“I needn’t look to foreigners or those of my own circumstance for friendship, Major.” Tyrone laid an arm around Grigori’s shoulder and pulled him close against his side. “Here is a true friend, Major. He is one who seeks my good. As for General Vanderhout…well, I value him considerably less than my most casual acquaintances.”
Tyrone swept a hand to his brow in a casual salute of farewell. Even as the pair made their departure, occasional spurts of laughter drifted back. With something akin to a perplexed smile flitting across his face, Major Nekrasov turned and made his way toward the Palace of Facets, where he would tell the tsar everything that Colonel Rycroft had related to him. Then he would escort His Majesty to the Blagoveshchenskii Sobor, where Tsar Mikhail would meet with the patriarch and priest for an hour of private worship. Father and son would no doubt want to offer a special prayer of thanksgiving because the culprits had been caught before completing their mission.
22
The citizens of Moscow stood back as the dusty soldiers rode across the area of Red Square, escorting another collection of wildly outfitted warriors between their ranks. A pair of women, one bearing a wee babe wrapped in a swaddling blanket and the second garbed in an encompassing cloak, rode in a small cart filled with hay, a preference each had insisted upon for at least two diverse reasons. A battery of cannon followed. At the rear of the procession came the wagons, a pair of which were filled with the wounded.
It was this sight that greeted Aleksei as he stepped from his sledge. He was still gaping when he took note of the dark-haired woman in the cart, that very one he had ordered Ladislaus to kidnap from Natasha’s manse. And if that wasn’t enough, her abductor now rode at the fore of his cohorts, like some valiant soul on his way to receive a medal.
Aleksei felt his chest instantly gripped by a coldness that nearly halted his breathing. Only that morning he had been in his chambers and had heard Anna wailing in fear because she was being summoned to the tsar’s palace to discuss what she knew about the matter of Ivan Voronsky’s treasonous attempt. She was convinced that within |a matter of days she would be escorted to the Place of the Brow, the Lobnoe Mesto, where she would pay for the crime of befriending a traitor, except that she fervently contended that she had lacked any knowledge of the man’s real intentions.
Now here he was, Aleksei brooded, seeing his own life pass before him as the death knell tolled out the hour of his impending doom. Tsar Mikhail had warned him, but he had foolishly given little heed. Instead, he had taken great delight in arranging Synnovea’s abduction, like some lecherous fool intent upon getting his head separated from his body. It was unmitigated fear that now restricted his breathing and made his heart quail within his breast.
A crowd had quickly gathered in the square, having heard of the success of the company of soldiers that they were now viewing. Purportedly, Major Nekrasov had first reported the incident to the tsar, who then had called the matter to the attention of the Russian delegates, the zemskiy sobor. From the boyars, the story had spread to every area of the city until the loyal citizenry were in awe of the miracle of it. To totally immobilize an invading force, rumored to be at least five times larger, and then to subsequently halt the assassination of not only the good patriarch but the tsar himself…why, it was a feat worthy of eminent recognition!
Aleksei ground his teeth in vexation, abhorring the assembling throng of humanity crowding in around him. To mpletely surrounded by those intent upon hailing the English colonel and that barbaric Ladislaus as champions of the day was the most outrageous affront he had ever had to endure. He yearned to see both men fed piece by bloody piece to the ravens, for each had stolen that very treasure he had endangered his life to possess.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!”
Aleksei glanced around with a start as a foreign officer jostled him in his haste to press past him. The man gave every indication that all the demonic guardians of the netherworld were after him as he tossed a frantic look over his shoulder.
“Excuse me!” he asserted again and was about to forge resolutely past the prince when a feminine voice called to him from the midst of the crowd.
“Yoo-hoo, Edvard! I must speak vith yu! Vait!”
