Compromised by the Prince's Touch

by Bronwyn Scott

  Married? Had Amesbury lost his mind? ‘But what about guests, and flowers?’ Klara sputtered. What about all the pomp that mattered to an arrogant man like himself? He married to be seen, to make a spectacle about himself.

  He flashed a cool grin. ‘I find that I simply want to bind you to me more than anything.’ His gaze travelled over her. ‘I can hardly wait for our wedding night, when I can erase every trace of the Cossack from you and show you what an Englishman can do.

  ‘Do you think he’ll come after you?’ His eyes glinted with malevolence and madness. ‘He’s welcome to, although I doubt he’ll be successful.’ His gaze went to the pistol in his lap. ‘I’ll shoot first and seek your forgiveness later if you do anything untoward.’ He turned into a narrow street. ‘Let me be clear as to what that means: it means no crying out, no protesting, no stalling with the vicar. You will say your vows without complaint and I’ll let him live. But one misstep from you and I will shoot him. Do you understand? Ah, here we are, my dear.’ He picked up the pistol as he jumped down. ‘Stay where you are and I’ll help you down.’

  ‘Perhaps he won’t come,’ she challenged, sensing Amesbury hoped that he would, so that he could settle this feud once and for all. Amesbury presented her with a horrible dilemma. Hope for rescue and risk Nikolay’s life? Or hope she’d been abandoned to her fate?

  ‘He’ll come, my dear. Now the question is whether or not he’ll come in time? I’ve asked for the short version of service. Wouldn’t it be delicious if he came too late for his effort to make a difference? To see us already enjoying our marital bliss, our for ever after.’ Dear Lord, Amesbury was mad. Diabolically so. His grip on her hand was tight as he led her into the church.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ Klara probed. Information was power and she needed all she could get. Amesbury was a showman. Perhaps if he were bereft of an audience, he’d be inclined to wait.

  ‘I saw what you did to the flowers, my dear.’ Amesbury whispered at her ear. ‘Even numbers and the colour yellow. The worst sort of luck for a superstitious Russian.’ Amesbury was sure Nikolay would come. So was she. That was what had her worried. How did she save both of them now?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Klara was gone. Nikolay knew it the moment he saw the flowers. He counted the buds. Twelve. Six in each vase. Even numbers. And the yellow, bad luck as well. Amesbury had taken her. The butler protested she’d left amicably enough with the Duke to drive. But he knew better. She was with the Duke, that was all that mattered. He knew, as the butler did not, that the Duke had threatened her, that this was the Duke’s revenge against him for exposing his treachery. This was to be the ultimate revenge and the clock was ticking.

  Nikolay began to pace, trying to keep his eyes off the clock, trying not to think about the time passing. The clock would only distract his thoughts. Klara was the perfect piece of revenge, the only tool the Duke had left. Would he want her dead or alive? He put a hand on the back of the sofa to steady himself, the thought nearly inconceivable. Klara dead, perhaps even now floating in the Thames. Or perhaps, Klara was not dead yet. Perhaps she hovered among the living yet, while life drained out of her and he dallied in her drawing room wondering. It was terrible to contemplate. Amesbury was angry enough to do it. In the Duke’s mind, Klara had cuckolded him and Nikolay had shamed him, destroyed him.

  What would he want in retribution for those crimes? Something more enduring than death, Nikolay thought. Amesbury would want the two of them to pay for as long as possible. He’d want a lingering retribution. Perhaps he wouldn’t kill Klara immediately. Amesbury would marry her first, take her dowry as financial recompense for what he’d lost in the arms deal that hadn’t happened. Amesbury could make Grigoriev suffer that way. And it was obvious how he meant to make him suffer—Nikolay gritted his teeth—by keeping Klara out of his reach through matrimony.

  The marriage scenario seemed most likely. But where? There were over a hundred churches in London. He could eliminate a few. Amesbury wouldn’t take her to the big places, he wouldn’t be able to. It would be small and it would have to be at least moderately close. He’d want to hurry.

