By Royal Command

The waiting man gestured, saying something urgently. Lauren felt Guy tense, before he rattled out a question.

The answer didn’t please him. He replied in a quiet, deadly voice and put Lauren down, supporting her with an arm around her shoulders. The man stepped back swiftly to usher them both into the reception area.

Tiny, it was almost filled with the resort guests, several carrying children who cried or stared around with bewildered eyes. Suitcases were being shuffled onto an elderly cart, and everyone looked strained and serious.

The man who had met them glanced at Lauren and switched to English. ‘Passport, please, ma’am.’

Lauren said shakily, ‘It’s back at the resort. In the safe with my ID—with all my papers.’

The solid, middle-aged man whose glossy dark hair was greying at the temples looked shocked. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but—’

‘Josef, this is no time for formalities,’ Guy interrupted, his deep voice harsh. ‘You know she can’t stay here.’

A uniformed man—the pilot, Lauren realised—strode swiftly in from the other side of the building. ‘Guy!’ he said, grinning largely, ‘I might have guessed you’d be here! No show without Punch, eh?’ He examined Lauren with interest.

Guy acknowledged the greeting and concisely told him what had happened.

The pilot frowned. ‘Man, I can’t take her to Valanu without papers! You know they won’t let her in—they’ve been paranoid ever since that drug syndicate tried to infiltrate.’

‘You’ll take her,’ Guy said curtly. ‘There’s no alternative.’

Frowning, his voice tight with concern, Josef interposed, ‘She cannot travel to Valanu without papers.’

In a voice that could have splintered granite, Guy said, ‘She’ll leave Sant’Rosa if I have to hijack Brian’s plane.’

The pilot looked at Lauren’s startled face and away again. ‘You know what they’ll do with her, Guy. They’ll chuck her in prison with the prostitutes and the addicts, and she won’t get out until someone vouches for her or she gets new papers. In Valanu that could take weeks—everything goes through Fiji. Now, if it was you, Guy, it would be OK. They know you—they’d let you in without a passport.’

Lauren said, ‘Look, it’s all right. Don’t worry about me.’

All three men stared at her with identical expressions, and then at each other.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Guy said brusquely.

Naked from the waist up, with light gleaming gold on his broad, tanned shoulders and strongly muscled arms, he looked like a barbaric warrior, his unshaven face only emphasising his formidable presence.

Between his teeth he said, ‘Josef, you’re a pastor in your church, aren’t you?’

Josef glanced at him with astonishment. ‘I am,’ he agreed.

‘Very well, then. You can marry us and I’ll vouch for her.’

The pilot gave a crack of laughter. ‘Yep, that’d do it. Trust you, Guy, to come up with the goods.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But you’d better tie that knot as soon as you can. I’m leaving in ten minutes. That gunfire’s getting closer.’

Stunned, Lauren gasped, ‘That’s utterly impossible. I don’t even know your name.’

‘Guy Bagaton,’ Guy said indifferently, adding with brutal candour, ‘And you don’t have a choice.’ He nodded at the airport manager. ‘All right, Josef, let’s get it over and done with.’

A ragged salvo of popping noises silenced everyone in the terminus. It faded away, to be followed by a heavy whoomph that seemed to lift the ground beneath their feet. One of the women stifled a scream and a child started to whimper. With a muffled oath, the pilot raced out of the building.