by Sandra Heath
“I shall take that as a compliment, sir,” Valentin responded, leaning back against one of the trestles and then glancing around with a twist of contempt on his lips. “So this is where Britain’s finest ceramic ware is made? How very primitive and modest, to be sure.”
“One does not need more.”
“I will take your word for it, but can see why Britain will never emulate France in such matters. Porcelain of Sèvres quality cannot possibly come out of this hovel. Surely you will admit that, Mr. Billersley?” Valentin was careful to use John’s real name, as a reminder of the hold he had over him.
“Enough of this engrossing chitter chatter, sir,” John said dryly. “What exactly is required of me?”
“You have the tureen?”
“I have three tureens,” John replied.
“Three? My, how industrious you are, to be sure.”
“Select whichever pleases you,” John invited, indicating the magnificently decorated and gilded tureens on the trestle farthest from the wharf.
Valentin stared at them, for items of such rare beauty were the last thing he’d really expected to find. He had never seen such delicate white-and-gold pâte tendre, or such lavish yet exquisite gilding and applied beading. As for the extravagantly painted decoration of flowers and fruit, it was so true to life that he felt he could pluck one of the peaches and eat it.
The brushwork was almost diaphanous, the colors as soft as in nature, and the technical skill so great that Valentin had to concede that it was probably unequaled even at Sèvres—not that he would have admitted it to John, of course.
“I do not care which one it is,” he said, pretending not to be impressed. “All I care is that you can conceal this in the lid or the base, wherever it is best.” He produced the diamond, and held it up so that it flashed blood-red in the light from the candle.
John stared at it. “Great God above, it’s the diamond from the Tower of London!”
“That’s right, my dear sir, and all you have to do is make it safe from discovery so that it can be taken to Russia, where it belongs.”
John gave an incredulous laugh. “Make it safe from discovery? In a soup tureen? You’re quite mad. And anyway, the tureens are complete.”
“Are they?” Valentin crossed to pick one up, glancing first in the lid, and then picking up the base and looking underneath. “There are places where you can conceal the stone. A little unfired clay, a little paint, and voila.”
John gazed at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course. You don’t imagine I have gone to all this trouble simply to pass the time? The czar wants a soup tureen that will rank with the British porcelain purchased by his beloved grandmother, Catherine the Great. He also wants the diamond, which he believes will look fetching in his private cabinet alongside its twin. So here I am, eager to kill the two birds with but one stone,” Valentin laughed at his own wit.
“And I am to go back to St. Petersburg in order to face your uncle’s revenge. Is that right?”
“I imagine there is something like that, but I do not know my uncle’s purpose. He has kept it to himself, except to say that it is a matter of the heart, and that I should bear in mind the old saying that there is no one as jealous as a Dalmatian.”
Valentin eyed John. “You are like him, aren’t you? Another old queen. You girls fell out over something ... or was it someone?”
John’s face went a dull red. “That is none of your business.”
“Nor do I wish it to be, believe me. I despise your kind.” Valentin tossed the diamond into the air and then caught it again. “So perform the miracle, John Billersley. Hide this little bauble in the wretched tureen, and then I will be able to go back to the castle and ... relax a little.”
John took the diamond from him. “It will take a little time,” he warned.
“Don’t think to fob me off or trick me, because if you do, it will be the worse for you. And for the relatives of someone I am told you once loved,” he added. “I do not know who they are, except there are four brothers, two sisters, and a mother, all my uncle’s serfs.”
Nikolai and the entire Trepov family had been Paul Dalmatsky’s serfs. John turned away, unable to even look at Valentin.
“Do everything that is required, and their blood will not be on your conscience,” Valentin said softly.
“Do you even understand what conscience is?” John inquired, the lightness of his tone belying the utter loathing and disgust he felt for this man and his absent, although omnipresent, uncle.
“I do not need to.” Valentin took out his pistol, and smiled. “So get on with it, and don’t take long, because my patience is thin. And remember, when I have gone but the diamond is still here, you will have seven deaths to your credit if you do anything foolish.”
