by Gaelen Foley
“Oh, my God.” She stepped back from him, covering her mouth with her hands for a moment. “You always knew it would come down to this, didn’t you? You just didn’t want to tell me.”
Alec stared at her. “Don’t hate me,” he whispered. “I only want to deserve you.”
She saw there was no getting through to him. Her whole body was shaking as she lowered her hands to her sides. “Go. Do what you have to do,” she said bitterly, tears burning in her eyes. “But if you kill him, Alec—if you throw your life away tonight—throw away our life together, then know that you’re doing it for yourself, not for me. I never wanted this. All I wanted was to love you.”
He winced and then lowered his gaze, shaking his head slowly. “I swore on my honor that I would protect you, and that’s what I’m going to do. Now, kiss me good-bye.”
“No!” She took a step backward. “You’re not leaving until we’ve sorted this out!”
“Oh, Becky.” He pinned her in a final searing stare, as though committing her face to memory for all time. His chiseled face was taut, and a fierce blue light shone in his eyes. Without another word, he pulled away from her, pivoted, and began walking away.
“Alec!”
He just kept going.
“Don’t do this to me, Alec, I beg you. You’re all I have,” she choked out, taking a step after him, barely noticing Rush and Fort approaching from behind her.
As Alec reached Draxinger on the beach, she turned her panicked efforts toward the earl. “Lord Draxinger, don’t let him do it!”
Drax glanced back at her anguished shout, his face grim, but he said nothing.
“Alec, wait! She lunged after them, but Fort and Rush caught her by her arms.
“Don’t, Becky,” Rush soothed her. “It’s hard enough for him already.”
“You knew!” she exclaimed, turning on his friends with tears burning in her eyes. “You knew, and yet you let him go?”
“There was no talking him out of it,” Fort said, his face taut and pale.
“We would do the same thing in his place,” Rushford stated.
“You’re all mad! He could die! Don’t you even care?”
“He can win this, Becky. Let him do what he must.”
“No!” She fought them. “Alec!” she screamed after him. “Don’t do this, I’m begging you! Come back to me!” He just kept going, and fury struck her wild grief like a lightning bolt. “Damn your pride!” she flung at his retreating back. “You’d rather die than admit you love me, wouldn’t you? Don’t you leave me, you bastard! I’ll never forgive you if you do this, Alec—please! You’re all I’ve got!” Her pitiful cries had brought a faint glint of tears to her captors’ eyes, but neither of them would bend.
“Come inside, Becky. Let him go.”
“Never. I’ll never let him go—not for either of you!” She wrenched her arms free of their hold and, sobbing, ran into the house.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
The Regent’s yacht was breathtaking in its opulence, containing every luxury a man could want on land or sea, but Alec barely noticed. The players took their places on each side of the square table, partners facing across from each other, and drew straws for the first deal. Norfolk himself, their host from the third round, held the straws in his lordly fist. To Alec’s relief, he and Drax were made partners, while Prince Kurkov and Colonel Tallant had been paired.
Tallant drew the shortest straw and claimed the honor of the opening deal. Alec was displeased. The seat to the dealer’s left was not a happy place to be. It meant he must lead with the opening trick, and everyone knew that the players to take their turn after him had the advantage over him. Worse, Kurkov sat to his left, ensuring that the prince would have the advantage over him for most of the game, except when it was the Russian’s turn to lead. At least it fell to Alec to shuffle, which he did with nimble alacrity, then he handed the cards across the table to Drax, who gave him a confident nod, cut the deck, and gave it to the dealer, in accordance with the ancient rules and traditions of the game. The opening trump suit, as usual, was hearts.
“Shall we?” the tiger-slayer rasped, sweeping their company with his scimitar glance. Then Tallant proceeded to flash out thirteen cards facedown to each man at the table.
The spectators throughout the yacht’s flamboyant saloon leaned in, watching the players’ faces. Their side bets would be flying all night as some of them struggled to recoup the ten thousand they had lost upon being eliminated in the earlier rounds.
