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The Lost Prince
Cindy Dees


Aide worker Katy McMann was tending to the wounded in a wartorn country when she stumbled upon the cause of the conflict–the king of Baraq. The enigmatic Nikolas Ramsey hid among imprisoned men until he could find a way to restore himself to the throne.In the confines of the prison their chemistry sizzled, and Katy wished circumstances were different. She kept his dangerous secret, but then he asked her to make a sacrifice for the Baraqi people–have his child for the future of his kingdom. Fulfilling his request might save the country and Nick, but would it cost Katy her heart?









Katy smiled gently and reached out to put her hand on Nick’s.


Electricity shot up her arm, startling her into jerking her hand away. To cover up her reaction, she asked hastily, “Is there any chance the army would let you live if they found out who you were?”

He shook his head sharply. “Not a chance. They have to kill me to solidify their hold on power. As long as I’m alive, the loyalists will continue to fight.” He shrugged, causing all those gorgeous muscles to ripple across his chest. “The first battle may be finished, but the war is far from over.”

Lovely. And here she was smack-dab in the middle of it.

She jumped when he grabbed her hand and held it tightly. For just a second desperation glistened in his eyes, then he let go of her fingers reluctantly, like a drowning man slipping into the abyss.

“Please, Katy. Help me.”




The Lost Prince

Cindy Dees





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CINDY DEES


started flying airplanes while sitting on her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. At age fifteen she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan where she grew up to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European studies, she joined the U.S. Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in the history of the air force. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest airplane. She also worked part-time gathering intelligence. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War, met her husband and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.

Her hobbies include professional Middle Eastern dancing, Japanese gardening and medieval reenacting. She started writing on a one-dollar bet with her mother and was thrilled to win that bet with the publication of her first book in 2001. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.




Contents


Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16




Prologue


When you’re a king, how you die is as important as how you live.

The unexpected thought distracted Nick long enough that he almost didn’t dive for cover in time. An explosion rocked him nearly off his feet, momentarily lighting the throne room’s white marble floors and colonnaded walls a gaudy shade of orange.

Kaboom!

That didn’t sound like another mortar. That sounded more like a shape charge in the vicinity of one of the ancient fortress’s heavy wooden drawbridges.

Dying at the hands of an enraged mob of soldiers was not high on his list of things to do with his life, dammit. But then, neither was being a king. Yet here he was, king for barely a week and about to die because of it. How ironic. Oh, he’d known his father was ill. But he’d still been shocked when the call came to his London flat that his father had succumbed to one last massive heart attack, leaving Nick sole heir to all his family’s titles and estates, including the principality of Baraq.

In retrospect, his impulsive decision to stay on in Baraq after his father’s funeral had been colossally stupid. But who’d have guessed he’d walk into a mess like this? What had he been thinking? It was one thing to be a fool. It was another thing entirely to die for it. Why were these guys so sure he’d be a lousy king, anyway? How could these strangers hate him so much? He’d only been on the throne a few days.

Of course, he’d just answered his own question. These Army officers kicking him off his throne were total strangers to him. He’d left Baraq with his mother when he was ten. Finished his schooling in England and only went home—although he didn’t even think of Baraq as that—when he absolutely had to. The last time he’d been back here was six years ago on the fiftieth anniversary of his father becoming king.

Who would have ever guessed his perfect life would come to this? It was a hell of an end for the most eligible bachelor in all of Europe.

Flickering light danced off the ceiling, announcing that a fire blazed in the garden outside. Nick wasn’t worried about the palace burning. Its stone walls were six feet thick and had withstood more than one assault by fire over the centuries.

An abrupt musical crash of breaking glass made him turn and look out from behind the massive throne. He saw several middle-aged men swing a priceless Louis XV chair and heave it out one of the room’s many tall windows, creating a jagged man-sized hole amidst a glittering shower of glass.

Indignant, he stepped out from behind the throne.

Nikolas Hassan Akeem el Ramsey, thirtieth ruler of the principality of Baraq, planted his fists on his hips and glared in disgust as his ministers jumped one by one out the window into the river below. They looked like so many rats abandoning a sinking ship.

Good riddance.

They were the idiots who’d run his ailing father’s country into this mess in the first place. It had taken him a matter of hours listening to their blathering and bickering to know why Baraq hovered on the edge of collapse. If only he’d had more time. Maybe he could have set the once peaceful and prosperous country to rights. But now it was too late. He was going to die a stupid, senseless death that he’d walked right into without ever getting a chance to lead Baraq into a better future.

Anger swirled through him sickeningly. Why hadn’t his father seen this crisis coming and done something to avert it? Why didn’t I come home from London sooner and see it myself?

He’d been so busy investing several large cash deposits in the Ramsey bank accounts in London, it hadn’t even occurred to him to go home to visit his ailing father. Hell, he’d even passed on visiting his mother at her palatial home in Barbados this winter.

Well, he was home now.

Kareem Hadar, his father’s oldest friend and only counselor with a speck of sense, moved toward him, apparently having opted not to join the rats in their midnight swim. The older man flinched every few steps at the bursts of gunfire now echoing from within the ancient stone walls of the fortress.

“Your Highness, you must leave,” Kareem urged.

Nick glared at him. That had been his exact thought moments ago, but hearing it said aloud inexplicably irritated him. “I will not! I swore at my coronation that I would stand by Baraq and defend it from its enemies.”

Kareem replied urgently, “Your father is dead and this night’s battle is lost. If the war is to be won, you must survive. You are the only living Ramsey.”

Nick snorted. “Not for long. The rebels are inside the palace. They’ll find me in a few minutes, and you know as well as I do they’ll kill me on sight.”

Both men ducked as a deafening blast shook the room. An enormous chandelier plunged to the floor, shattering into a million pieces and throwing a rainbow of broken crystals across the marble tiles. The huge double doors at the far end of the long hall crashed open, and a phalanx of palace guards backed into the room, hard pressed in hand-to-hand fighting. The line slowly buckled, and Nick glimpsed the distinctive green camouflage of the Army rebels pushing inexorably forward through the light-brown khaki of the Baraqi royal guards.

Resolutely he turned around and walked up the shallow steps to his father’s throne. My throne, dammit. He pivoted deliberately and sat down. Time to die like a king.

From his excellent vantage point, he watched the fight, mesmerized by the slow-motion collapse of the last line of defense standing between him and death. He was startled out of his reverie when Kareem grabbed his arm with surprising strength and bodily dragged him off the throne.

Nick shouted over the din, “What are you doing? If I must die, I’m going to die on my throne!”

The older man put his mouth to Nick’s ear and shouted over the screams of soldiers, machine-gun fire and clash of bayonets, “Your Highness, there may be a way to avoid such a fate….”




Chapter 1


Katy McMann ached from head to foot. But then, twelve hours and counting in an airplane seat had a way of doing that. Thankfully this was the last leg of her journey from Washington, D.C. to North Africa and a postage-stamp kingdom called Baraq. Near Morocco somewhere.

She’d tried to sleep on the flight from D.C. to London, but her nerves pretty much shot that plan. This was her first mission as a humanitarian relief worker with InterAid, and she was terrified that she was going to blow it. Every newbie to the organization probably felt that way. But not every newbie lived with paparazzi camped on her doorstep, ready and waiting to catch the tiniest screwup on her part and splash it across the tabloid headlines.

It wasn’t that she’d ever done anything the slightest bit newsworthy in her twenty-six years to date. But her brothers had. The McMann clan had burst onto the legal scene a few years back as the spectacularly successful lawyers to the rich and guilty. And ever since, the press had been laying in wait for them, sniffing like bloodhounds after any morsel of dirt to smear on her brothers’ names—including the private life of their little sister.

The InterAid team leader, Don Ford, a marathon runner and all-around intense personality, stood up in front of the clustered team with a clipboard in hand, effectively distracting her from disparaging thoughts of her brothers and their lack of moral spine.

Ford read off a list of assignments for when they arrived in the country. She would be working on prisoner interviews with a guy named Larry Grayson. She’d met him briefly last night. He was a barrel-chested man with short, gray crew-cut hair, a fleshy face, small eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses and no lips to speak of. Rather, a white line of habitually compressed flesh marked his mouth. He’d struck her as a pompous ass who could probably quote large chunks of the Geneva Convention from memory and who took as his personal responsibility enforcing it down to the last t crossed and i dotted.

