CHAPTER 5

“SO,” ARIEL SAID that evening as they dressed for dinner, “has he kissed you yet?”

Sabrina knew better than to pretend that she didn’t know what her sister was talking about. “No. And he’s not going to, either. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“I don’t know,” Raven argued as she rolled an ebony silk stocking up one long leg, “from the way you two were lighting up the royal theater, I’d guess that you’re both suffering from a lot of stored-up sexual energy.”

“I haven’t thought about sex since my divorce,” Sabrina said, not quite truthfully.

Just last night she’d had a dream in which Burke had played a starring role. The erotically vivid dream had left her shaken. And wanting.

“Besides, I’d rather concentrate on my work.” She cast a warning glance toward the adjacent bathroom, where the maid was preparing Dixie’s bath.

“All work and no play...” Ariel warned. Wrapped in a thick royal blue towel, she began digging through the drawers of the antique armoire. “Has anyone seen my beaded sweater?”

“Not since Philadelphia,” Sabrina answered.

“Oh, damn, I remember now. I sent it down to the concierge to be cleaned.” She tapped a pink fingernail against her front tooth. “I hate life on the road.”

“I don’t know,” Dixie drawled sapiently, stretching out on a pink satin lounge that looked as though it might have belonged to Marie Antoinette, “sometimes it has its advantages.”

She popped a Swiss chocolate from a silver tray into her mouth. “This is sure a long, long way from the kind of places your daddy stayed in when he started out on the road.”

“Don’t get used to this,” Raven warned. She stood and twisted around in order to check that the sexy seams running up her black hose were straight. “Because in six more days we’ll be back in the real world.”

“From the way his royal highness has been looking at Sabrina,” Ariel said, her voice muffled by the white silk camisole she was pulling over her head, “I’d say that there’s a good chance one of us will be staying here in Fantasyland.”

“Speaking of fantasies—”

Before Sabrina could finish her retort, the young maid appeared in the doorway. “Would madame and mesdemoiselles wish anything else?”

“You’ve done quite enough, Monique dear,” Dixie said with her trademark smile.

“More than enough,” Sabrina said under her breath.

Although Monique was as polite and as efficient as Chantal had promised, the way she was always hovering nearby, eager to help, made Sabrina uncomfortable. Earlier this evening, she and Monique had gotten into a contretemps when she’d insisted on running her own bathwater.

Dixie, overhearing Sabrina’s remark, gave her daughter a slightly censorious look and said, “I believe we can muddle through for the rest of the evening ourselves, Monique. But thank you so much for all you’ve done.” Another smile, even more dazzling than the first. “No one’s ever ironed the pleats on my green dress so perfectly.”

“Thank you, Madame Darling.” The young woman’s doe brown eyes were overbrimming with gratitude. “I shall be in my room in the servant’s wing. If there is anything else you need, anything at all—”

“We’ll call you,” Dixie agreed. “Good night, Monique.”

“Bonne nuit, madame.” Monique backed out of the room on a subservient bow. “Bonne nuit, mesdemoiselles.”

“Such a sweet girl,” Dixie murmured. “And so polite. Now,” she said, turning back toward Sabrina, “what were you saying, darling?”

“I was saying that Ariel has obviously spent too many years in Hollywood.” She frowned as she concentrated on applying a sweep of rose blush to her cheekbones. “Life,” she pointed out briskly, “is not some soap opera.”

“Well, I know that.” Ariel deftly piled her hair into a precarious twist atop her head, securing it with a diamond clasp. “But, I gotta tell you, little sister, if any man ever looked at me the way that prince has been looking at you ever since we arrived, I’d hightail it right down to Neiman Marcus and start shopping for a trousseau.”

“And you all accuse me of being the family romantic,” Sabrina muttered.

“I think Ariel’s got a point, baby,” Dixie said, licking chocolate from her fingertips. “It’s obvious that the man’s downright smitten with you.”

Sabrina arched an amused brow. “Smitten?” She reached for the one somber item in her wardrobe—a dress she’d bought to wear to her father’s funeral. “Honestly, Mama, if the man is interested, it’s merely sex.”

“Lots of long-standing marriages start out based on sex.” Dixie’s knowing tone gave Sabrina a surprising, intimate glimpse into her father and stepmother’s relationship.

