Forever in Your Embrace (42 page)

“Be careful,” the giant warned him ominously. “One less boyar in this city won’t be noticed, I assure you.”

Synnovea glanced between the two men, her hopes rising. Though in league with each other, they apparently shared a mutual dislike. If prodded into a violent quarrel, they might even forget about searching for the Englishman long enough to ensure his escape. “Your hired henchman doesn’t seem to appreciate your elevated status, Aleksei. But then, I must remember, he’s also a prince, albeit of questionable descent. Has he been in your employ very long?”

The lord-of-thieves snorted loudly. “No man employs Ladislaus,” he rumbled. “Your precious boyar came to search me out in Kitaigorod when I let it be known that I was seeking the whereabouts of a certain Englishman. Otherwise, Countess, you wouldn’t be seeing us together.”

Warily Synnovea queried, “Is it your intent to kill Colonel Rycroft?”

“I’ll allow the prince to have his due ere I take mine,” Ladislaus replied and smiled at her mockingly. “In any case, my lady, there’ll be little left for you to enjoy after we’re finished with your precious colonel.”

“
If
you manage to take him,” Aleksei interjected with rancor. “I’m sure this delay will cost you his capture.”

Ladislaus smirked at the other man. “I promised you that we’d take him, and so we shall.”

With that, the lordling thief strode across the room and took his leave. Several moments later, his booming voice was heard outside the bedroom window as he bade Petrov to rouse from his stupor.

Contemptuously Aleksei glanced around the room, disdaining the plain, barren look of it. Then his eyes blazed with sudden fury when he espied the dark splotches that marred the whiteness of the bed linen. With a savage curse he whirled upon Synnovea and lashed out with swiftly spiraling vengeance, laying the back of his hand viciously across her cheek and sending her reeling in a daze across the room. She slammed into the far wall, emitting a muffled groan as her head hit the barrier. Then she staggered back in a stunned stupor and gingerly touched the growing knot on her forehead.

“So, you bitch!” Aleksei snarled in seething rage. “You’ve done what you threatened! You’ve given yourself to that filthy blackguard!”

Synnovea blinked in an earnest attempt to focus her gaze upon her adversary. Considering that the whole side of her head felt as if it had just been slammed against a stone wall, she didn’t think it unusual that her vision and senses were beclouded. Lamely she jeered at the prince, conveying her contempt as she wiped a trickle of blood from a corner of her bruised mouth. “Not long ago I would’ve given myself to Tyrone Rycroft for no other purpose than to thwart your plans, Aleksei, but henceforth, I shall seek his favor with eager diligence, for without a doubt he’s more of a man than you’ll ever hope to be.”

“
You will watch him pay!
” Aleksei railed, incensed by her disparagement. His much-inflated pride was sorely pricked by the realization that she had taken a foreigner to her breast after steadfastly denying him that same privilege the whole of her stay in his mansion. As if that insult wasn’t enough to rile his temper, he had to endure the added indignity of being told that she’d now willingly share her company with the other man. “Because of you, Synnovea, the Englishman will suffer well beyond his feeble endurance.”

A sudden, niggling apprehension encompassed Synnovea’s heart. She didn’t doubt in the least that Aleksei would resort to torture to have his revenge upon his rival. Yet, when she remembered Tyrone’s skill at fighting, it seemed unlikely that any common man could best him. Confidence in his abilities eased her qualms significantly, allowing her to boast, “You’ll have to catch him first, Aleksei, and I really don’t think you or your hired lackeys are skilled enough for that task.”

Aleksei smirked. “I’m of a different opinion, my dear, for you see, Ladislaus and his men have grown to hate the Englishman almost as much as I do. ’Twill be only a matter of time before the colonel falls into their hands. They’ll lie in wait until he appears, and then pounce on him as they would a ravenous dog that has been freed from his cage.” Bending toward her, he sneered into her face. “Once I have your lover within my grasp, my dear, I’ll make sure he remembers this night forever. Before I’m done with him, I’ll see the hide stripped from his back and then assure myself that he’ll never bed you or another woman as long as he lives.”

