Code Name: Prince Read online

  She felt it now, shaming her, as she tried to concentrate on embroidering a new dress for Molly’s birthday in a month’s time. Yesterday Meagan hadn’t given in to the temptation to kiss him, but she had wanted to more than she had wanted anything in a long time.

  Her fingers faltered on the tiny, precise stitches. She worked to no pattern save the one in her mind, usually so nimble and sure of her task that she barely thought about it. Today she sewed like the rawest apprentice, fumbling the simplest stitches. One name served as explanation. Nicholas.

  Nicholas? Over the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, she shaped his name between dry lips, wondering why it sounded wrong somehow. She couldn’t make it fit the man in Molly’s room, although she had seen him pictured with his family countless times in the magazines she read aloud to her elderly friend.

  Muttering to herself, she began to unpick an imperfect stitch. Next she would be denying that he was married and would eventually be her king. How much simpler this would have been if he had been the prince’s cousin, the dashing bachelor, Ben Lockhart.

  This time, the name rolled easily off her tongue and she savored the sound of it, before she became angry with herself. How often had she told Molly that wishing didn’t make something so? The royal cousins might look alike, but Shane wouldn’t have risked everything to capture a navy lieutenant.

  But what if…she drove the thought away. How hard was she prepared to work at justifying wanting a man she couldn’t, shouldn’t want?

  Shane would be furious if he knew how much time she had spent with the prince yesterday before sneaking away to see Molly. Meagan had managed to return only minutes before Shane came back from his meeting. She was glad she hadn’t needed her cover story about shopping for groceries because she was sure her heightened color would have betrayed her.

  When Shane returned, she had been shocked to see how pale and drawn he looked. Perhaps he wasn’t as comfortable as he pretended to be with what his friends had dragged him into.

  He didn’t look any happier now as he joined her in the living room. “Shall I get you some coffee?” she asked.

  “No thanks.” He moved up beside her chair and she caught her breath. She knew it wasn’t only because she feared being found out. Shane had changed lately. He had always been moody, but these days he had a hair-trigger temper as well.

  He had shown it when he caught her telephoning the castle anonymously to tell them the king was still alive. She had made the call from a telephone booth well away from the house, but he had spotted her as he drove past. He had listened in on the call long enough to learn the truth, before slamming the receiver down, cutting her off in mid-sentence.

  Afterward he had ranted at her like a madman, accusing her of betraying him and threatening to make her regret her actions if she crossed him again. She had burst into tears, shocking him, but the damage was done.

  He had controlled his temper around her until she had asked him not to use her cottage as a meeting place for his fellow conspirators. He had struck her across the face. As with the first occurrence, he had repented immediately, begging her to forgive him, but she knew she wouldn’t relax around him for a long time to come.

  Now, as she turned and saw accusation on his face, she braced herself.

  Her apprehension was justified when he said, “Did you enjoy your visit with Molly yesterday?”

  Horror sliced through her, but she kept her expression bland as she tucked the needle into the fabric and folded her hands over it. “I did go out, but only to the store to get groceries. If you don’t believe me, look in the kitchen cupboards.”

  Shane’s mouth angled into a sneer. “Nice try. But when I checked on our prisoner this morning, Molly’s teddy bear wasn’t on the pillow, although it was there when we brought his nibs here. So I checked the mileage on your car. Either you took the long way to the store, or you went somewhere further afield. My guess is you visited either your old schoolteacher, Violet, or your friend Anna. You wouldn’t leave Molly with a doddery old spinster with failing eyesight, so that leaves Anna Carmody.”

  Meagan placed her sewing into the basket at her feet, averting her face to hide her alarm. “I told you Molly was staying at her friend’s place. After you brought Prince Nicholas here, I called the girl’s mother and asked if Molly could stay another night. Don’t worry, I said I was ill. But I did go to see Violet. She isn’t well, so I took her some essential oils from my collection. Then I sat and read to her for a while.”

