Texas Viscount (12 page)

      
He chuckled. “Lordy, you sound like you swallowed a sack full of hopping toads to get that one out.”

      
When she started to stalk away, he quickly fell in step alongside her. If he'd touched her, Sabrina was not certain she could have kept from sinking her teeth into his hand, right down to the bone. “This entire debacle was entirely your fault,” she snapped. “I said I will repay you—as soon as I find another client. Thanks to you, I've just lost Mrs. Collingwood's patronage.”

      
“She the one who walked by looking like she'd just found out Jack the Ripper was really female?”

      
“You may make light of this, but I assure you, Lord Wesley, that I do not find it in the least amusing.”

      
“What lucky fellow is this for?” he asked, handing her the linen.

      
She refused it. “Keep it. You paid for it.”

      
“But you said you'd repay me,” he countered. “Back where I come from, folks don't welch.”

      
“If by that quaint colloquialism, you mean you don't believe I will make restitution, have no fear. Now please leave me alone, else I shall summon a genuine police officer,” she said when they stepped into Bond Street.

      
“You could pay me whenever you want...real easy.”

      
“If you think that blackmail will force me to become your tutor, you are most sadly mistaken.”

      
“Nah, I was thinking along the lines of another kiss.”

      
His suggestive tone unnerved her. “I'd rather kiss a cobra,” she replied.

      
He swore softly, leaning against the wall of the arcade as he watched her stamp across the busy street and vanish into the crowd.

* * * *

      
“I don't know what it is about that high-stepping little filly, but she sure does bring out the worst in me,” Josh said glumly to his uncle that afternoon as they shared a late tea. Well, the earl was enjoying tea with sandwiches and pastries. His nephew had broken out a fresh bottle of bourbon.

      
A smile touched the old man's lips as he observed the boy pacing across the carpet in the small sitting room adjacent to his office. “Miss Edgewater is an extraordinary woman. That's precisely why I intend to see that she becomes your instructor.” He gave the bottle of Who Shot John a meaningful glance, and Josh corked it, then settled down in a leather chair across from his uncle.

      
“Considering that she and I get on like a barrel of bobcats, how're you fixing to do that?”

      
“It's only a matter of doing a bit of investigating of one's subject. Miss Edgewater has a life's dream.” The old man stroked his slim mustache, waiting to see his nephew's reaction.

      
“Life's dream, huh? What's that? To see every male in England gelded?”

      
“Nothing so extreme. She wishes to open a school for indigent girls and educate them so they may aspire to bettering their unfortunate lots in life.”

      
“Might have figured her for some do-good scheme.” Josh grinned. “She'll do it, too. I'd bet my pearl-handled Colt on it, but how will that convince her to teach me? I don't think I'd look like much in a dress.” He scratched the bristly beard beginning to darken his jaw line.

      
The old man laughed. “Oh, she'll receive the funding for her school...after she accepts my offer.”

      
“Seems to me she mentioned something about losing her last client this afternoon…” He let the words trail off as his grin matched that of his uncle. “When I first met you, I didn't think we'd have much in common. I'm beginning to change my mind. I think we share what is called bad genes.”

      
The old man laughed.

* * * *

      
White Satin in Josh's opinion was a horrible English misnomer for gin, which he found even more unpalatable than vodka. Instead of tasting like horse-trough water, it tasted like perfume. However, at the club named after it, the majority of the patrons were Russian. The only white satin in the place was the fabric in waistcoats and cloaks worn by bored aristocrats. From what he'd learned about the Romanov dynasty in general and this group of “exiled” princelings in particular, poor old Bertie's excesses were tame as salted-tail deer.

      
He was assaulted by the thick sweetish aroma of hashish hanging on the air the moment he stepped inside. Several musicians decked out in colorful peasant costumes were playing a lively Russian folk dance as drunken men wearing enough jewelry to sink a Newcastle coal barge wove their way around the crowded gambling tables. Here and there a scantily clad woman sat perched on some man's lap as he indulged simultaneously in a number of serious vices. The laughter was coarse and hearty, the language mostly French, which he understood well enough, and Russian, of which he knew nothing at all.

      
Scanning the room, he spotted Alexi and began to make his way to where his newfound friend was sitting at a table with three other men. Several large bottles of vodka were mostly empty, attesting to the group's jump on the evening. Josh had planned it that way. To add to his advantage, he'd used an old trick Gertie taught her girls: He'd drunk several ounces of cod liver oil to coat his stomach. He figured to have three hours before the alcohol ate its way through the greasy barrier.

      
After that, all bets were off. Lordy, he hadn't seen drinkers this serious since his first trail drive all the way from the Panhandle clean up to the Dakotas. Josh could feel the Russians watching him, some merely curious, others openly hostile. He waved to Alexi, who dumped a corset-clad young woman off his lap and stood up to embrace Josh in a bear hug that nearly cracked his ribs.

      
“Texas Viscount, my friend,” Kurznikov slurred, slinging an arm around the taller man's shoulders. The Russian was dark with a full beard and a stocky build more suggestive of peasant than noble lineage. Presenting Josh to his companions, Alexi announced, “This is Lord Hambleton's heir, J-Jos Cantrell.” The introduction ended on a hiccup.

      
Everyone laughed good-naturedly, but Josh could sense an undercurrent around the table. Not all the men were happy to see that their companion had invited an outsider into their circle.

