Bound by Love (24 page)

“We will return to this subject later.” He stepped toward the bed. “What is in the letters that you feared would prove to be an embarrassment to Alexander Pavlovich?”

“I do not know.”

He muttered a low curse. “I thought we were beyond this foolishness?”

Her eyes flashed with frustration. “I am telling you the truth.”

“You traveled all the way to England, played the role of thief, and battled a madman without knowing why you were risking your bloody neck?”

She restlessly stirred on the bed, the shift twisting against her body to outline the perfect curves of her
breasts. Stefan sucked in a sharp breath, trying to ignore the brutal awareness that had plagued him since Leonida had opened her eyes.

Until that moment he had been unable to think of anything but the sight of the dagger slicing through her neck. Christ. He was not certain his heart would ever fully recover.

Now, however…

Now he was remembering just how delicious she felt in his arms.

“My mother refused to reveal what she had written and, to be honest, I did not press the issue,” she confessed. “There are some secrets best left unknown.”

He studied her pale features, at last giving a grudging nod of his head. Alexander Pavlovich’s journey to the throne had not been without sacrifice.

Or scandal.

“Yes, I suppose there are.” He paused, considering the unpleasant consequences of the letters falling into the wrong hands. “I am still confused.”

“Why?”

“Those letters have been hidden away for years. Hell, I did not even know they existed. Why was your mother so suddenly determined to have them in their possession?”

He watched the emotions ripple over Leonida’s beautiful features as she overcame her reluctance to confess the truth.

“Because she is being blackmailed.”

“Good God.”

She grimaced at his astonishment. “You cannot be more shocked than I was.”

“Don’t be so certain,” he muttered, pacing toward the window. He was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything but the sight of Leonida half-naked on the bed. “What do my mother’s letters have to do with the blackmail scheme of a Russian Countess?”

“She was approached by a gentleman who claimed he had the letters and that he would hand them over to Alexan
der Pavlovich’s enemies unless she agreed to pay him a great deal of money.”

“Sir Charles?”

“No, it was a Russian who first accosted mother, but it is now obvious that Sir Charles was behind the plot.”

“The blackmailer claimed to have the letters?”

“Yes, but my mother did not believe him.”

He turned with a frown. “Why?”

Leonida shrugged. “For one thing, he would not produce them to her even when she refused to pay. And for another, he made no mention of the fact that they were partially written in a secret code.”

Stefan coughed, unable to imagine his elegant, sophisticated mother writing missives in a secret code.

“Secret code?”

“Knowing my mother the code was nothing more clever than spelling a handful of words backwards or using initials instead of full names,” Leonida admitted. “Still, the man who was threatening her seemed to know nothing more than the fact she had written to the Duchess of Huntley and that the letters held the private conversations of Alexander Pavlovich.”

“Information you suspect came from Sir Charles?”

She held up a slender hand. “Do you have a better notion?”

He restlessly paced back toward the bed. The letters had been hidden in his mother’s room since her death. And he would bet his last quid that Sir Charles Richards had never set foot inside Meadowland.

So how had the bastard known of them?

“None of it makes the least sense.”

“At least we agree on something.”

His lips twisted. He knew of any number of things they could agree upon. Most of them involving her body trembling beneath him.

“Who besides your mother knew of the letters?”

“She claims no one beyond the Duchess.”

“Then how could Sir Charles know of them?” he demanded.

“Perhaps your mother shared the letters with someone who was acquainted with him.”

He stiffened, knowing his mother too well to believe such nonsense.

“I cannot imagine my mother revealing the intimate confessions of a friend to anyone, and certainly not a person who would be willing to pass that information to a man such as Sir Charles.”

Leonida studied his hard expression, obviously sensing his annoyance at the implication his mother could somehow be involved in the blackmail scheme.

“Then perhaps someone ran across the letters in your mother’s safe and told him.”

“No one knew of that safe…” he began, only to abruptly sit on the edge of the bed as a distant memory seared through his mind. “Christ.”

“What?”

“Howard Summerville.” He spit out the name as if it was a curse. And in many ways it was. The spineless creature was an insult to the Summerville name. “My worthless louse of a cousin,” he grudgingly explained. “I caught him more than once stealing items from Meadowland. The last time I beat him senseless when I found him digging through my mother’s private safe.”

She slowly nodded, not appearing particularly surprised by his revelation.

