by Lisa Kleypas
It didn't matter that there was some truth to her father's claim that Adam had wanted her dowry. Of course the money had appealed to him—Adam had made no secret of that. But he had also cared for her. They would have had a good life together. Now that was gone, and Emma knew she would never be anyone's wife. She didn't intend to settle for some fat old widower or some half-witted bore just for the sake of being married.
By now she had lost all her value in the marriage market. There were too many younger, prettier girls who came out each Season, and they were the ones who caught the only decent bachelors available. Her father and Tasia were blind to the flaws that everyone else saw in her. They didn't seem to realize that Adam had been her only hope.
“Emma, do animals ever marry?” her six-year-old brother, William, asked one day as he watched her cleaning the chimpanzee pen. Its aging occupant, Cleo, combed her leathery fingers through William's black hair in a fruitless search for insects. The door to the building was left open, inviting any breeze that might find its way inside.
Emma stopped her work and leaned on the rake handle, smiling at him. “No, William, not the way people do. But some kinds of animals mate for life. Wolves, for example. Or swans.”
“What is a mate?”
“It's like your mother and father—two creatures that stay faithful to each other their whole lives.”
“Do monkeys mate for life?” William pushed Cleo's inquisitive hands away and glanced into her soulful brown eyes. The chimp pursed her lips and made a few inquiring grunts, reaching for his hair once more.
“No,” Emma replied dryly, “they're not so discriminating.”
“Do tigers?”
“Not tigers either.”
“But people mate for life.”
“Most people,” she agreed. “When it's possible.”
“And when they don't, they're spinsters. Like you and Cleo.”
Emma laughed as she pulled clinging strands of straw from her clothes. “Something like that.”
All at once a new voice entered the conversation. “Your sister is too young and lovely to be a spinster.”
Emma and William both turned to see Nikolas Angelovsky standing at the threshold, in a patch of blinding sunlight. With a critical glance at the chimp, he added, “I'm afraid I can't say the same for Cleo.”
Cleo squeaked and hooted as William rushed eagerly to the newcomer. It seemed, Emma thought wryly, that no one was immune to Nikolas's potent mixture of charm and mystery. “Prince Nikolas!” the boy said breathlessly. “Zdráhstvuyti!”
“Zdráhstvuyti, William,” Nikolas said, crouching down to the boy's height. He smiled as William repeated the word perfectly. “What a fine accent. Your mother has taught you well. Only a boy with Russian blood like yours could say it so clearly.”
“I have Stokehurst blood too,” William said proudly.
Nikolas looked over the boy's dark head at Emma. “A powerful combination, nyet?”
Emma regarded him stonily. Although it was Nikolas's habit to pay infrequent visits to Southgate Hall, drinking pots of Chinese caravan tea and conversing with Tasia in rapid-fire Russian, he had never made a side trip to the animal menagerie. This was her private world, and no one was allowed here unless specifically invited. “What do you want, Nikolas?”
He gave her an oblique smile. “I've never seen your collection of animals before. I would like to have a look.”
“I'm working,” Emma said curtly. “I'm sure you can find better entertainment than watching me feed animals and rake manure.”
“Not necessarily.”
Her mouth twisted. “Stay if you like, then.” She finished raking a pile of dirty straw from the chimp's pen and replaced it with a fresh scattering. Then she gestured for Cleo to go inside. “Back in there, old girl. Go in.” The chimpanzee shook her head vigorously, baring her teeth. “Yes, I know,” Emma said, pointing to the pen. “We'll play later, Cleo. Later.”
The chimp muttered resentfully as she picked up a rag doll from a small pile of toys. In a flash, Cleo's small, wiry body ascended a ladder bolted to the side of the wire pen. When she reached the top, she seated herself on a wooden perch and frowned down at them. Emma closed the door of the cage and turned to her little brother. “William, it's time for you to go back to the house.”
“Can't I stay with Cleo?” the boy pleaded, staring wistfully at the chimp.
“You know the rule—no visits to the animals unless I'm with you. We'll come to see her later this afternoon.”
“Yes, Emma.”
