by Gaelen Foley
Alec had been evasive, but that bit of information was well worth tucking away in the back of his mind.
“I hear you are winning again, by the by. Will you be entering the annual whist tournament?” the Regent added with a knowing look askance.
Alec had forced a rueful smile, strolling beside him with his hands clasped behind his back. “I fear not, sire. Too rich for my blood. The entry fee this year is, what, ten thousand pounds?”
“Your friend Draxinger tells me he has bought in.”
“That’s because Parthenia Westland asked him to play,” Alec murmured confidentially. “We are to pretend, however, that my Lord Draxinger has no particular attachment to that lady whatsoever.”
“Ah, I see.” Prinny looked pleased at being included in the Society gossip.
“Do you plan to join in the game, sire?”
“Indubitably. Pity it’s only whist, though. Dreadfully dull. Give me faro, hazard. “
Alec had laughed politely at the Regent’s eager mention of the games that had been his own nemesis.
At present, his attention ambled back to the foreman explaining the workmen’s various projects. “Over there, my lords can see the kitchens, which are complete. Here we’re building the banqueting hall, and on the other end they’re working on the music room.” The foreman’s voice trailed off as something in the distance caught his eye.
Furrowing his brow, Alec turned and followed his glance. At once his eyes narrowed and he felt a sudden chill in the warm afternoon. A black traveling chariot trimmed in silver was wheeling around the crescent-shaped road that banded the Pavilion’s front garden. It was drawn by six black horses with white plumes on their heads and surrounded by an escort of mounted Cossack guards in full regalia.
Kurkov.
So, the reprieve was over. Their enemy had finally come, arriving right on schedule for the Lieven ball tomorrow night. Making a damned showy entrance, at that. Alec’s heart began to pound fiercely.
Becky.
He had to go to her. Warn her. Make sure she stayed out of sight. He did not know how he would face her, but that mattered less than his overwhelming need to keep her safe.
He did not even try to explain himself to his friends, but clipped out a curt farewell and excused himself abruptly, striding off across the sculpted grounds.
“Alec?” Fort called.
“Knight, where are you going?” Rush demanded.
He didn’t answer; he didn’t even look back.
Jumping up into his hired phaeton, he urged the pair of cherry bays into motion; a moment later the light, fast carriage went barreling down the street, the horses’ hooves clattering over the cobblestones. He knew his hasty exit would seem entirely bizarre to his companions, but there would be time for apologies later. It was a grim enough matter to ponder what Becky would have to say to him when he walked through that door.
Becky had nothing to say to him.
No, Alec was the one who had blasted well better start talking, so far as she was concerned, and an apology for the callous way he had walked out earlier was only the start of what she wanted to hear.
Before all of this had happened, she had meant to continue on with her day as usual. Wash up in the kitchen. Make the sauce for the pudding. Work some more on her knitting for the babe. But after that conflagration, she did none of this.
Moments after his desertion, she had walked up to their bedchamber, hurt and dazed, and sat down on a chair in a state of astonishment.
She couldn’t believe that he had left in the middle of the crisis between them, more concerned, apparently, with keeping up appearances before the Regent than mending the huge tear in their hours-old betrothal. She knew the supposed urgency of his visit to the Pavilion was just an excuse.
He had shut her out.
Becky clenched her jaw and fumed, glaring at the summer bed, twisting his signet ring angrily on her finger, half tempted to take it off, but that seemed too harsh, too definite a rejection. She did not want an end to their affection, but if he did not tell her what this deep dark secret of his was, then she was going to have to reconsider marrying him at all.
Whoever Mr. Dunmire was, whatever Lady Campion had meant by her tirade, lacking Alec’s explanation, her mind conjured up all sorts of ominous possibilities that she assured herself were probably worse than the truth. He was Alec, after all. He was a wonderful person and she loved him. How bad could it be?
