My Darling, My Disaster (Lords of Essex)

by Morgan, Angie

Her eyes widened as she took his meaning. “No, Gray—” She broke off, looking past him with a stricken expression to Langlevit, who had entered the salon. Gray felt nothing but numbness spreading across his body as she dropped the poker and held her hands out to him. The same numbness he’d nearly drowned in when Lana had speared his heart in that church alcove. “Lord Northridge, it isn’t like that.”

  “Why so formal, sweet?” he said, pain and anger causing his voice to pull low.

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “I’m afraid neither do I,” Langlevit interjected from behind Gray. The earl sauntered into Gray’s view, the pistol he’d dropped earlier back in his hand. Though his grip was relaxed and the barrel pointed at the floor, Langlevit’s eyes blazed with suspicion. They flicked between Lana and Gray, his mouth a grim slash.

  Gray withdrew the card he’d found in Lana’s room from his pocket and flung it to the floor. “Does this help jog either of your memories?” His eyes went to Lana. “How long has he been sending you love letters?”

  “Love letters?” she said, her hand rising to her throat.

  “Poems,” he snarled. “I found one weeks ago on the coach floor. You’d dropped it. The handwriting on the earl’s card is one and the same. I must say, Langlevit, I expected better from you. They were truly atrocious. The one question I have for my sister’s lovely maid, however, is whether she was as careless with her favors as you were with your words.”

  The earl’s eyes narrowed on him. “What have you done, Northridge?”

  “I? Oh, that’s rich, you bloody hypocrite. It seems rather clear to me that we’ve sampled the same waters.”

  “Gray!” Lana’s cry was a hoarse whisper of disbelief.

  “You bastard,” Langlevit muttered, his lips barely moving.

  “Henry,” Lana begged, as if to quell the skyrocketing tension between the two men. She blinked in mute shock, as if realizing what she’d called him. “Lord Langlevit, please. Explain to him—”

  “Henry?” Gray interrupted, his attention revolving back to her. They were on such familiar terms that she could call him by his given name?

  The memory of Lana dropping his title and addressing him as Gray for the first time struck him. He remembered how it had felt, hearing his name on her tongue. Her voice moaning it as he touched her. Something hot and wild consumed Gray then—a jealousy so unhinged that it made him feel like he had the strength and the rage of a thousand men.

  “Henry has no need to explain. I understand him perfectly. He likes the water he’s sampled.” Gray’s eyes bored into Lana’s, the desire to hurt her stemming from a place that revolted him, and yet he did not stop. He could not stop. He wanted her to break as he was breaking inside. “He simply doesn’t like the idea of sipping from a public fountain.”

  Langlevit moved like a bullet, crashing into Gray’s torso and slamming them both to the floor. The gun clattered to the floor a second time, and Langlevit used the free hand to pound his fist into Gray’s stomach.

  Gray fought back with every shred of force in him, but his anger had risen so high and hot that he couldn’t think. He struck out at Langlevit, his fists glancing off muscled flesh. He couldn’t land a decent strike, even though they were fairly matched in size. Langlevit had skill and experience on his side, and it wasn’t long before Gray felt the earl’s arm cinch around his throat. He’d maneuvered him into a chokehold.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Lana cried out.

  “Stop struggling,” Langlevit warned as he swung around to twist Gray’s arm up the middle of his back. “I don’t want to break your arm.”

  “Break it,” Gray grunted.

  Lana stooped beside them. “Stop this! Both of you! Lord Northridge—”

  Gray smiled through the agony. Not because of his arm, the bone currently straining toward a fracture. It was his heart, cleaving into two as he looked up into her beautiful, treacherous face.

  “Not Gray, as you so tenderly called me at The Cock and the Crown?”

  Lana clapped her hands to her mouth, her horrified gaze riveting not on him, but on the earl whose hands viciously tightened. Gray’s shoulder felt like it would rip out of its socket at any second. “You. Took. Her. Where?” Langlevit’s hissed words at his ear were blunt and lethal.

  “It’s not his fault,” Lana rushed to explain. “We had a carriage accident, and the gaming hell was our only option. Release him, please. It’s time he knew the truth.”

