Invincible

“Ouch!” Veronica grabbed her ear as she pulled away and shrugged her blouse back onto her shoulders. “Answer the damned door, Max,” she snapped, turning her back as she rebuttoned her blouse.

Since she was dressed again, he sighed and headed for the door. When he opened it, he found the Blackthorne butler, whose forebears had worked at the Abbey since medieval times, wearing formal clothes and holding a silver platter containing a blue-tinged white envelope. The word TELEGRAM, framed by four red stripes, was written in blue on the upper left hand corner.

“I presume that’s for me, Smythe,” Max said quietly.

“Yes, your lordship,” the butler replied, just as quietly. “It was delivered by personal messenger.”

It was impossible to get Smythe to call him Max. He’d been trying since he was a boy of six. It was Lord Maxwell, or your lordship, as though they were living a century or two in the past. Considering the English laws of succession, there was no way he should be a lord.

It was Smythe who’d explained to him how, thanks to his courageous ancestors—and an act of Parliament—he remained fourth in line to inherit the Blackthorne dukedom.

It was a pretty good story, actually. One of K’s favorites, back in the days when they were speaking to each other.

When all the male Blackthorne heirs had died heroically during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, Parliament had amended the Letters Patent creating the Dukedom of Blackthorne so the title would pass “to all and every other issue male and female, lineally descending of or from the said Duke of Blackthorne, to be held by them severally and successively, the elder and the descendants of every elder issue to be preferred before the younger of such issue.”

Which meant that either males or females could inherit the dukedom. This prevented the title from being extinguished by the death of the last male Blackthorne during the war. It was the first time such a thing had been done since the Dukedom of Marlborough was preserved in the same way for similar reasons in 1706.

As the elder of twin sisters, his mother was the current holder of the title. Max’s eldest brother, Oliver, would succeed her as the next Duke of Blackthorne. As the eldest son, Oliver currently held one of the Duke of Blackthorne’s lesser titles, Earl of Courtland, and was often referred to simply as Courtland.

Max stared at the note on the silver platter and said, “This couldn’t wait, Smythe?”

“It is a missive from Her Grace.”

Max knew that as far as anyone at the Abbey was concerned, communication from the duchess was like word from on high. He thought back to the last time his mother had gotten in touch with him. It was six months ago, when she’d emailed to ask if he was coming home to Blackthorne Abbey for Christmas. He wasn’t.

He was only here now because his mother was not. And because he’d hoped the exotic locale would help him seduce Veronica—and forget K.

He’d failed miserably on both counts.

“Thank you, Smythe,” he said, taking the note from the tray.

The butler bowed, then took an arthritic step back, before turning and limping away. As he retreated, his uneven cadence echoed off the high stone ceilings in the hall.

The instant the door was closed, Max crushed the missive, dropped it onto an ivory-inlaid chess table and said, “Where were we?”

But Veronica the Reporter was curious. She crossed the Aubusson carpet to the table, picked up the crushed paper and pressed it flat across the front of her skirt. “It’s a telegram. From America.” She turned to Max and asked, “Why would anyone send a telegram in this day and age? I mean, why not phone or fax, or text or email?”

It wasn’t until she pointed it out that Max realized just how odd his mother’s missive was. He took the telegram from Veronica and tore it open. He crossed to the windows edged with ivy on the outside and hung with gold brocade curtains on the inside and held the note up where it could catch the last rays of daylight.

Veronica followed him. “What is it, Max? Who’s it from?”

Max let out a sigh of relief, crushed the note once more and tossed it onto an ancient oak chest that ran below the mullioned windows. “It’s nothing.”

“Mind if I look?” She didn’t wait for permission, just picked up the discarded paper, straightened it out for a second time and began to read.

Max grimaced, knowing what was coming.

She gasped and turned to stare at him. “The Duchess of Blackthorne is your mother?”

He met her gaze and shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“Don’t try using those innocent baby blues on me,” she said sharply. “Your mother’s not just famous, Max. She’s infamous.”

Which was why he never mentioned the connection. “So?”

“So? So?” she repeated incredulously.

Max knew exactly what was running through her mind. He’d lived through some of it and heard stories all his life about the rest. Seventeen-year-old Lady Isabella’s fairy-tale romance and rocky marriage to twenty-nine-year-old American banking heir Bull Benedict had been tabloid fodder for years.

First, Bella had stolen Bull away from her twenty-one-year-old second cousin, Lady Regina Delaford, daughter of the Marquess of Tenby, whom Bull had been courting. To add insult to injury, Bull and Bella had married barely a month after they’d met. The poverty-stricken duchess had even agreed to sign a prenuptial agreement to prove she wasn’t marrying the banking heir for his billions.

Eyebrows rose at the birth of their first child a mere eight months later. The public gasped each time Bella showed up at some charity function wearing the priceless jewels—each with a legend attached—that Bull had given to his wife during their marriage: rubies, pearls, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds.

Last, but not least, the public had devoured news of Bull and Bella’s antagonistic separation after twenty-five years of marriage. Gossip said Bull hadn’t divorced his wife because after twenty-five years of marriage, the prenup became null and void, and Bella could lay claim to as much as the English courts decided to give her of Bull’s tremendous fortune.

Even though they were separated, they continued to show up at the same charity, political and business functions in England, Europe and America, providing more delicious tidbits for the gossips.

As though to goad her husband, Bella never failed to wear one of the fabulous jewels Bull had given her during their marriage as a sign of his enduring love—when she walked in on the arm of another man.

“Are you going to America for Mother’s Day?” Veronica asked as she crossed to him.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

She pressed her abdomen against his as she slid her arms around his neck. She played with the straight black hair at his nape, sending a shiver down his spine.

It seemed his seduction of the reporter was back on track.

Max leaned forward to kiss the beautiful woman in his arms but hesitated when she whispered, “I can’t believe I’m kissing the Duchess of Blackthorne’s son.”

He lifted his head and stared down at her with the cynicism he always felt when someone seemed awed by who he was. Or rather, who his mother was. No one knew the real Max Benedict.

Except K. She’d known exactly who he was.

And rejected you.

The boy. She’d rejected the boy. He was a man now. Would K see that if she got to know him again? Would she be able to love him again? Did he want her to love him again? The thought was dizzying. Intriguing. And terrifying. He’d simply have to be sure this time, if it came to it, that he was the one doing the rejecting.

Even K—Agent Lassiter—had believed the carefully cultivated common belief that he was a care-for-nothing playboy, a reckless rogue who’d learned his hedonism from Bull and Bella in their heyday. Despite what K might think of his behavior, the deception made him a very good spy.

Not that he worked all the time. Or even every time the CIA—or some other American governmental organization identifying itself with capital letters—asked. But he was a valuable asset.

As he’d pointed out to K, by virtue of his pedigree, he had access to the very wealthy, which included drug czars and their sons and daughters, and munitions dealers and their sons and daughters, and of course, wealthy Arab potentates who might be funding terrorist activities and their sons, if not their daughters.

It was amazing how much information was dropped over a drink after a game of polo. Or during one of his seductions.

The sad thing was, Max hadn’t wanted information from Veronica Granville. He’d simply liked the way she looked. He’d liked how bright she was, how witty she’d been at the bar where they’d crossed paths. He’d hoped for some good sex, along with some intelligent company.

Now she had stars in her eyes, put there by his mother’s infamy. From now on, he would question whether her interest in him wasn’t really interest in getting closer to his mother.