Katherine started to rise. This lying on the ground at his feet wasn’t conducive to arguing, and she was most certainly going to argue her case. But she had forgotten her condition. Her shoulders were no more than an inch off the ground when she groaned, tears springing to her eyes.
“You see what happens when you try sleeping on the hard ground instead of the soft bed you deserted,” Nikolai admonished gently as his hand fastened on her wrist and he pulled her to her feet. Her scream of pain shocked him and he released her instantly. “Sweet Christ, what is wrong with you? Did you take a fall from the horse?”
“You idiot!” Katherine gasped, half her concentration devoted to remaining perfectly still, the other half fixed on her anger. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. Everyone at Novii Domik knows, and you were there.”
“If everyone knows, then they managed to keep it from me, whatever it is you are talking about.”
Her eyes, shot more with green than blue at the moment, fixed him with a steady glare. He was pale, his expression concerned. He was telling the truth.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a sigh, “for calling you an idiot. If I am a little sensitive and sore at the moment”—she smiled to herself at her choice of words—“it’s because I was caned rather severely.”
“Mitya wouldn’t!” Nikolai was appalled and, truth to tell, incensed by this slur on his brother.
“Of course he wouldn’t, you—” She stopped short of calling him an idiot again, but her moment of dispassion was gone. “He doesn’t know, and there will be hell to pay when he does. Your blasted aunt did this to me.”
“I don’t believe it,” Nikolai snorted. “Sonya? Sweet, agreeable Sonya?”
“Look you, I have had enough doubt and aspersion cast on my word these last months to last me a lifetime. But this time I have the bruises on my back to prove what I say, and yoursweet,agreeableaunt is going to pay for every one of them when I reach the British Embassy. The English Ambassador happens to be a good friend of my father’s, who happens to be the Earl of Strafford, and if Dimitri’s abduction of me doesn’t stir the pot to boiling, this latest outrage certainly will. I have half a mind to demand your aunt be exiled to Siberia! And you can stop looking at me as if I had turned into a turnip,” she added testily. “I’m not crazy.”
Nikolai snapped his mouth shut, blushing slightly. He had never been treated to such a scathing tirade before, not by a woman at any rate. Now, Dimitri had been known to lay into him on occasion—Sweet Christ, they were alike, these two. Such fire! Did she behave like this with his brother? If so, he could understand now what Dimitri had found intriguing about her, whereas otherwise she was not his type at all. Nikolai was himself intrigued.
He grinned boyishly. “You have quite a way with words, pigeon. And such emotion in such a little package.” Her fulminating glare made him chuckle. “But not too little, eh? Full-grown and put together nicely, very nicely.” His warm blue eyes moved appreciatively down her length and back. “And it is convenient that you have found this private bower, so secluded. We could—”
“No, we couldn’t,” she cut in sharply, easily reading his mind.
He was undeterred. “But of course we can.”
“No we cannot!”
Parasha had been right about this one. Here she looked her very worst, wearing the most unbecoming dress, even worse than Lucy’s black shroud. Her hair was in tangles and full of pine needles. The kerchief she had purloined from Parasha so that she wouldn’t look conspicuous in her peasant garb (once again she had worried about getting a disguise perfect) was hanging at the back of her neck, having worked its way loose while she slept. She didn’t know it, but her face was coated with a fine layer of dust, streaked in places from sweat and tears. And this man, this dolt, was suggesting they make love here in the woods, in broad daylight, at this moment, complete strangers as they were. Incredible.
“You’re sure, little pigeon?”
“Quite.”
“You will let me know if you change your mind?”
“Indubitably.”
“Such a way with words.” He grinned.
Katherine was relieved to see that he was obviously not in the least upset by her refusal to bed down with him. How different from his brother that was!
“I suppose you’re in love with Mitya,” he continued, sighing. “It’s always the same, you know. They see him first, and”—he snapped his fingers—“I might as well be invisible. You can’t imagine how depressing it is to be in the same room with him at a party or ball. The women look at him and they are ready to fall at his feet. They look at me and want to smile and pat my head. No one takes me seriously.”
“Perhaps because you don’t want to be taken seriously?” Katherine suggested.
He grinned again, widely, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “How astute you are, my pigeon. That little confession usually works to my advantage.”
“Which proves what an incorrigible cad you are.”
“So I am. And since you’re on to me, we might as well be off.”
“We aren’t going anywhere together, Nikolai.”
“Now don’t be difficult, pigeon. Beside the fact that it would be unthinkable for me to leave you here alone, I also have my orders from the old lady to think of. Not that she isn’t easy enough to get around, but she does control the purse strings when Mitya is away, so it’s always best to stay on her good side. And she was rather up in arms about your running off.”
“No doubt,” Katherine retorted. “But she can turn purple with rage for all I care. I’m not going back there to be subjected to any more of her tyranny. Dimitri didn’t leave me there to be abused.”
