One Night of Sin (14 page)

“Do you, Your Highness?” Parthenia turned to him with a bright and friendly smile.

Mikhail stammered, thrown off balance. Menus for entertaining were hardly his forte, but more astonishing by far was his sudden realization that he was looking at his perfect bride.

Healthy, he could see in a glance. Good breeding stock, superior bloodlines. Impeccable manners, and beautiful enough to impress even the Czar.

Most important, marrying Parthenia Westland would cement his alliance with the elite Whigs.

Stunned by his good fortune, he could barely manage a shrug, slipping readily into the familiar role of a blunt, simple soldier. “Forgive me, Lady Parthenia. I know not.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Westland agreed.

“Oh, Father,” she chided him fondly, and then turned to Mikhail with a speculative air, tapping the blunt edge of her pencil against her chin. “If you would not think me too forward, sir, might I ask if Your Highness enjoys a bit of cards now and then?”

The question startled him, coming from such a demure creature. “Why, yes, my lady. Not intemperately, of course, but there is much waiting during a war, and cards are a common pastime amongst soldiers in their tents and officers in the mess.”

“Just what I had hoped to hear!” she replied, dazzling him with her smile. She turned to her father. “May I ask him about the whist drive, Papa?”

“Oh, go on,” Westland muttered, obviously quite the doting papa. “If you must.”

Parthenia turned to Mikhail again. “Each year, Your Highness, the Ladies’ Charitable Society, of which I am a part, arranges a whist drive by the seaside town of Brighton to raise funds for our charitable foundation benefiting navy widows and their children.”

“Admirable,” he answered with a nod.

“Unfortunately, the difficult times our country has suffered of late have greatly increased the need for aid, and so, this year, we are determined to expand our charity to include widows and children of men from all branches of the military. To do so, we have doubled the entry fee from last year, but on the other hand, I can assure you the annual Brighton whist drive always guarantees great excitement and notoriety for those who make it into the final round.”

“All that enjoyment for only ten thousand pounds,” Westland said drily.

Mikhail nearly choked. “Ten thousand pounds?”

“Too steep for you, sir?” she teased with a jaunty grin.

Startled by her charm, Mikhail laughed and glanced at her father. “I see why they put such a pretty lady in charge of signing up the players.”

“An indecent sum of money, is it not?” Westland agreed. “Only such smiles could induce a man to go along with such folly.” He pinched his daughter’s cheek with sardonic affection. “I swear to you, I did not want my little girl involved in such wranglings, but she is difficult to say no to.”

“So I see.”

“Oh, hush, Papa. It’s for a good cause, as you well know. Don’t be fooled, Your Highness. My father is signed up for it, as well,” she added matter-of-factly. “And that means it
must
be respectable.”

“Wasted funds. I am hopeless at cards.”

“Oh, Papa, winning is not the point. It is a
donation.
”

“As long as they don’t match me up with a damned Tory for a partner.”

She laughed and turned prettily to Mikhail again. “I do hope Your Highness might consider it soon. There are only thirty-two seats in the game.”

“For the thirty-two richest men in England,” the duke remarked.

She gave her father a scolding tap on the arm. “The Regent’s playing, too.”

“Well, he’d hardly miss a chance to squander England’s coffers,” Westland muttered.

“If you can avoid being eliminated through all four rounds,” she explained, “the winner and his partner get to split the prize of 320,000 pounds—minus ten percent for the poor, of course.”

“A small price to pay for the chance to please Lady Parthenia.” Mikhail offered up this flattery with a Continental bow. “I shall be honored to participate, my lady. Count me in.”

Westland gave his daughter a doting pinch on her cheek. “Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?”

As the battle in the mews raged on, Becky could not believe what a skilled fighter Alec was. He was magnificent. More than that—fearless. She was astonished at his skill, speed, and ferocity with a sword. He had been right. She had underestimated him, and she was sorry for it.

The second Cossack was still trying to drag her away, but she kept looking back in worried amazement as Alec held his own and then some against one of Mikhail’s fiercest warriors. “Ow! Get your hands off me!” she muttered to no avail, tripping over an uneven cobble in her efforts to resist the Cossack’s pull.

Suddenly, a bellow of pain rose from the embattled men behind them. Both she and her captor stopped struggling and turned to see which man had been hurt.

