by Gaelen Foley
“Good.” He released her slowly from his possessive hold around her waist. “Perhaps you will start with what I am most interested in knowing.”
“What’s that?”
“Why you gave yourself to me last night.” He rested his fingers lightly on her shoulder and prevented her from turning away. His touch felt a trifle domineering, but Becky yielded after a moment, eyeing him warily. He shook his head, his cobalt eyes searching her soul like a lantern’s beam sweeping the night. “You paid too high a price for food and shelter. Did you really think it was the only way you’d get my help?”
She bit her lower lip and thought out her answer carefully before replying. There was such a thing as male pride, and if she was going to let herself rely upon his help, it was best not to anger him. “I . . . wanted you. You must be used to that.”
“Not from untouched maidens. No, Becky. Don’t spare my feelings. You have made your misgivings about me quite clear. Even I know I’m not that irresistible,” he said with a faint trace of world-weary humor. “Go on. What else? There’s more you are not telling me.” His perceptiveness startled her. His mouth twisted cynically. “I’m a gambler, remember? Reading faces is what I do.”
Becky struggled with her uncertainty, then closed her eyes. “I want to tell you, but you’ll be so angry. I’m afraid you will do something rash.”
“Like what?” he asked coolly.
“Challenge him,” she whispered, slowly opening her eyes again.
“Kurkov?”
She nodded.
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“Well, I am! I know what he’s capable of, and you should be, too, if you’re wise. Do you know how many battles he’s fought in?”
Alec’s touch was gentle, but his eyes were stormy as he took her face between his hands and held her stare. “What did he do to you?”
Tears rushed into her eyes at the terrifying memory, much to her surprise. But Alec’s gentleness was implacable, his solicitude inescapable, and finally her resistance crumbled. “He—He threatened to force himself on me. He said he would teach me a lesson I wouldn’t forget, and that when he was done with me, he’d marry me off to someone horrid. I didn’t want it to be that way,” she whispered, holding him in an imploring stare. “Not for my first time.”
Alec’s nostrils flared.
“So I chose you instead,” she confessed. “Because you were kind to me and you tried so hard to put me at ease and . . . you made me laugh when I hadn’t smiled in days.” Her chin trembled a bit with her refusal to cry. “I’m sorry if that means I used you, but I couldn’t let him have that victory over me. He’s taken everything else, you see. I couldn’t let him take my pride.”
Alec’s mouth was a grim pale line. She had seen him annoyed, seen him exasperated, and seen him murderously intent on battle against the Cossacks, but not until this moment had she seen him utterly enraged.
He did not say a word.
He turned away, closed his eyes briefly with a noisy inhalation and, for a swift, harsh moment’s silence, struggled for calm. “I won’t let him touch you, Becky.” His sapphire eyes flicked open again, gleaming with steely resolve. “That son of a bitch will not lay a finger on you,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not over my dead body.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid!” she cried, pulling away in a fresh wave of anguish. He caught her by her elbow, hushing her, to no avail. “You don’t know how treacherous he is—I do! I saw him kill a man in cold blood, Alec! That’s why I went to Westland’s house! The duke is the lord lieutenant for West Yorkshire. I want Mikhail arrested! I want to see him hanged.”
“So, that’s why he’s chasing you. To silence you before you can expose him for this crime?”
She nodded emphatically. “Yes.”
“Well, at least it is beginning to make sense now,” he murmured. Squinting against the climbing sun, he looked away, gathering his thoughts.
After a moment, she noticed that he was bleeding again, and told him so.
He glanced down ruefully at his wound. “Actually, if your offer of help still stands, my arm hurts like hell. Have you got anything we could use to wrap it?” His frank admission seemed to Becky aimed at putting her at ease again, as much as anything else; perhaps he recognized how intimidated she was by his icy, silent fury at Mikhail.
“Petticoat,” she said with a sniffle. “I could tear a few strips off.”
“So, then . . .” He lifted an eyebrow ever so slightly, offering her a cautious half smile. “I might get to see your ankles?”
