Forever in Your Embrace (72 page)

Ladislaus tried to shush her angry questions with a quieting gesture of his hands. “Now, Alyona, you know I’ve never made any promises that you’d always be the only one. A man like me enjoys a little variety now and then.”

“A man like yu, ha!” Alyona tossed her head in disgust. “Yu mewl so sweetly in our bed an’ tell me that yu love me vhen yu want my favors. Then, vhen I’m so swollen with child that I can hardly move, yu bring this…this…”

“Lady Synnovea Rycroft.” Synnovea quickly supplied the information, gleaning some reason to hope that she could escape ravishment through the presence of this small, tenacious woman. “Wife of Colonel Sir Tyrone Rycroft, English Commander of His Majesty’s Imperial Hussars.” Turning sharply to bestow a blazing glower upon her abductor, she ended in a rush of words that completely exhausted her breath. “Who-will-surely-kill-this-bumbling-oaf-if-he-so-much-as-lays-a-wayward-hand-upon-me!”

Sensing an immediate accord with Her Ladyship, Alyona offered Synnovea a smile and swept a hand invitingly toward the front door. At least Ladislaus hadn’t yet bedded the woman. Perhaps she had time to persuade him from the idea of serving his selfish lusts and wounding her in the process. “Come inside, my lady. No doubt ye’re veary from yur ordeal an’ vould like a bath….”

Ladislaus grinned broadly, perceiving Alyona’s congeniality as a willingness to yield to his authority. He was now of a mind to think that he’d be able to manage very nicely with two women living in the same house. Having every intention of partaking of the hospitality that Alyona had extended to the countess, he mounted the steps behind his latest captive. Immediately upon gaining the porch, he was abruptly halted by a small hand that had been flung up in unfaltering defiance.

“Nyet! Yu go to stable to vash and bed down! This house vill be ours alone!”

“Come, now, Alyona,” Ladislaus cajoled and then bristled in discomfiture as Petrov made no effort to curb the chuckles erupting from him. “You can’t do this to me! Not even my own men would dare such a thing!”

“Yu stay away!” Alyona railed, stamping a dainty foot in outrage. “I forbid yu to come inside!”

Ignoring the command, Ladislaus spread his arms wide to encompass his mistress in a great bear hug, hoping to placate her, but Alyona snatched away in angry resentment and glared up at him.

“Yu leave here this instant, Ladislaus, or I vill! I von’t stay in yur camp an’ give birth to yur child vhile yu make another bastard vith the colonel’s wife. Do yu hear?”

“Damnation, woman! I can’t let you order me about as if I were some young whelp! What will my men think?”

Alyona rose on tiptoes to sneer in his face. “An’ vhat vill yu think, Ladislaus, if I leave now? Do yu vant me to go? Does beddin’ down vith the colonel’s vife mean so much to yu that yu do not care if I go or stay?”

“Alyona, you know I’m very fond of you….”

In unabated pertinacity, Alyona stood erect with small fists clenched tightly at her sides. Despite the initial terror she had suffered when Ladislaus had first snatched her from her parents’ home more than a year ago, she had come to love him dearly, but she wanted more from him than just a casual dalliance. His child would soon be born, and she wanted him to treat her with the same regard a man would extend to a cherished wife. “Ladislaus, yu make choice now! The colonel’s vife or me!”

The lord-of-thieves raised his hands lamely in mute appeal. As much as he wanted to pleasure himself with the beautiful countess, down deep inside he knew he couldn’t abide the idea of Alyona leaving him. From the first, she had been like a fresh, sweet breath of wind coming into his stale life. While holding herself from him in staid reserve, she had played the offended maiden to the hilt until gradually it was his heart that had melted. To his amazement he had found himself caring for her in a gentler way, courting her with wildflowers, long walks in the woods, and sonnets of love from a book he had once found in a trunk purloined from a wealthy rake. He had even taught her to read, and she had in turn placated him by sweetly reciting the verses. How could he bear to let her go when he had no doubt that she’d be leaving him bereft of every treasure he held dear?

A gunshot snatched Ladislaus’s mind abruptly from the matter of choices to the immediate needs of the moment. Of primary concern was the safety of his camp and everyone within it. He whirled away from the two women as Petrov spun his horse around to face the barricaded entrance to the pass. Above it, a guard was now shouting and waving his arms in an attempt to gain their attention. Petrov raised a hand and held it to an ear to listen, then promptly conveyed the information to Ladislaus.

“One man ride toward camp with white flag. The guard want to know, should he let the stranger in?”

Ladislaus leapt off the porch and, settling his powerful arms akimbo, frowned toward the pass for a long moment before squinting up at Petrov. “Can they tell who the man is?”

The single braid of flaxen hair fell over a massive shoulder as Petrov leaned his head far back and cupped a hand to his mouth to project his shout. “Who comes? Do you know?”

Again Petrov returned a broad hand to an ear to catch the other’s answer. Then he gaped down at his lordling chief, completely astounded by what he had just heard. “They say English colonel come here! He ride your horse!”

“What?” Synnovea gasped, flinging herself to the porch railing. Trembling now, she shaded her eyes from the glare of the sun reflecting off a patch of snow as she stared toward the entrance. As yet, she could see nothing of her husband, but that didn’t ease the sudden quaking of her heart.

Ladislaus was of a different bent entirely. Hooting in glee at the idea that his adversary would be coming into their camp, he roared his answer. “Let the rascal enter, if indeed he comes alone!”

