by Anna Randol
He cupped the back of her head, his thumb soothing the delicate skin below it. His other hand followed her buttons down her back to her bottom. “I’m not a good man any longer.”
Olivia gasped at his boldness, then rocked her hips to meet his. This embrace was nothing like the sweet fumbles they’d exchanged as children. This was as dark and disillusioned as he’d become. “No, you are far better.”
His growl sounded like both disagreement and longing. He wrenched himself away, and for the first time, she saw him. Not Clayton the coldhearted spy, and not the innocent boy she’d once known, but some mixture of both. Wild. Aroused. Hurting. It was there in the defiant set of his shoulders. In the agony in his eyes. In the slight tremor of his hands.
Before she could inhale, he buried those emotions deep, leaving himself hardened and emotionless once again.
But his shield fell too late.
She surmised that his gaze was supposed to discomfit her now, but she met the steel in his eyes calmly. Or at least as calmly as her still pounding heart and tingling skin would allow.
She’d been wrong to think she could help him go back to the boy she’d known. That innocent, tender boy had been sacrificed by her foolishness all those years ago. But the man he’d been forced to become wasn’t dreadful, as Clayton seemed to think. In fact, the things she’d admired most about the boy had survived, just reforged. Tempered. Strengthened.
And she’d do everything in her power to ensure he saw it, too.
Chapter Sixteen
Olivia nodded at the professor next to her at the imperial dining table. He taught chemistry at one of the universities, and surprisingly enough, they’d managed to find a topic of discussion: bleaches for paper manufacture. It was actually a topic she should have been able to pay more attention to; after all, it directly affected the mill. But as much as she focused, she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to where Clayton sat near the emperor and empress at the head of the impossibly long table, several hundred guests away.
He was watching her, his gaze dark and intense.
She knew she should be angry that he’d chosen to use her as bait, and part of her was. But most of her was stunned that he’d admitted to it.
And how had she never known her body could ignite like that? She’d assumed her expectations of lovemaking were nothing but fantasy. That her memories of what she’d shared with Clayton had become exaggerated with time.
There had been no exaggeration.
A footman reached past her, and Olivia let him take the plate even though she’d wanted to eat that last bit of meat. As soon as this course was removed, she could speak with the man on her left.
Golov.
He shouldn’t be sitting by her. His rank was high and hers, nonexistent. A countess across the table cooed that it was an honor to have been singled out for attention by such a favored gentleman.
She’d spoken to him once during the soup remove. But that had been simple pleasantries. Why yes, she did like St. Petersburg. No, she hadn’t had a chance to see any of the glorious churches. No, she hadn’t heard about the fairs going on this week in celebration of some saint’s day.
But this would be her chance. She had to ensure he believed the threat to the czar. “You must convince the czar to cancel the fete.”
Golov shifted forward in his seat. “Is that so?”
The footman set another plate in front of her. She waited until he moved away before she spoke.
“Arshun is intent on this revolution.”
“The count is an immature fool.” He straightened the cuffs of his black coat.
“Yes, but he’ll carry out this revolution. He’s hungry for power.” She took a risk. “A man in your position can’t appear ignorant when the attack comes.”
“Ah, perhaps you do interest me after all.” A faint smile thinned his lips. “That is a bold gambit.”
“We don’t have time for anything else.”
“Nice use of the word we. Now, perhaps, I shall seek to help you. The baron’s an interesting man, is he not?” Golov ripped pieces of the pastry in front of him into small, precisely sized bits. She hadn’t seen him eat once during the entire meal.
“Of course.” But she didn’t want to talk about Clayton. She wanted him to agree to do more to protect the czar. “The emperor will hold you responsible if anyone is killed.”
“So you say. How did you meet the baron again?”
“We met as children.”
“Ah, then you may not know that the baron’s a hard man. He has many enemies.” Golov set his open hands on the table. “I would help you protect him.”
“Would you?”
“Of course. We may not agree on everything, but I have promised to keep him safe. So I want to do my best.” He ripped each piece of bread in half again, the yellowed tips of his fingers paler than the pastry.
He thought she’d spy on Clayton. Olivia lifted the glass of wine to her lips, but didn’t drink. “What would you want me to do?”
“Only inform me of his activities.”
“Don’t you already have a spy in the princess’s household?”
Golov crushed a bit of the pastry between his fingers. “I’m always in need of more information. The baron might be too stubborn to know when he is in danger.”
“Why do you think I would help you?”
“The woman who tried to convince me to save the czar over dessert? I think you know how to turn a situation to your advantage. If you help me, I can ensure you’re not harmed in the coming battle between us.”
“I thought you needed my help to protect him.”
“Only until the fete. After that, we have no agreement. So I imagine you can see the benefit to having friends on both sides. This is nothing more than an old political struggle between the two of us. I would hate for you to get caught in the center. If he’s managed to convince you he’s anything but a hardened assassin, then perhaps you’re not the woman I thought.”
He didn’t have to convince her. She’d seen it for herself.