She caught a few smirks around her. Yup, she’d been stuck with Grayson intentionally. Note to self: Don Ford wasn’t above putting the notorious rookie in her place. She sighed.

Prisoner interviews, eh? She pulled out her training manual and reviewed what it had to say on the subject. The job mostly involved verifying identities, ascertaining the prisoner’s state of health, examining living conditions, delivering letters and care packages to prisoners and making sure no illegal interrogation methods were being employed. None of it sounded too hard.

A flight attendant came around to collect the last trash and check that everyone’s seats and trays were in their upright and locked positions. Katy’s ears popped gently as the plane began its descent into Baraq. She looked out the window at the barren mountains below, brick red beneath a beige layer of haze. A few pockets of green dotted the rocky landscape, but for the most part the forbidding terrain looked startlingly like Mars. And human beings lived in that? Ugh.

The plane planted itself hard on terra firma at Baraq International Airport and taxied up to a modern glass-and-chrome terminal. The ramp was conspicuously deserted. Theirs was the only plane visible on the entire field, in fact. Not exactly a teeming metropolis of activity. Of course, a coup d’état no doubt put a severe cramp on travel-related activity.

A commotion outside caught Katy’s attention. She leaned forward to look out her window and saw a line of soldiers run up, surrounding the airplane. They all had machine guns at the ready, pointed at the plane. Whoa. Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.



What sort of idiot escaped an enemy by putting himself into that very enemy’s hands? An idiot with no other options, apparently. Kareem’s plan was audacious. Certainly unexpected. Arguably insane. Doomed to failure. And here Nick was, going along with it like a lamb to the slaughter. Even his natural optimism was stretched to the breaking point on this one. For the first time in his life his family’s money, power, prestige and sheer fame weren’t going to buy him out of this mess. He was utterly without defenses or resources other than his own brains and guts. Lord, he felt naked.

Nick hitched up his bloodied khaki pants and took the machine gun Kareem handed him. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

The advisor nodded solemnly and started to move forward but then froze, looking over Nick’s shoulder. Nick registered some sort of commotion behind him. Not good. Their plan wasn’t in place yet. He opened his mouth to urge Kareem to hurry.

He never saw the blow coming. One moment he was looking into the eyes of his father’s friend and the next pain exploded in his head like a starburst. The marble floor rushed up to slam into him, and then his world went black.



Their plane sat on the ramp with no one entering or leaving it for long enough that Katy finally dozed off. How long she slept, she didn’t know. But it was morning when she woke up to the sounds of a commotion. A portable staircase had arrived and the front door of the jet had just opened.

A scowling soldier boarded the aircraft as if he owned it. “Everybody out!” he shouted.

The team disembarked onto the tarmac while machine guns followed their every movement. Surely this wasn’t a typical welcome for relief agencies! She glanced around, and even the team’s veterans had their shoulders up around their ears and looked tense. Not good.

They were herded down the stairs and into a tight group, with soldiers pressing in on them from all sides with those darned weapons. Katy didn’t know about anybody else, but she was intimidated.

And then they stood there and waited some more. The tension built like a Beethoven symphony, rising higher and higher until she felt as if it might explode any second. If her brothers had been here orchestrating this confrontation, she’d accuse them of intentionally creating a crisis atmosphere in order to throw their opponents off balance.

Something incongruous struck her as she stood there. The smell of orange blossoms. It hung in the air, light and sweet, perfuming every breath she drew. And then something else struck her. The blinding blue of the sky overhead. This was actually a lovely little corner of the world. The sun already shone with an equatorial intensity that promised to burn her fair skin when it got a little higher in the sky. She sincerely hoped she lived long enough for that to be a problem.

When the standoff had reached the breaking point, a Baraqi Army officer strolled out to the tarmac and perused them scornfully. In Arabic he gave his troops a short order to stand down. At least that’s what Katy, with her rusty college grasp of that tongue, thought he said.

The machine guns finally rose up and away. Along with the whole InterAid team, she sighed in profound relief.

The officer snapped at them to get their bags. She filed over to the British Airways jet and duly took her place in the bag brigade that passed their gear from the belly of the plane to the big pile of suitcases beyond the wing.

A large, heavy-duty Army truck drove up. It could’ve pulled up right beside the luggage, but no. It parked far enough away to make them carry their gear over to it. Clearly the Baraqi Army wasn’t thrilled to have InterAid here. Katy hefted her duffel bag, carried it to the open-bed truck and tossed it up to the team member standing there.

She fell into the line of InterAid workers headed for another truck, this one sporting wooden benches along its wood-slatted sides. She was about to climb up into the transport when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder, startling her.

“You do not go with men,” a soldier growled behind her in heavily accented English.

Now what? Was this more random harassment? Or maybe these guys had heard of her brothers, too? Sheesh.

“Over there.” The man nodded at a smaller truck with canvas sides and roof. Her internal alarm system jangled wildly at the idea of being separated from the rest of the team. But it wasn’t as though the rough hand crushing her shoulder gave her any choice in the matter. The soldier propelled her toward the enclosed truck.

She caught sight of Phyllis Estevaz, one of the team’s other females, already seated inside the truck, wearing a head scarf and a shapeless black dress of some kind. Aah. An abaya. The black, concealing overgarment worn by women throughout the Middle East. Her guidebook had said that although the majority of the Baraqi population was Muslim, there was no official state religion in the secularly governed principality. None of the pictures of this region had indicated that women were expected to wear traditional garb.

Another soldier emerged from the far side of the truck and shoved a wad of black fabric at her. “Cover body.”

She could swear he muttered the word for harlot in French as she took the pile of cloth from him. It smelled of sweat and dust and smoke and maybe a hint of some cooking spice she couldn’t identify. She held up the abaya, turning it in several different directions, trying to make sense of its voluminous folds.

A female voice from behind her startled her. Hazel Whittaker, the team’s third female member. “Find the neck hole and put it over your head. The opening goes in the front and ties shut. Once you’ve got it on, I’ll show you how to put on the hijab—the head scarf and veil—so they don’t drive you crazy.”

In no time, Katy was swathed in what turned out to be some sort of polyester georgette fabric. It actually wasn’t nearly as hot or uncomfortable as she’d expected. It looked like an oversize choir gown, with long loose sleeves and a baggy fit over her clothes. However, it was a royal pain in the rear trying to climb up the narrow metal steps into the back of the truck with it swirling around her legs. She collected the fabric in big handfuls, hiking it up as far as she could, but still she couldn’t see her feet. A soldier snarled something at her in Arabic. As best as she could tell, he was growling at her for showing too much of her ankles. Something about being a lewd American. Tough. He could just look away if her ankles were so offensive. She had no intention of breaking her neck on these stupid steps.

The interior of the truck was airless and close. Were it not a cool, pleasant day outside, it would have been sweltering. Katy looked over enviously at the men in their open truck.

The caravan of trucks set out. They drove for nearly two hours up into the mountains, where people still lived as if it were the twelfth century. The one constant of the trip was that every woman she spied looked scared.

Finally square white-stucco structures began to cluster more and more closely together. They were coming into a large city. It must be Akuba. The capital of Baraq. Seat of the Ramsey dynasty for a thousand years, according to Katy’s guidebook.

The streets were narrow and crowded. Nasal shouts of Arabic mingled with car horns. Turbaned men, young and old, stared suspiciously at them as the trucks rolled by. Women peeked fearfully from shadowed doorways, and Katy caught occasional glimpses past them into gated courtyards with colorful mosaic paving and dancing fountains. Heavily carved wood decorated the shop fronts, and a dusty smell of cumin hung in the air. She identified cinnamon and allspice, pepper and a hint of the rare and expensive spice saffron seasoning the smoke rising from pots over open-air cooking fires.

The truck turned a corner, and she caught her first glimpse of the royal palace, called Il Leone, towering over the city on its nearby mountain peak. It was an imposing pile of gray granite perched over Akuba like a hulking sentinel. Its walls were high and thick, topped by crenellated teeth of stone. A huge drawbridge was pulled shut, a medieval iron portcullis crisscrossing in front of it.

