Princess in the Iron Mask Read online

  Unmindful, her eyes sought his. He was staring at her mouth again, at where she gnawed at the flesh of her lip with her front teeth. Then he looked to Armande...back to her...and his jaw set rigid.

  ‘Armande is in charge for now,’ he said, strangely ill-tempered. ‘I have something to take care of.’

  ‘What?’ Turning her back on Armande, she instinctively latched onto Lucas’s forearm. ‘You’re leaving me? With...with him?’

  He frowned, flicked his attention to her white-knuckled grip. ‘You’ll be perfectly safe.’

  ‘Are you coming back?’ She did not sound needy—definitely not. She sounded inquisitive.

  ‘Sí. Of course.’

  How many times had she heard that? Too many. Yet for some reason she believed him. Who in their right mind would coerce her into going to Arunthia only to abandon her before the flight?

  She slackened her hold, feeling like a total idiot. ‘Fine. I’m going to bed anyway.’

  ‘One hour,’ he declared, before dipping his head discreetly towards her ear.

  Stomach fizzing, she clenched her lower abdomen and sucked her tender bottom lip. His breath tickled down the sensitive skin of her neck, his husky murmur igniting each tiny fizzy bubble until it exploded inside her.

  ‘Try to behave yourself, Just Claudia.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘ALONE?’ LUCAS SAID, satisfied with his controlled volume as he lowered the morning newspaper to the breakfast table and sent Claudia The Look.

  Dark insolent brows arched in his direction before she sipped pure orange juice between her ripe lips. A direct order from God couldn’t have stopped him from watching her slender throat convulse, her pink tongue snake out to lick the pith sticking to her perfect bow. The newspaper crumpled in his fist as heat snaked through his veins, making his pulse spike.

  ‘Yes, Lucas. I want to go alone.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Impossible. I will accompany you or you will not go. End of discussion.’

  Keeping his paper lowered, he waited for her reaction, but the ice maiden had risen with the morning sun.

  Dressed in a sharp, fitted black suit, her hair tied back punishingly into a twisted knot, she looked a world away from the dowdy lab rat of yesterday. Still, every inch of her skin was covered, the only break in the black a fawn shirt, stroking her decolletage. Satin, he mused, eyeing the way the expensive fabric rippled around her neck. Today she had an untouchable, regal aura—one he was extremely grateful for.

  ‘Why are you staring at me? Do I look dour this morning?’

  Lucas jerked his eyes back to her face. Had he just imagined her wounded tone? With his limited experience of the female sex outside the sheets he felt unsure how to proceed. Unsure? Dios, he felt something close to panic claw down his chest. Never had he been asked to comment on a woman’s appearance.

  Lucas snapped the paper shut and laid it on the table beside his empty coffee cup. ‘Not at all. I was just thinking how smart you look.’

  ‘Smart?’ she repeated, deadpan, tapping her pencil off her front teeth, popping the end into her mouth and nibbling it.

  He shifted in his seat. ‘Sí. Appropriate for your arrival in Arunthia.’

  ‘I’m not there yet,’ she said, no more happy with his comment than he was.

  Damn. He should have told her she was beautiful. How he itched to untie her hair, to caress her long, sultry curls.

  As it was, the memory of a hard floor against his back and a walking centrefold in the cushy bed thirty feet away would haunt him for days. By four a.m. he’d done six hundred sit-ups, cleaned his gun, had three showers and interviewed the man in the white pick-up. Armande had hauled the bastard into the adjoining suite at midnight. A shifty Arunthian reporter whom Lucas had despised on sight. One who wouldn’t be returning to his home country for some time. Not as long as Claudia was there.

  The reminder brought him back to her comment. She wasn’t in Arunthia. Yet.

  ‘Our flight is at three p.m. You have plenty of time to make your visit. Accompanied,’ he tagged on, unwilling to be moved on the point.

  Tearing at a slice of wholemeal toast, she chewed with vigour and speared him with arrows of contempt.

  Good. She hated him. As long as he kept that look on her face they’d make it home without another hitch. Problem was Lucas had an uneasy notion that Claudia was about to produce a hitch the size of Mount Vesuvius.

