Midnight Angel (Stokehurst #1)(94)

Tasia was stricken with panic. She reached for her husband, clinging to his lean waist. “I won't go unless you're with me. I can't leave you now.”

Luke smiled reassuringly. In full view of Marie and Nikolas, he pressed a kiss to her lips. “Everything's going to be all right,” he murmured. “I'll follow you soon. Go, and please don't argue.”

Nikolas interrupted, unable to help himself. “‘Please don't argue’?” he repeated acidly. “Now I believe what they say about Englishmen being ruled by their women. Pleading with her to obey your commands, when you should be disciplining her with a leather strap. The day any self-respecting Russian speaks to a disobedient wife that way—” He broke off and regarded the two of them with horrified disapproval.

Tasia scowled back at him. “Thank God I'm not married to a ‘self-respecting Russian.’ You don't want wives, you want slaves! Heaven help a woman here with any intelligence or spirit, or opinions of her own.”

Nikolas looked over her head at Luke, his golden eyes suddenly glinting with amusement. “You've ruined her,” he said. “She's better off in England.”

Obeying her husband's nudge, Tasia let go of him and went toward Nikolas. She began to pull the hood of the mantle over her head. All at once she stopped as she saw a shadow in the sitting room and heard the sound of a carpet-muffled footstep.

The others heard at the same time. Luke was the first to react, moving into the sitting room with quick, noiseless strides. He grabbed the intruder, an eavesdropping sentry, and clapped his hand over the man's mouth. The sentry struggled so hard that they both slammed sideways into the wall. Gamely Luke held on, grunting with the effort of subduing the intruder. One shout would alarm the entire houseful of guards, and ruin all chances of getting Tasia out of Russia.

Luke was dimly aware of Nikolas's approach. There was a flash of steel, and a silent, startling explosion of violence, and then the man stopped struggling in his arms, beginning to sag heavily. Gasping for breath, Luke realized that Nikolas had stabbed the sentry and had shoved a wad of fabric—a towel, or perhaps a coat—over the fatal chest wound to staunch the flow of blood. The soldier gave one least death convulsion in Luke's arms.

“Don't let his blood splash on the carpet,” Nikolas muttered, easing the limp body away from him.

Luke felt sick. He caught a glimpse of the women's faces: Marie's tense and pale, Tasia's blank. Resolutely he swallowed back the twinge of nausea and helped Nikolas carry the dead sentry out of the suite. Several doors along the hallway there was a room piled with rows of paintings and unused furniture. They worked quickly, depositing the body in the corner and concealing it with a desk and a stack of framed canvases.

“Another skeleton for the family closet,” Nikolas said facetiously, taking a critical glance at their handiwork. His face was like granite, his yellow eyes eerily flat. Luke's first reaction was to despise Angelovsky for his callousness, but he noticed that Nikolas had clenched his fist so tightly that his knuckles formed white peaks amid the bloodstains on his skin. “You're a fool if you think the sight of death disturbs me,” Nikolas murmured. “It used to, but now it's the absence of feeling that bothers me.”

Luke eyed him skeptically. “Whatever you say.”

“Let's go,” Nikolas said. “All this scuffling, and moving furniture—soon they'll discover the soldier is missing and we'll have an entire regiment up here.”

Tasia was very calm as she descended the stairs on Nikolas's arm. She kept her head bent, as a sorrowful mother might, letting the hood of the mantle drape over her face. The death of the soldier had shocked her into a state of absolute clarity. She took strength from Nikolas's cold determination. She was leaving the palace where Misha had died and her strange journey had begun, except now there was Luke, and a home to which she desperately wanted to return. Inside the cloak, she slid her free hand over her abdomen, where her unborn baby nestled. God, just give me the chance to go back, let us all reach safety…Her lips moved in a soundless prayer as she walked with Nikolas through the hall of soldiers and felt their gazes on her.

Someone stepped in front of them, forcing them to halt. Tasia curled her fingers into Nikolas's wrist. He didn't flinch from the bite of her nails. “Colonel Radkov?” Nikolas said coolly. “Is there something you want?”

“Yes, Your Highness. Madam Kaptereva is renowned as a woman of surpassing beauty. I would like to be honored with a brief glimpse of her.”

Nikolas's reply dripped with contempt. “The kind of request a stupid peasant would make. Have you no respect for a mother's grief, that you would insult her in such a manner?”

There was a long, challenging silence. Nikolas's forearm was taut beneath Tasia's hand.

Finally Radkov backed down. “Forgive me, Madam Kaptereva,” he murmured. “No insult intended.”

Tasia nodded beneath the green mantle, continuing to walk with Nikolas as the officer stepped aside. Carefully she stepped over the threshold and through the outside vestibule. She felt the cool night air on her face. Her foot touched the pattern of colored bricks artfully embedded in the side of the street. They went to a waiting carriage, which was poised outside a circle of light from the streetlamp.

“Quickly,” Nikolas said, pushing her up the tiny steps and into the carriage.