The Counterfeit Count (21 page)

Natalya glared at the ceiling, but her fury was not aimed at the intricate pattern around the brass lamp over her dressing table. How could Creighton be so blasted unreasonable? How could he fault her for being obligated to follow orders when he had known the same frustration at Colonel Carruthers' insistence that Creighton host her? Refusing the general's command to come to the gathering to celebrate the czar's arrival in England would have caused all kinds of trouble she did not need.

A rap sounded at the door.

“Go away!” she snapped.

“Kapitán?”

Swinging her feet off the side of the bed, she called, “Petr,
mózho
!”

He entered and closed the door quickly. His scowl was nearly as dark as his beard.

“What is wrong?” she asked, although she wanted no more problems heaped on her.

“Lord Ashcroft asked you to leave the gathering for the general this afternoon, Kapitán. Such insults must not go unanswered.”

“It was not an insult.” She slid off the bed and wrapped her arms around herself. She did not bother to ask how he had found this out when he understood so little English. No doubt she had betrayed the truth with her own anger as she left the club this afternoon. Petr had his own methods to discern the truth, and she had been grateful for his insight more times than she could count. “I had no place at that club, which is for men only.”

“You are a soldier of Russia, a
bogatyr
who led us to great deeds. You—”

“I am a woman, Petr, even if you do not always think of me that way.”

“Kapitán, I …” For the only time she could recall, a flush rose above his full beard.

With a mocking laugh aimed at herself, she said, “Forgive me, old friend. It was not my intention to embarrass you by reminding you of the truth.”

“I never forget it, but—”

She sat on the chaise longue and looked up at him. “There is no need for apologies. For me, too, it has been easy to forget who I really am. I have spent so long as Dmitri Dmitrieff, I nearly lost myself in the role of my brother.”

“And now?”

She motioned toward a chair. “Sit, so I do not strain my neck staring up at you.” When he obeyed, obviously uncomfortable with the blue satin surrounding him, she continued, “Now that Czar Alexander is here, we do what we must to make our nation proud. Then we go on with the czar and the general to Vienna. Once our duties there are complete, we return home to rebuild what was destroyed. Nothing has changed, Petr.”

“You have.”

“Many times in the past.” She smiled sadly.

“No, I mean now.” He clasped his long hands between his knees as he slanted toward her. He lowered his voice, even though no one could comprehend his words except her. “Do you love this
anglíski
lord?”

“Why do you ask?” she asked, struggling to hide her astonishment at his unexpected question.

He stood as she did. “You have not had me slit his throat.”

“The war is over, Petr.”

“Is it?”

“Even if we still fought the French, the English have been our allies against Napoleon.”

“But isn't this
anglíski
lord your enemy?”

“Of course not!”

“But he could undo all you have done.”

“But he hasn't! He has kept his vow to me. If he had not, everything would have been ruined. I trust him, Petr. At first, I had no choice but to trust him with the truth. Now I trust him with my life after the attack on us.”

“And you trust him with your heart,” he said grimly.

She shook her head. “He will not heed my warning of the menace stalking us, but I shall not see him die simply for his own pigheadedness.”

“If we were to leave—”

“I thought of that, but the order for our deaths has been given and paid for, at least in part. You can be sure the assassins will wish to obtain the rest of their fee.”

“So how will you convince Lord Ashcroft to heed your warning?”

“That,” she said with a sigh, “is the one thing I have not been able to find an answer to. I only know I must and soon.”

Creighton found no welcome beneath his own roof. It was as if he were the outsider and Natalya his host. He avoided his book-room, not wanting to meet her within its seclusion. To be alone with her, to sift his fingers through her honey-gold hair and to enjoy the scent of her sweet skin would add to the torment haunting him.

Damn women
!

