Sometimes I get called out.’ He nodded discreetly towards Amesbury. ‘Should I be worried? He’s been watching us.’
Klara hesitated only slightly, but it was enough to draw his notice before she dismissed his concern over Amesbury with an airy wave of her hand he didn’t quite believe. ‘We are in the middle of a drawing room surrounded by guests. He can hardly be jealous of that.’
‘Why would he be jealous at all?’ Nikolay prompted. ‘Does he have an interest in you, Klara?’ He found the possibility disappointing.
‘He has an interest in my father,’ Klara snapped too quickly. Ah, so there was some history in that direction. The Duke’s interest in Klara might not be formally acknowledged or reciprocated, but she was aware of him and how he thought of her. Nikolay shot a covert glance in the Duke’s direction. Amesbury would be a dangerous enemy. There was a coldness around the Duke’s eyes, even at a distance, that suggested one would not want to face him with pistols. Nikolay had seen that look before in the eyes of battle-hardened soldiers who didn’t know the meaning of mercy. Amesbury wouldn’t be the sort to delope.
The butler announced dinner and Klara tucked her arm through his, steering his thoughts away from Amesbury’s firearm skills. ‘You are to take me in this evening.’
‘Of course I am.’ Nikolay laughed, pleased but not surprised by the turn of events. ‘After all, kotyonok moya, you are the distraction.’
Nikolay surveyed the elegant setting of the ambassador’s dining room: the long, polished table set with heavy silver, multi-armed candelabra, an expensive, squat epergne filled with fruits that were hard to come by in winter and the equally rare Lomonosov porcelain made only in Russia with its distinctive cobalt and white pattern. The setting confirmed the tone. The evening was unmistakably Russian from the china place settings to the guests. The table could seat twenty-four, although tonight it had been arranged to seat an intimate twelve—Grigoriev’s inner circle and their wives.
Nikolay helped Klara into her chair at the foot of the table and took his on her right, letting his gaze drift over the guests, assessing. Grigoriev would ambush him here. He would call him out surrounded by witnesses. The opening salvo would come from one of them, not Grigoriev himself. That would be too obvious, and contain no element of surprise. Would it be General Vasilev, who he’d already met? The young Count visiting from St Petersburg with his friend who had eyes for the General’s pretty daughter? Perhaps the two men near his own age in uniform, protégés of the General, whom he’d not had the chance to meet officially?
It was a most intimate circle indeed, a circle that now surrounded him, a newcomer, and Alexei Grigoriev reigned over it all from one end of the table. Klara reigned from the other, dressed subtly but richly, diamonds twinkling at her ears, the blue silk of her gown nearly the shade of the dishes. There was no mistaking the Grigorievs lived handsomely in their Belgravia townhouse.
They feasted handsomely, too. Dinner began with oysters on the half-shell and caviar from the Caspian Sea, followed by a clear soup—a Russian standard—and then fish as the guests made small talk, all in English despite their ability to do otherwise. Perhaps out of deference for Klara and Amesbury? Or perhaps to illustrate another, more subtle point? By the time the roast and vegetables were on the table, however, talk had changed to sharper topics. The polite conversation of the early courses had gradually meandered into the political. The ambush was coming. They wouldn’t wait until the ladies left the table.
Nikolay ran through his options once more, reassessing why he’d been invited. To take his measure, of course, but as to what? He didn’t like where his conclusions led. An exiled prince might be angry enough to betray his country. Why would Grigoriev want to know that? To catch a traitor? Was this part of Kuban’s attempt to trap him and bring him home? The timing would be right. He’d been in England almost a year; long enough for news to travel north to St Petersburg and a correspondence to take place over a course of action. Was Stepan right? Was Grigoriev to be feared? Or was there something else at work? Did the ambassador have schemes of his own?
He leaned close to Klara, aware that Amesbury was watching him and fingering his butter knife. ‘Is this why you’ve brought me here? Your father wishes to test my political loyalties?’ The ambassador might know who he was, but he didn’t yet know what he was; Should he be classified as a patriot? A traitor? Or something in between, something more dangerous than either, a revolutionary—a man who loved Russia enough to want to change it.
Klara slanted him a look that would reduce a lesser man to an intellectual toddler. ‘Are you always so cynical? Perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps tonight gives you a chance to test his.’
Nikolay held her gaze, considering the truth of her statement. Was it possible? Or was it merely an attempt to disarm him? There was too much unknown to draw a solid conclusion. Did Grigoriev know what he’d done to warrant exile? Did St Petersburg care that a prince from a newly created ‘kingdom’ of the empire had essentially deserted? Kuban had only been firmly Russian for three generations of princes. Without knowing the answers to those questions, he could draw no definitive conclusion that this was a trap.
He let his mind pick up the thread of Klara’s insinuation that her father wanted to test him for his own purposes. What might those purposes be? Treason? Rebellion? Matrimony possibly, given that there was matchmaking underway for the General’s daughter based on the glances being tossed across the table. He had already contemplated compliance and treason. Why not contemplate matrimony, too?
Nikolay considered Klara; the heat of her kiss, the sharpness of her wit. Had she been trying to tempt him for nothing more than marriage? It seemed a small thing compared to entrapment for treason. Alexei Grigoriev wasn’t the first ambitious ambassador looking to connect his daughter with a royal family of the empire. If Grigoriev thought there was a chance he would return to Kuban and take up his responsibilities in the military, it would be advantageous to have Klara in a position that could advance his own career. Such arrangements were made all the time in Kuban. Marriage was a political concern, romance was a personal one that was often expected to occur outside of that marriage.
It stood to reason Grigoriev would be interested in Kuban. It was an area of growing political concern. As an officer, Nikolay understood how important Kuban would be in the next several decades. The Ottomans were weakening. Their empire would fall and Russia would want its piece of the spoils, as would England. The Crimean Peninsula stood, metaphorically speaking, between England and Russia in the west, the Khyber Pass of Afghanistan stood between them in the east, Russia’s gateway into British India. The time for war was not yet, but it was coming. