The Counterfeit Count (19 page)

“I think you chose the right time to leave the party,” she answered primly.

“Listen to that!” Barclay's words were slurred with drink. “Chiding me just like an old tough!” He began to sing a bawdy song.

Natalya drew up one foot and rested it across her other knee. “Does he drink like this all the time?”

“It seems he has since I returned from the Continent,” answered Creighton beneath the rumble of his friend's voice.

“Then why are you two friends?”

Barclay hiccuped and threw his arms around Creighton's shoulders. “My bosom-bow. Good old Creighton. He—”

Creighton disentangled himself. “Just sit and be quiet, Barclay. We'll have you to bed soon.”

He leaned one hand on Natalya's knee and chirped, “Bed? Sounds grand, doesn't it? How about it, Demi, old friend? Put out our weapons in the moonlight tonight? What a skimble-skamble way to have a duel!”

“You
are
drunk,” Creighton said, hauling his friend back against the seat. He looked at Natalya, but only dismay dimmed her eyes. Damn Barclay! “Be silent.”

“All right.” He began singing again.

Creighton shook his head and smiled. Lowly, he said, “I think this is the best we can expect tonight.”

“You still haven't answered my question,” she murmured.

“Which one?”

“Why he is your friend. Do you feel sorry for him?”

He did not answer quickly. Looking from her shadowed face to Barclay, who was fading into a drunken sleep, he said, “Partly I do, but partly our friendship is based on years of knowing each other.” He patted Barclay's arm. “We spent our first Seasons in Town enjoying a bachelor's fare together.”

“You were like
him?
”

“I guess I must have been.” He watched the streetlamps flicker past. “Although mayhap not, for I cannot imagine Barclay ever being jobbernowl enough to think of marriage.” He reached across the carriage and gripped her elbow. Bringing her closer, although she stiffened at his touch, he said, “I answered your question. Now, how about a long overdue answer to mine?”

“Your question?”

“Why am I Lord Ashcroft to you now?”

She peeled his fingers off his sleeve. “You know very well why.”

“That answer again. I assure you. If I had any idea, I would not ask.”

Glancing at Barclay, she whispered, “We should recall we are nothing more than comrades.”

“A dreary thought.”

“Creighton—I mean, Lord Ashcroft—” Her lips twitched. “Oh, very well. Creighton it shall be, but that does not change my resolve. Nothing must stand in the way of my plans for reconstructing my father's dacha.”

“But—”

A sharp crack shattered the night. Before Creighton could react, Natalya's hand was on his head.

“Down!” she shouted.

More shots were fired. The carriage sped along the road. The horses neighed a warning as they careened around a corner. The carriage skidded. A wheel struck a curb and the horses shrieked. The carriage rocked to a stop.

“What in the blazes—” mumbled Barclay.

“Stay here,” Creighton threw open the door. It crashed against a tree. No wonder they had stopped!

Natalya followed. Creighton flinched as something dropped toward her. Then he saw Sergeant Zass on the top of the carriage. She shoved the gun Zass had tossed down to her into Creighton's hands.

“Another!” she called. “For me!”

“Get back in the carriage!” Creighton shouted.

“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 held 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.”