  “The story of Raggedy-May and Strawbie,” he said with a sneer, referring to the favorite Edenbourg children’s fairy-tale characters. Molly loved the stories so much that Meagan had made her a Raggedy-May doll of her own. The little girl had cried for the doll last night, Meagan remembered with a pang. She had been so overwrought she hadn’t thought to take the doll as well as the teddy bear.

  Shane was telling her he wasn’t fooled, she thought, trembling inwardly. She struggled to hide her panic. “I read from the Edenbourg Ladies’ Journal,” she insisted. “Violet loves me to read her the latest gossip.”

  Shane gave a dismissive shrug. “Have it your way. Don’t worry, I won’t tell the others where you’ve stashed Molly unless you force me to. Blood is thicker than water, after all.”

  She heard the implied threat and shuddered. She was Shane’s flesh and blood, too, but he seemed to have forgotten that part. What had happened to them? As children they had been so close, even when she had been sent to live with Cousin Maude after their parents died. Lonely and constrained by the strict old lady’s regimen, Meagan had lived for Shane’s weekly visits and had been overjoyed when they could be a family again.

  Now everything was different. Meagan believed that the monarchy was the country’s future, and Shane couldn’t wait to see them gone. Suddenly she recalled a game they had played when they were children, when their dear parents had still been alive and they were a real family.

  They had played a favorite Edenbourg children’s game called Kings and Subjects. Molly played it now with her dolls, Meagan thought fondly. Naturally, Shane had insisted on being the king with Meagan as his subject.

  He had acted the way he thought kings acted, pushing her around and issuing peremptory rulings that made very little sense. “Go and stand over there,” he would say. When she did, he would immediately order her to stand somewhere else. When she asked why he acted so illogically, he said that was how royals behaved. When she argued, he decreed that subjects had no right to talk back to the king.

  It wasn’t how Nicholas behaved, she thought. He hadn’t tried to give her orders. He had spoken to her like a normal person.

  He had come within a heartbeat of kissing her.

  Shane would kill her if he knew how tempted she’d been to let it happen, or how little she regretted the moment of closeness. Nicholas’s attention made her feel vibrantly alive. Shane would say it was because the prince was a master of seduction. Before he married he had been known as the playboy prince, although he was supposed to have become an exemplary husband. Not so exemplary if he could have such an effect on her, she thought.

  What was she thinking? Meagan’s hand flew to her mouth as she realized how condemnatory her thoughts were. Nicholas was married, and to a woman the people of Edenbourg had taken to their hearts. How could Meagan justify wanting him to kiss her when he had no right to look at any other woman?

  It didn’t stop her from imagining the feel of his mouth on hers, or wishing that he wasn’t married. She wasn’t sure what kind of woman that made her. Perhaps she was as amoral as Shane had accused her of being when he’d found out that she was pregnant with Molly.

  She hadn’t been able to see that Kevan was only using her, and had believed him when he’d told her he loved her. Although, as a traveling salesman, his visits had been unpredictable, depending on his business activities. He had come to her apparently in anguish one night, telling her that his mother had died and he had no one to turn to but her. Sh
e had never suspected it was a ruse.

  Shane always said Meagan’s heart was too soft for her own good. That night it had been true. She had allowed Kevan to stay and pour out his heart to her. When he came into her arms and rested his head against her, she hadn’t suspected that it was only the first step in a practised seduction designed to lead her into bed before the night was over.

  Molly had been the result. After sustaining Kevan when he needed her, she had expected support from him when she told him her news. After all, he’d promised he’d taken precautions against her getting pregnant. And it was her first time, so she trusted him. Then he had told her the awful news, that he was married with two children. For his children’s sake Meagan hadn’t pursued him, but had determined never to be so gullible again.

  Yet here she was, mooning over another married man. She knew that Nicholas was married, so what was her excuse this time? She had none, she acknowledged to herself.

