GABE CONSIDINE looked up from his desk, his hard steel-blue eyes meeting those of his younger brother. âSo tell me Iâm crazy,â he invited him curtly.
Marcoâs frown turned into wry amusement. âYouâre crazy.â
Gabe got to his feet and strode across to the window, looking out across the walls, still intact, that surrounded the castle. For almost a thousand years his forebears had lived in the Wolfâs Lair and protected the trade route crossing the mountains between the rest of Europe and the small principality of Illyria on the Mediterranean Sea. Forty years previously, civil war, treachery and death had driven his grandparents, the incumbent Grand Duke and Duchess, to fight with partisans in the mountains until their deaths in an ambush. Although Gabe and his siblings had been born in exile, Marco knew that he felt a strong sense of obligation to the people who had suffered so long, secretly hoping that their lord would come back to them.
Gabeâs richly textured voice showed no emotion when he said, âThen come up with a better idea.â
âWhat about good old-fashioned threats?â Marcoâs voice deepened into a music-hall villainâs sneer. âTell me where the necklace is or Iâll bankrupt you and throw your mother out into the snow.â
âHer motherâs dead. And threats will be more effective if sheâs here, unable to get away.â
âA prisoner, you mean,â Marco said flatly.
Gabe shrugged. âIt wouldnât be the first time a womanâs been held prisoner here.â
âMostly they were hostages rather than prisoners.â
Gabe, Marco and their sister had grown up steeped in stories of their Illyrian heritage. One such hostage had joined the ranks of their ancestors by marrying the ruling Grand Duke.
Marco asked, âWhat if Sara refuses to admit she stole the necklace?â
Gabe lifted a black brow to devastating effect.
âThen Iâll do whateverâs necessary to get the Queenâs Blood back.â
The stark, medieval name of the necklace containing some of the most valuable rubies in the world still lifted the hairs on Marcoâs skin. âStrange that any woman would happily wear something with a name like that.â
His brother gave a sardonic smile. âWomen like pretty things, even those with a barbaric history. And the Queenâs Blood is more than prettyâitâs magnificent, unique and irreplaceable. Flawless rubies that size are no longer being mined. And then thereâs the mystery of how they got from Burma to Europe, and who set them in solid gold. Some unknown Dark Age genius? Or is the necklace the sole remaining work of an unknown civilisation?â
Marco gave a snort of laughter. âCome on, now, donât tell me you believe that old storyâthat it was made in Atlantis?â
His brotherâs mouth twisted cynically. âHardly. But, given all that, not many women would care that the original owner died on the mountainside a few kilometres from here, stabbed in the heart by the leader of a band of brigands. Of late, I find I have some sympathy with him.â
Marco understood the cold self-derision in his brotherâs tone. Falling in love with a woman, only to have her steal the priceless Considine heirloom, was definitely not like his cynical, hard-headed brother, noted around the world for his ruthless logic and brilliance. Oh, Gabe had had affairs, but they were always discreetly conducted, and the thought of him actually falling in love wasâwell, difficult to imagine!
It had been an unlikely romanceâa man of ancient heritage with the world at his feet, and a woman from nowhere, struggling to make a career as an interior designer.
Yet Gabe had taken one look at Sara Milton and fallen head over heels, breaking every rule in his book with a whirlwind courtship pursued almost entirely in the full spotlight of the worldâs media.
Two weeks after their engagement had been announced to an incredulous public, heâd insisted that Sara wear the Queenâs Blood at a ducal wedding in the south of France.
It was a night heâd never forget, Marco thought grimly, and not only because the rubiesâ dramatic beauty, glowing with fiery glamour in heavy, exquisitely worked gold, had set off Saraâs dark hair and smoky grey-green eyes superbly. Each magnificent stone had been a perfect foil for her pale, matt skin.
That night the necklace had disappeared, stolen from a safe in the château Sara was staying atâa safe sheâd chosen the combination for.
It still made Marco furious that sheâd tried to blame the maid, but Gabe had seen through her ploy.
Although the theft had been kept secret, three days later a brief, uncommunicative announcement of the termination of the engagement between Gabe Considine and Sara Milton had set the media on fire again. Some of the more delirious tabloids had called it the scandal of the century.