  Gray frowned at the clipped, aristocratic tones. What truth? There was more to her deception?

  “I will not, unless he agrees to yield,” the earl replied.

  “Fine,” Gray snapped. “I yield.” He would listen to whatever new lies she came up with, and then he would take his leave. The sooner he put this scheming seductress and her lover out of his life, the better. The thought carved a deep gulch in the center of his chest.

  Langlevit released him slowly, and Gray scrambled backward, rotating his aching shoulder. The earl stood and walked over to the mantel, where he poured himself a liberal glass of whiskey. He offered a second glass to Gray, who took it after a moment and downed the drink, feeling it burn and fill the hollow spaces within him.

  “My apologies for the lack of staff,” Langlevit said as he refilled Gray’s empty glass.

  “Your apologies are wasted on me,” he replied, ensconcing himself in an armchair and throwing one booted foot over his knee. He turned to Lana. “By all means, Miss Volchek, take your time declaring yourself. I trust it’s not another surprise betrothal.”

  Flinching at his tone, Lana cleared her throat as she perched on the embroidered sofa opposite him. The threading shimmered in the firelight like gold. Hell, it could have been gold for all Gray knew. Langlevit was not lacking in fortune. Perhaps she had thought him a better diversion than Gray. One without an illegitimate child tied to him.

  The little that remained of his battered heart shriveled into a ball as he steeled himself and looked at her. He instantly wished he hadn’t. She’d never looked more heartbreakingly beautiful. All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and salve his misery with her body. Love made people want to do foolish things, it seemed—like turn to the ones who had broken them in the first place.

  “I didn’t mean to lie to you,” she began.

  “And yet you did.” He sipped his whiskey and smiled politely at her. “When did the lies begin to pile up and become too much to navigate—before or after our afternoon at the Crown?”

  A glass crashed down onto a countertop, shattering pieces of crystal everywhere as Langlevit turned to them with a murderous look on his face. “Exactly what happened between the two of you at that gaming hell?”

  Gray lifted an arrogant eyebrow, the insinuation obvious. It was amusing that Langlevit was now the one who was jealous. He frowned and reassessed the thought as his eyes met the earl’s. Langlevit did not look jealous in the least. He looked shocked. And protective.

  Gray’s grin was as humorless as his rejoinder. “Perhaps you should read some of your poems if you lack sufficient imagination.”

  “Do not test my patience—” Langlevit ground out.

  “Enough.” Lana stalled the earl once more with a flick of her palm, color blooming in her cheeks. “Those poems were coded messages, Lord Northridge, about the baron. Nothing more.” Then she turned to Langlevit, her voice quiet. “I am a grown woman.”

  “But, my lady…”

  My lady? Gray’s frown deepened as Lana stood and walked to Langlevit’s side.

  “You’ve been a good friend, and I thank you for everything you’ve done, but my choices are mine alone. I do not wish to speak of what transpired at the…Crown.”

  She hadn’t wanted to use the word cock, Gray noted with a spike of bitter amusement as she turned back to him. Just like a lady. Lady Lana…just as the besotted stable hands and footmen called her. They were no worse off than he. Infatuated, foolish, and wrecked beyond belief.

  Lady L
ana.

  He noted, once more, what they must have seen: the regal slope of her shoulders and the tilt of that imperious chin. He heard what they had as well: the precise diction and the gentle command of her words.

  Gray would have stumbled if he hadn’t been sitting.

  Time drew to a stuttered halt as he saw what he’d been utterly blind to before. How many times had he noted how differently she carried and conducted herself from other maids? Now he understood Langlevit’s sudden and protective reaction…and the appalled look on his face earlier.

  Because Lana wasn’t a maid at all.

  The realization was slow at first, but then it gathered speed like a rock rolling downhill. Gray swallowed. “You’re the missing princess.”

  She nodded, her heart in her eyes as Langlevit crossed the marble floor toward them. His voice was only slightly mocking. “Lord Northridge, allow me to present Princess Svetlanka Volkonsky.”

  Gray sat forward, the whiskey glass in his hand slipping. He caught it, though barely, his fingers having turned to air. “Svetlanka,” he repeated dully.

