Читать книгу The Makeover Mission - Mary Buckham - Страница 9

Jane’s hands shook as she buckled her seat belt. How was she possibly going to get through this? Nothing in her life had prepared her for international politics, mysterious missions or heroics. Especially heroics.

She came from the heartland of America, the backbone, not the front lines. She could get through her monthly grant-writing workshop, giving a little talk that would have her sweating and wishing for oblivion. And once she’d given the welcoming speech for a visiting library dignitary, which had her stomach in knots for weeks.

Now this total stranger, of wary glances and few words, wanted her to impersonate someone who, judging by her taste in clothes alone, was more sophisticated than Jane could ever hope to be.

As if he read her thoughts, or the panic she felt welling from her very toes, the major glanced her way.

“Breathe,” he ordered, as if that alone would make a difference. “The temperature in Dubruchek should be around eighty degrees.”

She didn’t need a tour guide. She needed a miracle. But his gaze on her remained calm, his voice low and level.

“The country is land-locked by mountains, keeping it cool in the summer months. Many think it resembles Switzerland.”

Great, she was going to die in paradise. Was she supposed to take consolation in that?

“Because of the mountains, and except for Dubruchek and the smaller city of Dracula, most of the locals live in small farming villages.”

“Dracula?”

He shrugged as if he didn’t hear the terror in her single word. “It was a poor choice I agree, but the town’s founders were told it was a well-known name in English literature.”

“I guess it could have been worse. Something like Frankenstein definitely would have kept away tourist dollars.”

“Most likely.” He offered her a crooked smile that softened the harshness of his face. Making it charming, almost, though she didn’t think he’d be flattered by the observation. But it was a smile.

A first, she realized, surprised to find that something as small as that was helping. The panic was still there, but so was something else. Not camaraderie, exactly. Major McConneghy didn’t look like the type to indulge in camaraderie. A knowledge that she wasn’t going alone into the unknown. Unwilling, maybe, but not alone.

“We’re here.”

She felt the thud of wheels hit the tarmac, heard the whine of engines reversing themselves.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

He paused in the act of unbuckling, his movements economical, unhurried. Nothing like what she was feeling, fear freezing everything.

“Of course you can do it.” He stood, moving toward where she still sat, petrified in her seat. He knelt beside her, unbuckling her seat belt as if she were a small child, extending his open palm to help her to her feet.

She placed her hand in his. An automatic response, she told herself, until she felt the heat of his fingers close around hers, comforting and commanding at the same time.

“When the door opens you’ll step forward—”

Her breath hitched but he continued, pulling her to her feet.

“I’ll be right beside you. If there are reporters nearby you’ll wave and act as if everything is fine.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

He gave her a look that reminded her of her maiden aunt Gertrude. The one who didn’t like sticky-fingered, skinned-kneed little kids.

“We’ll walk down the stairs and directly to the waiting limo.”

He propelled her forward, giving her no choice but to move, his hand no longer holding hers but tight around her bare arm. She swore it would leave a brand there, but wasn’t sure she could blame it all on him, not when she was dragging her feet as much as he was tugging her forward.

“What if there are reporters and they want to talk?”

“They’ve been informed you’re still a little shaken.”

“I won’t have to act that part.”

“—and that there’ll be a formal news conference.”

When her knees started to buckle at that piece of information he only held on tighter and added, “Later.”

“But what if—”

“You’ll be fine. Just smile and wave.”

“But—”

The man obviously didn’t take terror as a reason not to keep plunging forward. Already the sounds of a ramp being adjusted into place sounded from the other side.

“I can’t—”

“You can.” Major Gray-eyes all but breathed against her ear, his words meant for her alone. “You’ve made your choice.”

As if she’d been slapped with cold water she felt her panic recede. Anger replaced it. She’d had no choice. Not really, and the look she gave her abductor told him as much. Right before she shrugged off his hold, straightened her shoulders and told herself that nothing, no one, especially not a gray-eyed dictator standing almost on top of her, was going to know the cost of the next few minutes.

When the door slid open, and a rush of fresh mountain air washed against her, she stepped forward. The sunlight blinded her, the air chilled her skin, creating a ridge of goose bumps along her arms. She wanted to choke. Or cry. And made herself do neither.