With a heavy heart John set about mixing the tiny amount of clay he would need for the task. He decided to conceal the diamond in the lid, where an indentation beneath the knob seemed an obvious place. When he finished, it would be impossible for the average eye to tell the ceramic finish had been tampered with, and there would certainly be no way of knowing that the notorious red diamond was hidden inside it.
At the door, Ellie looked anxiously at Athan. “You were right about Prince Paul killing two birds with one stone, for this concerns Nikolai Trepov as well! We must do something, Athan!” she breathed.
He drew her outside to the wharf, where he removed his coat to place it around her shoulders. “I agree that something must be done, but what?” he said, keeping his voice very low so that no sound should penetrate the workroom.
She spoke softly too. “Uncle John’s newspaper was full of the diamond’s theft this morning! And now it’s here, within a few feet of us....” She put shaking hands to her cheeks, trying to think clearly, but her mind was racing too much.
Her thoughts flew back to her meeting with Gwilym by St. Dwynwen’s well. I can see that you will cross seas, and ... that you will hold a diamond in your hand, a diamond as red as blood.
Athan pulled her into his arms, and held her tightly.
She hid her face against his chest. “Poor Uncle John, this is so cruel! If this should be discovered, he will go to jail and never be allowed out again.” An even more dreadful thought struck her, and she looked up at him again. “The diamond is part of the Crown Jewels! Does that mean this crime is one of high treason?”
Athan smiled and shook his head as he continued to embrace her. “I think that is very doubtful.” His mind was racing too, but not entirely without the glimmer of a plan. As a possibility began to form, he suddenly held her away and tilted her face so that he could kiss her tenderly on the lips. “Leave it all to me, my love. I will do whatever is necessary.”
“What do you have in mind?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “That is for me to know, and you not to concern yourself about. Just don’t say anything to your uncle about what we’ve heard and seen here tonight. Nothing at all, do you understand?”
“Nothing? But he will need my comfort and support.”
“No, Ellie, he needs to behave exactly as Valentin expects him to behave, and he can only do that really well if he is unaware of our involvement. Well, my involvement anyway, because I am determined that you are to be protected at all times. That means no St. Petersburg for you.”
She bridled a little. “You cannot make me stay behind.”
“No, that’s true, but I will beg you to do as I wish in this. Trust me, my darling, because it’s for the best.”
“And you won’t tell me what you have in mind?” She didn’t argue any more about St. Petersburg, because nothing, nothing, was going to make her stay behind.
“No, because I’ve barely thought it through myself. All I want you to do now is return to your bed and try to sleep.”
“I can’t possibly do that, not while all this is happening.”
“Do as you are told, Miss Rutherford,” he said gently, and smoothed her hair
back from her face. He was so sentient of everything about her that it was almost as if they breathed as one. The rhythm of their heartbeats was a single sound, the stirring of their desire the manifestation of complete union.
He touched her face again. “Would that I too could ascend those stairs and slip beneath the coverlet with you,” he whispered. “Would that I could make love to you over and over until my strength was drained and my passion sated for a while.”
She was oblivious to the cold as she pressed to him again. Memories returned of the wedding night she had seen because of the tea leaves, memories that even now, when danger was only a few feet away, had the power to kindle desire through her.
She raised her lips to be kissed, and he was not slow to obey such tender bidding. He was aroused by the soft warmth of her body, which was so willing and needful beneath her nightclothes. His masculinity came readily to life, so eager for her that his hands slid down to her buttocks, pulling her onto him so there was nothing she could not feel. He heard her sigh, and felt the tremor of excitement that shivered through her, oh, such excitement.
She awakened to him, her body answering his, and as he pressed her even harder onto his ardent virility, he knew that she was experiencing the deep, delicious joy of physical pleasure. Maybe it was not the ecstasy of complete consummation, but it made her heart beat wildly in her breast and brought a flush to her entire body.
