by Randol, Anna
To the princess in his arms.
He didn’t wince at the sharp kick to his shins. It never occurred to women to wear useful shoes. But when she followed that with an attempted bite to his palm, his estimation of her rose a little.
“Who gave you information on the Trio?”
Someone had betrayed Madeline to a vindictive Prussian bastard and Clayton to a group of violent Russian revolutionaries. Their true identities weren’t something this princess could have pieced together on her own. Someone from the Foreign Office must have handed her the information. He intended to find out who and for what price.
He had to know how many pounds of flesh to carve, after all.
He pulled his knife and flashed it in front of her face. “I’ll let go of your mouth and you will tell me your answer. Now, before you decide to be annoyingly brave, know that before you can draw in a breath, I’ll have slit your throat, but not enough to kill you. No, just enough so you can no longer breathe to scream. Then I’ll slice you open, starting at your pretty little toes, up to your belly, where I will play with your entrails while you watch.” As far as threats went, it was one of his better ones. It was a risk. Some people fainted entirely at that point, but he was growing impatient with the endless labyrinth of people and dead ends that had clogged his search.
Juliana nodded against his hand. So he slowly lifted it.
“I have no idea what the Trio is.”
Ian added another tick to his admiration at the cool composure in her voice, but he tightened his hold. Not enough to leave marks, but enough that her breathing came in spurts. “Come now, Jules. You must know the name of the group of spies who toppled your country. You wanted revenge. I can understand that. Admire that, even. But, you see, our two goals unfortunately conflict at that point. Now, if you value your skin, tell me who gave you the information.”
She’d been shivering, but the motion suddenly stopped. “What did you say?”
“Which part? It was a rather long monologue.”
“A group called the Trio was responsible for the uprising in Lenoria?” The outrage in her voice actually sounded genuine.
“The letter sent to General Einhern came from this house. And one year ago in June, three Russian revolutionaries came to this house, where they were given information on a friend of mine.” Clayton and his new wife had managed to survive the Russians, but it had been a close thing. Ian wouldn’t let them be at risk again.
“The Trio is English, then?”
He barely dodged a foot stomp. And he had to shift quickly to keep from slitting her throat too early.
“I thought the French were behind it because we wouldn’t side with Napoleon. Or the Spanish because—” She growled. “And I’ve been sitting in London all this time. In the very lap of the bastards responsible for my parents’ deaths.” Her sharp elbow hit him with surprising force, but not enough to make him more than wince. “Well, I wish good luck to the people who are hunting the Trio and wish you to the devil.”
This interrogation wasn’t going the way he’d anticipated. He’d interrogated many people over the years. Men. Women. Even children a time or two. He always obtained the information he needed.
He’d also become quite good at knowing the truth when he heard it.
And she was telling the truth.
Damn.
Like a cat drowning in the Thames he floundered one more time. “My information isn’t wrong.”
“I’m afraid it is.” For the first time since he’d entered, she sounded disdainful and condescending. Like a princess.
What the devil had he missed? His information was not wrong, but he wasn’t about to bicker with her, wasting time until her maid returned from the little crisis he’d arranged.
“I wasn’t even here last June. I’d been invited to Brighton with the regent.”
Ah. Double damn.
If that was true, then holding her at knifepoint was a rather large waste of time. He sheathed the knife and spun her around so he could study her face. “I can check that claim.”
“Go ahead.” Her strange amber eyes could have frozen the devil’s horns.
“Someone in your household is responsible,” he said. One of the letters had been written on parchment from her desk. Ian had verified it personally. And those revolutionaries had come here. Somehow he must have put the pieces together wrong.
She inched back. “Unfortunately, you’re not going to get the chance to find out who.”
“I will.”
She grabbed a candlestick from the table and brandished it in front of her. “Not after I scream. My soldiers will gut you.”
Ian laughed at her naïveté. With a single grab and twist of her wrist, the candlestick was in his hands. “Your soldiers consist of five lads playing dress-up with rusty swords. They can’t stop me from coming back whenever I choose. You won’t even be able to prove I was here in the first place.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then I will shoot you.”
He tucked a finger under her chin. Blimey, but her skin was soft. “Aren’t you the most darling thing?” Spunky. That was the word. The princess was spunky.
Juliana slapped his hand away and he returned it to his side. She was not darling; she was nearly a ruling sovereign. “I’ll double the security on the house.” Had she just spit as she talked? But she was beyond caring. She’d spit on this man’s grave.
“Because your security was so efficient in keeping me out the first time, Jules?”
If he didn’t stop grinning, she’d punch him.
“You will address me as Your Highness.”
“I make it a rule never to call any undressed person by their title.”
That was it. She swung for all she was worth. His grin actually disappeared before her hand hit.
Ouch.
She winced at the impact. She might have broken her wrist.
His strong hand clamped over hers, and she blinked her eyes open. Had she really closed them?
She’d punched his arm. Not even his face.
