Compromised by the Prince's Touch

by Bronwyn Scott

  ‘The Prince is displeased, Klara.’ Amesbury chuckled coldly. ‘I trust you were convincing?’ He swept them through a turn, teasing her with the invitation to speed that he would withdraw momentarily. His eyes were steady on her. ‘I would sacrifice a great deal, even social pomp, to make you mine, Klara. I am thinking now that June is too long to wait with Baklanov on the loose. I worry that he might try something drastic like taking you away. Perhaps a special licence is in order when we return and a quiet wedding shortly after. If all goes well, we could be married this time next week.’

  She said nothing. She was too busy tamping down the fear that threatened to break loose inside of her. He was giving her no quarter. His eyes glittered dark and dangerous. ‘A wife obeys her husband, Klara, in all things. I am prepared to be grateful for that obedience in return. I am prepared to harbour your father should his revolt fail. But if I am disobeyed, Klara, punishment will be harsh.’ Amesbury leaned close. ‘Let me remind you what is at stake. One word from me and your father could be ruined. An ambassador who plots revolution is no small matter to the British or the Russians.’

  She saw the full hell of the bargain she’d struck. Amesbury would be a stone about her neck for the rest of her life, her marriage a constant source of leverage. ‘My father has made you a fortune already,’ Klara protested. ‘Surely those earnings pay for his protection.’

  ‘Yes, they have. That’s why I haven’t said a word. Yet.’ Amesbury chuckled. ‘You’re so naïve, Klara. It’s called hush money for a reason. I would think you’d be interested in keeping it that way. Don’t forget what I can do to the Prince, too. Your marriage saves them both, Klara.’ The music stopped and he bowed to her, reaching out his hand. ‘Come, my dear, it’s time to make your deal with the devil official.’

  This was how it must feel to mount a scaffold, to see the noose and know that your life was very nearly over, Klara thought as Amesbury led her on to the musicians’ dais. Her father was already there, tapping a fork against a glass for attention. She’d heard accounts of the nearly departed looking out over the crowd for a friendly face, someone to focus their eyes on as the end came. Her eyes did the same. Against her better judgement, she let her gaze seek out Nikolay. She did this for love. She did this so he might live even if he hated her. She would see the moment that hate took up residence in his soul. She would take strength from that, knowing that she’d been compelling in her performance and that would keep him alive. It would be the first of many performances she would give to keep him and her father alive. She didn’t dare look at her father, who was so happy, so proud of her decision, believing he’d kept his promise to her mother, never thinking at what cost that promise had come.

  ‘Everyone, attention, please!’ her father began. ‘As our Maslenitsa party comes to a close, I want to celebrate with all of you the engagement of my daughter to Frederick Bixley, His Grace the Duke of Amesbury.’ He gave a chuckle. ‘I have it on the Duke’s good authority they will be married as soon as possible. Tonight, join me in wishing them all happiness.’

  Nikolay’s face was a study in disbelief. She forced herself to hold his gaze, to see every message of his eyes as her heart crumbled. Do you need me? was the instant message in his eyes, his immediate concern for her. He could not believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing. He wanted to believe his senses had failed him. She showed him nothing, careful to keep her expression blank. It would be too easy to plead for the help he offered. She couldn’t even give him an apology with her eyes. If she said she was sorry, he would know something was wrong, that this was a sacrifice. If he charged the stage, he endangered her father as well as himself. She couldn’t allow that to happen, never mind the hurt that grew in his gaze. She knew his thoughts in those moments; she was Helena all over again. He was thinking of all he’d told her and believing that she’d shared that with Amesbury and her father, that she’d used him most foully. Then, she let Amesbury take her mouth in a kiss to please the crowd and her betrayal was complete. When she looked out over the crowd again, Nikolay was gone and he’d taken her heart with him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Klara had betrayed him! Nikolay reached his room. Somehow. He didn’t remember the walk, only the anger, the burning in his gut, which was not that different from being stabbed. She’d stood up on that dais beside corrupt Amesbury and denounced him! With her eyes, with her words! As much as he hated her, he hated himself more. He’d warned himself, he’d taken precautions, he’d been alert to every scheme and in the end he’d taken those precautions and cast them aside, telling himself this time it would be different because she was different. Klara was real. But she hadn’t been real, she’d simply been very good at her job: baiting a prince by making him believe she was in love with him. The only difference between her and Helena was that he hadn’t ended up near death. Not yet.