He found her lips again, so longing to press her to the wall, free the monstrous erection that pounded at his loins, and sink into her warmth, that he felt close to the very edge of restraint. He was a man of the world, far from celibate, but he had never experienced feelings as strong as these, never known the incredible power of absolute love. To send her from him now would require tremendous strength of will, but somehow he managed to draw back from her. “Go,” he whispered.
“Athan—”
He stopped her words with a last kiss so sensuous with pent-up desire that he had to push her toward the cellar door. “Go,” he breathed again, “before I forget I am a gentleman and surrender to a need that right now consumes me like the basest lust. If you would keep your chastity, Ellie Rutherford, leave me while I am yet in control and worthy of your love.”
Slowly she slipped his coat from her shoulders and returned it to him, then she caught up her skirts to hurry softly into the cellar, past the workroom door, and up through the house to her bed. There she curled up, her flesh still warm with the joy he’d given her. Wild sensations tingled over her skin, wonderful sensations that seemed to ease her soul. She felt in her heart that everything was going to be all right.
Neither of the Russian princes would achieve his aim, Uncle John would be free to live his life as he wished and would enjoy the recognition and reward his talent deserved, and she and Athan would indeed share the wedding night shown to her through a supernatural fantasy.
Athan remained on the wharf, his tumult of emotion gradually subsiding now she was no longer with him. He drew a long breath and clenched his fists tightly to bring back some semblance of composure. Then he glanced at the cellar door. The plan that had begun to take shape was not impossible. He would have to think carefully, but he was sure it would work.
Leaving John still closeted in the workroom with Valentin, he made his way up the alley to the road, and then rode back to Castle Griffin.
Chapter Twenty-four
John had very little to say the next morning. He looked tired and drawn, would not have any breakfast, and closeted himself alone in his workroom. Ellie longed to break her promise to Athan, but did not. If he thought it was best for poor Uncle John not to know anything, then she would go along with his wish—for the time being, at least, because she had a little more faith in her uncle’s ability to conceal their involvement from Valentin. It should not be forgotten that John Arbuthnot Billersley had been playing a part for years, and in many ways had already proved himself a consummate actor.
Ellie lingered over another cup of tea in the sunlit kitchen, and Mrs. Lewis watched her for some time before eventually coming to the point. “The gentleman in the fancy uniform came here late last night, didn’t he, Miss Ellie?”
“Oh? I don’t know. I was asleep.” But Ellie couldn’t meet the housekeeper’s eyes.
“He has upset Mr. Bailey,” Mrs. Lewis went on.
“My uncle is certainly not in a happy mood this morning.”
“Gwilym came here not long after first light. He said that it would be of benefit if you and I were in the front garden this morning, at about noon.”
Ellie looked at her at last. “In the garden? Why?”
Mrs. Lewis shrugged. “I don’t know, Miss Ellie, but I think it’s best we do as he says. We will do a little spring weeding, or some such thing to pass the time. That way we will not stand out.”
From what? Ellie wondered.
“Shall we do that?” the housekeeper inquired.
“Yes, of course.”
* * *
The amiable morning weather had lured Fleur and Valentin for a ride along the bank of the Taff. Athan ought to have been with them, but couldn’t find the stomach for their company, so he’d taken refuge behind the amount of estate and stud affairs, local politics, and general county matters that had accumulated in his absence.
Fleur’s flirtatious conduct at the dinner table had aroused his suspicion that she would actually be so brazen as to commence a liaison with Valentin, but her manner had been more circumspect in the solar, and by the time she retired she’d been the very model of propriety. Athan wished it were otherwise, for to trap her in such a dalliance would give him all the reason in the world to send her and her mother packing—and Valentin too, for that matter.
Valentin’s prolonged visit to Nantgarth House seemed to preclude any notion of visiting Fleur’s apartment on his return, and at breakfast she had been the model of good behavior, displaying no particular interest in the Russian. As for Valentin, he was more interested in feeding like a horse at a trough, seeming able to devour enough for four.