  ‘Get me a map of the city and paper, something to write with,’ he barked, and the butler jumped into action. Within minutes, a map had been spread out on a table, weighted down with porcelain statues of dogs. Nikolay put his finger on the Mayfair street where the ambassador lived and traced a circle around it. His mind needed to settle, to stop focusing on the improbability of finding her. He could do this. This was no different than being on campaign and scouting out where the enemy would be hiding.

  He took the pen and began crossing out unlikely choices: St Martin-in-the-Fields, St George’s, the Grosvenor Square chapel. They were all too well known. He needed little and desperate. The Duke would not drag her to St Giles or Whitechapel, of that he was fairly sure. The Duke wouldn’t risk being mugged. Some place in between. Nicolay’s finger tapped on the Strand. Not overly shabby, but certainly not uptown. He would start there. He scribbled a hasty note. ‘Send this to Kuban House, give it to Stepan Shevchenko. Tell him what’s happened. Tell him to bring help.’ Then he was off, bolting down the front steps and swinging up on to Cossack. It would be faster to navigate a horse than a carriage through London streets, perhaps that advantage would help. He’d already lost twenty minutes. He would lose forty-five by the time he reached the Strand.

  * * *

  The first church he checked was empty. So was the second. A clock chimed four in the distance. Had he missed them? Had he guessed wrong? Were they even now at some other church in some other neighbourhood? London seemed suddenly immense and Klara was counting on him.

  He was a street from the third church when its weathered wooden doors burst open, a well-dressed man and woman emerging—too well dressed for the Strand. The man was tugging, the woman pulling. They did not look happy.

  ‘It’s not legal until it’s consummated!’ The woman tugged at the man’s grip on her hand and spat in his face, cursing loudly...in Russian. Then her face turned towards him as she scanned the street, looking for something, for someone. Klara!

  She saw him and screamed. ‘Nikolay!’ But Amesbury had seen him, too. Amesbury held her bodily now, dragging her, carrying her to the curricle. He saw Amesbury dump her on to the seat and climb over her to pick up the reins and turn his team into traffic. No, he wouldn’t let them get away! Nikolay urged Cossack to a quicker pace, as quick as he could manage in the crowded street. Damn it! He was losing them. They had a head start and traffic in their favour, carters with their last deliveries of the day filling up the narrow streets.

  They turned and he followed, forcing Cossack to a fast trot, weaving in and out between wagons, earning a vivid vocabulary from the drivers. He was closing on them when Amesbury turned and raised the pistol, shooting into the crowd between him and the curricle. Klara screamed and Nikolay ducked reflexively. If he’d meant to scare the horse, he’d misjudged. Cossack, well trained for battle and bullets, kept going, dodging the ensuing chaos. But not every horse was as well trained. Nikolay swore, pulling Cossack hard to the right as a wagon overturned in front of him, spilling barrels everywhere. He kicked Cossack and rose up into the two-point position over the horse’s neck. There was no choice but to jump them. Cossack soared, one barrel, then two, three, and they were clear.

  Nikolay’s blood was pounding now, as the curricle headed towards the river. This was battle and he was trained for it, if only he had some speed. There was no room to manoeuvre. Traffic boxed him in. He couldn’t go around, couldn’t go under. Through! He could go through it. Without hesitation, Nikolay leaped from Cossack’s back to the nearest wagon. Cossack would follow as he could. Nikolay began to climb, to leap from one wagon to the next, going through and over the traffic, always making movement towards Amesbury’s curricle.

  He could see Klara clearly now, pale-faced and furious, fighting Amesbu
ry for the pistol, and it drove fear into him. Didn’t she know the dangers? That pistol could go off. He bit back his panic at the thought of Klara’s danger. This was what he’d feared the most—being unable to save the person he loved and now that fear was playing out in front of him. All the skill in the world couldn’t help him move London traffic. He pushed his worry away and focused on the task at hand. One more wagon and he’d be there. The river was on his left now, the river road narrow. He balanced himself and leapt for the curricle, landing on the tiger’s seat at the back.

