Gabriel folded his arms across his chest and frowned in utter puzzlement.

Derek looked at him matter-of-factly, then a sly grin spread across his face. "What the h.e.l.l have you been up to on that farm of yours out there?"

"You don't want to know," Gabriel mumbled.

"Oh, but I do. Did you meet a lady?"

"Not a lady. No. A little thief," he muttered. But if Derek had not hired her and did not know where to find her-then it seemed Sophia was truly gone from his life.

The disappointment nearly stole his breath.

"What did she take?" his brother asked.

He avoided Derek's gaze. "Nothing of any consequence." His thoughts returned to the morning he had found Sophia asleep in the barn.

Now he saw that she had played him for an even greater fool than he had suspected. She must have simply answered yes to all his questions; letting him supply his own conclusions, she had merely played along.

But why? And who the devil was she?

Was Sophia even her real name?

"Are you all right?" Derek murmured, watching him with a worried look.

Gabriel sent him a guarded glance. "Never mind," he said with a vague shrug. "It doesn't matter anymore." He shook his head, trying to clear the little h.e.l.lion from his mind. "What was the message you wanted to give me?"

He could sense his brother's concern for him, but thankfully Derek did not press the issue nor pester him with prying questions.

He knew him too well to do that.

"This came for you this morning." Derek reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a letter from Lord Griffith, their marquess brother-in-law. "Griff didn't know where to find you, so he sent it to me and asked that I forward it to you as quickly as possible."

Gabriel accepted the letter, perplexed. "Our sister has my address at the farm."

"Apparently, he's writing to you from elsewhere. See that return address? Lily said that's one of the castles controlled by the Crown."

"As long as it's nothing to do with their child," Gabriel answered under his breath. Their sister's first baby was not due for a few more months, but the whole family had been frantically protective over her.

"No, no," Derek rea.s.sured him, "Georgiana's been in splendid health. I believe Griff's writing to you in his official capacity as diplomat."

"I wonder what he wants," Gabriel mused aloud as he cracked the wax seal on the letter.

"Probably to lure you into some plum post with the Foreign Office. He tried to sign me up, as well, and only let up on me once I got married."

"No doubt our sister's behind it."

Derek nodded. Georgie didn't want either of her brothers moving back to India. She was determined to keep the whole family together in England, and if that meant cajoling her powerful diplomat husband to find excellent posts for her brothers, she was not above such machinations.

Unfolding the letter, Gabriel discovered three pages of doc.u.ments attached. "You were right," he murmured as he skimmed the letter. "He says they've got a mission for me."

"Any details?"

"No. I'm summoned to this castle-he drew me a map," he added sardonically, showing it to him. "I am to burn it and this letter once I've memorized the route."

"How mysterious," Derek replied in amus.e.m.e.nt. "What's that other page?"

"Identification papers to get me into the castle."

"Lord!" Derek let out a low whistle. "Must have some heavy security in place, whatever's afoot."

"Griff says he'll fill me in when I get there."

"Are you going to go?"

"I am intrigued," he admitted. Indeed, his heart had begun pounding with antic.i.p.ation. This could be a harbinger of the task he had been sent back from the brink of death to fulfill. If nothing else, it would at least distract him from the strange ache of knowing Sophia was gone from his life. "Do you recognize this coat of arms?" Leaning toward his brother, he showed Derek the stamped seal in the center of the official-looking doc.u.ment granting him pa.s.sage into the castle.

Derek studied it, then shook his head. "The House of Kavros?" he read aloud, eyeing the heraldic banner above the seal. "Never heard of it."

"Neither have I."

"What are those, Cyrillic letters? Russian? Greek?"

"I have no idea." Gabriel shrugged and folded the identification paper back up to keep it safe. He turned his attention to studying the little map that Griff had drawn.

"So, are you going to go, then?" Derek prodded with a look that expressed his long-standing opinion that a new post would do Gabriel a world of good.