No matter how often he said that—to himself or out loud—it did not help. He had expected his life to be simple upon his return to the Season. He had expected flirtations and cards and mayhap a rendez-vous with a woman who was more interested in pleasure than her reputation. Instead, he was saddled with three illogical women. Maeve was determined to show how easily she had set aside her feelings for him while Tatiana was eager to prove how much she wanted to be with him. And Natalya …

What had rattled her good sense? If he had not known better, he would have guessed she was frightened this afternoon at the club. Impossible! Not the brave and dauntless Kapitán Dmitrieff. Even before he had touched her, she had been trembling.

“Bah,” he grumbled to himself as he shooed the servants out of his bedchamber and readied himself for bed. He had no use for her feminine fears brought on by her imagination and her unwillingness to relinquish the reins of war and live a life of peace. Let her look for trouble where there was none. He wanted only a good night's sleep and the chance to wake on the morrow to the life he should be living.

A scream rang through the house.

Creighton was on his feet, his hand reaching for his sword before he realized he was standing in his own bedchamber. He frowned as he wondered what had awakened him so suddenly his heart hammered against his chest. Sweat clung in an icy sheen to his back, a single drop trickling along his spine.

A scream slashed the night … again.

He tore open his door and raced along the corridor. Forms moved in the shadows. He recognized them all. James, the footman, and Mrs. Winchell were lurching down the stairs. From the other direction, Zass lumbered like some beast out of half-forgotten mythology.

Mrs. Winchell cried, “Who is that? It sounds like the scream of a—”

“I know what it sounds like.” He did not need Mrs. Winchell speaking the word “woman” even in disbelief.

He hammered his fist on Natalya's door. She screamed again. He tried to open the door. It was locked.

“Damnation!” he snarled. Raising his foot, he struck the door. Pain reverberated up his leg as the door crashed open.

With an ear-splitting shout, Zass pushed past him but froze as he stared at the bed where Natalya was on her knees, her hands pressed to her breast. She was wearing the silk smallclothes beneath her unadorned nightshirt, and Creighton cursed. If anyone else saw her like this …

He pulled the door shut behind him. He could not afford time for an explanation when Natalya was mumbling something wildly in her sleep. Beside him, Zass moaned as if he had been sliced through by the sword leaning against the bed.

“What is it?” Creighton asked.

Zass shook his head and moaned again.

Edging around the man who seemed to be rooted to the floor, Creighton inched toward the bed. He did not want to wake Natalya too quickly. He had seen her reflexes and did not doubt she slept with a knife beneath her pillow. It would cut through him before he could breathe again.

“Natalya?” he whispered.

“
Mërtvy! Vse mërtvy! Nyet! Nevozmózhay
!”

He could not understand what she cried, but Zass did. He collapsed to the floor, a fallen behemoth, his fingers clawing into the carpet.

Creighton reached out to touch her, then drew back as she hid her face in her hands and crumpled into a ball on the bed. Her sobs ripped into his heart, threatening to halt it in midbeat.

“Natalya,” he murmured, “wake up. It is only a nightmare.”

She threw her arms around him, pressing her face to his chest. Her sobs struck his skin as her tears seared him through his nightshirt. She repeated the words he could not understand.

“Natalya, what is it?” he asked. “In English. What are you saying? Tell me in English.”

She pulled back and stared at him, but he feared she was still a captive of her dream when she moaned and pressed her face against him again. “Dead! They are all dead!” she groaned. “It cannot be true.”

He clasped her face in his hands and tilted it back. Shocked to see the trails of tears on her cheeks, he whispered, “You are safe here, Natalya. Wake up and see that you are in London.”

“London?” She blinked several times, then stared at him in disbelief. She pulled the wrinkled nightshirt up to cover the silk which accented her every curve. “Creighton?”

Before he could answer, a sob came from the floor.

“Petr?” Natalya peered over the edge of the bed, then stretched out her hand to touch Petr's bird's nest of hair. “Petr, forgive me for hurting you anew.”

He raised himself to one knee and took her hand. Pressing it to his forehead, he whispered, “I wish I could shred from your mind all memories of that day.”

“As I do for you.” She squeezed his fingers gently. “Go and find your own bed, my friend. I am sorry to disturb your sleep.”