But in spite of herself, the gnawing fear that had set in shook her faith to its foundations. Had she not told him her entire story weeks ago, when they had sat together in that little church? She had taken the risk of trusting him, so why couldn’t he do the same? It hurt to think that he had been deliberately keeping secrets from her all this time. As much as he had urged her again and again to trust him at the start of their alliance, now she was beginning to wonder if maybe she shouldn’t have.
All she knew for certain was that she did not like being kept in the dark.
Listening constantly for the sound of his return, she fought not to let her fears run away with her and ordered herself again to await his explanation.
At last, she heard his carriage come clattering back down the lane. A few minutes later, Alec came into the room.
She looked at him coolly over her steepled fingers, her elbows resting on the chair’s arms, her legs crossed. She held him in an unblinking stare. With a subtle blanch, he dropped his gaze and ventured cautiously into the room, taking off his jacket.
“I’m back.”
“So I see.”
He glanced over guardedly at her cool tone, putting his coat down on the bed. He kept a safe distance and leaned against one of the bedposts a few feet away. He folded his arms across his chest. As he studied the carpet, she could almost see him casting about for any neutral topic. She offered nothing, but with considerable satisfaction let the villain squirm.
From beneath his dusky lashes, Alec’s searching gaze was hopeful, ginger, conciliatory; but the trace of stubbornness that hardened the angles of his jaw suggested he was still unprepared to explain himself.
We’ll just see about that.
“Kurkov’s come to town,” he announced, treading carefully. “You’re going to have to be mindful again about staying out of sight.”
“Fine.”
He licked his lips and dropped his chin, his forelock falling into his eyes. “How much did you hear?”
“Not enough to make sense of it.”
The scoundrel had the nerve to look relieved. He ventured forward and went down on one knee before her chair, laying his hand on her forearm. “Don’t let her ruin what we have, Becky. Please. She has no hold over me. She had no right to come here. You’re everything to me—”
“Charm won’t work this time, Alec.” She withdrew her wrist from his light grasp and folded her arms across her middle. “I want answers. Real ones.”
He stiffened, rose, and turned away, pacing over to the window. Resting his hands on the sill, he gazed unseeingly at the sunny cobbled street below. “What happened between Eva and me is a closed chapter of my life, Becky. One I wish neither to return to nor discuss.”
She fixed him in a quelling stare, tamping down frustration. Sometimes he was the most magnificent warrior she had ever seen, the dreamiest lover she could imagine; and then there were moments like this, when he shut her out so completely. “Alec, why don’t you just tell me what it is and get it over with?”
Turning from the window, he narrowed his eyes in agitation. “If you simply would have listened to me and stayed away as I had asked, all of this could have been avoided.”
“So, it’s my fault?” she exclaimed, shooting to her feet. “You said it was your friends who had come calling, but when I walked past, instead I heard you talking to a woman! What was I supposed to think?”
“Oh, so that’s why you jeopardized everything?” He leaned his hips back against the windowsill, his arms still folded across his chest. “For a bout
of female jealousy?”
Her jaw dropped. “You are unbelievable!” She took a step toward him. “You are not going to manipulate me, Alec. Stop trying to twist everything around as if I’ve done something wrong, just so you don’t have to tell me what’s really going on!”
He fell silent. He dropped his gaze, but his roiling scowl made her wonder if he even realized what he had been doing. After a second he turned back to the window and stared out of it, stubbornness solidifying before her very eyes. “Eva’s a wicked person, and I’ve been wicked, too, at times. But I’ve left it behind me, I’m not going to crawl, and you’re just going to have to accept my apology if you want us to be together.”
Becky stared at him in astonishment, then shook her head and stalked out of the room, banging the door shut behind her.
What a miserable state of affairs.
By some miracle, he had been spared. Becky had not heard enough specifics to piece the sordid tale together—which left Alec in the untenable position of having to tell her the whole story himself. He couldn’t do it. He was too ashamed. Afraid he’d lose her if she knew. Gambler though he was, what they’d found together was too precious to risk.