As he picked up his cards, Alec did his best to put the echo of Becky’s piteous cries out of his mind so to focus on the game. His heart bled within him behind his cool facade, but he had done all that he could do.
His jaw clenched as he thrust his own suffering aside and evaluated his opening hand without expression. Not bad. Not a perfect deal, but one that he could work with. . . .
The great contest began.
By the seventh trick, Alec and Drax were a solid three points in the lead, but in the eighth, Tallant rallied with the queen of diamonds, claiming the trick. The ninth brought the lead back to Alec. He tossed out his strongest card, the ten of hearts, and took the point, for no one had anything to beat it. By the end of the first deal, he and Drax were one point ahead, their seven tricks beating Kurkov and Tallant’s six.
Frustratingly, the rest of the night progressed that way, the two teams racing neck and neck. Neither could quite pull ahead to the five-point lead necessary to win.
Each time one gained a point, the other soon matched it. Sometimes they were dead even, sometimes one pulled a point or two ahead, but it was not long before the other caught up with tenacious will. It was not until after midnight that Alec and Drax’s lead widened to two points, but at this rate, Alec was beginning to wonder if the game would ever end.
They got up for a stretch at one A.M.
Alec splashed his face and asked for tea with sugar, while Drax used the loo. Strolling around on deck to stretch his legs, Alec gazed up at the graceful sails of the yacht and thought about a little girl who’d once had a navy warship for a nursery. Obviously, her courage had been forged early. Extraordinary.
She was so damned . . . extraordinary.
He gave his brain a break from the extreme concentration, merely staring over the rails at the waves streaming out in white-crested ripples. Again, he thought of Becky and her enraged parting words, that if he risked his neck tonight by killing Kurkov, he would be doing it for himself, not for her. He had brushed it off as absurd when she said it, but maybe there was some truth to it, after all. ’Sblood, if he failed her now, he did not know how he would ever look her in the eye again—let alone look in the mirror. Death seemed at least slightly preferable to going back to Becky empty-handed after they had come so far. . . .
The pain he’d caused her tonight agonized him, but he shook his head to himself. He could not afford this distraction. The game wasn’t over yet.
Revived by the coolness of the night sea air, he left the rails and wandered restlessly toward the fo’c’sle, where he heard Kurkov vaunting affably to his listeners that he would crush the two of them before dawn peeked over the misty horizon.
We’ll see, Alec thought, his brooding gaze fixed on the prince, though he remained unnoticed in the shadows. Kurkov’s angular face and narrow beard looked ghoulish by the orange glimmer of a nearby torch, and Alec realized it was true—he wanted to kill Kurkov, aye, so badly he could taste it. Punish the blackguard for the things he had said and done to Becky. Terrifying her. Sending his Cossack hunting dogs after her. Kurkov had struck her, half strangled her, threatened to rape her, by God. The blackguard deserved a slow and painful death. Patience. All in good time. For now, he watched the prince down a few swigs of vodka, and knew that would make him sleepy, unalert.
Walking back to the table, Alec’s stare homed in on the carving knife next to the roast beef on the sideboard, where footmen offered the gentlemen elaborate refreshments. The w
eapon would be in easy reach if he had need of it.
Drax and he exchanged a hard look. Alec nodded.
On they played.
The boat rocked gently; the candles burned low. So many deals went around and around that the cycle passed through hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs again four times over.
Around two o’clock the Regent gave up quietly fussing about his gout and went to bed in his gilded stateroom, leaving a few of his raffish royal brothers to play host. The raucous royal dukes poured another round of brandy and upped their wagers, never mind that most of them were practically as penniless as Alec.
In a state of grim resolve, Alec sat down to the fourth hour of whist, took a deep breath, and accepted his turn to deal the cards.
Again . . .