  That was to come though, wasn’t it? He still had to decide about the revolution. No meant death. Yes was unappealing. His motive for joining, the idea that he could fight for Klara, taking away the horrors of deciding between him and her father, was no longer there. Perhaps that motivation had been an illusion all along. She’d never truly seen that as a dilemma. She’d already decided to support her father, already decided to side with the crooked Duke.

  The engagement announcement had been masterfully planned. Doing it at midnight ensured it was too dark to leave. He was trapped here until morning. By then leaving would no longer be an option. The men were spending the morning at the Duke’s munitions factory to take the next steps forward with the revolt. Grigoriev would want a decision then.

  Nikolay’s eyes fell on his dagger. He was going to have to fight his way out. Not with weapons, but with words—not his first choice, but his only choice. He couldn’t commit and he couldn’t decline, but that assumed there was going to be a revolt. He couldn’t be pressed for a decision if there wasn’t anything to decide.

  A plan started to form. Revenge burned hot in his veins. He couldn’t bring down Klara. Even as wounded as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to deliberately strike out at her. But he could bring down the Duke. Ruin him, in fact. If Klara needed to be free of the Duke, ruining Amesbury, exposing him, would free her. Free her. Save her. What nonsense! Nikolay pulled at his hair, a moan escaping him. What an idiot he was! Even now after being betrayed by this woman, he still harboured a tiny kernel of hope that she’d been forced to it somehow. By St John! When would he accept that she’d used him and left him? Why did he keep pretending it wasn’t over? Good Lord, she was to be another man’s wife. She was beyond his reach now. It couldn’t get much more finished than that. Klara was gone. For ever.

  The pain of loss swept him again. How could she have done this to him? Made him trust, made him feel, only to take it all away? This was why he had his code! He was on the eve of battle and his thoughts were distracted by emotions and hurt when they should all be focused on bringing down Amesbury. But he could not control his thoughts. They were with Klara. The sickening agony of her betrayal ripped through him once more. He tore open the windows and howled at the moon like a wolf of Kuban who had lost his mate.

  * * *

  Klara was gone in the morning. Already back in London to make wedding preparations, a beaming Grigoriev told departing guests. Many of the women left early as well without their husbands so the men were free to set out on horseback for the munitions factory. This was the last official party duty, the last barrier protecting him from announcing his decision. Nikolay was ready. He’d had all night to prepare. He’d ruin the Duke, whatever else happened.

  At the factory, they were shown the impressive machinations that turned out the standardised bullets and artillery shells at an unimaginable rate. ‘Russia has nothing like this,’ Vasilev breathed in awe next to him. ‘This is the kind of progress we need to bring to our country.’

  ‘Think of the money you could make selling such a machine to the army.’
Amesbury stood to Vasilev’s other side. ‘Invest early, get in on the ground floor where you can control the contracts, and you’ll have a fortune in no time. There’s always a war, always a need for an army to fight. If Russia wants to move forward, this is a good way to start building an empire.’

  ‘Progress is more than mass-producing weapons, I hope,’ Nikolay corrected him, earning a steely gaze. ‘The progress we need is much larger than weapons factories. It’s the whole philosophy we need, an entirely new way of thinking.’ Machines were just some results of that thinking. ‘War for profit is hardly a noble philosophy to franchise.’

