Prince of Dreams (Stokehurst #2)(12)

Apparently deciding he was mocking her, Emma glared at him and turned back to the sink. “I don't like poetry.”

“What do you read, then?”

“Veterinary manuals and newspapers.” She lifted the heavy bucket from the sink, breathing hard with the effort.

Automatically he tried to take it. “Allow me—”

“I'm used to it,” she said gruffly. “Let go.”

Nikolas raised his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender. “By all means.”

Emma's thick auburn brows lowered in a scowl. She pointed to another bucket nearby. “If you want to help, carry that.”

Nikolas complied, rolling up his sleeves in a few deft twists. The bucket was filled with approximately twelve pounds of fresh meat scraps. The scent of blood filled his nose, and he hesitated before picking it up.

“Squeamish?” Emma taunted. “This sort of work is rather beneath you, isn't it?”

Nikolas didn't reply, although she was right. There had never been any need or question of his performing this sort of labor. Like the other men of his social circles, he took his exercise in the form of riding, hunting, fencing, and boxing.

As he grasped the bucket handle and lifted it, the blood smell became stronger. Rich, salty-sweet…His fingers locked, and he went still as a memory sprang to mind…dark and sickening images…He struggled to push them away, but they rushed over him in a red tide.

Blood oozed and trickled over his chest. His back was scored with lash marks, while the coarse rope around his wrists had torn a deep channel through skin and muscle. Peotr Petrovich Ruvim, the Imperial interrogator, touched his face with gentle fingertips, blocking a salty trickle of sweat from falling into his eyes. Although he was fiendishly proficient in the art of torture, Ruvim did not appear to enjoy it. “Isn't it enough?” he asked quietly. “Won't you confess now, Your Highness?”

“I've done nothing,” Nikolas croaked.

It was a lie, and they all knew it. He was a murderer. He had killed samvel Shurikovsky, the tsar's favorite adviser, but since nothing could be proved, they had accused him of treason. In these turbulent days of reactionaries and reformists, there was danger for the tsar everywhere. Evidence wasn't required to imprison a man indefinitely; suspicion was all that was necessary.

For a week Nikolas had been subjected to daily sessions with Ruvim and other government officials in which they inflicted pain just short of the limit that would kill him. He was no longer human. He was only a suffering beast, waiting for the time to come when the misery ended and he could take his secrets to the grave.

Ruvim sighed and spoke to the others. “Bring the knout again.”

“No,” Nikolas said, while a shudder racked his na**d body. He couldn't stand the whip anymore, the searing crack of it ripping through his flesh until it reached bone…and all the time, questions buzzing in his ears—“Do you have sympathy for the Nihilists? Do you agree with the tsar's policies?” The irony was, he had never concerned himself with politics. All he cared about was his land and his family.

Ruvim pulled a hot poker from the pit of coals and held it close to Nikolas's face. “Would you prefer this to the knout, Your Highness?”

The flare of hear made Nikolas shiver violently. He nodded and let his head hang forward, sweat and tears dripping from his jaw—

“What is it?” Emma asked. She glanced at his bare arms, and her expression went blank. Her eyes returned to his face. “Oh,” she said softly.

Nikolas stiffened. He always kept his shirtsleeves buttoned over his wrists. Strange, that he would forget to hide them around Emma. But they were no surprise to her. She had seen them before, when she was a child.

He let out a slow breath and forced himself to relax. “You seem irritable today,” he said with deliberate casualness. “Have I offended you, cousin?”

Taking his cue, Emma began to walk away from the building. To his relief, she didn't mention the scars. “Lately your entire gender offends me,” she replied pertly.

“Because Lord Milbank abandoned you?”

“He didn't abandon me, he was driven away, and—” She turned suddenly, water sloshing over the rim of her bucket. “How did you know? Oh, God, is it being talked about in London? Have the gossips gotten wind of it?”

“There are rumors.”

“Damn.” Emma flushed. “Well, I don't care what anyone says. Let them do their worst.” Her shoulders hunched defensively. “It wasn't Adam's fault, you know. My father behaved like a modernday Genghis Khan. Adam had no choice but to leave me and go on with his life.”

“Milbank was too weak for you.”

“You don't know anything about it.”

“If he wanted you, he should have fought for you.”

“Adam is more civilized than that,” she said defensively.

“Civilized?” Nikolas repeated, holding her gaze. “Is that the kind of man you want?”

Suddenly there was a twinkle of reluctant amusement in Emma's eyes. She glanced down at her dirt-streaked shirt and trousers. “Well, yes. I'm so terribly uncivilized that I need someone to balance me. Don't you agree?”

“No,” he said softly. “You need someone who will allow you to be as uncivilized as you want.”