She also wished she'd insisted on acquiring a weapon.

Rhia seldom carried a gun, although she was skilled in the use of firearms and fully licensed to carry concealed. Naturally, bringing a weapon of any sort along on this particular assignment-accompanying Silvershire's crown prince to a clandestine meeting with his father the king-had been out of the question.

She'd asked Nikolas before they'd left his apartment if he was bringing a gun along-it seemed a reasonable question to her, considering they were heading off to confront a possible kidnapper and murderer. He'd told her flatly that he didn't own one. Sorry.

She wished now she'd taken the time to insist on getting herself one. But they'd been in such a hurry…

"There's something else I don't understand." she said, again striving for distraction after a particularly hairy turn had caused her stomach to lodge itself temporarily in her throat. "Lazlo has a pretty extensive dossier on Silas Donovan, ineluding family history. The information goes back a good long way-generations, in fact. A couple of hundred years' worth. How is it that an imposter can come along and insert himself into the Donovan family tree, and nobody be the wiser? What about kinfolk? Neighbors?"

His smile broadened, though there was no more humor in it than before. "Patience, my love," he said softly, the first words of endearment he'd spoken to her since they'd left Vladimir's castle. "All will become clear in due time, I promise. Very soon now, in fact…"

Except for one sharp exhalation, by clenching her teeth and counting silently to ten Rhia managed to keep her seething impatience locked inside.

The car sped on. hurtling around corners on a road that wound steadily downward, ever closer to the foaming surf… then climbed steeply up again, arrowed through a cut in the shallow cliffside to emerge at last onto a barren plain. The plain, studded with scrubby vegetation, stretched ahead to a cloudless blue sky and ended in a rocky point that jutted like an arrowhead into a churning sea. At the tip of the arrowhead, a lone structure rose like a stubby white candle from a gray stone holder.

"It's a lighthouse." Rhia said, with a little hiccup of surprised laughter, and then went silent as Nikolas pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped, leaving the motor running.

He'd had to stop. For a minute. His heart was racing and his hands were cold and sweaty on the steering wheel. Though, at least his voice seemed gratifyingly normal as he said conversationally. "It's called the Daneby Light. A few centuries ago, wreckers made a pretty good living here, using lanterns to lure unwary sailors onto those rocks. The crown put an end to that activity sometime in the mid nineteenth century when they built this lighthouse and appointed someone as full-time keeper. Someone named Donovan, I believe."

Beside him, Rhia was staring at the lighthouse, slowly shaking her head. "My God, Nikolas…this is where you grew up? You must have been-" her voice slipped away from her and she snatched it back with a hard, hurting breath "-so lonely."

She turned her head to look at him. and he saw her throat ripple and the intense shine of her eyes beneath sooty lashes, and he felt something hard and cold inside him soften and warm. For the first time since they'd left Perth Castle, he smiled a real smile. "Darling," he said softly, stroking her cheek with the back of his finger, "your empathy is showing."

He shifted gears abruptly and pulled back onto the road. He felt renewed…strengthened, suddenly, all the tension and dread in him gone. "Actually, it wasn't all that bad. You don't really need chums, you know, when you're just a little tyke. And then, I had all this as my backyard. Silas used to take me out on the moors, or along the beach, or exploring the tide pools, and he'd teach me the names of everything we found. And at night, when it was clear, there were the stars-he taught me their names, too. On a moonless night…you wouldn't believe the stars-there aren't any lights out here to compete with them, you see. Can't say I was fond of the storms, though. Or the fog."

"This is what you meant when you said if there's anything you know about, it's-"

"-fog," Nikolas joined in, wryly. "Yeah…I did have my fill of that. But then…I went off to school." He paused, looking back, then let out a breath. "That was the only time I was really lonely, I think. The first year was rough, but at least I had the solace of company. There was a lot of sniffling that went on in the first-term's dormitory after lights out, I can tell you. But…it got better. And later on I met Phillipe and started spending summers and holidays with him. and after that I didn't come back here much at all, actually."

"But…wait." She tilted her head, frowning. "Silas doesn't still live out here, does he? According to his file, he lives and works in Dunford. At the college."

"He does. He moved to Dunford when they closed down the lighthouse-or automated it, which amounts to the same thing. That happened when I was at Oxford. After I started teaching at the college, I got him a job there as a custodian." He gave a sharp bark of laughter as it struck him. "My God- can you imagine it? The Duke of Perthegon-working as a janitor?" He paused, then said in a voice with no humor in it whatsoever. "He's been AWOL from his job, and he's not at his apartment in Dunford, either. Believe me, the first thing I did when I heard about…all this, was go looking for him. Figured he owed me some sort of an explanation. Didn't think of it then, but it has occurred to me that he might…just possibly…have come here to hide out. He'd done it once before."

They were both silent for a moment, watching the lighthouse loom steadily larger in the car's windshield. Then Rhia said slowly. "Okay, I get how Vladimir could have disguised himself as the old lighthouse keeper and escaped notice all these years-I mean, living way out here, no neighbors-especially if he hadn't any family. There's just one thing I don't understand." He felt her head swivel toward him…felt the burn of her eyes. Felt a chill wash over him before she even asked the question.

"What happened to the real Silas Donovan?"

He turned his head and met her eyes-briefly-but couldn't say the words. He knew he didn't have to.

She closed her eyes, let out a hissing breath. "God, I wish I had a gun."

The feeling of lightness and optimism left him as quickly as it had come. "Silas would never hurt me." he said stiffly, and felt her eyes turn on him again.

