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“Yes, I suppose so, but that is no assurance that Anya would not have had her head turned just as easily.”
“We both know it would have been far less likely.” Emma waved a hand to encompass the barren room. “Not only would she have possessed the small luxuries she has always desired, but I would have had the opportunity to look after her properly. She spent far too much time alone.”
Without warning, Diana reached to grab her hand, her eyes dark with concern.
“Hear this, Emma. You are not to blame.”
“But I am.” Emma heaved a sigh. “I could not bear to sacrifice my virtue, and now Anya is paying for my foolish pride.”
“If you must blame someone, then it should be those horrid strangers for taking advantage of a silly young girl. What sort of gentlemen would do such a thing?”
Emma’s aching fear was replaced with a flare of pure fury.
When the two elegant travelers had first arrived at her coaching inn she had been delighted. They were not only swift to pay their bills, but they were lavish with their tips. She had already begun to imagine the small Christmas gifts she could purchase with the extra funds.
Now she would give everything she possessed if they had never come to Yabinsk.
“No true gentlemen.”
Diana blinked. “You believe they were imposters?”
She gave a restless shake of her head. “I am not certain what I believe, but I know I must do something.”
“What can you possibly do?”
That was the question, was it not?
When she first discovered Anya missing, she had been too shocked and bewildered to consider what should be done. She simply couldn’t accept that her sister had truly allowed herself to be carried off by strangers.
Eventually, however, the fierce determination that had allowed her to survive any number of disasters had her thrusting aside her pained sense of guilt and considering how to rescue Anya.
“Patya overheard the men in the stables speaking of their return to St. Petersburg. At the time he thought nothing of it, but when I went to the stables to discover precisely when the gentlemen had snuck away, he conveyed their conversation.”
Diana’s grip on her fingers became positively painful as she regarded Emma with disbelief.
“You intend to follow them?”
“Of course.”
“Emma, please do not be hasty,” Diana pleaded. “You cannot possibly travel to St. Petersburg on your own.”
“I will take Yelena with me,” Emma assured her, referring to the aging maid who assisted at the coaching inn. “If we catch the stage this afternoon, we should be in St. Petersburg within two days.”
“But—”
“I am quite determined, Diana, and you know it is a waste of effort to argue with me,” Emma firmly interrupted the looming lecture.
The older woman pressed her lips together in disapproval. “Always assuming you manage to arrive in St. Petersburg unscathed, how do you propose to find Anya? St. Petersburg is not a quiet village where neighbors are well-known to one another. You could search for weeks and never cross her path.”
Emma smiled wryly. She might be a provincial old maid, but she was not without a measure of common sense. She had known from the moment she’d made the decision to travel to St. Petersburg that she could not expect to stumble across Anya.
“I intend to request Herrick Gerhardt’s assistance.”
“Gerhardt? The emperor’s advisor?”
“Yes. He is rumored to possess mysterious powers that allow him to be aware of all that occurs in the empire. There are those who refer to him as the ‘Spider’ for his ability to spin webs that capture even the most clever of traitors.”
Diana stepped back, studying Emma as if she feared she’d taken leave of her senses.
“Whatever they may call him, Herrick Gerhardt is one of the most powerful gentlemen in Russia. You cannot just arrive on his doorstep.”
“As a matter of fact, I can.”
“Emma.”
“Do not fret.” Emma held up a slender hand. “He is related to my mother—a distant cousin I believe—and he sent a very kind letter after Father’s death inviting me to call upon him if he could ever be of service to me.”
Diana did not appear particularly reassured. “I do not approve of this dangerous scheme.”
Emma did not particularly approve of it herself.
Unfortunately she had no choice.
“Anya is all I have left in this world,” she said, her voice raw with suppressed emotion. “I will not fail her again.”
BLESSING THE FULL MOON that washed the elegant study in silver light, Dimitri Tipova knelt beside the mahogany desk. He had finished his search through the papers and journals in the drawers, now his slender fingers ran over the carved panels in hope of discovering a hidden compartment.
What gentleman did not have secrets to hide?
And Pytor Burdzecki had more to hide than most.
Intent on his self-imposed task, Dimitri nearly missed the soft footfall just outside the door, and it was only his swift instincts that had him straightening and moving to stand casually near the bay window. Wisely, he had opened it before beginning his search; a successful thief always had a ready escape prepared.
The door to the study was slowly pressed inward and Dimitri cast a downward glance to ensure his black jacket and silver waistcoat were properly buttoned and as crisp as could be expected, considering they had recently been tossed on a bedroom floor. A searching gaze would no doubt detect his cravat was hastily tied and the raven hair pulled back in a queue was still rumpled from feminine fingers, but with luck the darkness of the room would conceal such imperfections.
And if not…well, he possessed the means to keep his presence in the St. Petersburg town house a secret.
Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, Dimitri closed his hand over the pearl handle of his small pistol, prepared to kill until a slender, obviously female shape stepped over the threshold.
“Pierre?” the woman called softly.
Dimitri swallowed an impatient sigh. He had hoped to slip away before Pytor Burdzecki’s young bride, Lana, realized he was gone.
The pretty woman with auburn hair and wide blue eyes had been easy enough to seduce. He had only to pretend to be a visiting French diplomat who occasionally crossed her path at the opera, or at the Gostiny Dvor where she would shop with her maid. Within a handful of days she allowed him to escort her to the nearest coffee shop with giggles and inviting glances.