Just as he’d said, there was a crowd of people beyond a barricade of orange cones and yellow flapping tape. She raised a hand to her eyes to cut the glare and scan the rest of the tarmac.

A stretch limo waited at the far end of a blue-carpeted runway that began at the base of the stairs where she stood.

Once, long, long ago, when she had watched a television special about a Hollywood star, she’d wondered what it would be like to ride in a car the length of a city block. Now she was about to find out—if an assassin’s bullet didn’t stop her first.

“Don’t think about it.” The major spoke behind her. Either a remarkably astute man or a compassionate one. But that would make him human and she didn’t want to think of him that way. Not when he was the reason she was in this mess in the first place. “Smile and wave.”

She did. Ignoring that her arm felt like a lead weight and her jaw muscles ached after only a few seconds.

The major took her arm; from a distance it probably looked as if he was assisting, not forcing her to take the first step down the metal stairs. First one, then another.

“I can walk by myself,” she muttered between stiff lips locked in a smile. “You don’t have to worry I’ll run away.”

“There’s nowhere to run.”

Oh, the man was just a font of cheerful news.

“Pause before we enter the limo and give the reporters one last photo op.”

She did as he asked, no, demanded, and was never as thankful as when she slid into the cool leather interior of the vehicle and heard the door slam shut behind her.

So far, so good, Lucius thought, watching the color seep back into Jane’s face as she leaned against the limo’s luxurious seats, her eyes closed, her breathing less shallow than it had been only moments ago. He’d give her a minute, but couldn’t afford much more than that.

He watched her eyes flutter open and asked, “Feeling better now?”

“No.”

He wouldn’t smile. Not at her acerbic response, or the brutal honesty of it.

“Fine, we’ll start, anyway.”

“Don’t let the grass grow under your feet do you, Major?”

“Can’t afford to.”

She took a deep breath and glanced out the window. Except for the way her fingers smoothed and re-smoothed the folds of her dress he’d have thought her totally under control. If she managed to keep her composure, and if his team had made progress on who was behind the attempt on Elena Rostov’s life, and if there were no more attempts until they could eliminate the threat, they just might make it through this mission. But that was an awful lot of ifs.

“When we reach where we’re going you’ll be taken to your quarters.”

“Where we’re going?”

“There’s a small villa outside of town where we’ll remain as long as we can.”

“Doing what?”

“Teaching you to be Elena.” He noted her puzzled look and added, “It’s wiser to ease you into your position. Cover the basics. The way Elena talks, the way she walks, who her friends are and what foods she’ll eat or not eat.”

He thought he could hear the air sigh from her lungs.

“And you didn’t think I should know there was going to be a reprieve, even a short one, before you throw me to the wolves?”

“Listen very carefully, Miss Richards.” He leaned forward, watching her eyes widen with his movement. “There is no reprieve. The mission has begun and you are the mission. From now on you will think, act and believe you are Elena Rostov. Your life depends on it.”

She glanced at him but said nothing.

He continued. “You’re Elena now.” He glanced toward the smoked glass separating their seat from the driver and armed guard up front. “It’s imperative that you talk about yourself as such.”

“All right,” she took a deep breath and looked as if she was holding back her temper. “What would I normally do when I arrive at wherever we’re going? Is that better?”

He ignored the sarcasm. “You’ve been known to ask for a review.”

“A what?”

“You like to have the household servants line up so you can review them.”

“I see. A queen to her subjects.”

He ducked his head to hide a grin, aware he couldn’t have described the process much more succinctly. “Yes, something like that.”

“That’s the most archaic—” she caught herself, flattened her fingers against her skirt and started again. “Then won’t the household know something is up when Ele—I mean, when I don’t do that this time?”

“We’re using the excuse that you’re tired from your long flight and justifiably concerned about security.”

“Where am I supposed to be flying in from?”

Another good question.

“You’ve been in Switzerland and France, visiting old school friends.”

“And recovering from my ordeal.”

“Exactly.”

“How many people know about this scam you’re running?”

“I prefer to think of it as a mission.”

“I bet you do.”

“Only the king, his head of state security, Eustace Tarkioff—”

“I thought the king’s name was Tarkioff?”

“Eustace is his brother.”

“Ah, nepotism at work.”