Some distance from the house, the dense darkness was held secure within a cluster of trees growing near the narrow dirt lane. It was here that Tyrone tarried to canvass the open, rutted stretch. After peering carefully up and down the thoroughfare, he scanned the area bordering it. No dark specter moved beyond the copse, not even the coachman who snoozed atop his conveyance a short distance away. Tyrone silently unsheathed his sword and crept to the outer edge of the trees, warily pausing there for a long moment as he again surveyed the terrain. He was unable to put aside the feeling of uneasiness that had settled down upon him after his entry into the grove. He sensed that all was not as it should be despite the openness of the place beyond where he stood. Still, he was unable to detect any movement or even a shadow which might have alerted him to another’s presence. He was, however, a man who had learned to take heed when his instincts warned him of danger. For the sake of caution, he eased back a step and was about to turn in stealthful retreat when a sudden pain exploded against his head. He sagged to his knees as a billion piercing lights burst in a sea of radiant colors before his eyes and then slowly dimmed to a dull shade of gray. Through the tenebrous gloom, he became vaguely aware of a dark shape stepping close and an arm lifting high above him. His hampered faculties were sluggish and slow to react as a stout club came crashing down upon his skull once again, darkening the murky shadows into the deepest shade of night until all that remained of his world was total oblivion.

I
n the silence of the still night, a growing din reached the upstairs bedroom, and Aleksei raised his head to listen as the sounds of rumbling wheels and thundering hooves heralded the approach of a coach and a large party of riders. Loudly shouted orders accompanied the arrival of the conveyance and its escort in front of the colonel’s quarters. A moment later, Ladislaus called up the stairs from the room below.

“You can come down now, Your Most Gracious Highness.” The disdain in his tone could not have gone undetected. “We’ve caught the Englishman.”

Synnovea gasped as the renegade’s words struck fear into her heart. Though Tyrone’s abilities had seemed to extend well beyond that of normal men, she now had to face the full import of Aleksei’s threats and could only tremble in deepening apprehension as she thought of the vengeance the prince and the band of highwaymen intended to exact from her lover.

“Now you’ll see!” Aleksei flaunted his triumph with a victorious chortle. Catching Synnovea’s arm in a cruel vise, he hauled her along with him as he hurried down the stairs. When she stumbled to her knees after leaving the last step, he dragged her to her feet and shoved her toward the door. “Get out there, bitch!”

The rented livery had been halted in front of the house where Ladislaus now waited with Petrov and several of his men. Another score or more miscreants were still mounted beyond the coach. Confronted by their vast number, Synnovea began to understand the reason for Tyrone’s lack of success in gaining his freedom. There were enough rogues to have formed a human web around a wide area, greatly reducing his chances for escape. It was just as apparent that Aleksei had been willing to promise Ladislaus and his men a generous stipend to see his orders carried out, one way or another.

Aleksei’s long fingers gripped Synnovea’s arm, and with a savage curse he thrust her roughly against the side of the carriage, drawing a sharp wince of pain from her. Having been completely thwarted in his efforts to claim the girl as his mistress, he was hardly in a mood to relent. He stalked toward her and, bracing a hand against the conveyance, took a finely boned wrist within his grasp. He smirked in smug satisfaction as he squeezed it nigh to the point of breaking and then chortled vindictively when she writhed in silent agony. “I know you’ll never bow to me for your own comfort, but listen well, my girl. If you try anything, I can assure you that it will go far worse for the Englishman.”

Having observed the intimidation, Ladislaus stepped beside them and, with a satirical glint in his pale eyes, fixed the boyar with a chiding stare. Then, as if amused by the prince’s baffled regard, the thief grinned broadly and swung open the carriage door. “Your quarry is inside, Great Prince Aleksei,” he announced, jerking a thumb inwardly. “Your rival is trussed up like a goose awaiting a roasting, just the way you wanted him. He shouldn’t do you any harm now.”

“Excellent!” Aleksei exclaimed buoyantly.

Feeling a mixture of terror and revulsion roiling within her, Synnovea wrenched free of Aleksei’s grasp and pushed with all of her might against his chest, managing to catch him unawares. He stumbled back at the impetus of her assault. Synnovea didn’t waste a moment, but scrambled up into the carriage’s dark interior just as Aleksei recovered his balance. He thrust out an arm toward the brigands on the far side of the coach and barked out a strident order for them to secure the door. Then he scurried into the conveyance after Synnovea and seized her arm to halt her flight, but he soon realized there was no need to restrain her, for with a moan of despair she sank to her knees beside the seat where the colonel lay as still as death.