Petrified by a sudden concern for her husband, Synnovea waited an eternity before she saw a lone rider emerging from the narrow pass. At the newcomer’s inquiring glance toward the one who stood on the knoll above him, the guard pointed in the direction of the house, prompting the newcomer to urge the stallion forward. Synnovea had no need to see his face or the tawny hair now covered by a helm to know that it was indeed her own dear husband who approached, for none rode with the confident grace he exhibited. The stallion carried him forward at a leisurely canter until he reined the steed to a halt before the lord-of-thieves.

Synnovea would have scrambled down the steps and raced toward Tyrone, but Ladislaus flung up a hand to halt her in mid-stride and promptly barked an order for her to hold fast lest she cause some harm to come to her husband. She acquiesced forthwith, but in the silence that ensued, her eyes melded with the blue ones that anxiously searched her face. At the unspoken question burning within those translucent orbs, she managed a reassuring smile to convey the fact that, as yet, she had not been harmed.

Thoughtfully Ladislaus considered the pair who exchanged unspoken assurances of adoration with nothing more than their eyes. Then he turned his perusal solely upon his rival, espying no scabbard or pistol, only an empty sheath where a knife should have been. “Are you a witless fool, Colonel, to enter my camp with naught to protect you but a white flag and your own arrogance? Do you not ken that my men can drag you from my horse and strip the flesh from your bones, just as they did when we last met? Have you no scars to remind you of that event?”

“I’ve come for my wife,” Tyrone stated unflinchingly, leveling his gaze upon the renegade. “I won’t leave without her.”

Ladislaus laughed with boisterous mirth and spread his arms wide in exaggerated amazement as he mockingly reminded his foe, “But you said that I could have her, my friend. Don’t you remember? Now pray tell us, Colonel, have you changed your mind?”

“If it’s a fight you want, Ladislaus, I’ll give it to you,”

Tyrone avouched in a low, rumbling tone. “But I’m not leaving here without my wife.”

“What? And cheat my compatriots of the sport of tying you between two horses and wagering which steed will get the better of you in the end? Come, now, Colonel, I’m not as selfish as all that.”

Tyrone lifted a hand and, glancing briefly toward Synnovea, beckoned her to draw near. She obeyed instantly, evoking a growl from Ladislaus, who leapt forward to catch her, but the thief was brought up short by the bulk of the black stallion as Tyrone nudged the animal into his path. Grinding his teeth in rage, Ladislaus sprang upward to seize his adversary from the saddle, but with a flick of his wrist, Tyrone reined the animal sharply about again, deftly jarring the brigand’s senses when that one met the whirling steed head to head, the hard way. An audible thunk was followed by an even louder yowl of pain before Ladislaus stumbled back in a dazed stupor, clasping a hand to his face. A quick swipe of a finger beneath his nose assured him that he was bleeding profusely from his left nostril.

Petrov coughed abruptly to curb another threatening burst of laughter. Then, with hard-won composure, he straightened his demeanor and, assuming his best doleful expression, swung down from his steed. Solicitously he helped Ladislaus to the steps of the porch, where he urged their leader to sit still until he recovered his wits. Alyona flew inside and, reappearing a brief moment later with a wet cloth, gently dabbed at the blood oozing from Ladislaus’s nose.

While the rogues’ attention was diverted, Tyrone reached down and, grasping Synnovea’s arm, swung her up behind him. Petrov’s flintlock made a swift and ominous appearance. Its cyclopean bore was leveled convincingly toward the middle of the leather doublet as the huge man rumbled out a warning. “Keep still, Colonel, or you will die now!”

Though Synnovea clasped her arms tightly around her husband’s waist and pressed close against his back in anxious fear, Tyrone countered the giant’s threat almost casually. “If you kill me, Petrov, these hills will crumble down upon your shining pate. I swear they will.”

Petrov hooted loudly in amusement before he jeered at the colonel. “Are you God to call down mountain upon us, Englishman?”

“Heed my warning carefully with an attentive ear, Petrov,” Tyrone urged. “If you need proof of my power, I shall give you a small sampling, but I must first kindly insist that you divert your aim for the moment to negate the possibility of your weapon discharging accidentally once you realize I have such power.”

Petrov’s eyes flicked quickly toward the rugged, tree-lined hilltops as he wondered what to make of the man’s proposal. He was curious enough to want to see what would follow. Although he turned the bore away from their foe, he held the pistol positioned where he could swing it around upon the man in the flick of an eye. As he cocked a brow and closely observed the colonel, that one raised the white flag and then brought it down sharply in a fluttering descent.

Instantly a thundering explosion rent the silence, followed in quick, ear-numbing succession by several more blasts, each of which caused both Petrov and Ladislaus to start in sudden shock. They gaped in utter amazement as the cannonballs repeatedly pummeled the hills around the second entrance, loosening large boulders and rocks that subsequently began to tumble into the canyon. The falling debris gave momentum to the guards who had been on duty there. Spurred on by churning fear, they raced away as if the demons of hell were nipping at their heels, all the while casting anxious glances over their shoulders as they sought to outrun the falling fragments.

Hardly anyone noticed Tyrone whirling the steed about and racing off toward the far side of the canyon until Ladislaus scrambled to his feet and thrust a massive arm out to point toward the departing colonel, bringing Petrov’s attention to bear upon the two who were obviously attempting to escape in spite of the questionable direction in which they were riding.