Duty At What Cost?. Michelle Conder

snorted and tossed his nose in challenge as Wolfe took up the reins.

      ‘I won’t be joining you just yet. I need to check on an issue that’s come up.’ He kept his tone deliberately bland so as not to alarm his friend, who should be concentrating on why he was signing his life away to a woman in matrimony rather than why a woman was currently sitting on one of his outer walls. ‘Achilles and I will join you in a few.’

      The horse pulled against the bit and Wolfe smiled. There was nothing quite like using all his skills to master a difficult animal, and he wondered if Gilles would consider selling him. He already liked the unmanageable beast.

      Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that much easier to scale a high brick wall as an adult, Ava conceded. In fact it had been downright scary and had shown her how unfit she was. Her arm muscles were aching in protest. It hadn’t helped when she’d discovered the ancient chestnut tree she had been relying on to help her down the other side had been removed, and then two trained security guards wielding machine guns had happened upon her.

      She hadn’t considered that Gilles would have hired extra security for the wedding, but in hindsight she should have done. Naturally the men hadn’t believed her about the car accident, and now all she needed was for one of those media helicopters she could hear to zero in on her and her joyous day would just about be complete.

      It was all Gilles’s fault, she grouched to herself, eyeing the uneven terrain at her feet where the magnificent tree had once stood. And surely they’d raised the height of the wall since the last time she’d climbed it as a tearaway twelve-year-old.

      Shifting uncomfortably, she eyed the two killers camouflaged in street clothes below, glad she was conversant in English. She knew no self-respecting Frenchman would ever be seen mixing flannel with corduroy. ‘If you would just check a couple of hundred metres up the road you’ll find my car and realise that I am telling you the truth,’ she repeated, struggling to hold back the temper her father had often complained was as easy to strike up as a match. Which actually wasn’t true. It took special powers to induce her to lose the plot.

      ‘Sorry, ma’am. Boss’s orders.’ That from the one who looked slightly more sympathetic than the other—although that was like saying snow was colder than ice.

      ‘Fine. But I have a headache and I’d like to get down.’

      ‘Sorry, ma’am—’

      ‘Boss’s orders,’ Ava finished asininely, wondering what the two men would do if she decided to jump. Not an entirely practical option since she would likely break her ankle.

      It had clearly been an oversight on their part as children only to whittle footholds on one side of the wall. A mistake no self-respecting spy in their right mind would have made!

      Ava briefly closed her eyes and gently tested the injury on her forehead. It felt so large she was sure the House of Fabergé would weep to get their hands on it.

      A wave of irritation threatened to topple her off the wall and impale her on one of those raised guns, and as much as she told herself it was irrational to be irritated with these men, since this whole situation was her own fault, she couldn’t dispel her growing agitation. In truth, she felt like a fool sitting atop Gilles’s wall like a silly bird.

      ‘And where is this boss of yours?’ she queried, injecting her voice with a calm she was far from feeling.

      ‘Coming soon, ma’am.’

      So was Christmas. In four months’ time.

      A low rumble of thunder brought Ava’s head around as she tried to locate the sound. Her view was hampered by soaring parkland trees and wild shrubbery, and the only thing visible in the distance were the rounded red brick towers of the château and a picture-perfect blue sky beyond.

      Then a flash of white amongst the trees caught her attention, and she couldn’t look away as a purebred stallion galloped into view. Ava’s eyes drank in the beautiful creature—and then she felt slightly dizzy as her eyes took in its handsome rider.

      Windswept sandy hair was brushed back from a proud face with a strong nose and square jaw, wide shoulders and a lean torso rippled beneath a fitted black polo shirt, and long, muscular legs were outlined to perfection in white jodhpurs and knee-high black riding boots.

      She sensed he was absolutely furious, even though he hadn’t moved a well-honed muscle. His narrowed eyes were boring into hers with the intense focus of a natural hunter. Even when the horse stamped impatiently beneath him, its nostrils flaring and its tail flicking with irritation, the man remained preternaturally still.

      Ava’s heart pounded and she found her fingers gripping the stone wall for support. Heat was turning her limbs soft. Of course it was the sun making her hot, not the ruthless-looking warrior staring at her with an arrogance that bordered on insolence.

      ‘Are you the reason I’m still on this wall?’ The confrontational words were out of her mouth before she’d known they were in her head and she could have kicked herself. She had meant to be pleasant, to make sure this ordeal was over as quickly as possible. She knew instantly from the firm jut of his jaw that she had well and truly put paid to that.

      Wolfe didn’t move a muscle as his eyes swept over the fey gypsy on the wall. He’d been wrong. She wasn’t attractive. She was astonishingly attractive, and his soldier’s eyes noted everything. High cheekbones, honey-gold skin, eyes as dark as night and thick sable hair pulled into a ponytail, wisps from which floated around a lush, sulky mouth that looked as if it was waiting to be kissed.

      By him.

      Impatiently discarding the unexpected thought, he let his eyes drift lower over a white cotton shirt the gentle breeze was using to outline her rounded breasts, and fitted jeans that hugged long slender legs. And bare, stocking-clad feet!

      Achilles swatted the air with his tail, as if he too was disturbed by the vision, and then Wolfe registered her haughty, royally pissed-off question and recovered himself. She was an intruder, and she was ruining a rousing game of polo, and if she was upset she could stand in line.

      ‘No.’ He shot her a cursory look. ‘You are the reason you’re still on that wall.’

      Ignoring her hissed exhalation he swung out of the saddle and approached his men. He could feel her eyes following him and wondered at their exact colour, immediately irritated at the irrelevant thought.

      He waited for Eric to fill him in on how they had come across her, and then indicated for him to pass over the leather handbag he held in his hand.

      ‘Is the gun absolutely necessary?’

      Her slightly bored question floated down from the wall.

      ‘Only if I have to shoot you with it.’ He didn’t bother looking at her when he spoke. ‘And keep your hands where I can see them.’

      ‘I’m not a criminal!’

      He ignored her little outburst and inspected her handbag. ‘Find anything interesting in here?’

      ‘No, boss. Usual women things. Lipstick, tissues, hair clips. No ID, as I said.’

      He heard her exasperated sigh. ‘I already told your watchdogs I had a car accident and my purse must have fallen out of my bag.’

      ‘Convenient.’

      ‘For whom? You?’

      Wolfe gave her a stare he knew from experience made grown men think twice. ‘You have an awfully smart mouth for someone in your predicament.’ And he wished she would close it. The husky quality of her lightly accented voice was having an adverse effect on his body.

      ‘I am Princess Ava de Veers of Anders and I demand you let me down from here immediately.’

      Wolfe ran his eyes over her again, just for the sheer pleasure of it and because he knew it would put her on the back foot. ‘What are you doing on a wall, Princess? Learning to fly?’

      ‘I