Almost frantically, the one called Edward pressed forward, nearly shoving Aleksei aside as he sought to wedge his way through the ever-increasing mass of people, as if by some small miracle he hadn’t heard the woman. Muttering to himself, Edward berated his own wisdom for having gotten involved. “Fool! Fool! Weren’t you warned? But no, you dullard! You just had to bed down with the general’s wife! What a fine kettle of fish you’ve gotten yourself into! Your whole career will be ruined!”
The one who had hailed him from afar became more insistent. “Edvard Valsvorth! Yu vill not escape for long if I sic the general on yu!”
Edward growled a curse, motivating Aleksei to lift a brow sharply, for the expletive was issued very near his ear. Nevertheless, the younger man seemed immediately convinced of the importance of conversing with the woman. Pivoting on his heels, he did an abrupt about-face and, spreading his arms wide, approached the woman with a great show of enthusiasm, as if actually delighted to see her. “Aleta! How beautiful you look, my darling little flower!”
Aleksei’s brows lifted to a greater altitude as he tossed an oblique glance toward the couple in an effort to catch a glimpse of the source of the officer’s dismay. Except for her wide skirts, the woman remained hidden behind the tall man whom she had accosted, but her chiding voice was hardly subdued, allowing the prince to hear everything she said. He supposed they thought since they spoke in English that none of the Russians who stood within hearing distance could understand, but what now filled Aleksei with a strange uneasiness was a growing suspicion that he knew that voice.
“Yu naughty man, yu! If I didn’t know better, I’d think yu vere tryin’ to avoid me. I should tell Vincent it vas yu he should be searching for instead of Colonel Rycroft! If yu think I’m goin’ to remain silent about all of this vhen yu’ve made no further attempt to see me, I vill call down the hounds of hell to seek yu out and name yu the father of my babe! It’s all yur damn fault anyvay. I told yu to be careful, but no! Yu had to be as inept as a little schoolboy tumblin’ his first chit! Vell, I vant something done about it, do yu hear?”
Lieutenant Colonel Edward Walsworth shrugged his shoulders lamely as he cajoled, “Now, Aleta, how can you be so sure that I was the one responsible? You were seeing some Russian at the time, weren’t you? I vividly recall having heard you say that you had played a prank on a prince by telling him that you had played a prank on a prince by telling him that you were the general’s daughter and an innocent little virgin. You mean, with all your subtle enticements, the two of you never went to bed together?” Edward’s tone sounded more than a bit satirical. “If the Russian isn’t at fault, then perhaps your husband is. Surely you haven’t tossed him out of your bed yet.”
“Yu oaf! Yu von’t get out of this by blaming someone else! Vincent has become painfully impaired vith a malady vhich has stricken him to the heart and prevents him from carrying out his husbandly duties. No doubt he caught it from one of those little doxies he likes to cuddle, though he had the audacity to try and put the blame on me!”
Surprised gasps were simultaneously rasped inwardly as both Aleksei and Edward caught the full import of her statement. Aleksei glanced wildly about, seized by a dreadful panic, while Edward demanded harshly, “Be damned, woman! That takes a lot of spite to entice a man into your bed when there’s a chance you’ve been befouled!”
Aleta screeched in rage. “Vhat?! Do yu think I’ve been besmirched, too? Vhy, I haven’t been so insulted—”
Seething, Edward leaned toward the woman with a snarl contorting his face. “The way you hunt for lovers, Aleta, there’s no telling how many men you’ve thus far caught in your trap!”
Aleksei choked in revulsion as he felt his gorge rise higher in his throat, and like a man who had imbibed far too much, he reel
ed in a daze until he reached the outer limits of the crowd. From there, he staggered through the snow to his sledge. His face was ashen and drawn as he threw himself into the seat. He had already forgotten the pair who were still viciously arguing the point; he only realized his folly in believing the woman’s ploy.
