The abrupt shift in topics left her momentarily speechless. Foolishly she had imagined that Nicholas had succumbed to the same magnetic pull she had felt between them. But as he stepped slightly aside, Katya noted a group of three men who were studying them with looks of undisguised interest. With a jolt of mortifying recognition, she realized that the searing look of desire he had given her—and the kiss that followed—had merely been for the benefit of this audience.
Embarrassment poured through her. The kiss had meant nothing to him. Nothing. She had allowed the line between illusion and reality to blur—but she would not make that humiliating mistake again.
That firmly resolved, she turned her focus to the three men who were approaching. They appeared to be in their early fifties and emanated a kindred air of stodgy pomposity. As Nicholas performed the introductions, she felt their curious gazes move over her body from head to toe, heedless of all decorum and propriety. Had she been anywhere else, she would have wasted no time in removing herself from their offensive presence. Nicholas must have sensed as much, for he kept one hand pressed firmly against the small of her back, as if to remind her to bite her tongue.
As the orchestra began a new set, he suggested smoothly, “Perhaps Lord Teecham would care to lead you through this next dance, Katya.” He turned to the small circle of men with whom they stood and continued, “Normally I would reserve that pleasure exclusively, but Miss Alexander has made it clear that she wishes to spend the evening dancing. While I would like nothing better than to indulge her every whim, I twisted my ankle while riding this afternoon and so I find myself shamefully unable to do so.”
A look of surprise crossed Lord Teecham’s face, then he puffed out his chest and gravely offered her his arm. “The honor would be mine.”
Katya hesitated. Although she had known that this moment would come, she was nevertheless profoundly unprepared for it. Her heart beat wildly within her chest, her breath felt shallow, and her smile was tight and strained. Granted, she had retrieved her own money and jewels from Lady Stanton; and in a portion of her act she did demonstrate her ability to “magically borrow” the personal possessions of various members of her audience, but these were entirely different things.
But she had no time to reconsider the bargain she had made. Nicholas increased the pressure of his hand against her back, gently propelling her forward.
Katya shot him a dark look, then turned to Lord Teecham. “You are too kind, my lord,” she murmured, taking his arm.
Fortunately the dance was a reel, not a waltz, and there fore she would not be subjected to the same intimacy she had shared with Nicholas. Realizing that she would have no better time to search for the scroll, she took a deep breath and steeled her nerves for the task. She lifted her right hand and brushed it lightly against Teecham’s chest. She felt the pleats of his stiffly starched shirt, a watch fob in his breast pocket, and a thick bulge of flesh around his torso, telling her that he wore a corset of some sort to give himself the appearance of a slim waistline.
She felt nothing, however, that resembled a parchment scroll. Emboldened by the fact that he had not noticed her touch, she tried again, checking the pockets of his coat. Again, nothing. As the rhythm of the dance changed, Lord Teecham pulled her stiffly back into his arms. Should she dare to check his pants? The notion that he might conceal the scroll somewhere within his britches seemed preposterous, yet shouldn’t she at least confirm that it wasn’t there? With that thought in mind, she shifted her hand and brushed it experimentally against his thigh.
“Looking for something, my dear?”
Katya gave a horrified gasp and snapped back her hand. Her heart slammed against her chest and her breath lodged in her throat. Aghast at being discovered, she bravely forced herself to meet Teecham’s eyes. “I beg your pardon?” she managed hoarsely.
“I said, what brought you to Monaco? Was it the climate, the gaming, the company, or were you looking for something else?”
Raw relief flooded through her. He hadn’t perceived her touch after all. “I have an engagement with the theater,” she replied, hoping her voice didn’t sound as thin and tremulous to him as it did to her.
He studied her in puzzled silence, then let out a loud guffaw. “Of course, of course. Our own Goddess of Mystery. I hadn’t made the connection. And what of Lord Barrington? Have you two been long acquainted?”
“Less than a week, actually.”
“And yet he’s managed to capture your affections in so limited a space of time.” He paused, favoring her with a knowing smile that fell just short of an outright leer. “How charmingly impetuous.”
Katya ignored the blatant implication that her body could be had for the price of the highest bidder. “You flatter me, Lord Teecham,” she replied coolly, pulling away the moment the music stopped.
As the evening wore on Katya rotated through a variety of partners. She quickly discovered that Lord Teecham was neither the most ill bred nor the most well mannered among the men with whom Nicholas urged her to dance. She endured a long series of clumsy partners, mindless small talk, and vague insinuations. Her feet ached from having been constantly twirled around the dance floor, her nerves were raw from the constant stress of having to search the men with whom she danced, and her head was spinning from too many glasses of champagne.
Finally she could take no more. The music drew to a close and her current partner took her arm and led her back to Nicholas. He stood to greet her, another eager gentleman at his side ready to be foisted off on her. But before he had the opportunity, she announced, “If you gentlemen will pardon me, I should like a moment to tend to my gown.” That said, she turned and walked away. It was perhaps rude, but she was in no mood to be polite.