Circular towers rose up from each corner of the fortress, and striped red, black and green flags fluttered above them. The Baraqi flag pictured in her guidebook was white with the crossed swords and lions of the Ramsey family crest emblazoned upon it. She assumed what hung now were improvised flags from the Army regime that currently held the country.

As their trucks wound deeper into the city, the streets grew even more congested and turned to cobblestone, which was incredibly uncomfortable, even in a rubber-tired vehicle with modern shock absorbers. The medieval buildings were taller here, made of stone and crowded in closely upon them, creating deep, mysterious shadows all around. Music drifted out of an open doorway—drums and a whiny, nasal horn of some kind. Katy half expected a camel caravan carrying a sultan and his harem to overtake them any second.

She felt like a well-shaken martini by the time the trucks wound through the ancient streets up to the foot of the great fortress of Il Leone. Chains clanked, and she risked lifting the canvas side of the truck to peek at the source of the noise. She saw a gigantic drawbridge ponderously folding down to admit them to the palace, its chains unwinding from great spools on either side of the cavernous entrance. The truck lurched forward, and she watched in awe as they passed over a no-kidding, murky, water-filled moat and drove into a palace courtyard. The place teemed with soldiers, and she quickly dropped the canvas flap lest she get chewed out for indecorous peeking or some such dire crime.

A soldier’s face appeared abruptly at the back of the truck. In Arabic he ordered her and the other women to get out. These Baraqis were certainly not long on courtesy. Fearing a broken neck, she groped blindly for the steps with her feet and climbed down out of the truck wielding great armfuls of black fabric.

The castle walls rose around her, dark and ancient, with tiny leaded-glass windows here and there, the only relief to the stone facades. No wonder Nikolas Ramsey had preferred to run around on the French Riviera and party in London’s wild and wacky West End rather than stay home and learn how to be king—if the tabloids were accurate. This place was depressing her, and she’d been here less than two minutes. Of course, he’d paid for shirking his duty in blood. And in the loss of his country.

An Army officer strode up to the InterAid team and said arrogantly in excellent French, “I am Major Moubayed. You will begin cataloging the prisoners and casualties immediately and report to me the names of every one of them.” His sharp condescension reminded her of her brother Travis when a reporter was being a moron around him.

The team leader stepped forward and replied evenly, “I am Don Ford, and we will proceed according to international protocol. In due time we will, indeed, give you a complete list of casualties from both sides of the conflict, in addition to notifying the families of said casualties. We will also interview all of your prisoners and wounded to ascertain their status and treatment within the Geneva Conventions.”

The major scowled, his black eyes narrow and menacing. Ford stared right back at the guy. Patience, Don. Patience, Katy urged silently. Finally the Baraqi officer looked away. Nicely done, Don.

The major growled, “Do your work quickly and be gone with you, then.”

Ford nodded pleasantly and turned to face his team. “You heard the man. Let’s get to work. We still have a couple hours of daylight left.”

Larry Grayson materialized beside her and shoved a leather satchel into her surprised hands. “Med kit,” he announced. “We’re allowed to render minor first aid. Clipboard, paper and pens are in there, too, along with a spreadsheet I worked up for recording vital stats on each prisoner.” She had to give the guy credit—he was organized.

“Come with me,” he threw over his shoulder as he strode forward and approached Major Moubayed.

Katy hurried to catch up with her partner and reached him just in time to hear him tell the major imperiously in English, “Show me to your prisoners.”

She flinched. Not the best way to handle a pissed-off authority figure like Moubayed. Sure enough, the major scowled and threw a spate of angry French at Grayson.

“Do you understand what this guy’s saying?” Larry asked her, thinly veiled contempt in his voice.

She cleared her throat and said delicately, “Let’s just say he’s commenting on the state of American etiquette.” She’d swear the Army major understood what she said, because she was sure a ghost of a grin flickered across his face.

She spoke hesitantly to Moubayed in French, being sure to look down at his shoes all the while. “Please forgive my colleague for his abruptness. He is eager to get started on the work you have requested of us. Perhaps one of your men can show us the way to any prisoners you might be holding here?”

Apparently mollified by her humble attitude, the major signaled to a soldier, who stepped forward silently. Moubayed told the guy to take them to…someplace…a quickly uttered Arabic word she didn’t recognize. The soldier nodded briskly and gestured them to follow him.

The soldier stopped in front of a bulky wooden door with a curved top, banded by iron hinges and set low in the base of a round stone tower. It looked like something straight out of the Dark Ages.

“What is this place?” she tried in French to the soldier.

“Le cachot,” he replied. The dungeon.

Get out! A real, live, honest-to-goodness dungeon? This country was like some sort of weird time warp. She took a deep breath. Here went nothing. Her first mission as a relief worker.

The reality of standing in a tiny country halfway around the world from home, about to visit actual prisoners of war, hit her. Dauntingly. The scowling soldier beside her, casually toting a machine gun, was a whole different ball of wax than the smiling and grateful faces of hungry children she’d envisioned when she signed up for this job. A creeping sense of being an impostor stole over her. Maybe she was just a spoiled little rich girl playing at being a social activist, assuaging her conscience over the advantages life had granted her.

“Come on, girl!” Larry snapped. “You don’t want to make these guys mad, especially since you’re a female.”

Like he was anyone to talk. She jumped and followed her partner hastily. Her black abaya flapped around her like an unruly sail, and she batted at the billowing fabric. How did Muslim women function in these stupid things, anyway? And she couldn’t see squat out the veil swathing her head and covering most of her face. No wonder women weren’t allowed to drive in this part of the world! In these getups they were half-blind.

She and Larry followed their escort into a round room with a desk and a couple chairs, all occupied by lounging soldiers. Their escort stepped across the space to another iron-studded door and knocked on it. A peephole slid open. Fluid words of Arabic were exchanged, and the door squeaked open ponderously. She followed Larry inside. A second soldier fell in behind them.

The sense of walking into a time warp intensified.

The passageway stretching away into blackness before them was dark and dank, lit only by torches in iron sconces on the walls. Straw littered the stone floors, and shiny black water dripped down the rock walls, its noise the only sound interrupting the heavy silence. The hallway looked carved out of the bowels of the earth itself. Katy swore she saw a rodent of some kind scurry off into the dark. Huge ancient padlocks adorned rows of ironbound doors that wound away into the gloom. An otherworldly chill skittered down her spine. This was the kind of place that touched souls. Changed them. Crushed them.

Larry glanced over his shoulder at her, grinning. “Some cool dungeon, huh? You take the doors on the right and I’ll take the doors on the left. It’ll go faster that way. Holler if you run into an injury you can’t handle. I’m a trained trauma first responder.”

“Uh, okay,” Katy mumbled. She had to go solo right from the start? She gulped. This would be just like her work at the homeless shelter back in Washington, D.C., where she took care of minor bumps and bruises and lent a sympathetic ear as needed. The only difference here was that she was dressed like a mummy and standing in a medieval den of torture.

The first soldier peeled off with Larry, and the second guard went with her. She gestured at the first door, and the guy unlocked it.

She stepped forward, but the guard blocked her way. “Infidel bitch,” he snarled. “Do not pollute a son of God with your filth.”

She blinked, startled. Now what was that supposed to mean? That she wasn’t supposed to recruit the prisoner to become Christian? Or she wasn’t supposed to touch him, maybe? But she had to touch these guys to treat any injuries they might have. Crud. She’d just have to brazen it out. She had a job to do, and if this solider didn’t like it, he could just lump it.

She stepped around the guard and into the tiny cell. And then she turned and shut the door in the guard’s face. She took deep satisfaction from the look of surprise she glimpsed right before she all but whacked him in the nose.

Alone. Thank God. The prisoner—part of the house guard of Il Leone, judging by his khaki uniform—had a minor concussion and some minor blunt-injury trauma. She wrote down his name on Larry’s spreadsheet and took note of his injuries, describing them in detail. Nothing to write home about.

At the second door, her soldier escort drew a breath to say something to her again, but she held up a hand, surprising him into silence. In resolute French she told him, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell me how to do my job.” To soften her words, she added, “And in return, I will not tell you how to do yours.”

