“Don’t be absurd.”
“Natalya—”
She ignored him. Guns fired over the carriage again. Zass ducked, then, stretching down a long arm, handed her another gun.
A ball struck the carriage. Creighton shoved Natalya back behind the open door and shouted, “Keep down, Barclay!”
“Behind those trees!” she said, pointing to their left.
“How do you know?”
She put her hand on his head again and pushed him down as another gun fired. Crouching in the shadow of the carriage, she whispered, “The direction of the shots, and I saw a flash of gunpowder from there. If we do not fire back, they may believe we are wounded or so frightened we are unable to fight. That might lure them from the trees.”
“True, for they cannot rob us from there.” Even in the dim light, his teeth glittered as his lips drew back in a snarl. “Damn conveyancers.”
Natalya wanted to agree, but there was no time. Any thieves who attacked a carriage like this must be bold. She held her breath as she glanced at the top of the carriage. A furtive motion told her that Petr was waiting for her command. From within, she heard Barclay’s soused song start again. That told her he was uninjured.
She tapped Creighton’s arm and pointed toward the shadows edging out from the trees. Four men! She had expected more, but she could not be overconfident with these easy odds. A man who made his living by preying on others must have skills as finely honed as a soldier’s.
She held her breath. Beside her, Creighton tensed. If he panicked … No, General Miloradovich had told her Creighton was a well-respected officer. But so is General Miloradovich, and he hides from battle! She silenced the frightening thought. She could not think of anything but the thieves.
“Dead? Be they all dead?” The rough voice came from behind the carriage.
“Can’t be. Ye ain’t that good a shot.” There was a pause. “Jemmy, did ye settle these folks’ hash?”
“Didn’t kill no one,” answered a third voice. “Told me to let the pop fly over the leathern conveniency, ye did. Know what I’m doin’. I be the best running rumbler in London Town.”
The carriage rocked as one of the men kicked it.
“Tepér’!” shouted Natalya.
“What?”
The blast from Petr’s gun answered Creighton at the same time she repeated, “Now!”
She fired her gun. The thieves scattered. She gave chase to the closest one. Behind her, she heard Petr and Creighton shouting. She knelt to reload. Something flashed in the dim light.
“Osteregáytes!”
At Petr’s warning, she dropped underneath the knife.
With a roar, she jumped to her feet and pulled her sword. Petr’s answering growl from her left set her blood to rushing through her like floodwaters along the Dneiper. The battle was on! She met the thief’s knife with her sword. Hearing a crash of steel, she did not look to her right.
Petr howled victory just as she put her sword’s tip to the center of the thief’s chest. His knife fell.
“Please, guv’nor, have mercy,” the thief whispered.
“As much as you had for us?”
Even in the dark, she could see his face lose all color. She gave him no time to answer as she herded him back to where Petr had one thief beneath his foot and another pressed up against the carriage. Both wore identical expressions of terror. When she saw Creighton bringing the last one back toward the carriage, she smiled.
She clapped Petr on the arm, then turned to Creighton to congratulate him. Her victorious smile faded as she saw the tight lines of his face. What was bothering him now? The English were so erratic. She could not guess, even once, how they would react.
While the watch was found and the thieves taken away, Natalya waited for Creighton to say something. He stood in stony silence. Not even Barclay’s suddenly sober questions were answered. During the rest of the ride back to Berkeley Square, it was as if Creighton had no more life than the statue in the middle of the square.
Even when they entered the house, Creighton mumbled, “Barclay, you know where the guest room is,” and started for the stairs.
Natalya stepped in front of him. As he moved to walk around her, she pulled her sword and held it across the stairs. Beside her, Petr did the same, but she motioned for him to put it away.
“Kapitán, you must see—”
“Not now, Petr.” Turning to Creighton, she demanded, “What in perdition is wrong with you?”
“Your sword to begin with.”
She followed his gaze toward it and saw the stain of fresh blood on its tip. If she had pricked the thief, she had no regrets. Mayhap the fool would think twice before shooting at another carriage.
“Why are you so distressed?” she asked. “We defeated them!”
“It would have been better if we had not had to fight them in the first place.” He tugged the sword from her hand and threw it to the floor.
Petr took a step forward, but halted when she raised her hand. What he growled under his breath sent heat climbing to her cheeks, but Creighton’s eyes remained icy.
“Kapitán, before you say more, you should—”
“Damn!” Creighton snapped. “I don’t know what he’s threatening, but call off your watch-dog. I have never struck a—Damn!”
“Petr, do nothing,” she murmured.
“Kapitán, if you will look at what I found—”
“Later,” she ordered before switching back to English. “What is wrong?”
“I thought I was done with fighting.” He moved closer to her, but she did not back away. “What was amusing when we were jousting with sabers at the colonel’s country house was not when we were confronted by knights of the pad. I have had my fill of battle. I want no more.”
She fisted her hands at her waist. “So you would not act to protect Tatiana if she were attacked? Or Miss Wilton?”
“That is not the issue.”
“Then what is?”