She strode across the vaulted hall and entered the small retiring room set aside for the ladies in attendance. It was without doubt the most inviting room she had seen in the villa. The walls were papered a delicate shade of rose, the gas lamps were turned down low, and the soft murmur of female conversation filled the air. Perhaps a dozen women were in the room, not including the handful of snoring dowagers who lay sprawled out on sofas, their maids sitting by their sides. The younger ladies were occupied freshening their gowns, chatting among themselves, or just generally recovering from the pace of the party.
Katya sank onto a burgundy velvet settee, grateful for the temporary respite from the hot, frenzied pace of the ballroom. After a few minutes a bell rang, summoning the guests to a late-night supper. Aware that she could hide no longer, Katya sighed and stood. As she made her way from the ladies’ retiring chamber and back into the hall, a petite blonde woman in a gown of vivid emerald silk stepped before her, blocking her way. The woman was strikingly beautiful, graced with porcelain skin, wide hazel eyes, and smooth golden-blonde hair that had been swept up into an elegant chignon.
“Enjoying the party?” the woman asked.
Katya forced a smile. “It’s been a lovely evening.”
“Hasn’t it? And so nice to see Nicholas among us again.”
“Oh?”
“Why, of course. You’re the first woman he’s been seen with in public since… how shall I put it delicately… since that unfortunate incident with Allyson Whitney.”
Although Katya didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about, she was instinctively loathe to admit it. “Is that so?
“I’m afraid it is.” She gave a soft sigh and blithely continued, “Well, at least he appears to have learned from the experience. He doesn’t appear at all as possessive of you as he was of Allyson.”
“Really. How kind of you to remark upon it.”
The blonde studied her for a moment in silence, then smiled with satisfaction. “You don’t know, do you?” she said, nearly purring with delight. “How very naughty of him to keep such secrets from you.”
Before Katya could manage a reply, the woman’s gaze shifted. “Good evening, Nicholas. I was just chatting with…” She hesitated for a moment, then
continued in a shocked tone that rang patently false, “Oh dear, we haven’t even been introduced, have we?”
Despite the blonde’s stunning beauty, Nicholas regarded her with a curiously flat gaze. With a slight bow, he performed the introductions. “Miss Katya Alexander, allow me to present Miss Corrina Jeffreys.” He hesitated a moment, then continued, “Miss Alexander and I were just going in to dine. Would you care to join us?”
“Perhaps another time,” Corrina Jeffreys replied, smiling sweetly. “I fear that I’ve neglected my escort for too long as it is. Do excuse me.” With these parting words, she lifted her emerald skirts and gracefully made her way back into the crowd.
An awkward silence hung between them as they watched her go. Searching for an opening for the questions that had suddenly blossomed in her mind, Katya remarked, “She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Stunning,” he agreed. “Evidence, no doubt, that unremitting selfishness truly is wonderful for the skin.” Abruptly closing the subject of Corrina Jeffreys, he asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Not at all.”
“In that case, may I suggest that you spend the next five minutes working up a ravenous appetite.”
He took her arm and led her through the villa and downstairs to the formal dining area. The meal began as soon as the guests were seated. Course after course was brought to the table, accompanied by free-flowing wine, champagne, and elaborately confected sweets and pastries. It was, she thought, a fitting finale to a night of gross overindulgence. At last the supper ended and they were able to take their leave.
Once inside the coach, Katya sank against the plush leather, exhausted to the point of feeling numb. Relieved that the evening was finally over, she leaned her head against the back of the seat and stared blankly out the window as the coach climbed the steep terrain toward Nicholas’s home.
“I trust you did not find the scroll,” he said after a minute, breaking the silence that hung between them.
“No,” she answered. “I didn’t.”
“I didn’t think you would. But at least it gave us a start. By noon the word will have spread throughout Monaco that I have a new mistress, and your presence will be sought after by all the curiosity seekers and morbid spectators in the principality.”
“Fortunately I am not vain enough to believe that there exists enough interest in either you or me to stimulate that kind of widespread speculation.”
“Then you vastly underestimate the pettiness of the men and women in whose company we just passed the last seven hours.”
Katya shrugged, not caring enough to debate the subject. Although she should have been thrilled that everything had gone according to plan, she felt strangely dissatisfied. In truth, Nicholas’s cavalier treatment of her had bothered her more than she wanted to admit. The raw force of his personality was almost overwhelming, yet she had felt unexpectedly vulnerable when she wasn’t near him.
Confused by her emotions, she turned to face him. He had removed his cravat; it sat crumpled on the seat beside him. His shirt was open at the collar. Other than that, he looked as immaculately groomed and fresh as he had at the beginning of the evening. He was, she thought dispassionately, a strikingly handsome man. Unlike the other men who had attended that evening’s gala, there was a rugged virility to him, coupled with a sense of quiet determination and absolute power. While he had foisted her off from one man to the next, he had kept himself slightly apart from the gathered assembly, as if he were somehow above the very crowd that scorned him.
The carriage slowed, then jutted forward as they moved around a bend in the road. As Nicholas turned to glance out the window his expression abruptly darkened.
Katya followed his gaze and saw nothing but a dense outcropping of sharp, white-capped rocks, their craggy surface devoid of vegetation. Nothing existed beyond them but a sheer, vertical drop to the sea.