As the child left, Emma turned her attention to Nikolas. He was dressed in dark riding breeches and a white shirt that emphasized his tawny coloring. His hair looked more brown than blond today. A light sheen of perspiration had given his skin a smooth shimmer, as if he were a sculpture cast in precious metal. The thick lashes that framed his yellow eyes gleamed like filaments of light.
For the first time since Adam's desertion, Emma felt a stirring of something other than anger inside, a mixture of nerves and confusion and awareness. Realizing she was staring, she turned and picked up a metal bucket. She went to the large iron slop sink in the corner and worked the pump until a steady stream of water emerged.
Nikolas came forward, reaching for the pump handle. “Let me help you.”
“No,” she said quickly, elbowing him aside. “I can do it.”
Nikolas shrugged and stood back as she labored over the sink. He watched her intently. The taut muscles of Emma's shoulders strained beneath a sweat-blotched shirt. Snug gray trousers outlined the slender shape of her bottom and thighs. Briefly he remembered her appearance at the ball in London, the cool white dress, the tightly pinned hair. He preferred her this way, strong, capable, flushed from exertion. She was extraordinary. He had never known an aristocratic woman who worked like a peasant. Why did she tend the animals when she could order her servants to do it?
“It's not often I have the chance to see a woman in trousers,” he said. “In fact, this may be the first time.”
Emma straightened in a snap. She gave him a wary look. “Are you shocked?”
“It takes more than that to shock me.” He let his admiring gaze sweep over her. “You remind me of a phrase by Tyutchev…‘the face of beauty flushed with the air of spring.’”
Apparently deciding he was mocking her, Emma glared at him and turned back to the sink. “I don't like poetry.”
“What do you read, then?”
“Veterinary manuals and newspapers.” She lifted the heavy bucket from the sink, breathing hard with the effort.
Automatically he tried to take it. “Allow me—”
“I'm used to it,” she said gruffly. “Let go.”
Nikolas raised his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender. “By all means.”
Emma's thick auburn brows lowered in a scowl. She pointed to another bucket nearby. “If you want to help, carry that.”
Nikolas complied, rolling up his sleeves in a few deft twists. The bucket was filled with approximately twelve pounds of fresh meat scraps. The scent of blood filled his nose, and he hesitated before picking it up.
“Squeamish?” Emma taunted. “This sort of work is rather beneath you, isn't it?”
Nikolas didn't reply, although she was right. There had never been any need or question of his performing this sort of labor. Like the other men of his social circles, he took his exercise in the form of riding, hunting, fencing, and boxing.
As he grasped the bucket handle and lifted it, the blood smell became stronger. Rich, salty-sweet…His fingers locked, and he went still as a memory sprang to mind…dark and sickening images…He struggled to push them away, but they rushed over him in a red tide.
Blood oozed and trickled over his chest. His back was scored with lash marks, while the coarse rope around his wrists had torn a deep channel through skin and muscle. Peotr Petrovich Ruvim, the Imperial interrogator, touched his face with gentle fingertips, blocking a salty trickle of sweat from falli
ng into his eyes. Although he was fiendishly proficient in the art of torture, Ruvim did not appear to enjoy it. “Isn't it enough?” he asked quietly. “Won't you confess now, Your Highness?”
“I've done nothing,” Nikolas croaked.
It was a lie, and they all knew it. He was a murderer. He had killed samvel Shurikovsky, the tsar's favorite adviser, but since nothing could be proved, they had accused him of treason. In these turbulent days of reactionaries and reformists, there was danger for the tsar everywhere. Evidence wasn't required to imprison a man indefinitely; suspicion was all that was necessary.
For a week Nikolas had been subjected to daily sessions with Ruvim and other government officials in which they inflicted pain just short of the limit that would kill him. He was no longer human. He was only a suffering beast, waiting for the time to come when the misery ended and he could take his secrets to the grave.
Ruvim sighed and spoke to the others. “Bring the knout again.”
“No,” Nikolas said, while a shudder racked his naked body. He couldn't stand the whip anymore, the searing crack of it ripping through his flesh until it reached bone…and all the time, questions buzzing in his ears—“Do you have sympathy for the Nihilists? Do you agree with the tsar's policies?” The irony was, he had never concerned himself with politics. All he cared about was his land and his family.
