When the kitchen door swung behind her, Dom had to ask. “How is this Natalie Clark involved in what you want to talk to me about?”
The duchess waived an airy hand. “Pour us a pálinka, and I’ll tell you.”
“Should you have brandy? Zia said in her last email that…”
“Pah! Your sister fusses more than Sarah and Gina combined.”
“With good reason, yes? She’s a doctor. She has a better understanding of your health issues.”
“Dominic.” The duchess leveled a steely stare. “I’ve told my granddaughters, I’ve told your sister, and I’ll tell you. The day I can’t handle an aperitif before dinner is the day you may bundle me off to a nursing home.”
“The day you can’t drink us all under the table, you mean.” Grinning, Dom went to the sideboard and lined up two cut-crystal snifters.
Ah, but he was a handsome devil, Charlotte thought with a sigh. Those dark, dangerous eyes. The slashing brows and glossy black hair. The lean, rangy body inherited from the wiry horsemen who’d swept down from the Steppes on their sturdy ponies and ravaged Europe. Magyar blood ran in his veins, as it did in hers, combined with but not erased by centuries of intermarriage among the royals of the once-great Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Duchy of Karlenburgh had been part of that empire. A tiny part, to be sure, but one with a history that had stretched back for seven hundred years. It now existed only in dusty history books, and one of those books was about to change Dominic’s life. Hopefully for the better, although Charlotte doubted he would think so. Not at first. But with time…
She glanced up as the instigator of that change returned to the sitting room. “Ah, here you are, Natalie. We’re just about to have an aperitif. Will you join us?”
“No, thank you.”
Dom paused with his hand on the stopper of the Bohemian crystal decanter he and Zia had brought the duchess as a gift for their first meeting. Thinking to soften the researcher’s stiff edges, he gave her a slow smile.
“Are you sure? This apricot brandy is a specialty of my country.”
“I’m sure.”
Dom blinked. Mi a fene! Did her nose just quiver again? As though she’d picked up another bad odor? What the hell kind of tales had Zia and/or Gina fed the woman?
Shrugging, he splashed brandy into two snifters and carried one to the duchess. But if anyone could use a shot of pálinka, he thought as he folded his long frame into the chair beside his great-aunt’s, the research assistant could. The double-distilled, explosively potent brandy would set more than her nostrils to quivering.
“How long will you be in New York?” the duchess asked after downing a healthy swallow.
“Only tonight. I have a meeting in Washington tomorrow.”
“Hmm. I should wait until Zia and Gina return to discuss this with you, but they already know about it.”
“About what?”
“The Edict of 1867.” She set her brandy aside, excitement kindling in her faded blue eyes. “As you may remember from your history books, war with Prussia forced Emperor Franz Joseph to cede certain concessions to his often rambunctious Hungarian subjects. The Edict of 1867 gave Hungary full internal autonomy as long as it remained part of the empire for purposes of war and foreign affairs.”
“Yes, I know this.”
“Did you also know Karlenburgh added its own codicil to the agreement?”
“No, I didn’t, but then I would have no reason to,” Dom said gently. “Karlenburgh is more your heritage than mine, Duchess. My grandfather—your husband’s cousin—left Karlenburgh Castle long before I was born.”
And the duchy had ceased to exist soon after that. World War I had carved up the once-mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire. World War II, the brutal repression of the Cold War era, the abrupt dissolution of the Soviet Union and vicious attempts at “ethnic cleansing” had all added their share of upheavals to the violently changing political landscape of Eastern Europe.
“Your grandfather took his name and his bloodline with him when he left Karlenburgh, Dominic.” Charlotte leaned closer and gripped his arm with fingers that dug in like talons. “You inherited that bloodline and that name. You’re a St. Sebastian. And the present Grand Duke of Karlenburgh.”
“What?”
“Natalie found it during her research. The codicil. Emperor Franz Joseph reconfirmed that the St. Sebastians would carry the titles of Grand Duke and Duchess forever and in perpetuity in exchange for holding the borders of the empire. The empire doesn’t exist anymore, but despite all the wars and upheavals, that small stretch of border between Austria and Hungary remains intact. So, therefore, does the title.”
“On paper, perhaps. But the lands and outlying manors and hunting lodges and farmlands that once comprised the duchy have long since been dispersed and redeeded. It would take a fortune and decades in court to reclaim any of them.”
“The lands and manor houses are gone, yes. Not the title. Sarah will become Grand Duchess when I die. Or Gina if, God forbid, something should happen to her sister. But they married commoners. According to the laws of primogeniture, their husbands can’t assume the title of Grand Duke. Until either Sarah or Gina has a son, or their daughters grow up and marry royalty, the only one who can claim it is you, Dom.”
Right, he wanted to drawl. That and ten dollars would get him a half-decent espresso at one of New York’s overpriced coffee bars.
He swallowed the sarcasm but lobbed a quick glare at the woman wearing an expression of polite interest, as if she hadn’t initiated this ridiculous conversation with her research. He’d have a thing or two to say to Ms. Clark later about getting the duchess all stirred up over an issue that was understandably close to her heart but held little relevance to the real world. Particularly the world of an undercover operative.
He allowed none of those thoughts to show in his face as he folded Charlotte’s hand between his. “I appreciate the honor you want to bestow on me, Duchess. I do. But in my line of work, I can hardly hang a title around my neck.”
“Yes, I want to speak to you about that, too. You’ve been living on the edge for too many years now. How long can you continue before someone nicks more than a rib?”
“Exactly what I’ve been asking him,” Zia commented as she swept into the sitting room with her long-legged stride.
She’d taken advantage of her few hours away from the hospital to pull on her favorite jeans and a summer tank top in blistering red. The rich color formed a striking contrast to her dark eyes and shoulder-length hair as black and glossy as her brother’s. When he stood and opened his arms, she walked into them and hugged him with the same fierce affection he did her.
She was only four years younger than Dom, twenty-seven to his thirty-one, but he’d assumed full responsibility for his teenage sibling when their parents died. He’d been there, too, standing round-the-clock watch beside her hospital bed when she’d almost bled to death after a uterine cyst ruptured her first year at university. The complications that resulted from the rupture had changed her life in so many ways.
What hadn’t changed was Dom’s bone-deep protectiveness. No matter where his job took him or what dangerous enterprise he was engaged in, Zia had only to send a coded text and he would contact her within hours, if not minutes. Although he always shrugged off the grimmer aspects of his work, she’d wormed enough detail out of him over the years to add her urging to that of the duchess.