Somehow Aleksei managed to get home. Stumbling into the house, he called for vodka and scalding hot water to be brought up to his chambers. Servants scurried to obey, and soon a steaming bath was prepared, closely conforming to his instructions. Glaring at the valet who waited to attend him, Aleksei sent him out with a snarled command and undressed himself.
He sucked in his breath as he settled himself into the steaming bath. Undaunted, he scrubbed himself vigorously until he was nigh bleeding from the abuse. Then he leaned back in the tub and quaffed nearly a third of the decanter of the wickedly intoxicating brew. When he finally stumbled to his feet, he was feeling sufficiently blistered inside and out. He was extremely hot, weak, and totally inebriated. Seeking some relief from the agony of his emotions, he flung the bottle away and staggered unsteadily to the bed, where he collapsed facedown upon it. In a dazed stupor he stared across the room and began to mumble incoherently about the awful gore he remembered seeing as a child when his father had taken a knife and ended his own life.
Anna didn’t return home that night, nor did the servants dare to venture up to the master’s chambers. By late the next day they were almost relieved to hear riders halting before the manse and, a moment later, an insistent pounding of a heavy fist upon the front portal. Boris hurried to open the door, and then stumbled back in some awe as the English colonel and three of his officers barged into the hall without so much as an apology. This time the Englishman spoke in Russian and demanded to see the master of the house forthwith.
“Prince Aleksei is upstairs.” The servant’s voice quavered as he gestured tremblingly toward the higher level where the man had ensconced himself. “He hasn’t been down since yesterday, when he ordered us to prepare him a bath. He was in a foul mood, sir, and we were afraid to disturb him.”
“I’ll disturb him!” Tyrone growled, leaping up the stairs with his men following closely behind.
Boris trailed them, struggling to keep up as he pleaded with the officers to take care lest they endanger their lives. “Prince Aleksei may be indisposed…with a woman…and will resent being intruded upon. It’s not the first time he has locked us out, but usually he bids us to bring up food for him and his companions to feast upon.”
Tyrone’s lip curled in a snarl as he tossed a dark glower over his shoulder. “ ’Twould seem you’ve coddled that bastard far too long, my friend. Today he’ll reap another kind of reward, his just due! The tsar has granted me and my officers the special duty of escorting your master to prison, and I’ve come to do so with relish.”
The colonel paused briefly before the portal which the servant indicated. When he grasped the knob, Tyrone found the door locked, but with a thrust of his shoulder, he flung the heavy plank wide. High-flying rage propelled him inward, and he was nearly halfway across the room before he came to an abrupt halt and stared for a moment in rampant revulsion at the sight sprawled upon the bed. He had been a fighting man for a good many years, but in all of that time he had never seen the likes of that which now wrenched his stomach. It was a terrible thing when a man became so demented that he had to cruelly lacerate his own body before gaining enough courage to end his own life.
Tyrone turned on his heel and stalked back toward the door, where his men had halted. Grigori searched his face, causing him to shake his head. The distasteful grimace twisting his lips gave mute testimony to the horror he had just seen. Boris would have stumbled past to see what the colonel had viewed, but Tyrone held up an arm to bar the servant’s entrance into the room.
“My men and I will wrap the prince up in the bedclothes and take him downstairs for you. He should be kept where it’s cold, at least until he’s buried.”
Synnovea stood at the front windows of the Andreyevna manse, anxiously awaiting her husband’s return. Grigori and two other officers of the regiment had arrived an hour earlier to inform Tyrone that the tsar had given him the special duty of arresting Prince Aleksei and that they had come to accompany him in that endeavor. Naturally Tyrone accepted the task as a privilege, one he would no doubt enjoy immensely, but Synnovea had become immediately fearful of what lengths Aleksei would go to keep Tyrone from that purpose. She could hardly forget the threats he had made against her husband shortly before Tyrone had left on his quest to find Ladislaus. Aleksei would not be above rallying the ire of fanatics against the one foreigner he longed to see mutilated and killed. Nor did she doubt the prince’s ability to disappear once he had finished off his enemy. He was like a snake in the grass, striking with venomous poison and then slithering off to lurk in wait for another victim.