Her eyes widened, hearty pride rushing into them. Alec had stabbed the giant Cossack again, this time in his biceps.

The Cossack cursed him in his native tongue, but Alec merely watched him with glittering eyes. He was in full control of the fight now and appeared in some dark way to be enjoying it. Becky’s captor, watched the fight for a few seconds in apparent confusion and rising anger.

His nostrils flared, as though he scented real danger to his comrade now. Perhaps loyalty to his fellow soldier weighed even more heavily on him than Mikhail’s orders, for after a moment’s hesitation, the second Cossack sent Becky a pitiless glance, and then he was in motion once more, dragging her toward the horse’s now empty corral.

He reached for one of the lead-ropes draped over the post.

“Oh, no, no, you don’t—stop it! Damn you!” In short order she was tied to the fence post, her hands bound in a very Gordian knot at about shoulder height.

She fought her bindings. “Alec, look out!” she yelled as the second Cossack entered the fray, going to his wounded comrade’s aid.

He arrived too late to save him, though, for at that moment Alec plunged his sword into his first opponent’s belly with such exquisite form that it looked as if he had practiced it for a dozen years, like a deadly ballet.

Becky shuddered and looked away as the soldier bellowed and fell to his knees.

Alec withdrew the blade and spun gracefully to meet the next opponent as the first one toppled facedown, but the second Cossack did not intend to make the same mistake.

Instead, he reached for his pistol.

Alec dove as the Cossack fired, but Becky heard his curse of pain and knew that her hero was hit; taking cover by pure instinct, she flung herself behind the post that she was tied to. Landing on the ground, Alec brought up his pistol in answer and fired back at the Cossack.

Boom!

Becky was glad the Cossack was facing forward, because she did not want to see where exactly Alec’s bullet had struck him. She only saw the man’s big, uniformed body jerk, the sudden movement so violent that his odd-shaped helmet fell off.

The Cossack grabbed at his throat, his scream cut off before he could make one. Then he went crashing to the ground.

She closed her eyes tightly and leaned her forehead against the fence post, shaking the whole length of her body and unnerved by the deafening silence in the alley.

Her heartbeat was a crazed staccato; she suddenly felt rather dizzy, slightly nauseated. She knew the Cossack’s bullet had hit Alec, but she did not know how badly he was hurt, and for a second could not bring herself to look. This was exactly what she had feared.

The worst part was her ridiculous, infuriating sense of helplessness: Trussed up like a Christmas goose, she was unable to free herself or use her hands. If Alec was down, there was nothing she could do to help him. It was unbearable.
God, let him be all right.

Just as she gathered the courage to look, she felt a hand touch her arm and let out a shriek, nearly jumping out of her skin.

“Shh, it’s only me,” Alec panted.

“Are you hurt?” she asked frantically. “You were hit—”

“Just a scratch.” He glanced down at his left arm. His coat sleeve was torn at the top, nearly at his shoulder, and she saw blood seeping through the dark blue broadcloth. “Damn,” he said, “I liked this coat.”

“Don’t you dare make a joke at a time like this!” she wrenched out.

“Shh, calm down, it barely grazed me. Come, we’ve got to get out of here,” he murmured, but his eyes were dark and troubled as he worked swiftly to untie her wrists.

His hands shaking slightly with the aftermath of the fight, he fumbled with the Cossack’s puzzlelike knot only for a moment before losing patience and simply slicing the ropes in two with his blade.

The second she was free, Becky hugged him hard around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest.

“Shh. It’s all right. They can’t hurt you now,” he whispered, holding her just for a heartbeat. She nearly cried out at the denial when he pried her back a small space and tilted her face up to meet his gaze.

His chiseled face was taut, his mouth a hard, unsmiling line. “Hurry, we must go. There were two more sent after you. The sound of gunfire will draw them here any minute now. Can you run?”

“Yes, of course.” She forced a nod, feeling braver now that she saw he was not too seriously injured.

“This way.” Alec grasped her hand firmly and cast one last regretful look at the dead men in the mews. “For the record, Becky, I have no idea who you really are or what the hell is going on, but you’re going to explain it to me, do you understand?” he ordered in a low tone. “You owe me that.”

