She braced herself for more questions, determined not to speak another word of what had happened. But instead, he simply pulled her into his arms silently.

The gesture startled her as much as the brief brush of his lips had back in their prison cabin before they’d broken free. She was convinced that he couldn’t stand her, yet this was the second time he wanted to comfort her and did so with an intimate gesture.

She pulled back and looked up into his face. “Why are you doing this?”

“Damned if I know. I didn’t exactly plan it.”

“So what, you took me into your arms against your will?”

He grinned at her. “I’m a handsome prince, aren’t I? I’m used to beautiful women throwing themselves at me.”

He was impossible. Impossible to argue with, impossible to ignore, impossibly handsome. Beautiful, cultured, high-born women probably did throw themselves at him on a daily basis.

About the Author

DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with.

Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.

Royal Captive

Dana Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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With many thanks to Allison Lyons.

Chapter One

The five men in the back of an unmarked van across the park from the Valtrian Royal Palace maintained radio silence. They were crowded by a wall of instruments, ignoring the dead body at their feet, watching the feed from a button camera that panned one checkpoint after another as its wearer passed through them.

Then the gilded, magnificent reception room of the palace came on the screen at last, looking exactly like the postcards vendors sold all over the city.

“Boss’s in. We’re good to go,” the oldest of the men said, then clapped the rookie on the shoulder. “We’ll be in an’ out before they know what hit ‘em.”

The mood in the air was tense but optimistic as they checked their weapons.

“ANYONE BUT HER.” Prince Istvan nestled the stash of two-hundred-year-old documents back into their leather pouch, then a ziplock bag and a protective box, careful not to damage the brittle paper. He shoved the copy he was making by hand into the inside pocket of his jacket. Every time he began work on the Maltmore diary, someone or something interrupted him. His office, located deep inside the palace, was supposed to be his sanctuary. He resented this latest intrusion, even if by his own brother.

Janos lifted a one-of-a-kind, eleventh-century medicine vial and turned it over, tapping the bottom with his fingernail while eyeing the rest of the curiosities on the desk. “She’s already here. How was Brazil?”

“Loud.” Istvan grabbed the artifact with his white-gloved hands and set it back on its special stand. He’d trained the staff to respect his wishes and keep their hands to themselves. But nothing was sacred to his brothers, who felt free to waltz in and rifle through centuries-old treasures as they used to ransack through each other’s toy chests three decades back.

Janos—economist, two-time golf champion and superb yachtsman—was moving toward a side table and eyeing a medieval broadsword that had been brought in only that morning by a farmer who was digging a new well. A lot of discoveries were made like that. Istvan was itching to stop by for a look of his own. He had the farmer’s invitation and full permission. All he had to do was find some time later in the week.

He could probably clear Friday morning, he decided as he came around his desk and deftly stepped between his brother and the sword.

Janos, older by a year, adjusted his impeccable tuxedo and fixed him with a look as he opened his mouth to speak.

Here it comes. The speech on how Istvan should pay as much attention to living things as inanimate objects. He heard that enough from his family to be able to recite it by heart. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, the only one of the royal brothers who would ever dress so low. He caught plenty of hell for it, too, the tabloids regularly mocking him as the worst-dressed of the princes. As if he didn’t have bigger things to worry about.

“What are you going to do about her?” Janos asked, skipping the lecture, which was unlike him. He probably had the latest trouble in the financial markets on his mind.

“I’m not sending for her today.” He’d decided that as soon as he had arrived that morning and was alerted to her presence at the palace. He was hoping to get out to the old palace wall before lunch to check on a small excavation there, one among two dozen projects he had going on simultaneously. “Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after.”

His time was in even shorter supply than usual. The last of the summer sunshine poured in the oversize windows, reminding him that whatever excavations he wanted to finish this year, he better get on it. Soon the fall rains would slow all open-air digs to a crawl, then the winter freeze would stop surface work altogether until spring.

An amused look flashed across his brother’s face. “I don’t think she’s the type to wait to be sent for.” “I know exactly what type she is,” he muttered under his breath then, watching Janos closely for any clues, asked, “Have you met her?” Janos was a fairly good judge of women, with experience that outpaced Istvan’s by at least five to one.

“Have not had the pleasure. But I’ve been told she’s already at work in the treasury. Seems very diligent. Certainly an interesting woman from what I hear.” His brother moved on to the glass-front display cabinets. “Your office is starting to look like a warehouse again. Time to send a few boxes over to the museum. Learn to let go. Anyone ever told you that?”

Istvan was thinking about how long he could put off the meeting without appearing inexcusably rude, so his brain caught up with his brother’s words a few seconds late. “What treasury?” His muscles jerked, and he nearly knocked over a vase by his elbow, a unique piece that had taken the better part of a month to piece together.

He steadied the copper coil stand, his jaw muscles tightening. “Who authorized it?”

“There’s only one treasury at the royal palace. And I believe Chancellor Egon gave her the go-ahead. Did I tell you I finally got a golf GPS? Gives accurate distance to any key point on any golf course.” He was grinning like a kid at Christmas. “You should get one.”

Istvan strode for the door, his mind as far from golf as possible. “Come.” He gestured with impatience when he was forced to wait for Janos to follow. Once they were both out, he turned the key in the door, then pocketed it—he didn’t like the way Janos had been looking at that sword—then he took off down the hallway as if the devil was after him.

But the devil was ahead of him, in fact.

“It could be worse,” Janos called out with undisguised glee. “The Chancellor could have brought her here to make you marry her.”