“As I was saying, only they, my team and myself know of our mission.”

“And me.”

“And you.”

She turned away from him again, her fingers taking up their pattern among the dress folds.

“Look, Miss Richards—” he began.

“Elena. My name is Elena. Remember?”

So maybe he shouldn’t be trying to offer comfort. Not when she sounded as hard as week-old ice. But he knew from first-hand experience what bravado often hid.

“All right, Elena. I know this is difficult.”

“Try downright impossible.”

“You did fine back there.” He nodded to indicate the airport they’d left behind. “You’ll do fine again.”

Her glance held fire as she replied. “I’ll do fine until I don’t recognize someone I should know, or say the wrong thing to the wrong person or pick up the wrong fork to eat with. There are a million ways I can slip up and we both know it.”

He’d be lying through his teeth if he refuted her words and he knew they both realized it, especially when she spoke again, her words pitched low, as if in speaking them aloud they might come true.

“The problem is you can’t be with me twenty-four hours a day and I can’t use the excuse of still being in shock for more than a day or two. You’ve got yourself a librarian here. That’s all. Not someone who’s been to a private school, who’s traveled through Europe, someone who—” she glanced down at the dress she wore, “who wears clothes that show more skin than I do in my swimsuit. I’m going to mess up here—sooner or later.”

She glanced away, her hands curled into tight balls of misery. “And when I do, some nameless, faceless person is going to notice and the whole thing is going to come crashing down around my head. If I haven’t been killed in the meantime.”

“That’s why we’re taking what time we can to prep you for the mission.”

“And how long will I have?” she asked.

“A week at the most.”

“And if I don’t have my…” she mumbled around the word, “…my role, or part or whatever you call it… What if I don’t have it down in this week or so?”

There were times, in the course of a number of missions, when Lucius had felt that he wasn’t going to pull through; that the end was just around the next crumbling wall, behind the next bend in the road. But never had he felt the frustration of helplessness so keenly. Every word Jane Richards spoke was on target and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make the problems go away.

He set the sheaf of papers he’d been holding onto the seat next to him. “There’s still option two.”

She glanced at him with contempt. Not that he blamed her. “You mean the one where I’m drugged and helpless?”

“The one where, if something bad was going to happen, you’d never know about it.”

He thought she might have sniffed, but her eyes were dry as she replied, “No, thanks, Major. I’d rather be led to my execution with my eyes open.”

“We’re doing everything in our power—everything in my power—to protect you.”

She looked away, wishing she could believe him. She believed he was serious in his declaration, but right now that didn’t feel like a hill of beans. But maybe with a little time? She watched small, closely spaced stucco buildings give way to open yards and smaller homes.

Who was she kidding? A week wasn’t going to make a lot of difference. What was the old saying? Silk purse out of a sow’s ear. This whole scheme was ludicrous. No one in their right mind was going to mistake a midwestern librarian for a future queen. No one.

“If you’re ready, I’ll continue.” His voice slashed through her thoughts. But this time he wasn’t a mind reader. She’d never be ready. Never.

Her parents hadn’t raised her to rock the boat, but neither had they raised her to back down when the going got rough. And this definitely qualified as rough.

“Fine, finish your briefing, Major.” She glanced out the window as the limo slowed. “If I’m not mistaken that big, pink building on the hill must be the villa.”

His gaze followed hers. “It is.”

“Then you don’t have much time to tell me what I need to know.”

Jane waited, sensing the major wasn’t happy with her response, maybe with her whole attitude, but she didn’t care. And that in itself scared her.

She had always been aware of and sensitive to the needs of those around her. She’d had little choice in the matter. The only daughter of a couple who had long before given up on ever having children, her arrival into their lives was not a blessing as much as a shock. A little like a Christmas gift delivered too late and the wrong size.

Her earliest memories had been of needing to be quiet to let her father prepare for one of the college English classes he taught, or to wait for her mother to finish editing a manuscript. Her parents were both studious, quiet people who had taught Jane, and taught her well, not to cause problems.

But right then she didn’t feel accommodating or tolerant of others’ needs. Not one bit, and she guessed that the major sensed it, too.

“We’ll talk later. At the villa,” he announced before leaning forward to push one of the buttons lining the arm of his chair. “Stefan, I’d like you to drive to the side entrance rather than through the main gates.”

