Marian decided, whatever her frustrations with her work, the last few years were worth it for the look on her grandfather’s face as Richard Genet put him in his place. Twice.
And Richard’s whisper of Angel in her ear was a nice bonus.
He radiated enough charm and presence enough to be an immortal royal, though he certainly didn’t look like a lost medieval English prince. No, he looked like a California beach god kissed by the sun.
Even on the streets of New York City, even dressed in a simple light-blue T-shirt, hoodie and khakis, he was turning heads.
He offered her his arm as they crossed the street. She took it, flattered when she should be wary. He was a client and she barely knew him. Instead, she was tongue-tied and off balance.
After several blocks of silent companionship, Richard stopped at the bottom of the steps to the New York Public Library. He tucked his hands into his pockets and stared at one of the stone lions, intent, as if the animal could stare back at him.
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
“A few times.” He shifted his gaze to the steps that led up to the main entrance of the library.
“If you tell me you helped construct the building or sculpted the lion, I’ll know you’re pulling my leg,” she said.
“It’s not my style of lion.” He smiled, apparently accepting her tease in good humor. “It does always amaze me that people keep building these kinds of monuments. At least this is one is devoted to institutional memory.” He shook his head. “Let us go sit in the park.”
It was early on a weekday morning. Bryant Park, an oasis of calm in the midst of the midtown skyscrapers, was nearly deserted. The restaurant was closed, the carousel silent and the public tables and chairs almost completely empty.
Richard chose a table in the middle of the park and pulled out a chair for her.
“Thank you. I seem to be thanking you a lot today.”
“You are quite welcome for all of it.”
He folded himself into the chair. The sunlight streaming in from behind them caught the blond bleached into his hair by the sun and wind. No wonder he wanted to take a walk. He needed to be outdoors, not inside a stuffy office. His tanned face contained some age lines, primarily around his eyes. If he were an ordinary person, she would have guessed his age between thirty and forty.
Richard Genet wasn’t ordinary. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and relaxed into the wire mesh chair.
“You spend a great deal of time outdoors?” she asked.
“Yes. I live in California, near the ocean.”
He would fit right in with the movie stars. “Do you surf?”
“Every day. Do you?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never tried.”
“Not a particular interest, or do you hate it?”
“It’s never come up.” I would learn if you agreed to teach me. He must look gorgeous in a wetsuit, on a surfboard, about to take a wave, the sun and wind at his back.
Thank God she hadn’t said that out loud. She cleared her throat. “Mr. Genet, you haven’t explained what you need my talent for yet.”
“Richard. You agreed to call me that earlier.” He gave her that movie-star smile again. “So, tell me, Marian, how many enemies do you or the Doyles have?”
“Excuse me?” What had she done wrong? “Enemies? None that I know of. Why would you ask about that?”
“Not many enemies, then, as I thought. Good. It confirms that the man following us is after me, not you.”
“Someone’s following us? Where?” She began to turn her head, wishing she hadn’t just sounded so stupid.
“Look at me.” He held up his hand. “I prefer him not to know that we know he’s there. And I doubt you would spot him, in any case. He’s very good.”
“How did you spot him?”
“I’ve had centuries of examining human behavior. It’s an advantage.”
Just as he had sized her up by studying her office. “Why is this person following you?”
Her fondest hope had been that despite the client, this job might be normal or, at least, without danger. Instead, she had a gorgeous, supposedly immortal royal prince sitting across from her, blithely explaining that someone was following them.
Richard crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not entirely sure what he wants. My best guess is that it’s possible our stalker has something to do with a business enterprise run by my brother.”
“Can’t you have your brother deal with it, then?”
“Unfortunately not. My brother is dead.”
“Dead? I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“But,” she said, “wasn’t your brother also immortal?”
“Being immortal only means I won’t age. We can be killed. He was killed several months ago.”