“Now we’re talking about marriage?”

At the last moment, her hand, as if acting on its own volition, plucked a gold-tissue lamé slip dress from its padded satin hanger. The devastatingly sexy dress had been purchased specifically for the tour with funds Dixie had charmed from a Nashville National Trust bank vice president.

As Dixie had pointed out during a whirlwind shopping spree in Atlanta reminiscent of Sherman’s march through Georgia, it was important to the success of the tour that the girls looked like the stars they were. And if that meant going even deeper into debt, then that’s exactly what they’d do.

“Just because you’ve been burned once is no reason not to reach for the brass ring again,” Ariel said, blithely mixing her metaphors. “Why, Jolene’s been married six times. And don’t forget, one of those times was to the infamous Peachtree Lane rapist. But that didn’t stop her from getting engaged again.” Jolene was the headstrong Georgia belle Ariel played on Southern Nights.

Feeling decidedly reckless, Sabrina unzipped the dress, stepping into it before common sense prevailed and she changed her mind. “If marriage is such a dandy institution, why don’t you get married?”

“We are talkin’ about you, sugar,” Ariel replied in Jolene’s sugary Southern drawl. “And besides, if a man like Prince Burke ever proposed, I’d get him to the altar pronto, before the man knew what hit him.”

“Why don’t you just hit him over the head with a club and drag him down the aisle?” Raven suggested.

“Why, that’s not such a bad idea.” Ariel turned toward Dixie with a bold grin. “Mama, how about after dinner, you and I go looking for a nice sturdy tree limb?”

“You girls are all impossible,” Dixie answered with a indulgent smile. “And for your information, I happen to agree with Prince Eduard. Every woman wants grandchildren to spoil.”

The teasing conversation had taken an all-too-familiar turn. The three sisters pretended a sudden intense interest in dressing for dinner. And even as her stepmother’s words created that now-familiar stab of pain in her heart, Sabrina told herself that it was her own fault for not telling the rest of the family the truth about her condition.

At the time, she hadn’t wanted their sympathy. Then, like all lies, once told, it had taken on a life of its own, and although now she’d love to have a chance to talk about her emotional pain with her mother and sisters, unfortunately she couldn’t quite work up the nerve to confess that she’d been less than truthful.

As she descended the wide curving staircase with Dixie and her sisters, Sabrina vowed to get the dark secret off her chest before the tour ended.

For the first time since her arrival, Burke had joined the family for predinner cocktails. Sabrina knew she was in trouble when her stomach fluttered at the sight of him, resplendent in stark black-and-white evening wear, standing beside the massive stone fireplace.

Reminding herself that discretion was the better part of valor, she remained on the opposite side of the room and was chatting with Chantal when Burke appeared beside her.

“If you don’t mind,” he said to his sister, “there’s something I’d like to show Sabrina.”

Chantal arched an ebony brow. “Then I’d suggest you ask her.” She gave Sabrina a “men, whatever can you do with them?” look.

“Mademoiselle?” Burke addressed Sabrina for the first time since she’d entered the room ten minutes earlier. His inviting smile made her uneasy.

“It wouldn’t be polite of me to be late for dinner.”

“This won’t take more than a few minutes.”

He glanced down at his wafer-thin gold watch. Her father had had a watch like that. Dixie had bought it for him for their twentieth anniversary. It had been ridiculously expensive, Sabrina recalled. She also remembered that Sonny had lost it six months later while fishing for catfish.

“I promise to return you to the dining room with time to spare.”

Aware that everyone was watching them, Sabrina told herself that she would have left this room with the devil himself in order to escape all those intent gazes.

“All right, then. I suppose I could spare a few minutes.”

Burke’s lips quirked. “Thank you,” he said formally. “I appreciate your sacrifice.”

He took her elbow in his hand and led her from the library and down a maze of curving stairways and high-ceilinged halls.

He entered a room that could have easily doubled as a museum. Sabrina stopped in her tracks and stared at the numerous displays of gleaming armor.

“You brought me here to show me weapons?” That was a distinct surprise. She’d thought he intended to steal a kiss. Or two. Or more. Apparently she’d been wrong.

“Not exactly.”