  “I hope you’re not scheming to help our royal visitor,” Shane said as if reading her thoughts. “I’d hate to see any harm come to Molly because you insisted on acting foolishly.”

  The threat made a fist-sized lump swell in her throat. “How could I possibly help him, when you have him guarded day and night?”

  “You might take it into your head to call the castle again.”

  She reached into her work basket for a skein of colored thread and began to wind it onto a wooden bobbin so Shane wouldn’t see how badly her hands were shaking. “I told you, the last call was a mistake.”

  Shane grasped the back of her neck and gave her a slight shake. “Just as long as you don’t make any more.”

  Her skin crawled. “How long do you plan to keep the prince here?”

  “I’m surprised you object, since you apparently find him attractive.”

  “I don’t…” she began, then her voice tailed off as Dave hustled Prince Nicholas into the living room, his arms bound behind his back. His silk shirt and breeches had been replaced with a pair of khaki homespun pants and a traditional Edenbourg peasant’s shirt with full sleeves, the front slashed almost to the waist.

  Nicholas’s eyebrow lifted as his gaze fell on her. “Still on the side of the devil, Meagan?”

  As Dave pushed Nicholas roughly into a chair alongside hers, she drew a sharp breath. What she had taken to be the shadow of beard along his jawline, she now saw was a bruise, as if he had been struck a vicious blow across the face. Compassion flooded through her and she wished there was some way she could help him.

  Even now, injured and bound, he maintained a defiant air. Dave towered over him as he did most men, yet Nicholas had obviously put up a fight anyway. “Are you all right?” she asked, knowing she risked Shane’s censure, but needing to know anyway.

  Nicholas flexed his jaw as if testing it. “Everything still works, but Dave here won’t be courting the ladies for a few days.”

  Dave grunted and lashed out, catching Nicholas across the back of the head. Meagan gave a cry of objection and jumped up, but Shane came between her and the giant. “Cool it, both of you. We only want to have a talk with the prince.”

  Nicholas eased his head from side to side, wincing as if in pain. “You must be Shane. Talk away. It will save me the trouble.”

  Dave lifted his arm again but Shane caught his hand in midair. “Enough. He can’t talk if you break his jaw. You might have to later, but first let’s give him the chance to cooperate.”

  Meagan felt relieved when the giant went outside, grunting to himself. She started to leave, unable to bear the sight of Nicholas being tormented when there was nothing she could do to prevent it. But Shane motioned her back to the chair. “Stay, you might learn something.”

  She sat, gripping the arm rests until her knuckles whitened. “Such as how to beat a man whose hands are tied?”

  Nicholas shot her a regal glare. “Stay out of this, Meagan, it isn’t your fight.”

  She was amazed that the prince would put her safety ahead of his own even now. Couldn’t he see that he could get himself hurt or killed? Fear for him warred with pride that he considered her worth the risk.

  Shane moved to stand over the prince’s chair. “Oh, but it is her fight. As long as the country is divided into royalty and the rest, it’s everybody’s fight.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Your people are the only ones dividing the country. Give this up now. Return King Michael and me to the castle safely, and you’ll be treated fairly. You have my word on it.”

  She closed her eyes in a fleeting prayer, then opened them again. “Shane, listen to him. It isn’t too late.”

  Shane spun to look at her. “What did he offer you to side with him? Money? A position at the castle? Maybe the chance to serve as his mistress? That’s it, isn’t it? He wasn’t known as the playboy prince for nothing. Leopards don’t change their spots that easily.”

  With the force of a whipcrack, Nicholas’s voice cut through Shane’s tirade. “I offered her nothing of the sort, and even if I’d tried—which I didn’t—she’s too much of a lady to value herself so cheaply. If my hands weren’t tied, I’d flatten you for making such a vile suggestion.”

  Shane planted both hands on the arms of the prince’s chair. “It’s easy to be a big man when you know you don’t have to back up your threats.”