“Yes, sir,” came the quick response.

“Slipping me in through the side door?” Jane heard herself ask in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. Did hysteria come masked as sarcasm?

“I’m trying to make this as easy for you as possible.”

She found herself wanting to believe him.

“You’ll have a maid who’ll help you unpack your luggage.”

Great. She didn’t even know she had luggage.

“I’ll give you about an hour before I come for you.”

So she had a little over sixty minutes to pull herself together, she thought, watching as the limo slid smoothly beneath an arched entryway, into a cobblestone courtyard that might have been charming except for the barbed wire and glass spikes sprouting along the top of every wall and the absence of anything that might have served as a hiding space. Not even a pot of flowers broke the starkness.

The limo stopped too soon for her. But, between the look the major shot her and the actions of a uniformed man opening her door, it looked as if she wasn’t going to be allowed to linger.

Let the show begin, she thought, sliding forward to step into the bright, unadorned courtyard.

Less than ten minutes later she found herself in a bedroom the size of her whole apartment back in Sioux Falls. Cream-colored. Silken upholstery. A bed large enough to host a slumber party dead center in the room.

It was a fairy-tale room: tasteful, ultimately feminine and so quiet Jane was tempted to tiptoe across its polished wood floors.

“Mademoiselle Rostov, welcome home.” A young woman’s voice interrupted her perusal. “It is good to have you back.”

Jane spotted a woman standing in the doorway of an adjoining room the size of a small bedroom and froze. The woman could not have been too many years younger than Jane, but she carried herself with a quiet maturity. Maturity or wariness, Jane wondered, noting that the woman’s gaze did not rise from staring at the floor, nor did the welcoming words extend to her expression. If anything she looked as though she was waiting to be rebuked.

So, Major McConneghy, Jane thought silently, what am I supposed to do now? Never having had anyone wait on her, she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to know this woman, or treat her with the same degree of familiarity as one addressed a waiter in a restaurant.

With a pithy thought regarding the major’s ancestors, she decided that when in doubt, do what felt right.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded like sandpaper, “I don’t recall your name.”

The woman started before quickly glancing up. “It’s Ekaterina, mademoiselle. Ekaterina Tabruz.”

Well, either Elena should have known this woman’s name, in which case Jane had already blown things, or the king’s fiancée would never have bothered to ask. Either way it was too late to go backwards.

“Thank you, Ekaterina. It seems as if I’ve heard so many names lately that they become jumbled in my memory.” That at least was the truth. Or part of it.

“Would mademoiselle wish me to draw her a bath or turn down the bed covers for a rest?”

This having-a-maid thing was going to take some getting used to, she realized, feeling too restive for either suggestion but not wanting to cause too much suspicion on Ekaterina’s part as to why her mistress was acting out of the norm.

“Actually, Ekaterina, what I’d like is to ask a few questions.” At the other woman’s immediate look of wariness, she added, “I’m feeling very disoriented and am sure you can help me.”

“Yes, mademoiselle.” Ekaterina bowed her head and folded her hands together in front of her. Not an auspicious sign for a friendly chat, Jane thought as she wandered toward the far side of the room and a set of French doors.

Opening the doors she immediately felt better, as the pine-and cedar-scented breeze drifted in. The cries of birds beyond the fortified walls sounded like a National Geographic soundtrack.

There was a small balcony, ringed by an elaborate wrought-iron railing and, Jane noted with a quick glance down its length, obviously connected to a room just beyond hers.

“Whose room is next door?” she asked the silent Ekaterina.

“It is the major’s, mademoiselle.”

“Major McConneghy’s?” Not that the news should have surprised her, but it did.

“Yes. He asked specifically that you be given this room. For the security. If you wish to choose another room at the villa you must ask it of the major.”

Like that was going to happen.

She tried a different tactic. “The villa seems different?”

“Different?” The maid’s face looked confused, until she nodded. “Ah, I understand.”

Jane was glad somebody did, because it sure wasn’t her.

“They said it was made to look like a Swiss home but maybe not so. I can show you around the rooms to see more if the major allows it.”