He barely paid attention to his brother’s words. The Chancellor had given up his mad quest to see all the princes married just to gain good publicity for the royal family. The unfortunate marital consultant who’d come all the way from New York City to see Lazlo settled had eaten poison meant for the prince and nearly died of it. All worked out well at the end; Lazlo married her in a stunning turn of events. But the Chancellor lost his taste for matchmaking after that.

Which meant the remaining three Kerkay brothers who were still single could breathe easy for now. Although, to be fair, Istvan almost rather would have been forced to marry than be forced to share his treasures with that woman. Because he didn’t plan on falling in love again, an arranged marriage would have suited him fine. For certain, he wouldn’t put up such a fuss as Lazlo had when his matchmaker arrived. When the time came for Istvan to take that blow, he’d take it on the chin and be done with it.

He strode across the reception room without looking in the floor-to-ceiling Venetian mirror, a gift to one of his ancestors from a sixteenth-century doge, but made a mental note that a minor repair job of the silver backing still had to be scheduled. He pulled off his white cotton gloves and shoved them into his pocket, exited the room and ran down the long hallway that led to the treasury—to hell with decorum.

The guards at the door snapped their heels together in greeting. He went through, nodding to the next set of guards in the antechamber. Then he burst through the door to the treasury proper, a large hall with tables covered in velvet, giant bank safes lining one wall, another hosting hundreds of secured deposit boxes.

Priceless rugs, left behind by the Turkish invasion four hundred years ago, were kept in a climate-controlled chamber, along with some elaborately studded and painted war chests. Artwork that wasn’t on display at the moment in the palace was kept in a side room, exhibited there in all its splendid glory.

“Your Highness.” Chancellor Egon came forward and made the introductions.

“Your Highness.” The woman measured up Istvan as she did a rather understated curtsy. She wore white gloves meant to protect museum artifacts, identical to the ones he’d just taken off.

Probably so she wouldn’t leave fingerprints. She wasn’t fooling him. Once an art thief, always an art thief—he believed that with his whole heart. As far as he was concerned, Lauryn Steler was only one small step above a tomb raider, which had been her father’s sordid occupation, in fact.

She and her kind stood for everything he spent his life fighting against.

“Miss Steler.” Greeting her politely took effort, but good manners had been hammered into all six princes at an early age. He did stop short, however, of telling her that she was welcome at the palace.

“Chancellor Egon was about to show me the coronation vault.” She beamed, either not noticing the slight or choosing to ignore it.

Fury that had been rising inside him now bubbled dangerously close to the surface. “How kind of him.” His voice had enough edge to cut through the seven-layer titanium alloy that still stood between her and his heritage, the sacred symbols of his country and his family.

The Chancellor stiffened and took a step back, giving him a worried look. “Your Highness, I was merely—”

“I’ll take over here. You may leave.”

“Certainly, Your Highness.” The Chancellor backed out without argument. He’d lost a lot of his bluster and bossiness after the mishap with Lazlo. He wasn’t exactly malleable, but he no longer butted heads with the princes over every little thing either.

The woman was still politely smiling. Her mouth was a tad too wide to be called aristocratic, but nevertheless, some people would have found her face pleasant. She didn’t seem to have caught a single whiff of doom in the air.

“This is exciting,” she said.

Either she was beyond belief impertinent or incredibly dense. Given her reputation, Istvan didn’t think it was the latter.

“Isn’t it?” He didn’t bother forcing a smile, welcoming or otherwise. “I imagine it’s the first time you’ve seen something like this.”

“Yes, yes, it is.” Her green-gold eyes looked a little too wide with innocence.

Of course, she’d been in a treasury before. In Portugal, he seemed to remember now something he’d heard about her a while back. If half the rumors about her were true, she’d been the best art thief who had ever lived.

She certainly dressed like a cat burglar. A pair of tight-fitting black slacks covered her long legs, her black short-sleeved shirt leaving her toned arms bare. She was as perfectly proportioned as a painting by the grand masters, her eyes mesmerizing, her skin translucent, her lines magnificent. Her copper hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail to make sure it didn’t get in her way.

The closer he looked, the easier he could see how she’d bewitched many of her victims in the past, even poor Chancellor Egon who’d been taken by her enough to open the treasury doors, of all things. No fool like an old fool, his father had been fond of saying.

Good thing Istvan was always a lot more interested in what lay below the surface of things. And in her heart of hearts, Lauryn Steler was a thief, the worst kind of villain. He didn’t care if the whole world had forgotten that. He wouldn’t.

“I’ve already seen a few pieces I would like to take,” she told him as if she were at one of those abominable wholesale outlets of her country that sold mass-produced goods in batches.

“I’m sure you have.”

If she weren’t a consultant for the Getty Center in Los Angeles, one of the most respected museums in the world, his answer would have been, Over my dead body. But the board at the Getty had asked for a loan of Valtrian artifacts for a special exhibit. Then the treasure would embark on a trip, residing for three months each in the top-twenty most-prominent museums of the world.

Chancellor Egon had made cultural exchange his new quest. If he couldn’t use another row of royal weddings to cheer up the people and raise the country’s visibility abroad, then he would do it by parading Valtria’s past all over creation. A very bad idea, Istvan had been saying from the beginning, but somehow the Chancellor gained the Queen’s approval anyway.

Of course, as ill as the Queen was some days, the Chancellor could probably manipulate her into any agreement. Istvan had said as much to Arpad, but his eldest brother brushed off his concerns. The Crown Prince fully trusted the Chancellor.

Maybe he should have left the conference in Brazil and come back to the palace sooner, Istvan thought now, looking at the woman, still unsure what to do with her. She moved with sinuous grace as she considered the display cases, wandering away from him as if pulled by a magnet toward his country’s treasures.

