One Night of Sin (19 page)

Tucking the end of his bandage in securely around his biceps, Becky nodded, avoiding eye contact. She detected his closer scrutiny; she could feel his shrewd gambler’s gaze reading her face.

“You saw something in the gatehouse that you did not expect to find.” His blue eyes flickered with intrigue. “Something you were not supposed to see?”

She swallowed hard and nodded.
Something terrible.
Turning away in hesitation, she gazed at the statue of the archangel battling the serpent.

“Becky?” he murmured, drawing back her attention with a gentle caress on her arm.

She turned with a tumultuous stare, her heart clenching as she gazed at him. “If I tell you the rest, you can’t back out anymore.”

“I don’t want out, Becky.” He took her hand. “I’m on your side,” he said softly. “Everything you’ve told me makes me all the more committed to helping you.”

She leaned closer and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

He nodded, and then she related the conclusion of her dark tale. . . .

The night was eerily still as she slipped outside and hung back for a moment, clinging to the shadows as she scanned the area for Mikhail’s guards. The Cossacks were nowhere in sight. Becky prayed they had not returned to the village to cause more trouble.

Satisfied that the coast was clear, she darted toward the thicket where the gatehouse was obscured, her small bag of supplies bumping against her side as she ran. It held little more than a candle and tinderbox for light and a small digging spade.

Sprinting through the kitchen garden and across the carriage drive, her footfalls made quiet crunches on the gravel before she reached soft turf again and raced on.

Once more she had used the secret passageways to exit the house unseen, waiting until full darkness had fallen. Now all her thoughts were focused on finding the Rose of Indra.
Among the lilies . . .

Ahead, the woods loomed, indigo-shadowed, mysterious; above, ragged clouds wound around the crescent moon.

She braced herself as she entered the woods, but had to slow her pace, fighting her way through vines and brambles. It was so very dark that she almost missed the humped roof of the gatehouse slumbering under its ivy blanket. Changing course, she picked her way toward it, climbing over a fallen log, then jumping when an owl hooted from somewhere nearby.

At last she crept up to the stone gatehouse, moving cautiously around the outbuilding until she found the side that had once faced the road. Her gaze pierced the night’s gloom to home in on the door. She walked toward it, her heart beating faster.

Inside, it was pitch-black, probably untouched for a hundred years except for her childhood explorations over a decade ago. She lowered her bag to the floor and bent down to take out the tinderbox. Feeling for the flint in the darkness, she managed to strike a flame and quickly transferred it to the candle.

Cupping the teetering fire with her hand to protect it from the gentle draft she felt upon her face, she lifted the light and gazed at her surroundings. The front room was quite bare, with naught but a fireplace and a steep flight of rotting steps leading to the loft above. But as her gaze continued to travel around the room, her confidence grew as she scanned the frieze adorning the interior of the gatehouse: white plaster lilies on a purple ground. Surely the ruby was still hidden in here somewhere.

She followed the frieze around the room, searching for any more clues about where the jewel might be hidden. As her gaze traveled around the heights of the room and over the elaborate cornices, it came to rest on a modest roundel situated between two small high windows shaped like fleurs-de-lis. The barest silver glimmer of moonlight shone through them. Below the frieze, the roundel was only about as large as a dinner plate and bore the Talbot family crest. Something drew Becky to it.

She crossed to a large old storage trunk by the wall and climbed up onto it, setting her candle on it beside her. Then she stood on tiptoe and reached up with both hands to see if she could remove the roundel from the wall.

It was a struggle, and bits of plaster dust fell into her eyes, but she blinked them away and pulled hard. The roundel came off the wall. Steadying herself from the sudden jerking motion, she set it down, leaning it against the wall near her feet, then peered up at the circle of plaster she had exposed, hard and brittle and ivory with age.

Nothing.

She poked at it with her hand, but there was no secret hiding place, no tiny vault where a jewel could be stored.
Blast.
Determined to continue her search, she got down off the trunk, but her toe kicked the roundel and it rolled away like a discus. As she picked up her candle again, she glanced at the errant roundel and something caught her eye as it made several swirling passes a few feet away and landed on the floor, faceup.