“Good.” She folded her arms across her gilded bodice and glanced around. “I suppose this is where I tell you that I’m a pacifist.”

“An admirable trait,” he agreed easily. “However, in defense of my ancestors, I feel the need to point out that fighting and hunting were once necessary pastimes.”

She stopped before a boldly embossed, lavishly etched and gilded set of armor. The silver suit was more than protection against enemy soldiers, she realized. It was a status symbol, meant to dazzle.

“This is quite something.” A picture flashed unbidden through her mind: Burke clad in this very armor, astride a gleaming white steed, the sun glinting off the polished silver with a light so bright as to be blinding.

“It belonged to Maximillian I,” Burke revealed. “When my grandfather was a child, he collected toy soldiers. As he grew older, the soldiers grew.”

“My father collected early Western guns,” Sabrina revealed.

“I’d like to see them.” Like most Europeans, Burke had a fascination of the American west.

“Mother sold them.” Two of his Colt pistols had recently sold at auction in New York and an 1876 Winchester rifle had been bought by a wildcatter who’d struck it rich in the West Texas oil fields before the bust. Dixie, who’d always been vocal about her personal dislike for guns, had cried copious tears when the rifle had sold. Sabrina sighed at the unhappy memory. “She didn’t want to. But she didn’t have a choice.”

Realizing that he was behaving impulsively again, Burke decided to locate Sonny Darling’s collection and return it to the man’s family. He tried to tell himself that his decision was not due to his feelings for Sabrina, but merely an understanding of tradition and the belief that certain things, no matter their monetary cost, were far more valuable as family keepsakes.

“I didn’t invite you here to bring up unpleasant memories,” he said. “Rather, I wanted you to see this.”

Cupping her elbow in his hand, he led her across the tartan flooring to the opposite wall. There, resplendently surrounded by a heavy gilt frame, hung a life-size full-length portrait of a young woman clad in a traditional scarlet flamenco dress trimmed in an ebony lace flounce. Her dark hair was a wild tangle around her bare shoulders, and her eyes—more black than brown—flashed with tempestuous fire.

“She’s absolutely stunning.”

“That’s Katia Giraudeau, Phillipe’s Spanish wife. And my grandmother.”

“The gypsy.” Sabrina looked into the expressive face and imagined she could hear the staccato clatter of castanets, smell the smoke of the fire.

“Katia was born with second sight,” Burke divulged. “Unfortunately Montacroix has always had its share of superstitious citizens, and a few of them accused her of being a witch. Her family, however, learned to trust her uncanny intuition.”

Sabrina studied the picture, her attention riveted on those flashing dark gypsy eyes. “Do you believe in clairvoyance?”

Burke shrugged. “It’s an intriguing notion, but entirely unsubstantiated by evidence. However,” he surprisingly revealed, “although intellectually, I find extrasensory perception difficult to explain, having grown up with Katia as a grandmother, I can’t deny the possibility.”

Burke decided not to mention that his half sister Noel had inherited their grandmother’s gift. Such personal information was Noel’s to share.

“Well, it’s certainly a wonderfully vivid portrait.”

“It is, isn’t it? From the night you arrived, I have been thinking of how much Katia reminds me of you. Which is why I wanted you to see the painting.”

It was also a not-very-subtle excuse to get Sabrina alone. Away from her sisters and mother and his family and the bodyguards that constantly hovered around them all.

“Me?” Sabrina glanced at him in surprise. “We don’t look anything alike.”

“Perhaps you don’t resemble each other physically,” he allowed. “But you both possess the same fire,” he said in a husky tone, “the same energy, the same joie de vivre.” The same dangerous ability to stir a man’s blood.

Sabrina let out a long breath.

“I have been remiss,” Burke said.

“Oh?” Her mouth was suddenly very, very dry.

“I failed to tell you how lovely you look tonight.” A sheath of gold lamé skimmed her body; the side slits revealed her long and shapely legs.

“Thank you.”

He wished he’d been in her bedroom, when she’d performed her predinner rituals—those feminine tricks with creams and scents designed to entice a man.

“Monique informed Chantal that you sent her away earlier this evening.”

Tattletale, Sabrina thought. She was also discomfited to learn that Burke and his sister had been talking about her.

