Simply Voracious (37 page)

“And what’s wrong with that? You’re the one who is always reminding me that I’m going to be a duke!”

She sighed. “I wish I hadn’t. Forcing myself to behave like a Haymore has led me into all kinds of stupid decisions.”

“Like marrying me rather than facing your parents with the truth.”

“No.” She touched his cheek. “That was actually one of my better choices.”

He turned his head until his mouth brushed her fingertips and breathed in her particular scent.

“And your point is?”

“I don’t want you to be a copy of my father,” she said earnestly. “I want you to be yourself.”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t think I know who I am anymore.”

It was so quiet that he could hear her soft breathing and the faint beat of her heart.

“
I
know you.”

He wanted to bury his face between her breasts and weep. “I thought I’d destroyed your love for me. I’m so sorry, Lucky, sorry for everything.”

“I could never stop loving you.” She hesitated. “More to the point, do you think you could love me?”

He framed her face in his hands. “I do love you. I always have.”

She frowned. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

“What else is there? Madame Helene was right. If we chose to love each other
and
Con, and it makes us happy, what does it have to do with anyone else?”

Her eyes shone with tears, but she kissed his nose. “Now come and eat your supper, and let me tell you what Constantine had to say about his errant wife. I think he might need our help.”

27

C
on stared up at the façade of the discreet dwelling on Plaistow Street and considered his approach. If he used his real name, would Natasha let him through the door? Somehow he doubted it. The last thing he wanted was to cause a scene and bring them both to the attention of the
ton.

He lifted the knocker and rapped sharply on the door. It took but a moment for a butler to reply. Con mustered his most earnest smile and increased the thickness of his Russian accent.

“Good morning. Is your mistress at home?”

“Good morning, sir. Might I ask who is wanting to call at such an early hour?”

“My name in Count Andrei Federov. I am an old friend of the family visiting briefly from France. Ask Madame if she will see me on a matter of urgency regarding my wife.”

The butler stepped back to allow Con into the hall. “I will go and inquire if Madame is receiving visitors.”

Con resigned himself to a long wait. Even if it was Natasha, she might not remember the Federovs or care enough to see them again. He could only hope her natural curiosity would overcome her scruples. The house, even though furnished in the most elegant style, was clearly rented, which he hoped indicated that his wife and her family weren’t intending to remain permanently in England.

The butler came down the stairs and bowed to Con. “Madame will receive you now, Count Andrei.”

“Thank you,” Con said.

He ascended the stairs behind the butler, careful to conceal as much of himself as he could before Natasha got her first good look at him. If he could just get rid of the butler and into the same room, he would conclude his business with her regardless of her desires.

“Count Andrei Federov, Madame.”

Con stepped forward and took Natasha’s hand. Her mouth opened, and Con murmured, “Don’t scream, Natasha. Let your butler leave so that we can talk in peace.”

Her blue eyes fixed on his face and she paled. He felt her trembling and helped her sit down again. When the door closed behind the butler, Con took a seat opposite his wife and studied her carefully. He hadn’t seen her for fourteen years, and yet she hardly looked much older. She still had that helpless air of fragility that had both enchanted and exasperated him as a youth.

“Constantine, how did you find me? Why did you find me?” Natasha whispered, her hand pressed to her throat. “What do you want?”

Con stared at her. “What do you think I want?”

Her lips trembled. “To ruin me?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

She looked away from him, and he tried to think of a more conciliatory approach. “I didn’t intend to find you. I simply wanted to end our marriage by declaring you dead.”

She shuddered. “That was hardly kind.”

“I thought you
were
dead. It wasn’t about kindness or the lack of it. I simply wanted to end the uncertainty.”

“And instead, you have stirred up all this trouble for me.”

Belatedly Con remembered something else about Natasha. Everything had always revolved around her needs. “Natasha, you are hardly blameless in this. You chose to leave Moscow with our enemies and come to France. You chose to marry another man without first finding out if I was living or dead.”