  * * *

  ‘There is something wrong with you?’ asked Lucas, with a harshness that made Claudia’s skin bristle.

  Sliding her eyes over the vast entrance of St Andrew’s Hospital, she knotted her fingers atop her lap.

  What? Was he concerned that he’d have to take damaged goods through Security in Arunthia? Claudia would laugh if the chord didn’t strike through to the very heart of her. How many times had she dreamed of being perfect, being cured, just so her parents would come back for her? Days, months, years spent waiting, her naïve heart still hoping.

  Throat thick, pain smashing into her forehead, she rubbed her brow with an unsteady hand. Why couldn’t she forget? Why couldn’t she just get over it and move on?

  ‘Claudia? Answer me!’

  She turned to look at a scowling Lucas in the seat beside her, hating the instant fire in her belly just one look ignited. ‘No, Lucas, there is nothing wrong with me. Apart from the insane urge to strangle you.’ The man was driving her to Valium.

  Scowl diminishing, a smile played about his lips. ‘The feeling is entirely mutual, princesa. So, tell me, why are we here?’

  ‘I sometimes work here and—’

  He snorted, relief easing the two little lines he got when he frowned. ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Actually, on this occasion it isn’t about work. I was about to say I met someone here. Bailey, remember? So if you’ll excuse me—’

  ‘Wait,’ he said, grasping her wrist.

  Whether it was the hundred volts ripping up her arm or the fact he’d touched her wrist, she wasn’t sure, but she twisted her arm, writhing from his hold. ‘Please don’t touch me there.’

  Lucas instantly let go and held up his hand. ‘I would not hurt you, Claudia,’ he said, voice gruff, his brows low over intense eyes brimming with...pain? Oh, no. No!

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t.’ No thought, no hesitation, she reached over, lightly grazing his fist where it now curled on his hard thigh. His skin was so warm. So perfect. ‘I know that.’

  ‘Bueno. Good,’ he said, his chest visibly easing.

  Yes, he was hard—but in a warrior-like way. Good fighting against evil.

  And that one thought...the mere possibility that he might have faced evil...coupled with that one agonised look derailed her pride, her every defence. ‘I’m just really funny about my wrists. That’s all. And when...’ When you touch me I feel alive. For the first time in my life. And it scares me.

  Those beautiful sapphire eyes flicked down to where her fingers still smoothed over his flesh and his hand slowly began to stiffen as if repelled.

  Hurt kissed her heart and she snatched her hand back. ‘Anyway, I need to go inside.’

  Lucas reached for the door handle. ‘Sí. We will go,’ he said, fierce, dominating, as if the moment had never happened.

  The change in him was so swift it took her a moment to gather her wits. ‘We? No, Lucas. That’s not acceptable.’

  She wouldn’t put Bailey through a meeting with a stranger. She remembered all too well the pity. The staring. The crushing silence that seemed to stretch the air so thin she could barely breathe. The powerful desire for them to leave followed by the stomach-wrenching emptiness of the room. And just as unforgettable was the palpable unease of others. It wasn’t fair on Lucas either.

  ‘Claudia, you are in my protection,’ he ground out.

  ‘For once will you stop thinking about your bloody job and give me an hour’s peace before my life is obliterated? I need to see someone. In private. Can’t you understand that?’<
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  Lucas tore his gaze from the grim scenery and narrowed his eyes on her. ‘You feel deeply for this person?’

  ‘Yes. Just an hour. Please?’

  The shutters slammed down over his face. ‘One hour. I will wait.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘In Reception.’

  ‘Reception? People are sure to ask questions as soon as they clap eyes on you. You’re hardly inconspicuous.’

  He shrugged those broad muscular shoulders. ‘Tough.’

  ‘God, you’re the most arrogant louse I’ve ever met.’ And to think she’d just told him something she’d never told another soul just to make him feel better.

  Pushing her glasses up her nose, she yanked her bag from the floor as the car door opened before her. And there stood Lucas.

  ‘How...? You know something? You’re the human equivalent of a silencer.’

  He flashed her a killer half-smile. ‘One hour, Just Claudia.’

  * * *

  Lucas paced the reception area, his size twelves wearing holes in the thin matting, and yanked back the cuff of his jacket to check his watch. Again. One hour, seven minutes, thirty-six seconds.