  Amesbury whipped his head around, his pistol arm back, but Nikolay was ready for him. He grabbed Amesbury’s arm, twisting until there was a sickening crack. Amesbury screamed his pain as his arm broke, the pistol clattered to the dashboard, the horses spooking into a gallop. ‘Klara, the reins!’ Nikolay yelled. But a quick glance told him it was useless, the reins had fallen between the traces. They were on a runaway curricle and their situation had just got infinitely more dangerous. He got an arm around Amesbury’s neck in a stranglehold, dodging punches from Amesbury’s good arm and trying to stay on the carriage. If he lost his hold, he’d never catch up and if Amesbury fought any harder, he’d throw Klara from the carriage. There wasn’t room for all three of them.

  A flash of chestnut caught his periphery. Cossack! The blessed horse, loyal to the end, was running beside the carriage. ‘Klara, jump, get off the carriage! Take Cossack!’ If he could get Klara to safety, he could finish off Amesbury. He saw a flurry of skirts out of the corner of his eye and knew she was safe. Relatively speaking.

  ‘I’ve married her. You’re too late,’ Amesbury gasped as a bump in the road loosened his grip. Nikolay struggled to hold on to the racing curricle. If he fell, he’d be in the river or crushed under the wheels.

  ‘Not if she’s a widow,’ Nikolay snarled, ducking swiftly. Amesbury swiped backwards with a knife from nowhere. It missed his face just barely.

  ‘Let me go, or she’ll get neither of us.’ Amesbury was grunting now, worn down by the pain of his arm. ‘Road’s run out.’ Nikolay chanced a glance ahead. The road indeed ended, in a pier-like embankment. There was nothing beyond but water. He had six hundred feet to make a decision.

  * * *

  He would not die for her! Klara saw the road give out into the river, dark and treacherous. A man would never kick free of the debris of wrecked carriage and horse. She’d managed to get astride Cossack and now she whipped him up with a saddle leather. Faster, faster, they had to pull alongside! Cossack had lost ground when she’d leapt.

  It was risky drawing up next to the curricle as it veered on the narrow road. She risked being forced into the river or being tripped up by the wheels. A less steady horse would have not survived, but Cossack was as steady as they came. He held even.

  ‘Nikolay! Let him go!’ she screamed, panic rising at the disappearing ground. She had to be in time! The carriage veered and she gave up ground and had to try again. ‘Nikolay!’ She reached for him and failed, falling back. The end of the road neared. Cossack was tiring. She had one more chance. She pulled near, nearer than she’d yet dared, the curricle wheels dangerously near Cossack’s hooves. If the vehicle veered now it would be disastrous. She couldn’t reach out for him, she needed both hands for the reins. She gauged the distance. Five seconds and she’d have to cry off, four, three, two, at the last, Nikolay leapt. She felt Cossack’s back take his weight and knew a moment’s joy. Nikolay was safe. She was safe. And then the terror of watching Amesbury’s body flying in the air with an eerie ragdoll likeness as the curricle crashed into the Thames. She turned away, her head buried against Nikolay’s chest as Cossack came to a stop at the water’s edge.

  Riders passed them, led by Stepan. She heard Nikolay bark an order. ‘Get the horses, they’re trying to swim. Get them free!’ The next few minutes were all action as the three men dived into the river, cutting horses free from harnesses. She jumped down with Nikolay, running to the water’s edge to help the horses up on the muddy bank. Thank goodness for action. She didn’t have to think about what had just happened and what had just about not happened. A second later, Nikolay would have been in the water, dead, too.

  Nikolay led her away from the banks, back to Cossack. ‘Are you all right?’ He was wet and muddy, his hair loose, his clothes splattered as he settled his hands, strong and assuring, on her shoulders. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  ‘I’m all right now. You came. That’s all that matters.’ She breathed in slowly and out. She wouldn’t give in to hysteria, not now when it was over and she was safe. He was safe. ‘He wanted to kill you. I had to get him out of the house.’ She was starting to babble.