“Of course I didn’t try and find out about you! It would have caused the same horrible scandal you are trying to create now!”

“But your marriage is invalid because I am still alive.”

Natasha hunched her shoulders at him. “I married Claude in a civil ceremony in France. It is not the same. And I had very good reasons for leaving Moscow with him! Did you know that people were eating their horses and dogs?”

“I feared that would happen. That’s why I wrote and pleaded with you to leave the city before the French arrived.”

“There is no point in arguing about it now, Constantine. I had to leave, and Claude was willing to take me.” Her blue eyes filled with tears. “If you hadn’t been so selfish and come home instead, I wouldn’t have been left with no other choice.”

Con bit back his retort. There was no point in reminding her that his military duties had prevented him from rushing to her side or explaining his anguish at abandoning her. She would only ever see her own part in any crisis.

“As you said, there is no point in rehashing the past. The question is, what do we intend to do now?”

“What do you mean?” She stopped dabbing at her eyes with her lace handkerchief and fixed him with a suspicious stare.

“As you said, I have inadvertently stirred up the Russian community and have perhaps compromised your identity. Does your husband know about me?”

“Of course not. I told him you were dead.”

Con winced at that but persevered. “Who else apart from Andrei and Anna Federov know your true identity?”

“No one. Once I realized I had been foolish to seek their help, I kept away from the Russians in France.”

“So it is possible that we could quietly arrange for a divorce by applying to a Russian Orthodox bishop or even the Tsar. It would take time, but I’m sure another year or so won’t make much of a difference to us.”

“There is no need to be sarcastic, Constantine. This is entirely your fault anyway.” Natasha sniffed.

Con ignored the provocation and carried on speaking. “If you don’t intend to tell your husband the truth, I assume your French civil union will stand if neither of us protests it.”

He rose to his feet. “Shall we leave it at that, then? I’ll tell everyone that your death has been confirmed, and eventually people will forget I even asked the question.”

“You make it seem so simple.”

“It is simple. I just wish you had sought me out so that I didn’t have to resort to discovering you by stealth.”

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t think you would be so reasonable, Constantine. You had a very quick temper when we were married.”

“So you just hoped I’d be killed during the war, leaving you free to do whatever you wanted?”

She stiffened. “That is none of your concern. I did what I had to do. I was frightened and alone and . . .”

Con held up his hand. “I know, Natasha, and I don’t blame you for accepting help when it was offered to you.” And to his surprise, he realized that he really didn’t. All his anguish and guilt over her supposed death had disappeared with his discovery that she was alive. “You were very young and in an intolerable situation.”

She looked at him then. “That is very sweet of you.”

He wondered if she would finally apologize, but knew it was unlikely and that it didn’t matter anymore. He tried to picture Lucinda behaving like Natasha. She would have found a different way to survive, and would never have abandoned him or Paul so easily in the first place.

“Do you intend to stay in England, Natasha?”

“With you here?” She sighed as though he were being deliberately difficult. “I don’t want to be forever avoiding you at all the best functions. That would be tiresome.” She shrugged. “I
suppose
I will have to persuade Claude to return to France. It will not be too difficult. He still hates the English.”

Despite everything, Con found himself wanting to smile. Only Natasha could trivialize fourteen years of suffering and uncertainty into something that only affected her social standing and convenience.

“I will endeavor to ignore you in the meantime, then.” He bowed. “It might help if you didn’t send your children around to my lodgings with threatening notes.”

Her smile died. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Your eldest son,” Con explained patiently. “I caught him trying to deliver one of the notes you wrote me, but he escaped.”

Two red spots of color highlighted Natasha’s cheeks. “You must be mistaken. Why would I seek you out? I want nothing to do with you!”

“Perhaps you might have a word with your son, then, and explain that,” Con said gently.

“My eldest son is only eight. I doubt he is the boy you claim to have seen!”

