by Anna Randol
“You have known from the start what my priorities are.”
Finding Arshun. Keeping La Petit safe.
But where did that leave Olivia?
Solving it on her own. “Give me the paper.”
Kate slowly turned her head back and forth between them. “What paper?”
Olivia held out her hand. “The one that belongs to me. I retrieved it.”
Clayton’s jaw was set. “There’s no—”
But she was done allowing him to lead. She understood that he needed to protect La Petit, but he would have to understand that she needed to protect the czar. “Are you afraid I’ll solve it without you?”
“It is a possibility. You’re clever enough.” He withdrew the paper from his waistcoat and handed it to her.
She stared at it for several seconds. He’d actually given it to her. And he thought that she was clever.
But she wasn’t so starved for affection that this small morsel of praise could make her heart pound in her ears. It could not make her knees wobble.
Much.
She lifted her chin. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
But he was already striding away.
Kate took Olivia’s arm. “Don’t you dare gape. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“I’m not gaping.”
“Like a fish.” Kate pointedly turned her back on Clayton. “Come.” She led Olivia into the nearby parlor. “Now you are going to tell me what that was all about.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. “The paper has to do with saving the czar.”
Kate snorted. “I figured out that much. What is it between the two of you? His eyes follow you like he wants to devour you whole, and yet you both act like you are separated by a frozen mountain pass.”
Olivia plopped in a red silk chair. “Worse.” She found herself explaining her betrayal, her attempt to rebuild the mill, and his promise to destroy it.
Kate poured them each a cup of tea from the tray the maid had just brought in. “So what had happened to the mill that you needed to restore it?”
Olivia hated this part of the story. “To be honest, I didn’t know what was happening with it. My father became ill and we moved to the London house so I could seek help for him.”
“Did you find it?”
Olivia poured cream into her cup until the liquid grew cloudy. “I found many who claimed they could help.”
“Ah.”
The single syllable held so much understanding, Olivia’s throat tightened. “Then I stayed because I became involved in other things in the city.” And because the house by the mill was filled with too many memories. “After hearing of my father’s sickness, the Bank of England ended its contract with the mill. The other clients followed.”
“What brought you back?”
“The vicar. He came to me and demanded I return to see what was happening to the mill and to the town. He was right. I’d failed the town without even realizing it.”
A few employees, such as Thomas, had remained, fulfilling the few orders the mill did have, but there had been no one to bring in new contracts, no one with authority to act in her father’s name. Thomas, to his credit, had tried to contact her father, but she’d never bothered to open any of the letters. She’d wanted nothing to do with the business and corruption of the man who sired her. Thomas had also tried to contact her father’s solicitor, but the man had apparently spoken of stopping production at the mill entirely, so Thomas had ceased inquiring and continued to do what he was paid to do.
“So you set about restoring it on your own? Where did you get the funds?”
Olivia couldn’t bring herself to tell the entire truth. Shame that she’d sworn she didn’t feel caged her words. “I sold the London house, then sold off everything else that I could find.”
Which was when she’d found those accursed banknotes in her father’s things.
Kate’s eyes glimmered. “I’m very much afraid I like you. What will you do about Clayton?”
“I’ll stop him from ruining the mill.”
“And what if you can’t?”
Olivia held tightly to her cup and lifted it to her lips, ignoring the heat burning her fingers. “I will.” No matter what he thought of her, she had a duty to the people in her town.
“You don’t think being in love with him will interfere?”
Olivia choked on her tea. “I am—”
Blast. She tried to regain her breath but couldn’t. Her lungs ceased to function properly. Probably due to the obscene pace of her heart.
Finally, she managed to draw a normal breath, and although her heart slowed, it didn’t return to normal. How could it? It didn’t belong to her.
Kate tapped her spoon on the rim of her cup and placed it on her saucer. “I’m a firm believer in being honest with yourself.”
Which was one of Olivia’s greatest weaknesses. She loathed herself for it. Yet she could convince herself of the correctness of anything if it suited her goals. In retrospect, she could always see the flaws, how she’d rationalized or ignored an important fact, but she’d learned the art of justification so well she didn’t know she was doing it.
“How do you do it?” Olivia finally asked, staring at the intricate embroidery on the table linen.
Kate set down her cup. “You have to be willing to accept yourself and all the flaws inside you. And you have to be willing to accept the consequences of every action you take. We all have ugly bits, but you can learn not to fear letting others see them.”
Olivia nodded, still not meeting her gaze. The red pattern on the linen blurred before her suddenly stinging eyes. “But what if they are really, truly ugly?”
“The people who matter won’t care.”
Kate was a princess. Of course, no one cared.
“I’ve found that most people aren’t honest with themselves because they fear what they’d have to give up if they were.” Kate leveled her gaze on Olivia. “So you betrayed him when you were a child. Does it mean you plan to give him up now that you found him again?”
“What more can I do? He was sentenced to hang because of me. He spent ten years as a spy.”
“He got you kidnapped and dragged to Russia. I’d say you are near even.”