“Magnificent,” she said with awe that didn’t seem phony.

“And protected by state-of-the-art security,” he mentioned in a note of forced nonchalance, not at all approving of that throaty, sexy voice of hers that didn’t go with her sleek, crisp appearance.

Her voice belonged to a seductress swathed in silk in a candle-lit boudoir. He blinked that ridiculous image away. He didn’t think Miss Steler spent much time reclining on satin pillows. He could, however, see her rappelling from high ceilings, or jumping roofs and disappearing with her latest loot strapped to her back, nearly invisible in the night.

He had a feeling that if quizzed, she could tell him the exact number and location of every security camera in the room, in addition to the content and worth of each display. The Getty sending her was a stunning oversight.

Their excuse was that none of her past transgressions could be proven. That they couldn’t punish her for her father’s sins. That even if she had a shady past once, she was reformed now, one-hundred-percent trustworthy and the best in the business.

“Shall we?” she was asking with unbridled optimism, nodding toward the safe door that protected the crown jewels.

He wished he could say, When hell freezes over. Instead, he stepped up to the iris scanner. “Istvan Kerkay,” he said for the voice recognition software. And with a soft hiss, the hydraulic lock opened.

The lights inside came on automatically. He motioned for her to proceed first. As outraged as he was, he was still a gentleman.

She gave a soft gasp.

He didn’t blame her. The sight had the same effect on him, and he’d been in here hundreds of times. In glass cases that lined the small chamber were the most important treasures of the kingdom. The crown without which there could be no coronation and no new king. The specter. The Queen’s tiaras. A ceremonial sword with a gold-and-diamond handle that he remembered his father wearing when he’d been a kid. A robe woven from threads of gold, once worn at coronations but now put away for all prosperity as it had become too fragile to even touch.

There were other treasures. The most important of the Queen’s jewels took up one long case. Another held the signet rings of all the old kings.

She moved to stand in front of the main case.

“None of those will be going anywhere, you understand,” he told her. “There’s a law forbidding any of the coronation jewels to leave the country.” If the Queen traveled to visit other heads of state, she usually took one of the lesser crowns or a simple tiara.

She nodded, but seemed distracted, as if she’d barely heard him. From the corner of his eye, he caught her fingers twitching. She was flexing her hands inside her gloves.

Probably thinking that he’d open one of the cases and let her take something out for closer examination. The temerity of her—He stepped back, ready to get her out of the vault. Everything about her being in there shouted wrong and went against his most basic instincts. “So now that we’re done here …”

That green-gold gaze flew to him, still filled with awe. Her delicate nostrils were trembling. “One more minute, please.” She wasn’t exactly begging, but she was close to it. There was a luminous quality to her all of a sudden, as if what she was seeing was lighting her up from the inside.

He understood exactly how she felt and resented having even this small thing in common with her. But he couldn’t deny that he had felt like this dozens of times in the past when he stood over a new discovery. No amount of time would have been enough. And he wasn’t about to indulge her, in any case.

“Maybe another time,” he said, but thought, Not as long as I live and breathe.

She walked out as if leaving physically hurt her, moving as slowly as possible, glancing back frequently.

He sealed the door behind them and made a show of setting the locks, then pointed toward the back of the treasury. “I was thinking a few paintings and dresses.” A number of those had been severely damaged over the centuries and had to be extensively restored. Save a few square centimeters here and there, little of them was original.

She looked back toward the vault and drew a deep breath before turning her attention to him. “I understand that you’re reluctant to let anything go. But we have to keep in mind that whatever I take to the Getty will also be going around the world to represent your country.”

She was making a play on his pride. Smart, but she wasn’t going to trap him as easily as that. “Be that as it may, the safety of the artifacts is my first concern.”

“And mine, as well.” Her chin came up, her eyes challenging him to bring up her past.

Of course, she could easily dismiss anything he said as malicious rumor. A prince did not stoop to repeating rumors in any case. He said nothing.

“I was thinking some of the artifacts left behind by the Brotherhood of the Crown,” she told him after a moment, wiping the small, triumphant smile off her face so fast he might have imagined it. “They make a compelling story. Eight brothers, princes, coming together to save their country. They were brave and dashing. It’s very romantic. I think their story is perfect to introduce Valtria to an American audience.”

Definitely not artifacts of the Brotherhood. She was beginning to give him a headache. He’d returned from an overseas trip only that morning. He was tired and irritable, a dozen things clamoring for his immediate attention. He didn’t have time for this.

“We have plenty of chances to discuss all that later. Now that you’ve seen the treasury, you should probably go and see the Royal Museum.” Let her be somebody else’s problem for a while. Her charm couldn’t do much harm over there. She could ask for all she wanted, and the museum director could promise anything she could hoodwink out of him. All final decisions on the items that would go on tour were Istvan’s. He could and would overrule any promise that felt injudicious to him.

She threw a disappointed, longing glance toward the wall of safety boxes and the other vaults, then gathered herself. “Of course. The museum is on my itinerary.” She looked around one more time. “Do you have some sort of an inventory of everything that’s in here?”

“Color catalogs.” A fine set. He’d put them together.

“I would love to take a look.”

“I’ll have them sent over to your hotel.” After he decided which catalogs she could see.

He called a guard to escort her to the museum and stay with her. Then he took one last glance at the room, to make sure nothing was missing, before he headed back to his office.

But when he was sitting at his desk at last, ready to tackle his correspondence, he realized he was completely exhausted. He’d flown home on the red-eye from Brazil where he’d given an address at a conference as the head of the European Society of Social Anthropology. He could never sleep on anything that moved, forget the first-class fully reclining seats of the plane. He had motion sickness, worse than the plague for someone who traveled as much as he did.

