Midnight Angel (Stokehurst #1)(48)

Luke reached for the empty brandy snifter. “Another?” he asked brusquely, and she nodded.

He went to refill the glass. Tasia waited until his back was turned before she spoke in a strained voice. “I am Lady Anastasia Ivanovna Kaptereva. Last winter in St. Petersburg I was convicted of murdering my cousin, Prince Mikhail Angelovsky.” She paused as she saw him tense, the muscles of his back locking. “I escaped from prison, and came to England to avoid execution.”

Tasia hadn't intended to prolong the story, but she found herself describing her life in St. Petersburg after her father's death. Somehow she forgot that she was speaking and others were listening. The past rushed over her, and she saw it as if it were all happening again. She saw her mother, Marie Petrovna, swathed in lynx fur, her arms and throat adorned with jewels the size of robin's eggs. And the men who swarmed around her in eager hordes, at parties on the royal yacht, during visits to the opera and theater, at lengthy midnight suppers.

Tasia remembered her first bal blanc, where aristocratic girls were presented as the choicest offerings of the Russian nobility. She had worn a white silk gown, her waist cinched by a girdle of rubies and pink pearls. Men had pursued her, each of them with an eye on the fortune she would inherit someday. But of all the suitors who showed interest, the most notable was Prince Mikhail Angelovsky.

“Mikhail was an animal,” Tasia said with sudden intensity. “When he was sober, he was vicious. The only time he was tolerable was when he inhaled enough opium smoke to put himself in a stupor. He was seldom without his pipe. He also drank quite a lot.” She hesitated, and a blush spread over her face. “Mikhail didn't like women at all. Everyone knew how he was, but his family turned a blind eye to it. When I turned seventeen, the Angelovskys approached my mother. An agreement was made. They decided I would become Mikhail's wife. It was common knowledge that I didn't want the marriage. I begged my mother, my family, the priest, anyone who might listen, not to force me to marry him. But they all said it would be good for the family, keeping two large fortunes closely linked. And the Angelovskys hoped that marriage might reform Mikhail.”

“And your mother? What was her opinion?”

At the sound of Stokehurst's voice, Tasia looked at him for the first time. He was beside her on the settee, his face inscrutable. She held the empty brandy snifter in a tight grip, until the fragile glass threatened to splinter. Carefully Stokehurst pried it from her fingers and set it aside.

“My mother wanted me to be married,” Tasia said, staring into his alert blue eyes. “She didn't like it when the men who came to visit her began to show interest in me. I look very much the way she did in her youth—it made her uncomfortable. She told me that it was my duty to marry for the benefit of the family, and afterward I could fall in and out of love with whomever I wanted. She said I would be very happy as the wife of an Angelovsky, especially…one who preferred boys.”

Stokehurst snorted derisively. “Why?”

“She said that Mikhail wouldn't bother me with his attentions, and I would be free to do as I liked.” At Stokehurst's scathing glance, Tasia shrugged helplessly. “If you knew my mother, you would understand how she is.”

“I understand exactly,” he said, his mouth twisting. “Go on with the story.”

“As a last resort, I decided to visit Mikhail in secret, and beg him to help me. I thought I might be able to reason with him. There was a chance he would listen. So I…I went to see him.” Tasia stopped then. Words tumbled inside her, fragmenting, jamming in her throat until she couldn't speak at all. Feeling a trickle of cold sweat on her temple, she reached up and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It always happened when she tried to remember…She was filled with panic, suffocated with it.

“What happened?” Stokehurst asked softly.

She shook her head, breathing in uneven bursts, unable to get enough air.

“Tasia.” His hand covered hers in a hurtful grip. “Tell me the rest.”

Somehow she forced the words out through her chattering teeth. “I don't know. I went to him, I think…but I don't remember. I was found in the Angelovsky Palace with a knife in my hand…and Mikhail's body…The servants were screaming, and his throat…blood…Oh God, it was everywhere.” Tasia held on to his hand with both of hers, feeling as if a dark pit were opening beneath her, and he was the only thing that kept her from falling. She wanted to fling herself against him, and press deep into the smell of horses and sweat and brandy, and feel his arms around her. Instead she quenched the urge and stayed where she was, staring at him desperately while hot tears splashed from her eyes. He was strangely calm, as steady as a rock, watching her without any sign of shock or horror.

“There were no witnesses to the actual murder?” he asked.

“No, just the servants who found me afterward.”

“There was no proof, then. You can't be certain that you did it.” Luke turned to Charles with a quizzical glance. “There has to be more. They couldn't convict her solely on circumstantial evidence.”

Charles shook his head ruefully. “I'm afraid their system of justice is nothing like ours. The Russian authorities can define a crime any way they choose, withhold any case from the regular courts, imprison a man indefinitely on the mere suspicion that he's committed a crime. They don't require proof or even evidence to convict someone.”