Olivia’s hand shook, sloshing tea on her skirts. Could Kate possibly be—
But she trapped the pleasant spark of hope before it could wander further than her heart. She hadn’t told Kate everything. She hadn’t told her about the banknotes that Clayton wouldn’t forgive her for using.
And if she was finally honest with herself, she knew she couldn’t forgive herself for using them, either.
She busied herself dabbing at the stains. But it was too late for the delicate silk. “There’s too much between us for love to work. But does it seem arrogant that I think I can help him not be so cold? Am I too presumptuous? Especially when I know there can never be anything between us?”
“Why do you want to help him?”
“Because it’s my fault he’s closed himself off.”
“And?” Kate pressed.
Olivia placed the napkin on the table, picked it back up again and set it on her lap, and then tossed it on the table in a crumpled pile. She rearranged her skirts to hide the spots instead. “And because I love him and this is the closest I can come to showing that.”
Sweet mercy. She’d said it out loud. She pressed her sweaty palms against her skirt. There was no taking it back now, no more denying the truth.
Kate nodded. “Then no, I don’t think it seems arrogant at all.”
Olivia looked up as the clock chimed in the corridor. She was grateful for the reassurance, and the topic was still too fresh, too tender, for her to want to discuss further. “I should work on the code.”
“Can I see it?” Kate asked.
Olivia hesitated, but Clayton seemed to trust the princess, at least to a point. He’d chosen to come to her house and told her about the revolutionaries. At this point, Olivia need
ed any help she could obtain. She unfolded the paper between them. But after a few minutes, neither of them could come up with anything.
Kate stood, folding her arms, and then tapping her chin with one finger. “You can continue to work. I will turn my attention to where I can be useful. Provisioning.” She eyed Olivia. “If you’re to attend the emperor’s ball, you’ll need a dress. One slightly better than that. I know we had to find you one at the last minute, but I cannot think of a single positive thing to say about that dress.”
Olivia smoothed one of the gaping sections of the gown. “It smells better than sheepskin?”
Kate snorted and circled the chair where Olivia sat. “We can do better than that. I didn’t have much time to work with your wardrobe before, but now I have a whole four hours.”
“I don’t want to trouble—”
“I built a shelter in a blizzard with less time. I can certainly outfit you. My maid’s sister is a fabulous modiste.”
Kate called her maid and took Olivia’s measurements. “I was thinking I should hold a dinner in your honor tomorrow. If you and Clayton are to be favored by the emperor tonight, it will look odd if I don’t host a few select engagements. How did Clayton explain you to the emperor, by the way? I don’t want to contradict your story.”
Olivia looked up from the code, her cheeks hot. “As his betrothed. He claimed Prazhdinyeh used me to lure him here.”
“Why would they want him?”
She’d asked him that same question, but now she could supply a dozen reasons. The soldier’s recital of Clayton’s heroics only reinforced what Olivia had always known—Clayton was invaluable. “The code.”
Kate sighed. “He’d be good at that, wouldn’t he?” Her voice was resigned. “I always told him he was wasted as a common soldier. But it turns out he never was one. So how do you plan to free the heart of a man who doesn’t think he has one?”
Olivia lifted her shoulder, her smile as fragile as old parchment. “I’ll simply convince him he’s still the man I always knew him to be.”
There were no revolutionaries.
Normally, that wouldn’t be a matter to cause disappointment, but considering Clayton stood across the street from Arshun’s St. Petersburg house, it was disheartening.
Clayton hadn’t expected to find Arshun there, but he’d held out some small hope that after he raised a ruckus on the doorstep, one of the servants would be suspicious enough—and knowledgeable enough— to send Arshun word.
But after an hour standing in the snow, Clayton had to concede that they’d been telling the truth. They didn’t know his whereabouts.
He curled his toes in his boots, his hands in his gloves. Three times. Then four. Despite all the tricks he knew to avoid frostbite, this time had been a near thing.
And had gained him no information at all.
With a sharp slash of his hand, he filled the circle of compacted snow that marked the spot he’d been occupying with fresh powder, smoothing it until it was indistinguishable from the snow around it.
Once assured his feet were capable of movement, he quickened his pace until he was running, until his toes burned from the sudden intrusion of blood flow as his circulation returned to normal. Clayton kept his steps confined to snow that had already been packed down. It would make him difficult to follow, but it also made for several teetering moments.
A droskie swished on the snow behind him, the driver slowing hopefully as he approached.
But movement had cleared Clayton’s head for a blessed moment. He couldn’t think about the revolutionaries or the count or Olivia, without risking slipping on the snow and ending up in the nearest snowbank.
He waved the driver on and took a breath so deep his lungs stung with a hundred icy pinpricks.
Soon the princess’s house appeared ahead. The sweat on his cheeks chilled, but residual heat from the exercise lingered, allowing him to check the perimeter of the house.
Olivia would be there waiting for him, her delicate neck bent over a desk as she studied the code.
He stared up at her window and caught a flicker of movement.
Not at a desk, then. Perhaps she paced back and forth, her lower lip trapped by her teeth as she thought.
Another flicker at the window confirmed his suspicion.