He glanced at his watch. Maybe he could squeeze in thirty minutes of rest. He was used to taking short breaks like this when out in the field on a dig. They often had to work around the clock to beat collapsing tunnels or bad weather.

Going up to his suite would have taken too much time, so he simply let his head rest against the back of the chair, stretched his legs in front of him and folded his hands over his abdomen. But far from refreshing, his sleep was restless, his dreams disturbing.

He woke to desperate knocking on his door some time later, blinked hard while he ran his fingers through his hair, then adjusted the collar of his shirt as he sat up straight. Cleared his throat. “Come in.”

Chancellor Egon burst through the door, breathing as hard as if he’d been doing laps around the grand ballroom. His eyes were wide with panic. “Miss Steler is missing.”

“Is she now?” And good riddance. Things were looking up. She had probably assessed their security system, realized it was beyond her and given up whatever thieving plans she’d been nursing. Istvan’s heart was suddenly lighter as he looked toward the upcoming week.

“We—” The Chancellor wrung his hands, apparently thinking this was some great tragedy. He was rather attached to the idea of the artifacts touring, his flying in for each opening and giving one of his interminable speeches on Valtrian glory. “We—”

“What is it?” Istvan glanced at the antique clock on the wall and realized he’d slept a lot longer than he’d meant to. His gaze slid to Amalia’s photo in its silver frame under the clock, and his heart gave a painful thud as always. God, how he missed her.

He focused back on the Chancellor, who was still hemming and hawing. “Anything else?” He didn’t have all day to waste on Miss Steler.

The Chancellor went pale as he said, “Your Highness,

I’m afraid—I have to inform you—” He took a deep breath and spit it out at last. “I’ve come from the treasury. We can’t find the crown jewels either.”

Chapter Two

“I want the security tapes.” Istvan paced the room. He wanted progress, and was getting anything but. No more than half an hour could have passed since he’d first received the news from the Chancellor, but, without answers, every minute of that time seemed unbearably long.

He was at the security offices on the basement level of the palace with Miklos, Janos and Arpad. Benedek was on a world tour with Rayne, his opera-diva wife, in South Africa at the moment. Lazlo was still on his honeymoon on some undisclosed Mediterranean island.

“There’s no security footage.” Miklos was seething, as well, ignoring the worried looks of some of the security personnel in the next room. He could be intimidating when angered, something that came from decades of army life. He could stare down a full platoon if needed. No doubt, he’d had already taken the staff to task.

“This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. And if Miss Steler was involved, she didn’t work alone,” he said, and Istvan agreed.

That the bastards could take as much as they had in half an hour and seemingly turn into smoke was amazing. The crown jewels were just the tip of the iceberg, albeit the most important among the artifacts that had disappeared.

“The cameras went out?” he asked. “Don’t we have backup?”

“We have an alarm that gets triggered if recording is stopped or if the tape is blank.” Miklos’s face hardened. “But recording kept going. We have half an hour of footage of Channel Three. Someone hacked into the system from the outside. That’s not supposed to be possible.”

“And the people whose job it was to watch the monitors?” Arpad asked.

“Killed.”

The guards who’d protected the Royal Treasury had been murdered, as well. The mood in the office could not have been more grim.

“How sure are you that Miss Steler was involved?” Janos asked.

“One hundred percent. I showed her the treasury earlier. She begged Chancellor Egon to take her back there, telling him she needed to take more notes and think things over. She charmed him by asking for his help with the selection process.” The whole story came out once the Chancellor had calmed down enough to talk. “When the Chancellor had to run off for a quick meeting, she convinced him to leave her locked in there so she could keep working until he returned. He left her with a guard.”

“And when he went back, the guards were all dead, and Miss Steler and the loot were missing,” Janos finished for him, still wearing a tux. He’d been pulled from a formal reception for the top economists of the nation. Istvan hated social obligations. Janos very much enjoyed that sort of thing.

“Lauryn Steler,” Arpad was saying the name pensively, staring at the treasury’s blueprint.

He should have seen it coming, Istvan thought. He should have fought harder to keep her from entering the country, or should have put her under heavy guard, or at the very least should have issued a preemptive order to forbid anyone from letting her near the treasury without his being present.

“When we find her, we’ll find her team. Who is looking for her?” he asked, gathering his thoughts, pushing back on the regret and the anger. He needed to calm his mind to be able to think more clearly.

“The police and every man I have available. Every border station, airport, train station, bus station and shipping port has her name and picture,” Miklos reassured him, but from the resignation in his voice it was clear that he knew how little those precautions meant in reality.

Someone like Lauryn Steler would have multiple passports and could switch between identities with ease. Hell, she could be anywhere by now, traveling as a gray-haired grandmother.

But she had to have left a trail, however faint.

Istvan reached a decision. “I’m going out there. I have contacts.”

To break into the palace she had to have local help, and he knew most of the local bad boys in the stolen arts and artifacts world, and had helped to put some of them behind bars one time or another. Anybody hit one of his digs or cherished museums, he went after them with a vengeance. He knew exactly where to look, whom to pressure.

“We’re going with you,” his brothers said as one, moving closer together.

“A reassuring show of loyalty. Thank you. But it would only complicate things.” A few years back, they had resurrected the Brotherhood of the Crown in secret, but in this case he was certain he’d be better off alone. “It’ll be difficult enough for me to get out of the palace unnoticed and go around asking questions without attracting media attention.”

Arpad looked as if he might argue the point, but then said, “A brief press conference about a security breach should keep the media busy in the press room. Nothing about the loss of the crown jewels, of course.” He was always good at seeing the big picture and protecting others. All useful attributes for a Crown Prince.

