by Lisa Kleypas
Luke tightened his arms, crushing her briefly. “I'll take care of it. Go up to your room, and don't worry.” He pulled back and gave her a warning glance. “No listening at the keyhole, Emma.”
She laughed guiltily. “How else am I supposed to know what goes on around here?”
He put his arm around her shoulder, walking her into the entrance hall. “You should be too busy with your own interests to spend your time worrying over adults, sweet.”
“I am very busy. I have the horses, and Samson, and my books, and Miss Billings—Papa, you won't let anyone take Miss Billings away, will you?”
“No,” he murmured, kissing her head. “Go to bed, sweetheart.”
Dutifully Emma scampered away, and Luke went to the library. The heavy doors were closed, but the sound of quiet murmurs filtered through. His jaw hardened, and he shoved into the room without a hint of warning. The Ashbournes were seated in heavy leather chairs, while Tasia huddled in a corner of the low-backed settee.
Charles's face was wreathed in worry. “Stokehurst,” he said in dismay, “we thought you were—”
“Out for the evening?” Luke said pleasantly. “I had a change of plans. Tell me what brings you to visit.”
“Bad news from abroad, I'm afraid,” Charles said, striving for a light tone. “We've been convincing Miss Billings to come away with us. The month is almost over, Luke, and I always keep my promises.” Seeing Tasia's sudden wary confusion, he explained. “Lord Stokehurst agreed to take you on for precisely a month, during which time I would find you a new situation.”
“I've changed my mind,” Luke said, staring at Tasia. She was white and still, her hands resting in a little knot on her lap. “Miss Billings isn't leaving Southgate Hall.” He went to the built-in mahogany sideboard and reached for a crystal decanter. He poured a healthy splash of brandy into a snifter and brought it to Tasia.
Slowly her fingers unfolded, and she took the glass in her palms. Luke reached down and lifted her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. She gave him a fixed stare, her thoughts hidden behind a mask.
“Tell me what's happened,” he said gently.
Charles was the one to reply. “It's best for all concerned if you don't know, Luke. Just let us leave with no questions asked—”
“You can leave,” Luke assured him. “But Miss Billings stays.”
Charles sighed in exasperation. “I've heard that tone many times before, Luke, and I know what it signifies—”
“It doesn't matter now,” Tasia interrupted. She drained the brandy, closing her eyes as the smooth fire slid down her throat. Her pale, bright gaze returned to Luke, and she gave him a shaky smile. “You won't want me to stay, after you know.”
Luke reached for the empty brandy snifter. “Another?” he asked brusquely, and she nodded.
He went to refill the glass. Tasia waited until his back was turned before she spoke in a strained voice. “I am Lady Anastasia Ivanovna Kaptereva. Last winter in St. Petersburg I was convicted of murdering my cousin, Prince Mikhail Angelovsky.” She paused as she saw him tense, the muscles of his back locking. “I escaped from prison, and came to England to avoid execution.”
Tasia hadn't intended to prolong the story, but she found herself describing her life in St. Petersburg after her father's death. Somehow she forgot that she was speaking and others were listening. The past rushed over her, and she saw it as if it were all happening again. She saw her mother, Marie Petrovna, swathed in lynx fur, her arms and throat adorned with jewels the size of robin's eggs. And the men who swarmed around her in eager hordes, at parties on the royal yacht, during visits to the opera and theater, at lengthy midnight suppers.
Tasia remembered her first bal blanc, where aristocratic girls were presented as the choicest offerings of the Russian nobility. She had worn a white silk gown, her waist cinched by a girdle of rubies and pink pearls. Men had pursued her, each of them with an eye on the fortune she would inherit someday. But of all the suitors who showed interest, the most notable was Prince Mikhail Angelovsky.
