A footman brought her into the hallway—she looked longingly at the front door—and up the stairs to the next floor, where he deposited her in a bedchamber.
“I’ll wait outside the door,” he said gruffly, as if she were a prisoner.
He pulled the door shut, and she immediately went to the windows and looked out. There was no balcony, no possible way out. She’d have to outwit the footman and get back down the stairs and out the front door.
But what about the painting? God knows, after tonight, she’d probably never see Sergei again. She should try to see the painting if at all possible.
Inhaling a deep breath, she opened the door again. “Excuse me.”
The footman looked terribly bored. “Yes?”
Not even a yes, milady, she noticed.
“I forgot to ask what room the portrait is in. The one to be unveiled.”
The footman raised a brow. “That’s not to concern you until midnight.”
She gave a little laugh. “I know. But I’m one of those curious types.”
“Are you?” He looked a bit more interested.
“I simply want a peek,” she said, “before the others. I like the thrill it gives me, to do things without other people knowing. Do you know what I mean?”
She had another flashback to that sensual encounter in the library with Nicholas. She would choose the unlikely word thrill when she was scared witless. Nicholas was nowhere near, but thinking of him gave her a small boost of courage.
“I think I do know what you mean,” the footman said, and came closer, his mouth curving in a hopeful smile, his eyes roaming over her in a brazen manner.
Oh, dear. She didn’t want to go in that direction.
Quickly, she pulled a ring off her finger, being careful not to take one of her mother’s. “If you show me the portrait, I’ll give this to you.” She held the ring up for his inspection.
He reached for it, and she snatched it back.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Hurry. Let’s look quickly, and then I’ll give you the ring.”
“You swear?”
“Yes, I swear.”
It would be a small price to pay.
So he led her to another chamber on the same corridor.
“Right,” he whispered. “Don’t make a sound. In a moment, you’ll see Revnik’s final masterpiece. Prepare yourself. Your peek shall end in ten seconds.”
He swept off the red silk drape.
Poppy sucked in a breath.
Goodness.
The painting!
Why, it was—
It was stunning.
Poppy tried to keep her head about her as she gazed at a full-length scene of a beautiful woman in a pink gown. She was looking up with something akin to adoration at her dancing partner, whose back was to the viewer.
It was the Pink Lady, the painting the Service had been hoping for. Somewhere on the canvas was the key to the identity of the mole in Parliament.
Poppy forced herself to breathe in. Then out.
It was an extraordinary work. Revnik had managed to pay homage to a shining moment in both a couple’s personal history and Russia’s cultural history. And on a deeper level, the painting was a timeless tribute to lovers everywhere.
“Time’s up,” the footman said, and replaced the drape.
“Wait!” Poppy swallowed. “Please. One more look.”
“Absolutely not.” The footman then beckoned her to follow him out of the room. “I want that ring now.”
She handed it to him with trembling fingers.
“Let’s get you back to the dining room,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “Take me to the front door instead. Tell the prince I was too ill to stay.”
“You do seem a bit off at the moment.”
“Believe me, I do feel ill.”
“But the prince will be angry at me for letting you go.”
“You’ve got the ring for compensation if he fires you. And here’s another one.” She twisted off a second ring and handed it to him. This one was her mother’s, but she knew Lady Derby would have understood her giving it away. “Would you really care if you leave his employ? It’s awfully gloomy here.”
“It’s not always that way—”
“Please,” she interrupted him. “I simply need your help to leave.”
He shrugged. “All right, although you’re going to be missing the best part.”
“I already saw the painting.”
“Not that. The special event.”
“Please,” she said. “I don’t care about a special event. I simply want to leave without anyone hearing us. Perhaps we should go out the back way.”
“Fine.” He took her down the servant stairs and out the back door.
She ran down the alley and around to the street, feeling like she’d made a narrow escape. But it wasn’t the only feeling she had. She was even more overcome by shock.
The stableboy was waiting on the corner. “Only a little late, miss!” He attempted to hand her the sturdy slippers.
“No time,” she said, and they went racing down the street, back to the rout.
She must stay calm. She mustn’t let anyone know what she’d seen—
Her own mother waltzing with Papa in that portrait.
* * *
“You let her go?” Nicholas said to Eleanor and Beatrice.
Eleanor bit her lip and nodded. “She’s with a stableboy. He’s got a pistol.”
“She’s perfectly safe,” Beatrice said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Nicholas, “but I’ve no time to talk. I must find her now.”
“We’ll come, too,” the girls said together.
With Nicholas leading the way, the three of them hastened down the front steps of the Merriweather mansion and onto the pavement.
“It’s not the streets of London I’m worried about so much as Prince Sergei and what he’s planning,” Nicholas said, striding fast.
Eleanor and Beatrice looked at each other, then back at him.
“Poppy knows he’s not the man for her.” Eleanor scurried to keep up with him.
“She’s only going to say good-bye,” said Beatrice. “And she always carries a pin in her sleeve. She won’t put up with any nonsense from Sergei.”
Nicholas decided to share what Groop had told him. “I’ve heard rumors today there are people who don’t want us to marry and might try to prevent it.”