“We have things on hand for undercover ops. Disguise.” Miklos headed for the metal lockers in the back, the staff immediately clearing a path for him.

“I can distract your bodyguard while you leave the palace,” Janos offered.

Due to prior attacks on the royal family, at least one guard had to escort the princes at all times when they left the grounds, a recent royal order by the Queen that drove all of them crazy. They were all rather attached to their independence.

Miklos came back with a box. “While you’re scouring the underworld for tips, I’ll investigate how they got in and out. I already have a forensics team over at the treasury. Whatever they find should give us some clues to follow.”

Janos and Arpad were heading off, clapping Istvan on the shoulder.

“Stay safe,” Janos said.

“And bring the crown back,” Arpad added. “If we can get everything back in a few days, nobody needs to know what happened. If we can’t, we’ll deal with it then.”

They all agreed on that, given the sharp political climate and their mother’s health. The Queen was feeling poorly again. Istvan swore he would solve this latest disaster before news could reach her and put more stress on her system.

His hands fisted at his sides. This wasn’t just an attack on the treasury. This was a direct attack on his family and his heritage, the two things most important to him.

“I’ll bring back the coronation jewels and see to it that Lauryn Steler pays miserably for taking them,” he promised.

NIGHT HAD FALLEN BY the time he found the first usable clue. He’d dealt with thieves in the past and had a network of informants, one of whom came through half an hour earlier. The meeting left a bad taste in Istvan’s mouth. Now he owed a favor he knew he was going to hate paying back. But he understood that sometimes he had to compromise on smaller issues to obtain something that was even more important.

The man had heard of something going down at the South Side shipyard tonight. A cousin of his worked there and blabbed about a recent bribe. Istvan had called in the tip and agreed with Miklos that a large-scale search would only draw attention and maybe even allow the thieves to escape in the confusion.

And he wasn’t sure if anything would pan out here anyway. For all he knew, this could be some minor drug deal. He didn’t want to pull Miklos’s men who were doing random vehicle checks on the highways and had as much chance of finding something as he did. But he did accept the five corporate security guards Janos sent from his company.

Hungry and tired, he watched the shipyard, alert for any movement. Hundreds of metal shipping crates were piled in orderly rows, giant cranes towering over them. He was near the loading docks, but with the shipyard lit up, he could see even the dry docks in the distance and the small cruise ship that was currently under repair.

“Six vessels at the loading docks,” came the latest intel through his headset.

“We’ll split up,” he ordered and moved forward to the first in line, a flat-bottomed riverboat.

Since Valtria had no seaport, they used these boats to take cargo down through Italy to the mouth of the river. The shipping containers were then transferred to much larger ocean liners and made their way to various worldwide destinations from there.

He took the first boat and realized quickly that he’d made a mistake. The containers were all empty, damaged. They were probably going no farther than the factory four miles down the river where they would be recycled. He checked the crew’s cabins and the engine house anyway, but found no one and nothing of interest. The boat was completely deserted.

He scratched his nose, his face itching under the disguise Miklos had concocted. At least the sun was below the horizon, so he was no longer sweating.

He sneaked back down the plank and caught sight of a small boat on the water, headed for shore. No lights. The motor wasn’t going either, no other sound disturbing the night but the waves gently lapping the docks. The boat drifted, although clearly there was someone at the helm.

Istvan could think of only one reason why the man would want to remain unnoticed. He probably had something to hide. He could have come from the riverboat moored in the middle of the water. It must have been loaded earlier in the day and was still waiting for some permit and the go-ahead, but the captain had been kind enough to leave the loading dock so another vessel could take his place. South Side Port was often crowded.

The captain would get his papers first thing in the morning when the office opened and be off posthaste to wherever he was going. Except, as Istvan watched, the riverboat pulled up anchor and began moving with the current. A quiet departure in the middle of the night.

His instincts prickled even as he realized that every moment he hesitated, the riverboat would only move farther away from him. He jumped without thought, hit the cold water and came up for air, felt his pocketknife slip from his pocket, grabbed after it, but couldn’t find it in the dark. Damn. At least he still had his gun. He shoved it tighter into his waistband, then swam as fast as he could, carried by the current, grateful that the man in the boat didn’t seem to notice him, hadn’t heard the splash.

All the princes were strong swimmers. Soon, he caught up with the impossibly long boat and went around the propellers, then grabbed on to a rope that had been carelessly left to trail the water.

He climbed up with effort, his hands wet and slippery, but eventually he vaulted over the side and ducked down just in time. A handful of men loitered on deck ahead, around an open shipping container. He caught the glint of a rifle, which helped him decide that he’d seen enough to have Port Authority stop and search the ship. Even if the crown jewels weren’t on board, something else most certainly was that shouldn’t have been.

He reached for his radio to call in the information, settling into a spot where he could remain unseen in the meantime and keep an eye on the container and the men.

But the radio was dead, water dripping from the earpiece. Same with his cell phone. He should have called before he’d jumped into the river. Miklos would have thought of that. Arpad, too. But they were military. As much time as he spent in the field and even fancied himself an adventurer, Istvan was an academic, not a soldier.

But all was not lost, he thought, when the men were called to the pilot’s cabin, leaving the container unlocked and free for him to search the contents. He would have specific information when he swam back to shore to alert Port Authority. Maybe slipping back into the water quietly, right now, would have been the smartest thing, but he couldn’t be this close to the royal treasure and not know for sure.

He crept forward, keeping in the shadows, aware that he was leaving a wet trail on deck. The late summer night was warm with a slight breeze. With some luck, his tracks would dry before anyone came this way.

