Secret Fire

  “You see what happens when you try sleeping on the hard ground instead of the soft bed you deserted,” Nikolai admonished gently as his hand fastened on her wrist and he pulled her to her feet. Her scream of pain shocked him and he released her instantly. “Sweet Christ, what is wrong with you? Did you take a fall from the horse?”

  “You idiot!” Katherine gasped, half her concentration devoted to remaining perfectly still, the other half fixed on her anger. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. Everyone at Novii Domik knows, and you were there.”

  “If everyone knows, then they managed to keep it from me, whatever it is you are talking about.”

  Her eyes, shot more with green than blue at the moment, fixed him with a steady glare. He was pale, his expression concerned. He was telling the truth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after a sigh, “for calling you an idiot. If I am a little sensitive and sore at the moment”—she smiled to herself at her choice of words—“it’s because I was caned rather severely.”

  “Mitya wouldn’t!” Nikolai was appalled and, truth to tell, incensed by this slur on his brother.

  “Of course he wouldn’t, you—” She stopped short of calling him an idiot again, but her moment of dispassion was gone. “He doesn’t know, and there will be hell to pay when he does. Your blasted aunt did this to me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Nikolai snorted. “Sonya? Sweet, agreeable Sonya?”

  “Look you, I have had enough doubt and aspersion cast on my word these last months to last me a lifetime. But this time I have the bruises on my back to prove what I say, and your sweet, agreeable aunt is going to pay for every one of them when I reach the British Embassy. The English Ambassador happens to be a good friend of my father’s, who happens to be the Earl of Strafford, and if Dimitri’s abduction of me doesn’t stir the pot to boiling, this latest outrage certainly will. I have half a mind to demand your aunt be exiled to Siberia! And you can stop looking at me as if I had turned into a turnip,” she added testily. “I’m not crazy.”

  Nikolai snapped his mouth shut, blushing slightly. He had never been treated to such a scathing tirade before, not by a woman at any rate. Now, Dimitri had been known to lay into him on occasion—Sweet Christ, they were alike, these two. Such fire! Did she behave like this with his brother? If so, he could understand now what Dimitri had found intriguing about her, whereas otherwise she was not his type at all. Nikolai was himself intrigued.

  He grinned boyishly. “You have quite a way with words, pigeon. And such emotion in such a little package.” Her fulminating glare made him chuckle. “But not too little, eh? Full-grown and put together nicely, very nicely.” His warm blue eyes moved appreciatively down her length and back. “And it is convenient that you have found this private bower, so secluded. We could—”

  “No, we couldn’t,” she cut in sharply, easily reading his mind.

  He was undeterred. “But of course we can.”

  “No we cannot!”

  Parasha had been right about this one. Here she looked her very worst, wearing the most unbecoming dress, even worse than Lucy’s black shroud. Her hair was in tangles and full of pine needles. The kerchief she had purloined from Parasha so that she wouldn’t look conspicuous in her peasant garb (once again she had worried about getting a disguise perfect) was hanging at the back of her neck, having worked its way loose while she slept. She didn’t know it, but her face was coated with a fine layer of dust, streaked in places from sweat and tears. And this man, this dolt, was suggesting they make love here in the woods, in broad daylight, at this moment, complete strangers as they were. Incredible.

  “You’re sure, little pigeon?”

  “Quite.”

  “You will let me know if you change your mind?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “Such a way with words.” He grinned.

  Katherine was relieved to see that he was obviously not in the least upset by her refusal to bed down with him. How different from his brother that was!

  “I suppose you’re in love with Mitya,” he continued, sighing. “It’s always the same, you know. They see him first, and”—he snapped his fingers—“I might as well be invisible. You can’t imagine how depressing it is to be in the same room with him at a party or ball. The women look at him and they are ready to fall at his feet. They look at me and want to smile and pat my head. No one takes me seriously.”