The cool, leashed anger in his glance cut her, but she really couldn’t blame him.

“Come on,” he murmured. “We’ll cut through the stables.” Scanning the area, he tugged her forward by her hand.

Behind them, they heard deep, foreign voices calling out from the direction of the street as the other pair of Cossacks approached, searching for both their quarry and their companions.

Alec and she exchanged a grim look, then stealthily slipped away.

Westland’s butler marched into the drawing room with an anxious look. “Beg pardon, sirs, my lady. One of Prince Kurkov’s officers below has asked to speak to His Highness.”

A taut glance passed between Mikhail and Westland, but they did not speak of the unpleasant matter of Rebecca in front of Lady Parthenia.

The duke strode over to the window, glanced out, then shook his head at Mikhail, relating the negative answer in silence. Mikhail absorbed this, then sent the butler a grim nod.

“Tell him I’ll be right there.”

“Very good, Your Highness.” With a short bow, the butler exited.

Mikhail glanced at his host apologetically. “I should be on my way, in any case. I have imposed for too long. Your Grace. Lady Parthenia.” He stared for a moment longer at the duke’s radiant daughter, and then bowed to her again.

“He is an odd man, isn’t he?” Parthenia whispered to her father after the tall, imposing prince had marched out.

The duke shrugged and gave her a fond smile. “He is a soldier. And a Russian. Their ways are different than ours. In all, though, I think well of him. And I daresay His Highness thinks well of
you,
” he teased, tugging a light spiral curl on her nape as he strode past.

“Oh, Father, you and your matchmaking,” she scolded his retreating back.

“I would like to meet my grandchildren before I die, Parthenia,” he said breezily as he went off to continue with his morning’s correspondence. “The chap’s a prince, after all. You could do worse.”

Parthenia considered this, left standing alone in the drawing room. Then she drifted to the window and looked down cautiously at Prince Kurkov conferring with his exotic retinue of guards. How fierce they looked!

She could hear them talking but did not understand a word. He
was
rather handsome, she supposed. He was not an exciting, though irritating, challenge like Lord Draxinger, but at least Prince Kurkov behaved like a grown-up, which was more than she could say for the earl and his fast-living friends.

She snorted at the thought and then shrugged the matter off, leaving the window to figure out the rest of the meal for the grand Winner’s Ball to be held at the conclusion of their whist drive fund-raiser.

Meanwhile, outside the Westlands’ house, Mikhail could not believe what he was hearing. “You’re telling me she got away?”

“Your Highness, it’s—worse than that,” Boris said grimly.

“How—worse?” Mikhail growled.

The Cossack’s gaze fell to the ground.

“Well?” Mikhail demanded.

Pytor answered for the sergeant: “Ivan and Vasily are dead.”

“What?” Mikhail turned to him in furious incredulity.

In a low voice Pytor quickly explained how they had found the pair, one shot, one nigh disemboweled.

“Did anyone see anything?” Mikhail demanded.

“A groom saw the girl. He claims she tried to steal a horse, but Ivan and Vasily pulled her down off its back. The horse ran off and the groom had to chase it. He saw nothing further. When he came back, they were dead. We have not yet located anyone who might have seen what happened in the interim.”

Mikhail shook his head, stunned. God’s bones, two of his best warriors were dead! He took a deep breath, shaking off his astonishment. “It is impossible she could have done this on her own. Someone is obviously helping her. Whoever he is, find this man and kill him.”

“Yes, sir. Gladly.” Boris jerked his head up with vengeance burning in his dark eyes.

“As to your comrade’s bodies, get rid of them at once,” Mikhail added. “I do not want the English authorities asking questions. And whatever happens—
whatever
happens, do you understand me?—Rebecca must not be permitted to speak to Westland. I want this house kept under watch at all times; she will no doubt try to meet with the duke again, and when she does, you will intercept her. She may try to approach them elsewhere, so if Westland or his daughter leave the house, follow them—discreetly, please. Neither of the Westlands must ever perceive that they are under our surveillance.”

His glance flicked over his men’s traditional Cossack uniforms. “I want you all in English civilian garb from now on. Try to blend in, for God’s sake, and keep your eyes out for the girl. When you have her, bring her to me.”