He seemed so offended by the idea of her even suggesting what he do, that he appeared unable to come up with a snappy comeback. She slipped into the second cell alone. This prisoner had a broken finger that needed splinting.

Apparently she’d achieved a hostile but silent truce with her escort guard, for he merely opened doors for her now—still glaring at her, of course, lest she think she’d won. By the fifth prisoner or so, her nerves calmed down and she fell into a groove of treating minor injuries while the men babbled out their fears, mostly over dying at the hands of their Baraqi Army captors. She couldn’t blame them for the sentiment.

And then she stood in front of the sixth cell. Her escort unlocked the door and stepped aside while she entered. The padlock clicked shut behind her.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she squinted into the semidarkness. The small cell was just like all the others, a ten-foot-by-ten-foot cube carved out of stone. The single tiny window high on the back wall must open onto some sort of air shaft, for indirect light filtered through it. A bucket of drinking water stood in one corner, and another bucket in the opposite corner served as a restroom facility, from the smell of it. She made out the shape of a man lying on the hip-high stone ledge that passed for a bed. He looked asleep.

The torch in her hand guttered as a cool finger of air whisked down her spine. Premonition roared through her, nearly knocking her off her feet. This prisoner is different.




Chapter 2


He looked much the same as the others, dirty and exhausted, wearing the beige uniform of a soldier from the royal guard. As her eyes adjusted fully to the gloom, she saw his face was badly battered and swollen. Black eyes, a gashed and broken nose, a split lip and a bad cut on the jaw were all in need of attention. Honestly his face looked like hamburger. A swollen, painful hamburger.

She spoke softly in French so she wouldn’t startle him out of his sleep. “Bonjour, je suis avec InterAid. Je suis ici pour vous aider.” Hello, I’m with InterAid. I’m here to help you.

The man’s eyes flew open—as much as two puffy slits could open—staring at her, alert and wary. No panic hovered close to the surface in this guy’s steady gaze. If anything, fury swirled in them. Great. Another chauvinist who felt her breathing the same air as him was an affront to his manhood.

Still, the instinctive sense of pull in her gut toward this man was unmistakable.



Shock rendered Nick speechless. Merciful God. She was gaping at him as if she recognized him. She couldn’t. She mustn’t!

He was supposed to pass himself off as a common soldier. Nobody was supposed to find out who he was. Kareem had broken Nick’s nose and blackened his eyes himself and had assured him when he came to that he didn’t look one bit like a king.

“Êtes vous Américaine?” Are you American, he asked. Although, how could those big, round cornflower-blue eyes in a tiny patch of lightly tanned skin revealed by her veil be anything but American?

She nodded. “Oui.”

He switched into English, a language his guards were much less likely to know than French, and asked low and urgently, “How did InterAid get into Baraq?”

The woman shrugged. “That’s way above my pay grade to know. As far as I know, we were invited.”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. Sharaf was up to no good letting these people in so soon after the coup. What was the bastard planning now?

“We’re here to render humanitarian aid and monitor the treatment of prisoners.”

Sharaf must be making a run at legitimizing his control of Baraq. Dammit. The country mustn’t fall into the general’s bloodthirsty hands. Chagrin at his helplessness to protect his people from the madman burned in his gut.

“Would you mind if I had a look at your nose? It could use some attention.”

Nick flinched as the aid worker reached for him. She still wore a strange expression as though she half recognized him. Frantic to get her to stop looking at him like that, he stilled himself and answered smoothly, “Be my guest.”

She stepped closer. The first thing he noticed was that she smelled like lavender. The scent reminded him of cottage gardens in the English countryside—enchanting and gentle. The second thing he noticed was the expression in her incredibly blue eyes. Complete disbelief about summed it up.

Either he looked a whole lot worse than he realized or she had a darn good idea of precisely who he was. Damn! He had to distract her. But how? His mind went completely blank. “You smell like lavender,” he announced for lack of anything else intelligent to say.

She laughed as she reached for his nose. “I don’t see how. I think the Army got this robe off some goat herder’s wife who’s never heard of bathing.”

Her fingers lightly probed the swelling, and his grin turned into a grimace as shards of glass-sharp pain shot through his face. He shifted carefully and made room for her on the ledge beside him. The woman sat, her black robe billowing against his hip in a seductive slide of smooth fabric. An urge to put his hands on her, to feel the curves beneath her flowing robes, made his palms itch. He fisted his hands at his sides. So not the time for that. Must be some sort of primitive survival reaction kicking in because, damn, she was attractive—and all he could see of her was her eyes.

Her touch was gentle on his skin. The peroxide she used to clean his cuts stung like crazy, but he managed not to wince too much. However, when she carefully probed his broken nose again, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.

She said cheerfully, “Underneath the swelling, your bones are actually aligned fairly well. You shouldn’t come out of this with a crooked nose.”

As if he had a prayer of living long enough for his nose to actually heal? Not bloody likely.

She asked, “Is all that blood on your shirt yours or someone else’s?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you’ll take off your shirt, I’ll find out for you,” she suggested.

He shrugged out of the filthy Army blouse, amused when she stared at his muscular chest. At least Kareem’s hasty beating to his face hadn’t cost him all his charms with the ladies.

“You’re covered in blood. I’ll have to wash it off to see if there are any wounds beneath it,” she mumbled. There was a noticeable hitch in her voice. As if she was nervous about touching him. The idea amused him. Women he barely knew draped themselves all over him constantly as though he were their personal play toy.

He scrutinized the young woman before him, for surely she was young to react the way she did to him. She groped in her medical bag and eventually emerged with a package of antiseptic towelettes she fumbled clumsily at opening.

He leaned back against the cold stone wall and raised his arms, resting his hands on the back of his neck. His posture, suggestive of reclining in bed, seemed to fluster her even more. For some perverse reason, he was enjoying discomfiting this poor girl.

Slowly she leaned toward him. Her chest rose and fell faster under her dark robe, and her pupils dilated to black, limpid pools.

Blast him if she wasn’t having the same effect on him. On full alert, he watched as she drew close. Close enough for him to see that her eyelashes were light brown. A blonde, maybe? His nostrils flared. There were only a few tiny laugh wrinkles by her eyes. Definitely young, then. Those eyes of hers were extraordinary, as clear and bright as the sky on a summer day.

Her hands settled lightly on his rib cage. They felt like an angel’s kiss against his skin; featherlight, exquisitely sweet. So incongruous in this cold, hard prison.

Her gaze jerked up to meet his, surprised. For an instant, they looked directly into each other’s souls. A connection leaped between them. An almost psychic knowing that went far beyond sexual awareness. Synchronicity.

Her gaze faltered, while he blinked in surprise. Who was this girl?

Slowly she washed him, the intimacy of the act curling around them like strands of silk, drawing them into a web that bound them inexorably to one another. Almost painfully sharp electricity shot through him at the seduction of her hands soothing his bare flesh. She petted him as she might a magnificent lion. Her touch lacked the finesse of an experienced lover, but that didn’t stop it from arousing him to a stupidly feverish pitch. What the hell was wrong with him?

He supposed it had to do with her offering him solace. She didn’t exactly know how to do it, but her naive sincerity made the gesture all the more appealing. He caught another tantalizing whiff of lavender and glimpsed a few strands of golden hair escaping her head scarf. An intense desire to see the face beneath the veil surged through him.

Her compassion made him want to put his arms around her and hug her in gratitude. She was a priceless reminder of the sane, normal world that existed somewhere beyond the walls of his prison. He closed his eyes in sudden pain. He hadn’t realized just how isolated he felt until she had arrived.

Her fingers lightly probed his ribs, looking for broken bones. “If you’ll lean forward,” she murmured, “I’ll check the ribs in your back.”

He bent toward her, his arms coming up to surround her lightly. She jumped like a frightened doe in his arms.

“Uh, not exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose it works,” she mumbled in consternation.

It felt as if he’d captured a rainbow, all light and air and fragile color. He held her delicately while a powerful protective impulse slammed into him. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d reacted to a woman like this. It must have something to do with that whole business of being about to die.

He didn’t go for fragile females. The women he generally ran with could take perfectly fine care of themselves, thank you very much. But then, given that this young woman was here in the middle of an ongoing war, she probably could, too.