The possibility of a find drew him forward as it had many times in the past. He could hear voices up ahead, but didn’t see anyone, and he was too far away to make out what they were saying. He kept an eye out for Lauryn, listened for her voice. If the crown jewels were on the ship, she had to be somewhere around, as well. Someone like her would never let treasure like this too far from her, not until she handed it over to her buyer. He didn’t think that had happened yet. The stolen artifact business in Valtria was relatively small-time, thanks to his efforts. The more he thought about it, the more trouble he had picturing any of the known players with enough money to pay for something this big, even at devalued black market prices.

And if the buyer was foreign, Lauryn’s fee would include delivering the goods safely to him, smuggling everything neatly out of the country.

Her face and figure floated into his mind unbidden, a mocking smile on her lips and the light of satisfaction in her eyes. She had to be laughing her behind off at how easy it had been to trick them all, to trick him. He pressed his lips together as he swore in silence to wipe that smile off her face at the earliest opportunity. The thing to remember was that she was even more dangerous than he’d thought. He wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her again.

He made his way to the container without trouble, but other than carefully stacked crates, he saw little in the darkness. He pulled the gun, then stepped inside. At least the gun would work. Miklos had assured him that it was the latest and greatest military model and, among other things, water-resistant. Good thing, since he’d forgotten to consider that, too, before jumping in the water.

He tried the first crate. Nailed down. Ten minutes of looking around brought him no luck with the others, so he moved farther in, hoping he would find something to pry those nails loose with. Nothing.

But he did find an open crate at the very end of the line. And the thirteenth-century war chest inside was more than familiar. His heart beat faster as he ran his fingers over the wood, polished by hundreds of hands through history, some of the paint worn off in places. For the first time since he’d laid eyes on Lauryn Steler, he smiled, because if the men on the ship had one thing from the treasury, then most likely they had the rest of the stolen treasure, as well. The coronation jewels would be recovered.

He opened the chest, not expecting to find much, but was rewarded by the sight of Lauryn’s notebook and pen, further proof of her involvement. He left them there, trying the next crate but only the one with the war chest had been opened. Still, he was certain now that he had what he’d been looking for right here.

Part of him didn’t want to let the crates out of his sight. Another part knew that to save them he had to get help. The sooner he made contact and had the riverboat stopped, the better. He headed out reluctantly, not looking forward to getting back into the night water, but ready to do whatever was required to stop Lauryn and her gang of criminals.

But then two things happened at the same time. He heard—but could not see from behind a stack of crates—men at the door, metal creaking as they worked to seal the container for the journey. And Lauryn Steler stepped out in front of him with something in her hands, cutting him unaware, hitting him on the head so hard that he staggered backward.

After that, he could neither see nor hear.

LAURYN LOOKED OVER THE man’s prone body, her heart going a mile a minute. Not that she would let a little adrenaline rush shake her. She’d been in tighter spots than this and had escaped.

Being trapped here didn’t scare her nearly as much as the implications of this whole incident. She’d sweated blood over the past couple of years to earn trust in the art industry, to change her reputation. If even a shadow of doubt fell on her regarding this heist, her new career would be over. Her new life as she knew it would cease to exist. She would lose everything.

And Prince Istvan would be the first to crucify her. He wouldn’t care if she were guilty or innocent. She’d seen that look in his eyes. If he’d had his way, he would have had her arrested just for thinking of coming near his treasury. He was as judgmental as he was good-looking. Too bad, because she truly respected what he had achieved in his field. He was an amazing archaeologist and practically the patron saint of preservation. But he wouldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt.

Nobody would after this.

Once again, she felt the tentacles of her past reach for her, wrap around her and squeeze. She shivered, as if her body was trying to shake them off.

She could see little; not much moonlight filtered in through the small rust holes on top. The man’s shape was familiar, but his face wasn’t. He had a dark mustache and a nose that looked as if it had been broken at one point. He was no threat to her. She’d taken off his belt and tied him up, gagged him with an oily rag she’d found in a corner.

The bad news was, she was now locked in the damned container. The good news was, she had at least nailed one of the bastards and had his gun, although she hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with it. But if things went badly, he might come in handy as a hostage.

She sat with her back against a crate and waited for him to wake. She didn’t have to wait long.

His dark gaze found her and focused on her as soon as his eyes popped open. He struggled against his restraints. She let him. If he wanted to tire himself out, that was fine by her. She didn’t worry about the belt giving. She knew a hundred ways to tie a knot, one for every purpose.

“Hmm.” He made an unintelligible noise as he glared.

“Stay put and stay quiet,” she told him. Then it occurred to her that he could be a source of information. Knowing who these people were and where they were heading might help her better engineer her escape.

Or, if he wasn’t with those men, he could tell her who on earth he was. Because now that she thought about it, why would they send one of their own into the container and then lock him in? If they knew that this guy was here, wouldn’t they have come looking for him when he didn’t return?

She held the gun on him while tugging the gag free from his mouth with her other hand. The threat was implicit.

He understood and didn’t shout. “I should have had you barred from the country,” he said, enraged but keeping it at a low decibel level.

That voice, those eyes … And her heart about stopped. “Your Highness?” She reached for the mustache on reflex. It came away in her hand. She jerked back, knowing that in some kingdoms, the touching of a royal person without his or her permission was punishable by death. Not that she thought Valtria was that archaic, but truth be told, she wasn’t comfortable with touching its hostile prince.

“The nose piece, too,” he ordered, then added in a less angry voice, “It itches.”