His morning conversation was nonexistent, and his charm as nonexistent as ever. Athan construed that the attraction that had been obvious at dinner had, for whatever reason, abruptly faded into nothing. He was even persuaded by Fleur’s display of disappointment when he declined to join the suggested morning ride by the Taff.
Athan’s calculations were, of course, entirely wrong, and as she and Valentin enjoyed the fine morning air along the riverbank, Fleur was in a sleek mood. Valentin was a lover such as none she had known before, and had not even come to her apartment in the conventional manner. No doors for him; instead he had climbed down the ivy on the outside wall, his rooms being providentially directly above hers.
It had delighted Fleur to have her prince arrive in such a time-honored fairy-tale fashion, and she had subsequently relished his rough but vigorous notion of lovemaking. He may not have had finesse, or the ability to prolong a single act of pleasure, but he possessed the sort of rampancy that enabled him to provide his services over and over, thus satiating even a woman of her reckless promiscuity. Today she was exhausted, but that would not prevent her from repeating the exercise tonight; indeed, she could hardly bear the suspense of waiting.
She looked elegant and stylish, wearing a new yellow silk riding habit that had arrived only the day before from her Cardiff dressmaker. With it she put a brown satin jockey bonnet that trailed a floating white gauze scarf, and tight brown leather gloves that had required much finger-flexing to put on.
It flattered her vanity to have Valentin at her side, because his eye-catching uniform turned every head they passed, and the fact that he was so darkly handsome and exuded such an air of almost primitive virility made it all the better. She didn’t so much ride with him as parade with him, exulting in the stir that followed wherever they went.
They rode back to Castle Griffin through Nantgarth, toward the canal bridge and Nantgarth House, where Ellie and Mrs. Lewis were busying themselves w
ith the promised weeding. The “gardeners” kneeled on a mat apiece, pretending to be intent upon things horticultural, when in fact they were constantly glancing all around, waiting for noon and wondering what to expect. Daffodils and hyacinths nodded in the breeze, the camellia was so bright with flowers that it was almost dazzling, and a robin sang in the holly bush.
The kilns had been freshly fired, with curls of smoke rising high over the budding spring greenery of the nearby woods, and there was the sound of a fine tenor voice from the canal, where a barge was approaching the bridge from the direction of Cardiff. It was not alone in approaching the bridge, for Fleur and Valentin were too; indeed, they went over as the barge slid under.
The tenor voice broke off in midnote, and the man to whom it belonged exclaimed loudly in Welsh, raising his rather battered hat to wave it up at Fleur.
Fleur ignored him, but moved her horse on more quickly, Valentin turned in the saddle to look down at the barge, then looked at Fleur. “Is he addressing you?”
“No, I think not,” she replied. Her cheeks were suddenly fiery, and she glanced back at the man on the canal as if she wished he would drown before her eyes.
The backward glance encouraged the boatman, who shouted to her again, clearly under the impression of knowing her. Fleur’s response was to spur her mount on so that it broke into a swift canter that soon placed distance between her and the canal. Valentin hesitated, then rode after her.
Ellie looked askance at Mrs. Lewis. “What’s happened? What did the man say?”
“Come with me, and you will find out,” the housekeeper answered, and scrambled hastily to her feet. Ellie followed her out of the garden and then down to the wharf, just as the barge slid by, drawn by a horse on the towpath.
Mrs. Lewis hailed the boatman in Welsh, and Ellie could tell she was asking him to stop so she could talk to him.
The man, a burly fellow whose barrel chest housed the lungs of an undiscovered opera singer, cupped his hands to shout ahead to the boy who accompanied the horse, then steered the barge to the canal bank just beyond the works. He jumped ashore and made the mooring rope fast to a bollard. He then removed his hat and grinned at Mrs. Lewis, but as he began to speak in Welsh again, the housekeeper interrupted in English.