Jane breathed a silent sigh of relief. So she had not previously been at the villa. Which was good news. Too bad Mister I’ll-Protect-You forgot to mention this little detail. He had given her explicit instructions about the location of everything, but they all seemed to be jumbling in her head. If she hadn’t been here before it meant she could ask questions about the layout and not be expected to know how to find her way back through the labyrinth of halls and stairways she’d traveled earlier. At last, something was going her way.

“Who else is in residence in the villa?” She remained standing at the open doorway, listening to the sound of a heavy vehicle driving over the cobblestones below her.

“Only you and the major.”

She wasn’t sure why that news made her feel both safe and uneasy at the same time. Strategically she could see why it made sense, but there was something intimate about the isolation that made her hesitate. An awareness that deep in the darkness of the night it would only be she and Gray-eyes, a wall away from each other, a world away from the rest of the universe.

“Does mademoiselle wish me to tell the major she wants different rooms?” Ekaterina asked.

“No. That won’t be necessary.” Somehow she knew anywhere in the villa would be too close to the major. Jane kept her own concerns from her tone until she turned and noticed a door in the wall. “And where does that lead?” she asked, though she’d already guessed the answer.

“To the major’s room.”

She walked toward it, aware there was now even less separating her sleeping quarters from the enigmatic major’s. Sort of like a lamb lying next to the lion’s cage, only with removable bars, she thought, reaching for the door handle and turning it.

“It’s locked.”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the words aloud until Ekaterina replied, “Yes, the lock is on the major’s side.”

“And do I have a lock on this side?”

The young woman shrugged. “I know of no key, but I will check if you wish.”

“There’s no need.”

Jane whirled at the sound of the dark voice behind her, felt the triple-time pounding of her heart before she registered it was McConneghy who had spoken. He dominated the now-open doorway connecting the two rooms, either in response to her rattling of the door handle, or on his own agenda.

“Speak of the devil, Major,” she said, aware of the intensity of his gaze on hers, and of how his presence dominated the room even though he remained on the threshold. “I was just wondering about a key for this door. I know I would feel much more secure.” She made sure he heard the stress on the last word. “If I knew where it was.”

“I have it.” He nodded to the maid. “You may leave us now and finish unpacking mademoiselle’s luggage while we’re at dinner.”

Jane waited until Ekaterina closed the door behind her before she spoke. “That’s pretty presumptuous and arrogant—” she began, only to be cut off as McConneghy strode into the room, closing the door as he moved.

“It’s a security issue.” He ignored where she stood as he walked through the room, looking high and low. “I need to have access to protect you. You don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She could feel the anger start to simmer inside her. Never a fan of high-handed tactics, she was even less inclined to ignore them after the day she’d already been though.

He peered beneath the lampshade on the bedside table and picked up the phone receiver. “You don’t need to access my room, thus you don’t need a key.”

“I don’t want a key to access your room,” she wanted to choke on the words. “I want one to make sure you don’t access mine.”

He spared her a glance. Quick, appraising and heated.

“I can assure you the only reason I’d use that key was if your life was in danger.”

And just what did he mean by that two-edged comment? she wanted to know, and was afraid to ask. Especially as he crossed to tower in front of her, the strength and size of him making her feel all the more vulnerable.

She checked the urge to step back and stepped forward instead. Something the old Jane Richards, the one who went to bed a librarian and expected to wake up a librarian, would never have done.

With a finger sharpened by frustration and something more, she stabbed his chest, knowing it was about as effective as howling at the moon. “Listen here, Major, if you think I can’t control my primitive urges—”

“Primitive urges?”

She heard the laughter in his voice and ignored it. Easier to do if she kept her gaze level with his chest. “Yes, primitive urges. If you think I can’t, then you’re beyond idiotic. Not that a man who came up with this whole hare-brained scheme—”

“Mission.”

“Hare-brained mission would know the difference between reality and fantasy.”

“Oh?” His tone snapped her gaze to his. A mistake, a big mistake she realized—too late.

There was something in his look, in the flare of his nostrils, in the tightening of the skin across his cheek bones that warned her they’d strayed far from the point she wanted to make.

The mountain breeze cooling the room only moments ago disappeared. It was the only explanation as to why it suddenly seemed harder to breath, the air thicker, heavier, her skin too sensitive, feeling goose bumps where there should be none, aware of the abrasion of her dress across her nipples.