Ruvim pulled a hot poker from the pit of coals and held it close to Nikolas's face. “Would you prefer this to the knout, Your Highness?”
The flare of hear made Nikolas shiver violently. He nodded and let his head hang forward, sweat and tears dripping from his jaw—
“What is it?” Emma asked. She glanced at his bare arms, and her expression went blank. Her eyes returned to his face. “Oh,” she said softly.
Nikolas stiffened. He always kept his shirtsleeves buttoned over his wrists. Strange, that he would forget to hide them around Emma. But they were no surprise to her. She had seen them before, when she was a child.
He let out a slow breath and forced himself to relax. “You seem irritable today,” he said with deliberate casualness. “Have I offended you, cousin?”
Taking his cue, Emma began to walk away from the building. To his relief, she didn't mention the scars. “Lately your entire gender offends me,” she replied pertly.
“Because Lord Milbank abandoned you?”
“He didn't abandon me, he was driven away, and—” She turned suddenly, water sloshing over the rim of her bucket. “How did you know? Oh, God, is it being talked about in London? Have the gossips gotten wind of it?”
“There are rumors.”
“Damn.” Emma flushed. “Well, I don't care what anyone says. Let them do their worst.” Her shoulders hunched defensively. “It wasn't Adam's fault, you know. My father behaved like a modernday Genghis Khan. Adam had no choice but to leave me and go on with his life.”
“Milbank was too weak for you.”
“You don't know anything about it.”
“If he wanted you, he should have fought for you.”
“Adam is more civilized than that,” she said defensively.
“Civilized?” Nikolas repeated, holding her gaze. “Is that the kind of man you want?”
Suddenly there was a twinkle of reluctant amusement in Emma's eyes. She glanced down at her dirt-streaked shirt and trousers. “Well, yes. I'm so terribly uncivilized that I need someone to balance me. Don't you agree?”
“No,” he said softly. “You need someone who will allow you to be as uncivilized as you want.”
Emma's smile remained as she shook her head. “A pretty sight that would be.” She led him to the next building, where a rust-colored fox darted back and forth inside a large pen. The animal was sleek and healthy, but it moved in uneven hops. Nikolas quirked his brows as he saw that the fox's front left paw was missing.
“I named him Presto,” Emma said, “because he's so quick and agile.”
“Evidently not agile enough to keep all his feet.”
Nimbly the fox hopped to the water dish that Emma had filled to the brim. A few laps, and then the fox turned his full attention to Emma, watching with bright, dark eyes as she drew out an egg from the depths of her pocket.
“I have a treat for you, Presto,” Emma said in a tantalizing voice. She peeled the boiled egg and held it through the bars of his enclosure. Trembling with eagerness, the fox inched closer.
“He was caught in a trap.” With practiced skill, Emma let go of the egg just as the fox snatched it. Presto gobbled the delicacy in two saliva-drenched bites. “He was half-dead from exposure and loss of blood. He'd been gnawing his leg off to escape. If I hadn't found Presto when I did, he'd probably be an adornment for some fine lady's mantle or muff—”
“Please,” Nikolas said politely, “save your speeches for that club you belong to—friends-of-the-animals, or whatever it's called.”
“The Royal Society for the Humane Treatment of Animals.”
“Yes, that one.”
Emma surprised him by looking over her shoulder with a grin. No other woman on earth had such a smile, a sly and irresistible sunburst. “If you want to visit my menagerie, Nikki, you have to listen to my speeches.”
Nikolas started slightly at the Russian diminutive of his name. Only a few friends from his boyhood had ever called him that. It sounded odd coming from Emma's lips, pronounced in her crisp English accent. Suddenly he felt the need to escape her artless smile, the childlike clarity of her eyes. But he stayed, driven to finish what he had begun, carefully luring her into the snare he had set.
“I don't see any point in making speeches,” he heard himself say, “until you find replacements for the products they supply—including the meat for your table.”
“I'm a vegetarian.” Seeing that the word was unfamiliar to him, Emma explained. “That's English for someone who doesn't eat meat.” She laughed at his expression. “You look surprised. Aren't there vegetarians in Russia?”