Shaken up and confused, Parthenia waited in thin-lipped silence, her arms folded across her chest, as her father sat at his huge desk in the library rereading the terrifying account that had arrived this evening tucked inside the bandbox. She had intercepted it from her maid and opened it personally, as she and the woman who called herself Abby had planned.
After reading it herself, Parthenia had realized that the dark-haired girl’s name wasn’t Abby at all. She had been duped as to the young lady’s real identity, but to her chagrin, Parthenia now understood why. She had heard people whisper about her on occasion, complaining of her pride, saying she gave herself supercilious airs. Even Lord Draxinger had once called her arrogant. Parthenia could not reproach Miss Rebecca Ward for tricking her. Clearly, the girl had needed some way—any way—to make her listen, and so “Abby” had appealed to her vanity as a benefactress of the poor.
Parthenia had learned a bit of a lesson in it; moreover, Miss Ward’s ruse had worked. Parthenia had stalked into her father’s library, pulled him away from his umpteenth late night reading of Voltaire and commanded his full attention, telling him of their strange meeting at the bathing machine.
The duke had squinted at her over his reading spectacles as though she were making it all up, but then Parthenia handed him the report with shaking hands and demanded he read it immediately.
After his first pass, Westland scoffed at the story those pages told. Parthenia made him read it again. Ten minutes later the duke set the last page down, took off his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes wearily with one hand.
“Well?” she asked nervously, warming her arms with her palms in the eerie chill that had taken hold of her at the thought that she had been courted by a killer. “What do you think?”
Her father braced his cheek on his knuckles and stared intently at the candle flame. “I do not know, daughter. I am at a loss! It could be a trick. Kurkov has enemies, as do all powerful men. I certainly do.”
“No enemy has ever accused you of torturing a man, secretly holding him prisoner in an outbuilding, and then shooting him in the back, Papa!”
“But the prince told me himself that his young cousin was unstable. Such things often run in great families. Remember, she tried to break into our house. . . .” His voice trailed off uncertainly, his expression darkening. “But perhaps there was another reason for that.”
“Of course, Papa. She was trying to get you to listen. It’s all so clear now! Do you really think these pages read like the ramblings of a lunatic? The writing is logical, perfectly lucid. I assure you that the person I spoke to at the ladies’ beach was as sane as you and I.”
They stared at each other with the grim prospect hanging ominously upon the air between them. Both contemplated the unnerving thought that they had hosted many times a murderer in their house—a murderer so bent on hiding his crime that he would hire one of their own servants to spy on them, if what Miss Ward claimed was true.
For the great majority of the time, aristocrats went about their business blissfully unaware of how much they depended moment by moment upon the silent horde of servants that attended to their needs around the clock. To think that one of those servants might mean them harm struck dread in their hearts.
“I’m afraid it’s even worse than that.” Parthenia walked over to his desk and blew out the candle. “If you don’t believe these pages, perhaps you’ll believe your own eyes. Papa, come over to the window,” she murmured, moving the curtain aside.
Westland groped his way through the darkness until he had found his way to her side.
“Miss Ward’s report said we’re being watched,” she whispered. “Look and see for yourself.” She pointed toward the leafy back corner outside of their house.
Her father’s eyes narrowed. Parthenia heard his low intake of breath as he made out the large black silhouette of a male figure loitering in the shadows beneath the trees.
“They’re all around the perimeter of the house. I’ve already checked. It’s true, Papa. Mikhail’s not only spying on us through one of our domestics, he’s also got us under guard.”
“Damn him!” Westland breathed, turning to scan in the other direction. There, too, he found the skulking shape of a lurker in the darkness. He let the curtain fall and pulled her away from the window. “Oh, Parthenia, I am so sorry,” he uttered, leaning against the back of a nearby wing chair to steady himself. “It would seem the prince has been manipulating me for weeks—and I pushed you toward him.”
“It’s all right, Father.” She clutched his arm, instinctively huddling near him for protection, for if they had been in this danger without even knowing it, who could say what would happen now that they were aware of Mikhail’s scrutiny?