He smiled into the folds of her veil as her hands traced the ribs in his back, checking for broken bones. Her fingers trembled against his skin. And something inside him trembled in response.

Surprise coursed through him. He didn’t know which one of them was more flustered at the moment.

“Poking you like this hurts, doesn’t it? I’m sorry,” she breathed.

He opened his eyes and gazed down at her intently. Her eyes had tiny flecks of silver within the palette of vivid blue. “Don’t be sorry,” he murmured. “It’s a nice change from guards pounding the hell out of me.”

She met his gaze for several candid seconds. Their faces would be in kissing range were it not for the black silk covering her mouth and nose. She meant him no harm. Wanted to help him. He saw it in her eyes. The weird electricity surged anew between them.

Was it possible? Was there a chance that help might reach him from the outside? If someone like this were to be sympathetic to him, maybe pass a message to a few supporters of his in the city—

It could work.

Maybe his death wasn’t so inevitable after all!

But first he would have to convince her to help him.



Alarmed at her totally inappropriate reaction to this anonymous Baraqi man, Katy slipped out of the loose circle of his arms to reach into her medical bag, relieved to be out of such proximity to the strangely attractive prisoner.

She fumbled for her clipboard and placed it squarely between them, lest he get any frisky ideas in the meantime.

“What’s your full name?” she asked in as businesslike a fashion as she could muster.

He didn’t answer right away. She looked up, her pen poised over the right box on Larry’s spreadsheet.

He was frowning at her. Intently.

She commented lightly, “It’s not that hard a question. I just need to write your name down for our records. It’s required by the Geneva Convention for you to give your captors your name anyway.”

Still no answer.

“Are you having trouble remembering your name?”

He sighed. “I’m trying to decide whether or not I should trust you.”

She slid her pen into the top of the clipboard and set the whole thing down. She said pleasantly, “Well, I’ve been sent here to help you. If not me, who are you going to trust?”

Another heavy sigh. “Therein lies my dilemma. You’re all I’ve got.”

Maybe it was the constant browbeating she took over her unfortunate family connections that made his comment rub her the wrong way. But she said a little less pleasantly, “I am a fully trained humanitarian relief worker and I’m generally considered to be a reasonably intelligent human being who doesn’t lie, keeps her word and is classed as trustworthy.”

And, unaccountably, he smiled. “Aah, there it is. A spine. Perhaps you are the person I need after all.”

Huh?

“Answer me this,” he continued. “Who’s going to see that spreadsheet of yours?”

“My team will. General Sharaf’s people will. And I expect we’ll forward the list to the Red Cross.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a vinyl-covered passport. “Then, in that case, my name is Akbar—” a pause while he read the document “—Mulwami.”

She frowned. And didn’t bother to write it down. That so wasn’t his name.

He glanced up at her. “Do you need me to spell that?”

She snorted. “No. I need you to quit BSing me.”

He laughed, back to his utterly charming self. “Aah, you and I are going to get along famously. I promise you that is my name as the Baraqi Army knows it to be.”

“And what does your mother know it to be?” she retorted.

He leaned back against the rock wall behind him. “I’ll answer that question if you wish. But first you must promise me something.”

Man, his dimples were lethal. “What’s that?”

“You must solemnly swear not to do or say anything that will get me killed.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Killed? Of course not. I’m here to save lives.”

His voice vibrated with intensity. “Do you swear?”

Katy replied without hesitating, “Of course I do. It’s my job to protect your life to the best of my ability.”

He nodded slowly and murmured so quietly she had to lean close to hear him. “My friends call me Nick. But my mother calls me Nikolas.” A long pause. “Ramsey.”




Chapter 3


In a ravaged corner of Akuba, in a windowless room lit only by the flickering light of a pair of lanterns, a group convened in secret; a dozen dark-robed women, their faces hidden according to the edicts issued by General Sharaf—leader of the coup—only hours ago. Any woman who did not follow the strict religious dress code he’d declared would be whipped.

In a whisper the self-appointed leader of the group asked, “Has anyone received word whether the king is alive or dead?”

A shrug from a castle insider. “Nobody knows. He was seen sitting on his throne moments before the Army burst into the great hall. But that is the last report anyone has of him.”

“Fool,” the leader bit out. “Nonetheless, he must be found. Sharaf must not be allowed to kill him. All our hopes rest with a Ramsey staying in power. Sharaf will strip away every right women have ever had under the Ramseys.”

One of the others spoke hesitantly. “I heard General Nagheb phone someone he called InterAid this morning. He asked them to come monitor prisoners in Baraq. If Sharaf allows them in, perhaps we can make contact with them. Get them to assist us in searching for Nikolas Ramsey.”

The leader shrugged. “Perhaps. We can try. But most of those groups choose to remain neutral. In the meantime, we must look to our own resources to find the king and extract him from the clutches of the Army. All of us must make this our one and only goal for now. Understood?”

Nods all around.

“Very well, then. Go and be safe. And remember—we must find the king before Sharaf does. Our futures and our daughters’ futures depend on it.”

The twelve women rose silently to their feet and slipped one by one out into the frightened, waiting city.



“Nikolas Ramsey?” Katy exclaimed.

“Good Lord, woman, keep your voice down! You just swore not to get me killed!”

“Nikolas Ramsey?” she repeated in a shocked whisper.

He shrugged. “In the flesh.”

“What in the world are you doing here?” Although, as soon as she asked the question, the answer was obvious. He was hiding from Sharaf. But in prison? “Why here?”

“There was nowhere else to go. We were surrounded and the palace was overrun. It was this or die. Although, I think death is probably inevitable for me, don’t you?”

He asked that last bit conversationally. As if they were talking about the weather. “Death is inevitable for all of us,” Katy retorted wryly. “The question is when.”

“Sooner rather than later for me, I should think,” he said dryly. “As soon as my face heals enough for me to be recognized.”

She examined it critically. “You’re pretty messed up. Honestly you look like Quasimodo.”

He looked pained for a moment, then said lightly, “Thank God for small favors.”

“That won’t protect you forever,” she said quietly.

He met her gaze briefly and then his slid away. “No, it won’t.”

She got the impression he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. Sympathy washed over her. What a rotten way to spend your final days—waiting and watching the clock tick until your body betrays you and your captors recognize and kill you.

She said, “If there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable, let me know. I’ll see what I can do.”

He laughed briefly without humor. “How about a hacksaw and a helicopter?”

She smiled gently and reached out to put her hand on his. Electricity shot up her arm, startling her into jerking her hand away. To cover up her reaction to him, she asked hastily, “Is there any chance the Army would let you live if they found out who you were?”

He shook his head sharply. “Not a chance. They have to kill me to solidify their hold on power. As long as I’m alive, Ramsey loyalists will continue to fight.”

She replied, “The way I hear it, the fighting’s pretty much over and the Army’s in control of the country.”

He shrugged, causing all those gorgeous muscles to ripple across his chest. “The first battle may be finished, but the war is far from over.”

Lovely. And here she was, smack-dab in the middle of it.

She jumped when he grabbed her hand and held it tightly. “Listen. Whatever you do, you can’t tell the Army who I am. They’ll kill me the second they know.”

“I understand.” The zinging energy of the man was shooting through her again, but this time she was ready for it. “Truly. I swear they won’t find out from me.”

For just a second desperation glistened in his eyes. He let go of her fingers reluctantly, like a drowning man slipping into the abyss. He whispered, “Please. Help me.”

She thought fast. “Tell you what. I’ll look into the legalities of it. There might be something we can do. You are a head of state, after all. There might be some special rule of prisoner treatment we can invoke in your case. Tonight I’ll take a look at the Geneva Conventions and see what I can find.”

“Don’t talk to your boss about me. Don’t talk to anyone. Trust no one.”

Why the heck not? Aloud she said, “InterAid is not in the business of getting anyone killed. My boss will keep your secret.”

He surged to his feet, looming over her. “Swear to me you will not tell anyone who I am. It must remain our secret. My life depends on it.”