Con inclined his head. Natasha had never been a very successful liar, but he was disinclined to get into an argument with her now. “I’ll keep you informed through the Russian ambassador as to my efforts for our legal divorce, Madame, and bid you good day. Thank you for seeing me.”

Con went down the stairs, where a solitary footman lingered by the door. For the first time in many years he felt at peace within himself. While he waited for his hat and coat, he glanced back up at the landing where he heard the chatter of young voices. He doubted Natasha would want her children to see him, so he backed farther into the shadows below the staircase.

As the children stomped down the stairs, they argued happily in French about a number of seemingly unconnected subjects all at the same time, with no one actually answering anyone. Con found himself smiling as he listened. He missed that cheerful sense of family more than he wanted to admit, but he’d left all that behind in Russia, and he certainly didn’t want to return there.

“Count Andrei?”

He turned to find the footman looking uncertainly around the hall over the heads of the children, who, of course, all turned to look at him too. There was nothing he could do to avoid their attention, so he smiled and took the proffered garments with a murmured word of thanks in Russian. He tried to avoid looking directly at the children and their governess as he passed, only noticing that there were two girls and a boy and that the boy appeared to be the youngest.

At the bottom of the steps he looked back and caught the pale gray gaze of the eldest girl, who was glaring at him in a most un-child-like way. Con couldn’t tear his eyes away, and eventually the nursery party swept past him with their governess and headed toward the park.

“Oh, God,” Con murmured as a thousand possibilities rushed through his head. He hurried back up the steps and pushed past the startled butler. He pounded up the stairs and headed for the room where he’d last seen Natasha.

She wasn’t there, and he turned around wildly.

“Natasha! Damn well come back here and face me!”

There was no reply, and he strode back toward the landing, only to find his way barred by the butler and several other burly members of the household.

“Madame wishes you to leave now, sir,” the butler said loudly. “If you do not, she will call the watch.”

Con stared at the butler for a long moment before he could remember how to speak in English. “Tell your mistress that she cannot hide from me forever. I will be back, and I will demand some answers!”

He pushed past the butler, went down the stairs, and back into the street. His gaze strayed in the direction the governess had taken, but he had no grounds for his suspicions and no intention of confronting a child. He realized he was shaking and that he had no idea what to do next.

He needed someone to listen to him, but who in God’s name would want to do that? His gift of keeping people at a distance meant he had few true friends and many acquaintances. He wanted the St. Clares, but even though Lucinda had offered to help him, she was at odds with Paul, and he wouldn’t make things worse for either of them. He was truly alone.

He spotted a hackney cab and climbed in, giving the driver his address. If he had no one to talk to, and no one who cared, he might as well go home and get drunk.

“There is a person here who wishes to see you or Lady Lucinda, sir,” Parsons announced.

Glad of the interruption, Paul looked up from the accounts book. “What kind of ‘person,’ Parsons?”

“A Russian, sir.”

“Do you mean Lieutenant Colonel Delinsky?”

Parsons looked pained. “Of course not, sir. The lieutenant colonel is a
gentleman
.”

“And this person is not?”

“He claims to be Lieutenant Colonel Delinsky’s servant.”

Paul put down his pen. “Then why didn’t you say so? Send him in immediately.”

Parsons returned with a short, swarthy-faced Russian whom Paul had no difficulty in recognizing from his visits to Con’s lodgings.

“Gregor, it is a pleasure to see you again. How may I help you?”

After a grudging nod at Parsons, Gregor took off his hat and faced Paul. “My master is sick.”

“Has he seen a physician?”

Gregor sniffed. “He is drinking. It is not good for his soul.”

“Did he ask you to come and see me?”

“No, he did not. He has too much pride.”

“But you think I should come anyway.”

Gregor thumbed the brim of his hat. “He needs you, sir. Something terrible has happened if he starts to drink.”

Paul scribbled a note to Lucky and then stood up. “I’ll come with you.”