A lone figure of a man riding a glistening horse down the lane toward the house made Synnovea catch her breath in sudden joy. She could not mistake that proud, easy way her husband rode or the dark chestnut stallion he had reclaimed from Ladislaus. Standing with trembling fingers pressed to smiling lips, she observed his approach through a wealth of thankful tears, detecting no smallest hint of a wound on that fine, dapperly uniformed frame.
The realization dawned on her as he neared that his expression seemed strangely serious, as if something dreadfully wrong had happened at the Taraslovs’. Then it came to her: he was returning much sooner than she had expected, even for all of her fretting over the length of his absence. Had he been successful in arresting Aleksei, Tyrone would’ve then been required to deliver him to the Kremlin, the completion of which would have taken a good deal longer than his expeditious return seemed to affirm.
Of a sudden doubt and uncertainty assailed her. The possibility that Aleksei had made good his escape left her feeling stricken, as if she had just awakened from a horrible nightmare and hadn’t yet been reassured that her dreams weren’t real and couldn’t harm her. She hoped fervently that she wouldn’t be thrown back into that dark, cavernous pit of hellish horror by the realization that Aleksei was free to persecute them from some other safe abode.
“He’s far away by now,” Synnovea whispered to herself in an effort to ease her qualms. “He wouldn’t dare come back. Why, he’s probably trying to find a place right now to hide from the tsar and all of his men.”
Synnovea heaved a sigh to quiet her rambling thoughts as Tyrone turned his horse into the narrow lane leading to the stables. It was foolish to get herself in such a state of panic when she had absolutely no idea what had really happened. She was immensely happy to be home, and that was a fact Aleksei could never take away from her. After a whole blissful night spent in lustful pursuits with her husband, it had seemed as if she had been lifted on a cloud somewhere in the firmament. Now, thwarted by trepidations, she felt as if she had descended into the darkest hell.
Synnovea frowned and canted her head worriedly as she wondered what was keeping Tyrone. At this time of the day, he would normally have left his mount in the care of one of the grooms in the stable. Yet she could hear no one moving about the house, which at the moment seemed as quiet as a tomb. Natasha had escorted Ali, Danika, and Sophia to a fair, leaving the house virtually empty, no doubt intentionally for the couple’s leisured pleasure. Even the servants, who had been instructed by Natasha to appease their every wish, refrained from being seen unless bidden.
“Synnovea…?”
The masculine voice seemed to drift up from the depths of the house, as if from the distant end of a long tunnel far, far away.
Lifting her head, she answered. “Yes…?”
“Come, my love, I have need of you.”
“Tyrone? Is that you?” she queried as her feet carried her from the front room to the stairs that led downward into the bowels of the house. The summons had been spoken in English, but the voice had been strangely muffled and subdued.
“Are you coming, my love??
??
“Yes, yes, I’m coming! Where are you? I can barely hear you. Please tell me, is anything wrong? You sound so strange.”
“Hurry!”
Her heart leapt in heightening fear. Something was wrong! Something had happened! But where was he? “I’m hurrying, my darling! Wait for me!”
“I am, but you must hurry…”
Her feet were flying now, merely a vague blur on the stairs, going deeper, deeper into the manse. Finally she burst through a portal, her breath snared in her throat. She had no idea what she might find. Then she came to a stumbling halt—and stared agape.
From the middle of the pool Tyrone grinned back at her. Throwing aside a long, flared instrument that Natasha sometimes used in calling her servants from afar, he lifted a hand to beckon her forward. “Come join me, madam. I’m feeling in rare good form tonight and think we ought to consider appeasing your petition.”
“What petition is that, Sir Knight?” Synnovea questioned, stripping away the veil that covered her hair and hurriedly loosening the silken closures of the sarafan she wore.