“Oh, my!” said Eleanor.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Beatrice swung her arms in time with his. “Plots are my specialty. Tell me more—I’ll figure out who’s behind it.”
“I know nothing more,” he assured the two girls. “It could be mere rumor. But I’ve concerns about her safety, nonetheless.”
“We’ll be sure to keep an eye on her,” said Beatrice, “and thank you for telling us.”
“You’re her closest friends. I know you have her best interests at heart.”
Beatrice got closer to him. “The question is, Your Grace, do you?”
“I’d like to know, as well,” said Eleanor, her voice a little breathy. “This marriage proposal of yours doesn’t make much sense.”
“And do you think her using my name for three years to fob off her suitors made any more sense?” he asked them.
“Yes, it kept them at bay,” said Eleanor.
“So she could indulge in a fantasy about Sergei,” Nicholas replied dryly.
“So?” Beatrice said, arching a brow. “It’s better to be a Spinster with lovely daydreams than wife to a man you don’t love.”
“Point taken. Men have the same concerns, of course. I myself have no intention of marrying a nag, a spoiled brat, or a weak-kneed fainter.”
Eleanor giggled. “Poppy is none of those things.”
“I’m already aware,” Nicholas said, grinning back. “Rest assured, I’ve perfectly logical reasons for marrying her.”
“Logic isn’t good enough.” Beatrice th
rew him a stern look.
“We Spinsters want men who are willing to make fools of themselves for love,” said Eleanor.
Beatrice nodded. “Men who’ve seen us at our worst and are still devoted to us.”
Nicholas restrained himself from rolling his eyes.
Eleanor patted his arm. “Just know that we’ll do everything we can to help Poppy get out of the betrothal if we think you’re not the man for her.”
“Thank you. I now consider myself educated—and warned.” He took both their elbows and led them across the street.
Beatrice leaned into him. “I forgot to mention, if you prove yourself to be the right man for Poppy, we’re very easy to get along with.”
“And if she doesn’t know yet that you’re the right man for her, we’ll help you. Just say the word.” Eleanor winked.
“That’s good to know, ladies. Not that I need help from interfering females.”
Beatrice gasped and hit him on the shoulder.
He chuckled. “You two are almost as unmanageable as Poppy.”
“Yes, we are,” Eleanor said. “And there she is!”
Straight ahead, pointing a pistol at a large Russian thug Nicholas recognized as one of Sergei’s bodyguards, was Poppy.
The bodyguard held the stableboy by the scruff of the neck.
“Put him down now,” Poppy was saying in a threatening voice. “Before I shoot you in the knees.”
“See? I told you she could take care of herself,” whispered Beatrice to Nicholas.
He wouldn’t call being caught in a conflict with a large thug at night an appropriate situation for a young lady to be in, but yes, he granted that Poppy appeared to be taking care of herself.
“I’m holding on to him until you drop that pistol,” the bodyguard cried. “He’s already kicked me in the privates twice!”
The stableboy’s legs flailed and he punched the air. “Put me down, you big lout!”
“Poppy!” cried Eleanor.
She threw them a brief glance. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Nicholas said mildly. “Hand me the gun.”
“No, not until he puts the boy down.” She thrust the gun barrel toward the thug.
He sighed and dropped the stableboy, who promptly turned around and kicked him in the knee.
Poppy kept the barrel trained on the bodyguard as she transferred the gun to Nicholas. “This man,” she said in furious tones, “followed us from Prince Sergei’s demanding that I return, even though I’m clearly ill”—Nicholas thought she looked healthy as a horse—“and said if I didn’t go back posthaste, he was going to carry me back. Whereupon he picked up my dear stableboy, who was only defending me with those kicks, and who thankfully had the wherewithal to toss me the pistol before the thug got it.”
Nicholas had an odd feeling. That bodyguard didn’t exude menace to him. He appeared confused. Even frightened.
Nicholas put the pistol in his breeches and looked sternly at him. “Go home and tell your master that he’d best send a note of apology to the lady for the extreme distress you’ve caused her and her servant. Kidnapping will get you both deported.”
“My master didn’t want me to kidnap Lady Poppy,” the thug said in a heavy Russian accent, “just give her a ride home in a proper carriage. The footman said she was terribly ill. Prince Sergei might be a vain oaf, but he’s not evil.”
“Then why did he have all those … those awful people at the dinner party?” Poppy asked. She looked at Nicholas and her two best friends. “They were talking about daggers and sow’s blood. And they were much too familiar with me and each other—why, one woman had hair hanging in her face, and a man said he’d be the Antony to my Cleopatra! The corridor was wickedly gloomy, hardly any candles at all, and Prince Sergei kept trodding on my toes and nudging me with his knee.”
The brute drew in his chin. “The prince is a large man and the table was small. He was worried about fitting you and the entire theater troupe around it.”
“Theater troupe?” Poppy’s brows arched high.
“Yes,” said the bodyguard, “he hired them to entertain you. They were going to do a skit for you from Macbeth. That was to be the surprise. He had the corridor darkened to create the appropriate atmosphere.”