  ‘And you did.’ Nikolay settled a kiss on her forehead. ‘I never want to feel the way I did today when I discovered you were gone, or when I saw you with him, the pistol between you, or when you nearly came off the carriage.’ He sighed, a deep, cleansing breath. ‘But knowing you, I probably will. I’ll have to get used to it.’

  She melted into him then, wrapping her arms around his body, assuring herself he was whole and hers.

  His arm tightened around her. ‘This might not be the best time to ask, but I was wondering if you could find room in your schedule for a second wedding this week?’

  ‘I could.’ She looked up at him with a smile. ‘I had something I wanted to ask you, too. I have hopes you might be looking for a riding instructor. I hear you have a new mare who might be a steeplechaser.’

  He grinned. ‘I do have a mare and I am looking for an instructor. Do you know any good ones?’

  ‘I hear your wife is a pretty fair rider.’

  He stole a kiss. ‘My wife. I like the sound of that.’

  ‘Do you know what I like the sound of? For ever.’ She’d almost lost him tonight. She wasn’t ready to give him up again to anyone or anything. She wanted for ever to start right now.

  Epilogue

  They did wait. Two months, to be exact. Nikolay insisted on it, saying that when they looked back they would be glad they did it right. A man and a woman only married once. He wanted the day to be perfect and each day after. That meant there was a home to prepare and a riding school to ready. He and Klara had thrown their energies into furnishing the house and repairing the neglected stables. The horses were already there, the mare and foal thriving in their new home at Number Four Leicester Square. Tonight, Klara would join them. His pride as bridegroom demanded he not bring his bride home to a borrowed townhouse for her wedding night, but to her own house, her own bed. Their bed where, God willing, they would make a family over the years.

  Nikolay drew a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves as he stood at the front of the church waiting for her, Stepan beside him, acting as his koumbaros, or best man, the friend who would lead him through the ceremony and into married life. His friends were all here in the front row, including Dimitri and Evie. Evie’s hand rested on the belly protruding beneath her gown, her other hand holding her husband’s. He’d never been as nervous before battle as he was right now staring out over the crowd gathered at London’s Russian Orthodox house church of Dormition of the Mother of God and the Royal Martyrs. The place was packed with Grigoriev’s connections, who were eager to get to know Grigoriev’s new son-in-law. There would be time for that later. Nikolay’s gaze was fixed on the tall doors in the back, his heart waiting for them to open. And then they did.

  His breath caught. His throat tightened at the sight of Klara in her mother’s wedding gown, Russian lace veiling her face, gliding towards him on her father’s arm. These months had been emotional for her as well. Her father had not been in favour of a Russian wedding. He’d wanted St George’s on Hanover Square, something English. But he had relented, coming to grips at last with his past, opening up a future where Klara was free to embrace all parts of her heritage. At the front, her father placed her hand in his and Nikolay lifted the veil to see the green eyes he loved so well a
lready wet with tears of joy.

  The priest, James Smirnov, intoned the opening and service started. Although he’d never thought the ceremony would be applied to him, Nikolay knew the stages by heart: the blessing of the rings, the candles, the crowns with their white ribbons binding he and Klara together for ever. They sipped from the chalice and circled the altar, Stepan and the priest holding the ribbons of the crowns behind them. The priest began the final benediction, ‘Be thou o magnified...walk in peace...work in righteousness... Na zisete. May you live.’

  He would live. They would live. Together. Every day a blessing in this new world. He bent to kiss her, his mouth hovering just above hers as he whispered his own benediction, ‘Klara, I love you.’ The old world had gone. Everything had become fresh and new, a world where a warrior could be saved by love, proving anything was possible. That was a world and a woman worth fighting for.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story

  why not explore the critically acclaimed

  WALLFLOWERS TO WIVES quartet,

  also by Bronwyn Scott?

  Read:

  UNBUTTONING THE INNOCENT MISS

  AWAKENING THE SHY MISS

  CLAIMING HIS DEFIANT MISS

  MARRYING THE REBELLIOUS MISS

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE MISTRESS AND THE MERCHANT by Juliet Landon.

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