Johanna Lindsey - When Passion Rules

Gallery Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2011 by Johanna Lindsey

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition June 2011

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lindsey, Johanna.

When passion rules / by Johanna Lindsey.1st Gallery Books hardcover ed.

p. cm.

1. Mistaken identityFiction. 1. Title.

PS3562.15123W46 2011

813'.54dc22 2011012488

ISBN 978-1-4516-2837-1
ISBN 978-1-4516-2838-8 (ebook)

L EONARD KASTNER HAD BEEN thinking of retiring for good. He should have done more than just think about it. The timing was right. He had made more money than he had ever dreamed possible merely by using his talents. He was at the pinnacle of his career, his successes unblemished, and hed never refused a job. His clients knew that. Details werent important. Half the time they didnt provide them until hed accepted a job. But he was finding his occupation more and more distasteful, and he was losing his edge. When you didnt give a damn, nothing mattered. When you started to question what you were doing, it did.

Long since wealthy beyond his needs, he didnt need to take risks any longer and certainly didnt need to take this particular job. But he had been offered more money than he could possibly refuse, more than hed made in the last three years, and half of it had been paid in advance. And no wonder the fee was so enormous. This was one of those rare jobs the lackey who had hired him wanted his full agreement on before Leonard was told what was required of him.

Hed never been hired to kill a woman. But he was going to end his career with an even more abhorrent crime, the killing of an infant. And not just any infant, but the heir to the crown. A political assassination? Revenge against King Frederick? Leonard hadnt been told and he didnt care. Somewhere along the way hed lost his humanity. This was just another job. He had to keep telling himself that. He was not going to end his career with a failure. If he found the job distasteful, it was only because he liked his king and loved his country. But the king would sire more heirs once he was out of mourning and had remarried. He was still a young man.

Getting into King Fredericks palace during the day was easy. The gates of the palace, located in the courtyard of the old fortress that overlooked the capital city of Lubinia, were rarely closed. The gates were certainly guarded, but few were ever denied entrance, even when the king was in residence. He wasnt. He had retired to his winter chalet in the mountains directly after the queens funeral four months ago to mourn in peace. She had died only a few days after giving him this heir that someone wanted dead.

Leonard would have been stopped at the gates if hed given the slightest hint of who he was, but he didnt. He had a nefarious reputation, but it was under the false name of Rastibon. He had a price on his head in his own country and in several neighboring countries. But no one even knew what Rastibon looked like. He had been careful about that, always being hooded, meeting his contacts in shadowed back alleys, disguising his voice as needed. He had always planned to retire right here in his own country with no one ever suspecting how he had acquired his wealth.

He lived in a prosperous section of the capital city. His landlord and neighbors werent overly nosy, and when asked about his work, he merely alluded to an export business in wine to explain his frequent absences from the country. Wine he knew. Wine he could talk about freely. But he made it clear he didnt have time for idle talk, so he was generally considered an unfriendly sort and was usually left alone, which was the way he preferred it. A man in his profession couldnt afford to make friends unless they were in the same profession. But even then competition would get in the way.

It wasnt as easy getting into the wing of the nursery, but Leonard was resourceful. He discovered which women had the care of Fredericks heir and picked the night nursemaid as his target.

Helga was her name. A plain-looking young widow, she had an infant of her own that she was still nursing, which is why shed gotten the palace job. It took him only a week to woo her into his bed during her brief visits to her family in the city. But then he was a personable young man in his late twenties, somewhat handsome with his dark brown hair and blue eyes, and he even dredged up some old charm from the days when he hadnt been a cold-blooded assassin. He was going to have to kill Helga, too, if he wanted to be able to retire in his homeland. If he let her live, she would be able to identify him.

It took Leonard another three weeks to arrange a rendezvous in Helgas room in the palaces nursery wing on a night when the other nursemaid had time off and wouldnt be there. Even though Helga had assured him that no one ever visited the nursery at night, other than the two guards who made their rounds twice nightly, she was still fearful of losing her job if he was somehow discovered there. After all, the number of guards stationed at the palace was doubled at night. But passion won in the end and the right doors were left open for him. He only had to remain hidden briefly until the two guards left the nursery wing.

He didnt kill the woman after all. That had been the logical thing to do. He had used yet another fake name with her, not to hide his intended crime, but to prevent heror anyone elsefrom connecting Leonard Kastner and Rastibon. He had no intention of hiding his crime. Whoever had hired him would need to hear of it. But there was no reason to kill the nursemaid, too, when he could simply render her unconscious with a sleeping potion in her wine. He had a moments regret even over that.

Hed grown fond of Helga in the month hed known her. It changed his original plan quite drastically. It meant he wouldnt be retiring in his own country after all, when she would be able to identify him. But hed made this hasty decision just today, and the only sleeping powder hed been able to find quickly was unfamiliar to him, so he didnt know how long it would last, forcing him to hurry. He made another last-minute decision: to bind her hands behind her back so no one would think she was complicit in his crime. But worse, he couldnt bring himself to kill the child there in the nursery where the woman would wake up and see it. She adored the kings child, claimed she loved it now as much as her own.

Leonard had intended to finish the job onsite. Much less risk involved. But after glancing at Helga lying on her bed, soon to wake, he began looking for a sack instead. He couldnt find one in the main room. The royal infant was being raised in the lap of luxury, fed with golden spoons, her bassinet worth a fortune, lined in satin and the finest lace, circled with gems. A shelf was filled with fancy toys the baby was too young for. Numerous bureaus lined one wall, with so many clothes she would outgrow most of them before she could be dressed in them all.