“Mikhail was an animal,” Tasia said with sudden intensity. “When he was sober, he was vicious. The only time he was tolerable was when he inhaled enough opium smoke to put himself in a stupor. He was seldom without his pipe. He also drank quite a lot.” She hesitated, and a blush spread over her face. “Mikhail didn't like women at all. Everyone knew how he was, but his family turned a blind eye to it. When I turned seventeen, the Angelovskys approached my mother. An agreement was made. They decided I would become Mikhail's wife. It was common knowledge that I didn't want the marriage. I begged my mother, my family, the priest, anyone who might listen, not to force me to marry him. But they all said it would be good for the family, keeping two large fortunes closely linked. And the Angelovskys hoped that marriage might reform Mikhail.”
“And your mother? What was her opinion?”
At the sound of Stokehurst's voice, Tasia looked at him for the first time. He was beside her on the settee, his face inscrutable. She held the empty brandy snifter in a tight grip, until the fragile glass threatened to splinter. Carefully Stokehurst pried it from her fingers and set it aside.
“My mother wanted me to be married,” Tasia said, staring into his alert blue eyes. “She didn't like it when the men who came to visit her began to show interest in me. I look very much the way she did in her youth—it made her uncomfortable. She told me that it was my duty to marry for the benefit of the family, and afterward I could fall in and out of love with whomever I wanted. She said I would be very happy as the wife of an Angelovsky, especially…one who preferred boys.”
Stokehurst snorted derisively. “Why?”
“She said that Mikhail wouldn't bother me with his attentions, and I would be free to do as I liked.” At Stokehurst's scathing glance, Tasia shrugged helplessly. “If you knew my mother, you would understand how she is.”
“I understand exactly,” he said, his mouth twisting. “Go on with the story.”
“As a last resort, I decided to visit Mikhail in secret, and beg him to help me. I thought I might be able to reason with him. There was a chance he would listen. So I…I went to see him.” Tasia stopped then. Words tumbled inside her, fragmenting, jamming in her throat until she couldn't speak at all. Feeling a trickle of cold sweat on her temple, she reached up and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It always happened when she tried to remember…She was filled with panic, suffocated with it.
“What happened?” Stokehurst asked softly.
She shook her head, breathing in uneven bursts, unable to get enough air.
“Tasia.” His hand covered hers in a hurtful grip. “Tell me the rest.”
Somehow she forced the words out through her chattering teeth. “I don't know. I went to him, I think…but I don't remember. I was found in the Angelovsky Palace with a knife in my hand…and Mikhail's body…The servants were screaming, and his throat…blood…Oh God, it was everywhere.” Tasia held on to his hand with both of hers, feeling as if a dark pit were opening beneath her, and he was the only thing that kept her from falling. She wanted to fling herself against him, and press deep into the smell of horses and sweat and brandy, and feel his arms around her. Instead she quenched the urge and stayed where she was, staring at him desperately while hot tears splashed from her eyes. He was strangely calm, as steady as a rock, watching her without any sign of shock or horror.
“There were no witnesses to the actual murder?” he asked.
“No, just the servants who found me afterward.”
“There was no proof, then. You can't be certain that you did it.” Luke turned to Charles with a quizzical glance. “There has to be more. They couldn't convict her solely on circumstantial evidence.”
Charles shook his head ruefully. “I'm afraid their system of justice is nothing like ours. The Russian authorities can define a crime any way they choose, withhold any case from the regular courts, imprison a man indefinitely on the mere suspicion that he's committed a crime. They d
on't require proof or even evidence to convict someone.”
“I must have done it,” Tasia sobbed. “I dream about it all the time. I wake up wondering if I'm remembering or imagining. S-sometimes I think I'm going mad. I did hate Mikhail. I spent weeks in a prison cell thinking about that, knowing I deserved to be executed. The thought is as bad as the deed, don't you see? I prayed for acceptance, for humility, until my knees were bruised from the floor, but it didn't work…I still wanted to live…I couldn't stop myself from wanting it.”
“What happened then?” Luke asked, lacing his fingers through hers.
“I took a sleeping draught in prison, to make everyone think I was dead. They filled the coffin with sand, and there was a funeral, while I…I was brought to England by my Uncle Kirill. But there were rumors that I was still alive. Government officials decided to have my body exhumed, to settle the matter. When they discovered that the coffin was empty, they realized I had escaped. That was why Uncle Kirill sent a message to the Ashbournes.”
