Love and Splendor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 5 (41 page)

‘‘Cyril, I—’’

There was a knock on the door.

Relieved, Dani brushed by him quickly, spared, for the moment, from being ingratiating. “That’s probably our after-dinner cordials. We’ll have one last drink and maybe I’ll feel better…” Her voice trailed off as she flung the door open to find the waiter standing there looking quite confused.

He was holding a silver tray on which rested a large cream pie. He flashed an apologetic smile, shrugged helplessly. “I realize you’ve already been served the dessert you ordered,
mademoiselle
, but a gentleman delivered this to the kitchen and was most emphatic that it be served to you at once. He also said that you’d understand it was of special significance for a very special occasion.”

The warmth of happy realization spread through Dani like a great cascading wave. “
Merci!
” she said, laughing, unable to resist a curtsy as she took the tray.

She set it down on a nearby table, kept her back turned to Cyril, who was watching in stony silence.

She heard the waiter close the door behind him.

“More dessert?” Cyril asked lightly, thinking perhaps sweetness might help her mood.

Dani grasped the pie and turned to face him.

He heard her declare him a lying, loathesome son of a bitch…just before the cream splattered in his face.

Chapter Thirty-Two

In his hotel suite, Drake and Dani sat opposite each other, the painting on a table between them.

Drake sighed, shook his head, ran his fingertips through his hair in frustration. “I don’t see it. I can’t find a single clue to tell me one damn thing. As far as I can tell, it’s nothing but a crude drawing of the palace, and the egg could be hidden anywhere inside, and there are over a hundred rooms! I wouldn’t know where to start looking if permission was granted to search!”

Dani shared his gloom but was curious to know why the revolutionaries chose the palace as a hiding place. “Isn’t it well guarded?”

“Oh, yes.” Drake then described the way he remembered security during his many visits. “There’s a permanent garrison of five thousand infantrymen, carefully selected out of all the regiments of the Imperial Guard, and then there are guard detachments at the gates and foot patrols in the park, as well as sentries stationed inside in the vestibules, staircases, corridors, kitchens, and even in the cellars. They’ve even got plainclothes guards just to keep an eye on the people that work there, and they probably number well into the hundreds—servants, workmen, tradesmen.”

“So it wouldn’t have been easy to have gotten in there to hide anything,” she mused, wondering if it was all a hoax.

He sensed her thoughts. “It would’ve been difficult, true, but from all I’ve heard about Zigmont Koryatovich, I’m not surprised he was able to do it. He loved to make the Czar, and his armies, look foolish. For him to have hidden the Fabergé egg inside the palace was a slap in the Czar’s face. And there was never any doubt that’s where he hid it. He and my mother were captured near the palace.

“In fact,” he continued, “they say Koryatovich went to his death bragging about it. That’s how the legend of the painting began. On the morning he was executed, he told one of his jailers that when my mother escaped, she took with her the one clue to where the Fabergé egg was hidden. The jailer got word to the Czar who, in turn, told his son Nicholas, and he, because of our past friendship, told me. After that, it was hushed up to keep would-be fortune hunters from trying to sneak inside the palace to look for it.”

Dam’s heart went out to him, for she knew the agony of being so near…yet so far. Ten years he’d searched for the painting, and now he had it…but could not find a single clue.

She was struck by another thought. “Did Koryatovich actually admit your mother escaped with a painting that contained the clue to where the egg was hidden? Maybe she actually took something else.”

He shook his head. “No. The guards had let Koryatovich have the art supplies he asked for, feeling sorry for him, I suppose, because he was scheduled to die. I guess they saw no harm in a doomed man painting a few pictures to while away what was left of his life.”

Dani looked pensive a moment. “I’m going to pay
Monsieur
Arpel one final visit,” she then announced.

Drake raised an eyebrow. “Why? What business do you have with him?”

“He still has something that belongs to me, and I intend to have it.”

Drake glanced at the canvas and nodded. “Ah, yes, the frame. I found the canvas under the bed but there was no sign of the frame.”

Dani stood, gathered her things, and moved toward the door with Drake following. “To be perfectly honest, I valued the frame more than the painting, because it was so unusual.”

Drake had to admit he’d not paid any attention to it. “I was always too busy concentrating on the painting whenever I had the chance.”

With a parting kiss, Dani went her way. The night was clear, stars twinkling like ice crystals in a sky of black frost. The world around her glittered white, a million crystal diamonds studding the landscape. The wind was soft, as caressing as a baby’s breath, and she clutched her ermine wrap tighter as she moved toward the carriage that would take her to Cyril’s shop.

A lamp burned above the door but all was silent. Dani knocked with determination. It was not that the frame was valuable; she merely wanted what was rightfully hers. Cyril had lied, stolen, manipulated. He should be grateful Drake was so concerned with unraveling the mystery that he hadn’t sought revenge, for Cyril was no match for the Russian’s strength and fury.

She was about to knock once more when Cyril opened the door to look at her in surprise. “Dani!” He almost choked on her name, then leaned out to nervously glance left and right, making sure she was alone before he gestured her inside.

Once they were in the foyer, he asked hesitantly, “What are you doing here? I thought you never wanted to see me again?”

“I don’t,” she curtly confirmed. “Just give me the rest of what you stole from me, and I’ll be on my way.”

His expression was blank. He shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I want the frame,” she snapped.