  Nicholas matched him glare for glare. “Untie me and I’ll gladly back them up.”

  Her heartbeat raging, Meagan stood and pushed Shane away from Nicholas. “You said you wanted to talk, not argue over me. My opinions are my own, and I resent the suggestion that I can be bought by anyone. I won’t be used as a pawn—by either of you,” she added, glaring at Prince Nicholas.

  He looked…he looked amused, she thought in amazement. How could he possibly find anything amusing about this situation? Didn’t he understand that in his present frame of mind, Shane was capable of violence? Yet she couldn’t deny the spark she saw in the prince’s dark gaze, as if he found her defense of him as engaging as it was unnecessary.

  Again, it came to her that he seemed more sure of himself than was warranted, as if this was all part of some plan. But it couldn’t be, unless…

  …Unless her suspicions were correct and he was part of some trap set for Shane and his group. A trap that would ensnare her as well. She couldn’t care about that now. She wanted this to be over. Kidnapping wasn’t right, any more than were her feelings for Nicholas.

  A pang gripped her. Surely her first loyalty should be to Shane? Should she share her suspicion with her brother? She looked at Nicholas. His eyes telegraphed an appeal. Did he sense that she suspected the truth? She had only seconds in which to decide what to do. She didn’t need that long. When Shane had allied himself with criminals, he had forfeited his right to her support.

  “Thank you for defending my honor, Your Highness,” she said, emphasizing the title. “But I can fight my own battles.”

  Nicholas inclined his head in regal acknowledgment. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I was out of line about you being his mistress, Meagan,” Shane said sullenly. “But what I said about him still goes. The royals use people.”

  Nicholas’s jaw tightened. “And you don’t?”

  “I believe in everyone being equal.”

  “Yet you give orders to your sister and expect to have them obeyed.”

  “That’s different.”

  Nicholas’s head came up. “Is it? If you’re all equal, why use threats against her child to get her to cooperate? Surely Meagan should have the choice of participating in your scheme or not?”

  Shane’s grim look raked Meagan. “Seems you two had quite a chat. Now it’s my turn. Let’s start with what you know about the Chamber of Riches.”

  Nicholas gave a cool nod. “It won’t take long. The chamber is a myth, a product of fairy tale and legend.”

  “I grant you legends have sprung up around it,” Shane agreed. “But the chamber itself is real.”

  “How can you be so
sure?”

  “Our source inside the castle said…” Shane broke off, his expression turning sly. “Never mind how I know. I just do.”

  He lifted his balled fist and Meagan saw Prince Nicholas brace himself. She could stand it no longer. “Shane, stop this. He’s already told you he doesn’t know anything.”

  “Oh, I think he knows a lot more than he’s telling us.” He leaned over Nicholas. “Will you tell me how to access the chamber, or do I have to call Dave back in here?”

  A lesser man might have cowered in the face of such a threat, especially after suffering at Dave’s hands once before, but Nicholas drew himself up as far as his bonds allowed. “Do what you like. I’ll tell you nothing.”

  Her admiration for him was tempered by fear. Whatever scheme Nicholas was hatching, she wished he would act soon. She recognized that Shane’s temper was nearly at breaking point. She had to do something before Nicholas provoked him beyond endurance and paid the price.

  She stood up, swaying slightly, her pallor all too genuine. “Shane, I…I feel terrible.”

  “What in the devil…?”

  Meagan saw Nicholas start to lunge out of the chair, heard him cursing his bonds, then felt her brother catch her as she crumpled toward the floor.

  She kept her eyes closed as she felt Shane place her on the sofa and drape a blanket over her. He chafed her hands in his. “Wake up, Meagan. Please wake up.”

  “Can’t you see she’s ill? All this is too much for her. Get her a doctor, man.”

  “I give the orders around here.”

  “Then give one to that hulking brute outside. Send him for help.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sending my best man away would increase your chance of escaping.”

  “If I give you my word not to try to escape, will you send for a doctor?”