  Dios, he abhorred hospitals: the thick air of grief sliding down his throat, the dread, the notion that control had been handed to God and Lucas would pay the price.

  Teeth bared, he let out a low growl. Where the hell was she? And who was this Bailey person? A lover? She’d intimated a female, but he knew women lied under the dense weight of desperation.

  Anger swirled, black and heavy in his gut, as well as some indefinable emotion he was loath to name. The suspicion sparked a flare of unease in him. Was she safe? The shock of it suddenly engulfed him and acted like an almighty trigger.

  He strode towards the curved reception desk, set like a barricade, denying all further access to the floors beyond. Her private business was no concern of his but, Dios, one hour was one hour, and if something happened to her...

  After flashing a smile to the emaciated blonde, some extreme lash-fluttering, flaunting his government credentials and name-dropping his right-royal-pain-in-the-ass, she directed him to floor seven and one Bailey Michaels.

  Adrenaline surged to every extremity until he felt hard—armed and ready to take on the world as he stalked towards the lift, then bypassed it for the stairs, needing to run off some excess energy, throwing open the doors to the seventh floor a minute later.

  Three things happened simultaneously to punch the air from his lungs. The musical sound of children’s voices floated past his ears. The colourful images of cartoon characters painted on vast glass plates drew his eyes. And the scent of strong disinfectant speared up his nose to assault his mind.

  Stomach revolting, he stiffened his abs to prevent his six-egg omelette from making a reappearance. Twenty years vanished and he was back in the halls of hell.

  His hand shot out to grip the wooden ledge framing a window. His thoughts fractured. His vision blurred. Air was imprisoned in his chest. Get up, boy. I’m not done. Get the hell up! Glancing down at his hands, he grimaced as blood dripped from his fingers to splash into a dark red puddle at his feet.

  Get it together, Garcia. Stand to attention. Now!

  Breathe. He needed to breathe. Dragging in oxygen, he infused his spine with steel and reached for the plateau between consciousness and serenity. In and out, slow and even. His mind’s eyes gradually turned black, his heartbeat slowed, and a voice filtered through the murky haze.

  ‘...and then the brave dark knight took out his sword and fought the dragon with all his might. Past the castle walls, past fire and flame, through the walls of men he charged to find her. Up the stairs to the turret where she lay in a deep sleep waiting for his kiss...’

  Claudia?

  His eyes sprang open and Lucas scanned the hallway for the direction of her voice, moved stealthily towards an open door.

  ‘Oh, and she was so beautiful. With long golden hair, just like yours, and big blue eyes the colour of the Arunthian ocean...’

  ‘Like mine?’ a little voice asked.

  ‘Just like yours.’

  ‘No one would want to kiss me,’ came the little voice.

  ‘Oh, the dark knight would want a kiss. But you’d have to be older. Like the Princess. And when you’re older your eyes won’t be sore any more and your wrists will be just like mine. See?’

  Lucas surveyed the small room, knowing he shouldn’t be intruding—that it was, as Claudia had said, private. And Bailey sounded very much like a young girl. Not a man. The rapid flush of relief was because she was safe, he was sure.

  Claudia was perched on the edge of a small bed, blocking his view of the patient. Her jacket was gone, the sleeves of her shirt rolled high as she twisted her arm this way and that, seemingly allowing the girl to inspect her wrists. He remembered all the times she’d tugged at her clothes, and earlier when he’d grabbed her.

  Stiffening his limbs, he fought the emotional throb of his body.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to kiss a boy anyway,’ Bailey said. ‘Clara in Bay Four said it’s like eating custard. I hate custard.’

  ‘Custard?’ Claudia repeated, and Lucas could hear the smile in her voice. He wished she wasn’t turned away from him so he could see the widening of her lush mouth for himself.

  ‘But maybe my dad would come...’

  ‘I know, darling,’ Claudia said softly, the affection in her voice strong, the rich, melodic tone unfamiliar to him. Yet somehow it had the power to unearth a long-buried memory and create a strange surge of longing. ‘I know,’ she repeated. ‘Look what I brought for you.’