“The baron killed a man in his bed while his wife and children slept only a few feet away,” Golov said. “I wouldn’t believe his claims to honor.”
Clayton had never made those claims. His actions made them for him. If he’d killed that man, she’d no doubt it was necessary.
But she also began to understand what had caused the hurt she’d seen earlier. Death wouldn’t have been a simple task for him. Not when he analyzed every little thing. When he remembered every moment. When he felt things so deeply. It would torment him.
She also began to understand the shield he’d erected a touch better.
“I could make you wealthy again.”
This time she took a long sip of her wine.
“I have heard mention of a mill that is of particular value to you.”
She set down her glass of wine. But despite the frantic beat of her heart, he’d made a very poor choice with his threat. “It is.”
“Perhaps more so than the baron.”
She longed to throw her wine in his face and toss his plate of massacred dessert across the table. Instead, she said, “Perhaps.”
Golov smiled, the grotesque expression contorting his skeletal face. “Sensible. I like a woman who is sensible.”
The emperor and his wife stood, and everyone else rose to his feet. Golov inclined his head. “I will speak with you later.” He trailed the royal couple from the room.
As soon as the emperor left, a woman shoved her aside and grabbed a hothouse flower from the center of the table.
“What—” Then she spotted the professor pocketing a handful of forks.
“A gift.” Clayton appeared at her side and held out a spoon. There was a hint of mischief in his gaze, a playfulness that made her chest feel fuller and yet lighter at the same time.
She eyed the offering. “Is your gift a night in Golov’s prison?”
Clayton stepped out of the way as two elderly women battled ov
er a salt cellar. “The royal family never uses settings from official events again. So people vie to bring home tokens to their family as a sign of imperial favor.” He held out the spoon once more.
“I think you’re more in need of imperial favor than I.”
“True enough.” The spoon disappeared into his pocket.
Kate joined their group. “I believe this signals the end of the evening. Unless you desire to linger.”
“No.”
Kate’s lips curved at the perfect unison of their response. “I’ll find a footman to send for our sleigh.” She disappeared into the crowd.
A beefy man in a green and red military uniform with a colonel’s braids and a chest full of medals jostled past her in his haste to reach the head of the table. Her breath caught. “We need to find Golov.” Although she shuddered at the thought of more time in his company. “I recognize that man from the count’s estate.”
Clayton followed the direction of her gaze. “No.”
“He arrived the same afternoon as Count Arshun. He’s one of Arshun’s associates. He wasn’t in uniform then, but I’m certain it’s him. We can’t let him freely roam the palace.”
“We can when he’s Golov’s brother.”
When the colonel didn’t stop at the head of the table but slunk out the doors into the corridor, Clayton’s interest was piqued.
“We should follow him,” Olivia said.
Indeed. If the man was one of Arshun’s associates, then Clayton would definitely be following him.
And it would be advantageous to have something else to occupy his thoughts.
He trusted Olivia. Now what the devil was he supposed to do about her? It had been difficult to keep his distance when he’d thought her a criminal, what was he supposed to do with her now?
And how would he ever make reparations for what she had suffered? He was the reason she’d been kidnapped. He was the reason she had scars on her wrists.
It was much easier to focus on trailing the colonel instead. Olivia’s hand on his arm, they slipped out of the supper room behind the colonel. He walked down the corridor back toward the ballroom, then ducked into a room on his right.
Clayton knew from the layout of the palace that the room was only a small parlor. It would hold nothing of interest. Was he meeting someone, then? Clayton pressed his finger to his lips and motioned for Olivia to remain where she was. After several moments, no one else had joined the colonel.
Clayton crept to the door.
It was completely silent inside at first, but then came the faint scrape of someone lighting a candle.
Soon the sweet, acrid scent of a burning cheroot drifted from the room. Not an assignation. The man had secreted himself away for a smoke rather than braving the cold.
At least, that’s how he wanted it to appear.
Clayton caught Olivia’s hand and pulled her behind him. It would be obvious he wasn’t alone, but the colonel couldn’t see Olivia’s face. Clayton swung open the door with a flourish.
The colonel leaned idly on the wall near the stove. The window was open next to him, letting most of the smoke waft out.
“Oh, pardon,” Clayton said. “We’ll find an unoccupied room.”
The colonel crushed the cheroot against the windowsill, then tossed it outside. He had the same sunken eyes as his brother but they looked even sicklier in the colonel’s fleshy face. “I was just leaving.”
“No need to leave on our account. My lady just needs to . . . fix her hem.” He paused and let confusion wash over his face. “I say, aren’t you a friend of Count Arshun?”
The colonel’s eyes flickered past Clayton, trying to see behind him. “No. I cannot say I know the man.”
“Ah, too bad. I owe the count a rather large sum at cards. But I can’t seem to locate him.”
The colonel ran a hand down the medals adorning his chest. “I cannot help you.” He skirted past them and returned to the ballroom.
Clayton shut the door to the parlor once he disappeared. And counted to thirty. “Now we will watch who he contacts.” He ushered her back into the corridor.