"Nik, the man is very probably a sociopath-you do know that, don't you? He has no feelings, for you or any other human being. People only matter to him if he can use them. Otherwise, they're disposable. He used you-"

He hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand, surprising himself as much as her. It was a child's anger, stubborn and irrational. He knew that, but it made no difference. "Dammit, Rhee! The man was a father to me!"

"He stole you from your father. And raised you, groomed you, planned to use you to fulfill his own sick agenda for revenge. You think you know him? How can you know what he'll do?"

He stared bleakly through the windshield. He didn't want to quarrel with Rhia; quarreling with her made him feel cold and sick inside. But he couldn't let himself agree with her. He couldn't. "He was both mother and father to me," he said in a voice that hurt his throat. "The only parent I ever had. I can't forget that."

She didn't reply.

The car topped the last rise and began the long gradual descent toward the tip of the arrowhead. And although outside the sun continued to beat down from a cloudless sky, inside the car Nikolas felt the way he had as a child when the fog rolled in from the channel and shrouded the lighthouse and its two lone occupants in a blanket of white-chilled, isolated… .alone.

It seemed fitting, somehow.

"Doesn't look like anyone's here. I don't see a car," Rhia said in a low voice that was a measure of how tense she was rather than fear of being heard by anyone outside the vehicle.

Nikolas had parked the Opal nose-in to a row of white-painted rocks separating a bare gravel parking area from an overgrown garden. He was staring through the windshield at what had once been a charming lightkeeper's cottage, built of white-painted stone with a slate-tile roof to withstand the buffeting of storm and sea. Now. wind and rain had scoured away most of the paint, so that the cottage seemed almost to be trying to return to the rock that surrounded it. Windows set deep in the thick stone walls were clouded with cobwebs and salt spray, and wooden shutters tearing slivers of blue paint hung crookedly from rusting hinges.

"There's a garage around the back," he said absently. "If he's been living here for a while and doesn't want that fact known, I expect he'd keep his car in out of sight."

She nodded, but didn't reply. Her throat felt clogged with emotions she couldn't express…words she couldn't say. Oh, how she wanted to reach out to him…touch his cheek…take his hand. What are you feeling now, Nikolas, my love? This must be so hard…and you are so far away from me.

He turned his head to give her a lopsided smile. "I must say, the place has gone to ruin a bit since I saw it last. A pity, really. A lot of history here…"

She cleared her throat and returned the smile. "I think it definitely ought to be preserved. When you're king, you should turn it into a museum, or a national monument." Nikolas snorted and reached for the door handle. "Sure," she said as she followed suit, "you know, turn it into a tourist attraction, like they do the childhood homes of presidents back in the States. You could-" The rest froze solid in her throat.

The door of the cottage had opened partway-no more than a foot or so. Through the crack came a pair of arms holding a rifle, and a voice that was cold and hard as steel.

"Ye have 'til I count ten to get back into your car and drive away. On the count of eleve,. I start shooting. One…"

"Nik-" I knew it-I should have insisted on bringing a gun.

"Shh-it's all right." He pushed the door open and called cheerfully. "Don't shoot, Uncle-it's me, Nik."

The rifle barrel wavered, but didn't withdraw. "Show yourselves-the both o' ye," the voice commanded. "And keep your hands where I can see them."

Rhia eased herself out of the car slowly, hands on the top edge of the door but keeping most of the rest of herself barricaded behind it. Nikolas, meanwhile, stood up boldly, unconcernedly slammed his door and held his hands out to his sides.

"Come on, Silas, what are you doing? This is a fine welcome. For God's sake, put that thing away."

While Rhia held her breath, the gun slowly lowered, then abruptly disappeared. The door opened wider, and a man emerged, scowling into the sunshine. He was tall, but stooped and gaunt-a big-framed man losing flesh to age, though he looked strong and wiry still. He was wearing olive-green wool trousers tucked into knee-high boots, a black knit long-sleeved sweater and an open brown leather vest. He also wore a black wool fisherman's cap over long graying brown hair that had been pulled back into a clubbed ponytail. His beard, moustache and bushy eyebrows were almost entirely gray, and what visible skin he had was weathered as old leather.

"Nikolas, me boy-is that you? Ah-" he made a gesture of impatience with his hand "-forgive an old man. I don't see as well as I used to." As if daring her to challenge the statement, eyes as sharp and blue as steel knives flicked at Rhia before returning to Nikolas, and she winced involuntarily, to her inner fury, as if stung by a lash.

"Thought you'd be Weston's men, come to arrest me for trespassing in me own house." Silas Donovan went on, thin lips drawn into a sneer. Then he laughed-a single harsh sound, like the crack of a whip. "But I hear that's who ye be, ain't it? Weston's man? Henry Weston's whelp, so they're saying. Who'd've thought it, eh, boy? If I'd known who ye were when I found ye on me doorstep thirty years ago. I'd've drowned ye like a runt pup. I would." Baring strong teeth in a wolfish grin, he clasped Nikolas's hand and pulled him into a hard embrace. The two men thumped each other soundly on the back for a moment or two, then Silas turned and aimed his fierce glare at Rhia. "And who is this ye have with ye?" And he bowed his head and doffed his cap in an oddly charming gesture. "Aye, I must be getting old indeed, me lass, to have mistaken ye for Weston's, or any sort of man."

Rhia was rarely tongue-tied, but the bombardment of conflicting thoughts and impressions she was experiencing had her reeling. It was all she could manage just to mutter her own name as she placed her hand in Silas Donovan's leathery grip.