There was her permission. She felt his skin and found the ridge, pulled off an oddly shaped 3D bandage kind of something that blended in perfectly while changing the shape of his nose. Her mind was spinning like a whirligig, but couldn’t come up with an explanation for his sudden appearance. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same, but let’s not pretend we both don’t know the answer to that.” He seemed to be choking with barely controlled anger. “This has been your plan all along. You pulled it off. Congratulations.”

The accusation felt like a kick in the face. “Right. I plan a good kidnapping at least once a year. To others, it might be cumbersome, but to me, it’s like a vacation,” she snapped, hating that he would immediately think the worst of her, even if it was exactly what she’d expected.

“If you’re not guilty of anything, then there’s no reason for you to be scared of me. You can put the gun down and untie me.” He struggled to a sitting position, taking over even though he was practically her prisoner. He was tall and lean, wide-shouldered and dark-eyed like the rest of his brothers. According to the media, he was the least social of the princes, something of an introvert.

Now that they’d met twice, she could certainly see why. Probably nobody could tolerate his paranoia and temper. Too bad. She’d come to the country with nothing but respect for the man and his body of work.

“I’m not scared of you,” she told him. Not that he wasn’t physically powerful, but she had plenty of moves he hadn’t seen yet. “But while I know I’m not guilty, you’re too prejudiced and stubborn to believe that. And if you tried something …” He should know that she wasn’t going to stand still while he steamrolled over her. “I’ve worked hard to change my reputation and achieve the standing I have in this business. I wouldn’t want to ruin it by shooting a prince.”

He swore under his breath in French.

“Hey, I understood that.”

He glared. “So why don’t you tell me your perfectly innocent version of events.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Maybe you can convince me.”

If only. But it wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. A long tale might calm him enough so that she could untie him. She had to do that eventually. He was a prince. Despite what she’d said, she probably wouldn’t shoot him. But she couldn’t set him free until she could be sure that he wouldn’t try to overtake her and tie her up in turn. One of them would get hurt. And because he was a prince, she had a feeling that whatever the outcome of such a struggle would be, it wouldn’t be to her advantage.

“After you barely let me take a look at the artifacts in the treasury, I realized you were going to do your best not to let me back in there. I asked the Chancellor, who is a true gentleman by the way, to allow me some more time. I figured that was my only chance to do a thorough job and make sure I made the right choices.” The treasury was simply breathtaking, the most amazing place she’d ever seen. She wished—for a multitude of reasons—that they were both still back there.

“How convenient that the Chancellor had to step out,” he said with derision.

“Not at all. He was most helpful about the history of some of the objects. And he was very entertaining. A gracious host.” Unlike the prince had been, she thought, but left that part unspoken. No sense annoying an already-angry lion, even if he was tied and she had a gun on him.

“Which probably wouldn’t have stopped you from murdering him if he didn’t have to leave. Are you aware that nine men were killed? Men with wives and children who grieve them. Or were you rushing too fast to count?”

The anger in his voice was like a physical force, overwhelming and real. She thought of the young guard the Chancellor had left with her, and drew a slow breath. The man had pimples, for heaven’s sake. Couldn’t have been more than early twenties. Now he was dead, and others, as well.

“Fine, so it’s not fair that they died and I lived.” She pressed her lips together for a second, feeling the guilt, hating the prince for placing more blame on her and adding to the weight. “I was in the enclosure with the carpets and the war chests. We heard a commotion in front of the door. The guard rushed toward it. I thought I heard something that sounded like a gun being fired with a silencer. I slipped into the nearest war chest just as the door opened.”

He had the gall to laugh at that. “Oh, an innocent bystander. A victim even. Well done, Miss Steler. You’re a very creative woman. If my hands were free, I would clap.”

Keep it up and we’ll never be free. “Fine. Think what you will.” She stood and walked away from him.

“Thank you,” he called after her, as arrogant and full of himself as ever. “I think I’ll do that.”

She checked the door. Locked, just as she’d suspected. If she had her old tools, it wouldn’t have posed a problem, but she had nothing with her save a pen and a notebook that she’d left on the bottom of the chest in which she’d hidden. She’d figured whoever was breaking in would go for gold. How was she to know that they would take the war chest, too?

She walked back to Istvan. “Where are we exactly?”

“On a ship called Valtrian Freedom, heading south, not that you don’t know that better than I do. Out of curiosity, who is your buyer?”

She shoved the gun in the back of her pants so she could put her hands on her hips. She simply watched him for a while, trying to decide whether reasoning with him would be a waste of breath. It would be. But she found she couldn’t help herself.

“First, I don’t steal. Second, even if I did, I’d never be stupid enough to steal crown jewels. Not very low-profile, is it? And not marketable either. They’re easily recognizable. As stolen artifacts, they’d be completely useless. The safest way would be selling the stones separately and melting down the gold, but that’s such a small fraction of their value. And a good thief could easily steal gold and gems from a number of other sources with a lot less difficulty.”

He stared at her without a response. Apparently, her words had given him something to think about. Not long enough. “Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to,” he said after a while. “It could have been a crime of passion. You saw the coronation jewels and you couldn’t resist them.”

She shook her head. “You know it as well as I do that this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. This was a carefully planned and meticulously executed heist. There are not that many people in the world who have crews that can pull off something like this. And I’m not one of them.”

“No longer one of them?” he pushed. “Or are the rumors true and you always worked alone?”

She said nothing to that. She never discussed her past.

“You know these crews?”

Again, she remained silent.

“If you didn’t do this, do you have any idea who did?”

She shook her head.