“Monique is very efficient and very nice, but when she wanted to draw my bath, I merely suggested that she find something else to occupy her time.”

“Drawing your bath is part of her duty.”

“I realize that. I just didn’t like it.”

“You don’t like servants?”

“Of course I do. And I’m sure I’d come to like Monique, once I got to know her. It’s having her hovering around, waiting on me that makes me nervous.”

“Most women in my experience enjoy being waited on.”

She tilted her chin. Her gray eyes darkened to the hue of a stormy sea. “I feel obliged to point out that is a highly sexist remark, Your Highness. Besides, I’m not most women.”

“No.” He gave her a long considering look. “You are most definitely not.”

Their gazes met in a flash of shared intimacy like nothing Burke had ever known. As he struggled to regain control of himself and the situation, he tried to remember who—and what he was.

When she felt her face growing warm, Sabrina tried to lower her gaze, but couldn’t.

It was as if his dark eyes were undressing her mind and she was powerless to resist.

“Don’t you think we should be getting back to the dining room, Your Highness?” Although it took every ounce of restraint she possessed, she didn’t back away.

“Don’t you think it’s time you dropped the formality and called me Burke?”

Giving in to temptation, he cupped her chin in his fingers and brushed his thumb over her delicate jawline, pleased when Sabrina didn’t flinch or turn away.

“What is it about you?” he murmured. “What dark magic do you possess that makes me unable to get you out of my mind?”

While she was attempting to come up with an answer to that startling question, he slowly, deliberately lowered his head. All it took was the warm flutter of his breath to make Sabrina’s lips part and her concentration waver.

And then he touched his lips to hers. Testing. Tasting.

Sabrina never would have expected that his firm, uncompromising mouth could be so tender. Or feel so right. She sighed in soft, shimmering pleasure even as she told herself she should not allow this.

He used no pressure. No power. Only soft, patient persuasion. His hands moved up her bare arms, creating a trail of heat before cupping her face between his palms.

“I knew it,” he murmured. His long fingers combed through her hair, tilting her head so he could look deep into her eyes.

“Knew what?” His gaze was making her knees weak; seeking support, she grasped on to his broad shoulders.

“That you would taste every bit as good as you looked.”

Gently, and with infinite care, his lips plucked at hers, tempting, teasing, soothing Sabrina’s tension and making her forget all her reasons why this was wrong.

And then slowly, degree by glorious degree, he deepened the kiss, drawing it out until she linked her fingers around his neck, closed her eyes and let her body meld to his.

Urgency rose; desire flared. Her soft lips moved avidly, instinctively beneath his, her arms wrapped around him and clung. They both felt it—the need to touch. And be touched.

It was no longer a tentative, exploratory first kiss. Feelings flared. Emotions erupted.

When Burke’s lips skimmed up her face to loiter at her temple, she sighed. When they pressed against the ragged pulse at the base of her throat, she moaned. And when he brushed a series of stinging kisses along the ridge of her collarbone, she moaned again and clung.

He’d stopped thinking. In some distant corner of his mind, Burke told himself that he was in danger of risking everything for this one fleeting moment’s insanity. Even as he warned himself that his behavior was sheer madness, he found himself wanting more.

More, she thought, as his tongue slid seductively over hers. A jagged need sliced through her. Every pore of her body seemed to be crying out with it. Desperation pounded in her, hot and heavy, with each heartbeat. She wanted—needed—more. So very much more.

His lips burned their way down her throat, his hand skimmed down her back to find some hitherto undiscovered point near the base of her backbone. A perfectly placed finger pressing against it caused flames to shoot up her spine.

“No. Please.” Sabrina drew in a quick, harsh breath as the deep-seated instinct for survival finally kicked in.

Pulling free, she dragged an unsteady hand through her now-tumbled hair and stared at him.

“I think we’d better rejoin the others,” she insisted quietly.

Need roared inside him; Burke struggled for calm. Another minute and she would have had him on his knees. He wanted to curse her for making him feel like a teenager; he wanted to rip that little gold dress away and take her here and now, satisfying the hunger that had tormented both body and mind for days.

“Whatever you wish.” His dark eyes took a slow tour of her flushed face. Burke tried to remember when any woman had taken him so far, so deep, with merely a kiss, and came up blank. “Should I apologize?”

