Mikhail gazed after them thoughtfully for a moment. Then he walked slowly toward the stairs and began climbing the steps.
Silver threw open the door to Nicholas’s cabin and strode into the stateroom.
Nicholas jumped to his feet. “It’s about time you saw fit to come back. Valentin says you left long before dark. If you ever—” He broke off as he caught sight of the priest behind her. “What are you doing here, Father Jason?”
The priest leaned against the doorjamb attempting to catch his breath. “This young lady said it was urgent that I come. I assume another one of the seamen is near death, your highness.”
“I didn’t say that. Only that the matter was urgent.” Silver came forward to stand before Nicholas. “And it is.” She drew a small derringer from beneath her cloak and pointed it at Nicholas. “He has to marry us.”
Nicholas’s froze, his expression stunned. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. He’s going to marry us.” She paused and moistened her lips with her tongue. “Or I’ll shoot you.”
“Indeed?” Nicholas lifted his brow. “How bloodthirsty of you. May I ask where you got that pistol?”
“I bought it in a shop on the wharf.” She added reluctantly, “With your money.” She hurried on. “But I’ll pay you back.”
His lips twitched. “I should hope so.”
Father Jason straightened away from the doorjamb. “This is outrageous,” he said incredulously. “Young lady, I will perform no marriage rites between you and his highness while he’s under duress.” He moved forward to stand beside Silver. “You should be ashamed, threatening a man such as he. Do you realize this gentleman is looked upon as a hero by the citizens of St. Louis for his selfless charity toward those poor survivors of the tragedy of the Mary L?”
“No.” She kept the pistol trained on Nicholas. “I only realize I must have a legal father for my child.”
Nicholas went still. “Your child?”
“I’m over two weeks late for my flux and this is not usual for me. I have to go after Etaine and I can’t risk leaving without protecting my child.” She met his eyes. “I will not bring shame to any child I bear. It will be enough that he will have Apache blood.” She paused. “Don’t worry, I realize the blame lies also with me. I want only your name for my child. When I leave here, you will never see me again. I’m sure you’ll have no problem dissolving the bond when you return to your own country.”
“That’s a comforting thought.” Nicholas’s eyes were narrowed on her face. “You’ve obviously thought a great deal about this.”
“Not a great deal.” She smiled shakily. “If I didn’t tend to act impulsively, this situation would never have occurred.” She lifted her chin. “But I will make it come right.”
Father Jason was frowning uncertainly. “You have known this woman in the carnal sense, my son?”
Nicholas’s gaze did not leave Silver’s face. “Oh, yes, Father, it couldn’t have been more carnal.”
“It is possible that the child is not of your seed.…” Father Jason suggested tentatively. “Perhaps the young woman has engaged in similar activities with other gentlemen.”
“If there is a child, it is mine,” Nicholas said unequivocally.
“Have you no shame that you admit to disgracing this woman?”
“He didn’t disgrace me.” Silver said indignantly. “I was the one who chose to—”
“Anyone in St. Petersburg will tell you what a base scoundrel I am,” Nicholas interrupted quickly. “No woman is safe from my lust.”
“But you obviously repent your past. Perhaps if you vow not to transgress again, a penance or two would be sufficient—” Father Jason broke off as his gaze alighted on the mural on the wall facing him. Stunned, his gaze shifted from perversity to perversity. “Dear sweet Mary, I seem to have been mistaken in you. This is the chamber of a debaucher and his whore.”
“I don’t have much time,” Silver said impatiently. “I have passage on a riverboat that leaves here in forty minutes. Marry us, Father.”
“You seem to have no choice,” Nicholas told the priest solemnly. He glanced down at the derringer in Silver’s hand. “And I most certainly do not. Perhaps we’d better accede graciously to—” He broke off as his gaze traveled over Silver’s head to the open doorway. Something flickered in his eyes and his head made a negative motion that was almost imperceptible. “Best proceed with the ceremony, Father.”
“Quickly,” Silver urged.
Father Jason gave her an exasperated glance. “You’re a most demanding female. I’m not so sure his highness is completely to blame for—” His glance again happened on the murals. He quickly drew out a black book and began reciting the words of the marriage rite.
The ceremony was over in an amazingly short time, and Silver understood very few of the Latin phrases. She watched suspiciously as the priest closed the book. “It’s done?”
“It’s done,” the priest said.
“I want a paper,” Silver said firmly. “Something to prove that a marriage has taken place.”
Nicholas gestured to the small elegant desk across the room. “There’s pen, paper, and ink, Father.”
The priest hurried over to the desk and scrawled a few lines on a piece of paper he found in the desk drawer.
Silver followed him, glanced hurriedly at the paper, and nodded. “That should be sufficient. Thank you.”
“May I go now?” Father Jason asked caustically. “This has all been most irregular.”
Silver nodded absently, her gaze turned back to Nicholas as the priest hurried from the stateroom. “It was necessary,” she whispered. “I couldn’t take a chance. I had to protect my child. You don’t know the pain of belonging nowhere.”
“Don’t I?” he asked “How can you be sure?”