She’d thought about little else while she’d been hiding in the chest. She had plenty of time on the way over here, then while she waited for the men to walk away from the container. Then she finally opened the top, busted the crate’s lid and climbed out. The container door had still been open. But she hesitated too long between escaping and staying with the royal treasures.

Then someone came in, and she thought it was one of the thieves, about to discover her. So she’d done what she had to. But while she was busy with him, the door had been sealed and she’d lost the option of leaving.

“Could you untie the belt? You may keep the gun,” he said.

“Aren’t you the magnanimous one? You’re in no position to negotiate,” she reminded him, but untied him anyway. He was considering other options at least and didn’t look as if he would attack her on the spot.

He rubbed his hands over his wrists, closed his eyes for a second, and for a moment looked almost vulnerable. Must have been a trick of the shadows.

“Are you okay?” she asked anyway before she could stop herself. She did hit him over the head pretty hard back there.

His fierce frown was an immediate rebuke. “Fine.” “Let me look at you.” She leaned forward to check his irises, chancing that he might grab for the gun, but couldn’t see much in the dark.

He drew back as if offended. “That’s not necessary.”

“Do you have any nausea? I could have given you a concussion.” Considering the way he’d been treating her, she felt only mildly guilty.

“You didn’t.”

“You don’t know that. Anyway, if you feel sleepy, try to stay awake.”

“I do not have a concussion,” he said, stiff-lipped.

His obstinacy was ticking her off on every level. “You’re too tough to get a concussion from a girl, is that it?”

He came to his feet and strode away from her, stopped as far as the crate allowed, then stared back. An image of buffalo came into her mind, pawing the snow, blowing steam out of his nose. No need to share that with him.

She gave him a minute before she followed. “How far is the nearest seaport?”

“Trieste would be two hours at the most.”

She considered options and backup options, trying to come up with an escape plan. “What do you think will happen when we get there?”

“If we’re lucky, they’ll open the container to transfer the stolen goods. That’ll give us a chance to make a break for it.”

“I don’t believe in luck.” She peered through the darkness and tried to map the place.

The prince gave a brief nod. “Me neither.”

So for two hours they searched every corner, tried to find a weak spot where they could break out—there wasn’t one—and made plans on what they’d do once the riverboat reached port and the container would be opened.

Except that it wasn’t.

No sooner did the boat stop moving than they felt the container lift as a crane hoisted it in the air. She slid against the prince who in turn slid against the back wall, then shifted quickly to the side, saving them from being crushed to death by some unstable crates.

He wedged himself into the corner and held off what had to be a couple of hundred pounds with his bare hands. Then the container settled with a loud clunk and everything stopped moving.

“I take it this would be the ocean liner,” she said, a little rattled, which annoyed her. She didn’t like thinking that the prince might have just saved her. She prided herself on being a self-sufficient woman. She didn’t want to owe anything to any stuck-up, prejudiced Valtrian royalty.

She handed his gun back to him, a kind of payback, she supposed.

“I’m not too keen on going on an ocean voyage at the moment.” Prince Istvan strode to the front and pointed at the lock from the inside. “Are you sure you can’t open this?”

“Not with my bare hands.” That was as close to admitting her shady past as she was comfortable with.

“I have a tool for you.” He pointed the mean-looking handgun in the general direction. “Show me where to shoot.”

“It’ll be too loud.”

“Not if I shoot just as they rattle the next container into place.”

She felt around in the near darkness, then grabbed the barrel of the gun and pressed it against the right spot.

“Here.”

He aimed. They waited. Then when they could hear chains creak and the corner of the next container bump against another, he squeezed off a shot. Inside the container, the sound seemed deafening. But she had a feeling that with all the machinery and the noise of the harbor outside, it had been barely noticeable. Still, they waited a few minutes. When no one raised the alarm and no one came to investigate, the prince drew back, then slammed his shoulder into the door before she could stop him.

That had to hurt. She winced.

“Patience.” She stepped over to examine the damage to the lock. “You’ll need at least one more shot.”

Except that the crane seemed to move on to the other side of the ship. He waited on the spot anyway, in case the crane came back. It didn’t. An hour or so later they felt the ship shudder, the engines start and the ground move under their feet. Istvan used that distraction to fire off his second shot, which did the trick at last.

This time when he shoved his shoulder into the door, it opened.

Four inches.

Just enough for them to see that they were blocked in by another container in front of them.

“Trapped.” She closed her eyes for a moment against the disappointment and frustration. She could have banged her head against the metal. They should have done something much sooner, on the riverboat. But the prince had thoroughly distracted her, and now it was too late. The very reason she always worked alone. A partner was nothing but trouble.

“Going in an unknown direction on a strange ship,” he thought out loud. His voice sounded off.

“A ship that’s controlled by criminals.” Not that she blamed all this on him. Maybe a little. If he’d let her do her work in the treasury earlier, she would have been done and gone by the time the thieves got there. He would have still suspected her, but she could have been dealing with that unfair cloud of suspicion at the five-star hotel where the Getty was putting her up, instead of here.

“Or your friends. Although, the two might not be mutually exclusive, I suspect.” Apparently, he still harbored some mistrust of her.

“People we don’t want to meet up with,” she offered as compromise. “At this point, if they found us, they’d kill both of us. They sure didn’t hesitate shooting the guards at the treasury.” The memory turned her mood even more somber. “And they will find us. If not sooner, then when they come to get the loot.”

The more she thought of that, the bigger that lead ball grew in her stomach.

And bigger yet when he said, “Just so we’re clear, I still think that you’re involved in this in some way. And when we get out of here and I return the crown jewels to the treasury, I will figure out what your role has been. And then I’ll personally see to it that you’re prosecuted to the full extent of Valtrian law, Miss Steler.”

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