One Night of Sin (35 page)

She fixed him in a quelling stare, tamping down frustration. Sometimes he was the most magnificent warrior she had ever seen, the dreamiest lover she could imagine; and then there were moments like this, when he shut her out so completely. “Alec, why don’t you just tell me what it is and get it over with?”

Turning from the window, he narrowed his eyes in agitation. “If you simply would have listened to me and stayed away as I had asked, all of this could have been avoided.”

“So, it’s my fault?” she exclaimed, shooting to her feet. “You said it was your friends who had come calling, but when I walked past, instead I heard you talking to a woman! What was I supposed to think?”

“Oh, so that’s why you jeopardized everything?” He leaned his hips back against the windowsill, his arms still folded across his chest. “For a bout of female jealousy?”

Her jaw dropped. “You are unbelievable!” She took a step toward him. “You are not going to manipulate me, Alec. Stop trying to twist everything around as if I’ve done something wrong, just so you don’t have to tell me what’s really going on!”

He fell silent. He dropped his gaze, but his roiling scowl made her wonder if he even realized what he had been doing. After a second he turned back to the window and stared out of it, stubbornness solidifying before her very eyes. “Eva’s a wicked person, and I’ve been wicked, too, at times. But I’ve left it behind me, I’m not going to crawl, and you’re just going to have to accept my apology if you want us to be together.”

Becky stared at him in astonishment, then shook her head and stalked out of the room, banging the door shut behind her.

What a miserable state of affairs.

By some miracle, he had been spared. Becky had not heard enough specifics to piece the sordid tale together—which left Alec in the untenable position of having to tell her the whole story himself. He couldn’t do it. He was too ashamed. Afraid he’d lose her if she knew. Gambler though he was, what they’d found together was too precious to risk.

Unfortunately, over the next day and a half he began to see that he ran an equal risk of losing her if he did
not
speak up, go to her, spill his guts. He was not even sure if they were still engaged or not, and frankly was afraid to ask.

With every passing hour that he deliberated over what to do, keeping his distance, his frustrated thoughts churning in circular motion—
yes, no, tell her, keep your mouth shut
—he could feel their magic slipping through his fingers.

She had obviously made up her mind not to ask him for explanations anymore. Nor did she utter another word of reproach—she didn’t need to. Her silent treatment said it all. Obviously she had no intention of budging from her position, despite his vague hope that she might realize it was too awful to discuss and let it go. Her tenacious resolve to know the full truth was palpable in the air. It filled the house. Through walls and stairs and ceilings, he could feel her waiting, waiting for him to come to her, open his heart and speak his piece. But, God, what was he going to say? How could he even find the words? And even if she was miraculously willing to forgive him, Alec was not sure she should.

With every hour that he refused to confess, she grew more distant, increasingly withdrawn. He despaired, damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. The only thing that he
could
do was brace for the loss as best he could by pulling back from Becky, in return.

In the final hours leading up to the Lieven ball, they lived like strangers under the same roof. It was awful. Soon, if all went according to plan, he would hand over the deed to her precious Talbot Old Hall, maybe within a few days, and then what? he wondered, brooding as he finished dressing for the ball. It would be easy for her to get rid of him once he had fulfilled his oath to help her. At last, they would be . . . even.

They could go their separate ways without remorse.

The thought darkened his mood even further.

Before long Alec was sauntering through the crowded ballroom with Fort and Draxinger in tow. The fashionable four were only three tonight: Rushford had cried off with a headache that still persisted from last night’s overindulgence in drink.

Hundreds of winking candles glittered in the grand chandeliers inside the large and commodious assembly rooms where Countess Lieven, wife of the Russian ambassador and leading hostess of the ton, was giving one of her inimitable balls.

There were large arched windows and a row of high white pilasters against the pea-green walls. In the gallery overlooking the ballroom, the musicians serenaded the throng with a dainty air. Plumed heads bobbed in time with the melody; jewels twinkled on highbred throats, earlobes, and fingers. The dancers wove through the elegant figures of a country dance, the ladies’ gowns a swirling flower garden of pale pinks and whites, soft yellows and blues, greens and violets. Partnering them, a few of the gentlemen stood out in dashing military dress-uniforms, but the majority were clothed like him—though perhaps not quite so impeccably.