“How could I have been so bloody stupid?”
“Never mind that, Papa. I never really cared for Mikhail, anyway. I was only letting him court me to please you.”
“You were?” he asked abruptly.
“Oh, Father, my heart has always belonged to Lord Draxinger.”
“What?” he cried.
A sudden pounding knock on the distant front door reached them in the library.
Parthenia glanced toward it with a gulp, wide-eyed in the dark. “Who can that be at this hour?”
“I do not know,” her father murmured, moving in front of her. “I will go and see who it is.”
“Let the butler get it!”
“He could be the one who’s spying on us,” he reminded her coolly.
“Well, then, I’m coming with you.”
“No, Parthenia, stay back. I will handle this.”
Her heart pounding, she ignored his order with a willful scowl and followed her sire at a cautious distance as he made his way toward the entrance hall.
“Westland! Westland, open up!”
Parthenia saw her father wave off the butler with a suspicious glance. The duke went personally to the front door. He laid his hand on the knob while the person outside continued knocking.
“Westland! I must speak to you at once!”
Her father threw the door open abruptly.
“Westland!” Count Lieven exclaimed, his fleshy face illumined by the lanterns flanking the front door. The Russian ambassador was visibly taken aback to find the duke answering his own door.
“Come in, what is it?” Parthenia heard her father say.
“Your Grace, we crave a moment of your time.” Out of breath and dabbing at his sweaty, bald pate, Count Lieven stepped inside with another man, unknown to Parthenia. “We have come with dire news.”
“Regarding?”
“Your protégé, Kurkov,” Lieven said grimly. “I’m just back from London. Can you tell me where he is?”
Eva glided into the Cossacks’ midst with a feline smile, dressed in her dark riding habit with a tall-brimmed hat and a long riding crop. They stared at her intrusion, halting in their tasks, some roasting their dinners over the fireplace, others cleaning their saddles.
“Does anyone speak English?” she inquired, whisking the train of her riding habit gracefully around her. “Right, then. Parlez-vous français?”
One of the men stood. Eva drew in her breath, eyeing the great iron hulk. “My my.” So many men, s
o little time.
“I speak French,” the Cossack officer said to her in that tongue, drying his hands on a small towel.
“And you are?”
“I am Sergei, the sergeant of this company. How may I help you, my lady? His Highness is at the whist drive—”
“Yes, well, if you gentlemen will come with me, we will fetch him a little present. Interested?”
Sergei stared at her with a sudden flare of excitement in his eyes. “You’ve found the girl?”
“I may know where she is.”
Immediately, he ordered his men to their horses. Within ten minutes they were on their mounts and riding to the Knight family’s neat stuccoed house by the beach.
Eva’s heart raced as she reined in with Sergei beside her. “There,” she murmured, nodding at the darkened villa.
“You are sure?”
She nodded with a knowing half smile.
Sergei gave an order to his men. At once they were off their horses, drawing their weapons, creeping stealthily toward the house. Eva stayed back, watching in breathless excitement.
In the wavering moonlight, she could see Mikhail’s men testing windows and doors. One scaled a rose trellis silently, mounting to the second story window. Everywhere, they were swarming the house—and for a moment Eva’s heart quaked as she wondered if she had gone too far this time.
Suddenly, shots rang out—shouts broke through the night—an opening volley and return fire. She turned her face away with a frightened gasp as someone screamed. Eva steadied her horse as Mikhail’s men stormed the villa.
“May I stay, Father?” Parthenia asked, relighting the candles in the library, into which Westland had shown Count Lieven and the mysterious stranger that the Russian ambassador had brought with him.
The duke glanced at Lieven in question.
He nodded and quickly beckoned Parthenia to take a seat. “This concerns her, too, I’m afraid, if the rumors about their coming engagement are true. Lady Parthenia, Your Grace, allow me to present my associate, Alyosha Nelyudov, who arrived just last night from St. Petersburg.”