She stared up at him for several seconds. He knew something he wasn’t telling her. Currents of intrigue flowed all around this place, this man. One thing she knew to be true—Nick was really worried about being double-crossed. Although that was probably part and parcel of being a prince his whole life. A rich, handsome, eligible one.

“I said I won’t tell anyone and I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

His simple words were a caress. A reverent touch gliding across her skin. And she was losing her mind. The guy was bruised and battered and filthy, and she was panting after him like a dog in a sauna.

But then he did touch her. And it was a hundred times more seductive in the flesh. His fingertips brushed the back of her hand lightly. Beseechingly. Desperately.

“Be careful. The very fact that you know who I am places you in grave jeopardy, as well.”

She blinked, alarmed. “How? I’m just a random relief worker.”

“This is Baraq. Nothing is simple here. There are plots within plots everywhere. Layers within layers to every plot. If I am killed, you could bear witness to the fact that I was murdered by the Army well after the coup itself was over. They can’t afford to have that information become public. The Baraqi people and world opinion will not tolerate a bunch of murderers ruling this country. That is why they’ll kill you, too.”

She absorbed his words in silence. Damned if what he said didn’t make perfect sense. Foreboding clutched at her throat like a cold, bony hand.

He murmured urgently, “I’m not exaggerating. Trust no one. Both of our lives depend on it.”

His golden gaze bored into her in uncomfortably intense entreaty. He certainly believed his warnings to her, at any rate. Should she?

He exhaled a long, slow breath and said beseechingly, “Please. My life is in your hands.”

He didn’t sound as though he used the word please often. And that was the second time he’d used it with her. Despite his breezy charm, this guy was scared stiff. And she couldn’t blame him. Sharaf’s men hadn’t exactly made the world’s friendliest first impression on her.

Saying “please” was probably a big concession for him. The guy was a king, after all. At least he’d sounded sincere when he’d said it. Maybe she was wrong to protect this guy. Maybe she should ignore his advice and tell her boss who he was after all—

His voice interrupted her troubled thoughts. “I believe you were going to put a bandage on my nose?”

“Right,” she mumbled. “Bandage. The bigger, the better.”

“Exactly.” His relieved smile lit up the room like a floodlight. He added under his breath, “Thank you.”

She got the distinct feeling she’d just stepped over some sort of invisible line. And, once crossed, there was no going back.



Katy stumbled through the rest of the day’s work in a daze, mechanically treating prisoners and recording their condition on her clipboard. Alive! The king of Baraq was alive! And she was the only person who knew it. Was her life really in danger? Or was Nikolas Ramsey just trying to scare her into silence? Should she ignore his warning and tell someone of her discovery or was discretion the better part of valor? One thing he was right about: palpable currents of intrigue flowed around her as she made her way through the palace toward the exit a few hours later.

Unseen eyes glared at her, and she caught the furtive looks and snide comments the Army soldiers cast at her when they thought she wasn’t looking or listening. It was one advantage of the veil over most of her face. Nobody could see her reaction to their jabs, uttered mostly in Arabic they thought she wouldn’t understand. She’d studied the language for four years in college, and it was coming back to her rapidly. She got the distinct feeling her well-being might rest on her secret comprehension of the tongue. Nope, not gonna let on that I understand them just yet.

The Army didn’t deign to provide the aid workers transportation to their hotel, so Katy, Larry and two other team members, who’d been treating the more seriously wounded prisoners housed in the palace proper, convened at the main drawbridge at dusk to walk to their lodgings. Soldiers all but pushed them out a man-sized postern gate within the larger drawbridge. The good news was the walk was steeply downhill into the crowded city streets. The bad news was the hike back up the hill tomorrow morning was going to be a bear.

When they arrived at the hotel, Katy was segregated from the men and given a room on a floor allotted only to women. Her room was sparse and in need of a good cleaning, not to mention stuffy with the remnants of the day’s warmth. There was one toilet for the entire floor of twelve rooms and one bathroom with an old claw-foot bathtub. At least it was clean and in good working order.

She sat down on her bed and winced at the sag in the mattress. But, hey, it was better than the stone ledges the prisoners were sleeping on. She stripped off her abaya, considering whether it would be dry by morning if she washed it right then. She opened her suitcase, which had magically appeared in her room. And stopped cold. Someone had searched it. The clothes weren’t folded right, and her things weren’t in the same places she’d put them when she’d left home.

She went next door and knocked on Hazel’s door. The older woman stuck her head around the jamb. “Oh, it’s you. Come on in.”

Katy stepped inside and grinned at Hazel’s shorts and halter top. No wonder the woman had hidden behind the door. She’d be arrested if any Baraqi Army type saw her in such lascivious garb. “Was your suitcase searched, Hazel?”

The older woman looked up at her quickly. “No. Was yours?”

For some reason, a twinge of foreboding made her reticent to tell anyone about it. Maybe it was Nikolas Ramsey’s warning. Or maybe it was a gut instinct. Her brothers swore by them. She shrugged. “I guess I’m just getting paranoid after the way the Army’s treating us women.”

Again Hazel shot her a strange look. “They’ve been exceedingly polite to me and Phyllis. Did you do something to make them mad?”

Katy blinked. “Not that I know of.” On yet another hunch, she asked, “Do you speak Arabic?”

Hazel nodded. “Fluent in it. I can argue politics and cuss out a cab driver with the best of them.”

“And there haven’t been any nasty comments or innuendos flying around you from the soldiers?”

“Nope.” Hazel looked at her closely. “You going to be able to hack it in this country?”

Katy drew herself up straight. “Of course.” Why in the world was she being singled out for harassment by the Army? Surely they didn’t know or give a flip for who her brothers were!

The older woman nodded. Paused. Told her sagely, “Don’t go out by yourself. Eat in the hotel or go with a group into the bazaar to buy food. And don’t touch any of the meat from the street vendors. It’ll give you a case of Montezuma’s revenge you’ll never forget.”

Katy smiled at the small overture of friendly advice. “Thanks.”

Hazel nodded briskly.

Thoughtfully Katy wandered downstairs to snag a couple pieces of fruit and returned to her own room. She unlocked the door and let herself in. Night had fallen while she’d been gone, and she had to cross her room to reach the lamp in the corner. The white gauze curtains billowed in the breeze, and again she stopped cold.

She hadn’t left her window open.

She turned around slowly, scanning the dark corners and shadows dancing in her room. Nothing there. She was alone. She let out a slow breath. Still in the dark, she moved over to the floor-to-ceiling casement windows and shut them. She made a special point of locking them, as well. Only then did she move over to the lamp and switch it on. It bathed the room in soft yellow light.

She looked around again. And froze. There was something on her pillow. A note. She moved over to it and looked at it without touching it. It was a single sheet of beige linen stationery folded in half. In cramped cursive were the letters M-l-l-e, the French abbreviation for Mademoiselle. Gingerly Katy picked it up. Unfolded it. More of the cramped cursive.

She translated the French quickly in her head.

King Nikolas is not dead, and we desperately need your assistance in finding him. Please help us in this vital endeavor, mademoiselle. We shall wait with utmost urgency until you succeed. We will contact you soon. Be warned—there are those within the lion who would use you to gain their own ends.

Within the lion? Of course. Il Leone. The palace. So, rumors were already floating around that King Nikolas lived, were they? That didn’t bode well for the man she’d met earlier. Of course, the warning in this note didn’t bode well for him, either. If his enemies were already watching her, then she’d have to be extremely careful not to lead them to the hidden king.

And then there was the direct threat to her. Someone in the palace wanted to use her for some reason, eh? Why was that just not a surprise? Who could this note be warning her of? Major Moubayed and the Army? Nikolas himself?

The more relevant question at the moment was who had gotten into her room to leave this cryptic little message? And how? She was sure the door had locked shut behind her when she’d gone next door to talk to Hazel. And there was no way she’d left the window open. She even remembered thinking the room was too warm and closed it before she went out. Surely nobody had climbed up the face of a five-story building to sneak in her window and deliver this note! Someone on the hotel staff with a master key, then?

She picked up the phone. A female operator answered in English. Now how did she know to do that? She must have a list of the room numbers the Americans were staying in. Katy asked, “May I please speak to the manager?”

“Regarding what, Miss McMann?”

Katy replied, “Someone has broken into my room. I need to report it to the manager and the police.”