He was, after all, still Alec Knight.

His white-gloved hands elegantly clasped behind his back, Alec, in formal black superfine and white silk brocade waistcoat, strolled with his friends through the assembly rooms, nodding here and there to his acquaintances throughout the ton.

“Lady Jersey, you look radiant,” he complimented the Almack’s patroness with a bow. She blushed like a girl at his offering and tapped his arm coyly with her fan. He might need her later, he thought, along with other influential hostesses, if he managed to keep his bride. If she stayed with him, he would use all his skill to launch her in Society like a princess. Lord, he’d make her a sensation. Not that a stalwart soul like Becky gave a fig for such things.

For now, he kept an eye out for his quarry.

“I still don’t see why you had to go dashing off like that from the Pavilion,” Draxinger was muttering indignantly. “It was quite bad form to leave us all standing there like dunces left to wonder where the devil you were off to.”

“You do seem strange of late, Alec. Are you sure everything is all right?”

“Everything’s grand, Fort,” he muttered, still thinking about the quartet of Cossacks he had seen posted outside, around Kurkov’s showy equipage.

“Drax—look!” Fort said with a sly smile, nodding to the distant refreshment table. “There’s Lady Parthenia.”

The earl stopped in his tracks at the sight of her radiant figure, and then suddenly remembered to act bored. He lifted his quizzing glass nonchalantly to his eye and inspected Westland’s daughter from a safe distance. “Lud, have you ever seen such a big nose?”

“Right,” Alec muttered.

“Methinks, old Draxie, doth protest too much,” Fort said under his breath as he and Alec exchanged a wry glance.

“Oh, leave me alone,” Drax huffed.

They chuckled at his discomfiture and moved on, paying their respects to their host, Count Lieven.

“Ah, Lord Alec! I hear you’re winning again,” the stout Russian murmured as they shook hands. “By the way, have you heard? My prediction was right. Kurkov has joined the Whigs.”

“Well done, sir!” he exclaimed amiably. “You have won me twenty quid. Remind me to buy you a drink when we’re back in London.”

He laughed.

Hm,
Alec mused as they moved on, mingling in Society. If Lieven had been right on the first wager—Whig or Tory—what if he was right about the other? There had been discussion of an English bride versus a Russian import. Lieven had opined that Kurkov would choose the former. He might seek a Whiggish alliance.

Alec suddenly looked at Parthenia Westland. She was fluttering her fan and talking excitedly behind it to another girl, but her gaze trailed after someone in the crowd. He frowned and followed the line of Parthenia’s stare.

Kurkov.

Oh, bloody hell.
Alec’s pulse quickened to an ominous drumbeat as his stare homed in on his enemy. Kurkov was in full-dress uniform, gold sash, epaulets, and all. Alec curled his lip, wondering if the famous Russian war hero had been courting Westland’s daughter all this time. He wouldn’t put it past him. He only hoped that Parthenia’s icicle nature had held firm against such a formidable suitor. She was the sort of girl who would marry to please her father, and no doubt Westland liked the idea of a son-in-law who had grown up with the Czar and could do things for the party.

Well, he thought, old Westland might judge him and Drax and their friends a lot of “surly jackanapes,” but he doubted the duke would have looked favorably upon Kurkov as a possible son-in-law if he knew about the murder on the moors and the threat of rape on Becky—not to mention the harem of concubines whom Kurkov had boasted all received his harsh regimen of “training.”

Something had to be done.

Alec took Fort aside while Drax stood speaking to a lady—or rather, to the chest of a lady—whose fleshy bosoms threatened to come bursting out of her bodice. Alec looked at them in startlement, then lowered his head discreetly by his friend’s ear.

“Fort, take Drax over to talk to Parthenia.”

“Why?”

“Their foolishness has gone on long enough. If he loses her, he’ll never forgive himself. Flirt with her yourself if it’s the only way to get him to leave off his stupid affectations.”

“You do it. Nobody cares when I flirt with them.”

“Daniel, my lad.” Alec chuckled and clapped his trusty, fellow younger-son on the arm. “You are pure sterling. Never mind that, I’ll be along in a moment. There’s a lady over here I have to talk to,” he said meaningfully.