She had no reason to suspect that he was the infamous Beggar Czar, ruthless leader of the underworld, or that his interest in her was merely a means to enter this palatial home that was heavily guarded by trained soldiers.
Loosening his grip on the gun, he smoothly stepped toward her.
“Ma belle, I thought you were asleep.”
She glanced about her husband’s private study with a frown. “What are you doing?”
“Preparing to leave, I fear.”
“Did you lose your way?”
With another step he was close enough to tenderly tuck a dark curl behind her ear. She was a vain, self-absorbed little creature, but she was harmless. Which was more than her husband could claim.
Or Dimitri, for that matter.
“I prefer to slip away unnoticed by the servants,” he murmured, speaking the perfect French all Russian nobles favored. He was also fluent in Russian and English, and could comprehend several of the Germanic dialects. He was an excessively well-educated thief, thanks to his mother’s insistence that his bastard of a father pay for his schooling. “I would not desire such a beautiful creature to be the source of ugly gossip.”
“Oh.” She batted her lashes, eager to accept his smooth lie. “Must you leave so soon?”
“Hardly soon. I risk being castrated by your husband if I linger any longer.”
She pouted, grasping the lapels of his jacket as she pressed against him in unspoken encouragement.
“He never returns before dawn, if he even bothers to return at all.” She kissed the tip of his chin. “If we are fortunate, we could enjoy the entire day together.”
Dimitri narrowed his whiskey-gold eyes. “I never depend upon luck, ma belle.”
“But, when will we meet again?”
“Who can say when fate will be kind enough to cross our paths again?”
“Tonight—”
“We shall allow destiny to unfold,” he interrupted, firmly removing her hands from his maltreated jacket and lifted them to his lips. “Return to the warmth of your bed. You shall find a small token of my esteem tucked beneath your pillow.”
As expected, Lana was readily distracted. “A present?”
“Oui. I hope you will think of me whenever you wear them.”
“Wear them?” Her blue eyes sparked in anticipation. “What are they? Gloves? Earrings?”
“Why do you not go and discover for yourself?” he urged, smiling wryly as she giggled and hastily skipped from the room.
Despite the fact she was wed to a sexual deviant more than twice her age, Lana was little more than a jeune fille in many ways. Nothing like the women in his world who were rarely allowed a childhood.
Listening to the sound of retreating footsteps, Dimitri slid through the open window and dropped into the garden below. He had not yet finished his search of the house, but Lana was certain to have attracted unwanted attention among the guards, and he could not risk being caught.
He landed with the ease of an avid sportsman, his hand reaching for his pistol even as he straightened. The instinct that had kept him alive more times than he could recall was prickling in warning.
“Come out,” he growled softly.
A lean form draped in a heavily caped coat detached from the shadows of a marble fountain.
“I must admit to my own share of curiosity,” an aggravatingly familiar voice taunted. “What did you leave beneath the pillows?”
Dimitri’s lips tightened, realizing the open window had allowed this man to hear his entire conversation with Lana.
Of course, Herrick Gerhardt did not need to lurk beneath open windows to discover the information he desired, Dimitri ruefully conceded. Although he did not believe the advisor to Alexander Pavlovich possessed mystical powers as some did. He was, after all, intimately aware his methods were more mundane.
“A pair of diamond earrings,” he grudgingly confessed.
Herrick arched a brow. A gentleman of Prussian descent, he possessed a gaunt countenance, a thick crop of silver hair and piercing brown eyes that held a cold, ruthless intelligence.
“A rather generous gift for a female you bedded for the sole purpose of searching her husband’s study.”
Dimitri shrugged. “Lana might be a shallow tart with the soul of a merchant, but she still deserves better than being bartered to a husband twice her age whose sexual perversions cause even me to shudder in disgust.”
Herrick deliberately glanced toward the neoclassical palace looming behind Dimitri.
“No doubt most of society would consider her well compensated.”
“Only because their lives are as cold and empty as the marble crypts that await their deaths.”
“A philosopher, Tipova?” Herrick demanded.
“A simple criminal.”
Herrick’s chuckle floated on the chilly October breeze. “As if I would ever be foolish enough to underestimate you. What did you discover?”
Dimitri folded his arms over his chest, his expression guarded. Since he had come to the attention of Herrick Gerhardt and the Duke of Huntley several weeks before, he had reluctantly become Alexander Pavlovich’s most secret weapon against the traitors who stirred discontent. One did not say no to the Emperor of Russia.
His presence in Pytor Burdzecki’s home, however, was personal business he did not intend to share with anyone.
“Nothing that would be of interest to Alexander Pavlovich.”
“You would be surprised at the emperor’s vast interests,” Herrick countered.
“The emperor or his most trusted advisor?”
“It is one and the same.”
“Is that why you are here?” Dimitri demanded. “To discover what I might find among Burdzecki’s papers?”
Herrick waved a dismissive hand. “Actually I am here to discover you.”
Dimitri stilled, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“And how, I wonder, did you know I would be here?”
“You are not the only gentleman with the ability to gather information.”
“Yes, but—” Dimitri bit off his words. “Never mind, I shall eventually uncover the traitor.” He waved a hand toward the empty flower beds and the marble fountains that had already been covered in preparation for the brutal Russian winter. “If you wished to meet with me you had only to send a message. There was no need to creep about in damp gardens.”
