Phillipe made a gesture that was extravagantly-almost comically-French. "Oh, but you must stay! At least until the vendange is finished. I cannot possibly spare this man at the moment. And for you, mademoiselle, it will be an enjoyment. Vendange in Provence is like one big party-like your Mardi Gras. A moveable feast. A few more days, eh? What can it matter?"
She shot Nikolas a dark look. He held out his hands in one of those half-French, half-British gestures of his. "I swear, I did not put him up to it."
She gave in with a put-upon sigh, and didn't tell him she'd planned to give him several days, anyway. A few more days of freedom…
"Don't think you've won this battle," she said as she and Nikolas resumed their leisurely stroll up the gravelly dirt road toward the oasis of dark green trees that shaded the stone-and-stucco house-not touching, now, and she refused to admit to herself she was sorry. "I just don't want to leave your friend short-handed for his damned vendange-what is that, by the way?"
"Vendange? That's the grape harvest. Happens every year around this time."
Other than shooting him a quelling glance, she ignored the facetious remark. "I can't believe the vineyard owner is out here picking grapes like a field hand. Is that part of the tradition?"
"It is, actually. Among the small growers, anyway. Most of the pickers you see here are neighbors and other small farm owners from around the area. They all come together to help each other with the harvest, moving from farm to farm, vineyard to vineyard until the job's done."
"A 'moveable feast'?"
Nik smiled. "Partly. You'll see soon enough. You heard him say they'll be breaking for 'lunch' soon? I'm afraid the word lunch doesn't come close to describing it. All the farmers sort of compete with each other to see who can put on the biggest and best noonday spread. The wine and local hooch- which is called marc, by the way. and unless you've a cast-iron stomach. I don't recommend you try it-will be flowing freely as well."
"In the middle of the day? How does anyone work afterward?"
"They don't. You heard him say they were about done for the day. He meant that."
"Nice short workday." Rhia remarked.
"Like hell it is. When it's hot like this we start at three in the morning."
She threw him a look of horror. "Why?"
"Because the grapes don't like it when you take them out of the nice warm sunshine and toss them into a cooler. It sends them into shock, or some such thing." His easy smile made something inside her chest wallow. As if her heart really had turned over.
Because the implications of that didn't bear thinking about, she said crossly. "You talk about grapes as if they're…I don't know-alive."
His eyebrow went up. and she repressed a shudder. "Really? I suppose I do. You hang around vintners very long and it rubs off on you."
"You spend a lot of time here, then?"
His smile went crooked. "Spent, not spend. When I was at university, mostly. Spent most of my holidays here, when my…when Silas was off somewhere."
"Doing…?"
"Whatever it is he does, I suppose. Fomenting rebellion, rousing the rabble." He shrugged and looked off across the vineyards for a moment. "I didn't mind, actually. Phillipe and his family were…like family. His maman was pretty much the only mum I ever had." He threw her his lopsided smile, and she felt the most astonishing sensation-an aching pressure at the base of her throat. "I probably have her to thank for civilizing me, at any rate."
Rhia cleared gravel from her throat. "You were happy here."
"I was, yes. At one time I actually considered making a career of it-grape-growing…wine-making. There's a region in my country I've always thought- Have you been to Silvershire?"
"Only to the capital-Silverton."
"Ah-yes, well it's southwest of there. Carrington's ancestral lands. The climate is quite similar to this-perfect for growing wine grapes."
"Why didn't you? Make a career of it?"
The crooked smile flickered again. "It wasn't quite what Silas had in mind for me. Or fate either, as it turns out."
Nik's stomach went hollow suddenly. Hefting the case he was carrying, he said. "What the devil's in this, by the way? Not, as Phil suggested, some sort of weapon, I hope?"
Her lips didn't smile, and he wondered what her eyes would tell him if it weren't for the damned sunglasses. "Nope," she said, "just a saxophone."
He gave a bark of surprised laughter. "A…what?"
"You know…jazz, the blues…it's a horn…you blow it."
He hadn't thought anything she could do would surprise him. but obviously he'd underestimated her. Again. Serendipity… A strange little shiver ran down his spine. How could she have known he'd always had a particular fondness for American jazz? "Don't tell me you know how to play it."
"No, of course not." she replied in a frosty tone. "I just have a really eccentric taste in accessories."
"A bit cranky, are we?" he remarked evenly, hiding all traces of his inner delight.
"That's how people get when they're left handcuffed to a bed," she replied, and he could almost hear her teeth grinding. "Particularly without access to a bathroom."
"Ah. That." He stopped in the middle of the road to look at her. Realizing his eyebrows were doing that thing that annoyed her so. he made a conscious effort to stop them- also to contain his grin-before he walked on. "I really had hoped you'd gotten over that."
"Not a chance, Donovan." He could feel her eyes on him. dark as a threat.
He glanced at her and made scolding noises with his tongue. "Oh, come now, you aren't the type to carry a grudge, surely?"
There was something hypnotic about her eyes… "My mother always claimed one of her grandmothers was Creole-a voodoo priestess" she said, and hissed the last word like a curse. "It's in my blood."
He wanted to laugh, but the tingle of excitement rushing beneath his skin didn't feel like amusement. He could feel heat and heartbeat intensifying in places they shouldn't have been, not at high noon in the middle of a French vineyard. Not in response to a woman whose avowed mission was to take him into custody and return him to a place he had no desire to go. But…really-Creole? Voodoo?