“Who is looking for you?”
Tasia was silent, gazing down at their linked hands.
Charles rearranged himself in a more comfortable position in his chair. The creases on his face had relaxed, as if he were relieved at being able to confide the whole story to someone. Even as a schoolboy, Charles had hated to keep secrets. He wasn't very good at it. Everything showed on his face. “It's a rather complicated question,” Charles said to Luke. “The imperial government has so many secret divisions and special sections of law enforcement that no one really knows who's responsible for what. I've read Kirill's letter a dozen times, trying to make sense of everything. It seems that Tasia has not only committed a civil offense, she has now broken the criminal code by undermining respect for the sovereign authority—a political crime punishable by death. The imperial government doesn't care about justice. It cares about the appearance of order. Until Tasia is executed in a public display, the enemies of the tsar will use her as a means to ridicule the crown, the corps of gendarmes, the ministry of the interior—”
“And you think they would actually follow Tasia here and bring her back to Russia?” Luke interrupted. “Just to make a point?”
“No, they wouldn't go that far,” Tasia said in a low voice. “As long as I remain in exile, I'm safe from them. The problem is Nikolas.” Luke watched her blot her wet cheeks with her sleeve, and the childlike gesture wrung his heart. He waited silently for her to go on, although he was simmering with impatience. “Nikolas is Mikhail's older brother,” she continued dully. “The Angelovskys want revenge for Mikhail's death. Nikolas is looking for me. He'll find me if it takes the rest of his life.”
Suddenly the compassion on Luke's face was stamped out by arrogant confidence. If all they were concerned about was Nikolas Angelovsky, that was a problem easily solved. “If he does, I'll send him straight back to Russia.”
“Just like that,” Tasia said with a frown.
Luke smiled slightly, envisioning some pampered prince in satin knee breeches. “There's nothing to worry about.”
“If you knew Nikolas, you would understand the cause for concern.” Tasia pulled her hand away and withdrew to the corner of the settee. “I have to leave, before you make everything worse. You would never understand someone like Prince Angelovsky, or what lengths he would go to. Now that Nicholas knows I'm alive, it's only a matter of time until he finds me. He doesn't have the choice to stop, even if he wanted to. Everything he is, blood, history, family, compels him to make me pay for what I did to his brother. He is a powerful, dangerous man.” As Luke tried to speak, she forestalled him with a stilted gesture and turned to Charles and Alicia. “Thank you for everything you've done, but you mustn't involve yourselves any further. I will find a new place by myself.”
“Tasia, you can't disappear without letting us know where you're going,” Alicia cried. “Please let us help you!”
Tasia stood and smiled with loving regret. “You've been wonderful to me, cousin. You've helped me as much as anyone could have. Now I have to manage on my own. Spaséeba.” Her expression was shuttered as she glanced at Luke, but he sensed her fatigue, her need for comfort…He saw the price she had already paid for survival. Words seemed to fail her, and she turned away abruptly.
The men stood in unison as she left the room. Luke began to follow her, but he was stopped by Alicia's voice.
“Let her go.”
Luke swung around with a scowl. He was exasperated, angry, eager to do battle. “Did I miss something?” he inquired acidly. “Angelovsky is only a man. He can be dealt with. There's no reason to let fear of him ruin the rest of her life.”
“He's barely human,” Alicia said. “Prince Nikolas and I are third cousins. I know quite a bit about the Angelovskys. Would you like to hear what kind of people they are?”
“Tell me everything,” Luke muttered, staring at the empty doorway.
“The Angelovskys are complete Slavophiles. They hate everyone who isn't Russian. Their family is connected to the royal house by marriage. They are among the wealthiest landholders in Russia, with property scattered over a dozen provinces. I'd guess they own approximately two million acres or more. Nikolas's father, Prince Dmitri Sergeyevich, murdered his first wife because she was barren. Then he married a peasant girl from Minsk. She bore him seven children; five girls and two sons. The children were beautiful, exotic…and primitive. None of them has spent a minute of their lives bothering about abstract things like principles or ethics or honor. They act on instinct. I've heard that Nikolas is just like the Old Prince, very brutal and cunning. If a wrong is done to him, he'll repay it a hundredfold. Tasia is right—he doesn't have the choice of whether to seek revenge. In Russia they have a saying: ‘Another's tears are like water.’ It suits the Angelovskys to perfection. There's no mercy in their nature.” Alicia turned to Charles's protective embrace with a miserable sigh. “Nothing will stop Prince Nikolas.”
