He didn’t have to. Natalie had already pieced it together from her own research and from the comments Sarah had let drop about the personal items the duchess had disposed of over the years to raise her granddaughters in the style she considered commensurate with their rank.
“…but I am warning you not to take advantage of the duchess’s very natural desire to see her heritage continue.”
“Take advantage?”
It took a moment for that to sink in. When it did, she could barely speak through the anger that spurted hot and sour into her throat.
“Do you think…? Do you think this codicil is part of some convoluted scheme on my part to extract money from the St. Sebastians?”
Furious, she shoved to her feet. He rose as well, as effortlessly as an athlete, and countered her anger with a shrug.
“Not at this point. If I discover differently, however, you and I will most certainly have another chat.”
“Get out!”
Maybe after she cooled down Natalie would admit flinging out an arm and stabbing a finger toward the door was overly melodramatic. At the moment, though, she wanted to slam that door so hard it knocked this pompous ass on his butt. Especially when he lifted a sardonic brow.
“Shouldn’t that be ‘Get out, Your Grace’?”
Her back teeth ground together. “Get. Out.”
* * *
As a cab hauled him back uptown for a last visit with the duchess and his sister, Dom couldn’t say his session with Ms. Clark had satisfied his doubts. There was still something he couldn’t pin down about the researcher. She dressed like a bag lady in training and seemed content to efface herself in company. Yet when she’d flared up at him, when fury had brought color surging to her cheeks and fire to her eyes, the woman was anything but ignorable.
She reminded him of the mounts his ancestors had ridden when they’d swept down from the Steppes into the Lower Danube region. Their drab, brown-and-dun-colored ponies lacked the size and muscle power of destriers that carried European knights into battle. Yet the Magyars had wreaked havoc for more than half a century throughout Italy, France, Germany and Spain before finally being defeated by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I.
And like one of those tough little ponies, Dom thought with a slow curl in his belly, Ms. Clark needed taming. She might hide behind those glasses and shapeless dresses, but she had a temper on her when roused. Too bad he didn’t have time to gentle her to his hand. The exercise would be a hell of a lot more interesting than the meetings he had lined up in Washington tomorrow. Still, he entertained himself for the rest of the cab ride with various techniques he might employ should he cross paths with Natalie Elizabeth Clark anytime in the near future.
He’d pretty much decided he would make that happen when Zia let him into the duchess’s apartment.
“Back so soon?” she said, her eyes dancing. “Ms. Clark didn’t succumb to your manly charms and topple into bed with you?”
The quip was so close to Dom’s recent thoughts that he answered more brusquely than he’d intended. “I didn’t go to her hotel to seduce her.”
“No? That must be a first.”
“Jézus, Mária és József! The mouth on you, Anastazia Amalia. I should have washed it with soap when I had the chance.”
“Ha! You would never have been able to hold me down long enough. But come in, come in! Sarah’s on FaceTime with her grandmother. I think you’ll be interested in their conversation.”
FaceTime? The duchess? Marveling at the willingness of a woman who’d been born in the decades between two great world wars to embrace the latest in technology, Dom followed his sister into the sitting room. One glance at the tableau corrected his impression of Charlotte’s geekiness.
She sat upright and unbending in her customary chair, her cane close at hand. An iPad was perched on her knees, but she was obviously not comfortable with the device. Gina sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, holding the screen to the proper angle
Sarah’s voice floated through the speaker and her elegant features filled most of the screen. Her husband’s filled the rest.
“I’m so sorry, Grandmama. It just slipped out.”
“What slipped out?” Dom murmured to Zia.
“You,” his sister returned with that mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Me?”
“Shh! Just listen.”
Frowning, Dom tuned back into the conversation.
“Alexis called with an offer to hype my book in
Beguile,” Sarah was saying. “She wanted to play up both angles.” Her nose wrinkled. “My former job at the magazine and my title. You know how she is.”
“Yes,” the duchess drawled. “I do.”
“I told Alexis the book wasn’t ready for hype yet. Unfortunately, I also told her we’re getting there much quicker since I’d hired such a clever research assistant. I bragged about the letter Natalie unearthed in the House of Parma archives, the one from Marie Antoinette to her sister describing the miniature of her painted by Le Brun that went missing when the mob sacked Versailles. And…” She heaved a sigh. “I made the fatal mistake of mentioning the codicil Nat had stumbled across while researching the Canaletto.”
Although the fact that Dom’s cousin had mentioned that damned codicil set his internal antennae to vibrating, it didn’t appear to upset the duchess. Mention of the Canaletto had brought a faraway look to her eyes.
“Your grandfather bought me that painting of the Grand Canal,” she murmured to Sarah. “Right after I became pregnant with your mother.”
She lapsed into a private reverie that neither of her granddaughters dared break. When she emerged a few moments later, she included them both in a sly smile.
“That’s where it happened. In Venice. We were supposed to attend a carnival ball at Ari Onassis’s palazzo. I’d bought the most gorgeous mask studded with pearls and lace. But…how does that rather obnoxious TV commercial go? You never know when the mood will hit you? All I can say is something certainly hit your grandfather that evening.”
Gina hooted in delight. “Way to go, Grandmama!”
Sarah laughed, and her husband issued a joking curse. “Damn! My wife suggested we hit the carnival in Venice this spring but I talked her into an African photo safari instead.”
“You’ll know to listen to her next time,” the duchess sniffed, although Dom would bet she knew the moment could strike as hot and heavy in the African savannah as it had in Venice.
“I don’t understand,” Gina put in from her perch on the floor. “What’s the big deal about telling Alexis about the codicil?”
“Well…” Red crept into Sarah’s cheeks. “I’m afraid I mentioned Dominic, too.”
The subject of the conversation muttered a curse, and Gina let out another whoop. “Ooh, boy! Your barracuda of an editor is gonna latch on to that with both jaws. I foresee another top-ten edition, this one listing the sexiest single royals of the male persuasion.”
“I know,” her sister said miserably. “It’ll be as bad as what Dev went through after he came out on Beguile’s top-ten list. When you see Dominic tell him I’m so, so sorry.”
“He’s right here.” Hooking a hand, Gina motioned him over. “Tell him yourself.”
When Dominic positioned himself in front of the iPad’s camera, Sarah sent him