Just after the candle sputtered out in a hot pool of wax, April heard footsteps ringing down the stairs again. Tensing, she backed away from the door and waited to see who it would be. If it was Pavel, she planned to knock him over and rush out. He was small enough that she was sure she could do it. But as she steeled herself to take him off guard, the door opened and she saw Count Ivanov holding a gas lamp high, swinging its light rays into the room.
Seeing April regarding him angrily, he said in a grim voice, “I wish Pavel hadn’t had to do this, Katya. But he told me you were trying to run away again. I won’t accept that. You know everything is settled, including your dowry.”
“Settled with whom, count?” April inquired, feeling more furious than afraid. “You assume that I want to marry you.”
“I realize you are young and easily impressed by titles,” Ivanov said through gritted teeth, “and that Petrovna may seem a catch to you right now. But while the young prince may be your age, he is scarcely your equal. It was agreed by the Grand Duke himself when you were only twelve that I would be considered a candidate for your hand someday. As he put it to me, he said you would be in need of a firm hand when the time came.”
As the count rambled on, April came to her own swift deductions. In her hour alone she had finally gathered enough of her thoughts to begin piecing the fantastic tale together. What Zofia had said, along with Ivanov’s delusions, painted a portrait of a woman, her real mother perhaps, who had once had the misfortune to be considered Count Ivanov’s fiancée.
Taking a gamble, she said haughtily, “What makes you think I will settle for a mere count?”
It was the wrong thing to say, though perfectly in character for what an infuriated Ekaterina might have hurled at him twenty years ago. His eyes darkened, and he took a step into the cellar room shaking with rage. “I am claiming you for mine, Katya. No man dares gainsay what I have already put my mark upon.”
“Oh? And what if Andrei has put his mark on me first?” In her own desperation to find the answers to her identity, April flirted with a man’s sanity and her own life.
Ivanov raised a hand and slapped her lightly, his nostrils flaring. As April cradled her cheek, he hissed, “So. It is as I feared. You have already given yourself to the prince. But if you think that will save you from my claim, you are wrong, Katya.” He paused as if hearing a voice respond from long ago, though April had spoken no words. He retorted harshly, “Will you beg me to release you from our betrothal? What do you mean, there is none? I decided I would have you the first moment I laid eyes on you twelve years ago. You knew this and still you encouraged Petrovna.”
“Please,” April sobbed, “please stop!” She clapped her hands over her ears. Like a play, she saw the characters dancing in her head. The count angrily berating a young woman who resembled herself. And Ekaterina — Katya — her mother, trembling with terror then as she did now, pleading for Ivanov to cease the madness.
“We shall see,” he threatened, reaching out to grab April by the arm and yank her behind him, dragging her stumbling up the stone stairs out of the cellar, holding the light ahead as he went. “We shall see how deep your so-called love for Andrei goes, my dear, once you have spent a few weeks in the bridal suite I made just for you.”
“No!” April cried, fighting him uselessly, her strength inconsequential against his maddened determination.
Soon he had her up to the main floor, and then up to the bedchamber in turn, where he hurled her not gently across the Gold Room and she fell against the bed post, grabbing it to keep her feet just in time.
Pushing back her tangled mass of goldspun hair, April cried at him, “You are insane. You cannot treat people like this.”
Ivanov glowered at her from the doorway. “I can and I will. I am the master of this house. When you agreed to be its mistress, you agreed to obey me in everything. You will stay here and rot before I let Andrei Petrovna have you.”
So saying, he pulled the door shut and turned the key, and for the first time April saw that it had been designed only to be locked from the outside. With a cry of despair, she ran to pull on the knob and beat on the door. Yet the wood, too, had been cut thicker than that of the other chambers, and she assumed muffled her voice completely from the other side.
She understood suddenly the horrible purpose of the Gold Room. A luxurious prison, a gilded cage, it held her now as it had once held her mother, Katya. And like the duke’s niece, she was smart enough to realize until Ivanov chose to be lenient, there was no escape. Curbing an impulse to cry, which would be of no use, April searched through the vanity and the closets for something, anything, that could serve as a weapon if need be.