  ‘Precisely.’ A warm hand came down on Nikolay’s shoulder as Grigoriev joined them. ‘Well said, Your Highness. War should always be a last resort. We are planning a revolt, not a civil war. There is a difference.’ There was, to him and other men of principle. But not to men like Amesbury. War was business, a commodity to be traded. He had to help Grigoriev see that.

  * * *

  ‘Come with me, gentlemen. We are going to try out the bullets with some of the firearms in the shooting gallery. I am told there’s champagne as well.’ Grigoriev smiled and nodded to the Duke. ‘Your Grace certainly knows how to entertain. This is quite the arrangement you have here, Amesbury.’

  The Duke owned large shares in the factory. Nikolay didn’t let that slip by him. The man had a rather large financial stake in it if he was allowed to give tours and serve champagne with firearm demonstrations. No wonder the Duke was eager to contract for the arms. As the middle man he had commissions from Cabot Roan and the ambassador for facilitating the deal, plus the profits his factory made.

  Nikolay let himself fall to the back of the group in order to give his brain time to think, the pieces he’d laid out last night falling into place. The Duke was pushing for the rebellion because he made money. He let his mind stop on that fact. Amesbury was waiting for him at the door to the shooting gallery. ‘Figuring it out, are you? It’s supply and demand at its most basic root,’ he sneered. ‘I’ll be able to keep Klara in all the silks and satins she wants. As my wife, she’ll want for nothing. It’s no wonder she chose me over you.’

  ‘What did you threaten her with?’ Nikolay growled. Even in the morning light, he couldn’t come to grips with the idea Klara had left him wilfully.

  Amesbury crowed. ‘You poor man! You can’t accept the fact that she chose my money over your cock. Women are practical creatures, Prince Baklanov. Besides, why would she ever want to hook her name to a murderer’s? A man wanted for treason?’ He lowered his voice. ‘I know you’ve had her, but after a couple nights with me, she’ll forget all about you. Don’t worry, your secrets are safe as long as she behaves. The question is, knowing Klara as I do, will she behave? What do you think, Baklanov?’

  ‘I think you’ve just declared war.’ Nikolay strode past the Duke, to a vacant shooting station. It was taking a considerable amount of his self-restraint to keep his temper under control. Dear God, the man was vile. The only reason he didn’t give in to rage and shoot the Duke right there was that was what the Duke wanted; Amesbury wanted him mad, wanted him to act rashly. Perhaps Amesbury even wanted him to take a shot. That would be quite the blackmail indeed: lead the revolt and we won’t tell anyone you fired at a duke. Of course, Amesbury would have to dodge the bullet. That might be harder to do than Amesbury realised. He wasn’t in the habit of missing.

  Temper under control, Nikolay picked up the gun at his station, one of Collier’s new revolvers, impressive and expensive. The beauty of a revolver was that it had multiple chambers and could fire multiple times before having to be reloaded. He’d heard of these, but had not had the privilege of firing one. He extended his arm, testing the weapon’s weight and balance. The soldier who wielded this gun would have the element of speed on his side.

  ‘These are the guns we’ll give our officers,’ Grigoriev said, loading for another round. ‘It will give them an advantage. I don’t think the palace guard will have widespread access to such things.’

  ‘Not yet, anyway.’ Nikolay eyed the target and took careful aim at the end of his lane. ‘That would be true, if the arms dealers didn’t catch wind of your plans and sell to the other side.’ Nothing prevented the Duke from playing the other side as well.

  Grigoriev shot him a strong look. ‘That would be most unfortunate indeed. That is why we do business with our friends.’

  Nikolay fired his first shot, hitting near the target, impressed with the revolver’s accuracy. ‘You count Amesbury as your friend?’

  ‘He is to be my son in-law.’ Grigoriev’s hackles were up. Nikolay relented in his interrogation. He had to proceed carefully here. Perhaps he’d planted enough seeds to make Grigoriev think.