“Russians have three requirements for their diet: meat to make the bones strong and the blood red, dark bread to fill the stomach, and vodka to impart joy in life. Give a Russian a plate of green weeds, and he'll feed it to the cow.”
Emma didn't appear to be impressed. “I'll take weeds any day.”
“I think you take your opinions to an extreme, dushenka.” Nikolas stared at her with growing amusement. “When did you decide to stop eating meat?”
“I think I was thirteen, maybe a little older. One night I was in the middle of supper, listening while everyone talked around me, and as I stared down at the roasted game hen in front of me, I felt as if I were picking a little corpse apart…seeing all the tiny rib bones, the muscle, the fat and skin….” She grimaced at the memory. “I excused myself, went up to my room, and was sick for hours.”
He smiled. “You're an odd child.”
“So people say.” Emma gestured for him to come with her, and they went to a small door that led to a connecting building. As they walked, Emma gave him a sideways glance. “What was that Russian word you called me?”
“Dushenka.”
“What does it mean?”
“Perhaps someday I'll tell you.”
Her brows drew together at his response. “I'll ask my stepmother tonight.”
“That wouldn't be wise.”
“Why? Is it a bad word? An insult?”
Before Nikolas could reply, they had entered the next building. A pungent cat-smell crept to Nikolas's nostrils, in spite of the plentiful air and light that circulated through grates and barred windows. He forgot the smell as soon as he saw the huge striped animal padding toward Emma, prevented from reaching her by a row of iron bars. The magnificent tiger had a deep reddish-orange coat scored with thick black stripes. A distinctive burst of long hair adorned its neck and back. Nikolas had never seen such a large tiger—definitely over forty stone—and certainly not one at this close range.
“You brought him to me as a kitten, remember?”
; “Of course,” Nikolas said quietly. It was the only gift he had ever given Emma, when she was twelve years old. He had found the sick tiger cub in a ramshackle shop filled with exotic animals and had bought it for her. He hadn't seen the animal since then.
Emma crouched close to the bars, cooing and making baby noises. “Manchu, this is Prince Nikolas.” The great cat settled nearby with a half-lidded, drowsy look of pleasure. An opening had been cut in the wall, allowing Manchu access to an outside enclosure where he could sun himself. His legs and belly were soaked from his lounging in a shallow tank of water. “Isn't he beautiful?” Emma asked with maternal pride. “Look at the size of those paws. Tigers have killed more humans than any other cat, you know. They're wonderfully unpredictable.”
“Wonderful,” Nikolas agreed dryly. His breath caught as Emma reached between the bars of the cage and scratched the tiger's neck.
“In Asia, where Manchu is from, the tiger is a symbol of reincarnation.” Emma glanced from Manchu to Nikolas. “You look alike, actually. Maybe you were a tiger in another life, Your Highness.”
“Don't reach in there.” Nikolas's voice was soft, but it held a note that caused both Emma and the tiger to look at him questioningly.
Emma slid her arm farther into the cage and rubbed the cat's neck harder. “If you recall, he has no claws,” she said. “They were pulled out by his first owner. Now Manchu will never be able to provide for himself. He'll never have freedom, the poor little kitten.” She looked at Manchu with loving pity. An affectionate gurgling noise began in the tiger's chest, and he stared at her with the love of a cub for its mother. Nikolas tensed visibly until Emma withdrew her arm.
“There's no need to worry,” she said. “Manchu thinks of me as a friend.”
“Or an afternoon snack.” Nikolas lifted the bucket of meat scraps. “I assume this is for him?” The tiger's head lifted, and he regarded the bucket with sudden alertness.
Emma rose to her feet and took the bucket from Nikolas. Expertly she shook the sopping mess into the cage. “Bon appétit, Manchu.” The tiger gurgled with appreciation and applied himself happily to the meal. “Ghastly.” Emma made a face and laughed. “I'm surrounded by carnivores.” She wiped her hands on her trousers and grinned at Nikolas. “How does it feel to have dirty hands, Your Highness? A new experience for you, I imagine.”