“You like to fight! I do not.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You think I like to fight? You think I wish for a return to the battlefield?”
“Yes.”
“You are so very wrong.” She swallowed tears that she must never let fall. “I told you how I hated the war. I hated the mud and the blood and the death.”
“But you exult in winning.”
“Yes.” When Petr picked up her sword and handed it to her, she slid it back in the scabbard at her side. “And I have won all I fought so hard to gain. Mayhap, Creighton, you cannot understand because you lost your brother after you decided to join the battle. I became part of the war because I lost all of those dear to me, save for Petr. You could only lose while I could only win.” She put her foot on the first riser. “I vow to you that I shall. No one will halt me from getting what I deserve.”
He laughed coldly. “Exactly.” He pushed past her and climbed the stairs.
She stared after him, then looked at Petr who was frowning. Again she suspected Creighton’s answer had a meaning she could not comprehend. She knew she must discover it before all was lost.
Seventeen
“Kapitán?”
At the rap on the door and the call in Russian, Natalya put down the sword she was polishing. She had not thought she would need to use it here in London, but most things about England were proving to be different from what she had expected.
“Petr, mózhno.” As she waited for him to enter, she smiled. She would have known it was Petr even if he spoke English. The servants had stayed in the shadows all day. Even Mrs. Winchell had not prattled this morning as she usually did. After the argument in the foyer in the wake of the attack on them, Natalya was sure every servant in the house questioned how to act.
Her smile disappeared when Petr locked the door behind him. Above his beard, his face was etched with lines of strain.
“What is wrong, Petr?”
“I found this in the bag one of the thieves carried.” He h
eld out a small slip of paper. His fingers, unbelievably, were shaking. She had never seem him nervous, not even in the midst of the battles around Paris.
“What bag?”
His smile was icy through his beard. “The one I stole from them before the English authorities took them away.”
“Petr!”
“What need will they have for it if they hang as they should?”
“English justice is different from ours. That might not be the punishment for such a crime here.”
“It should be,” he grumbled, then handed her the slip of paper. “The thief fought me for this. I thought it might be important.”
“To him, perchance, but to us?”
“Read it, Kapitán.” His hands shook again. “Please.”
Natalya tilted it so she could read the scratchy writing. Her eyes widened. “Oh, dear God!”
“What is it? Is it bad?”
“Very. ’Tis a death threat.”
He put his hand on the blade at his side. “What does it say?”
“‘Kill the Russian and his host on June 13.’” She stared over the page at Petr’s abruptly pale face. “They meant to do more than rob us last night.” She frowned as she tapped her chin. “But yesterday wasn’t June 13. Odd, isn’t it? I would have guessed English highwaymen could not read.”
“So what do we do?” Raising his chin so his beard jutted toward her, he said, “Give me what command you will, Kapitán, and I will find their confederates and make certain they pose no threat to you again.”
“I am not sure what order to give.” She stood. “Do you have the bag?”
He hesitated, then murmured, “It will not please you.”
“Why?” She held out her hand. “Let me see it.” When he placed the small leather pouch on her hand, she gasped. She recognized the beadwork on it as Petr must have. “This is Russian design.”
He nodded.
“Is this why you took it from the thief?”
A hint of a smile twisted through his beard. “I saw the design after I relieved him of it.”
Untying the strings at the top of the bag, she peered in it. Her nose wrinkled. The tanner had done a poor job of curing the leather, and it stank. She ran her finger inside the bag and pulled out a single coin. “An English shilling,” she whispered.
“Not much to pay for so many deaths.”
She chuckled. “Petr, you are constantly practical. I believe you are correct. This orphaned coin may once have had many brothers living with it in this bag.”
“So what do you wish me to do?”
“If this were Moscow or St. Petersburg, I would know the law well. Here?” She shrugged. “The customs of the English in so many ways are not like ours.”
“We must do something.”
“Yes.” She tapped her chin. “I wonder why this date is given.”
“Will we be leaving by then?”
Hearing the hope in his voice, she shook her head. “Once the czar arrives, he shall wish to confer with the Prince Regent for at least a week.” She shivered. “That date is a week from yesterday. They may have been a week off.”
“Or they may have been overly eager, and others will be hired to do what they failed to accomplish.”
She tapped her chin and nodded. “True.”
“So what shall we do?”
“We shall do what we must to save Lord Ashcroft’s life.”
“And yours.”
She smiled coldly. “And to make these fools sorry they ever conceived of this idea.”
“Lord Dmitrieff?” came a hesitant voice from the other side of the door.
Petr growled under his breath, but Natalya shook her head. She recognized James’s voice. The footman sounded scared, yet it could not be because of the message she held. Unless … Creighton was going to his club this afternoon. If he had been attacked …
She pushed past Petr, threw aside the bolt, and flung the door open. The startled footman backpedaled a pair of steps. “What is it?” she cried.
James swallowed hard, then murmured, “A caller for you, my lord.” He faltered, and his voice creaked, “Is there a problem, my lord?”
“No—I mean—” She took a steadying breath. “Of course not. A caller for me?”