“Let me stay with you. I shall protect you from these demons.”

“You can't, for they are within my mind.” She motioned for him to stand. “Please sleep, Petr, for you know we have not escaped all that hunts us.”

Petr aimed a furious scowl at Creighton, but nodded. “I shall wait on the other side of the door.”

Again she shook her head. “Go to bed.” Sitting back against the headboard, she whispered, “Maybe our host will heed me now when I speak of the danger that must have evoked this nightmare.”

He glared again at Creighton. Stamping to the door, he pulled it open so hard it crashed against the wall. Creighton rushed to close it in his wake. When the doorknob fell onto the floor, Natalya recoiled.

“Don't be frightened,” Creighton said as he stuck the broken knob back into the hole. “I shall have it repaired tomorrow.”

“How was the door broken?”

Sheepishly, he said, “I wasn't sure what was happening in here.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “You screamed very loudly, Natalya.”

“I am sorry. Creighton, if you would just listen to me, maybe this shall not happen again.”

“I will listen while you tell me what you dreamed.”

“That is unimportant.”

“Tell me.”

She shook her head. “It is best forgotten.”

His finger beneath her chin was as gentle as a zephyr, but the power of his touch whirled about her as he said, “Mayhap, but it is not forgotten. It has burst forth tonight.”

“It may never again.”

“Mayhap.”

Leaning back against the pillows, she pulled a blanket around her shoulders. She drew her knees up so she could wrap her arms around her legs. “Thank you for your concern, Creighton, but—”

“Don't lie to me.” He gripped her shoulders, pressing her more deeply into the soft mound. “I thought I could always believe what you tell me.”

“You did not believe me this afternoon.”

“Forget this afternoon.” Leaning toward her, he whispered, “Tell me of tonight, Natalya. What haunts you? What unseen battle scars do you carry?”

“None.” She shivered, and he moved to sit beside her. He put his arm around her, drawing her into the crook of his shoulder. “There was no battle, only slaughter.”

The words once spoken would not be halted. They spilled from her lips as memory piled on memory, each scene more heinous than the previous one. She clung to him, pressing her cheek to his nightshirt as she whispered of how the French had attacked the dacha without warning in the middle of the night. With Petr's help, she barely had escaped from her bedchamber as every building on the estate was being set afire. She had not been able to return to help any of her sisters or her mother or younger brothers or any of the old retainers.

The sound of screams had followed them as Petr took her to a hiding place he had devised for this very reason. At dawn as the flames were dying in the brighter glow of the sunshine, they had crept back to discover they alone survived the holocaust.

“There was no one left,” she whispered, staring at the night sky through the open drapes. “The bodies were unidentifiable, so we knew they had been tortured before they were slain. As I stood there on that morn, I vowed to see the French pay for their crimes against my family.” Tears rolled along her cheek, but she did not wipe them away. “And I have.”

“You have avenged the family that the French took from you, but,” he murmured as he tilted her face toward him, “what a cost it has exacted on you.” His fingers splayed across her cheek in a questing caress. “You have given up the days when you should have had no thought more serious than which gown to don for the next party. You have sacrificed the nights you should have spent playing the coquette with a dashing suitor. You have set aside the life that should have been yours.” His fingers ran along her lips gently as his voice softened to a whisper. “Natalya?”

“Yes?”

“When does the masquerade end?”

“What do you mean?” She sat straighter so she could see his face more clearly, although tears still blurred her eyes.

Again his fingers coursed along her cheek, his fingertips brushing her brows. “You will be given your father's lands as Count Dmitrieff. What then?”

“I will oversee the rebuilding of the dacha and bring the fallow fields back to a rich harvest. Those who wish to work with me shall be given land and the protection they deserve. I shall—”

“Be Count Dmitrieff.” He pressed his mouth over hers with fleeting fire. As she gasped, he whispered, “Natalya, for whom are you rebuilding? For those who died? Or for those who should come after you?”