To Wed a Wicked Prince

by Jane Feather

  They were taking no notice of her and she edged closer to the side of the yawl, hearing the lapping of the dark water below. It was quite a wide gap between the side of the yawl and the quay, and she tried not to look down into that sinister blackness as she leaned forward, attempting to peer through a grimy porthole even as she strained her ears to hear what they were saying. At least they were speaking in English.

  “We’ll be away at dawn on the morning tide,” one of the two men said to Tatarinov. “Be in Calais by sundown tomorrow.”

  “Can you take a passenger? I’ll pay well for passage.” Tatarinov rattled his pockets and the chink of coin rang in the still frosty air.

  “Oh, aye? Well, as to that, we’ve already got passengers…don’t know if we’ve room for another,” the other man said.

  “I’ll pay well,” Tatarinov repeated.

  “Eh, there’s room enough,” his colleague stated. “Cabin’s occupied, but you can stay on deck. It’ll be a mite chilly, but with a good thick boat cloak you’ll manage, I reckon. ’Tis a daylight crossing when all’s said an’ done.”

  “Just a minute,” the other said, cocking his head towards the hatchway. He pointed down towards the hatch. “Best do summat about that.”

  “Aye,” the other said, hitching up his britches, which were fastened with a piece of rope. “We’ll be back in a minute, sir.”

  Tatarinov nodded as if he had no interest in their conversation, but Livia saw his stony expression as he turned away from the hatch, thrusting his hands into his britches’ pockets and staring grimly out at the quay.

  She leaned closer to the porthole and experimentally rubbed at it with her sleeve. The strangest feeling gripped her, an odd excitement. She spat on the grimy glass and rubbed again, managing to clear a small circle.

  She stared into a dimly lit space, all in shadow. It was impossible to make anything out clearly, just dark shapes and the glow of a lantern somewhere. But she could hear something, a steady thumping, and there was a vaguely recognizable rhythm to it.

  Again that strange feeling gripped her, more strongly this time. Impatiently she spat again on the glass and rubbed vigorously, widening the clear space. Her view opened out and she saw into more of the cabin now.

  And she saw the bundled figure on the chair, close to the table. And she saw him raise both his feet at right angles to his body and kick the underside of the table. That was the noise she had heard, and the rhythm was the one Tatarinov had used to summon his cohorts on the journey. It had to be Alex.

  She raised a hand to tap on the glass and then reared back, almost losing her footing on the slippery quay. She felt sick. The two men had entered the cabin. She could hear the sounds of their fists but she couldn’t bear to look. Alex’s kicking had attracted more than just Tatarinov’s attention. He would have known it would, of course. He would be prepared for what they were doing to him now, but such a realization did nothing to help Livia.

  She moved away from the side, not knowing what she should do, her eyes searching for Tatarinov. Then she saw him turn towards the hatchway as the two sailors came back out, one of them rubbing his knuckles. Tatarinov glanced to the quay, saw Livia approaching, and with an infinitesimal movement of his hand told her to back away.

  She had no choice but to let him conclude his business with the sailors, and then she would tell him what she intended to do. Anger had replaced her sick horror. She melted back into the shadows to wait.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  LIVIA, HUGGING THE SHADOWS OF a boat shed, heard the sounds of booted feet from somewhere behind her, and voices, slightly slurred and speaking in what she now recognized as Russian. Alex’s captors…the secret police. That would put four men on the Caspar against Tatarinov and his three cohorts. Four against four. Good enough odds, particularly if she could give them the advantage of surprise.

  Her heart was banging against her ribs so hard she thought it must sound like a drumbeat, but despite that her mind was cool and clear, her resolution hard and diamond bright. She watched the two men approach the yawl but before they could reach it, Tatarinov had jumped down to the quay and was hurrying in the opposite direction, head huddled into the turned-up hood of his cloak.

  The men glanced at him briefly, then climbed up on deck. Livia thought their step was a trifle unsteady. If they were drunk, so much the better.

