Operation: Monarch Read online

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  Operation: Monarch

  Valerie Parv

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  Published by Silhouette Books

  America's Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  For Bat Dame and the Bat Cave denizens.

  Every writer should have such a safety valve.

  "You still look like a model."

  An arrow of anger pierced her. Serena was a cop now, and he needed to acknowledge that. "Looks can deceive. I can have you flat on your back in the sand before you can blink."

  His glance was measuring, a hint of a smile playing around his generous mouth. "Might be an interesting experience."

  Annoyed with herself for thinking along the same lines, she snapped, "You wouldn't think so if it happened. I'm liable to break something."

  "I'll consider myself forewarned." He sounded as if he couldn't wait.

  The promise in his tone sent sexual fantasies tumbling through her mind. She had to fight to clear her thoughts. This wasn't the time and place, if ever there were such a thing. Not until she knew where he stood.

  She drew herself up. "We're not here to exchange sexual fantasies. I need to know—"

  He cut off the question by simply kissing her.

  Dear Reader,

  What better way to start off a new year than with six terrific new Silhouette Intimate Moments novels? We've got miniseries galore, starting with Karen Templeton's Staking His Claim, part of THE MEN OF MAYES COUNTY. These three brothers are destined to find love, and in this story, hero Cal Logan is also destined to be a father—but first he has to convince heroine Dawn Gardner that in his arms is where she wants to stay.

  For a taste of royal romance, check out Valerie Parv's Operation: Monarch, part of THE CARRAMER TRUST, crossing over from Silhouette Romance. Policemen more your style? Then check out Maggie Price's Hidden Agenda, the latest in her LINE OF DUTY miniseries, set in the Oklahoma City Police Department. Prefer military stories? Don't even try to resist Irresistible Forces, Candace Irvin's newest SISTERS IN ARMS novel. We've got a couple of great stand-alone books for you, too. Lauren Nichols returns with a single mom and her protective hero, in Run to Me. Finally, Australian sensation Melissa James asks Can You Forget? Trust me, this undercover marriage of convenience will stick in your memory long after you've turned the final page.

  Enjoy them all—and come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around, only in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Editor

  Books by Valerie Parv

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Interrupted Lullaby #1095

  Royal Spy #1154

  ††Operation: Monarch #1268

  Silhouette Romance

  The Leopard Tree #507

  The

  Billionaire's Baby Chase #1270

  Baby

  Wishes and Bachelor Kisses #1313

  *The Monarch's Son #1459

  *The

  Prince's Bride-To-Be #1465

  *The

  Princess's Proposal #1471

  Booties and the Beast #1501

  Code Name: Prince #1516

  †Crowns and a Cradle #1621

  †The

  Baron & the Bodyguard #1627

  †The

  Marquis and the Mother-To-Be #1633

  ††The

  Viscount & the Virgin #1691

  ††The

  Princess & the Masked Man #1695

  ††The

  Prince & the Marriage Pact #1699

  VALERIE PARV

  With twenty million copies of her books sold, including three Waldenbooks bestsellers, it's no wonder Valerie Parv is known as Australia's queen of romance and is the recognized media spokesperson for all things romantic. Valerie is married to her own romantic hero, Paul, a former crocodile hunter in Australia's tropical north.

  These days he's a cartoonist and the two live in the country's capital city of Canberra, where both are volunteer zoo guides, sharing their love of animals with visitors from all over the world. Valerie continues to write her page-turning novels because they affirm her belief in love and happy endings. As she says, "Love gives you wings, romance helps you fly." Keep up with Valerie's latest releases at www.silromanceauthors.com.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Prologue

  Historian's note:

  The events described here take place about one year after the wedding of Prince Lorne and Alison Carter depicted in The Monarch's Son

  As a senior member of the Royal Protection Detail, Serena Cordeaux had seen the sovereign ruler of Carramer at times elated, imperious, furious and melancholy, but his emotions were usually so well masked that only those closest to him suspected how he really felt.

  Never before had she seen Prince Lorne de Marigny so openly troubled. His dark eyes were clouded with worry and although his pose remained calm, the hands he linked together in front of him were white knuckled.

  Seated in a wing-backed leather chair beside the prince's desk, his wife, Princess Alison, looked calm but her eyes were dark with worry. Her fall of nut-brown hair hid much of her expression, but from the way she kept sneaking glances at the package lying open on the desk, Serena wondered if she expected the contents to rear up and strike her husband.

  As well they might.

  Knowing how devoted Alison was to Lorne and their little son, Nori, Serena wished she could assure them everything was going to be all right, but Serena was far from certain herself.

  The prince placed his hands palms down on the leather blotter on either side of the damning evidence. "You did the right thing bringing this directly to me. How did you learn of its existence?"