“Would he associate with someone like Sir Charles?”

Stefan made a sound of disgust. “Howard would latch on to Beelzebub if he thought he might drop a quid in his pocket.”

Her brows drew together as she considered his condemning description of his cousin.

“That would answer the question of how Sir Charles learned of the letters.”

“But not why he would wait so long to approach the Countess,” he retorted. “Sir Charles left London years ago.”

“He mentioned something of his lifestyle demanding a great deal of money, although I refuse to even consider what his lifestyle might entail.” Leonida shuddered, her eyes shadowed with a lingering fear. “I assume he has fallen into debt.”

He instinctively reached out to cup her cheek with his hand. He never wanted her to feel fear when he was near.

“Or perhaps he only recently ran across my cousin,” he speculated, quite prepared to lay the entire blame on Howard Summerville’s shoulders. “The last I heard he was hiding from his creditors in Paris.”

She pushed back the golden hair that had dried in a tangle of soft curls. Stefan swallowed a groan, wanting nothing more than to shove his fingers through that pale mass of silk. Instead he forced himself to be content with tucking one of the stray curls behind her ear.

“It does not truly matter how Sir Charles discovered the truth of the letters,” she said, her voice not entirely steady.

“Not for the moment,” he conceded. “Although I find it astonishing that he would risk blackmailing one of the most powerful women in Russia with nothing more than a suspicion that incriminating letters might exist.”

“No doubt he assumed my mother would be so frightened that she would give in to his blackmail without proof of them.” She lifted an absent shoulder. “When she refused, he sent his men to England in the hopes that they could discover the letters before I could get them.”

His hand dropped to grasp her shoulder, his eyes narrowing in annoyance at her unexpected revelation.

“He sent men to Meadowland?” he charged, then before she could answer, he was struck by a sudden realization. “Of course. The poachers that Benjamin spotted. Why the devil did you not tell me?”

“We have been through this before.”

She tried to pull away, but Stefan was in no mood to allow her to escape. Instead he leaned forward, nearly touching her nose with his.

“And we will no doubt go through it again,” he threatened, his voice softening as the warm scent of her skin teased at his nose. Even when Leonida was driving him batty, he still wanted her. Desperately. “You will learn to trust me.”

L
EONIDA REMINDED
herself to breathe. The room suddenly seemed smaller, more intimate. And her world reduced to Stefan’s beautiful face so close to hers.

Her body might ache and her wound burn with a raw pain, but the urge to forget the horror of the past days in this man’s arms was near overwhelming. When Stefan was near she felt protected and utterly safe in a manner that was as unexpected as it was unexplainable.

The knowledge should have terrified her, not sent a comforting warmth through her heart.

Resisting the urge to close that slight distance to feel the intoxicating heat of his kiss, Leonida absently lifted her hand to finger the bandage over her wound.

“We were discussing Sir Charles,” she said huskily.

His hands gently skimmed down her bare arms, the light touch sending out tiny shock waves of pleasure.

“Were we?”

With an effort, she sucked in a deep breath. No. She could not be distracted. Not until her mother was truly out of danger.

“Yes, we were.” She conjured the image of her mother, reminding herself of just how distraught the Countess might be. For all her foibles, Leonida was devoted to her mother. She would never allow her to be hurt. “And may I point out that while we are sitting here he is currently escaping?”

His lips twisted with rueful resignation as he leaned back and studied her with an unwavering gaze.

“As you have discovered, I possess a very long reach. I eventually will make him pay for what he has done.”

She rolled her eyes at his arrogance. “Despite your certainty in your skills, I must reach St. Petersburg.”

“I have promised to have word sent to reassure your mother.”

“And what if Sir Charles reaches St. Petersburg first and manages to convince my mother she must pay immediately?” she demanded.

His jaw tightened at her persistence. “Sir Charles was in no condition to approach your mother. In truth, I am not certain he will survive the injury you inflicted. You may have already stolen my vengeance.”

Leonida shuddered. She did not regret stabbing Sir Charles. Or even the thought he might die. Her true concern was that he might survive to hurt another woman.

“We cannot be certain,” she muttered.

A silence filled the bedchamber. Stefan studied her with a growing skepticism.

“There is another reason you are so eager to travel to St. Petersburg. Why?”

“I need to be home with my family. Surely that is not so strange after all I have endured?”