There would be a slight wrinkle in her nose. Occasionally, she’d tug at her ear. Her steps would be small and graceful, yet quick enough to be purposeful.
He found himself holding his breath until she passed by the window again.
What was it about her that blinded him to better judgment? She was like a spark in the flash pan. Deceptively small, bright, beautiful—yet capable of creating many an explosion.
He hadn’t meant to fall for her all those years ago. She had been his employer’s daughter. Rich, a touch spoiled, unattainable. And he’d had no plans to become serious with a woman ever. He’d been too angry and bitter at his mother. But something had drawn him to her like a drunkard to a tavern.
And apparently, he still had the heart of a sot, because here he was staring up at her window in weather cold enough to freeze hell.
He ordered his gaze to trace the perimeter of the house instead, searching for any oddities, any hint of danger or—
There was a circle of compacted snow by the west wall.
Precisely like the one he’d just concealed at the count’s house.
Clayton kept his gait casual as he approached the area, but he silenced his breathing, listened for the slightest creak of snow or crunch of ice.
Most of the house was hidden from that vantage point by the thick woven branches of a larch tree.
Except for Olivia’s window.
His fists tightened until the seams of his gloves bit into his skin. Someone had been watching her.
Footprints led away from the spot. Clayton followed them, his hand finding the hilt of his knife. The prints were fresh, the edges hadn’t yet hardened with ice. He reached the end of the wall.
There.
The scraping of snow against snow.
He spun around the corner, his training making his adjustments instantaneous as he sighted his target, just standing there, waiting. He was huge. He caught the man’s lapels as best he could with his right hand to keep him from fleeing.
Although with as much pain as his hand was giving him, he hoped the man didn’t try.
Clayton had to raise his knife five inches to be even with the gap between the man’s sheepskin collar and his scarf. The man’s head was covered in a rough hat. His arms swung as he stumbled back in the snow. But when Clayton pressed the tip of his knife harder against the man’s throat, the fellow stilled. He closed his eyes tightly, like a child hiding from a monster.
With the man’s height and girth, he could be only one person. The man Olivia claimed was her protector. What in the blazes was he doing here? Had he come to pass information to Olivia?
Or take her news to Arshun?
The man opened a single brown eye. “Aren’t you going to do it then?”
“Kill you?” Clayton’s voice was low and threatening.
The man’s throat convulsed under the knife. The sliver of face visible over the top of his rough woolen scarf would have blended with the snow. “Just don’t hurt her. She thinks you are good.” The other eye opened, both now soft and pleading, a deer caught in a hunter’s snare.
That wasn’t the plea Clayton had been expecting. He—
The big man knocked the knife out of Clayton’s hand.
Damnation. He’d been distracted like a raw recruit. He dodged a fist that hammered toward his head, but when he reached for his other dagger, his foot slipped in the snow.
A vise clamped around his neck, cutting off air. The man’s gloved hands were so wide he could fit only three fingers around Clayton’s neck.
But three fingers were effective.
Black dots pulsed at the edge of Clayton’s vision, and he found it rather depressing that he might die staring at a
limp, muddy scarf.
The man’s eyes were hesitant. And his fingers were loose enough that Clayton could still draw a tiny amount of air. “You’re a killer like Nicolai said. You must have fooled her.”
“Don’t . . . kill . . . innocent . . . women.” Each word cost precious oxygen, but the fact that he wasn’t dead yet renewed his hope. Desperation gave him a spurt of energy. He kicked out. His foot connected with the side of the man’s knee, sending them both falling tangled into the snow.
The mountain made no attempt to grab him again. Instead, he sat up and dusted snow from his coat and his gloves. The scarf had fallen away from his face, revealing a thick mustache and a coarse, matted beard. “You don’t kill innocents?”
Clayton drew his knife from his boot, but kept it by his side. “Never.”
“Oh.” A pause followed. “Then why didn’t you take her home?” The man’s words were the opposite of his fighting. Slow. Deliberate. As if he feared stumbling over them.
He reminded Clayton much of one of the other inmates in gaol. A simple but kind boy who’d taken up with a gang of thieves. But he’d given Clayton a piece of bread to clear the vile flavor of vomit from his mouth.
The memory made Clayton soften his tone. “She didn’t want to go yet. What is your name?”
“Blin.”
Clayton climbed to his feet, but when Blin would have followed, Clayton stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Why were you watching her in her bedroom?”
Blin’s face turned crimson around his beard. But his eyes were earnest. “I wasn’t looking at her like that. I was just watching to make sure she was safe.”
“From what?”
He poked at the snow with a finger. “You and Arshun.”
Clayton didn’t like that he’d been lumped with the count. And cold began to gnaw on his intestines at the thought of Arshun coming after Olivia.
Because if she wasn’t a revolutionary, the count might. Arshun wouldn’t like being thwarted. He’d be humiliated and hurting, ready to strike out to regain some sense of power.
And Clayton had left her alone.
His gaze flashed to her window, but it couldn’t be seen from here. He’d seen her in the window, he reassured himself.
That also meant his best chance of finding Arshun was to catch whoever came for her.