  “Get back in here.” Tatarinov’s rough voice coming from behind her in a fierce whisper made her jump. She’d seen him go off in the opposite direction but now he was in the boathouse behind her. She didn’t trouble to ask how he’d managed it.

  “Was that the secret police?” she whispered, stepping back through the door into the dark space that smelled of wet canvas and tarred rope.

  “Aye,” he said shortly. “You’re to get in here and stay here while we go about our business.”

  “No,” Livia said with quiet determination. “I know Alex is on that ship, I heard him knocking, and I can guess what they did to him. I’m going to help you get him out…no, listen to me.” She held up a hand imperiously as he began to interrupt. “You’re four against four. If I distract them for you, you should be able to creep up on them.”

  “Distract them?” He looked at her in mingled disdain and astonishment. “Don’t be stupid, woman. What can you do?”

  Livia controlled her temper. She began to unbutton her jacket. “I need a bottle of liquor…rum…whisky…brandy, anything.” She shrugged the jacket off and began to fumble with the buttons of her shirt. “They have whores on quays, don’t they?” she demanded impatiently.

  Tatarinov stared at her now with just the beginnings of interest. “Like as not,” he said. “What d’you intend?”

  “I intend to stagger on board as a half-drunken whore offering my body and a bottle,” she told him succinctly. “I’m certain I can attract their attention long enough for you and your men to get in position.”

  And now there was something akin to respect in his eyes as he watched her pull her hair loose of its snood and run her fingers through the curls until they stood out around her face in an unruly tangle.

  “Fetch me drink, Tatarinov,” she demanded with the same impatience. “There’s taverns aplenty around here…a bottle of anything will do. I need to smell of drink myself.” She looked around, still fluffing out her hair. “I need some dirt, something to grub me up a little.”

  “You swear you won’t move until I get back?” he asked somewhat uncertainly. There was no knowing what this manifestation of Princess Prokov would do next.

  “I need that bottle,” she pointed out, rolling up her shirtsleeves. “I can’t do anything until you’re back with it. And there’s no point in my going on that ship without you and your men being in place, now is there?”

  “I reckon not.” He nodded and disappeared behind her, presumably through a back door to the shed.

  Livia rubbed some tar on her fingers and then smeared a thumb down her cheek. It would be the devil’s own job to wash off, but needs must. She ripped the bodice of her shirt artistically, showing more than a hint of cleavage, and added a smear of tar between her breasts for good measure. There was dust aplenty in the cobwebby reaches of the boat shed and she rubbed and smeared with as much art as she could in the circumstances. A mirror would have been a help.

  Tatarinov came back with his three companions. Silently he handed her an open stone jar. Livia sniffed and her stomach roiled at the raw fumes. “What is it?”

  “Rough stuff,” he told her, “but they’ll drink it. You’d best take a swig.”

  Livia tried and choked as it burned down her gullet. She shook her head, for the moment speechless, and poured a little into the palm of her hand, dabbing it onto her pulse points at her throat and behind her ears, an eccentric perfume that in other circumstances might have amused her.

  “All right, I’m ready,” she said when the burning in her throat had died down and her eyes had stopped watering. “Tatarinov, they’re expecting
you to return to take passage with them, aren’t they?”

  He nodded, watching her in the dim illumination from the lamps outside that filtered through the ill-fitting slats of the boat shed. “What d’you have in mind?”

  “Well, if we both go on board together…arm in arm…I could be a whore you picked up in one of those taverns. We’re both drunk, I’m willing to spread my favors around…and we play it from there. Your…uh…your colleagues will watch and wait for their opportunity to join the fun.”

  “A good plan, except that I am known to Arakcheyev’s men,” he informed her.

  “Then I go alone,” Livia said, even though fear gripped her belly. It was a very different prospect to go into that lion’s den without Tatarinov’s supporting presence.

  Tatarinov spoke quickly in Russian to the three men who had been staring in blank incomprehension at Livia since they’d entered the boat shed. There was a short burst of conversation among them, then Tatarinov nodded and turned back to Livia. “All right, let’s do it.”

