ago—a letter Veronica had fished out of Tedric’s royal wastebasket. In the letter, Cindy—barely even ten years old—had told Prince Tedric that she’d heard he was planning a trip to the United States. She had asked him, if he was going to be in the Washington, D.C., area, to please come and visit her since she was not able to come to see him.
Veronica had ended up going above the prince—directly to King Derrick—and had gotten the visit to Saint Mary’s on the official tour calendar.
But now what?
The entire tour would have to be rescheduled and replanned, and Saint Mary’s and little Cindy were likely to fall, ignored, between the cracks.
Veronica smiled tightly. Not if she had anything to say about it.
With a sigh, she kicked off her shoes.
Lord, but she ached.
Tackling royalty could really wear a person out, she thought, allowing herself a rueful smile. After the assassination attempt, she had run on sheer adrenaline for about six hours straight. After that had worn off, she’d kept herself fueled with coffee—hot, black and strong.
Right now what she needed was a shower and a two-hour nap.
She pulled her nightgown and robe out of the suitcase that she hadn’t yet found time to unpack, and tossed them onto the bed as she all but staggered into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned on the shower as she peeled off her suit and the cream-colored blouse she wore underneath. She put a hole in her hose as she took them off, and threw them directly into the wastebasket. It had been a bona fide two-pairs-of-panty-hose day. Her first pair, the ones she’d been wearing at the airport, had been totally destroyed.
Veronica washed herself quickly, knowing that every minute she spent in the shower was a minute less that she’d be able to sleep. And with Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto due to arrive anytime after midnight, she was going to need every second of that nap.
Still, it didn’t keep her from singing as she tried to rinse the aches and soreness from her back and shoulders. Singing in the shower was a childhood habit. Then, as now, the moments she spent alone in the shower were among the few bits of time she had to really kick back and let loose. She tested the acoustics of this particular bathroom with a rousing rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s latest hit.
She shut off the water, still singing, and toweled herself dry.
Her robe was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and she reached for it.
And stopped singing, mid-note.
She’d left her robe in the bedroom, on the bed. She hadn’t hung it on the door.
“No…you’re right. You’re not alone in here,” said a husky male voice from the other side of the bathroom door.
Veronica’s heart nearly stopped beating, and she lunged for the door and turned the lock.
“I figured you didn’t know I was in your room,” the voice continued as Veronica quickly slipped into her white terry-cloth bathrobe. “I also figured you probably wouldn’t appreciate coming out of the bathroom with just a towel on—or less. Not with an audience, anyway. So I put your robe on the back of the door.”
Veronica tightened the belt and clutched the lapels of the robe more closely together. She took in a deep breath, then let it slowly out. It steadied her and kept her voice from shaking. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Who are you?” the voice countered. It was rich, husky, and laced with more than a trace of blue-collar New York. “I was brought here and told to wait, so I waited. I’ve been hustled from one coast to the other like some Federal Express overnight package, only nobody has any explanations as to why or even who I’m waiting to see. I didn’t even know my insertion point was the District of Columbia until the jet landed at Andrews. And as long as I’m complaining I might as well tell you that I’m tired, I’m hungry and my shorts have not managed to dry in the past ten hours, a situation that makes me very, very cranky. I would damn near sell my soul to get into that shower that you just stepped out of. Other than that, I’m sure I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“Lieutenant Catalanotto?” Veronica asked.
“Bingo,” the voice said. “Babe, you just answered your own question.”
But had she? “What’s your first name?” she asked warily.
“Joe. Joseph.”
“Middle name?”
“Paulo,” he said.
Veronica swung open the bathroom door.
The first thing she noticed about the man was his size. He was big—taller than Prince Tedric by about two inches and outweighing him in sheer muscle by a good, solid fifty pounds. His dark hair was cut much shorter than Tedric’s, and he had at least a two-day growth of beard darkening his face.
He didn’t look as exactly like the prince as she’d thought when she saw his photograph, Veronica realized, studying the man’s face. On closer inspection, his nose was slightly different—it had been broken, probably more than once. And, if it was possible, this navy lieutenant’s cheekbones were even more exotic-looking than Tedric’s. His chin was slightly more square, more stubborn than the prince’s. And his eyes…As he returned her inquisitive stare, his lids dropped halfway over his remarkable liquid brown eyes, as if he was trying to hide his innermost secrets from her.
But those differences—even the size differences between the two men—were very subtle. They wouldn’t be noticed by someone who didn’t know Prince Tedric very well. Those differences certainly wouldn’t be noticed by the array of ambassadors and diplomats Tedric was scheduled to meet.
“According to the name tag on your suitcase, you’ve gotta be Veronica St. John, right?” he said, pronouncing her name the American way, as if it were two words, Saint and John.
“Sinjin,” she said distractedly. “You don’t say Saint John, you say ‘Sinjin.”’
He was looking at her, examining her in much the same way that she’d looked at him. The intensity of his gaze made her feel naked. Which of course, underneath her robe, she was.
But he didn’t win any prizes himself for the clothing he was wearing. From the looks of it, his T-shirt had had its sleeves forcibly removed without the aid of scissors, his army fatigues had been cut off into ragged shorts, and on his feet he wore a pair of dirty canvas deck shoes with no socks. He looked as if he hadn’t showered in several days, and, Lord help her, he smelled that way, too.
“Dear God,” Veronica said aloud, taking in all of the little details she’d missed at first. He wasn’t wearing a belt. Instead, a length of fairly thick rope was run through the belt loops in his pants, and tied in some kind of knot at the front. He had a tattoo—a navy anchor—on his left biceps. His fingers were blackened with stains of grease, his fingernails were short and rough—a far cry from Prince Tedric’s carefully manicured hands. Lord, if she had to start by teaching this man the basics of personal hygiene, there was no way she’d have him impersonating