Furrowing her brow, Becky picked it up and slowly turned it over. A hushed gasp escaped her lips. A small leather pouch was attached to the back of the roundel, fixed there by a little hook driven into the wood and tied in place by two suede strings.

Her heart began beating impossibly fast. With shaking fingers she untied the strings and opened the pouch, emptying its contents into her hand.

The fat, bloodred ruby slid out of the pouch and fell into her waiting palm.

She stood there, openmouthed, staring at it. It was real! The Rose of Indra! Somehow, finding it exceeded her wildest imaginings. She let out a tiny screech of glee and twirled once on her heel in sheer joy, but then heard a noise.

A low, animal sort of groan.

She froze and held her breath, listening. It came from the adjoining chamber. Gooseflesh crept down her arms as she realized that someone—or something—was in there. Perhaps a wounded animal, for she sensed a creature in pain. Perhaps one of the barn cats had been in a fight and fled there to lick its wounds.

But the scraping sound that followed could not have been made by a little cat.
Oh, Lord,
she thought, her heart pounding. Perhaps some aged vagrant had taken shelter in here to escape the workhouse, for hard times besieged England. If so, he had nothing to fear. She could offer him something to eat.

Steeling her courage, Becky approached the door that connected the two small chambers and lifted the light.

“Hullo?” she called softly, but immediately upon opening the door, she smelled stale urine and the faint tinge of blood. A stirring in the corner drew her frightened glance. “Wh-Who’s there?”

“Aidez-moi,”
came a parched, raspy whisper.

“Show yourself!”

Her knees turned to jelly as a human silhouette unfolded itself in the shadowed corner and rose with a pitiful movement, stepping cautiously toward the light. Becky beheld a barefooted man in torn trousers and a loose white shirt hanging off him, much stained, with ruffled sleeves.

A gentleman’s shirt.

“Dear God.” She laid her hand across her mouth and stared, her eyes wide.

He had dark hair that had gone shaggy; he was tall and powerful of frame, but badly underfed. His face was gaunt, hollows under his high cheekbones, just above the edge of his rough beard.

His dark eyes filled with terror as he glanced toward the window, then again at her, imploringly.
“Aidez-moi, s’il vous plaît, mademoiselle.”

She recoiled against the door. “You’re a Frenchman!”

“Non, non! Je suis Russe. Je suis Russe.”

“What? Roose? Your name is Roose?” She heard the shrill note of alarm in her own voice, but she couldn’t help it. Her heart was pounding wildly.

He struggled to make her understand. “
Non!
Rooseeah.
Je suis de
Rooseeah.”

“Roose-ee-ah?” she echoed in bewilderment. “Russia? Oh! You’re a Russian?”

“Oui! Je suis Russe!”
More babble.

Becky shook her head frantically, understanding none of it. “What are you doing in my gatehouse?”

He rattled off two or three silky-smooth paragraphs in French, enough to convince her by his lordly bearing that he was no commoner, but she could not understand a word.

He fell silent at her blank expression, then dropped to his knees with an anguished stare and bowed his head, half weeping, needing no further language to make it plain that he was begging for her help. It was then that she realized the man’s hands were chained behind him.

Appalled comprehension filled her mind. So, this was what Mikhail was hiding. This was why her cousin had lingered so long in Yorkshire. Why the prince was holding this man prisoner in the gatehouse, she could not fathom, nor did she care. The foreigner could be dangerous, but it was a chance that every instinct bade her take.

Moving with brisk efficiency, she made a swift search of the room and located the keys to his manacles hanging near the door in the outer room. Striding back into his cell, she approached cautiously.

Becky showed him the key with a warning look. He closed his eyes with an expression of complete obedient desperation, then turned, giving her his hands. He smelled awful, and the raw condition of his wrists was appalling.

Her hands shook as she fumbled to free him.

