The Rebel King

from Monte Carlo until the vendange is finished, I'm sure. That is-unless you would like her to sleep in your room, Nik?'

Rhia didn't have to look at him to know Nikolas was grinning. 'Please don't bother.' she said smoothly. 'I won't be staying long. As it happens, Nikolas and I have an important engagement in Silvershire.' She turned her head, then, and gave him a long, deliberate stare. He gazed back at her with cool gray eyes, arms casually crossed on his chest.

Phillipe made a gesture that was extravagantly-almost comically-French. 'Oh, but you must stay! At least until the vendange is finished. I cannot possibly spare this man at the moment. And for you, mademoiselle, it will be an enjoyment. Vendange in Provence is like one big party-like your Mardi Gras. A moveable feast. A few more days, eh? What can it matter?'

She shot Nikolas a dark look. He held out his hands in one of those half-French, half-British gestures of his. 'I swear, I did not put him up to it.'

She gave in with a put-upon sigh, and didn't tell him she'd planned to give him several days, anyway. A few more days of freedom…

'Don't think you've won this battle,' she said as she and Nikolas resumed their leisurely stroll up the gravelly dirt road toward the oasis of dark green trees that shaded the stone-and-stucco house-not touching, now, and she refused to admit to herself she was sorry. 'I just don't want to leave your friend short-handed for his damned vendange-what is that, by the way?'

'Vendange? That's the grape harvest. Happens every year around this time.'

Other than shooting him a quelling glance, she ignored the facetious remark. 'I can't believe the vineyard owner is out here picking grapes like a field hand. Is that part of the tradition?'

'It is, actually. Among the small growers, anyway. Most of the pickers you see here are neighbors and other small farm owners from around the area. They all come together to help each other with the harvest, moving from farm to farm, vineyard to vineyard until the job's done.'

'A 'moveable feast'?'

Nik smiled. 'Partly. You'll see soon enough. You heard him say they'll be breaking for 'lunch' soon? I'm afraid the word lunch doesn't come close to describing it. All the farmers sort of compete with each other to see who can put on the biggest and best noonday spread. The wine and local hooch- which is called marc, by the way. and unless you've a cast-iron stomach. I don't recommend you try it- will be flowing freely as well.'

'In the middle of the day? How does anyone work afterward?'

'They don't. You heard him say they were about done for the day. He meant that.'

'Nice short workday.' Rhia remarked.

'Like hell it is. When it's hot like this we start at three in the morning.'

She threw him a look of horror. 'Why?'

'Because the grapes don't like it when you take them out of the nice warm sunshine and toss them into a cooler. It sends them into shock, or some such thing.' His easy smile made something inside her chest wallow. As if her heart really had turned over.

Because the implications of that didn't bear thinking about, she said crossly. 'You talk about grapes as if they're…I don't know-alive.'

His eyebrow went up. and she repressed a shudder. 'Really? I suppose I do. You hang around vintners very long and it rubs off on you.'

'You spend a lot of time here, then?'

His smile went crooked. 'Spent, not spend. When I was at university, mostly. Spent most of my holidays here, when my…when Silas was off somewhere.'

'Doing…?'

'Whatever it is he does, I suppose. Fomenting rebellion, rousing the rabble.' He shrugged and looked off across the vineyards for a moment. 'I didn't mind, actually. Phillipe and his family were…like family. His maman was pretty much the only mum I ever had.' He threw her his lopsided smile, and she felt the most astonishing sensation-an aching pressure at the base of her throat. 'I probably have her to thank for civilizing me, at any rate.'

Rhia cleared gravel from her throat. 'You were happy here.'

'I was, yes. At one time I actually considered making a career of it-grape-growing…wine-making. There's a region in my country I've always thought- Have you been to Silvershire?'

'Only to the capital-Silverton.'

'Ah-yes, well it's southwest of there. Carrington's ancestral lands. The climate is quite similar to this-perfect for growing wine grapes.'

'Why didn't you? Make a career of it?'

The crooked smile flickered again. 'It wasn't quite what Silas had in mind for me. Or fate either, as it turns out.'

Nik's stomach went hollow suddenly. Hefting the case he was carrying, he said. 'What the devil's in this, by the way? Not, as Phil suggested, some sort of weapon, I hope?'

Her lips didn't smile, and he wondered what her eyes would tell him if it weren't for the damned sunglasses. 'Nope,' she said, 'just a saxophone.'

He gave a bark of surprised laughter. 'A…what?'

'You know…jazz, the blues…it's a horn…you blow it.'

He hadn't thought anything she could do would surprise him. but obviously he'd underestimated her. Again. Serendipity… A strange little shiver ran down his spine. How could she have known he'd always had a particular fondness for American jazz? 'Don't tell me you know how to play it.'

'No, of course not.' she replied in a frosty tone. 'I just have a really eccentric taste in accessories.'

'A bit cranky, are we?' he remarked evenly, hiding all traces of his inner delight.

'That's how people get when they're left handcuffed to a bed,' she replied, and he could almost hear her teeth grinding. 'Particularly without access to a bathroom.'

'Ah. That.' He stopped in the middle of the road to look at her. Realizing his eyebrows were doing that thing that annoyed her so. he made a conscious effort to stop them- also to contain his grin-before he walked on. 'I really had hoped you'd gotten over that.'

'Not a chance, Donovan.' He could feel her eyes on him. dark as a threat.

He glanced at her and made scolding noises with his tongue. 'Oh, come now, you aren't the type to carry a grudge, surely?'

There was something hypnotic about her eyes… 'My mother always claimed one of her grandmothers was Creole-a voodoo priestess' she said, and hissed the last word like a curse. 'It's in my blood.'

He wanted to laugh, but the tingle of excitement rushing beneath his skin didn't feel like amusement. He could feel heat and heartbeat intensifying in places they shouldn't have been, not at high noon in the middle of a French vineyard. Not in response to a woman whose avowed mission was to take him into custody and return him to a place he had no desire to go. But…really-Creole? Voodoo?

He was mulling over this interesting new tidbit of information about his adversary's background when the convoy of tractors pulling trailers laden with barrels and people began to stream past them. Phillipe shouted and waved from the midst of the crowd on the last one, and it halted in the road beside them. Nikolas looked at Rhia and made an offering gesture. She threw him a challenging look, then took the helping hands reaching out to her from the crowd on the wagon and allowed herself to be hoisted aboard. Nikolas passed the oblong case containing her saxophone up to her as she settled into the midst of the boisterous crowd, then levered himself onto the back of the flatbed. Someone gave a shout and the tractor began to move forward again. Someone began to sing, and most of the passengers on the trailer joined in. And Nikolas, for no reason he could think of, found himself smiling.