      
One of the three was a coolly amused black-haired man with a blade of a nose and a high forehead, made to appear even more so by his habit of raising his eyebrows condescendingly. He was Nikolai Zarenko, of the Trans-Siberian Railroad interests. He made a comment in French that slurred Josh's background, saying the American came from God knew where in a backward wilderness, but Josh played dumb. Let them all think he didn't know the lingo and they'd talk freely in front of him.

      
Back when Josh was a green kid working in the Dakotas, an aristocrat playing at being a stockman, the Marquis de Mores, had taught him French. Already fluent in Spanish, Josh had discovered he had a natural affinity for picking up languages. He wondered how long it would take him to master Russian. Somehow, he doubted it would be as easy as French.

      
When everyone laughed and he joined in, it seemed he'd passed the test. Then they got down to some serious drinking. The others partook of the potent opiated tobacco, too, offering it to him. Having seen what hashish could do to a man, Josh pulled out a plug of Lucky Boy and bit off a piece, offering it around the table. After a taste, all but the intrepid Alexi declined to “chaw.”

      
If I have to get sick, at least it'll be on something I know how to handle,
he thought grimly as he spit in an ice bucket commandeered in place of a cuspidor.

      
After an hour or so, the door opened and a woman wearing a hooded ermine cloak, which looked ridiculous in the mild autumn weather, swept dramatically into the room. She was followed by an entourage of men, mostly in servants' livery. With a theatrical gesture that drew the attention of every man in the place, she threw back the hood and shook out a gleaming mass of ink-black hair. Her face was aquiline, its only slight imperfection a long, narrow nose. A female version of the man who sat next to Josh, Nikolai Zarenko.

      
As if answering Josh's unspoken question, Alexi whispered with tobacco-sour breath, “She's Nikolai's sister. Natasha Samsonov. A famous ballerina.”

      
No mention of Mr. Samsonov. Apparently he was not considered of any importance in the grand scheme of things. She was, after all, the mistress of a member of the English royal house.
And trouble
, Josh thought as he watched her make her way toward them.

      
Perfectly arched black eyebrows rose above night-dark eyes as cold as chips of obsidian. Her mouth was generous, but her smite was not. She studied Josh as introductions were made, her glance bold and hungry while those black eyes swept from his crown to his boots and back, slowing ever so slightly at his crotch. This was not a woman with whom he'd like to trifle, in any way, even though she was a beauty.

      
Nevertheless, he bowed gallantly over her hand. “My greatest pleasure, ma'am.”

      
“Not yet, my lord, not yet,” she murmured in heavily accented English. Then she dismissed him and murmured something in French to her brother, too softly for Josh to make out.

      
The two moved quickly to a small table in a dark corner of the room while her retainers watched the crowd as if expecting a hoard of Cossacks to come galloping through the door brandishing sabers. A waiter, who obviously knew the lady's preferences, brought her a tall, slender crystal glass filled to the brim with vodka. She threw back her head and polished it off in one long swallow.

      
Yep, no female to mess with at all.
Josh felt a cold shiver run down his spine as brother and sister put their heads together in earnest conversation. He'd give a good-sized herd of his best Santa Gertrudis cattle to know what they were talking about.

      
“She come here often?” he asked Alexi, giving his best imitation of a drunken leer. Not such a great stretch on the woozy part, considering how much vodka and chaw he'd consumed.

      
Alexi was faring even more poorly as he replied, “Only when her brother's here. Usually af'er her p-performances on T-Tues'ay nights.”

      
Interesting. Josh studied the dark corner where they conferred, wondering how he might find a way to eavesdrop. Of course, if they spoke Russian, it wouldn't do him any good, but if they continued in French...

      
“I...I think it's time to go h-home,” Alexi said as he toppled against Josh, nearly knocking the Texan from his chair.

      
Their companions around the table burst into raucous laughter. Resigned to playing the good sport, Josh hefted the heavier man to his feet and slung one arm over his shoulder. By now Alexi was looking quite green around the gills. As they made their way from the establishment to the cheering approval of the crowd, Josh could feel the cold black eyes of Natasha Samsonov boring into his back.

Chapter Six

      
The summons arrived three days after her debacle with Mrs. Collingwood. Sabrina had been expecting it. Her first impulse had been to tear it to shreds and return the bits to the earl, but innate practicality overcame her temper. Instead, she considered her options, which were grim indeed. Paying the past week's lodgings had taken the last of her savings. She had enough food in the pantry to last her through the weekend.

      
And not one single paying client.

      
That was thanks to the wily Hambleton and his infuriating nephew. She would not put it past the young rotter to have lain in wait for her at the arcade just so he could spoil her last opportunity for employment. When she calmed down, she realized there was no way he could have known that she was meeting Mrs. Collingwood, nor could he have predicted she'd be so utterly unnerved by him that she would rush out of a shop without paying for an article of merchandise.

      
Sabrina refused to consider why she always seemed to react to him in such an undisciplined fashion.

      
Having used her last pittance for Edmund's birthday gift, she was now faced with the humbling prospect of either returning to live with her parents in the Berkshires on the very limited income her father received in tenant rents, or accepting the earl's offer to teach his odious nephew how to conduct himself with decorum. Why couldn't a man of Hambleton's reputed intelligence see the utter hopelessness of such an endeavor? Joshua Cantrell would behave decorously the day Queen Alexandra rode stark naked through Hyde Park!

      
Biting her lip, she paced across the threadbare carpet, fighting back tears prompted by a combination of fury and failure. She was no nearer to achieving her dream than she had been seven years before. How naive she'd been to believe she could save enough money to open her school if only she worked hard. Perhaps such feats of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps were possible in America...if one were a man.