Hot Streak

good. If you're going to threaten and plead, it loses impact somehow on paper.

“See you tomorrow,” Charles said, turning to go, the light from the open door silhouetting his powerful frame and the spiky outline of wet windswept hair.

“If the rain lets up.” Leon was busy wiping Tarrytown down.

Charles's dark brows quirked like the grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “Can't take care of me forever.”

“Someone has to. Besides all the eager women, that is.”

“I don't know, Leon. You might lose against that kind of competition.”

And he had on numerous occasions. But not for long. “Any woman last more than a week?” his stable master bluntly asked. “Besides the bitch, I mean. And from the looks of it, you might never shake her loose.”

“Now, Leon, a little respect for my ex-wife.” But the grin accompanying the words was wickedly boyish.

“I'd like to give her a whole lot more, but she never gets close enough to put my boot where it'll do her the most good.”

“Speaking of boots. Did my boots come back for the Maryland Hunt Cup?”

“This morning.”

“Good. I'll try them tomorrow. Think Tarrytown can take those terrifying timbers two years in a row?”

“If he can't, there's not a hunter that can. The Ferstens are the best breed of jumpers in the world.”

“Thanks to you.”

“And to your pa.”

The phone line from the house trilled tinnily in the stable and they both stiffened, their expressions instantly altering. Charles's heavy brows creased into a frown.

“I'd say it's the bitch,” Leon growled.

“Wouldn't bet against you on that one,” Charles quietly replied. “If it's Sylvie, I'll take it in the house.”

When Leon picked up the receiver, he nodded darkly and said, “Sit tight, Countess, he's on his way to an inside phone.”

And Charles reluctantly started across the muddy paddock.

CHAPTER 5

S ylvie von Mansfeld was a countess in her own right, rich, beautiful, spoiled, and young. She'd met Charles one summer when she'd turned to acting in an attempt to escape boredom. She was captivated by Carey Fersten, the brilliant young director from America who had roots on the continent. She was delighted that his aristocratic family north of the Baltic held a knight's title a thousand years older than her family's mercantile nineteenth-century coat of arms. She was bewitched by his compulsive decisions. When they first met during filming in Yugoslavia, the young genius director was operating on instinct alone. Carey was drinking too much then, using recreational drugs in an excessive way that appealed to her excessive nature. It wasn't until the second week of sharing his bed that he'd stopped in mid “Darling” and asked her name. It still sent tingles down her spine recalling those days, old memories freshly rekindled by the sound of his deep, husky “Hello.”

“I need you,” Sylvie purred into the phone.

“The feeling is not mutual, Sylvie. What do you want, as if I didn't know,” Charles said bluntly, settling into a worn leather chair in the library.

His cool tone brought Sylvie back to her present problem. “You have to come and talk to him. Egon called. He was at the airport during the shooting, and now he's worse than ever. God knows his fear is reasonable. Especially after what Rifat did to the car. He was barely coherent when he called. You have to come and talk to him, Carey!”

“Jesus, Sylvie.” Charles kept his voice steady, despite his feelings on the subject. “I was just there a month ago. Put him in a sanitorium. Find him a confessor. Find him a woman, for Christ's sake. I can't come and hold his hand every time he OD's on terrorism.”

“Those madmen are using him, Carey, you know that. Capitalizing on his nerves and drug habit. He's terrified. No one else can calm him when he's in this state.”

“I can't this time, Sylvie. I'm sorry. I'm scheduled to ride in a meet in Maryland next week, and my next film starts two days after that.”

“I need you. Egon needs you. You owe me!”

Carey sighed. “I can't keep paying for that mistake forever. Everyone was doing drugs out there.”

“But you started him.”

“I didn't, but I'll never win that argument with you. Oh, Christ, it could have been anyone. He was out looking for it.”

“You made him what he is,” she snapped.

“Lord, grow up. He is what he is, with or without me.”

“If you don't come, he's going to die. I could barely understand him on the phone.”

There was a silence on the overseas connection while Charles damned the day Sylvie von Mansfeld first slipped into his bed. “Okay, all right,” he said at last, his feelings for Egon overcoming his aversion to Sylvie, “I'll be there, but I have to be back Wednesday next.”

“We're at the villa in Nice.”

“This is the last time, Sylvie, I swear.” Hanging up, his expression grim, Charles angrily punched the phone number for the stable. “Tell Jess to have the jet fueled. We leave in an hour. And bring my saddle, will you Leon? Maybe I can get in a few hours of riding before the Hunt Cup.” In a brisk cadence he finished his instructions to Leon. Then he dropped the phone receiver in its cradle and turned to his father. “Damn and bloody hell,” he softly swore. “When will it end?”

His father had been seated at the marquetry desk near the window during the phone conversation, his eyes half-closed. Opening his eyes fully now, he glanced at his only child with tolerant affection and quietly said, “The sins of your youth, eh?”

“With Sylvie and Egon, I'm never going to be allowed to forget them.”

“Surely there must be some treatment center with an effective program for”-his father paused delicately-“his variety of problems.”

Bernadotte had never understood Egon's bisexual idiosyncrasies. Firmly heterosexual, he viewed them as an aberration. “He's tried most of the drug treatment centers,” Carey replied, ignoring the other insinuations, “but so far none of them have turned him around. And Sylvie's right, he does respond to me. It makes it harder though since Egon's witless flirtation in the arms business last year. With Rifat leaning on him, he needs the heroin more to blot out the insecurities and fear, just at a time when he'd be better off facing them clean.”

“I understand your attachment for the young man, my concern is your mother,” Bernadotte said, dismissing Egon with a casual wave of his hand. “She's going to be disappointed if you're not back for the Maryland Hunt Cup. The house was opened last week and she has a full guest list waiting to visit with her ‘darling' boy.”

“I know.” Sliding down on his spine, Charles stretched out his long, mud-spattered legs and contemplated the soiled toes of his handmade boots. Then, stretching to relieve the tightness in his shoulders Sylvie's calls always induced, he said, “Tell Mother I'll be back in time.”

His father smiled his rare smile. “She'll be pleased.”

“And don't tell her I went to see Egon,” Charles said, rising from the depths of the comfortable chair. “She'll worry needlessly.”

“I'll make some excuse.”

“I'll call when I'm heading back.” Charles stood in the library doorway and flashed a quick smile, both brows rising speculatively. “I did tell Sylvie this was the last time, didn't I?”

“Distinctly,” his father agreed.

“Then I'm on my last mission of mercy,” Charles replied. “Ciao.” And with a wave he walked from the room.

“Godspeed,” his father murmured in the quiet library as he began concocting a story that would satisfy Juliana.

Although Bernadotte and Juliana had chosen to live apart since Charles was three, they maintained a friendly