"I don't think I have much choice, he said. "Griff's polite to a fault, but these sound more like orders than a social invitation. Yes," Gabriel said at length with a decisive nod. "I can at least go and see what they want."

"Not looking like that!" Derek laughed, glancing at Gabriel's civilian clothes and scruffy jaw. "You can start by borrowing my razor. Papers or no, they're not going to let you into that castle looking like some sort of highwayman. Thank goodness you stored your dress kit with me before running away to the farm; it saves us a trip."

"Really, I appreciate your candor," he said dryly.

Derek flashed a cheeky grin. "What are brothers for?"

Secluded amid a thousand acres of meadows and woodlands, the ancient castle hulked atop a round hill near the south coast of England. No neo-Gothic showplace but a true medieval fortress, its stark gray stone, smoothed by centuries of wind, had been hewn in defensive lines of rugged simplicity.

After showing the papers Griff had sent him, Gabriel was admitted through the fortified iron gates.

He rode his white stallion at an alert, rocking canter up the long drive that meandered through the property. The castle loomed nearer; he swept over a low bridge.

Again, he had to stop and hand over the papers of entry when he reached the second line of fortifications.

Whatever was going on here, clearly, the government meant business, he mused as he waited for the soldiers at the inner gates to check his papers.

"Will you dismount, please, Major? I'll show you in. We'll see to your horse. They are expecting you."

Glad that they were satisfied with his doc.u.ments, he swung down off his horse and followed the brisk young officer toward the keep.

Marching under the portcullis, they crossed an inner courtyard with a ma.s.sive sundial in the center and then were ushered into a vast reception hall. The young officer sent a page running to fetch Lord Griffith, and a few minutes later, his tall, patrician brother-in-law came striding into the room.

"Gabriel," he greeted him with a debonair smile, lifting up his hands by his sides. Ian Prescott, the Marquess of Griffith, had grayish-green eyes and neat, wavy brown hair.

"Griff." He accepted his kinsman's handshake heartily. "How are you?"

"Never better." The expectant father was positively beaming. "And yourself? You're looking well. How's the, er?" Griff touched his own stomach at about the same level where Gabriel had been skewered.

"Oh-better. Healed over, on the whole. Thanks."

"Excellent news." Griff shook his head. "We thought we'd nearly lost you there."

"No, you're not rid of me yet."

"Good. I want my new son or daughter to know all his or her uncles." Griff cast an elegant gesture toward the walkway. "Shall we?"

Gabriel nodded and fell into step beside him. "So, what's all this about?"

"How'd you like to winter in the Greek islands?"

Gabriel snorted. "Right. What's the catch?"

"We have a royal personage of considerable strategic importance to us under threat of a.s.sa.s.sination."

"Ah, lovely." Diplomatic security, then, just as his brother had surmised.

"We need a crack man in charge of these royal bodyguards. After all, if the killers were to succeed on English soil, it would be a great embarra.s.sment to Buckingham Palace, and a major setback to our interests in the Mediterranean."

"Plus, someone would be dead and that would be rather a pity, no?" he drawled.

"Naturally," Griff agreed with a wry look. "This way. I don't mean to sound heartless, it's just that I am married to your sister, and I would not want you getting the wrong impression."

"Wrong impression?"

"Thinking I've gone as mad for our royal idol as every other male in this place. Rest a.s.sured, I have not. Somebody's got to keep a clear head around here, after all. You're perfect for that."

"Royal idol?" Gabriel echoed.

"Mm." Pa.s.sing under a high arched doorway, they came to a wing of the medieval castle that had been refurbished in the rococo style. The sudden clash of stark Norman architecture and frothy, gilded pastels had a mildly disorienting effect, as did Griff's words.

"I have heard her called a beauty on a par with Madame de Recamier," the marquess murmured as they marched across the shiny parquet floors of a mirrored ballroom. "To tell the truth, I cannot disagree."

"Madame de who?"