She decided on the heavy ivory hairbrush, and hid it in the folds of her skirt as she paced, waiting. Hours or days, she did not know how long before the count would return for his final vengeance. But she suspected that he could not keep away from his “beloved Katya” for long. And when he returned, she would be ready. Her very life, like that of her mother’s, depended on it.
D
AMIEN GLANCED DOWN WITH
distaste at the dark red stain spreading across the ermine furs of Tatiana’s bed. He suspected when she awoke she would be far more furious seeing he spilled wine on her bedspread, than discovering the goose egg on her head where he had knocked her unconscious.
Unfortunately, the princess had a hard head, and the bottle had cracked before she had finally sagged limp in his arms. Damien lowered her gently to the bed, with a murmured apology for treating a lady so outrageously. But he didn’t dare risk exposure so late in the game. Who knew where Tatiana’s true loyalties lay? And with April in serious danger, he didn’t intend to dawdle the night away here.
Slipping from the mansion was easier than he’d imagined. Assuming their mistress immersed in love battles for the night, the staff had gone to bed. The guards were slumped snoring in the hall, full of vodka and good food. Damien took the back stairs, and then presumed further to take the servant’s sleigh parked outside.
Though Samarin House was only a mile out of Moscow, it felt like leagues by the time Damien broke fresh snow and the lights of the city receded dimly behind him. The awning over the driver’s seat provided little protection from the biting, bracing winds, but thankfully the snow had stopped and everything lay in icy stillness. He had only to contend with the threat of exposure and frostbite, which, he soon found, were not far removed.
When his hands became so numb that he could no longer feel anything, he realized the foolishness of his plight. His coat was warm enough, and he knew he wouldn’t die. But once he reached April he should be incapacitated in helping her. Unfortunately, it was the best he could do now, and time was of the essence.
Damien was not far afield when he heard the hiss of runners close behind his own sleigh and the telltale jingle of fine harness. Whipping his frozen face around, he peered back to recognize one of the count’s sleighs, headed in the same direction as his.
Perhaps he would be fortunate enough to find April aboard it. Purposefully slowing his team, who were no match for the four fine blood bays that drew the count’s sleigh, Damien watched alertly as the other driver veered sharply to pass him.
When the second conveyance was half past, the light of two lamps swinging from the seat highlighted the count’s manservant Dmitri at the reins, his large beaked nose protruding characteristically between his muffler and fur wedge hat. But while Damien noted that the carriage itself was empty, he also remembered that the coach he had seen outside the Kremlin had been drawn by white horses instead. Apparently Dmitri was out on his own tonight. In a sudden daring move, Damien drew his own team close on the runners of the passing sleigh.
Dmitri glanced back and appeared to curse, wondering if the other driver was drunk. But he did not recognize Damien in the darkness, and made no move to slow or stop.
Enjoying his own chance for revenge, Damien purposefully edged the front runner of his own sleigh up against that of the other. When the metal met, sparks flew and he heard Dmitri curse as both sleighs squirreled in the snow.
Undaunted, the earl extended his team, knowing he must act swiftly before the faster coach could pull away. His team was weary but surprisingly big-hearted. Steam rushing from their distended nostrils, the grays pursued the set of bays that were slowly extending the distance. His own aim needed to be precise, Damien knew, to force Dmitri to stop without inviting disaster. He had no wish to kill or injure any of the horses.
Suddenly, Dmitri branched off on his own in a wide sweep to the right that forced Damien to quickly gather in his own reins to avoid a collision. In doing so, the other driver miscalculated and the ornate sleigh rocked dangerously, almost rolling over. The lead bays knocked together, upsetting the entire team and tangling the leads. The well-trained horses immediately slowed and soon came to a rasping stop in the darkness.
Shouting obscenities in Damien’s direction, Dmitri leapt down and ran back to check the damage. Opportunity knocked boldly on Damien’s door in that moment of providence. With a wry, regretful grin, he stopped his own sleigh close to the other man’s.
Dmitri seemed more worried about the damage done to the newly-painted red runners than himself. He scarcely straightened and faced Damien when the earl swung out, catching the other man squarely in the jaw.