  He accompanied her to the back door of the boat shed. “Try to get them to the aft rail,” he said. “If you can get them with their backs to the docks even for just a moment, it will give us a big advantage.”

  Livia nodded her understanding. “I think I can do that.”

  “Princess…” He started to say something and then stopped, but to her astonishment she saw something approaching a smile soften his hard mouth, and then it was gone.

  “Monsieur Tatarinov,” she responded, then went through the door onto the quay. She raised the stone jar and with a raucous, high-pitched, and distinctly vulgar laugh staggered towards the gangplank of the Caspar.

  “Who goes there?” one of the sailors shouted down as he spied her swaying across the cobbles.

  “Just a friend,” she called back drunkenly, waving her stone jar. “Brought you some comfort if you’ve coin to give a girl.”

  Ribald laughter greeted this and the four men gathered at the head of the gangplank. “Come on up, girlie. We’ve an hour t’go before the tide and coin aplenty for the right service.”

  Livia waved her jar freely and giggled, tripping as she reached the top. Huge arms enveloped her and a mouth swamped hers in a beery kiss. She thought of Alex, helpless below, and she let herself fall into the part, flinging her arm around her embracer before reeling away from him to another one. They passed her from hand to hand, fumbling her breasts inside her shirt, pinching and pawing her backside, swigging from her stone jar.

  She flung her arms wide and sang out with a drunken gurgle, “Come one, come all,” and they surged on her as she fell back against the aft railing, laughing, dodging kisses.

  And as they surrounded her, Tatarinov and his men came silently up the gangplank, knives in their hands. Then one of Livia’s would-be clients heard or sensed something. He spun around with a shout of warning.

  Livia rolled away from the rail. Tatarinov and his men had the advantage of surprise but the others were all armed, and drunk though they were, they all knew how to brawl. It was not going to be an easy victory for either side. Livia didn’t hesitate. She ducked low along the railing, trying to keep out of the line of sight, praying they were all too occupied to notice or remember her. She crossed the short strip of unprotected deck at a crouch and dived into the darkness of the hatchway, her heart racing, the sour taste of raw spirit rising in her mouth.

  She half fell in her haste down the gangway and into the dark cabin. Alex was slumped in the chair, his head on his chest, a trickle of blood running sluggishly from a gash on his temple. They had hit him hard, and it looked to Livia as if the wound had been caused by a ring or something like it.

  She would not allow herself pity, or horror, only action. She ran to him. He was unconscious, unmoving in his bonds. Desperately she looked around for water. There was none. But she still held the jar and what was left of its vile contents. She grabbed Alex’s head and pulled it back, pressing the jar to his lips, forcing some of the spirit into his mouth. His eyes shot open and stared at her for a moment without comprehension, then he shook his head, wincing with the pain.

  “What in the name of all the gods are you doing here?” He sounded blurred and as disoriented as he felt.

  “I’m at your side,” Livia said, fighting back tears of relief. “Where else would you expect me to be?”

  A tiny spark of light showed behind his dazed blue gaze. “Nowhere else,” he said, and then choked as she forced more of the spirit between his lips.

  “Good God, woman, what are you doing to me? I’m half dead already, do you want to finish the job?”

  “Oh, Alex.” She kissed him on his bleeding mouth. “Are you all right?”

  “At the moment, yes, but we won’t be for much longer. There’s a gutting knife on that locker in the bulkhead. I’ve been eyeing it for hours.”

  Livia couldn’t believe how strong he sounded, but common sense also told her that such a surge of energy could not last long when a man had been so ill-treated. She fetched the gutting knife and sawed at the ropes at his wrists, then dropped to her knees to cut the bindings at his ankles. “Tatarinov—”

  “On deck, I know. How many?”

  “Four to four.”

  “If they weren’t dealing with Arakcheyev’s puppies, I’d say Tatarinov and friends needed no help from me,” he said. “But…give me the knife, sweeting.”

  Oh, how she had longed to hear that endearment again. “I have your pistol,” she said prosaically.