An answering smile spread slowly across her face as she held his gaze, shaking her head. “You really are too much.”
“Pride m’self on it.” He gave her a roguish wink and sauntered past her, leaving her to marvel at his talent for making her feel better with an irreverent jest, a smile, a droll remark—and his kindness for caring enough to try.
He could kill with zest and alacrity, but his heart was gold.
Knight, she thought, gazing at him.
“Come along, petite.” He took her hand as gracefully as though he were leading her to the dance floor of a ballroom. “We can go and sit in the church like you said, and while you doctor me up, I want to hear exactly what you saw.”
She nodded and went with him.
“And, Becky?” he added, pausing. He stared up at the sun-splashed steeple. “Try to have a little faith in me.” He sent her a guarded look. “I might just surprise you.”
She lowered her head, chastened.
With a touch that brooked no denial, Alec cupped her elbow with his other hand and shepherded her across the street to the little sanctuary, steering her to safety yet again.
CHAPTER
SIX
Alec had not been inside a church since Lizzie’s wedding to Strathmore, but even a sinner like him, he thought now, had to take pause upon walking onto holy ground, having just despoiled a virgin and killed two men in violent combat. Hatred simmered in his heart for this man she called Mikhail. So, the great Prince Kurkov thought he’d force himself on Becky? He could hardly wait to shove a sword through the man’s heart.
Following her through the giant oak doors and into the chapel’s silence, Alec’s mood was dark and brooding. They passed a stone baptismal font carved with scallop shells at the back of the sanctuary, then stepped into the silent nave.
It was peaceful and cool inside.
Filmy sunlight permeated the white vaulted space above them; closer to earth, a long gray aisle led up to the plain altar between rows of dark mahogany pews. He heard his fair companion let out a steadying exhalation, and sent her a sober glance.
“This way,” Becky murmured, taking his hand.
They passed through dusty sunbeams and into soft shadows as she led him toward the dim recess of a tiny side chapel. Watching her walk ahead of him, her delicate frame, her tousled hair like ebony silk, Alec felt tenderness and fury battling for rule inside him. He was prepared to make a joke to soothe away the fear he had seen in her eyes, and equally ready to tear someone’s heart out to protect her.
Well, he had wanted something different, he reflected. Careful what you wish for.
The girl had his heart and mind, his entire being, in an uproar. Some of the things she said outside had unnerved him with their perceptiveness. The “boys will be boys” defense that usually procured female forgiveness for Alec and his friends seemed to hold no more water with Becky Ward than it had for Drax with Parthenia Westland.
At least he understood now why Becky had refused his dutiful offer of marriage. She was a few months shy of being old enough to wed of her own volition. But Alec recognized that it was more than that.
The lady, it seemed, did not hold him in the highest opinion.
She liked him well enough, he supposed. The physical attraction was definitely mutual, but he was not sure he had her respect, and that made him feel as though she had thrown down the gauntlet to him, daring him to prove himself worthy of her
. It was not the sort of challenge he could walk away from. And, his mind whispered, if he could earn her respect, perhaps he could win back his own. He didn’t even want to think about what stalwart Becky would say if she knew about Lady Campion.
What a piece of work the little battle-maiden was, he thought with an amused glance at her face as he moved to where she bade him sit, in the first box-pew in the side chapel. The girl had knocked Drax’s tooth loose and nigh gelded Rushford with her knee, yet he himself had been foolish enough to think he could get away from her unscathed.
The chit had a gift for taking a man’s vanity and handing it back to him, sliced and diced. It stung to know that she had judged him an amoral scoundrel and had only slept with him because he was the lesser of two evils.
Any man but Kurkov would have served her purposes last night.
Fortunately, he did not make a habit of trusting women. This one had a devious streak that was bound to keep him on his toes. Yet he could not think ill of her.
Odd.
Her spontaneity disarmed him; her force of character was unequivocal. With a haughtier upbringing, she could have been the queen bee of the Season.
Becky closed the pew’s little wooden door behind her and joined him. Before them, a chipped and glassy-eyed wooden Archangel Michael clad in Roman-style armor and golden wings was skewering the serpent, pennants flying from his lance.