Unfortunately, over the next day and a half he began to see that he ran an equal risk of losing her if he did not speak up, go to her, spill his guts. He was not even sure if they were still engaged or not, and frankly was afraid to ask.
With every passing hour that he deliberated over what to do, keeping his distance, his frustrated thoughts churning in circular motion—yes, no, tell her, keep your mouth shut—he could feel their magic slipping through his fingers.
She had obviously made up her mind not to ask him for explanations anymore. Nor did she utter another word of reproach—she didn’t need to. Her silent treatment said it all. Obviously she had no intention of budging from her position, despite his vague hope that she might realize it was too awful to discuss and let it go. Her tenacious resolve to know the full truth was palpable in the air. It filled the house. Through walls and stairs and ceilings, he could feel her waiting, waiting for him to come to her, open his heart and speak his piece. But, God, what was he going to say? How could he even find the words? And even if she was miraculously willing to forgive him, Alec was not sure she should.
With every hour that he refused to confess, she grew more distant, increasingly withdrawn. He despaired, damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. The only thing that he could do was brace for the loss as best he could by pulling back from Becky, in return.
In the final hours leading up to the Lieven ball, they lived like strangers under the same roof. It was awful. Soon, if all went according to plan, he would hand over the deed to her precious Talbot Old Hall, maybe within a few days, and then what? he wondered, brooding as he finished dressing for the ball. It would be easy for her to get rid of him once he had fulfilled his oath to help her. At last, they would be . . . even.
They could go their separate ways without remorse.
The thought darkened his mood even further.
Before long Alec was sauntering through the crowded ballroom with Fort and Draxinger in tow. The fashionable four were only three tonight: Rushford had cried off with a headache that still persisted from last night’s overindulgence in drink.
Hundreds of winking candles glittered in the grand chandeliers inside the large and commodious assembly rooms where Countess Lieven, wife of the Russian ambassador and leading hostess of the ton, was giving one of her inimitable balls.
There were large arched windows and a row of high white pilasters against the pea-green walls. In the gallery overlooking the ballroom, the musicians serenaded the throng with a dainty air. Plumed heads bobbed in time with the melody; jewels twinkled on highbred throats, earlobes, and fingers. The dancers wove through the elegant figures of a country dance, the ladies’ gowns a swirling flower garden of pale pinks and whites, soft yellows and blues, greens and violets. Partnering them, a few of the gentlemen stood out in dashing military dress-uniforms, but the majority were clothed like him—though perhaps not quite so impeccably.
He was, after all, still Alec Knight.
His white-gloved hands elegantly clasped behind his back, Alec, in formal black superfine and white silk brocade waistcoat, strolled with his friends through the assembly rooms, nodding here and there to his acquaintances throughout the ton.
“Lady Jersey, you look radiant,” he complimented the Almack’s patroness with a bow. She blushed like a girl at his offering and tapped his arm coyly with her fan. He might need her later, he thought, along with other influential hostesses, if he managed to keep his bride. If she stayed with him, he would use all his skill to launch her in Society like a princess. Lord, he’d make her a sensation. Not that a stalwart soul like Becky gave a fig for such things.
For now, he kept an eye out for his quarry.
“I still don’t see why you had to go dashing off like that from the Pavilion,” Draxinger was muttering indignantly. “It was quite bad form to leave us all standing there like dunces left to wonder where the devil you were off to.”
“You do seem strange of late, Alec. Are you sure everything is all right?”
“Everything’s grand, Fort,” he muttered, still thinking about the quartet of Cossacks he had seen posted outside, around Kurkov’s showy equipage.
“Drax—look!” Fort said with a sly smile, nodding to the distant refreshment table. “There’s Lady Parthenia.”
The earl stopped in his tracks at the sight of her radiant figure, and then suddenly remembered to act bored. He lifted his quizzing glass nonchalantly to his eye and inspected Westland’s daughter from a safe distance. “Lud, have you ever seen such a big nose?”