“You think he will?”
“Either that or it will make him edgy. Nervous men make mistakes.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “You are good at this.”
It wasn’t something to boast of. “I was a spy for over a decade.”
“How did you become a spy? I know you don’t believe me, but my father did tell me that you were dead.”
“The hour before I was to hang, a man came to me and offered me a deal—I would dedicate my life to the service of the Crown in exchange for keeping it. I took his offer. We were sent on missions they wouldn’t risk on a dog.” But Clayton had gobbled up every minute of training. Every chance to harden his heart.
And those lessons couldn’t be unlearned.
“I lied. I killed. I destroyed.”
“But you survived.”
“Yes.”
She laid her hand over his when he would have opened the door to the ballroom. “No matter what you think of me, I’m glad of that.”
The devil would mock him for a fool, but he was rather afraid he believed her.
The ballroom was a jumble of chaos. Men shouted at footmen to bring sleighs. Servants ran about with their arms loaded down with furs and jackets.
“Do you see him?” Olivia murmured.
Clayton relaxed his gaze, seeing the entire room rather than the individuals in it. Patterns and movement. Ignoring all the colors but green.
He spotted him. “By the door.”
The colonel’s stride was determined. A touch too fast to be casual.
Golov stepped directly in their path. “I look forward to our meeting tomorrow, Baron.” His attention drifted to Olivia and a strange half smile stretched his lips. “I am eager to protect the czar.”
“I’m eager to speak to your brother.” Clayton moved to the right to see around him, but the colonel was already gone. Damnation. At least he’d likely be staying in his own home. Clayton could find him later.
“I didn’t know you were acquainted.”
“Not as well as we will be.”
Golov drew back slightly, his eyes mere slashes. “What do you wish to speak to him about?”
“A mutual friend.”
“My brother doesn’t have friends.”
Clayton flashed his teeth, not bothering to hide his dislike. “Neither do I.”
Chapter Seventeen
Clayton lifted his hand and knocked lightly on the door that joined his room with Olivia’s. He kept the sound quiet enough that if she’d already gone to bed, the noise wouldn’t disturb her. In fact, if she was breathing too loudly, she probably wouldn’t hear.
What was he even doing at the door? He should be out prowling the streets for Arshun or the colonel, and he was here. Ready to give up his entire night for Olivia.
Saving the czar mattered to her. And strangely, he found it now mattered to him, too.
He could work on the code alone. But chances were slim he’d be able to decipher it in time on his own. His room was buried in the stacks of books and crates of papers he’d requested from Kate. Especially his bed. Kate must have taken great pleasure in giving the servants that order. It was too much to sort through on his own in the time he had. It would go faster with two sets of eyes. And Olivia had always been observant.
Except, perhaps, when it had come to her father. But he was forced to agree with her. She’d been young and naive. It was likely she hadn’t intended the consequences her actions had earned him.
But her father had. Nothing she could say would ever change that.
He lifted his hand away from the door. She’d likely come home and slipped into a soft night rail and into a blissfully unobstructed bed.
A vision of her spread out under the white sheets prompted him to take a half step from the door. He couldn’t wake Olivia, just as he hadn’t been able to use her as bait. Every instinct in him
screamed to protect her.
He still wasn’t sure what had come over him at the ball, and worse, he wasn’t entirely sure he regretted it.
No, you are far better.
Those words taunted him. Jumbling around in his brain until he wanted to rip open his skull and pry them out.
He shouldn’t care what she thought of him.
But when she’d said that, he’d wanted it to be true. It was an awkward feeling. One he was fairly certain pointed to some weakness in him. And yet that realization hadn’t helped the feeling dissipate.
Clayton pressed his forehead against the wooden door, swearing when it collided with his nose. He stumbled back, allowing the door to open.
Olivia didn’t look the least contrite as he clutched his nose like an utter fool.
“Is your goal to see me in all states of undress?” Her voice was heavy with sleep and she had on a thick woolen dressing gown. Her hair was rumpled on one side, wisps loose from the braid she wore.
The meager light from his candle caught in the golden strands, giving her a lopsided halo. But her face was set in aggrieved lines, giving her the appearance of a rather surly angel. He fought to keep a smile from his lips. “If Golov’s brother is with Prazhdinyeh, then we must assume Golov is, too. We can’t truly work on the code with him present. Or risk working on it without him while the servants can report back.”
She paused in the middle of rubbing her eye. “You’re going to help me? I thought you’d be chasing the colonel.”
“After we work on this.”
“And what if you break the code? Will you trust me with that?”
“Yes.”
Her smile was quick and radiant, but disappeared quickly as if she feared he’d crush it. “Why?”
Clayton rubbed his knuckles along his jaw and shifted back. “I no longer think you are a revolutionary.”
There was a pause, a silence that perhaps someone else would have filled with an apology; instead, he would give her something far more useful—information. He stepped aside so she could see into his room. “I have heard rumors about Vasin’s codes. It’s why I chose to come here in the first place.”