He tucked her hand behind her back, tight enough that she couldn’t move unless she wanted to dislocate something. “Very good, Princess. But don’t fear, when I return to your less-than-castle, you won’t even know I’m here.” His lips lowered until they were inches from hers. “And while you’re lying in bed thinking about my hard chest, you might ask yourself why you never did bother to scream.”
He spun her away in a quick maneuver that made the world tilt. She had to catch the table to keep from falling.
When she whirled back around, he was gone.
Chapter Three
Ian wanted nothing more than to climb into a bed. Not just any bed like most nights, but a soft bed with blankets that were made from bunnies covered with goose down.
Despite his boasts, the princess’s house had been more difficult to get into than he’d anticipated. He’d had to scale to the third floor before he’d found any windows that could be opened from the outside.
He just wasn’t as young as he used to be.
His boots left imprints on the soft Turkish rugs in the corridor outside his room at The Albany. He seldom used these rooms. He generally preferred to skulk with his own kind in any of a dozen hovels in the slums of the city. But tonight, his back ached and a night on the floor of some hole would get him nothing but hours spent tossing and ruminating on a nearly naked princess.
Besides, he had to do something with all the money Cipher had invested for him.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside, already planning what he’d order from the kitchen staff. The price of the rooms was more than made up for by the divine creations that came out of the kitchen. Jean Pierre was a master craftsman when it came to flavors.
Ian eased shut the door behind him.
The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood at attention.
The fireplace was lit. As was a candle.
Someone had moved his stockings.
He’d left a pair
drying in front of the fireplace when he was last here . . . what, two weeks ago?
What the devil? The hotel staff knew not to enter his rooms. And if someone was waiting to kill him, he doubted they’d light a fire and tidy his clothing.
“Good evening, sir. Your dinner will be delivered shortly.”
An elderly servant in an impeccable black coat and a lemon yellow hat containing three ostrich feathers stepped into view.
“Canterbury?”
“If I might take your hat and gloves, sir?”
“What in the blazes are you doing in my rooms?”
“Taking your hat and gloves, sir.”
“But how did you find my rooms?” It wasn’t often that Ian was baffled, but this did it.
“Mr. Campbell gave me your location, sir, when I inquired.”
Curse Clayton. “When I asked you to take that position with Madeline in London, it wasn’t because I wanted you close at hand.” No, he’d known he could trust Canterbury completely with Madeline, but Ian didn’t want him. The old butler dredged up far too many worthless memories.
“I believe you made that quite clear at the time, sir.”
How much more blunt did he need to be? “I do not need you.”
“So you said twenty years ago. And that didn’t work out so well for you, did it? Arrested and sentenced to hang shortly thereafter.”
By then Ian had been firmly entrenched with his merry band of cutpurses and gutter rats. He’d been living with his gang of thieves on the streets for almost ten years. Yet when Canterbury had heard about the trial, he’d come and tried to speak on Ian’s behalf even though it had cost him his position as the Duke of Yuler’s butler.
“I survived.”
There was a knock on the door. Canterbury answered and accepted a silver tray from the footman. He placed it on the small table and uncovered a plate of beef dripping with savory juices and seasoned with rosemary, mushrooms, and a touch of black pepper. In a nearby bowl, strawberries wallowed in clotted cream as white as angel wings.
“I assumed you’d want dinner when you returned, but if I was incorrect . . .” He started to lift the plate.
Ian grabbed it. It would be a crime to let such food go to waste. And he happened to be an expert on crime. “How did you know that I was going to be here tonight?”
“A good butler always anticipates his master’s whims, sir.”
“No. I was the spy. Not you. You do not get to deflect me with non-answers.”
“As you say, sir.”
“No, I want you to say. That is the whole point.”
“Shall I have the staff wait on dessert, sir?”
Ian glared. “You fight dirty, old man.”
“A good butler would never dream of fighting, sir. Now would you like wine or brandy with your meal? I was able to obtain a rather fine bottle of French brandy, if I might be so bold.”
“Oh, you might be,” Ian muttered. He plopped down in the chair with a sigh. “The brandy, curse you.”
“You may wish to remove your muddy coat before eating.”
“You are an interfering old biddy, Canterbury. Do not push your rather meager amount of luck. And I don’t see how you can take issue with my coat when you look like a bloody lemon peacock.”
Ian wished he were the type to savor the meal. It was beyond divine. It was as if Canterbury had somehow reached into Ian’s very soul and plucked out the perfect symphony of flavors.
Curse him, anyway.
“Where are you staying?” Ian asked.
“Here, sir.”
Ian took another mouthful of the beef. Mercy. He needed to fall down and beg for mercy before he died from sheer bliss. “I’ve never had this here before. What do they call it?”
“You have had it before, sir.”
“Going batty in your old age?” Ian wasn’t entirely sure how old Canterbury was. Sixty-five? Two hundred? But other than the slight stoop in the man’s once straight spine and his thinning gray hair, one would never have known it.
“No, sir. It was one of your mother’s favorite recipes.”
Ian set down his fork and stood. “I’m finished.”
