The Princess and the Rogue

by Kate Bateman

  He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe your name is Ivanov any more than it is Brown. I don’t know why you feel the need for continued secrecy, but you’ll tell me eventually. Until then, I’m going to call you Miss Brown because it’s easier to say.”

  He raised his brows, challenging her to object, or to confess, but she kept her lips firmly closed. He shrugged.

  “When did you start to work for the dowager duchess, Miss Brown, and why have I never seen you at her house?”

  “I entered her employ in September last year, Mr. Wolff,” she countered, echoing his tone. “And I can only assume your visits never happened to coincide with mine.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw at her pert answer, but she refused to be the one to break eye contact. She would not be cowed.

  “It’s ‘my lord,’” he said silkily. “I’m an earl.”

  At the brothel, he’d told her to call him Sebastien. Clearly that privilege had been withdrawn. She opened her mouth to reply, but he forestalled her.

  “There are very few people whose welfare I care about, Miss Brown, but my great-aunt happens to be one of them. I don’t appreciate you putting her at risk, even by association. You have endangered her by your refusal to talk to the people who want to investigate Princess Denisova’s death. Which is a perfectly reasonable request, especially if she died in suspicious circumstances.”

  “They weren’t suspicious. She’d just received news that her brother had been killed at Waterloo. She was distraught. So much so that she jumped off a bridge into the Seine.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You sound more angry than upset.”

  “Of course I’m angry. I loved her like a sister.” Anya bit her lip and took a calming breath. “I do not wish to discuss it further. With anyone.”

  “Very well. But if I’m to protect you, even for a few days, I need to know who you’re trying to avoid.”

  She saw no reason not to tell him. “His name is Count Vasili Petrov. He’s a guest of the Russian Ambassador, Count Lieven.”

  “I’ve met Petrov.”

  Anya’s heart gave an irregular beat. “Here, at the club?”

  “No. He’s never come here, to my knowledge.”

  She let out a silent sigh of relief.

  “I met him at a reception last week. He’s the one looking for his missing fiancée. Does he mean Princess Denisova?”

  “Yes. But they were never truly engaged. He asked for her hand on several occasions, but the princess had no desire to marry him. Her family refused on her behalf.”

  “He refuses to accept she’s dead?”

  Anya raised her brows and sent him an arch look. “He’s the kind of man who thinks so highly of himself that he cannot believe a woman would leave him. Or refuse him.”

  She injected just enough scorn into her tone that he caught the inference; she believed him guilty of the same sin.

  His brows drew together, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “Why did you come to England after the death of your mistress? Why not return home?”

  “I’d been the princess’s companion my whole life. She was my dearest friend. With her gone, there was nothing left for me in Russia. My parents are dead. I had no fiancé or husband waiting for me. The princess gave me some of her jewels before she died, so I decided to make a new start somewhere fresh. I sold them to pay for my passage and applied for a post as secretary-companion to your great-aunt.”

  He watched her silently for a moment, absorbing this, and she fought not to fidget.

  “All right. The duchess clearly likes you”—he paused, and Anya just knew he was mentally adding although God knows why—“so I’ll humor her. For now. I assume Petrov’s diplomatic duties will only keep him here for a short time. He may have discovered your connection to the dowager, but nobody knows you’re here with me now. You’ll be safe as long as you stay put.”

  “One man might know—the one who escaped last night. He could have recognized you as the dowager’s nephew.”

  “That’s true, although unlikely. I doubt he got a good look at me from that distance. Did you see his face?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “I think so. Your servants won’t talk?”

  He sent her an affronted look. “Of course not. They’re loyal to me.”

  He raked a hand through his hair, which only served to rumple it attractively. She chided herself for noticing.

  “This situation has been thrust upon both of us. God knows, I have no desire to play nursemaid to you, or to anyone, but I’ve never been one to shirk my duty. We must simply make the best of it.”

  Anya nodded. His dark gaze brought a tingle to her skin as he sent her an odd, speculative look. She could almost hear him thinking.

  “Since your presence here is unavoidable, you might as well make yourself useful. Pay for your keep, as it were.”

  Her stomach fluttered in alarm.

  “I happen to be working on a case for Bow Street that requires the translation of a number of Russian documents. You can decipher them.”

  Her tension eased a fraction, accompanied by the very faintest sense of disappointment. She’d thought he meant to proposition her again. “Very well. I can do that.”

  “Good.” He leaned back in his chair, tugged open a drawer in his desk, and withdrew a large stack of papers. “You can start straight away.”

  Anya frowned as he deposited the mountainous pile on the desk in front of her. His lips twitched as he noted her obvious displeasure.

  “Unless you have any objection of course?”

  She ground her teeth. So, he was going to demand his pound of flesh, was he? “None at all,” she said sweetly. “Would you like me to work in here?”

  She prayed he would say yes. She would snoop through every one of his drawers as soon as he left her alone. She would know more about this man who was holding her under polite house arrest.

  “No. I have work of my own to do. There’s a desk in your suite you can use.”

  “So, I’m to spend all my time indoors?”