Alec looked curiously at Becky as she propped her foot up on the kneeler, stole a furtive glance around to make sure there was nobody on hand to see, and lifted her skirt out of the way, revealing a bit of her white petticoat beneath and a lovely curve of leg.
He rested his arm along the back of the glossy wooden pew and savored the show with a wicked smile. “You really are an interesting young lady,” he remarked as she struggled to rip a length of cotton from her petticoat to bind his wound, scowling when she couldn’t break through the sewn hem. “So innocent and yet so . . . very naughty.”
“Will you stop flirting and put those muscles to use?” she whispered.
“Your wish, demoiselle, is my command.” He leaned closer and obliged. Grasping her hemline in both hands, he tore through it with a powerful yank; but perhaps he was still on edge after his battle against the Cossacks, for he unintentionally exerted more strength than the job required and, suddenly, the cotton tore in a high slit all the way up to her thigh.
His immediate rush of roguish pleasure at the sight of her creamy skin above her high white stockings was replaced by curiosity when he glimpsed an object secreted away there, a small suede pouch tied to her ribbon-garter.
She gave a small gasp and went very still as Alec clamped his left hand atop her bare thigh. His right closed around the leather pouch that held some hard object, about the size of an acorn. Lord, what was she hiding now?
“What’s this?” He glanced up suspiciously and met her anxious gaze.
Her heart pounding, Becky looked into his blue eyes and thought about the gambling debts he’d mentioned, his missing furniture, his admitted lack of funds—but if the two of them intended to stay alive, she knew they had better start trusting each other.
The man had saved her life today. She owed it to him to make the first move.
“Open it,” she murmured, placing her faith in him as he had asked, despite the fact that the ruby was all she had. Without it, her hopes were lost. “See for yourself.” She nodded at him, folding her arms nervously across her chest.
She bit her lip in agitated silence as he spilled the Rose of Indra out of its suede pouch into his palm.
“Good God!” he whispered, staring at it. He looked up at her in alarm. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s mine. It’s my inheritance. May I have it back, please?”
His eyes darkened with new understanding at her question, and new indignance. “You think I would take it from you?”
“It’s all I’ve got,” she answered uneasily. “I need whatever sum it can bring to save my home and village from Mikhail.”
Alec handed it back to her without further comment, but he needed no words to make his displeasure felt. Well, he was insulted again. What was she to do about it? She had tried to please him by letting him see it.
She felt better the instant the jewel was in her possession again. Better safe than sorry. She tucked it into her bodice. “It’s called the Rose of Indra. It’s been handed down to the women in my family for many ages. It came to me through my mother. You see, Mikhail does not know it exists. I shall sell it and use the money to try to purchase Talbot Old Hall anonymously.”
He sat back slowly, his probing stare still skeptical. “Perhaps you’d best start at the beginning.”
She nodded. “Five days ago—early Thursday morning—it started like any ordinary day,” she began. Clutching her petticoat in both hands, she worked to tear a strip off, and set it aside to use as bandaging. “I was in the kitchen garden checking on my herbs and vegetable beds when a group of the local villagers showed up at Talbot Old Hall to bring me their complaint.”
“Talbot Old Hall?”
“My home,” she admitted with a homesick pang. “At least it used to be. Now I’m not so sure. When Grandfather died, Mikhail inherited it—and all the other estates, as well.”
He tensed. “Your grandfather?”
“The Earl of Talbot,” she said, bracing herself for his reaction.
Alec just looked at her. Then he leaned forward, slowly rested his elbow on his knee, and held his head in one hand. “You are of noble birth,” he said in a constricted tone.
“Yes.”
“And last night I debauched you after several bottles of wine.”
“Er, yes. That rather sums it up nicely, I’m afraid. Well, you needn’t look so glum,” she attempted. “It’s not as if I didn’t want to be debauched.”
He slanted her a warning look. “Continue.”