  Nikolay concentrated on shooting. He fired again and again. His fifth shot went wide for no apparent reason. He reloaded and fired. Ten shots later, he missed again. In the next round, his fourth shot went wide. Then nothing for another ten. Forty shots in all, with four going wide. Odd, considering he wasn’t doing anything noticeably different and he was usually a good shot. He laid the gun down and studied the others, especially Vasilev’s young officers, who should be reliable shots. They, too, missed sporadically. Not enough to comment. No one was perfect all the time and the guns were new. Any soldier could tell you that his own weapons fit him a certain way, that other weapons felt different until one grew accustomed.

  Nikolay began looking at the pyramid of bullets stacked before him, feeling the lead balls in his hand, rolling them in his palm. Most were smooth lead spheres. Every so often, there was one with a twist on the end the way one would tie off an inflated pig’s bladder, as if it hadn’t been clipped and sanded down. That would explain the deviation. The deformation and the added weight would skew the ball’s trajectory. Nikolay pocketed two balls as the shooting wound down and Grigoriev gathered everyone into a conference room next to the gallery.

  The officers talked excitedly about the new guns. They compared the flintlock-style Collier revolver to the percussion-cap revolver lately out of Paris in eager debate until Grigoriev silenced them. ‘We can get the Collier revolver in mass production, although it’s expensive because they’re still considered new and there’s not many factories producing them.’ He shook his head. ‘But we cannot get near enough of the percussion cap. They’re too new, not widespread.’ He looked at the Duke. ‘How long will it take to get the arms and munitions of the scope we’re talking about?’

  ‘Four months if we push,’ the Duke answered.

  Nikolay watched the by-play, looking for his opening. The General was ecstatic. ‘Four months and we can attack.’

  Grigoriev was more reserved. ‘We don’t have to go the minute the guns are ready.’ Other heads nodded. The group was split. It became apparent as they pored over maps and time lines in the conference room, no one knew when it would occur. It might be a year from now, or two years, or it could be in the next six months.

  ‘Your Highness, what do you think?’ Vasilev asked.

  This was his chance. He marshalled his arguments. ‘I think you’ll need help from the south.’ He was aware of Amesbury’s gaze on him. ‘For this to succeed, and by that I mean for the rebellion to last, we need this to be more than a palace revolt limited to St Petersburg. We’ve already seen how the lack of widespread coordination is the reason we can’t overturn the Ottomans. Sporadic village revolts can’t hold off the Ottoman Empire. We need time to get everything in place.’ His best hope was in arguing for more time while sounding committed. Heads nodded and the Duke shot him a scathing look.

  ‘Do not delay. Take the arms you have and focus on St Petersburg. It is the political hub,’ Amesbury said. ‘Capture its attention and the rest of the nation will follow. You have limited resources. You should focus them where they can do the most good. If you get spread out trying to do too much in too many places, you’ll accomplish nothing.’ You. Not we. Di
d Grigoriev notice? ‘Specifics can be decided at a later date.’ Amesbury looked at the group. ‘You can’t necessarily decide when the rebellion will be, but you can decide how to prepare for it. What needs to happen today is signing the contract for the Collier revolvers and the munitions.’

  Vasilev nodded, his assent encouraging others, many who were desperate for any type of progress. Nikolay was losing them. Having the guns made the chances of revolt more likely.

  Nikolay spoke up. ‘Is there an exclusivity clause?’

  Amesbury glared across the table, doing murder with his eyes. ‘There doesn’t need to be. We are gentlemen. Such clauses are for businessmen who cannot be trusted to keep their word.’

  ‘True, but this is not your factory alone, is it?’ Nikolay pressed. He began to explain, looking each man in the eye to make his point. ‘Perhaps your word is good, Your Grace...’ he doubted it but he’d give the Duke the benefit ‘...but your partners may learn of this venture and seek to sell arms to the other side, to the palace guard loyal to Alexander. Our advantage would be lost. I would wager your board of directors already knows about us.’

  ‘The board of directors must discuss everything,’ the Duke answered sharply, ‘otherwise we’d have no accountability between us.’