  “Perhaps because you don’t want to be taken seriously?” Katherine suggested.

  He grinned again, widely, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “How astute you are, my pigeon. That little confession usually works to my advantage.”

  “Which proves what an incorrigible cad you are.”

  “So I am. And since you’re on to me, we might as well be off.”

  “We aren’t going anywhere together, Nikolai.”

  “Now don’t be difficult, pigeon. Beside the fact that it would be unthinkable for me to leave you here alone, I also have my orders from the old lady to think of. Not that she isn’t easy enough to get around, but she does control the purse strings when Mitya is away, so it’s always best to stay on her good side. And she was rather up in arms about your running off.”

  “No doubt,” Katherine retorted. “But she can turn purple with rage for all I care. I’m not going back there to be subjected to any more of her tyranny. Dimitri didn’t leave me there to be abused.”

  “Of course he didn’t. And you won’t be, even if I have to protect you myself. Really, pigeon, there is nothing for you to fear at Novii Domik.”

  He still couldn’t believe that Sonya, sweet old Sonya, had ordered a caning. It was inconceivable. The woman had probably fallen and hurt herself, and for some reason wanted to blame Sonya for her pain, and was intelligent enough to make her story sound convincing. At any rate, he had been sent to bring her back, had come this far, and having found her, saw no good reason not to carry out his mission. Besides, she had Savva’s horse. What would the man think if he had to tell him he just let her go on with it? He certainly wouldn’t believe that Nikolai hadn’t been able to find her. Neither would Sonya. He would end up having to replace the horse and have the old woman peeved with him too.

  “You know, Ekaterina—it is Ekate—”

  “No, by God, it’s Katherine, good old English Katherine, or even Kate or Kit—God, to hear myself called Kit again!”

  “Very well, Kit.” He smiled indulgently, though the name didn’t sound at all the same in his French-Russian accent. “Mitya will straighten out this misunderstanding once he returns, and you do want to be there when he returns, don’t you?”

  “Would I be heading for St. Petersburg if I did? Besides, it could be weeks or longer before Dimitri gets back. No, it’s out of the question. But then—” She paused thoughtfully, running over her options since he was proving so difficult. “Since it will in fact take Dimitri to unravel this misunderstanding, as you call it, why don’t you take me to him instead? That I wouldn’t object to.”

  Nikolai laughed delightedly. “A splendid idea, little Kit, as long as you realize the consequence of traveling alone with me such a long way.”

  “I assure you my reputation couldn’t be in worse ruin.”

  “And I assure you I couldn’t take you all the way to Moscow without bedding you, will you, nil you. That is the consequence I refer to. To Novii Domik I can manage to control myself, since it is only a short distance away.”

  “The devil it is!” she returned, furious with him for toying with her. “I must have ridden fifty miles yesterday.”

  “More like twenty, pigeon, and it wasn’t yesterday, but this morning.”

  “You mean—”

  “It’s only nearing evening now. We can be back in time for dinner, if you will stop putting up such a fuss about it.”

  “All right!” she stormed. “Fine! But if that witch you call an aunt ends up killing me in her madness, it’s going to be your fault, you—you lecherous womanizer, you! And don??
?t think I won’t haunt you for it, that is, if I get the chance, because Dimitri will probably kill you first when he learns you’re responsible for my demise!”

  She had more to say, but she turned her back on him to mount her horse unassisted. She would scratch his eyes out if he offered assistance. And it wasn’t easy. God, each little movement hurt! But she did it on her own with the help of a large rock. And he just stood there, watching her in amazement, and feeling a trifle, no, actually more than a trifle guilty as he caught a word here and there.

  “You couldn’t be a gentleman, no, that would be asking too much, wouldn’t it? That’s something that doesn’t run in your particular family, I’ve learned to my detriment. Kidnapped, drugged, used, imprisoned, those are run-of-the-mill niceties for the Alexandrovs. Heaven forbid that one of you should have a conscience!”