“Ah,” Fort replied with a knowing nod, scanning the crowd discreetly to try to see who he meant.

Alec hated lying to his mates, but if he told them the truth, they would have leaped into the fray, and there was no way he was risking them against the prince’s Cossacks. His brothers would have been another matter. His brothers could have wiped out a Cossack regiment in time for nuncheon, but his friends were not warriors, just good, solid chaps and high-spirited Corinthians.

As Fort steered Drax toward Parthenia, Alec hoped his friend finally left off with the games and realized his window of opportunity to win the girl he really loved could be closing fast. Ice-princess or no, Parthenia did not deserve to be hurt by Kurkov’s impending doom. After all, once he had Talbot Old Hall in his possession, he and Becky would move on to the task of bringing the prince to justice.

Lifting a fresh drink from the tray of a passing footman, Alec put on a cool half smile and approached Prince Kurkov with an air of rakish ease. Fortunately, he must have made an impression on the prince that day at Brooke’s Club, for Kurkov greeted him with instant recognition.

“Ah. Lord Alexei. Good to see you again.”

“Likewise, Your Highness.” Alec clinked glasses cordially with the man.
“Zdra’zhs-vu-tyay.”

“Spa’sibo bolshoi,”
Kurkov said with a throaty chuckle.

Alec tilted his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“Drop the
bolshoi.
It means grand, large, eh, formality,” he explained. “There’s a new phrase for you.”

“Aha.” Alec laughed, relieved. For a second there he had thought the man had already seen through his false friendship, but he’d been mistaken, thank God. He endeavored a quick change of subject. “So, Your Highness, what do you think of Brighton?”

“Enjoyable.”

“Have you seen the Regent’s building project?” he asked with a confidential air, turning on the old Alec charm.

Kurkov made a face, stern and soldierly, and then shook his head in baffled scorn over the strange goings-on over at the Pavilion.

Alec laughed softly. “Ah, yes, on the subject of property, that reminds me. I was referred to you, sir, to query after a hunting lodge that you own, I am told.” He clasped his hands idly behind him. “My friends and I have been speaking for some time about going in together on the purchase of a hunting box, but we have not been able to find anything large enough to suit us. We were talking about it at the tables just the other night, and someone suggested you might have a place for sale—in Yorkshire?”

“Did they?” he asked. Alec held his breath as a glimmer of suspicion snaked ever-so-faintly through the depths of Kurkov’s cold gray eyes, but then the man shrugged it off. “Yes, I do have an old hunting lodge in Yorkshire. But it is not for sale.”

Alec drew breath to try to finesse the prince to change his mind, but Kurkov continued before he could speak.

“It is a pity I did not learn of your interest sooner, Lord Alec, for I would have instructed my solicitor to accept any reasonable offer. I have no use for the place myself. Unfortunately, a certain very determined young lady coaxed me into staking the property in the annual whist drive.”

Alec’s eyes widened with shock, which he quickly masked. “The—whist drive?” he asked in a slightly strangled tone.

“Yes.” Kurkov took a sip of his rum punch. “Lady Parthenia Westland is on the charitable committee that organized the game.”

“But isn’t the entry fee . . . ten thousand pounds?” he forced out, reeling and making a herculean effort to hide his shock.

“Indeed,” Kurkov agreed drily, observing his astonishment at the sum. “They’ve doubled the entry fee since last year, I’m told, which is why they are permitting players to stake such things as property, carriages, jewels and the like, as long as the total value is equal to ten thousand pounds. It is no wonder they put Parthenia in charge of enrolling players,” he added. “That fair creature is not easy to deny. But . . . it is for a good cause.”

“Navy widows and children,” Alec echoed, instantly thinking of one particular navy brat who was very dear to him, indeed.

Kurkov smiled cynically. “I was referring to Parthenia herself.”

Alec managed a smile and then dropped his gaze, his heart pounding. Good God, this was a catastrophe! Ten thousand pounds was double the sum they had, besides which, only about twelve hours remained before the deadline ended to buy into the game. He didn’t even know if there was a single seat left in the tournament at this late date, as it only allowed for thirty-two players.