  “Lana for short.”

  Everything stilled in that moment as all the pieces crashed together—all the hints and the clues he’d refused to see. The way she talked. The way she held herself. She was a bloody princess acting as a maid.

  And hell. He’d taken her innocence. In a damned gaming hell.

  Not a breath was drawn in the explosive silence until the front door to Hartstone slammed into the wall.

  Langlevit dove to the mantel, reappearing with his pistol, while Gray leaped to his feet.

  “Not one move,” Zakorov warned, striding in. He was followed by three burly men. They were all armed, and the earl lowered his weapon. “Your Highness,” Zakorov said in an unnaturally loud and jovial voice to Lana. “It’s good to see you alive and well.”

  She showed no fear at all. “Where’s my sister, you piece of scum?”

  “Now, now,” he said in a falsely sweet tone that made Gray want to break his teeth. “That’s no way to talk to your betrothed.”

  Gray clenched his jaw. This was her betrothed? Not a pauper boy, but Zakorov?

  “I will never marry you,” Lana hissed.

  Zakorov smirked. “I have a feeling you will soon change your mind.”

  “Where is Irina?” Lana demanded, her eyes flicking toward one of the three men standing behind the baron. “You’re the one my uncle sent to Cumbria. What have you done to her?”

  Gray could hear the tremor beneath her words. The man she’d been speaking to, a tall and greasy-looking fellow, smirked. “To your sister?” the man asked, his French accent strong. “Nothing at all. However, I was forced to take care of the blundering brute that was on my tail. What was his name? Hurst?”

  Hurstley. Gray ground his teeth. Damn it! He’d gotten the man killed. Gray wanted to put a bullet between the Frenchman’s smiling teeth for it, too.

  “Your sister is safe,” Zakorov agreed, waving his arm. “For now. But her continued safety depends entirely upon you. You will need to come with me.”

  “She will not,” Gray said, his arm rising to bar Lana from taking a step forward.

  Zakorov smiled at him. “She has no choice, Lord Northridge. After all, her young sister’s life rests in her hands.”

  A thousand emotions stormed across Lana’s face. Gray knew she would acquiesce, if only out of loyalty to her sister. “Lana, no.”

  “He’s right, I have to go with him. For Irina.” Lana nodded to Langlevit before pushing past Gray’s arm. He tried to catch her elbow, but she wrenched free. She looked up at him, her voice low so that only he could hear it. “I’m sorry that I lied to you about who I was. And I said terrible things to you last week. Dishonest things. I only wanted to keep you away from this.” She shook her head. “Nothing else was a lie. I hope you believe that.”

  Gray wanted to catch her arm and haul her back behind him, but the pistol trained at his head from one of Zakorov’s men kept him still. He didn’t trust himself to speak but did anyway. “I’ll find you.”

  As Lana disappeared from view, Zakorov’s voice filtered back before the door slammed shut. “Kill them.”

  Gray and Langlevit exchanged a single look before the earl exploded into motion, his gun firing as he dove simultaneously to the second gunman. Gray tackled the Frenchman, who stood nearest him, as another gunshot rent the air. He felt the bullet whizz by his face, narrowly missing him, as he collided with the man. They went rolling across the floor, knocking over a marble bust. Gray grabbed a chunk of the broken marble, slamming it into the Frenchman’s head, again and again, until he went still.

  “Bastard,” he grunted, and then stood, panting. He watched Langlevit make quick work of the second man. The first was dead, Langlevit’s precise shot now a gaping wound at the center of the man’s forehead. The earl raced to the door, but Zakorov had already disappeared.

  They stared at each other in the charged silence. Langlevit was the first to speak. “You love her.”

  “What?”

  “You love her.” It was not a question.

  Gray considered lying but knew Langlevit would see right through him. “Yes. I do.”

  “Good.” The earl smiled, but it didn’t reassure Gray in the least. “I didn’t want to have to call you out at dawn. We both know I’m a better shot than you. We will settle this later, and mark my words, it will be settled to my satisfaction. For now, the princesses are in danger, and Zakorov has had a decent head start. Their uncle, the count, plotted with Zakorov to murder their father. Lana has letters in her possession that will incriminate them both.”

