who just wanted to live long enough to
sleep in her own bed once again and wear her own clothes.

As if the weight of the last days slammed against her all at once,
she knew couldn't stay in the room with either of these men for one more
moment. They each demanded something from her, something she did not want to
give.

"Excuse me." She rose to her feet, ignoring both the
king's surprised look and the major's wary one. "I'm sure you'll
understand when I say it's been a long day."

The king tried to interrupt, but she wouldn't let him. "I'd
like to go to my room. Now."

"I thought we would have a glass of cognac in the library. I
have come a ways to visit with you tonight," he pouted, but she did not
glance his way. She knew it was the major who would make the final decision.
She held his gray-eyed glance until he rose to his feet, crumpling his napkin
into a snowy mound on the table.

"Your Highness," he began, though he, too, did not look
at the man. "I think your fiancée is right. I shall escort her to her
room, then return to join you in the library."

"See that you do," came the king's snapped answer. One
that told her she'd made no brownie points with her supposed intended. Not that
she cared.

In silence she walked from the room, aware of McConneghy's silent
presence shadowing her, up the stairway and down the long hallways. Only when
they reached her room did he speak.

"Wait here."

"But, I'm—"

"Do as I say. Wait here."

Did she have any choice? She assumed not as she watched him step
in front of her, slide into the room, turn on the light and inspect every
corner before he gave her an all-clear nod.

The man missed nothing. Which was probably a good thing, she
realized, because all she noticed was the thin scrap of sheer pale peach lace
that must have been meant as a nightgown draped across the turned-down covers
of the bed. Never, in all her life, had she dreamed of owning such a garment.
Nightgowns like that belonged to seductresses, to women who reveled in their
power over men, to bank accounts that didn't need to be constantly balanced.

The major's gaze followed hers before he came to stand beside her.
Obviously in his world such garments were not out of place because his look
wasn't heated now, but worried. He gazed down at her, standing so close she could
watch the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. He raised one hand,
tentatively, a move that looked out of place for him, then let it slip back to
his side.

"Sleep will help." He sounded as if they weren't the
words he'd originally intended, but was at a loss for others.

She could find no energy for an answer.

He was almost at the door before he spoke again. "This is an
important thing that you're doing."

"If you say so."

Silence descended, a tense, awkward pause thick with tension.
Until he broke it. "You'll feel better in the morning."

She waited until she heard the door click shut behind his
departure before she allowed the sigh she was holding to escape. She might feel
better in the morning, but she'd still be an impostor in Vendari. She'd still be
everyday Jane Richards playing a life-or-death part with no script.

Lucius waited outside the door, feeling as frustrated and
powerless as a raw recruit on his first mission. Part of him wanted to turn
back, tell the hollow-eyed exhausted woman he'd left on the other side of the
door that there'd been a mistake, that tomorrow he would put her on a plane for
home and make her nightmare disappear.

But he couldn't do that.

He started down the hallway, seeing all too clearly in his mind
the way she'd walked it earlier. Who'd have thought a librarian could wear silk
with the grace of a duchess? They'd lucked out there. She fit the part of a
king's intended better than the real thing, though he figured he'd be keeping
that observation to himself—if he wanted to retain his role as peacekeeper to
Tarkioff.

But there were other issues he'd be addressing with the king and,
though he felt like day-old dog meat, chewed up and spat out, there was no time
like the present to get a few things straightened out.

Tarkioff sat behind the desk as Lucius entered the library. A room
so called because a former owner had enjoyed literature and had filled this
room with the thick dark wood paneling, shelf after shelf of books, and plush
red carpet he felt befitted a man of literature.

The fact that those who had followed never cracked open one of the
handsomely bound books didn't seem to matter. They too enjoyed the aura the
room exuded and kept it virtually intact. Like a lot in Vendari, there was
power in appearance alone.