Luke watched the two of them coldly. “I can. And I will.”
“You don't owe anything to Tasia, or to us,” she said in a muffled voice.
“I've had too much taken from me.” An odd blue-white glitter came into his eyes. “Now that I finally have a chance at some happiness, I'll be damned if I let some bloodthirsty Russian bastard meddle with it.”
Charles wore the same look of bewilderment as his wife. “Happiness,” he echoed. “What are you saying? That you have some sort of personal feeling for the girl? A few days ago you were dangling her before your guests like a bit of live bait on a hook—” He stopped at Luke's darkly sullen look, and continued in a more diplomatic tone. “It's no great surprise that you're attracted to her. She's a beautiful girl. But please, you must try to put her interests above your own. She's vulnerable and frightened.”
“And you think it's in her best interest to let her fend for herself?” Luke sneered. “No friends, no family, no one to help her—for God's sake, am I the only one who's thinking clearly?”
Alicia pulled away from her husband. “She's better off on her own than putting herself at the mercy of someone who will take advantage of her.”
Charles stared in dismay, lifting his hands as if he yearned to clamp them over her mouth. “Darling, you know Luke is not that kind of man. I'm sure he has the best intentions.”
“Does he?” Alicia gave Luke a challenging stare. “What exactly are your intentions?”
Luke responded with his old sardonic smile. “That's between me and your cousin. I'd like to work out some sort of arrangement that will suit her. If she and I can't come to an agreement, she'll leave. At this point you don't have much say in the matter, do you?”
“I don't know you at all anymore,” Alicia snapped. “I thought Tasia would be safe with you, because you were the man least likely to cause trouble. You've never interfered in peoples' lives before. I wish to heaven you hadn't started now! What has happened to you?”
Luke kept his mouth shut, retreating behind a wall of cold pride. He
was amazed that they didn't understand, that they couldn't see. When he had sat holding Tasia's hand and listening to the misery she had gone through, his emotions had filled the room. He loved her. He was terrified that she would vanish and leave him just as she had left everything else in her life. He couldn't allow that, for her sake and certainly for his own. He wanted to take action, but there was so much that needed to be explained and understood. If only he could think clearly, unfettered by the pangs of need and love that made everything so difficult to sort out.
The Ashbournes were staring at him, Alicia with displeasure, Charles with the perception of an old, familiar friend. Charles was no fool. Taking his wife firmly in tow, he gave Luke a half-amused, half-understanding glance. “It will be all right,” Charles said quietly, although it wasn't clear to whom he was speaking. “Everyone will do what they must, and things will settle into place.”
“That's what you always say,” Alicia complained.
Charles smiled complacently. “And I'm always right, aren't I? Come, darling…we're of no use to either of them now.”
From her window Tasia had watched the Ashbournes' carriage leave. After hanging up her gray dress and brushing it with mechanical precision, she started to pack. She arranged her belongings in neat piles. The light from a single candle flame sent deep shadows stretching across the room. All light from the village below was extinguished. Even the moon and stars were covered with a murky haze.
Although she was dressed only in her thin shift, her skin was moist with perspiration. A breeze from the window chilled her for a moment, and she rubbed her palms over the goosebumps on her upper arms. She was trying not to think, or feel. She didn't want anything to break through the layer of ice that surrounded her.
It was over, this brief foray into the life of Lucas Stokehurst, and she was glad to end it. Things had become complicated. She could never afford to lean on someone else. She had only herself. She wondered how she should leave, how to tell Emma goodbye, without having to face Stokehurst again. He would make it impossible. It wouldn't matter if he were kind or cruel. Either way would hurt too much to bear.