“Oh, my God,” Poppy whispered. “I told Sergei Macbeth is my favorite Shakespearean play.”
Eleanor and Beatrice both giggled, but Nicholas restrained himself from laughing. Poppy deserved the scare, he thought, going off and frightening him like that.
“It was all a great misunderstanding,” he said to the bodyguard. “Say nothing to Sergei about Lady Poppy’s concerns, and please thank him for his hospitality. I’ll make sure she gets home.”
CHAPTER 28
Her mother was the Pink Lady.
Poppy had had only ten seconds to look at the painting, but she would have recognized her mother in one second, much less ten.
Lady Derby was front and center in Revnik’s last portrait, dancing with Poppy’s father. She recognized the back of his head. She thought she might even have recognized his cuff links.
Viewing her parents’ romantic history forever captured on canvas was astounding … and gratifying. Seeing her mother’s face again—well, that alone was quite a shock. And a lovely, lovely surprise. So sweet, in fact, that she’d felt as if she’d had another moment with her mother, a fact she would cherish forever.
But then on top of all that deep emotion, she realized the painting she already adored was somehow involved in a Service operation.
The worst of it was she couldn’t speak of any of it with Eleanor and Beatrice or her father or Aunt Charlotte. She was dying to—but Nicholas had told her at the top of St. Paul’s that she couldn’t tell her friends and family about any Service activities.
How she longed to tell them!
She so wanted them to see the painting, too, but if Nicholas retrieved it from the Lievens’ ball, when would they ever see it? And what would happen to the painting? Over whose mantel would it eventually reside?
When they returned to the rout, Poppy decided she must leave her two best friends there and go home with the stableboy. Otherwise, she would simply burst with all the emotions and thoughts jostling for space inside her, and confess all. That wouldn’t make Nicholas, Groop, or the Service happy.
“You’re not going home with the stableboy,” Nicholas told her. “Your fiancé”—he emphasized the word—“shall escort you both in my carriage. The boy can ride with the coachman, and you’ll tell me about your evening—an evening, by the way, which you saw fit not to inform me about.”
She was so agitated, she allowed his censure to flow right by without becoming embarrassed at being caught out. “True,” she said, “but that was for your own good.”
“Why was it for my own good?”
“Because I was involved in a Service activity. You yourself said I should tell no one.”
Nicholas helped her into the carriage and followed her inside. “I didn’t mean not tell me. We’re working together. What the bloody hell were you doing besides telling Sergei to forget his romantic aspirations toward you?”
Poppy thought about how much more she’d been doing and inhaled a deep breath. “I suppose the girls told you he invited me to a masked dinner. He even sent me this gown.”
The details seemed fairly unimportant at the moment.
“Yes, they told me,” Nicholas said, his mouth a thin, dangerous line. “Let me make one thing clear … you can’t disappear like that again. Now that you’re involved with me, you must be more careful about being alone.” He took her by the shoulders. “Groop told me someone might be trying to break us up. Who knows what lengths they’ll go to? When one is a Service employee, enemies abound, and sometimes you’re not sure who they are.”
She bit her lip. “Oh, dear. With that in mind, then, what I have to tell you is so important and secret, we’ll have to drop the stableboy off and go back to the top of St
. Paul’s.”
“Very well.” Nicholas was wearing his serious Service expression, which she found extremely attractive. “But I’ve another safe place we can go to that’s much closer and won’t involve traipsing up five hundred thirty steps.”
Which was how they wound up at a small but plain sturdy sailing craft tied to a dock on the Thames.
“It’s mine,” said Nicholas, “but I don’t get to use it often.” He helped her aboard. “This will take a few minutes. Sit tight in the cockpit and enjoy seeing London at night from the river. We’re lucky we have a light wind and a big moon tonight, perfect for a sail.”
So she sat and watched him untie the rope holding them to the dock and hoist the sail. Then in a silence broken only by the occasional luff of the sail and the sounds of London in the background, he steered the boat to the middle of the Thames and took another few minutes to anchor it.
“Let’s go below,” he said eventually.
He opened the hatch and beckoned her down. She climbed down the ladder, well aware of his warm hand at her waist. Once below, she looked around at the cozy interior of the craft and sighed. “As safe places go, this is perfect.”
“Thanks. I think so, too.” Nicholas left the hatch open so the moonlight could stream in. “Take a seat, please, and tell me what happened.”
She sat on a cushioned berth, and he joined her.
The gentle rocking of the boat was just what she needed to soothe her agitated nerves. Nicholas didn’t say a word. He waited patiently, which she appreciated.
“I saw the Pink Lady painting,” she said eventually.
“You did?” She sensed excitement in his tone, even though, as usual, he was controlled. “I thought it was at the Lievens’.”
“Not yet. Of course, it could be that Sergei brought it back to his apartments for a showing tonight. That’s why I went. He issued me a special invitation to see it.”
“Well? What did you discover?”
Poppy looked directly into his eyes, which were black pools in the darkness of night. “My mother was in the painting,” she said. “She’s the Pink Lady.”
Nicholas gave a short laugh. “You’re joking.”
“No.” She inhaled a deep breath.
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