He was mulling over this interesting new tidbit of information about his adversary's background when the convoy of tractors pulling trailers laden with barrels and people began to stream past them. Phillipe shouted and waved from the midst of the crowd on the last one, and it halted in the road beside them. Nikolas looked at Rhia and made an offering gesture. She threw him a challenging look, then took the helping hands reaching out to her from the crowd on the wagon and allowed herself to be hoisted aboard. Nikolas passed the oblong case containing her saxophone up to her as she settled into the midst of the boisterous crowd, then levered himself onto the back of the flatbed. Someone gave a shout and the tractor began to move forward again. Someone began to sing, and most of the passengers on the trailer joined in. And Nikolas, for no reason he could think of, found himself smiling.
Chapter 5
For the second morning in a very few days, Rhia wallowed her way to consciousness to the smell of coffee, and to find Nikolas Donovan sitting on the bed beside her. This time, instead of gently caressing her face, he was shaking her. Not the least bit gently.
"Rise and shine, luv-time to get up." His voice sounded obscenely cheerful.
She pried open one eye and said. "It's dark!" in an outraged tone. And then gasped, cringed and covered her eyes with her hand as light stabbed them cruelly from the lamp on the table beside the bed.
"There." Nikolas said without sympathy. "It's not dark anymore. Come on-get up. I've brought you coffee. We've got about fifteen minutes before the trailers leave."
"Leave? For where, in God's name? At this hour-" Oh, God, was she whining? She struggled to sit up, and Nikolas helpfully drew back the light blanket that covered her. She pulled it back up to her chin and glared in his direction without focusing. "What hour is it, by the way?"
"Two forty-five-well, actually-" he glanced at his watch "-it's two forty-eight, now. I suggest you hurry if you want time to drink that coffee."
She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples, which did absolutely nothing to diminish the pounding behind them. To make matters worse, when she opened her eyes again Nikolas was still there, and. once she had him in focus, looking sinfully handsome and smiling at her like a beneficent saint. She regarded him for a moment with loathing, then said. "Are you being deliberately cruel, or is this an aspect of your personality I wasn't briefed about?"
His laugh sent involuntary ripples of pleasure through her. It was like rubbing against fur. "My dear, you did say you wanted to pick grapes with the crew this morning."
She gave him a sideways look of stark disbelief. "Impossible."
"Sony to have to tell you this, but I heard you with my own ears. So did Phillipe and most of the crew."
"I couldn't have…could I? When?"
"Hmm…let's see. It was after your third glass of marc, I believe-or perhaps it was the fourth-I'm afraid I lost track. Anyway, the crew was very much impressed with you. If you back out now, you're going to suffer an enormous loss of face."
Rhia groaned and collapsed back on the pillows, closing her eyes. "Oh, God, Father Matthew was right."
"Father Matthew?" Nik's voice was vibrant with rather poorly suppressed emotions-laughter, she was sure. And something else. Something that sounded a lot like-oddly-affection.
"Yeah-he was the priest in the Catholic girls' school I went to in Florida. He always told me I'd go to hell. I think this must be it."
He made a smothered sound-definitely laughter. "Oh, come now-it's not so bad once you get outside. Rather nice, actually." There was a pause, and she felt the touch of something cool and soothing on her aching head-something that warmed almost instantly and became Nikolas's fingers. "You're really not a night person, are you?" he said tenderly. "Who knew?"
She opened her eyes and tried to glare at him, but found that her eyelids had grown inexplicably heavy. "It's not night," she mumbled, "it's morning. Dark, pitch-dark morning." Her tongue felt heavy, too, and her lips seemed to have swollen. She had a powerful desire, now to press them into the nice warm palm that was cradling the side of her face. "I've always been a night person, actually. My nights have only become an ordeal since I met you."
"It doesn't have to be that way, you know." The pad of his thumb brushed gently across her swollen lips, but instead of soothing them, set them on fire. The heat and heaviness began to spread…like melting molasses…into her arms…her legs…her body. Her breasts felt tight, and even the kiss of silk and lace was more than her sensitized nipples could bear.
"You do know," Nikolas murmured, "if it weren't for this unfortunate hang-up you have about my allegedly royal blood, you and I would be lovers by now."
Her heart stuttered and her stomach wallowed drunkenly- roughly the way those parts of her had behaved the first time she'd jumped out of an airplane during her training for the Lazlo Group job. Now, as then, pride made her catch a breath and fight valiantly against the panic. "You're awfully sure of yourself, aren't you?" There… tart, and not too breathless.
His reply was wordless. He simply leaned down and kissed her.
In some buried, weakened part of herself, had she been expecting it? In that same part of herself she'd definitely wanted it. When she felt his warm lips pillow against hers, she uttered a single whimpering cry…and opened to him.
And then she was in free fall, the wind rushing so hard against her face she couldn't breathe. Fear gripped her, and then exhilaration. I've got to stop this! I have to stop…
But she couldn't stop. And in the end, after she thought she must surely have passed the point of no return, it was Nikolas who pulled the ripcord. "Yes," he murmured, with his lips still touching hers, "I am."
His lips moved, then…along her jawline, riding on the velvety cushion of his sweet, warm breath. Her breasts grew heavier, each breath lifting them intolerably against the chafing fabric of the silk-and-lace camisole she'd slept in, making them yearn for the touch of his fingers instead.
Fighting it. she said in a desperate rush, "It's not just your ancestry-it's my job…Nik. My job-oh, damn."
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