The ominously inert form cauterized Synnovea’s mind with burgeoning fear. She wasn’t even sure that Tyrone was breathing. He lay on his side with his wrists and ankles tightly bound. A woven leather rope had been tightly looped several times among the weighty hemp cords that secured his hands and feet, nullifying any possibility of him launching an attack once he roused from his senseless state. The thieves’ precautions had at least one benefit. They reassured Synnovea that Tyrone was still alive.

Fearing the gravity of his injuries, Synnovea searched beneath his shirt and along his long torso for an open wound. Her hopes rallied briefly when she found no evidence of an injury, but her worry intensified sharply into panic when she slipped her fingers through his tousled hair to cradle his head and immediately discovered a large, swollen lump, the ridge of which was marred by a bloody gash. She lifted her hand before her face and, in paralyzed horror, stared through the tenebrous gloom at the dark splotches of glistening wetness now staining her fingers.

“That’s only the beginning,” Aleksei needled, recognizing her rapidly expanding trepidations. His cocky arrogance was greatly inflated by the power he presently held in his grasp. Now that the Englishman was his hostage, he could make the girl plead for mercy, and he promised himself that he’d see her groveling at his feet before he finished with the man. Piece by bloody piece, he intended to exact his revenge upon the colonel until the girl was reduced to a quivering mass of daunted humanity. “Take comfort, my dear. Your cherished colonel is still alive, but he’ll soon beg us to kill him.”

“You can’t blame him for what I did!” Synnovea cried harshly, jerking around to glare through welling tears at her adversary.

“Oh, but I can, Synnovea,” Aleksei assured her almost pleasantly and lifted his broad shoulders in an indolent shrug as the conveyance lurched into motion. The moon was bright enough to illumine the interior, which had been darkened, and in its silver-hued glow he could see tears glistening in her dark eyes and streaming in shining rivulets down her pale cheeks. It incensed him that she could display so much concern for the colonel when, in sharp contrast, she hadn’t shown the slightest bit of remorse for the wounds she had inflicted upon him. Even now, his nose was still sensitive to the touch, not to mention the lump that had formed after the fracture, marring its aristocratic lines. “Colonel Rycroft has stolen from me a very special pleasure I had reserved entirely for myself, my dear, and for that I intend to make him pay dearly.” Smiling in self-complacency, Aleksei bent toward her. “And you will watch it all, my beautiful Synnovea, as part of your punishment.”

Her eyes grew cold with hatred. “Reserved for yourself, Aleksei? I thought it was your intention to deliver me unsullied to Vladimir.”

Aleksei swept a knuckle across his mustache as he sniffed in stilted arrogance. “I might have allowed your husband first taste, but then again, I might not have.”

Synnovea bit her tongue to keep from venting several appellations that would have done the cocky boyar justice. If she dared, in all probability he’d spite her by heaping more violence upon Tyrone’s frame. Yet maintaining her silence hardly diminished the hatred she felt toward him. Even the idea of sitting within close proximity to the man sickened her, but she could do something to remedy that situation.

Pushing herself up from the floor, Synnovea ignored Aleksei’s sudden wariness and, gently lifting Tyrone’s head, slid into the seat beneath it, giving no thought to the blood that would stain her gown as she laid his head in her lap.

“How loving and kind you are to him!” Aleksei derided with a caustic laugh. “I’m sure the colonel will feel greatly indebted to you once I explain that he was nothing more than a petty pawn in your frivolous little game. After the jewels of his manhood have been stripped from his loins, I’m sure he’ll want to heap accolades of honor upon your winsome head.”

Synnovea clutched a trembling hand to her throat and averted her face, tormented by his threat and the role she had played in bringing Tyrone into his hands. She knew she wouldn’t be able to live at peace with herself if Aleksei accomplished everything he vowed to do. It would be far better if the overflowing draught of his dark vengeance fell upon her head alone.