by Anna Randol
“Of what?”
His scowl returned. “His orders. Directions on how to contact the agent he put in place.”
“You don’t know how to contact your agent?” Surprise sparked her words. From what she’d pieced together from Arshun’s boasting, in one week the czar and his entire family would be slaughtered. Russia would be reborn. And Arshun would be very, very powerful. From the way he’d spoken, she’d thought the outcome a certainty.
Arshun glanced at his guards, who studied the ground by their boots. His words were clipped. “We simply need to know how to order him to proceed. The old fools who would have been able to break the code have been executed or sent to Siberia by the emperor. Those durakov were going to let this plan fade away after Vasin’s death, but I saw the genius in it. I dug through the ashes and rebuilt this group piece by piece. The people will rise up with me.”
“But only if you can break the code?”
“The agent is only one part of my plan. I am not a fool.”
She wondered if Arshun was who the original revolutionaries had in mind when they planned the rebirth of Russia. “You think La Petit can break the code.” She reached for the page, but Arshun dropped it into the drawer.
“You will.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and dragged his lips back and forth across it. “Perhaps the translation can wait for the morning.”
She yanked her hand away and wiped it on her skirt.
She shouldn’t have done that.
Arshun hissed and drew a knife, a glittery ornamental dagger, from a sheath at his waist. Olivia tried to retreat but the guard at her back stopped her. Arshun pressed the blade to her throat. “If one of the former leaders I’ve sent for arrives before you break the code, you will be useless to me.” He slid the blade along her neck. The metal burned as he sliced a short line right under her chin.
She cried out, jerking her hand over the wet trail on her throat. The knife now pressed against her cheek. “Cut me again and you’ll never know what the paper says.”
She would have said anything to keep him from cutting her again. But she shouldn’t have said that.
Time. She needed more time. She didn’t know if she could break this code. “I will need to be left alone so I can break the code.”
“So you can plan your escape?”
“From that room? It’s delicate work. I will need to concentrate.” She spoke past the vile taste in her mouth. “I couldn’t do that with you there.”
Arshun checked his guards’ reaction before lowering the knife. He removed her bracelets, then lifted the paper from the drawer and handed it to her. “You will have this translated by morning. If you’re lying, you die. And I will know if you’re lying. Take her to her room.”
A few minutes later, Olivia collapsed on the narrow cot, the page clutched to her chest. Sweet mercy, what had she done? She pressed the blanket against the wound on her throat until the bleeding stopped. Then she wiped away as much of the blood from her skin as she could. She had until morning to do the impossible. She’d bought herself a few more hours of life at most.
She knew little of codes, only what she’d learned deciphering the love notes Clayton had once sent her. She’d known Clayton for two weeks before he’d sent her his first coded note.
She’d been utterly befuddled and slightly irate. It had taken her two days to realize the mash of letters was a code, then another day after that to break it.
She’d been giddy with excitement.
She couldn’t remember a time she’d been giddy since Clayton’s death.
Oh, she hadn’t moped or wallowed since those first two years. She’d been pleased. She’d been proud. She’d even been happy.
But never giddy.
Olivia took a deep breath and studied the characters, but after only a few minutes the candle they’d left her sputtered. She should have thought to block it from the draft from under the—
Too late.
The room plunged into darkness.
She’d die tomorrow then. Or be tortured and then die.
She stared into the all-consuming darkness of the room. She had to try to ask Blin to help her one more time. He’d been waiting at her door when the guards brought her back, and he’d paled at the blood on her hands and neck. Surely, he wouldn’t want her to die. She hated using his kindness against him, but she no longer had a choice.
She heard voices outside the door. She waited for them to quiet before sneaking over.
“Blin?”
She waited.
“Blin?” The lock rattled and she jumped back, dropping the paper. The door swung open. “Blin, my candle has—”
Even in the darkness she knew the man wasn’t Blin. She stumbled, something deep in her gut recognizing the height and lean strength of the shadow before her. “Clayton?”
His voice was nothing more than a murmur. “Come with me.”
The last thing Clayton expected was for Olivia to come to a dead halt behind him in the corridor.
“What happened to the man guarding my door?”
She spoke in only a whisper, but Clayton pressed her against the wall with his hand over her mouth before her lips could stop moving.
Her brows lowered and her mouth thinned against his hand. For a moment, all he could think of was how he’d pressed his hand over her mouth to silence her giggles when they’d snuck away from her father’s office to steal a kiss.
He lifted his hand away from her mouth, loving the way that her laughter still escaped even through her tightly pressed lips. As if nothing could contain the joy within her. The exuberance with which she lived. She grabbed his hand and pulled him behind a rack of drying paper.
“We should go outside so no one finds—”
But she didn’t want to wait. Her mouth found his. It tasted of berries and tea. He captured her small sigh of pleasure with his lips, feeling warmer, more alive for just holding her. He wondered at how she—
No kisses would occur tonight. If they were lucky, they’d escape with their lives.