As the driver dropped like dead weight, Damien caught him. He immediately recognized the coat Dmitri wore as the one the gunman in town had been wearing. The fellow also had scars from the glass slivers that had slipped down his collar and cut his neck when Damien had thrown him into the store window.
“Sorry, old man,” Damien said, “but I think I owe you that one. And I need to borrow your sleigh. Hell of a way to ask, I know, but I haven’t got time for polite pleasantries tonight.”
Lugging Dmitri’s heavy inert form to the older sleigh, he then removed the man’s gloves and hat and quickly put them on. They were still warm from the driver’s body heat and felt delicious against the brittle night chill. Damien hefted Dmitri’s body inside the enclosure of the other coach and shut the door. It would keep the cold from killing the man before the other team returned to town and he revived.
Lastly, but with great appreciation, Damien patted the grays who had shown great courage in their pursuit. Then he brought the team around facing Moscow again. Trusting they would swiftly find their way back to Tatiana’s stables where warmth and hay awaited, he slapped the rump of the nearest steed and sent the sleigh flying back toward the lights of the city.
The blowing bays still stood patiently in their traces. Damien swiftly untangled the reins and harness, checked the sleigh and found the paint chipped on the runners. Otherwise, the coach was undamaged.
Leaping up in the seat, he slapped the reins with a crack and felt the rush of exhilaration as the powerful animals instantly responded. Within moments, he was racing toward Samarin House again, confident that he could fly directly to the count’s front door now and none dared stop him this night.
T
O
D
AMIEN’S SURPRISE, THERE
were not any guards on duty when he drove through the open gates. Going directly to the stables, as Dmitri logically would have done, he slowed the team and brought the sleigh to a smooth halt on the snow. There was a light on inside the stables, but it was otherwise deserted.
Cautiously getting down and going to inspect, Damien found the staff had long since departed for warmer quarters indoors and left a light on only for Dmitri’s sake.
A soft whicker greeted Damien as he walked down the row of stalls. Prince Adar thrust out his great black head and eyed Damien with interest. Putting a hand on the stallion’s silky nose, he murmured, “Where’s your mistress, hmm? Has she been out to see you tonight?” Damien guessed not, noting the absence of any spilled oats on the floor beneath the horse. April was always diligent about giving her horse a treat after her own supper. It made him doubly uneasy to note that Adar stood in piles of his own droppings, which April never would have permitted.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it, boy?” Damien comforted the horse, who impatiently banged a hoof on the door of his stall. “I think you know it too. Tell you what, you and I are going to get April out of here tonight. I know she won’t leave without you, so let’s get you ready.”
Quickly and furtively, knowing he might be disturbed at any time, Damien gathered together Adar’s riding gear and readied the horse. Anxious to escape his confinement, the stud did not fight the bit but let Damien settle it in his mouth and throw several blankets over his back. Damien eased the horse out of the stall and finished saddling him, having no qualms whatsoever about borrowing Ivanov’s finely-tooled silver tack.
Then he led Adar down the aisle and outside to the sleigh, where he secured the black behind the coach. As he finished, Damien glanced around to ascertain that nobody had seen the sudden activity at the stables. Fortunately, the uncommonly bitter night had dissuaded any servants from wandering out for trysts or anything else.
Samarin House itself was mostly dark, except for a single light downstairs and one upstairs where the Gold Room was located. Wondering if April had turned to the count’s arms for comfort, Damien felt a biting stab of resentment that had grown increasingly frequent of late.
Seeing her at the Kremlin ball, as poised and lovely as any princess, finally convinced him that he must take the risk of keeping her at his side. It would be easy enough to smooth over the real facts of her heritage, and since she already spoke several languages with ease it would be enough to convince most inquisitive folk. And knowing his mother, Marcelle would be delighted enough with the marriage itself and April’s beauty that she would accept Damien’s choice without a qualm.
The thought of returning to either France or England without April was impossible. Damien would be the first to admit that she had enchanted him, and that he was deeply in love. Several weeks ago April would have followed him to the ends of the earth. But now …? He would just have to find out.