“He’s waiting in the foyer, my lord.”
“Who is it?”
“He refused to give his name.” He rubbed his hands on his breeches. “He is Russian, my lord.”
“Thank you. Please let him know I am coming down.” Natalya motioned to Petr to follow her. Switching to Russian, she said, “Let me think about this. I shall ask Lord Ashcroft some questions about the proper procedures here in England.”
“He will wish to know why you want such information.”
“I can foist some tale off on him.” She slid her sword into its sheath and buckled it around her. “I would prefer not to lie, but I would prefer even more to leave this country alive.”
“So we are still leaving?”
“Petr, what sort of question is that?” She pulled open the door. “Of course. We are leaving as soon as we can.”
Natalya muttered a curse as she saw the disagreement on her sergeant’s face. Her resolve must not lessen. She had come too far and suffered too much to let Creighton’s enticing eyes and even more beguiling touch change her.
Petr’s uncommon expression vanished from her mind when she came down the stairs and saw a familiar man standing in the foyer. She had not had to suffer Kapitán Radishchev’s company since Paris, and she had begun to hope the general had left this pompous fool behind. She should have known better as soon as she saw General Miloradovich’s new mistress the day she had tried to persuade the general to let her move out of Creighton’s house. Radishchev had tried to usurp her place as the general’s aide-de-camp but had succeeded in obtaining the position only of finding the general company when he was lonely.
A twinge cut through her. No, she must not let her disquiet betray her into making the situation worse. Radishchev could see no further than his own ambitions, so he would have no idea of the secret she hid.
“Welcome,” she said.
The captain cleared his throat as he looked around the foyer, dismissing it with a quick glance. “Where have you been, Dmitrieff?”
“Been? Here, of course, as General Miloradovich ordered.”
Radishchev’s smile revealed missing teeth beneath his dark mustache. She knew they had been knocked out by an irate husband, not in the midst of battle. “So you choose to obey some orders rather than obeying all the general’s orders?”
“I have obeyed every order the general has ever given me.”
“Save for the most recent.” He laughed coldly, then scowled as he looked past her.
Knowing Petr stood behind her, Natalya wanted to urge her sergeant not to react to this buffoon. Quietly, she said, “If you think to cause me trouble by—”
“I need cause you no trouble when you stand here when the rest of General Miloradovich’s officers are gathered on St. James’s to celebrate the czar’s arrival in England.”
“The czar is here?”
He laughed. “What has so occupied your mind, Dmitrieff, that you have not heard the tidings of the grand welcome our czar and the Prussian king received yesterday?” He ran his finger beneath his mustache. “Or should I say ‘who’? The general has been much intrigued with your recent companion—the Englishwoman.”
Natalya squared her shoulders. She was not going to let this conversation plunge into meaningless gossip. “I received no orders to come there.”
“But you did receive this!” Radishchev picked up an ivory card from the silver plate by the door. Slapping it into her hand, he laughed again.
She resisted snarling back that he must not have delivered the message until now. That would gain her nothing, save more ridicule by this brainless dolt. Quickly she read it. Kapitán Dmitri Dmitrieff was requested—was ordered, she corrected automatically—by General Miloradovich to join
his fellow Russians for cards and drinks at 37 St. James’s Street before four this afternoon.
With a sniff, Radishchev glanced around the foyer again. “I’m not surprised you did not receive it. What can we expect from the peasants who live in disgusting hovels like this?”
Natalya clenched her hands at her sides. He was determined to infuriate her, as he was each time they had met. He had not succeeded yet. He would not today, although, from the first, she had thought Creighton’s house was lovely. Many of her plans for the new dacha had been altered to include facets of this house. Instead, she said, “I shall leave immediately to meet the general.”
“Of course you will.” He threw open the door, wiping all color from the footman’s face. “I trust you will refrain from embarrassing him so again.”
Natalya put up her hand as she heard Petr growl under his breath. When the door had closed behind Radishchev, she smiled. “Do not let his worthless words disturb you, Petr.”
“He is jealous because no English lady has given him more than a glance.” Wistfulness filled his voice as he added, “Maybe we can have the English thieves attack him.”
She laughed tightly and patted Petr’s arm. As soon as she apologized to the general for being late for this gathering, she would find Creighton. He must be told about the threat, even though she was certain he would not take the news well. No matter how much he wished to avoid battle, it was on once more, and his life would be forfeit if he did not give credence to her warning.
And another she cared about would die in violence. She would not allow that to happen. Not again.
Natalya heard the men’s voices resonating from the choke-full room at the top of the stairs. As she entered the room, a glass of wine was shoved into her hand. She was not sure who had given it to her. So many men filled the room, she could not take more than a step past the door.
Her arm was grasped.
“What are you doing here?”
She turned to see Barclay Lawson, already elevated by the wine in his glass. He had a bottle beneath his arm. “I could ask the same of you,” she said tautly.
“This is our club.”
“Your club?” Her eyes widened. “Is Creighton here? I must talk with him without delay.”
The Counterfeit Count Page 15