Her eyes flashed with renewed spirit. “Don’t you dare.”

“Bien. I won’t.” Burke had never begged for a woman; with Sabrina he feared that begging might be inevitable. It might also be worth it. “Would it make you feel safer if I gave you my word that I will be on my best behavior for the remainder of the evening?”

“Perhaps.”

She could trust him, Sabrina determined as they returned to the dining room. But what about herself?

They’d just finished dinner when Burke surprised Sabrina once again.

“Madame Darling,” he said, addressing Dixie, who was seated at the end of the table, to Eduard’s right, “I feel that having been so immersed in my preparations for the race, I have been neglecting my hosting duties. It would be my honor if you—and your lovely daughters, of course—permitted me to escort you to the casino this evening.”

Sonny had teased his wife of single-handedly keeping Nashville’s Our Lady of Mercy Catholic church afloat with her unwavering devotion to the parish’s Wednesday-night bingo games. That being the case, Sabrina was not surprised when Dixie’s face lighted up like a Christmas tree at the prince’s suggestion.

“Why, the honor would be ours, Your Highness.”

Raven and Ariel also expressed a desire to visit the renowned playground of the world’s rich and famous.

Which left Sabrina to demur.

“Don’t you have some official function to attend?”

“There was a prerace cocktail party,” he agreed. “And some mention of a late-night get-together. But I’m certain that the other drivers and their guests will muddle through quite well without me.”

“But you have another time trial tomorrow.”

“Oui. But the car is in perfect running order. There is nothing left for me to do but to show up on time.”

“I’d think you’d want a good night’s sleep.”

“It is still early. And some time at the tables will undoubtedly relax me.”

But Sabrina knew that time spent with the playboy prince would prove anything but relaxing for her. She was about to pass on the entire idea when she saw the faintest flicker of a challenge in Burke’s dark eyes. It was a mirror of the one she’d tossed his way earlier today.

“I don’t gamble.”

“Everyone gambles,” Burke argued easily.

“I don’t.”

“Life is a gamble.”

“Not mine.” She could feel the interested gazes of the two families watching her exchange with Burke. She also knew she was being unreasonably uncooperative, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.

He looked at her for a long, silent time, his dark eyes inscrutable. “Then perhaps it is time that you took a risk.”

And he was not referring to any game found in the casino.

“I wouldn’t know how to play the game.” She too, was not referring to baccarat or roulette, but to whatever was happening between her and the prince.

Burke nodded his silent acceptance of her complaint. “That is easily overcome. Our croupiers are extremely helpful.”

He had just deftly cut off her escape route.

“It sounds delightful,” she said, lying through her teeth. Her tone was that of a woman who knew that to resist any longer would be to invite speculation.

“Parfait,” Burke said. His tone was that of a man totally accustomed to getting his way.

For not the first time since meeting Montacroix’s prince, Sabrina was left with the impression that although he possessed a great deal more charm than her former husband, in his own way, Burke Giraudeau was every bit as controlling.

* * *

LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE in the country, the royal casino—with its rococo turrets and green copper cupolas illuminated by bright spotlights—could have come from the illustrated pages of a fairy tale.

As he escorted the quartet up the marble steps, Burke stopped before a bronze statue of a man in full battle dress seated astride a prancing stallion.

“This is Prince Léon,” he revealed. “He is the reason that our detractors claim that we have more statues in Montacroix than we do citizens. That is, of course, an exaggeration. However, during his reign, more than two hundred statues were commissioned. It is impossible to drive through the countryside without seeing one of Léon’s statues.”

“The pigeons must love him,” Sabrina said dryly.

Burke smiled. “My own feelings, exactly. Custom has it that rubbing the knee of Léon’s horse will bring one luck.”

“Well,” Ariel drawled, reaching out a perfectly manicured hand to stroke the burnished bronze horse, “far be it from me to buck custom.”

Dixie followed her daughter’s example, as did Raven, although her expression suggested that she was far too sensible for such superstition and was merely humoring the others.

“Sabrina?” Burke invited with an arched brow.

Some perverse instinct had her resist his request. “I’ve always believed in making my own luck.”