  “You are a miraculous woman.” Alex took the pistol from her. His eyes held hers. “I love you, Livia. I have been so desperate to tell you that. So afraid you didn’t really believe me and I wouldn’t get the chance to convince you.”

  “I am convinced,” she said. “You don’t need to tell me, my love.”

  His broken lips moved in a painful smile, then it was all business again. His voice was clipped. “Follow me up, and keep out of the way. I mean it, Livia. You must make certain they can’t get hold of you. They will use you if they can and we will all be lost. The minute we get on deck you get down to the quay. Understand?”

  “Certainly,” she said without expression.

  “Stay right behind me.” He headed for the gangway and Livia followed him up on deck. Blood ran along the decking. Tatarinov and one of Arakcheyev’s men were engaged in a knife fight, both men bleeding, both as fierce as Cossacks fighting to the death on the steppes. One of the sailors was an inert heap on a pile of rope, the other was struggling with one of the men who had accompanied Tatarinov. Arakcheyev’s second man was in another death struggle with two of Tatarinov’s colleagues.

  “Let’s bring this to an end,” Alex said under his breath. He raised his pistol and waited for a second until the man fighting with Tatarinov had his back to him for a moment. Then he shot him. Only Livia heard him say, “I owed you that, my friend.”

  The sound of the gunshot brought everything to a sudden, almost surreal halt. The shot man crumpled slowly to the deck, and the second member of the secret police was taken off guard for only an instant, but enough for a man fighting two against one. He was quickly disarmed.

  The sailor who remained on his feet dropped his cutlass as Tatarinov’s man slipped beneath his guard and drove his knife under his arm. And a strange silence fell. Even the sounds from the taverns had ceased. Only the sky remained as starlit and cheerful as before, shining brightly down upon the blood-slick deck and the twisted, crumpled forms.

  Alex turned and saw Livia standing at the head of the gangplank. She had not been able to tear herself away from the scene and get down to the quay as he’d instructed. He came over to her and spoke softly but with vehemence. “You are a wonderful, amazing woman, you achieve miracles, and I adore you, but just this once you are going to do exactly what I tell you. Is that understood, Livia?”

  She nodded, numbed by the speed and wholesale destruction of the last minutes.

  “I mean it, Livia.” He took her
shoulders, forcing her to look at him instead of the scene behind him. “Do you know where the horses are?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you are to go down to the quay now and wait with the horses.”

  “What will you be doing?” But she knew the answer and she knew she didn’t want to hear it spoken.

  “Take this and go.” He gave her the pistol; the barrel was still warm.

  “Is it loaded?” she asked, puzzled.

  “No, but only you will know that if anyone accosts you. Now go.” He turned her to the gangplank with a little shove between her shoulders. “We will make this right, sweeting. But you must go now.”

  Livia went. There was an eerie quiet along the quay now, all the hubbub of the taverns faded as even the drunken revelers sought sleep in the few short hours before dawn. There had been no one to hear the pistol shot from the Caspar, but Livia thought that even if there had been, the sound would have gone unremarked in the general riotous chaos. She kept the pistol hidden in the folds of her skirt, finding it comforting even though it would do little good if she were threatened. But she was not really afraid. Now that Alex was safe, there was nothing really to fear.

  She picked up her discarded jacket from the boat shed and hurried along the quay to the lean-to where the horses were tethered. They whickered softly when she came up to them, and Daphne threw up her beautiful silver head and nuzzled Livia’s shoulder.

  “Not long now,” she whispered, burying her nose in the mare’s neck, inhaling the rich scent of horseflesh. She stroked down her flank and tried not to think of what was happening on the deck of the Caspar.

  It was clear enough to her that Arakcheyev’s men could not be left alive to take the tale back to the secret police. And she had to assume that the men of the Caspar had to suffer the same fate. There would always be the danger that the Russian secret police would trace their colleagues’ disappearance to the Caspar, and from what she’d gathered about the fate of the unknown Sperskov, they would soon reveal all there was to know about Alex.