He laughed softly, incredulously. “That unrefined thing? Whatever for?” He put a cajoling hand on her shoulder. “Come on in, my dear, and let’s talk about this. I know you’re angry, but if you’ll just let me explain everything, you’ll see it’s just a harmless situation, something to laugh about, not get upset over, and—”

“Cyril, don’t patronize me!” she cried, slapping his hand from her shoulder and glaring up at him venomously. “Just give me my property so I can get out of here. I find you so despicable it makes me nauseous to even breathe the same air as you!”

He lifted his chin as though slapped. “All right then,” he curtly told her. “I’ll get your worthless frame to go with your
worthless
painting, and then you can run to your
worthless
lover!”

He left her standing in the foyer, returning moments later with the frame. He thrust it at her. “Here. Take it and go. If you can’t be open-minded about this thing and see it for just a harmless, amusing situation, then it’s best we don’t try to be friends any longer.”

She tried to feel pity for him, could not. “Cyril, we were never really friends. You don’t manipulate your friends!”

She left him staring after her as she hurried out to the waiting carriage.

Dani did not notice the man standing in the shadows across the street…just as she’d not seen him following her constantly since the night of the Imperial Ball. She was too anxious to be on her way, for she’d decided to use the retrieved frame as an excuse to see Drake once more that evening.

Drake sipped a brandy as he continued to scrutinize the painting. Lord, he thought, Zigmont Koryatovich might have been many things, but one thing he was not was an artist. A child might have accomplished the same replica with less effort.

But what was the blasted key?

God, to be so close, to actually have the damn thing in his hands after all these years, when it’d been his only glimmer of hope that he could restore his father’s honor so the wretched soul could rest in peace…and then not to be able to decipher any meaning.

It was painfully frustrating.

And it didn’t help matters that he now had another reason to resolve what had become a life’s quest.

Dani Coltrane.

He
had
to solve the mystery; Dani deserved more than a man banned from the Imperial Court, a man whose family honor had been stripped away.

A sound at the door brought him out of his reverie. He opened the door, then blinked at the sight of Jade standing there, looking cold and miserable, green eyes misted with sadness.

She stumbled into his arms with a broken sob. He pushed the door shut, then held her close. “Jade, darling, what’s wrong? What’s happened? Has Colt done something to hurt you?’ His voice had an apprehensive edge.

“No, no,” she assured him quickly, clinging to him tightly. “Oh, Drakar, help me, please—”

“Anything!” He held her away from him, gave her a gentle shake for she was near hysteria in her grief. “Just tell me what’s wrong…”

“I love him,” she said brokenly, miserably, her gaze meeting his in a silent plea for help. “I know it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, but I love him…”

She crumpled against him, and Drake maneuvered her to the bed so they could sit down. Then he asked to hear the rest of the story.

Bitterly, she bit out the account of how Colt had told her of his feelings, that he felt he could love her, wanted to pursue those feelings…and would she be willing to come to Paris to live with his family for as long as it took them to come to terms with their relationship?

“I’m a member of the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg, and this man thinks I’m an uneducated urchin. He even says he’ll help my family out financially so they won’t be upset when I leave Russia. Oh, Drakar,” she wailed, “what am I going to do? You said yourself Colt’s been hurt by women deceiving him. What do you think will happen when he hears how
I
’ve deceived him?”

Drake could no longer hold back his amusement. “You said you loved him. I don’t see a problem.”

Her voice rose in furious frustration. “Don’t you understand? I’ve lied to him—”

“But it was a
nice
lie, Jade, with no harm intended, and it’s turned out even better than I expected.”

She slumped against him, sobbing once more. He lay back across the bed, pulling her down with him to cradle her and hold her close, wanting to soothe, wanting to make her see that her world had not ended, that it was, by a quirk of fate, just beginning…and it was going to be wonderful.

Drake did not hear the door open.

He did not know that Dani had entered the room until he heard a gasp and looked up to see her standing there staring down, ashen-faced.

It was, he realized as bitter bile rose in his throat, like going back in time to that night in Paris.

And, just as she had done before, Dani looked at him with loathing before she turned and ran from the room.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Drake caught up with Dani as she reached the landing of the floor below. He grabbed her and swung her around to face him. “This time,” he hoarsely avowed, “you’re going to stay around long enough to hear my side, dammit!”

Rage was a snake, twisting and writhing through her body and soul. He had her arms pinned to her sides or she’d have struck him. “You lying bastard! You could never be true to one woman, could you?”

“Dani, listen to me—”

“No, listen to me, please…”

They both turned to Jade, who was leaning over the railing above.

“Don’t be angry with him. It’s all my fault. Come back upstairs and I’ll explain everything.”

Dani regarded her with contempt. “I don’t have any quarrel with you. You’re just part of his collection.” She struggled against Drake. Oh, how could she have been so blind? So stupid? Once more, she’d fallen into his trap, allowed him to manipulate her.

Jade shook her head vigorously. “No, you can’t believe that. You have to listen, Dani—”

“You know me?” Dani interrupted, incredulous and becoming even angrier that Drake could speak of her to one of his “harem”.

“Of course I do. He asked me to spy on you at the Imperial Ball and report back to him about everything you said and did.” She looked to Drake for approval, saw he appeared quite willing for her to tell all, so she rapidly continued. “I made it possible for him to slip into your suite at the embassy and surprise you.”

Dani was even angrier to hear that. What kind of pervert was this strange girl that she’d spy on another woman for her lover?

Jade sensed what she was thinking, rushed to explain. “Drakar and I aren’t lovers, Dani. We’re very dear friends. I was only helping him to get to you.”

Dani gave her head a reckless toss, fingers tightly gripping the frame she still held. “Just leave me alone,” she said with a sneer. “I don’t want to hear anything either of you has to say!”

“Dani, please listen to her,” Drake begged.