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She wasn’t going to succumb to this pain. She wasn’t.

  “Why? Why me?” Nikolai heard that plainly. “Why did he have to drag me with him all the way to Russia? Why did he have to keep after me until…until…Good Lord, you’d think I was a blasted beauty, when I know perfectly well I’m only passing fair. Why was it so important to him to—”

  Nikolai wished to high heaven that she would have finished that particular statement, but she didn’t. She had groaned when she nudged the horse forward, bent over in obvious pain, and he was assailed by doubts, not about letting her travel in her condition, but about her actual importance to Dimitri.

  “Kit, pigeon, perhaps—”

  “Not another word from the likes of you,” she said with such contempt that Nikolai cringed. “I’m going back to face that bitch, but I don’t have to listen to any more drivel from you in the meantime.”

  She rode away, and he had to make haste to catch up with her, doing so only when she reached the broken shrubs at the side of the road that had led him to her in the first place. Damn, but he was in a quandary now about what to do. Keeping Aunt Sonya happy was one thing. Raising Dimitri’s fury was quite another. And trying to talk to this quarrelsome woman now was something else again. In the end, he decided that if she really was important to Dimitri, then his brother would want her to be where he left her, not in St. Petersburg where he would have to search for her. That is, if he wanted to find her. Sweet Christ, it would be nice to know the actual truth about what was going on here.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Dimitri stared at the empty room: the bed smoothly made, nothing out of place, sterile, like a white tomb. A feeling that it had been like this for days made him rush to the wardrobe and throw open the doors. The clothes were all there, even the black cloth purse she had tried to brain that annoying fellow with the first time he had ever seen her.

  He let out his breath, unaware that he had even been holding it in. Katherine wouldn’t leave without that purse, would she? It was all she had left that was actually hers. So where was she, then?

  Irritation swiftly took hold. He had steeled himself to face her. For hours, as he raced the last miles to Novii Domik, he had been working himself into a numbed state of mind in which he could accept anything she might say to him, and he expected the worst. Now he felt like a condemned man who had been given a short reprieve when all he wanted to do was get his execution over.

  He had expected to find her in the White Room, reading a book perhaps, or primping at her vanity, or even curled up in bed eating bonbons. That was how he had always found Natalia when he deigned to visit her. He had even thought to find Katherine pacing the room in a fury of boredom. So much for what he expected.

  It wasn’t that late in the evening when he had rushed into the house and straight up the stairs without a word. Two footmen in the entrance hall had stared at him in amazement. A maid in the upstairs hall had gasped upon seeing him. Usually the household had warning of his coming. But Dimitri hadn’t been doing anything in the usual way lately.

  He hadn’t even returned with his servants. For that matter, they had been far behind him on his mad dash to Moscow, and when he had turned around, wanting to speak to Katherine, only a day and a half short of the city, and finally came upon them almost halfway there, he had sent them on. After all, Moscow was still on the agenda, Tatiana still needed a visit from him. Only two Cossacks had kept up with him, and even they had fallen behind today.

  It wasn’t like Dimitri to do anything in such a hurry. His race to Moscow certainly did not come from any wild desire to see his intended future bride. She had been the farthest thing from his mind, no more than the vague reason he had set off for Moscow instead of in some other direction. Actually any direction would have served for his cowardly leave-taking. That was exactly how he had thought of himself after the mad panic to be gone had worn off. The reason for his rush had been to get away from Katherine, to be far away when she woke up after their night together, to avoid the contempt and loathing she was bound to feel, despite her words to the contrary while she was still under the drug’s influence.

  He had come to his senses halfway to Moscow. So he had made a mistake. It wasn’t the first time. So this was a particularly bad mistake. It would just take longer to break down Katherine’s anger this time. She had been furious with him before and he had gotten around it, or rather, she had cooled off on her own. She was a sensible woman. She didn’t hold grudges. That was one of the things he liked about her, besides her spirit and defiance and passion and a dozen other things.