“Not strange, but certainly suspicious. You are a complicated woman and you rarely have a simple motive. Whatever your desire to be reunited with your family, there is another reason for your sense of haste.” His fingers tightened on her arms, his grip not tight enough to hurt, but warning that he was far from pleased by the thought she was not being entirely honest. “What have you kept from me?”

She glared at his unyielding expression, feeling as if her entire life was being consumed by this man.

“I will agree that you had a right to know why I came to Meadowland. It is your home, after all. But my reason for wishing to return to St. Petersburg is no one’s concern but my own.”

A dangerous emotion smoldered in his eyes at her deliberate challenge. “No, Leonida, you thrust your way into my life, now you must suffer the consequences. I will not allow you to keep anything hidden from me.”

Her heart missed a panicked beat. “I went to England to help my mother, not to thrust my way into your life.”

His gaze skimmed down to the revealing shift before returning to her wide eyes.

“And end up in my bed.”

Her heart missed yet another beat. “That has nothing to do with the situation.”

He leaned forward, his lips brushing over her temple in a featherlight caress. “It has everything to do with the situation.”

A bittersweet longing clenched her stomach. If only he were not the Duke of Huntley and she not the Countess Karkoff’s daughter. If only they were a man and woman who had no duties or the heavy expectations of their families.

She could so easily fall in love with him.

“Stefan, you must let me go,” she whispered.

“Never.” His voice held a chilling certainty. “You are mine.”

“I am beginning to think that you are the one who is mad.”

“Very likely.” Pulling back, he captured her wary gaze. “Why are you in such a hurry to return to St. Petersburg?”

Leonida heaved an aggravated sigh. Stefan must surely be the most stubborn, unreasonable man ever born.

Why did she even bother to fight him? Her reward for such skirmishes was nothing more than another dent in her pride, and an ache in her head.

“Because when I was so rudely kidnapped I was forced to leave behind my belongings,” she snapped.

An odd expression settled on his elegant features. “And they are so important to you?”

“I had the letters hidden beneath the lining of my bag.”

He paused, as if she had at least caught him off guard. A small victory.

“Very clever.”

“Not clever at all,” she corrected, her expression echoing her sharp pang of guilt. “I kept the letters hidden from Sir Charles, but now I have no means of retracing my steps after I was kidnapped, and even if I could, who knows what the servants at the inn did with my belongings? Anyone could have them.”

A slow smile curved his lips. “No, not anyone.”

Her breath caught as a sudden hope surged through her. “You…”

“I collected them from the inn,” he assured her.

Her hope was forgotten by a sudden flare of puzzlement. “How did you know I was there?”

His smile widened. “There is nowhere you can hide from me, Miss Karkoff.”

She snorted at his teasing. “You have no idea how tempted I am to prove you wrong.”

His hands trailed slowly up her arms. “Should you not be a great deal more appreciative for my foresight in rescuing the letters from falling into the hands of your enemies?”

“Of course I am appreciative, but.

Without giving her an opportunity to finish, Stefan swooped downward and covered her lips in a sweet, deliciously stirring kiss.

“I prefer a more tangible method of gratitude,” he murmured against her lips, his fingers continuing to brush over her shoulders and up the curve of her neck. Then, reaching the bandage covering her wound, he abruptly pulled back, his eyes glittering with a suppressed fury. “If Sir Charles Richards is not already dead I will strangle that bastard with my bare hands.”

“I wish someone would,” she said, shivering at the unwelcome memory of Sir Charles’s perverted pleasure as he pressed the dagger to her throat. “He enjoyed frightening
me. No, he enjoyed
hurting
me. I do not think I was the first woman he had tortured.”

“He will never hurt you again.” His hand moved from her bandage to trace the line of her jaw. “That I swear.”

“I am more concerned for those women who have no protection from such a monster,” she said, her voice harsh with concern. “Herrick Gerhardt must be warned.”

His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth. “A worry for tomorrow.”

“I suppose. For tonight I want…” Her thoughts threatened to vanish as he leaned forward to brush her lips with light, teasing kisses. “Halt that.”

“Am I hurting you?”

Leonida pressed her hands against his chest. Of course he was hurting her. Oh, not physically. His touch was pure magic. Which was why, of course, she had been incapable of resisting his seduction. But the knowledge that his life was firmly tied to England and the woman he would one day wed caused a disturbing ache in the center of her heart.

