must excuse me, Katarina. I have business to attend to.’ Alaric disengaged himself from the countess’s clinging grasp.
‘So late? Surely there are better ways to spend the night?’ Her ruby lips parted and her silvery eyes flashed a familiar message. Sexual promise, excitement and just a touch of greed. She swayed forward, her barely covered breasts straining against her ball gown, her emerald-strewn cleavage designed to draw the eye.
Acquiring lovers had always been easy for Alaric but he was tired of being targeted by women like Katarina.
His rules were simple. First, no long term commitment. Ever. Emotional intimacy, what others called love, was a mirage he knew to be dangerous and false. Second, he did the chasing.
He needed diversion but on his terms.
Katarina, despite her genuine sexual desire, was another who’d set her sights on marriage. Permanency. Royal prestige. Wealth. Right now he had more significant concerns than satisfying the ambitions of a grasping socialite.
‘Sadly it’s a meeting I can’t avoid.’ Over her head he caught the eye of the steward hovering at the entrance. ‘Your car is here.’ He lifted her hand, barely brushing it with his lips, before leading her to the door.
‘I’ll call you,’ she whispered, her voice sultry.
Alaric smiled easily, secure in the knowledge she wouldn’t get past his staff.
Five minutes later, with the last guests gone, he dismissed his personal staff and strode down the corridor, his mind returning to the recent conversation with Raul.
If anyone else had asked him to stay here, cooped up through winter, Alaric would have ignored them. The need to be out and doing something, keeping busy, was a turbulent tide rising in his blood. The idea of six more months tied to his alpine principality gave him cabin fever.
It might be home, but he felt hemmed in. Constricted. Prey to the darkness clawing from within.
Only constant action and diversion kept him from succumbing. Kept him sane.
Alaric forked a hand through his hair, impatiently flicking his cape off one shoulder. That was another thing to thank his distant cousin and soon-to-be monarch for. An evening wearing the outmoded uniform of two centuries ago.
Yet he’d given his word. He must help Raul.
After decades of peace, the recent death of the old king, Raul’s father, had reignited unrest. Alaric’s principality of Ruvingia was stable but elsewhere tensions that had almost led to civil war a generation ago had reopened. With careful management danger would be averted, but they couldn’t take chances.
He and Raul had to ensure stability. In their nation of Maritz, clinging to monarchical traditions, that meant a calm, united front in the lead up to his cousin’s coronation and the reopening of parliament.
So here Alaric was, cutting ribbons and hosting balls!
He swung into another corridor, itching for action. But this wasn’t as simple as leading a commando squad to disarm combatants. There was no violence. Yet.
Alaric’s belly twisted as the ghosts of the past stirred, a reminder of how suddenly tragedy could strike.
With an effort he shoved aside the lingering pain and glanced at his watch. He was miles late for his last obligation of the day. As soon as it was over he’d escape for a few hours. Take the Aston Martin over the mountain pass and try out its paces on the hairpin bends.
Alaric quickened his step at the beckoning sense of freedom, however temporary.
Another twist in the ancient passage and there was the library door. Automatically he slowed, acknowledging but not yielding to the frisson of discomfort feathering his spine.
This would never be his study, no matter what the staff expected. It was his father’s room, his brother’s. Alaric preferred the mobility of a laptop he could use elsewhere. Preferred not to be reminded he walked in dead men’s shoes.
Too many dead men.
Fragmented images rose. At the forefront was Felix, his talented, capable, older brother.
The one who should be here instead of Alaric.
Who’d died because of Alaric.
The frisson of awareness froze into a gut-stabbing shaft of ice. Familiar guilt engulfed him. Pain tore his chest and throat with each breath.
He accepted it as inevitable. His punishment. The weight he would always bear.
Eventually he forced his breathing to slow and his legs to move.
The room was empty. Logs burned in the fireplace, lamps glowed but no expert waited to harangue him about the state of the archives. If the matter was so urgent surely she’d have stayed.
All the better. He could be on the open road in ten minutes.
He was turning away when a stack of papers caught his attention. A battered briefcase sagged on the floor. Immediately he was alert, his gaze narrowing.
Then he heard it, an almost imperceptible swish from above. Instincts honed on the edge of survival sharpened. He flexed his fingers. An instant later, hand on the hilt of his ceremonial sword, he faced the intruder.
For long moments he stared, then his hand fell away.
The room had been invaded by a…mushroom.
On top of the ladder fixed to the bookshelves perched a shapeless muddle of grey-brown. A long granny cardigan the colour of dust caught his eye and beneath, spread across the ladder top that now served as a seat, a voluminous grey skirt. It was a woman, though her clothes looked like something that had sprouted on a damp forest floor.
A wall sconce shone on dark hair, scraped back, and a glint of glasses above a massive book. White-gloved hands held the volume up, obscuring her face. And beneath…his gaze riveted on the rhythmic swing of a leg, bare to just above the knee.
One seriously sexy leg.
Alaric paced closer, his attention gratefully diverted from sombre remembrances.
Skin like moonlight. A shapely calf, trim ankle and neat foot. Toes that wriggled enticingly with each swing.
Masculine appreciation stirred as his gaze slid back up her leg. Even her knee looked good! Too good to be teasing a man who was restless and in desperate need of distraction.
He crossed to the base of the ladder and picked up a discarded shoe. Flat soled, plain brown, narrow and neat. Appallingly dowdy.
He raised his brows. Those legs deserved something better, assuming the one tucked beneath that horror of a skirt matched the elegant limb on show. They demanded heels. Stiletto sharp and high, to emphasise the luscious curve of her calf. Ankle straps. Ribbons, sexy enough to tease a man till he took them off and moved on to other pleasures.
Alaric shook his head. He’d bet all the jewels in the basement vault the owner of this shoe would be horrified at the extravagance of footwear designed to seduce a man.