  He had gone on in a much better frame of mind, satisfied that the hole he had dug for himself wasn’t that deep. He had even begun to wonder if he could somehow talk Katherine into staying in Russia. He would buy her a mansion, fill it with servants, shower her with jewels and the most expensive clothes. Tatiana was for getting him an heir. Katherine was for loving, and he wove a fantasy that had her placed firmly in his future.

  And then he had remembered how he had departed, without so much as a word to her. He hadn’t even made sure that she would still be there when he returned, assuming she wouldn’t have the courage to venture forth alone in an unfamiliar land. But if she was angry enough, she might well do anything. And in boredom, she had nothing to do but gnaw on the bone of her anger.

  He had turned around immediately. Tatiana could wait. He had to settle things at home first, even if it meant facing Katherine’s fury sooner than he had planned, before she had a chance to calm down. Then again, she wasn’t likely to calm down until she had something to occupy her mind with besides murdering him.

  Now, as before, he wanted the worst over and done with so that he could go on from there. He also had an overwhelming passion just to look at her again, to see if the worst of his obsession was over. He had been gone for five days. If the first thing he wanted to do when he saw her was make love to her, then he was right back where he started, and his foolishness in drugging her would have been for nothing.

  Dimitri left the White Room and marched back down the hall. The maid he had seen earlier was gone, but another was coming up the stairs with a tray piled high with food, no doubt meant for him. It didn’t take long for the news of his unexpected return to spread.

  “Where is she?” he asked the girl abruptly.

  “Who, my lord?”

  “The Englishwoman,” he replied impatiently.

  She seemed to cower away from him. “I—I don’t know.”

  He passed her by, calling out to one of the footmen while he was still descending the stairs, “Where is the Englishwoman?”

  “I haven’t seen her, my prince.”

  “And you?”

  Semen, who had known Dimitri all his life and who knew his rages were for the most part harmless bursts of emotion, was suddenly so frightened that he couldn’t find his voice. It wasn’t that the Prince had come in and gone straight to the White Room, which Ludmilla had whispered as she rushed past on her way to spread the news of his return. Nor was it that he was asking for the woman, not having found her where he obviously expected to find he
r. It was his anxious expression, and the remembered words he had heard whispered to Rodion: “You had better hope you’re not around when the Prince finds out about—” She hadn’t been able to finish. He had cut off her words with the first lash of the cane. He did that.

  “Where’s your tongue, Semen?” Dimitri snapped into his thoughts.

  “I—believe she was seen in the kitchen—earlier.” Dimitri had reached the hall, was only a foot away, and Semen seemed to shrink in his boots. “Right now—” He had to clear his throat, not once, but twice. “Right now, I don’t know, my lord.”

  “Who would know?” got Dimitri only shrugs.

  Playing dumb? Since when did his people play dumb with him? What the hell was going on here?

  He scowled at each man before starting toward the back of the house, bellowing, “Katherine!”

  “What are you shouting for, Mitya?” Sonya asked, coming out of the drawing room just as he passed it. “Really, you needn’t shout to let us know you have returned, though why you have come back so soon—”

  He rounded on his aunt. “Where is she? And if you value peace and quiet, don’t ask me who she is. You know perfectly well who I’m talking about.”

  “The Englishwoman, of course,” Sonya replied calmly. “We haven’t misplaced her, you know, though she did run away once, stealing one of the villager’s horses. It was fortunate that Nikolai was here at the time to fetch her back.”

  Several emotions washed over Dimitri simultaneously. Surprise that Katherine had tried to leave, when that hadn’t been his main worry. Relief that she was here somewhere, even if he was having trouble finding out exactly where. And jealousy, bright, hot, and absurd, that one of his handsome, woman-chasing half-brothers—Nikolai in particular—had met his Katherine.

  “Where is he?” Dimitri asked tightly.