“Sir, your mother—”
“You can stay here if you like, Canterbury, but don’t expect me back.”
Hurt flashed only for an instant before it was gone behind the butler’s impassive façade. “Very good, sir.”
The July air was too hot and humid to clear his thoughts as Ian strode back onto the street. Damn Canterbury. His mother was dead in an unmarked grave at the crossroads. She should be left in peace. After all, it was what she’d wanted. What she’d wanted more than her own son.
A man crept out of the shadows, the menace on his face melting into a gap-toothed grin when he recognized Ian. “Who’s your mark tonight, mate?”
Ian let the gutter flow back into his accent. “Off to see Margie.”
“A lovely dove, she is.”
Margie was a friend of his from his days in the gutter. She’d risen from a two-bit light skirt to the owner of a bawdy house with sixteen employees. She kept a room for Ian in the attic when he wanted it. But as far as everyone else knew, he spent many a night in the redhead’s arms.
Ian let himself into the small cramped room by way of the window. This room, at least, was untouched. His stockings hung dry and stiff in front of a cold fireplace.
But he didn’t feel any more at peace here than he had at The Albany.
Grunts and drunken laughter filtered through the walls. He’d fallen asleep to the noise without trouble many times, but tonight the moans repulsed him and he found himself back on the street.
Where to now? The flat by the wharf would stink of rotting fish heads in the summer heat. Clayton or Madeline both would happily provide him a room for the night. Or he could spend the night as an uninvited guest in any house in London.
Yet somehow he found himself back at the walled garden of a deposed princess.
As he tucked his fingers in the cool vining plants that scaled the walls, his mind ceased caterwauling. And his grin slowly returned to his face.
There were more guards posted tonight.
Good for her.
Too bad they didn’t know what to look for. Their eyes watched the gates while he’d scale the wall to the garden, climb the oak tree to the balcony on the second floor, and then follow the gutter to the empty bedroom on the next floor.
He could sleep in the blue guest room three doors down from the fair princess with her none the wiser.
She’d be asleep now. For a moment, the urge to stare at her peaceful slumber nearly overwhelmed him. She’d be tucked in by her maid, her hair fanned out over her pillow. The angry flush would be gone from her cheeks. The animation in her face momentarily at rest.
What did a princess dream of at night? Castles and handsome princes, no doubt. The color of her next ball gown. Or perhaps having Ian clapped in manacles and thrown into the dungeon—she did have spirit, after all.
Ian turned away from the wall. He wouldn’t go inside tonight. The information he sought wouldn’t be found in darkened corridors and empty guestrooms. He’d need daylight to question her servants.
He strode away. There was a cot in the kitchen of the Rutting Beaver that would do for the night.
And for the first time in his life, he couldn’t wait for the morning to come.
Chapter Four
Juliana wanted nothing but to go to sleep, but first she’d had to spend several hours reviewing the security on the house. And now this.
“Gregory, you’ll have to stop pacing and just tell me what is amiss.”
Her brother dragged his hand through his hair and groaned again. “I’m as good as dead.”
She would kill him herself if he didn’t start talking. “What? Do you owe someone money? Is it a gambling debt?”
He stopped long enough to frown at her. “I know better than that.”
“What then? A woman? Your mistress?”
&n
bsp; Gregory sank into the chair in the corner of Juliana’s room. “I hope never to hear you utter that word again.”
Juliana snorted, glad none of her aunts was there to hear her. “I see the bills for the jeweler. Now either tell me what is wrong or leave me in peace so I can sleep.”
“It is Sommet.”
Ice filled Juliana’s stomach. “What has he done?”
Gregory buried his face in his hands. “You were right about him. He has—he has found a way to have the crown taken from you.” He dug his fingers into his scalp. “And given to me.”
“What?” She might not particularly want to be a monarch, but she’d die before she allowed anyone to wrest it from her.
“It has to do with you being a woman.”
“Women are allowed to rule Lenoria.” It was always the eldest child rather than the first male.
He swallowed. “Yes. But if the princess is still unmarried by twenty-two, any male heirs have the right to challenge her for the throne.”
In 1345, King Hubart had wanted his son to inherit rather than his daughter. He couldn’t change the old law, so he amended it.
“You’re twenty-four,” Gregory reminded her.
“I know how old I am.” Juliana took a calming breath. “I fail to see what the problem is. Don’t challenge me. Sommet cannot force you. Just deny him.”
Gregory actually moaned.
“He can force you?” she guessed, dread expanding in her chest.
“He had information on the people who toppled Lenoria.”
The Trio. The man who’d been here earlier had mentioned them. His rough voice and gentle hands. “What did you do?”
Gregory scowled for a moment. “It’s not like it’s any different than what you would have done. If you’d captured them in Lenoria, you would have had them executed.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. She was eternally grateful that she didn’t have that authority here in England. “That’s Sommet talking, not you. You tried to have people murdered?”
“I didn’t try to kill them. I simply told other people they had wronged where to find them.”
“How did you know who their enemies were?”
