Spring Fire. Vin Packer
can see me behind a desk, Zia-mia?”
“Yes!”
“What a poor liar you are.” He made a fist and delivered a mock punch to her chin. “You wouldn’t last five minutes under interrogation.”
Gina had returned during their brief exchange. Shoving back her careless tumble of curls, she entered the fray. “Jack says you would make an excellent liaison to the State Department. In fact, he wants to talk to you about that tomorrow, when you’re in Washington.”
“With all due respect to your husband, Lady Eugenia, I’m not ready to join the ranks of bureaucrats.”
His use of her honorific brought out one of Gina’s merry, irreverent grins. “Since we’re tossing around titles here, has Grandmother told you about the codicil?”
“She has.”
“Well then…” Fanning out the skirts of her leafy-green sundress, she sank to the floor in an elegant, if theatrical, curtsy.
Dom muttered something distinctly unroyal under his breath. Fortunately, the Clark woman covered it when she pushed to her feet.
“Excuse me. This is a family matter. I’ll leave you to discuss it and go back to my research. You’ll call me when it’s convenient for us to continue our interview, Duchess?”
“I will. You’re in New York until Thursday, is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am. Then I fly to Paris to compare notes with Sarah.”
“We’ll get together again before then.”
“Thank you.” She bent to gather the bulging briefcase that had been resting against the leg of her chair. Straightening, she nudged up her glasses back into place. “It was good to meet you, Dr. St. Sebastian, and to see you again, Lady Eugenia.”
Her tone didn’t change. Neither did her polite expression. But Dom didn’t miss what looked very much like a flicker of disdain in her brown eyes when she dipped her head in his direction.
“Your Grace.”
He didn’t alter his expression, either, but both his sister and his cousin recognized the sudden, silky note in his voice.
“I’ll see you to the door.”
“Thank you, but I’ll let myself… Oh. Uh, all right.”
Natalie blinked owlishly behind her glasses. The smile didn’t leave Dominic St. Sebastian’s ridiculously handsome face and the hand banding her upper arm certainly wouldn’t leave any bruises. That didn’t make her feel any less like a suspect being escorted from the scene of a crime, however. Especially when he paused with a hand on the door latch and skewered her with a narrow glance from those dark eyes.
“Where are you staying?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Where are you staying?”
Good Lord! Was he hitting on her? No, he couldn’t be! She was most definitely not his type. According to Zia’s laughing reports, her bachelor brother went for leggy blondes or voluptuous brunettes. A long string of them, judging by the duchess’s somewhat more acerbic references to his sowing altogether too many wild oats.
That more than anything had predisposed Natalie to dislike Dominic St. Sebastian sight unseen. She’d fallen for a too-handsome, too-smooth operator like him once and would pay for that stupidity for the rest of her life. Still, she tried, she really tried, to keep disdain from seeping into her voice as she tugged her arm free.
“I don’t believe where I’m staying is any of your business.”
“You’ve made it my business with this nonsense about a codicil.”
Whoa! He could lock a hand around her arm. He could perp-walk her to the door. He could not disparage her research.
Thoroughly indignant, Natalie returned fire. “It’s not nonsense, as you would know if you’d displayed any interest in your family’s history. I suggest you show a little more respect for your heritage, Your Grace, and for the duchess.”
He muttered something in Hungarian she suspected was not particularly complimentary and bent an elbow against the doorjamb, leaning close. Too close! She could see herself in his pupils, catch the tang of apricot brandy on his breath.
“My respect for Charlotte is why you and I are going to have a private chat, yes? I ask again, where are you staying?”
His Magyar roots were showing, Natalie noted with a skitter of nerves. The slight thickening of his accent should have warned her. Should have sent her scurrying back into the protective shell she’d lived inside for so long it was now as much a part of her life as her drab hair and clothes. But some spark of her old self tilted her chin.
“You’re supposed to be a big, bad secret agent,” she said coolly. “Dig out the information yourself.”
He would, Dom vowed as the door closed behind her with a small thud. He most definitely would.
All it took was one call to arm Dom with the essential information. Natalie Elizabeth Clark. Born Farmington, Illinois. Age twenty-nine, height five feet six inches, brown hair, brown eyes. Single. Graduated University of Michigan with a degree in library science, specializing in archives and presentation. Employed as an archivist with Centerville Community College for three years, the State of Illinois Civil Service Board for four. Currently residing in L.A. where she was employed by Sarah St. Sebastian as a personal assistant.
An archivist. Christ!
Dom shook his head as his cab picked its way downtown later that evening. He envisioned a small cubicle, her head bent toward a monitor screen, her eyes staring through those thick lenses at an endless stream of documents to be verified, coded and electronically filed. And she’d done it for seven years! Dom would have committed ritual hara-kiri after a week. No wonder she’d jumped when Sarah put out feelers for an assistant to help research her book.
Ms. Clark was still running endless computer searches. Still digging through archives, some electronic, some paper. But at least now she was traveling the globe to get at the most elusive of those documents. And, Dom guessed as his cab pulled up at the W New York, doing that traveling on a very generous expense account.
He didn’t bother to stop at the front desk. His phone call had confirmed that Ms. Clark had checked into room 1304 two days ago. And a tracking program developed for the military and now in use by a number of intelligence agencies confirmed her cell phone was currently emitting signals from this location.
Two minutes later Dom rapped on her door. The darkening of the peephole told him she was as careful in her personal life as she no doubt was in her work. He smiled his approval, then waited for the door to open.
When neither of those events happened, he rapped again. Still no response.
“It’s Dominic St. Sebastian, Ms. Clark. I know you’re in there. You may as well open the door.”
She complied but wasn’t happy about it. “It’s generally considered polite to call ahead for an appointment instead of just showing up at someone’s hotel room.”
The August humidity had turned her shapeless linen dress into a roadmap of wrinkles, and her sensible pumps had been traded for hotel flip-flops. She’d freed her hair from the clip, though, and it framed her face in surprisingly thick, soft waves as she tipped Dom a cool look through her glasses.
“May I ask why you felt compelled to come all the way downtown to speak with me?”
Dom had been asking himself the same thing. He’d confirmed this woman was who she said she was and verified her credentials. The truth was he probably wouldn’t have given Natalie Clark a second thought if not for those little