“You think the man following us is the one who killed him?” She clutched the arms of her chair tighter, fighting the growing urge to bolt. Anyone who could kill an immortal prince was more trouble than a thousand customs officers.
“The man following us could be my brother’s killer or associated with those who killed him, yes.”
“Richard, I’m an excellent historian and I have considerable resources to locate various items in Europe, but I’m not equipped to be thrown into the middle of some sort of immortal blood feud.” That sick feeling of dread, the same as in the airport, was back in the pit of her stomach.
“Blood feuds are ridiculous.” He sighed. “I’d intended to leave my brother’s death alone and finish my quest before dealing with all that. But, apparently, it’s not to be.”
“Do you want me to go while you do this?”
He stood. “Stay, please. You may be of some service.”
“How?”
“We can’t head off to Europe with an enemy lurking in the shadows behind us.”
She swallowed back the nasty taste of fear. “What do we do?”
“For now, watch and wait and talk about the work I need you to do.”
“What if he does something?”
“I can handle it. But no sense acting before we know which way the wave breaks.”
His casual pose gave away no sign he was disturbed. She folded her hands on her lap. There was no real reason to be afraid, even if she knew she was in over her head. She could turn phantom and no one could hurt her.
She cleared her throat. “What do you need me to find for you, Richard?”
“Rasputin’s corpse.”
“What?” She sat forward, her hands flat on the table. “Of all the things you could have said, I didn’t expect that.” She shook her head. “You’re asking the impossible. Rasputin’s body was burned by the Bolsheviks and his ashes scattered.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
“It’s true that in the chaos of war and rebellion, sometimes reports are wrong, but the destruction of Rasputin’s corpse isn’t a rumor, it’s something established by respectable historians.” But the Soviets were known for obscuring truth.
“You’re intrigued, Marian.”
“You must have information I don’t. What is it?”
“The Court’s sources say Rasputin’s body was relocated from a public grave before the rebellion succeeded in toppling the czar. The body was spirited out of the country, unknown to but a few. The Bolsheviks vented their anger on an anonymous corpse.”
“I suppose that’s possible, especially if your source is good.” She took a deep breath. “But why do you want Rasputin? Did he mean something to a member of your court?” Some people collected rare corpses. Creepy but occasionally lucrative to the Doyles. How disappointing if Richard was one of those people.
“The Court’s scientists want to examine Rasputin’s DNA.”
“Why?”
“You’re familiar with the Mad Monk’s history. Guess.”
That was a test. If she flunked, would he refuse to hire her? That would be a way to get out of this job filled with immortals and someone stalking them. But…
“Rasputin was rumored to have true healing powers. That’s why Empress Alexandra depended on him, because she needed him to treat her son, Alexei, who was a hemophiliac. If that’s true, that would make Rasputin a psychic, like me or you.”
“Not like us,” Richard snapped. “I can heal myself but not others.”
“You need his DNA to find out how to heal others? But if members of your court are immortal, who needs to be healed?”
Richard avoided her gaze and looked across the street, where taxis were pulling up to the hotel. “The Court is always interested in ways to unlock psychic gifts, and the gift of healing others is incredibly rare.”
“Rasputin had daughters, and at least one of those daughters had children. Why not ask for a sample of their DNA, if that’s what you’re interested in? They’d be much easier to locate.”
“I’m glad you have information on the family already committed to memory.” Richard looked at her this time. “Rasputin didn’t pass on his abilities to his children, therefore they are missing the quirk of DNA that led to his healing and other abilities. I need his DNA and no other.”
“Other abilities? He had more than one?”
“He could create explosions. My information indicates he caused the massive explosion in Siberia in 1908.”
“Holy crap. A psychic can do that?” She sat back in the chair. “Here I thought my gift was powerful. Maybe it’s a good thing he was killed.” She muttered the last sentence.
“Nothing to worry about. We have only to deal with his corpse and not the man himself.”