He kept his gaze away from her mouth as he lowered his hand, instead searching for some sign of treachery, but could find nothing in her shuttered gaze.
“I sent him on an errand.” He brought his lips next to her ear. “If you make another noise, I’ll leave you to your captors.”
She nodded, a shiver shaking her. Her hand tightened on the thin blanket she clutched under her chin.
But he simply motioned for her to follow him again as he walked, slowing only to ensure the next corridor was still clear. They’d navigated one entire floor before a guard walked into their path.
Clayton grabbed Olivia by the arm and marched her toward the slightly confused man, neither acknowledging him nor speaking. In an organization as varied and unstructured as the revolutionaries now appeared to be, it was far better to act like he was following orders.
“The count sent for me,” Olivia said, her voice rushed, trying to fill the silence.
The guard’s gaze sharpened. “The count’s rooms—”
Clayton silenced him with a blow to the head before he could finish putting together his thoughts.
He released Olivia and dragged the man out of sight into one of the empty rooms. “I asked for silence.”
Her wide blue eyes stared at his hands. He pushed her in front of him before she noticed the awkward shape of his right hand. Although perhaps he should let her look her fill at what she and her father had wrought.
Clayton continued marching Olivia like a prisoner in front of him. They passed a maid on the stairs, but she didn’t give them a second glance. He steered Olivia toward the room he had prepared with an unlocked window, but she froze two doors down. She pointed back the way they’d come.
Clayton shook his head and tried to lead her farther, but she refused to budge.
She would get them captured.
Was that her intention? The first two incidents could have been innocent, but a third?
He never ig
nored his instincts. Never second-guessed himself. He should stride through the door and leave her to her own machinations.
But she looked so earnest. “I have to go back. They’re planning terrible things. There’s a paper in my room that might help us find a way to stop them.”
“No.”
Her jaw set. “Then I’ll go by myself.”
“Is it worth dying over?”
She hesitated. “It might be.”
“I’ll wait for you in there.” He pointed to his exit point. “I leave in five minutes with or without you.” He fully expected her to stop this foolishness. Instead, she whirled away.
Accursed, stubborn woman. She always did like to have her own way.
Clayton waited a moment, then followed.
Because this might be part of her trap. Not because he was concerned about her safety.
The blanket she’d wrapped around her shoulders did little to disguise the soft flare of her hips. Or the distinctive way she moved. As if she couldn’t stand to be still for even a single moment.
But that didn’t translate well into stealth. Her motions were too furtive. Too darting.
Yet she did exactly as she said, returning to her frozen attic room.
When he heard her start to emerge, he hurried ahead, returning to the parlor and opening the window before she returned.
When she entered, she was alone, a small paper held against her chest.
She’d come back. And without a contingent of guards on her heels. She hadn’t betrayed him.
Yet. The night was still young.
At the window, he took the paper from her and tucked it into his jacket. He’d find out why it was so important later. Ignoring the pain in his right hand, he lowered her to the plants below. She was warm through the blanket, far too light, and a dozen other things he refused to think about as he leaped out behind her.
He’d taken only two steps when a shout sounded inside the house. Olivia had been missed.
She lunged and would have bolted, but he held her elbow. If they had a repeat of her actions in the corridor, they’d be found for sure. “Stay low and slow.”
She nodded with a quick jerk and then fell into step behind him. Her unquestioning compliance discomfited him, sparking the desire to tuck her under his arm as he might have done in a different time.
Instead, he wove through the bushes; the bare branches jabbed at him even through his coat. With a silent curse, he wrapped his arm around Olivia to shield her from scratches. She had lost weight since he’d last held her. He would have denied possessing the memory if asked, but he could remember precisely how his hands had fit the curve at her waist. The soft slope of her shoulder.
And now when they parted ways, he’d forever remember the way she fit perfectly under his arm.
No good deed went unpunished, it seemed.
Light flared behind them as the front door was thrown open. Heavy boots crashed through the woods behind them.
She glanced up at him, her gasp condensing into fog. He tightened his hold, ignoring the way it melded her form to his. He kept their escape steady and silent until they reached the clearing where he’d tethered the horses.
He tossed Olivia into a saddle. “Ride!”
Chapter Seven
Olivia blinked, trying to focus on Clayton’s back as he galloped in front of her. Her hair whipped around, tangling in a knotted mess in front of her face, and her eyes watered in the cold. She desperately wanted to wipe the moisture away, but if she let go of the strange pommel in front of her, she’d be thrown to the ground. She’d never ridden astride and never even seen a high-backed saddle like this.
Besides, she wasn’t even sure if she could move her fingers. Her thin blanket was long gone, torn away by the wind. For the first few minutes of the ride, she hadn’t noticed the cold, but now it occupied every thought. She kept herself awake by trying to rank the most sweltering heat she’d ever experienced. Under the steam engine’s boilers last August was in contention for first place with the summer afternoon she’d been trapped in the traveling coach in Bath while a flock of sheep passed by.
The ride had settled into bone-jarring tedium. She had no idea if they’d been riding twenty minutes or an hour.