The operator answered without any noticeable surprise, “I will report it to the manager right away, ma’am.”

That was weird. Shouldn’t a break-in alarm a hotel employee at least a little bit? And the woman didn’t ask if anything was stolen or if Katy was okay. Katy replied, “I really would prefer to speak to the manager myself.”

“That is not possible, mademoiselle.” The woman’s voice shot up by at least half an octave, and now definite alarm rang in her tone.

Katy blinked. Had the operator just called her mademoiselle on purpose? She replayed the sentence in her head. That was definitely a special emphasis the woman had placed on the word. What in the world was going on here? She could understand the hotel not wanting to involve the police. Especially with the city under martial law. But why was the operator running interference on her at least speaking to the manager?

“I swear to you, mademoiselle, no harm will come to you in this hotel.”

There it was again. That heavy emphasis on the word mademoiselle. And real desperation coursed through the operator’s voice now.

“Uh, okay. I believe you. I will leave it in your hands to report this to the manager and the authorities.”

Katy frowned through the woman’s gushing thank-you. “What’s your name?”

“I am Hanah.”

“Thank you for your help, Hanah.”

“You are welcome. And thank you.”

Katy hung up the phone, roundly confused. The hotel operator had left her this note? Clearly if Hanah wasn’t the author, the woman was at least aware of its existence. Why would someone in the hotel feel obliged to warn her about treachery in the palace?

Speaking of which, she had some homework to do. She checked the window latch again and carefully locked the door behind her as she stepped out into the hall. Hopefully there was no law against women going to a men’s floor to visit in this backward country. She made her way downstairs and knocked on Don Ford’s door. He opened it immediately. A group of six men from the team were seated on the floor, a large picnic spread out on a cloth between them. It looked as if they were having a great time. A pang at being excluded stabbed her gut.

“What can I do for you, Katy?” Don asked.

“Do you have a copy of the Geneva Conventions with you?”

“Which one?”

“The one pertaining to treatment of prisoners of war,” she answered.

“Do you want all one hundred and forty-three articles plus annexes or one part in particular? Did you run into a problem today?”

Again her internal alarm bells went off, shouting at her not to answer that question. “I just want to read up on a few things,” she answered with what she hoped was casual ease.

“I’ll get it.” Ford went across the room to dig in a big leather satchel.

One of the other men looked up at her slyly. “How’d it go working with Larry?”

She smiled pleasantly and said without missing a beat, “He was an absolute dear. I’m so glad Don paired me up with him.”

Everyone gawked in surprise and she bit back a grin. There. Let them chew on that. Nothing like killing ’em with kindness.

Ford held out a sheaf of papers about sixty pages thick. “There you go. Holler if you have any questions about what it means.”

As if after growing up in her family she couldn’t read legalese and make sense of it? She smiled politely and said smoothly, “Thanks. I’ll be sure to ask if anything comes up that’s beyond me.”

Good ole Don blinked rapidly a couple times, as if he’d just remembered who she was. A little red around the gills, he showed her to the door and wished her good-night.

She fumbled loudly at her door for long enough to let someone climb out her window. She entered her room cautiously, gun-shy at the idea of accidentally surprising an intruder. But all was as she’d left it.

She settled on her bed to look for a loophole in the document Ford had given her. Nada. The only thing the document had to say about treatment of heads of state as prisoners was that they should be afforded quarters fitting to their station. Big freaking lot of good that would do Nikolas.

And then she ran across the bit about prisoners of war withholding their identities from their captors. Failure to identify oneself truthfully negated one’s right to full protection under the Geneva Convention. Great. Nikolas could tell the Army who he was, get a great room for a night and then get killed. Or he could not tell them and be subject to abuse or even torture. He’d have to continue to be Akbar Mulwami for the time being. It was flimsy protection, but he didn’t have any other options.

As for telling her boss who Nikolas was, something in her gut said the fewer people who knew Prisoner 1806’s secret, the better.

While she rinsed out her abaya, she debated whether or not to sleep with the window closed and opted not to let the mysterious note intimidate her into being miserable. She lay down on top of the sheets and let the evening’s cool breeze waft over her, carrying that faint, lovely smell of orange blossoms again. A siren sounded in the distance, a distinctive up-down-up-down wail. A few vehicles rumbled past, rattling on the cobblestones. How a night this peaceful and quiet should follow so closely after the violence she’d seen on television just two days ago was hard to fathom. Grateful for the lack of mortars and explosions, she fell asleep.

And dreamed of a handsome prince with golden eyes carrying her off to an enchanted palace and making love to her all night long.



Nick lay on the cold stone shelf that was his bed for long hours after the American left, nurturing the tiny spark of hope she’d ignited deep within him. If he had an ally on the outside, maybe, just maybe, he might get out of this alive. And then he might get a chance to set this mess aright, to make up for everything he’d failed to do before.

But first things first. He had to get out of here. And that wasn’t in the cards for him. Eventually his face would heal, the swelling would go down and then he’d be recognized. He was a dead man walking.

The problem with being locked up in a silent, dim cell like this was it gave a guy plenty of time to think. He’d spent the last two days in this black hole damning himself to hell and back for neglecting his duty for so many years. For much of his thirty-four years, he’d jetted all over the world, living as fast and playing as hard as he could, running away from the responsibilities that came with his family’s wealth and position. Hell, just running away from his family.

He bitterly regretted now never having spent time with his father after college, never trying to talk to him about how he ran his country, about his vision for Baraq. Lord knew, Baraq had been his father’s passion in life. To the exclusion of all else—including his wife, who’d eventually left, and his only son, whom he’d mostly ignored.

Nick knew far too little of his Ramsey legacy. But he did know he’d failed that legacy. For thirty generations—almost a thousand years—dominion over these lands had passed from father to son in an unbroken line. And he was going to break the chain. He would go down in history as the last Ramsey. The one who failed. Spectacularly. The thought galled him.

His father might have been a bad parent, but in the clarity that came with staring death in the face, he admitted to himself that he’d also been a bad son. And obviously the Army believed he was going to be a bad king or else they wouldn’t have overthrown him before he could prove them wrong. Not only had he failed the Ramsey dynasty, he’d failed himself.

His remaining life span could no doubt be measured in days rather than weeks or years. Surely someone would recognize him soon. And then the Ramsey line would end.

Unless…

The idea was preposterous. The American aid worker would never go for it. It wasn’t fair to ask her such a thing. He barely knew her, for goodness’ sake! He had no right to put an innocent young woman’s life at risk any more than he already had.

But what other choice did he have?

He couldn’t sit by and watch his family disappear without a trace. He couldn’t leave his countrymen with no hope at all of continuing Baraq’s proud heritage, which was so closely tied to his family’s. If there was even a chance of salvaging the line, he had to try.

He wrestled through the night with his misgivings, examining his idea from every angle, analyzing its chances for success, anticipating the pitfalls and planning how to get around them. And his idea was full of holes. Huge, gaping craters. Starting with the fact that it all hinged on the American woman.

But after a long, sleepless night, he finally came to a single conclusion. He had no choice. He must try.




Chapter 4


The worst of Katy’s jet lag was gone when the first call to morning prayer broadcast across the city at dawn. She went over to her French door and, leaning on the jamb, gazed out across Akuba as sunrise bathed the white metropolis in vivid peach hues. Ox-drawn carts laden with fresh produce lumbered by on the street below, and veiled women met the carts at their front doors, bartering in quick Arabic and filling woven bags with food in a ritual as ancient as the city itself.

Gold onion turrets and the tall needles of minarets marked mosques. Tapering white steeples marked the Christian edifices on the skyline as the sun broke over the horizon and morning burst upon the city at her feet. The first shopkeepers slid back grates from the fronts of their shops and spread out blankets on the sidewalk, arranging their wares for sale. Brass and woven goods, tobacco and spices, piles of fruit, loaves of bread, small electronics and racks of CDs and DVDs emerged to line the margins of the street. The blend of old and new was oddly representative of the city itself.