  Wondering if the monarch knew more than he was revealing about the significance of the package, Serena said, "The R.P.D. got a tip-off that Carramer First intended to disrupt the American president's visit, so we've been monitoring the group's activities."

  Lorne shifted impatiently. "Naturally."

  He knew as well as she did that the antiroyalist group hoped to manipulate international media interest in the first visit of an American president to Carramer to gain publicity for their cause. The majority of Carramer's people supported the monarchy, and dissidents were rare in the peaceful island kingdom, so the group was unlikely to gain sympathy any other way.

  Knowing Prince Lorne wouldn't appreciate a history lesson, she straightened a little more. "Two days ago my contact in the group attended a meeting where they were told they'd soon have the means to do more than disrupt the president's visit. They could destabilize the kingdom itself."

  Lorne tapped the package. "This."

  She nodded. "According to my informant, only the man who took it to the group knew precisely what it contained. He was ordered to deliver it to a prearranged drop-off point so their leader could retrieve it and put it to use."

  "Our old friend, the Hand," Lorne said heavily.

  Serena heard Princess Alison catch her breath. "The Hand" was the only name by which they knew the leader of Carramer First. The other group members were basically harmless hotheads, but according to R.P.D. intelligence, the Hand was a professional criminal, sk
illed at covering his tracks. Only a handful of the group's elite were said to know his identity, hampering efforts to pin him down. Through phone calls and taped instructions, he controlled the group's activities with an iron hand, hence his code name. Everything else about him remained a frustrating mystery.

  "What will the Hand do when he discovers you've intercepted the package?" Princess Alison asked.

  Serena turned to her. "He shouldn't find out for some time. I arranged a special show for him while arresting my contact."

  "I hope you've provided protection for your contact," Lorne observed dryly. "From what we know of the Hand, he'll be more interested in getting this back than in rescuing his man."

  "Woman. We flew her to a safe location on Isle des Anges this morning," Serena supplied. "I searched her very publicly, making it obvious she didn't have the package on her, so anyone watching us would think she'd passed it to someone else minutes before I got to her. The Hand's people should be kept busy for some time trying to find out where it is now."

  The prince's obsidian eyes clouded. "I doubt it will take them long to figure out they've been duped and that we have what they're looking for."

  She lifted her hands, palms upward. "With respect, Your Highness, I don't see what harm a fake royal birth certificate can do to the monarchy."

  "It isn't a fake."

  This time she couldn't control her reaction. If the certificate was genuine…

  The prince gestured toward a straight-backed chair in front of the desk. "Sit down, Serena. I take it you examined the contents of the package?"

  She perched on the edge of the chair. "Following procedure, I checked everything for explosives and contaminants before bringing them to you."

  He stabbed the package with a finger. "Were there any letters or other clues to the origins of the material."

  She shook her head. "Nothing we can trace. I found only the birth certificate, a plaster cast of a baby's footprints and the photos you have there, sir."

  The prince shuffled through the items, retrieving two black-and-white photos. One showed a superbly fit dark-haired man clad in tight shorts, working out in a gymnasium, plainly oblivious of the camera trained on him. The second showed the same man in a changing room, clad only in a towel. The first time she opened the package and saw the photo, Serena had felt herself go hot and cold by turns. Now she cleared her throat. "Your Highnesses, I think I know that man."

  The prince's gaze shone with interest. "Go ahead."

  She felt reluctant to admit the truth, but duty demanded it. "I haven't seen him for a long time, but his name is Garth Remy. We went to the same high school."

  Her slight hesitation wasn't lost on the prince. She was glad he didn't ask how well she had known Garth.

  Princess Alison's sharp look told Serena her feelings toward Garth had been read like a book. The princess's tumultuous romance with Prince Lorne had begun a little over a year ago, when a riptide dumped the Australian tourist at his feet on his private beach. Her affection for Lorne's little boy had won the prince's attention, then the woman himself had claimed his heart. Now it was rumored that Alison might be pregnant. It was well-known that they wanted a brother or sister for Nori. The princess certainly looked blooming. The sudden softening in her expression suggested that she suspected exactly how things had been between Serena and Garth.

  Serena held her breath, but the princess shifted her attention to her husband. "I still can't believe the likeness, Lorne."

  "At school he was known as Duke because of his resemblance to Prince Lorne," Serena explained. She didn't add that Garth had hated the nickname. He had come from a poor family, and the name only rubbed it in.

  Lorne indicated the photo. "What else do you know about him?"

  Her thoughts spun. Even Alison, for all her experience of being swept off her feet by love, couldn't know how attracted Serena had been to Garth when they were teenagers, or how badly he had hurt her when he dismissed her as being no more than a pretty face. He had made no allowance for her parents pushing her into modeling from the time she could walk, primping and pampering her until she had felt like a doll instead of their child. Nor did he care that she hated modeling but hadn't had the courage to give it up because her success meant so much to her parents.