The shifting of his gaze told her he’d noticed.

“You were saying?” His look dared her to jump deeper into the waters already threatening to take her under.

“I…I can’t remember,” she admitted truthfully, aware it gave him an advantage.

Yet, as if she’d thrown a switch, his expression changed, became banked, distant. He mentally and emotionally retreated from whatever brink they’d both teetered on.

“Everything I do is for your protection and the protection of this mission.” She wondered which of the two protections took priority in his mind. “I give the orders. You obey them. Clear?”

As glass, she wanted to respond, but found the words stuck somewhere in her throat. She nodded instead, too worn out to fight this man on so many levels at the same time. Whatever had just happened between them had been a mistake. Her head relayed the message, his actions rein-forced it, but it wasn’t going to be easy to forget that for a few seconds at least, the world had slipped out of orbit.

“I’ll have your maid show you the way to the dining room for dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, then stopped. “Fine. I’ll have a tray sent up later. Tomorrow she can show you the way to the dining area.”

“It’s all right, I’m sure I can find my own way.”

She heard the sharpness in her tone. It was a tone she’d never have used in her own world. She’d been taught to be better than that, gentler, more willing to please others.

“The maid will show you the way.” Either he didn’t hear her response, or chose to ignore it. Then before she could say more he added, “It’s for your safety.”

That’s right, they wouldn’t want to lose their pigeon at this point, she thought wryly. Her expression must have given her away, for he shrugged his shoulders and turned.

“I’d recommend you retire early this evening. We have a full agenda tomorrow.”

The man could burst bubbles quicker than a pin in a balloon shop. So they were back to dictator and minion. There was no time for a snappy comeback before the connecting door snicked shut behind his silent departure.

At least she had all night to pull herself together. Enough time, she hoped, to resurrect her defenses and to remember, all too vividly, the major’s words from earlier that day. His directive to trust no one. Including himself. Especially him.

Lucius wondered if he’d lost his mind. What else could account for the few moments when he’d stood over Jane and no longer thought of her as a pawn in a dangerous mission? He’d forgotten everything except for the way her dark eyes flashed fire, her ridiculous phrase about primitive urges and the white-hot stab of lust slicing through him like an inferno sweeping across dry timber.

He’d been an operative long enough to know that desire and adrenaline were twin cousins under tense situations. But that knowledge had deserted him without a qualm, to be replaced by other knowledge. The certainty that, if he’d pushed moments ago, he’d not be standing, still breathing heavily, on one side of a two-foot thick wall right now, with her on the other side.

He’d seen it in her gaze, anger giving way to wariness, wariness slipping into desire, a heartbeat away from capitulation. He’d registered the way her breath hitched a notch, her pulse escalated in the hollow of her throat. One step, one minor movement forward and he’d know if she responded with the same lightning quickness he’d observed in her thought process, if she tasted as sweet as she looked.

And it was that thought that had stopped him cold. Days ago he’d never have met Jane Richards, their paths would never have crossed, their destinies never intermingled. But she’d been right earlier when she’d accused him of forcing her into limited choices.

He’d brought her to Vendari, against his better judgment, and thrust her into a mission fraught with danger on all sides. What kind of low-life scum was he that he’d place her in more peril? The kind that came with an emotional price tag.

He was going to do everything in his power to keep her safe, but he couldn’t do that if he led her into a physical relationship based on nothing more than close quarters, fear and dependence on her side, dominance and power on his. Like a lamb to slaughter, he could manipulate her total dependence on him, her vulnerability without him, until she wouldn’t know the difference between her abductor and her angel.

But he would.

Maybe that few minutes was meant as a sign—a warning that for some reason this woman tugged at emotions he’d thought locked and buried away, at least as long as a mission was involved. And now that he knew, knew to tread lightly, he could save them both pain.

The mission came first and, as long as Jane was a key component of the mission, any feelings he might experience around her had either to be kept strictly under control or downright ignored. Not easy, he accepted, crossing into the room he was to occupy during the duration of this stay in Dubruchek. Not easy at all when this librarian from Sioux Falls slipped through his best defenses against personal involvement—with anyone.

But he’d handled difficult, if not impossible, tasks before. He could, and would handle this one. Both of their lives, as well as the lives of his team members depended on it.