With the reality of a new day came insidious doubt that she’d actually found Nikolas Ramsey yesterday. Maybe the guy just looked like the king and was hoping to parlay that into some sort of negotiated release. Time to go see if her imagination had been playing tricks on her or not. She had dozens of prisoners to see today, but somehow she’d make time to pay a return visit to him. She donned her mostly dry abaya and managed to get her scarf tied around her head and the veil across her face with the help of the tiny mirror in the corner of her room.

Too nervous to eat much more than a single, delicious honey cake, she hiked up the killer hill to Il Leone, and the climb sucked every bit as bad as she’d expected it to. Nobody needed stair-climbers in this town! Her abaya clung to her sweaty skin, and the silk veil clung to her face in the most annoying fashion when she and Larry finally staggered into the palace courtyard, huffing like racehorses. More like broken-down, asthmatic horses ready for the glue factory.

Throughout the morning a number of the prisoners asked her under their breath and with some urgency whether there’d been any word on King Nikolas. Did she know if he was alive or dead, and where? Did Nikolas, despite his playboy ways, engender loyalty in his troops? Or were they simply being questioned hard about him by the Army?

It ran against her grain to lie, but it wasn’t as though she had any choice. She shrugged and told the men she hadn’t heard anything and that InterAid was not supposed to get involved in such matters. Right.

Many of the prisoners were in bad shape. Most of their injuries could have come from the rigors of combat, but she suspected that many of them had actually come from beatings administered during their initial interrogations. The soldiers controlling the palace were rude to her and arrogant enough to set her teeth on edge. It was easy to dislike this bunch of thugs who’d taken over Baraq. They might have legitimate reasons for what they’d done, but their methods left a great deal to be desired.

Moving from prisoner to prisoner within the palace, it didn’t take Katy long to figure out that the coup had been planned for some time prior to Nick’s father’s death. He’d died a lingering death of heart disease, apparently, and the Army had waited only for the poor man to stop breathing to seize the kingdom. Larry commented to her that the former Ramsey king had been so popular that no coup against him would have worked anyway. Not so with the younger Ramsey. Everyone she came across, both rebel and royalist, agreed that Nikolas was a complete stranger to them.

It was midafternoon before she was able to make her way back to Prisoner 1806 without it seeming unnatural. But finally she stood in front of the iron-banded door once more.

Her guard escort today was named Riki. He was a gregarious youth who swore he was eighteen, but she’d put his age at closer to fourteen. He was a distinct departure from yesterday’s surly escort, and for that she was grateful.

“I’ll be with this prisoner for a while,” she informed the boy.

Riki shrugged and reached for the door. She waited impatiently while he fumbled with the rusty lock. Finally it creaked open and she stepped inside.

The prisoner was sitting up when she entered, one foot propped up on the ledge and his arm resting across his knee. Their gazes met and locked, their shared secret hanging heavy in the air between them like the scents of cinnamon and curry that hung over the city. She hadn’t imagined a thing. It was all real. The aristocracy cloaking him, the impatience of a man used to getting his way. The sheer royalty of the man. He was the king.

She stepped farther into the cell. His expression was warm, an intimate caress that pierced her robes to touch her skin in the most disturbing fashion. Katy actually felt herself flush under her veil. Even in heavy gloom, wearing a ruined uniform, his face as battered as a prizefighter’s, he oozed magnetism—heck, outright sex appeal. How could anybody mistake him for a common soldier? But then, maybe it took a woman to sense it. And the Baraqi Army was notably lacking in women in its ranks.

She waited for the heavy door to lock behind her before she spoke. “How are you today?”

“My nose feels much better. Thanks for the bandage.”

His gaze seemed to strip the robe right off her. Instead of feeling safely swathed in shapeless yards of cloth, she felt exposed. Naked.

“And how are you today?” he asked, his voice mellow and intimate.

She frowned. She could really do without this whole turn-on-the-charm thing. It was incredibly effective—and distracting. “Fine, thank you.”

“Have a seat.” He scooted over to make room for her on the crude ledge. “So. What did you find out about protecting my identity?”

She shook her head regretfully. “The Geneva Convention is clear. You have to tell the Army your name or else forfeit protection under the Convention.”

He asked soberly, “Are you required to notify them that I no longer have Geneva Convention status?”

“It doesn’t say specifically that I have to.”

“So what the Army doesn’t know won’t hurt it. Until they figure out who I am and that I’ve broken the rules, I’m safe.”

She glanced around at the dank stone walls and replied drily, “I’m not sure I’d call this safe.”

“Hey, it’s safer than flying around a Formula One race course at two hundred miles per hour.”

She snorted. “Not in my book.”

“Well, it’s a lot safer than navigating a room full of social-climbing, money-lusting, crown-seeking women looking to trap me into marriage.”

“You have a point there.” Her grin faded. “How can you joke around at a time like this?”

He shrugged, an elegant movement of his broad, athletic shoulders. “How can I not? I prefer laughter over the alternative. By the way,” he added casually, “if you’d like to drop your veil while you’re in here with me, I won’t tell on you.”

Surprised by the offer, she gazed at him searchingly. Funny, but she was shy about showing him her face. Would he think she was too forward if she took off her veil? Oh, for heaven’s sake. The guy’d lived in England since he was a kid! He was perfectly accustomed to western women. If anything, it must be strange to him to see women all covered by veils.

“Please,” he murmured. “Give me a pretty face to think about as I languish here waiting for my luck to run out.”

Was she pretty? She wasn’t exactly ugly, but she’d never been overly concerned with her looks. She wore decent clothes and put on makeup when she thought a camera crew might be lurking outside her apartment, but that was about it. This man was no doubt used to looking at exotic, gorgeous supermodels.

Had she detected a hint of desperation in his lightly voiced request? She cast a glance around the medieval dungeon. He must be going crazy staring at these featureless and depressing walls in near-total darkness. It was a simple enough thing to grant the poor guy. She reached up and removed the safety pin securing the end of the veil but blinked in surprise when he brushed her hand aside and reached for the veil himself. The black silk caressed her cheek as he slowly lifted the panel of fabric aside.

Why showing this guy her face should be a big deal, she had no idea. But here she was, holding her breath like some Moorish virgin on her wedding night. Sheesh. She risked a glance up at him. A faint smile curved his lips as he regarded her like a connoisseur observing fine art.

“Lovely,” he breathed. He let the silk slide from his fingers to trail down over her breasts.

She shrugged, embarrassed. “I suppose. If you go for that wholesome all-American look.”

He laughed lightly. “You must remember—in this part of the world, your blond hair and blue eyes are exotic. Very few women here share your coloring.” He chuckled and added, “Admittedly I’ve spent most of my life in England. But to my eye, most people there are one shade or another of paste-white. Your tan is a nice departure from that. And you have extraordinary bones.”

Bones? Uh, okay. If he said so. He was the connoisseur, after all. And as for being exotic, she’d never thought of herself that way. Belatedly it occurred to her that if she’d been in a bar and he’d said that, she’d have blown off his observation as a pickup line.

“What’s your first name, Miss McMann?” he asked.

“Katy.”

“Is it just Katy or is that short for something?”

“My real name’s Katrina, but I’ve always hated it.”

“It’s a beautiful name, like its owner. But if you insist, I shall call you by your so very American nickname.”

Why in the hell did his blatant flattery knock her off balance like this? Aspiring young lawyers hit on her all the time, trying to get an introduction to the legendary McMann clan. And of course, there were the fortune seekers who mistakenly thought she lived off her brothers’ wealth. And then there were the occasional jerks who’d hit on anything in skirts.

She mumbled, “What should I call you?”

He grinned. “Under the circumstances, we’d better stick with Prisoner 1806. Or Akbar,” he added.

She looked up, startled at the dry humor in his voice. His stunning eyes sparkled like twenty-four-karat gold. No doubt about it, this guy was a lady-killer.

He spoke in an intimate tone pitched for her ears alone. “Thank you for coming back to see me today and thank you for not betraying my identity. I owe you my life.”

His face was partially hidden in deep shadows. Beneath his swollen bruises and the big white bandage over his nose, she caught a glimpse of the man he normally was—a man so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him.

“Dang,” she murmured. “No wonder you’re on the list of the world’s most eligible bachelors.”

Oops. Had she just said that aloud? Oh, God. She had. She watched in dismay as he threw his head back and let out a rich laugh.




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