"Oh, right, you've been in India. Never mind. Just some dainty, dark-haired Frenchwoman who had half of Europe at her feet a few years ago." Griff paused, halting him with a brisk tap on the shoulder. He glanced right and left, then lowered his voice. "Listen to this, there's even a rumor going around that the Regent is trying to speed up his divorce proceedings so he can pursue this blue-blooded chit for himself. If you want my advice, Major, you'd better brace yourself. Our princess is a real royal handful."

"My G.o.d, man, what have you got me into?" he exclaimed.

"I didn't get you into it. That's the most intriguing part. She asked for you specifically by name."

"For me? But how...? I don't understand."

"Neither do I. But she seemed to know you or at least has heard of you, and what Her Highness wants, Her Highness gets. Better hurry, I daresay. She doesn't like being kept waiting."

"Really?" he murmured, lifting an eyebrow.

"We're on rather a tight schedule, Major. Right through there, if you will. Throne room," he said, pointing toward the esplanade. "I'll be along in a moment. I've got to sign some papers here. The lord chamberlain will do the introductions."

Gabriel nodded, mystified, while Griff walked off briskly to attend to the stack of files that an underling had brought over to him.

Well, this is all very strange. Frowning, he turned in the direction that his n.o.ble brother-in-law had indicated. He was quite sure he had never met a royal princess. A man ought to remember something like that. How could this princess have heard of him anyway, when he had lived like a recluse ever since he'd come to England? Perhaps she knew someone in Society who had spent time in India...Ah, well.

None of this made a great deal of sense to him, but Gabriel was ready for anything; bracing himself as the marquess had advised, he squared his shoulders and marched on down the esplanade, sweeping through one gilded chamber after another through a series of open doors.

The tension in him built as he approached the larger hall at the end of the row of stately apartments. He gave his name to the footman posted outside the open door to the throne room. The footman, in turn, brought him over to the lord chamberlain, a dignified little gray-haired fellow with an impressive mustache.

The chamberlain bowed to him, then Gabriel followed him into the throne room. It was the most impressive chamber yet: white walls with gilded panels, pink marble columns and pale blue pilasters. The painted ceiling full of garlands and cherubs and pastel roundels looked like it was made of candy.

With a sweeping glance of the glittering hall, Gabriel warily counted ten swarthy guards in foreign dress posted around the room. But as the chamberlain went forward to present him, his gaze homed in on the canopied throne at the far end of the long hall.

His eyes narrowed as he stared at the slim young woman seated on the intricately carved chair. He went motionless, his heart kicking into a thunderous gallop. Wonderstruck, he stared. A sparkling tiara crowned her raven curls. A magnificent brocade gown cascaded over her trim figure, those slender curves his hands knew all too well.

Staring at her in all her regal splendor, Gabriel felt time slow to a crawl, while every atom of his being overflowed with disbelief.

It was his Gypsy girl.

His sultry little...maid.

Sophia?

CHAPTER.

EIGHT.

C oiffed heads turned; admiring murmurs rippled through the throne room as Gabriel came stalking toward her down the center of the glittering hall, magnificent in his scarlet dress uniform.

Sophia stared, her heart beating as if it would jump out of her chest.

He was a sight to behold. The clean shave revealed all the smooth planes and angles of his iron jaw and square chin, giving her a whole new appreciation for his fierce and oh-so-masculine beauty. He had cut his hair short, too. The messy coal-black waves of silk that she had run her fingers through that night in his bed had been neatly tamed. Her rapt gaze traveled over him.

Around his neck, no frothy cravat, but a plain black military-style stock encircled his throat. Smart bra.s.s b.u.t.tons gleamed all down his chest, while gold epaulets adorned his ma.s.sive shoulders.

Carrying his plumed cavalry helmet under one arm, his hands were encased in pristine white gloves. A silk sash encircled his lean waist, along with a gleaming dress sword. It was a light and gentlemanly weapon, not the stained, battered saber that he had notched with all his kills in his ferocious past. His cream-colored riding breeches met the tops of his shiny black knee-boots, and the angry rhythm of his steps striking the marble floor grew louder as he approached.