The second he was free, he took the candle and instantly blew out the flame. Becky backed away from him, mistrustful in the dark. He grabbed her elbow and turned her toward the door with an order that she couldn’t understand.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, then obeyed his belated hush as she heard the distant sound of male voices.
Someone’s coming!

The Cossacks.

No doubt coming to check on their prisoner. Becky glanced toward the window as the color drained from her face; the Russian’s angular countenance filled with murderous intent. She did not understand the words, but his questioning murmur was enough of a cue:
Where do we go?

They had to get away.

She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him with her, leading the dazed man out of what had been his prison. Once more she stepped out into the blowing woods. The Cossacks’ voices were growing louder. She glanced around with her pulse pounding. If she could get him to the house, she could hide him inside the secret passageways, but when she tried to urge him in that direction, he refused.

He pointed, indicating the approaching Cossacks, not yet visible. He shook his head and backed away from her.

“Fine,” she muttered. They could make a run for it. One of her neighbors down in the village would have to help them. Big Samuel, the blacksmith, or Mr. Haskell, the apothecary. He used to be an army man, he would not be too frightened of Mikhail.

“Come on,” she whispered, leading the pitiful creature deeper into the woods. Barefooted, he stumbled on the rough ground, thanks to his weakened condition. In his strength, he would have been a formidable man.

As they disappeared into the woods, behind them the Cossacks must have found the gatehouse empty, for they sent up the alarm, harsh male shouts ringing throughout the area they had just evacuated. She could imagine them running through the gatehouse, and knew that in another moment they would be on their trail.

Becky and the captive ran faster, thorns and branches tearing at them as they rushed by. They hit the open moors and ran full out, though the Russian’s steps were already flagging.

“Come on, you can do it! I know these moors like the back of my hand!”

He seemed to grasp her meaning as she urged him on. Past the woods, the treeless heath with its low scrub and gently rolling ground provided their pursuers an easy mark when they finally spotted them. Becky screamed when the bullets started flying over their heads, but the Russian was cool, putting her ahead of him.

A lord, a gentleman, no doubt.

The Cossacks must have summoned Mikhail himself, for she now heard her cousin’s voice far behind her barking orders at his men in Russian.

Then his voice carried to her on the night, a long, echoing howl.

“
Rebeccaaaaaa!
Rebecca! Get back here!” Mikhail bellowed after her.

Their captive let out a garbled cry as a massive report from a rifle ripped through the air, bounding off the moors’ gentle rises. The man she had just freed went sailing facedown into the turf, shot in the back.

She let out a shriek and jolted down to her knees beside him. “Oh, my God! God!”

He could barely lift his head, and she knew he was dying as he pointed furiously to the horizon, needing no English to make his order clear:
Go!

He tore off the small silver religious medal that hung around his neck and pressed it into her hand. Weeping, she closed his blankly staring eyes, then clenched her jaw and rose again, staring in tearful rage at the armed men by the treeline.

A glimmer of moonlight showed her Mikhail’s outstretched arm, gesturing to the men to hold their fire. Some of the other Cossacks were just leading their horses onto the scene.

“It’s too late, Rebecca!” he shouted over the moors. “Come back now of your own will and nothing will happen to you. Don’t make me chase you!”

You monster,
she thought, her eyes burning as she turned her back on him.

Two of the Cossacks mounted up but she was already in motion, running faster than she had ever moved in her life. She had a fair head start on them and knew this terrain much better than they did. The boggy ground and countless holes made by the various animals of the brush gave a person on foot the advantage over any rider who did not wish his horse a broken leg.

She leaped over a large stone and dashed down the familiar dip of a gully, following the fold of the landscape and using the cover of darkness to escape. Every pounding footstep reverberated from her ankles all the way up to her teeth, but she raced on, her legs pumping furiously beneath her.

“Rebeccaaaa!”

She ignored him, barreling on.

Her cousin’s voice grew fainter, but his final threat chilled her to the bone: “You make one move against me and I will
burn your village to the ground!
”

As she came back to the present and the stillness of the little church, Becky felt the dark shadows of those memories still clinging to her.