“Right,” Alec muttered.
“Methinks, old Draxie, doth protest too much,” Fort said under his breath as he and Alec exchanged a wry glance.
“Oh, leave me alone,” Drax huffed.
They chuckled at his discomfiture and moved on, paying their respects to their host, Count Lieven.
“Ah, Lord Alec! I hear you’re winning again,” the stout Russian murmured as they shook hands. “By the way, have you heard? My prediction was right. Kurkov has joined the Whigs.”
“Well done, sir!” he exclaimed amiably. “You have won me twenty quid. Remind me to buy you a drink when we’re back in London.”
He laughed.
Hm, Alec mused as they moved on, mingling in Society. If Lieven had been right on the first wager—Whig or Tory—what if he was right about the other? There had been discussion of an English bride versus a Russian import. Lieven had opined that Kurkov would choose the former. He might seek a Whiggish alliance.
Alec suddenly looked at Parthenia Westland. She was fluttering her fan and talking excitedly behind it to another girl, but her gaze trailed after someone in the crowd. He frowned and followed the line of Parthenia’s stare.
Kurkov.
Oh, bloody hell. Alec’s pulse quickened to an ominous drumbeat as his stare homed in on his enemy. Kurkov was in full-dress uniform, gold sash, epaulets, and all. Alec curled his lip, wondering if the famous Russian war hero had been courting Westland’s daughter all this time. He wouldn’t put it past him. He only hoped that Parthenia’s icicle nature had held firm against such a formidable suitor. She was the sort of girl who would marry to please her father, and no doubt Westland liked the idea of a son-in-law who had grown up with the Czar and could do things for the party.
Well, he thought, old Westland might judge him and Drax and their friends a lot of “surly jackanapes,” but he doubted the duke would have looked favorably upon Kurkov as a possible son-in-law if he knew about the murder on the moors and the threat of rape on Becky—not to mention the harem of concubines whom Kurkov had boasted all received his harsh regimen of “training.”
Something had to be done.
Alec took Fort aside while Drax stood speaking to a lady—or rather, to the chest of a lady—whose fleshy bosoms threatened to c
ome bursting out of her bodice. Alec looked at them in startlement, then lowered his head discreetly by his friend’s ear.
“Fort, take Drax over to talk to Parthenia.”
“Why?”
“Their foolishness has gone on long enough. If he loses her, he’ll never forgive himself. Flirt with her yourself if it’s the only way to get him to leave off his stupid affectations.”
“You do it. Nobody cares when I flirt with them.”
“Daniel, my lad.” Alec chuckled and clapped his trusty, fellow younger-son on the arm. “You are pure sterling. Never mind that, I’ll be along in a moment. There’s a lady over here I have to talk to,” he said meaningfully.
“Ah,” Fort replied with a knowing nod, scanning the crowd discreetly to try to see who he meant.
Alec hated lying to his mates, but if he told them the truth, they would have leaped into the fray, and there was no way he was risking them against the prince’s Cossacks. His brothers would have been another matter. His brothers could have wiped out a Cossack regiment in time for nuncheon, but his friends were not warriors, just good, solid chaps and high-spirited Corinthians.
As Fort steered Drax toward Parthenia, Alec hoped his friend finally left off with the games and realized his window of opportunity to win the girl he really loved could be closing fast. Ice-princess or no, Parthenia did not deserve to be hurt by Kurkov’s impending doom. After all, once he had Talbot Old Hall in his possession, he and Becky would move on to the task of bringing the prince to justice.
Lifting a fresh drink from the tray of a passing footman, Alec put on a cool half smile and approached Prince Kurkov with an air of rakish ease. Fortunately, he must have made an impression on the prince that day at Brooke’s Club, for Kurkov greeted him with instant recognition.
“Ah. Lord Alexei. Good to see you again.”
