Midnight Angel (Stokehurst #1)(78)

Tasia nestled against him. “Take me to bed,” she said, her voice muffled. “That would make me very happy.”

He arched his brows in surprise. “Why, Lady Stokehurst…this is the first advance you've ever made to me. I'm fairly overwhelmed.”

Busily she occupied herself with unfastening his trousers. “Not too overwhelmed, I hope.”

He laughed. “Just don't complain when I keep you awake all night.”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” she whispered as his mouth came over hers.

“What a pity Papa doesn't smoke,” Emma remarked, inspecting the objects poised inside a glass-covered shelf. “That's the handsomest cigarette case I've ever seen.”

“I am glad he doesn't,” Tasia said. “I've always regarded tobacco as a disagreeable substance.”

Alicia, who had agreed to join them at Harrods for an afternoon shopping expedition, met them at the shelf. “I wish Charles had never taken up the habit. Still, it is an elegant case…”

The engraved silver cigarette case was inlaid with gold and set with topaz stones. As the three women stared at it with appraising interest, a store attendant sped toward them. The waxed ends of his mustache twitching with eagerness as he reached them.

“Would the ladies care for a closer look?” he inquired diffidently.

Tasia shook her head. “I wish to purchase a birthday gift for my husband…but not that.”

“Perhaps he would appreciate gold mustache scissors and comb in a leather case?”

“He's clean-shaven, I'm afraid.”

“An umbrella? One with an ivory or silver handle?”

Tasia shook her head. “Too practical.”

“A box of Italian-made handkerchiefs?”

“Too impersonal.”

“A bottle of French cologne?”

“Too smelly,” Emma interrupted.

Tasia laughed at the attendant's perturbed expression. “Perhaps we'll continue to browse,” she said. “I'm certain we'll find something appropriate, sooner or later.”

“Yes, madam.” Disappointed, the attendant left in pursuit of other customers.

Alicia gravitated toward a table laden with beaded handbags, baskets of gauzy embroidered scarves, and rectangular boxes of gloves. Tasia wandered in the opposite direction, drawn by the sight of a painted rocking horse. It was positioned on the floor, beside a row of handsome carved cradles. Carefully she nudged the horse with her foot, causing it to rock gently. A small, private smile touched her lips. With each day that passed, she was becoming more certain that she was pregnant. She imagined what their children would look like, tall, black-haired, and blue-eyed…

“Belle-mère?” Emma said, having followed her and noticed the child's toy. “Now that you are sleeping in Papa's bed, are you going to have a baby?”

“Someday, I expect.” Tasia rested a light hand on Emma's shoulder. “Would you like to have a brother or sister?”

“Yes,” the girl said readily. “Especially a brother. As long as I could help choose the perfect name for him.”

Tasia smiled. “What sort of name?”

“Something special. Leopold, maybe. Or Quinton. Do you like those?”

“Oh, they're quite grand,” Tasia said, picking up a small rattle and jiggling it experimentally.

“Perhaps Gideon…” Emma mused, circling the table. “Or Montgomery…yes, Montgomery…”

While Emma continued to ponder names, Tasia's smile faded. A strange, cold, sick feeling came over her, and she touched her fingers to the table to steady herself. She was disoriented. The taste of fear filtered through her mouth. What is it, what's wrong—”

Her head jerked up. Across the room she saw her nightmare vision, the image that would never leave her. Mikhail…yet it was not Mikhail. The man she had murdered had been pale and dark-haired, and this one was tawny and tanned and lethal…but there were the same eyes…flat yellow wolf-eyes. Mesmerized, Tasia watched the golden figure by the entrance of the store, handsome and as inexorable as the angel of death. He was no specter, no dream.

Prince Nikolas Angelovsky had come for her.

How bizarre, to see him in a department store, while they were surrounded by clerks and attendants and hordes of women. He was dressed in somber dark clothes that should have camouflaged his foreignness but only served to accentuate it. He was the most cruelly beautiful creature she had ever seen in her life, with golden skin and sun streaks in his brown hair, a chiseled face, and the body of a tiger magically transformed into a human.

The baby rattle shook in Tasia's trembling hand. She placed it gently on the felt-covered table. It hurt to smile, causing needles of pain in her frozen cheeks, but Tasia managed it. “Emma,” she said softly, “if I'm not mistaken, you need new gloves.”

“Yes, Samson stole my last ones and chewed them to rags. He never can resist fresh white gloves.”

“Why don't you ask Lady Ashbourne to help you pick out a new pair?”

“All right.”

As Emma left her, Tasia looked up again. Nikolas had vanished. Her gaze swept the room in a swift inventory. There was no sign of him. Her pulse raced at a sickening speed. She skirted the edge of the room with swift strides. Crossing the food hall, she passed rows of iced fish and hanging meats, stacks of grocers' wares, pyramids of jars, boxes of comfits and foreign delicacies. People were turning to look at her. Tasia realized she was breathing with a harsh, sobbing sound. She clamped her mouth shut, her nostrils flaring, her face drained of blood.