  “The coded ones?”

  Langlevit stared at him as if surprised Gray had this knowledge. “Yes. Which means he will go back to Ferndale to retrieve the letters.” The earl paused. “This is not a game, North. I will understand if you wish to remain here.”

  Gray felt cold resolve settle into his bones. “Not on your life.”

  …

  The gunshot had made Lana’s blood run cold, but Viktor’s firm grip upon her arm kept her from lurching away, back toward the house. “Into the carriage,” he snarled, all but tossing her in before climbing in after her. Her attention was arrested by the tiny female figure cowering on one of the seats.

  “Lana!” Irina’s face was tear-stained as she threw herself into her sister’s arms.

  “Oh my God, you’re alive!” Lana held her sister close, her own tears breaking loose. Her eyes flicked to their uncle, sitting at Irina’s side. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No.” Irina shook her head. “Lana, I was so scared that something had happened to you. I was out for a walk in the gardens, and a man came out of nowhere, forcing me to go with him. The next person I saw was him.” Her head jerked to the stern-faced count watching them. “He…he said they would kill Countess Langlevit if I didn’t tell him where you were, but I didn’t know the name of the estate.”

  Lana raised cold eyes to her uncle. His smile made her want to tear it off his face. “Lovely to see you, Svetlanka. You’ve been busy, niece.”

  “You’re no family of mine,” Lana snapped. “You deceiving bastard.”

  The count tsked, studying her down the length of his prominent nose, his mouth curling with displeasure.

  “How did you find us?”

  “We followed Lord Northridge,” Viktor interjected, his voice mocking. “I knew something was amiss when he tried so hard to deter me from speaking with you. And the connection with Langlevit was too coincidental not to investigate further.” He grinned, waving the pistol. “And I was right, wasn’t I? He led me straight to you.”

  Lana ignored him, staring at her uncle and trying to conceal her loathing for the man. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want. The documents you stole.”

  “I stole nothing. They belonged to my father.” Her mind was racing. She’d noticed the driver and one other man out front, but only Viktor in the carri
age displayed a weapon. Perhaps she could distract him and then snatch the pistol. The thought, though satisfying, was not without its risks. What if the gun went off and Irina was hurt? What if her uncle had a pistol hidden under his coat? And no matter how quick she was, her uncle wouldn’t stand by and let her gain the upper hand. No, she could not take that chance. She’d have to wait until they arrived at their destination and hope for an opportunity then.

  But what if he had more men? What then? Her thoughts passed to Gray and Langlevit, and the gunshot that had echoed as they’d left the house. She refused to consider that either of the men were dead. Langlevit was far too seasoned in the art of war to have been taken down in such a manner. And Gray… She didn’t even want to consider it. The odds hadn’t been in their favor—not with three of the men holding weapons. But she’d just seen Gray and Langlevit square off against each other, and based on that, she knew neither of them would have gone down without a fight. She clenched her jaw. And neither would she.

  “Where are you taking us?”

  “Your place of employment.” Viktor chuckled at his own joke. “Of course.”

  Ferndale. Her heart sunk. Lord and Lady Dinsmore and Brynn were there. The house was fully staffed. She knew all too well what this man and her uncle were capable of. If they could kill a Russian grand duke and his wife, what was stopping them from murdering anyone who happened to be in the way?

  Her gaze slid to Irina, who sat immobile at her uncle’s side, her fingers twisting in her lap. Lana was proud that she displayed no fear, even though one of his hands was tightly manacled above her elbow. She sent her a reassuring smile.

  “Let’s get down to it, niece,” her uncle said, his sarcastic emphasis on the last word evident. “I believe you have something of mine.”

  She lifted her chin. “Did you kill my parents?”

  The man actually had the audacity to smile. “My brother got himself embroiled in a situation that was beyond him, but what happened in that carriage was a tragic accident. Didn’t you read the newssheets?”

  Lana drew a sharp breath, contempt for the man who called himself her uncle filling her. “He found out you were selling crown secrets to the French, so you killed him.”