“Perhaps I can’t be sure.” She drew a deep shaky breath. “You said we knew very little about each other.” Her hand tightened on the pistol. “Well, it’s over and you’re free to do anything you wish now.”
His lips curved in a curious smile. “I fully intend to do just that.”
She nodded and then folded the document the priest had given her and slipped it into the pocket of her cloak. “Good-bye, Nicholas.”
He didn’t speak but continued to look at her with that faint smile.
“It really was necessary that I—” She broke off, looking at him helplessly. “Truly.” She turned and ran from the stateroom.
Mikhail’s huge form was blocking the gangplank when she reached the boiler deck.
“Good-bye, Mikhail.” Her voice was husky and she had to clear it. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”
She tried to slip around him but he deliberately stepped into her path again.
She frowned. “You don’t understand, I have to leave now. I have to catch a boat to New Orleans within the hour.”
He silently shook his head.
Her lips tightened. “Get out of my way, Mikhail.”
“You could always point your little pistol at him,” Nicholas said from behind her. “But I doubt if he’d be as easily intimidated as I was.”
Silver drew the derringer from beneath her cloak. “Let me pass, Mikhail.”
Mikhail smiled gently at her and again shook his head.
“Mikhail, I’ll shoot you.” Silver said, trying to make her voice convincing. It was very difficult when the big bull was gazing at her with such cheerful affection. “Truly. You know I—Nicholas!”
He had picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. “Let me down!” Her hair was cascading over her eyes and she could see nothing as he turned and strode toward the staircase. “What are you doing? I’ll—”
“Hush, I’m tired of threats.” He was climbing the steps. “And stop wriggling. This is the only way I can hold you without hurting your back.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Back to bed. I told you the doctor said you weren’t to get up. I should have known as soon as
I turned my back you’d be running around as if that bastard had been stroking you with a feather instead of a whip.”
“Etaine—”
“I told you I’d take care of delivering your little waif to you. Why didn’t you trust me?”
“She’s my responsibility. I can’t expect you to—”
“You don’t expect anything of anyone and you don’t trust anyone but yourself.” The crimson carpet of the saloon suddenly came into her line of vision. “I keep my word, dammit.”
“Let me down. I have a boat to catch.”
“In case it escaped your notice, you’re on a boat now.” He shifted his hold on her to open a door. “And its destination just happens to be New Orleans.”
“I have to leave right away. I don’t know how long Monteith will be in New Orleans.” Her tone was anguished. “He may be gone when I get there.”
“I’ve given orders to Robert that we’re to leave as soon as we finish taking on more fuel.” He set her on her feet, carefully avoiding touching her back, and turned to light the kerosene lamp on the rosewood table beside the door. “Which should be no longer than thirty minutes.”
She brushed the hair out of her eyes, noticing absently that Nicholas had not brought her to the master stateroom, but to a much smaller one. Perhaps it had been the first door he had passed. “But I have to—”
“I do wish you’d stop arguing, Silver. I’ve had a very eventful day and I find I’m quite weary. May I have this now? You obviously have no intention of using it at the moment.” He took the derringer she was still clutching and set it on the rosewood table. “I think I’m taking all this quite well, don’t you? After all, it’s not every day a man is forced at the point of a gun into the holy nuptials.”
“I told you I had to do it.”
“But why did you have to do it?” The amusement and mockery faded from his expression. “Wouldn’t it have been easier for you to come to me and tell me there was a possibility of a child?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I needed marriage. I know you probably would have offered your protection, but that wouldn’t make the child less a bastard. I knew you wouldn’t marry me.”
“Did you?” His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “You seem very certain.”
She shrugged. “I’m not such a fool that I don’t know that princes don’t wed with half-breeds born on the wrong side of the blanket. Even Father Jason did everything he could to persuade you that marriage wasn’t necessary with a woman like me.”
“There are no women like you,” Nicholas said softly. “There’s only one Silver Delaney.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his own and she suddenly caught her breath. She felt as if she were spinning, drowning in a dark golden pool of sensation. Drowning. For a fleeting instant she remembered that moment when she had sunk beneath the waters of the river, fighting for her life, knowing there was something wonderful waiting for her if she could just stay alive long enough to grasp it. Something wonderful. Not lust, but something deeper, more mystical … It was coming closer. It was just beyond the horizon. Soon she would be able to see it.
“You could have let me go,” she said haltingly. “After I had my paper from the priest, I would never have bothered you again. Why did you follow me?”
“Because I knew you’d let no feather drift to earth for me to seize so that I might summon you back to me.” His hand reached out and gently brushed a swath of silky dark hair from her face. “What a very wary firebird you are, Silver.”
She looked away from him. “That’s no answer.”
“You don’t trust me enough for me to give you any other … as yet.”
“And you have little trust in me.”
“But I’m learning, Silver. I was taught a very bitter lesson a long time ago.” He smiled. “But now we have time to learn each other. Marriage is forever.”
“No!” she said, distressed. “I never meant to trap you in that fashion. You can have it dissolved.”
“There is no divorce in my family,” he said flatly. “You should have taken time to query me on the subject. Now you’re just as much a captive as you were when I first brought you aboard the Rose.”