Finally, Clayton reined in his horse beside a pile of timber. Olivia pried her hand off the saddle. Her tears had crystallized into brittle, frozen flakes on her cheeks. She tried to scrub them off with the back of her hand, but it shook too badly. In fact, she couldn’t feel her hands at all.
That really couldn’t be good.
Clayton swung down to the ground in a quick, graceful movement. He frowned when she didn’t follow. “We need to get inside.”
Inside? Inside, where?
Clayton gestured to the pile of logs, and for the first time she noticed a door in the center. It was some sort of crude hut. She hadn’t realized she’d been staring stupidly until Clayton wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her from the horse.
He grabbed one of her hands and turned it over in his, swearing. “Where the devil’s your blanket?”
She shook her head. Words were too slippery to form on her tongue.
He ripped off his jacket and threw it over her shoulders. The sudden warmth buckled her knees. She tried to grab his hand to keep from falling, but he yanked it away with a hiss. Yet before her hip had hit the ground, he scooped her into his arms. He kicked open the door of the hut and brought her inside, setting her on some sort of rough stone bench.
Light flared as he lit a candle, illuminating the room. The inside of the place looked little better than the outside. The cracks between the logs were stuffed with mud and moss. The windows were covered in some sort of hide.
Logs clattered as Clayton threw wood into a stove a little to her left. After a few moments, a blaze flickered. He moved a copper kettle near the edge of it.
Clayton’s brow furrowed deeply as he caught her hand again. He sat next to her, then untucked his shirt with a few quick tugs. “Place your hands on my torso.”
“What?”
“Unless you want to lose fingers to the cold.”
Her hands shook as she edged them under the hem of his shirt. Where was she supposed to put them? His stomach seemed far too intimate, so she settled for his waist. He didn’t so much as flinch when she touched him.
But she did. Sorry, she intended to say, but couldn’t quite manage. All she could feel was warmth radiating from his skin. Glorious heat trapped under the thin layer of his shirt.
But as her fingers warmed, she could also feel the firm muscles along his sides. The slight expansion of his chest with every inhale.
He was inches from her. So close that if she lowered her head slightly, she could rest against his chest. But she didn’t give in to temptation.
He hadn’t escaped the cold, either. The tips of his nose and ears were bright red from the cold and wind. And here she was stealing his warmth.
“You must be cold, too. You can—” She wasn’t entirely sure what she dared to offer. “Put your hands under my coat.” Well, his coat. “I’d offer you my stomach, but women’s garments are far less accommodating about that sort of thing.”
He didn’t smile. Instead, he lifted a gloved hand. “I was better prepared. Can you feel your fingers yet?”
Unfortunately, yes. They stung as if she’d plunged her hand into a barrel of needles. She flexed them, then shifted experimentally, her hands skimming up his ribs.
Clayton sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll fetch you another coat.” He untangled himself, then retrieved a neatly folded bundle from a pile of supplies in the corner of the room. The pile reeked of a barnyard. He shook out a thick jacket of sheepskin and added it to her shoulders. “The peech should be warm in a moment.” Her confusion must have shown because he continued, “The stove. It vents the smoke through the space you’re sitting on to retain more warmth in the room.”
She nodded, finally noticing the barest traces of heat shimmering under h
er thighs.
“I think you’ve been spared frostbite, but it will be a close thing. There will likely be peeling at the very least.” He reached into his waistcoat and pulled out her paper. “Now would you like to explain what this is?”
She exhaled slowly. “It is a code. Arshun plans to start a revolution but he needs the information on that paper to start it.”
“What does that paper say?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Arshun didn’t, either. The code belonged to some man named Vasin. But the count says there’s a plan partially in place. Vasin placed an agent in a high-ranking imperial position. But Arshun doesn’t know who and he doesn’t know how to contact him. But if he can figure out the code, they’ll set the plan in motion and the czar and his entire family will be killed.” She couldn’t let that happen. “Do you think you could break the code?”
Clayton crossed his arms across his chest. “Ah.” Shadows clung to the planes of his face, making his expression impossible to read. He prowled toward her. “Why did the revolutionaries kidnap you?”
“They thought I—or rather a spy named La Petit—could break the code. They said she’d done it before.”
“La Petit is horrible at codes.”
“What do you want me to say? That’s what they told me. I only know that she seduced information from their former leader. Information they think she was able to decode.”
“Now you’re asking me to do it.” Tension hummed off him. Was he upset that she knew he’d been a spy? Or that she dared to ask him a favor? But the favor wasn’t for her.
She nodded. “Yes. I looked at it, but I think it’s beyond me.”
“And what will you do with this code once I break it? Wouldn’t it be safer if I just burned it now?”
“No.” She jumped to her feet as the paper swung toward the stove. “La Petit was only one way he was trying to break the code. There are other copies. He might be able to read it another way.”
“So you need me?” A strange undercurrent darkened his words, but she had no idea what he meant.
And she’d had enough of his pointed looks. “Yes. I’ve said that already.”