  “That would be the most sensible option, yes.” He sent her a dry look. “I’m sure you have a lively social calendar, Miss Brown, but you’ll have to curtail your regular amusements if you wish to remain undiscovered.”

  She narrowed her eyes at his withering sarcasm. He probably thought her “regular amusements” included spending her evenings at Haye’s brothel on her back or on her knees.

  “You want my protection?” he continued softly. “You’ll follow my rules. Of course, you’re more than welcome to leave at any time, although I suspect Petrov will catch up with you fairly quickly if you do. He might already have discerned your home address.”

  Anya clutched her hands together and fought a pang of guilt and worry for Elizaveta. Would Vasili’s men dismiss her as just a roommate? Or would they hear her accent and realize she shared a closer connection with Anya? Would they threaten her?

  She bit her lip, plagued by indecision. What a choice. Was she safer staying close to the wolf, residing in his den? Or trying to navigate the flock alone? Unfortunately the answer was obvious. Accepting temporary defeat, she drew the topmost couple of documents toward her and began to skim through them then glanced up in shock. “These are confidential military communications. How did you get these?”

  Wolff gave a disarming smile. “We have our ways.”

  “You mean spies?”

  “Agents. Sources of information. Yes.”

  She studied the letters again. Some were almost a year old, dated a few weeks before Waterloo. June the eighteenth; it was a date etched into her memory, the day she’d lost Dmitri.

  “So you want these translated? What do you wish to know?”

  “I want a list of every person mentioned in these dispatches. Even if they seem inconsequential. It will be extremely tedious, but it’s important work.”

  “Why? Who are you looking for?”

 
“A Russian who was passing information to the French. The bastard’s treachery cost countless lives. I lost good friends at Waterloo. Men I’d fought with for years. Men I’d come to love like brothers. If the traitor’s not already dead, I want him brought to justice.”

  His voice had deepened with passion, and Anya fought to keep her expression neutral, even as her heart thudded against her ribs. Vasili. Surely he was talking about Vasili? There couldn’t be that many Russian traitors out there, could there?

  “That’s a noble goal,” she managed evenly. “Do you have any suspicion who it might be?”

  “Someone close to the tsar, or to one of his advisors. Unfortunately, the French spy who was his contact is dead, so we can’t get any more details from him. All we know is that the French called him ‘The Cossack.’”

  He rubbed his fingers over his jaw and Anya fought an internal debate. Should she tell him that Dmitri suspected Vasili? If Vasili was indeed the traitor, he deserved to be caught and punished. But she was supposed to be the princess’s servant. How would she have been be privy to such information?

  “I believe I know who your traitor is.”

  Wolff’s bows rose to his hairline.

  “The man you seek is Count Petrov.”

  He didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “The very man you wish to avoid? That’s rather convenient, isn’t it? What proof do you have?”

  “Nothing concrete,” she said. “But I believe it’s one of the reasons the princess refused to marry him.”

  He tilted his head silent question.

  Anya tried to adopt a properly contrite demeanor. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I happened to overhear a private conversation between the princess and her brother, Prince Dmitri, a few weeks before he died.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Dmitri told the princess he suspected Petrov of spying for France. He said he would be investigating the matter as soon as he returned from Vienna.”

  “Did he find any proof?”

  “I don’t believe so. He went straight from Vienna to Waterloo, where he was killed.”

  “Hmm.”

  Anya bit her lip. Wolff didn’t look convinced. “However,” she said, and he glanced up again. “I also know that Petrov came to see the princess after Waterloo, convinced that Dmitri had found some evidence and sent it to her for safekeeping.”

  His dark eyes glittered with interest. “And had he?”

  “The princess denied it. But Petrov admitted to her that he was the spy.”

  There was a beat of silence as he digested that. “You heard this admission?” His eyes bored into hers as if he could burn the answer from her brain by willpower alone.

  “Yes. I was standing just outside the room.”

  “Did Petrov know you heard him?”

  “It’s possible.”

  He let out a low exhale. “Well, no wonder he’s looking for you. He doesn’t want to know how the princess died; he wants to know how much you heard, and whether he needs to buy your silence.” His expression darkened. “Or ensure your silence. Those men probably weren’t sent to question you, Miss Brown. They were probably sent to kill you.”

  A cold wash pebbled her skin. The same possibility had presented itself to her too, but to hear it spoken out loud, so baldly, made it somehow far more frightening. More real. She didn’t think Vasili would have ordered her killed—at least, not until he’d married her, but as soon as he had full control of her land and estates, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if she met with a tragic “accident.”

  Wolff was watching her, his dark eyes intense. “You called him Dmitri,” he said softly.

  Anya stilled. Damn. The man noticed every tiny, betraying detail.

  “And there’s a softness in your face when you speak of him. Was he your lover?”

  Was that a flash of jealousy in his tone?

  “No!” She wrinkled her nose in instinctive recoil at the thought of kissing her own brother, and her expression must have been believable because Wolff chuckled. The odd tension in him evaporated as quickly as it had come.

  “I take it from that reaction that he was not.”

  “Prince Denisov was my friend,” she said reproachfully. “He was a good man. I loved him like a brother.”

