Midnight Angel (Stokehurst #1)(27)

“When things are very, very bad,” she continued, “the Russian people have a saying: Vsyo proidyot. Everything will pass. My father used to say—” She stopped with a sharply indrawn breath.

From the expression in her eyes, it was clear that the subject of her father was an emotional one. “Tell me about him,” Luke murmured.

Her eyes brightened with a sheen of tears. “He died a few years ago. He was a good, honorable man, the kind that people trusted to mediate their arguments. He had the ability to see all points of view. Since his death nothing has been the same.” A bittersweet smile touched her lips. “Sometimes I want to talk to him very badly. I can't make myself believe that I never will again. It makes things worse, living so far away from home. Everything I knew of him is back there.”

Luke watched her uneasily. An explosive emotion pressed upward beneath his calm surface, something too dangerous to analyze. After Mary's death, he had concentrated only on survival. Some needs could be satisfied. The rest he had locked away forever. That vault of loneliness and desire had never been threatened, until now. He should send the governess away for good, before it became worse. The argument over the pregnant housemaid had been the perfect excuse to dismiss her, Ashbournes be damned. But somehow he hadn't been able to do it.

He dragged a question from his taut throat. “Will you ever go back?”

“I…” She gave him a glance so wretched and lost that it made his breath stop. “I can't,” she whispered.

In the next instant, she was gone, rushing from the library without taking the book she had come for.

Luke was afraid to follow her. He sat there in a paralysis of emotion and lust. Sinking low in his chair, he glared at the ceiling. God knew he wasn't a fool where women were concerned. He was the last man on earth likely to fall for a mysterious waif. She was too young, too foreign, too much the opposite of everything Mary had been.

At the thought of his wife, Luke stood up, his muscles unlocking. How could he betray Mary this way? He remembered the pleasure of sharing a bed with his wife, the way her warm body had snuggled against his in the night, the way she had kissed him awake each morning. It had always been comfortable between them. After she was gone, he had been driven by physical need to find other women, but it was never the same.

He had never dreamed he would want someone else. Not like this, with his self-control crumbling, his emotions in a revolution. The governess was becoming an obsession, and he couldn't seem to stop it from happening.

He didn't even know her real name.

With a self-mocking laugh, he reached for his brandy. “To you,” he muttered, raising the glass to the chair she had occupied. “Whoever the hell you are.”

Tasia reached her room and shut the door with a bang. She had run up three flights of stairs without stopping. Gasping for breath, she held her hand over a cramp in her side and leaned against the wall. She shouldn't have rushed out of the library, but if she had stayed, there was a good chance she would have burst into self-pitying tears. Talking about Russia had caused homesickness to well up inside her. She wanted to see her mother. She was desperate for familiar people and places. She wanted to hear her own language again, to have someone call her by her real name—

“Tasia.”

Her heart stopped. She looked around the empty room, startled. Had someone whispered her name? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flicker in the armoire mirror. All at once she was filled with fright. She wanted to run in panic, but some terrible force compelled her to take a step forward, and then another, while her staring eyes remained fixed on the mirror.

“Tasia,” she heard again, and she reeled in horror. She covered her mouth with her hand, gripping hard to stifle a scream.

Prince Mikhail Angelovsky stared back at her from the mirror, his eyes dark holes in his blood-smeared face. His bluish lips parted in a leering grin. “Murderess.”

Tasia was riveted by the ghastly sight. There was a strange buzzing in her ears. This wasn't real…It was only a vision, something born of imagination and guilt. She closed her eyes briefly to make it go away, but when she opened them again, the image was still there. She lowered her hand and spoke through numb lips. “Misha,” she faltered, “I didn't mean to kill you—”

“It's on your hands.”

Trembling, Tasia looked down and saw that her hands were drenched with blood. A choked cry escaped her. She clenched her fists and shut her eyes. “Leave me alone,” she sobbed. “I won't listen. Leave me alone.” She was too frightened to pray, to run, to do anything but stand there petrified. Slowly the humming noise faded from her ears. She opened her eyes again, staring at her hands. They were clean and white. The mirror was empty. Somehow she made her way to the bed and sat down, not bothering to blot the fresh tear streaks on her cheeks.

It took a long time to calm herself. When the terror faded, she had no strength left. Lying back on the bed, she stared up at the blurry, shadowed ceiling and used her sleeve to wipe her eyes. It didn't matter that she had no memory of killing Misha. The guilt weighed more heavily on her each day. She supposed there would be other visions, and probably nightmares. Her conscience wouldn't let her forget or ignore what she had done. The murder would always be with her. Her stomach seemed to flip over, and she groaned in quiet misery. “Stop it,” she told herself fiercely. She couldn't torment herself with thoughts of Mikhail Angelovsky, or she would go insane.