“And so are you,” Silver said, frowning. “Truly, I never meant—”
“It’s done.” He made an imperious gesture with his left hand. “There is no use talking about it.” He took a step forward, took off her cloak, and began unbuttoning the shiny black buttons on the bodice of her gray gown. “It’s time you went back to bed. Wherever did you get this ugly gown? You seem to have an affinity for acquiring hideous garments.”
“Valentin bought it from one of the nurses,” she said absently, her thoughts on his words. “You don’t seem overly upset about the marriage.”
His eyes were twinkling as he stripped the gown off her. “One of the things you must learn about me is that I seldom do anything I don’t wish to do.”
“But I forced you.” She frowned. “Didn’t I?”
“You certainly pointed a gun at me,” he agreed placidly. “You’re a very dangerous lady, Silver.”
He stripped her shoes and undergarments from her and crossed to the double bed across the room and pulled back the pale green satin spread. “Now, come and lie down so that I can cover you up.” His voice had thickened a trifle. “I’m trying to forget about my recently acquired conjugal privileges and remember you’re not well.”
She obediently crossed the room and slipped under the sheets and turned on her stomach, her cheek cradled on the pillow as she turned to look at him. “Did I force you?”
“Perhaps.” He stood looking down at her. “Or perhaps I saw a way I could have what I wanted, what I was too guilt-ridden to take for myself.”
“Which one?” She couldn’t breathe. It was so close, shimmering beyond the dark mystery of his eyes. Something wonderful.
“Someday I’ll tell you,” he said. “But not until you have no need for me to do so.”
“How maddening you are.” She scowled. “I don’t think I like Russians.”
He laughed. “Then you’re definitely going to the wrong country, aren’t you?”
“I might not have to go to Russia. I might find Etaine before they leave New Orleans.”
“Possibly.” His hand moved over her hair, stroking the heavy fall that tumbled over her shoulder and off the side of the bed. “I love the texture of your hair. It’s like midnight silk.” He drew his hand reluctantly away and slowly straightened. “I’ll leave you to nap now. I’ll order our dinner served here in the stateroom in a few hours.”
“But you don’t think Monteith will still be in New Orleans, do you? You think I’ll have to go to Russia.”
“I have no idea, but I do believe it’s your destiny to go to Russia at some time.” He smiled mischievously. “We Russians are great fatalists, you know. We believe our every step is guided by destiny.”
“And what is your destiny, Nicholas?”
His smile faded and his dark eyes became grave. “Who knows? Perhaps it’s to follow the firebird until she lets me mount her and soar to the sun. I have a great fondness for firebirds. I followed one once and she led me from hell to purgatory. I’m willing to try my luck again and aim for a more celestial destination.”
“Fairy tales again.” Silver laughed uncertainly. He was all golden beauty and entrancing enigma, more bewildering now than she had ever known him to be.
He bent swiftly and kissed her with slow warmth and exquisite tenderness. “I hope not.” Then he straightened and was walking toward the door.
He turned to look at her as his hand grasped the china doorknob. “Do you find this stateroom suitable? We can choose another one if you like.”
“This is quite nice.” She gazed at him in puzzlement. “But why didn’t you take me back to the master stateroom?”
“Because Father Jason was right, that stateroom was for a debaucher and his whore. Not for her highness, Princess Silver Savron.” He bowed, his expression
half mocking, half grave. “And certainly not for my wife.”
Silver felt a surge of wild unreasoning happiness out of all proportion to his words. “I see. I didn’t know you made distinctions of that nature.”
“Then you’ve already learned something new about me.” Suddenly a frown darkened his brow. “Which reminds me that we have a few things to discuss.”
“Yes?”
“You’re my wife now and there are a few things I will not tolerate.”
“Indeed?”
“You will not run wild as you have done since I’ve known you. My country is different from your own; there are dangers of which you have no knowledge. You’re not even familiar with the language.”
Silver’s lashes lowered to veil her eyes.
“You will not go out without a groom or accompanied by Valentin, Mikhail, or myself.” Nicholas cast her a wary glance, but she seemed to be taking the strictures very meekly.
“You will leave the locating of Monteith and his circus to me.”
Silver smothered a yawn with her hand.
“You will be guided by me in all matters concerning—”
“I’m very tired, Nicholas.”
He gazed at her suspiciously. “That’s all you have to say?”
Silver’s eyes closed. “That’s all I have to say.”
Doubtful, he stared at her for a long moment, then he shrugged and turned to extinguish the kerosene lamp on the table by the door. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too difficult a task to tame a firebird after all. “I’m glad you’re being sensible.” He opened the door. “Rest well, Silver.”
The door closed behind him.
At once Silver’s lids flickered open to reveal crystal-gray eyes shimmering with excitement, anticipation, and a secret amusement.
She smiled in the darkness.
Don’t miss the enthralling sequel to this book, Satin Ice, also by Iris Johansen and part of the concluding trinity of THE DELANEYS, THE UNTAMED YEARS.
THE EDITOR’S CORNER
Welcome to Loveswept!
Love is in the air this month – and no, I’m not talking about that holiday. I’m talking about all of our fantastic Loveswept releases coming up, and I’m so excited to share them all with you.