  Wolff leaned back in his chair, his long, lithe body seeming to take up an inordinate amount of space. “If you’re telling the truth, then we share a common enemy.”

  Anya bristled at the inference that she might be lying, but he ignored her silent offence.

  “We need proof. I can’t just go and accuse him of being a traitor. Petrov has powerful friends. Depending on his role, he might even have diplomatic immunity. Bow Street will need concrete evidence before it can act.” He nodded at the pile of papers in front of her. “Let’s hope we find something in there.”

  He tilted his head, still thinking, and Anya tried not to notice the intimidating breadth of his shoulders and the blunt, masculine beauty of his hands. Even relaxed, in his own domain, he exuded competence, an aura of quiet power.

  “If Petrov is the spy, then he’s dangerous. He might even be a murderer. Another Russian, probably an informant, was killed last week, down at the docks.” He tapped his fingers on the leather desk. “The suspect was a tall, light-haired man. It could have been Petrov.”

  Anya swallowed a lump of fear. That Vasili was capable of such a violent act was no surprise. He was a brute who used his size to intimidate. If only Dmitri had sent her whatever proof he’d found. She could have given it to Wolff, he could have arrested Vasili, and her problems would have been over.

  She would have been free to leave here, instead of being forced into close proximity with Wolff—a terrifyingly handsome, enigmatic man.

  He was without a doubt the most attractive man she’d ever met. Not some golden prince from a fairy tale, more like his dark-haired, cynical stepbrother. The scapegrace of the family who’d left home to seek his fortune and become a dark sorcerer. His features were saved from being pretty by a masculine jaw and the upward slant of his eyebrows, which gave him a faintly diabolical air. His self-confidence bordered on arrogance, but she couldn’t deny the allure of the glint in his eyes. The man was a walking promise.

  His nearness made her aware of him as a man and herself as a woman in a way she’d never before considered. They were unchaperoned, completely alone, save for some distant servants belowstairs. And yet she trusted him. Rogue he might be, but there was honor at his core, beneath the cynicism. He was clearly no stranger to violence, but unlike Vasili, she doubted he’d ever use force with a woman. He was so charming, so beguiling. He could probably tease out desires a woman never even suspected she possessed.

  Anya gave herself a mental shake.

  She would not be another one of his conquests.

  Chapter 13.

  Anya spent the rest of the day reading through the pile of correspondence Wolff had given her, noting down the various names.

  She also scrawled a brief note to Elizaveta, and another to Charlotte, telling them not to worry, but that she was being personally protected by the dowager duchess’s great-nephew, and would be staying at the Tricorn Club for an indefinite period.

  She smiled as she imagined their different reactions to reading that. Elizaveta would be scandalized at the impropriety and worried for both her safety and her morals. Charlotte was far more likely to crack one of her saucy, speculative smiles and pour a drink in her honor.

  Anya folded both sheets together and directed them to Haye’s. Vasili had somehow managed to learn that she worked for the dowager duchess. It wasn’t impossible that he might also discover her home address and set someone to intercept the mail. Since Haye’s received a great number of missives every day, from gentlemen making “arrangements,” one more note would hopefully not attract any undue attention.

  At lunchtime, Mickey brought in a tray of stew and crusty bread and agreed to have the stable lad deliver the letters for her. The baguette
was as good as the ones Anya had eaten every morning on the Rue de Passy in Paris; Wolff clearly had a talented chef.

  It was a pleasure to enjoy even simple soup when it was made with gristle-free steak and more than one vegetable. Elizaveta was a competent cook, but their straitened circumstances meant they’d rarely bought the best cuts of meat or the freshest produce. Desserts had become a distant memory.

  She went back to the translations. They were frustratingly difficult to decipher, thanks to some truly appalling handwriting, and all were exceedingly dull, concerned mainly with rations and supplies, troop movements and ammunition requests.

  By dinnertime, she was thoroughly bored and no closer to discovering anything useful than she had been that morning. She pushed back from the desk and tried to ease the aching muscles in her neck. As if on cue, Mickey appeared, hunching his giant shoulders in what she assumed was his way of trying to appear less intimidating.

  “’Is lordship thought you’d like a bath.” He gestured to a door just across the hallway. “There’s one of ’em new-fangled bathing rooms in there. Linens too.”

  Anya almost did a little dance of delight when she discovered the large copper tub filled with water. It was big enough to immerse her whole body in, double the size of the miserable tin hip-bath she and Elizaveta shared back at their lodgings.

  She stripped with unseemly haste, piled her hair in a haphazard coil on the top of her head, and sank into the steaming water with a sigh of bliss. Tension leeched out of her as she luxuriated in the warmth. She let down her hair and washed it thoroughly, noting that the soap was a feminine jasmine scent. She raised a brow. Did Wolff have such a regular supply of women who bathed here that his household kept a supply of floral soap? Or had he somehow guessed it was her favorite? Probably the former.

  When the water finally cooled enough to be unpleasant, and her fingers and toes resembled wizened prunes, she dried herself off and ducked across the corridor to her own rooms. The idea of putting her dirty dress back on was depressing, but she stopped short on the threshold of the bedroom when she saw what lay across the bed—a dress, one that certainly didn’t belong to her.