  Claudia bent from the waist, reaching into her bag on the floor, and his attention snapped to the child. Dios...

  He stepped to the side in an instant, before she caught sight of him, unwilling to frighten her. His size tended to do just that and she was immensely frail. Frail? She was tiny.

  ‘Who’s that man, Claudia?’ the girl asked.

  Damn. Lucas schooled his features, flexed his neck and relaxed his big body in an attempt to become as unthreatening as he possibly could. Then he turned to the open doorway, almost filling the narrow gap.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  The girl, Bailey, gaped openly, and Claudia shot to her feet. ‘Lucas. What are you doing here? Can’t I have one hour’s peace?’

  ‘Sí,’ he said. ‘Except it now happens to be one hour and twenty-three minutes.’ He turned to Bailey. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘No,’ Claudia said.

  ‘Okay,’ Bailey said.

  ‘Since this is your room, señorita, I shall take your answer,’ he said to the young girl, and was rewarded with a small tentative smile. One that lifted the heavy bruising from around her eyes and sent a fresh burst of emotion through his system.

  Claudia fisted her small hands as if she wanted to punch him into next week, and stepped toward the bed in an entirely protective move. What the hell did she think he would do?

  As he approached the bed Claudia moved closer still, practically smothering his view. And, like a warning flare illuminating the sky, light dawned. She was not only protecting the child, she was hiding her.

  He tossed Claudia a quizzical look and she volleyed with a silent plea, mouthed, ‘Do not stare.’

  Anger screamed through his innards, blending with affront, and he ground his jaw fiercely to prevent it pouring from his mouth. He’d always prided himself on being unreadable—he’d been trained by the best, after all—but the chastised look on Claudia’s face told him he’d failed to hide his fury in this instance. And he was inordinately pleased.

  In one sweeping glance he’d gained several key pieces that made up the Princess Claudine Verbault conundrum. And when you’re older...your wrists will be just like mine...she’d said. This girl had the same condition that Claudia had suffered from in her youth. Lucas was looking at the past.

  At enflamed wrists and elbows, painfully sore skin. At puffy eyes and purplish brandi
ng that spoke of bone-deep lethargy. And the way she barely moved from the bed, wincing as she tried to straighten her legs, told him she suffered serious muscle fatigue. Tiny hands tugged at the white sheet to drape over her slight frame. Hiding.

  Pain banked in his chest. Through it all, the girl was very pretty, and he could see glimpses of the beautiful woman she would become. A woman who would replace the white sheet with a dour wardrobe.

  Madre de Dios. His gut ached.

  While he’d read brief notes on the illness, seeing it, looking at it for himself, was something else entirely. Much like visiting a bombsite—knowing the damage was already done, hoping for the best, but witnessing devastation that left soldiers numb for hours.

  Clearing his thick, tight throat, he looked towards Claudia. ‘Would you like to make the introductions?’

  Her deep amber eyes bored through his skull and he returned her glare, caught in that odd battle of wills that so often ensnared them. Not once had he lost the fight, and this time the stakes were gravely higher.

  Soon enough she blinked, then stepped to the side. ‘Bailey, this is Lucas. Lucas, this is my friend Bailey.’

  Lucas tore his gaze from Claudia, knowing full well that he shouldn’t be here. That with every passing second he was becoming more embroiled with the mysterious Arunthian Princess. It wasn’t his job to consider her past, present or her future. Getting her home was his remit. His obligation. His mission. His promise to the King.

  Pausing for a second, he weighed the risk. Looked at the expectant child, the hopeful softening of Claudia’s beautiful face.

  ‘Buenos días, Bailey,’ he said, with a quick bow that pinked her cheeks. ‘I am honoured to meet you.’

  * * *

  Claudia tried to pick her jaw up off the floor and only just managed when Lucas raised one dark brow in her direction. Clearly he had no idea of the in-topics for girly conversation, because small talk slipped in a steady decline and he kept looking to Claudia for direction. And each time he did something warm and delicious unfurled inside her.

  Oh, God, he was utterly wonderful. Which was great for Bailey, disastrous for her. She wanted to hate him. For barging into her life, stripping away her independence. For taking her away from Bailey and throwing her to the wolves.