When her lovely, stubborn jaw pointed his way again, Burke’s fingers practically itched with the desire to curl around it and hold its owner to another one of those mind-blinding kisses. With a self-control that was rapidly slipping away, like sands between his fingers, he managed, with a Herculean effort, to resist.

“Once again we are in perfect accord,” he said on a husky voice that affected her nearly as much as his earlier kiss.

Accustomed to the bright lights and glitter of Las Vegas or Atlantic City, where Sonny had so often headlined, the Montacroix casino had an old-fashioned, upper-class atmosphere.

Hand-cut prisms of crystal chandeliers sparkled from the ceiling, so unlike the garish neon usually associated with American casinos. The arched ceilings boasted gilt frescoes, and priceless Impressionist paintings adorned the walls of the softly lighted salons where stunningly beautiful, silk clad female croupiers oversaw games of roulette, blackjack and baccarat. The marble-patterned carpeting continued the elegance of the Italian marble foyer, while muffling the sounds in the vast room.

The gamblers, too, were different from the eclectic mix of Americans who frequented the Nevada and New Jersey casinos. In those gambling halls, one could find gamblers dressed in everything from faded jeans to expensive designer original evening gowns, all pressed together in absolute equality.

Here, democracy had been abandoned for an atmosphere of elegant chic where the world’s highest rollers risked the odd few million while deciding what European hotel or department store to buy next. The women wore their exquisite jewels proudly and openly, something they were no longer safe to do in so many of the other European playgrounds. Although not one to keep up on the comings and goings of the glitterati, Sabrina recognized several celebrities.

There were no exuberant cries of victory as fortunes were won, no mournful cries or shouted expletives as others were lost. There was only the steady hum of subdued, cultured voices.

The main gallery shushed as Burke passed through with his guests. Following in their wake was the hum of murmured curious voices. From the way he’d placed his hand lightly on her back, ostensibly guiding her through the throng of gamblers, Sabrina suspected that much of that interest was directed toward her.

“This is the Salon Privé,” Burke informed the little group as they entered a room that was smaller, but even more exquisitely decorated than the main gallery.

When he smiled toward a lovely young blonde in her early twenties, clad in a long black beaded sheath that hugged every voluptuous curve, Sabrina felt that same unwelcome stab of jealousy she’d experienced when she’d seen the newspaper photo of the prince with Princess Caroline.

The woman glided across the vermilion-and-gold carpeting, somehow managing, despite the snugness of her gown, a perfect curtsy. “Your Highness,” she greeted him in French-accented English. “I’ve arranged things for your guests, exactly as you’ve requested.”

“Bien.” His pleased smile was warm, admiring and intimate. Sabrina hated the woman without even knowing her. “I’ve arranged for each of you to have a credit with the bank.”

The overly generous amount he stated drew surprised, pleased gasps from Dixie, Raven and Ariel. But not Sabrina. She had already decided that there was nothing Prince Burke could do that would surprise her. And although it was an unpalatable thought, Sabrina also suspected that such generosity was merely a way to buy Dixie’s compliance for a dalliance with the eldest Darling daughter.

If that was his plan, it was definitely working. After turning the others over to the beautiful salon hostess he’d introduced as Dominique, he turned to Sabrina.

“Since you stated you don’t gamble, I will be pleased to assist you in learning the game.”

“Oh, isn’t that nice,” Dixie enthused. “Go along, Sabrina, darling. And have a good time.” From her mother’s overt delight, as well as the amused expression on both her sisters’ faces, Sabrina realized that she was not going to receive any help from that quarter.

“All right,” she grumbled as she allowed herself to be guided to the far side of the salon. “But I hope you won’t be too annoyed when I lose every franc.”

Burke stopped, gazed down at her for a heart stoppingly long time, then ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “I doubt that there is anything you could do to annoy me, Sabrina.”

A silken net had drifted over them. They could have been the only two people in the room.

The mere touch of his hand against her skin had turned her mouth as arid as an Arabian desert. Sabrina had a sudden urge to lick her dry lips. An urge she resisted.

“You never know,” she quipped on a shaky voice. “The night’s still young.”

He laughed at that, another one of those deep rich laughs that thankfully succeeded in breaking the seductive spell.

“Come along with me, Sabrina,” he said, leading her toward the roulette wheel. “For some reason, tonight I am feeling very lucky.”