  It was hardly her fault that her figure had ripened to model proportions in her early teens, or that the camera had loved her vivid blue eyes and blond coloring. At nineteen to her sixteen, he'd believed her looks were all that mattered to her, when they had meant far more to her parents than to Serena herself.

  She had told herself she didn't care what Garth thought of her, yet his censure had rankled for a long time. She told herself he wasn't the reason she had joined the Carramer Police Force, but she knew his comments had planted the seed. She had chosen crime fighting because it was as far away from modeling as she could get, then had found she thrived on the work. When she was invited to join the elite Royal Protection Detail, she had jumped at it. She loved being a royal insider, doing police work at the highest possible level. Not just a pretty face now, she told Garth's photo silently.

  He would be thirty-two to her twenty-nine now. The midnight gaze seemed to mock her, although she knew she was imagining that. It was obvious he hadn't known he was being photographed. There was nothing posed about the way he stood with one bare leg on the floor and the other propped on a bench as he dried himself off.

  Her throat felt dry as she handed the photo back to the monarch. "Garth and I lost touch after we finished school. Friends told me he'd joined the navy as a diver. Since his parents were in the commercial fishing business, that would seem logical. But I'm afraid I don't know any more. I have no idea why his photo was in the package."

  Prince Lorne massaged his chin with one hand as he seemed to weigh how much to tell her. After a long interval he said, "Whoever put this together intended to reveal Garth to the world as the rightful heir to the throne of Carramer."

  Princess Alison's hand went to her mouth although she made no sound. Naturally she would already be aware of the possibility.

  Serena had no such forewarning, and shock ricocheted through her. "Surely that's impossible, Your Highness?"

  The prince looked less perturbed by her outburst than by the possibility he'd just voiced. "I wish it were. Unfortunately, my family history makes it all too possible."

  "Since she's already involved, perhaps Serena should know the story," Alison suggested.

  A faint glimmer of agreement crossed Lorne's features as he looked at Serena. "The family has always known that my parents had a child before they were married. He was named Louis but was stillborn, or so we believed. I think the certificate, the footprints and the photos are meant to suggest otherwise."

  Serena could hardly deal with the thought that Garth's resemblance to Lorne might be because Garth was really Lorne's older brother. Far less that Garth could be the true ruler of Carramer. How was Lorne managing to face the possibility, when he had so much at stake? An entire kingdom, in fact. No wonder his usual composure had been shattered in a way she had never expected to see.

  "The footprints could belong to any baby," she said, knowing wishful thinking when she expressed it.

  The monarch knew it, too, she saw in his wintry smile. "Except for one small detail."

  He picked up the plaster cast and angled it for her inspection. She soon saw what he was indicating, a tiny piece of webbing clearly visible between the small toes of the left foot. "Oh."

  "It's a genetic trait common to de Marigny males," Alison contributed.

  Serena felt a frown start. "That settles it then. Garth can't be the heir if he doesn't have the trait."

  Without comment, Lorne picked up the changing room photo and handed it to her. An enlargement of a section of the first photo, it showed Garth's feet in close-up. At first sight, she hadn't understood its significance. Studying it more closely now, she saw that the two small toes of his left foot were webbed.

  S
he felt the room spin then settle. "Is it possible?"

  Lorne's expression told her it was even before he said, "The birth certificate is genuine. I recognize my parents' signatures."

  Alison reached for her husband's hand. "The original has been missing from the de Marigny archive for years."

  "Even so, it seems unbelievable that Garth could be the heir to the throne. Apart from the resemblance to you, sir, there were no other indications that Garth was more than he seemed. His parents were just everyday people," Serena insisted.

  "They could have fostered him without knowing his history," Alison pointed out. "Garth himself may be unaware of his background."

  Alice couldn't have felt more unsettled after falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, Serena thought. "You're taking this seriously, aren't you?"

  Lorne took a slow breath, held it, then let it out. "We have no choice. The certificate, coupled with the cast and the photo, means we must allow for the possibility that my older brother didn't die at birth after all. And that Carramer has the wrong monarch."

  Chapter 1

  She would never accept that Garth Remy was the true ruler of Carramer, she thought as she got ready for her assignment. Not by so much as a blink had Garth suggested he was anything other than the child of struggling commercial fishermen. They had lived aboard the boat for most of Garth's childhood, only moving into a proper house after his grandparents died. It was hardly the life of a prince.

  Garth may not know who he is, Alison had said. Everything in Serena wanted to reject the possibility, but she knew the princess was right. If Garth had been fostered by the Remys from birth, he would have no reason to suspect he was anything but their biological son.

  Commanding her to tell no one what she was doing, Lorne had assigned her to meet Garth in the gymnasium shown in the photograph. She had identified the place from a portion of the name shown behind him on the wall. She was to renew their acquaintance and convince Garth to accompany her to the palace. Lorne would take it from there.