She took a deep breath and stood. No, hadn’t she just vowed a day ago not to go down the rabbit hole? Handsome prince or not, this was enough. This chaos was exactly what she wanted to avoid. She wanted something normal. Ordinary. Something that didn’t break the laws of several countries.
“I owe you for putting my grandfather in his place, Richard. But I admit, between the person following us, the people out there who killed your brother and a search for a corpse that may not exist, I don’t think this is the job for me.”
“You’re refusing me?” He stood to face her.
He sounded more puzzled than angry.
“Yes. This is way over my head.” She braced herself, ready for Richard to pass judgment on her as a coward. He’d be right too.
“You underestimate yourself.” He stepped closer to her. “You are more than your fear. I need your knowledge. I need your help, Angel.”
Again, he said Angel in the sexiest whisper.
“I’m a coward.”
“I know cowards. You’re not one.”
What was she afraid of? Losing control. Yes, exactly. She could easily be bowled over by Richard.
He put his hand on her arm. “I’ll make you a deal. Follow my lead now and if you’re still reluctant after today, then I’ll leave you alone. You have current sources in artifacts of Russian history, yes?”
“I do.” She knew exactly the expert they needed to consult.
“And if we find the corpse, I’m going to need your special skills to smuggle him into the United States. Just give me a chance.”
He stepped closer again, and she felt of the pull of a sun’s gravity.
She blinked. “All right.”
“Stellar,” he said in a California surfer accent.
She smiled. “So now what?”
“Our watcher has had enough time to become complacent.” He closed his hand around hers.
She felt like blushing. And she had no doubt Richard knew the effect of his physical touch on her.
“How have you hidden yourself for six hundred years if you possess this kind of magnetic charm?”
“California helps. There are beautiful people everywhere there. No one like you, of course.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. The brush of his lips against her skin only made things worse because it felt so good.
“Now we get our watcher to reveal himself.”
“How?”
“The easiest way would be to make him think you’re in danger.”
“What? Why would he care?”
“If he comes to your rescue, he’s a man with some morals. We might be able to discuss things rationally with him and his people. I told you, I hate blood feuds. I meant it.”
“What if he’s not a good guy?”
“Then he’s no doubt an enemy and I’ll have to take some precautions to protect us before we leave on our quest.”
“Precautions such as?”
“Leave that to me.” Richard led her toward the carousal, still quiet this early in the morning. “Tell me, what are the limits of your power? Can you survive being hit by a car, for instance?”
“If you’re thinking of pushing me in front of a car to draw him out, forget it.” She shook her head. He caught on fast to the possibilities inherent in her gift. “I probably could survive, but I won’t take the risk.”
“Why not?”
It wasn’t an accusation of cowardice, only a request for more information.
“What I do is psychic manipulation of molecules and atoms. The more molecules in motion, the harder it becomes to maintain the phantom state. The window I walked through in my office was unmoving. The air that I walked on moved a little, but I could handle that. But a car is going at a good speed and it’s heavy. So that means a lot of molecules—from me, from the car, from the air, from the driver of the car—going every which way. I could survive if it was a small car, but it would be unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?”
“Like a million nasty needles against my skin. The more mass moving through me, the sharper the needles get.”
“Ah. Not a good idea, then.” He frowned. “Does that mean you can’t turn intangible in water?”
“I can if the water is relatively still. It becomes exponentially more difficult once it’s in motion. Water molecules are heavy. They slam into you.”
“Don’t I know it. I’ll have to teach you how to surf in the normal way, then.”
Teach her to surf?
He looked past the carousel. “Then we will do this in a time-honored fashion: a simple misdirection. Pretend as if I’m dragging you somewhere with a gun at your back. We’ll see if that draws out our follower.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“No.”
The whole situation seemed absurd but she was sure Richard wasn’t going to hurt her. And she really wanted to know if he was right and someone was following them.
“All right, Richard.”
“Stellar,” he said again.