And it would only be worse the longer she spent in his company.

“This is no time for your kisses.”

With a deep sigh, Stefan brushed one last lingering kiss on her mouth before pulling back with a rueful grimace.

“Unfortunately you are right.”

She ignored her pang of disappointment at his ready agreement. She had more important matters to concentrate upon.

“Where is my bag?”

“I presume that Boris left it in the stables with my horse. Do not be foolish.” He firmly pressed her back against the pillows as she made a movement to slide off the mattress. “You will remain in bed, I will collect your bag.”

With a stern glare that warned of dire repercussions if she did not obey, Stefan crossed the flagstone floor to lay another
log on the fire. Only when he was certain the fire was blazing to his satisfaction did he disappear through the door.

Alone, Leonida was left to ponder the realization that her awkward, near lethal journey was at an end.

She had the letters.

Her mother was out of harm’s way.

So why did she feel like crying?

T
HE
R
USSIAN NIGHT AIR
was predictably chilly despite the season. Thank God.

After being alone with Miss Leonida Karkoff, Stefan needed the cold breeze to dampen his throbbing arousal.

And his equally aroused temper.

The woman possessed an astonishing talent to do both in the same moment.

So why was he so determined to ignore every sense of decency and simple logic to return her to Meadowland?

He shook his head, dismissing the discomforting question as he crossed the clearing in the front of the cottage.

“Boris?”

“I do not suppose you come bearing food?” a voice demanded from above.

Tilting back his head, Stefan watched the servant nimbly climb down from a nearby tree.

“Not yet.” He shrugged. “Miss Karkoff’s maid has claimed that her rabbit stew cannot be hurried.”

“Women.” Boris shook his head. “Luckily I saved a few rabbits to roast over a fire. You are welcome to join me.”

“A generous invitation. For the moment, however, I am more interested in collecting Miss Karkoff’s belongings.”

“Ah.” Boris’s grimace was visible in the full moonlight. “I meant to tell you, but it slipped my mind.”

Stefan frowned, sensing he was not going to like whatever Boris had forgotten.

“What?”

“When I settled the horses in the stables I noticed Miss Karkoff’s bag was gone.”

“Damn.” He was right. He didn’t like it. “Was there anything else missing?”

“No. I searched among the trees in the hopes it had simply fallen from your saddle, but I could find nothing.”

Stefan did not bother to demand if the servant was certain he had searched thoroughly. If Boris said the bag was missing, then Stefan knew it would not be found.

“It was taken,” he muttered, his mind already sorting through the various implications.

“I assume so, but who would want it?”

Stefan shook his head before he reached out to clap his companion on the shoulder. That was a question beyond his ability to answer.

“Keep a close guard, Boris. This adventure is not yet done.”

Shoving aside the urge to linger in the cool darkness, Stefan slowly returned to the cottage. His thoughts were churning with possibilities that each seemed more improbable than the last.

Perhaps that was why he missed the narrowing of Leonida’s eyes as he entered the back chamber and halted beside the bed.

“I thought you were bringing my bag,” she said, her voice low and oddly controlled.

“It is gone.”

Before he could guess her intention, she was leaping off the bed, her hair flying about her shoulders.

“What?”

“Damn, stay where you are,” he gritted, plucking her off her feet to lay her back on the mattress. Then, when it was obvious she intended to fight him, he sat on the edge of the bed and grasped her arms in a tight grip.

“What have you done with the letters?” she hissed, her eyes bright with accusation.

He frowned. Christ, she was beautiful with her face flushed and her glorious hair spread across the pillow. He was wise enough, however, to resist the urge to yank her into his arms.

The vixen was quite capable of drawing blood when she was in this mood.

“I told you…”

“You told me that you had them and then you return to claim that they have mysteriously disappeared.” Her suspicious glare seared over his face. “Did you go to order your servant to hide them?”

It took Stefan a long moment to realize that the wench was actually accusing him of stealing the damned letters. His hands tightened on her arms, infuriated by the knowledge she still refused to trust him.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” he demanded, his voice low and threatening. “If I wanted to keep the letters from you I would never have told you I retrieved them to begin with.”

“Perhaps it just now occurred to you what they are worth.”

“Are you suggesting, Miss Karkoff, that I am intending to use my mother’s letters to extort money from the Countess Karkoff?”