“What is this place?” she asked.
Nicholas studied her for a moment in silence, as though carefully choosing his words. Finally he gave a light shrug and replied, “Only rocks. Nothing but a pile of dull, lifeless rocks.”
Realizing she would get no further information, she nodded without speaking and turned away, looking out the window. The sun was rising, filling the eastern horizon with brilliant bands of crimson, orange, gold, and rose. A dense fog rose up from the ocean; liquid silver drops clung to the mist, glistening like diamonds in the rays of the morning sun. The scene had an unearthly, almost spectral beauty.
Her mother had often told her that the winds carry warnings, if only she would pay attention. Katya had never tested the theory. She had scoffed at the archaic gypsy superstitions, preferring science to speculation. But that the blood of her ancestors ran through her veins could not be denied. As she surveyed the site an icy chill ran down her back, as though a hand had reached out from the grave and touched her.
The message the wind carried was clear, even to her. Death was in the air.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nicholas paused at the small foyer table and lifted a cream envelope from the sterling silver tray in which it rested. The handwriting was distinctly feminine, crisp and polished. Mr. William Spencer the envelope read; a London address was penned beneath his name. He turned it over in his hand, considering the missive, struck by an unexpected surge of curiosity. The envelope was thick, obviously it contained several pages. A love letter, perhaps? he thought, unaccountably irritated at the image of Katya pouring out her heart to a distant lover. A distant and decidedly unworthy lover, he amended silently.
“Ahem.” Edward Litell politely cleared his throat, alerting Nicholas to his presence. “Did you have any outgoing correspondence, Lord Barrington?”
“No. Thank you, Edward.” Feeling like an errant schoolboy who’d been caught spying, Nicholas tossed the letter back onto the tray. “I take it Miss Alexander has been down this morning.”
“Yes, quite some time ago. She breakfasted, then left for the theater.”
“I see.”
“Shall I instruct Cook to prepare—”
“No, thank you.”
“Very well. I’ve finished the ledger of accounts, if you’d care to examine—”
“Later.”
Nicholas restlessly drummed his fingers against the table’s edge. He had no mind for facts and figures this morning, and had no intention of wasting either his time or his secretary’s. With a curt nod, he strode from the villa and moved directly to the stables.
He saddled Avignon and left the yard at a gentle cantor. It wasn’t long before his mood overcame him and he urged Avignon into a full gallop, recklessly racing the gelding down the steep, hairpin curves that led away from his villa and toward the bustling center of Monaco. The black responded to the command with unrestrained power as his long legs tore up the dirt path beneath him. Throwing caution aside, Nicholas leaned low over the gelding’s neck, striving for more speed. The wind whipped sharply against his face, stirring up bits of sand and dirt to sting his skin. His breakneck pace was risky in the extreme, but he had no intention of slowing—not yet.
He rounded a bend, only to come face-to-face with a team of docile grays ploddingly guiding a farmer’s dray up the steep slope. The team reared in wild-eyed fright, frantically lashing their hooves in the air. Avignon reacted in kind. The gelding reared upright, pitching Nicholas from his saddle and flinging him headlong through the air to land in a bone-jarring stop in a dense, thorny patch of briar nettles.
He lay motionless for a moment, flat on his back and blinking up at the sky in stunned silence. Then he shifted experimentally, assessing the damage to his body. No bones were broken. He was stiff, sore, scraped, bruised, and thoroughly embarrassed, but nothing more serious than that. He had been lucky. Had he been thrown to the left, he could easily have been pitched down the steep, rocky bank to the sea below.
He slowly raised himself to a sitting position and looked around. The farmer with whom he had nearly collided was struggling to c
alm his team. At last he soothed the grays and brought them under control. Seeing that Nicholas was alive, he waved his fist in a universal gesture that conveyed his disdain and contempt.
Before Nicholas could offer either apology or restitution, the farmer urged his team back into their plodding pace up the hill. He watched them go, then turned his gaze to his mount. Avignon stomped his forelegs nervously as he paced; sweating and breathing hard, a slight shudder ran through his powerful frame. Biting back a groan, Nicholas rose to his feet and moved toward the black. He shook his head in disgust as he ran a soothing hand over his mount’s flanks. He had been reckless in the extreme to risk injuring the animal.
Rarely did he let his emotions run away like that. Racing down the slope in guilt and self-loathing, he had desperately tried to outdistance the past. He glanced around at the sight where he had unceremoniously landed. It came as no surprise that fate had brought him down in the exact spot he had been trying so desperately to avoid—the thick outcropping of white-capped rocks that flanked the steep path. Resigned to face what he had been recklessly trying to avoid, Nicholas gathered Avignon’s reins and led him to a patch of early spring grass where the gelding could graze as he cooled down.
Then he moved resolutely toward the base of the jagged rocks. He hesitated a moment, then climbed slowly to the summit. The wind blew back his hair and plastered his shirt against his chest; gusts of tangy sea air sprayed his face. Looking down, he saw nothing but a sheer, vertical drop to the sea. Waves pounded against the sharp, spiky rocks below, churning and crashing in a tumultuous struggle between land and sea.
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