“The Talbot clan has always had its fingers in international business and diplomacy,” she said. “Shipping interests, ties to the East India Company. Mama used to say there were only three rules in her family. Though few in number, they are ironclad, each one assigning family members their proper roles: The eldest son is the dutiful earl and shall vote Tory in the House of Lords; all daughters marry into the peerage; and all younger sons are funneled into diplomatic service for the Crown. Talbot sons have pressed the family’s glory to all the foreign courts of Europe and beyond,” she said cynically. “Indeed, to the farthest reaches of the earth—from Canton and Calcutta to Constantinople. And Russia, too.”
“Thus the foreign cousin who’s a prince,” Alec said as he sat up properly again and stretched out his long legs under the pew in front of him.
“Exactly.” She nodded unhappily, only slightly mollified by the knowledge that the title of Prince was used differently on the Continent than it was in England. In Europe, princes ranked slightly higher than dukes, but were still lower than grand dukes and archdukes. In England, of course, prince was reserved strictly for royalty.
“My mother had two brothers,” she explained. “Michael, the eldest—he was to be the earl. Mikhail is named after him. He died of a fever at the age of forty, never having succeeded to the title, for Grandfather was still alive. My mother, Mariah Talbot, was the middle child, and Jonathon was the younger son. Many years ago, Jonathon joined the Foreign Office, per family tradition, and as a dashing young man, was made an attaché to the British ambassador to the court of Catherine the Great. In Petersburg he met a beautiful Russian noblewoman, Princess Sophia Kurkov, distant kin to the Czar. Her brothers, it was said, participated in the coup that overthrew Czar Paul—the father of Czar Alexander. Czar Paul was said to be utterly mad.”
“I know who Czar Paul was,” he retorted. “It so happens I do follow more than Society gossip.”
Becky looked away. I am not going to bicker with him inside a church. “At any rate,” she said, with, in her opinion, admirable patience, “having that shrewd Talbot eye for
gain, Uncle Jonathon wooed and married Princess Sophia; Mikhail was the result. Through one of his Russian uncles, he gained the title of Prince. Through his father, he has now gained the Talbot earldom, as well. It’s a pity Uncle Michael had no sons, but he died before he even managed to procure a wife.”
“My condolences.”
She snorted. “I wouldn’t have known him from Adam. If I even have other kin, I do not know them. The whole family pretends I don’t exist. We have no connections beyond the blood in our veins. I only found out about Grandfather’s death because they remembered to invite Mrs. Whithorn, our old housekeeper, to the funeral.” She lowered her head. “They have obviously forgotten I exist.”
Alec frowned, studying her. “Well, that is very unkind. Why should they ignore you that way?”
“Because Mama broke the family rules,” she answered ruefully, lifting her head to meet his protective gaze once more. “Instead of fulfilling her duty and marrying a lord, she eloped with my father, a mere navy officer.”
“And thank heavens she did, or we’d all be speaking French,” Alec teased softly, echoing her tipsy words of the night before, and clearly signaling that he was on her side, even if her kin were not.
She sent him a grateful smile. “Which I cannot do, by the way.”
“What, speak French?”
“Yes. My lack of accomplishments was one of the things Mikhail upbraided me for. Apparently all the Russian nobles at the Czar’s court speak in French instead of Russian—is that not strange? I might have learned it, I suppose, if I had applied myself, but why should I study their tongue when they killed my father? Papa would have turned over in his grave. ‘Bloody frogs,’ he’d say. ‘Hang ’em all.’ ”
“I have a brother or two who’d agree.” Alec smiled wryly as she tore another strip off her petticoat and set it aside to use for cleaning and bandaging his wound.
“Grandfather never forgave Mama for eloping. Papa’s valor at sea didn’t matter. Even his commendation from Admiral Lord Nelson was not enough to break that proud old curmudgeon’s grudge against the pair. After Papa died, we did our best to survive, but unfortunately, the navy was in such dire financial straits, holding wages in arrears, that it was impossible to collect my father’s pension or any of the money owed us. We had no other means of feeding ourselves. Mama hated it, but she had no choice other than to go crawling back to her family for help.”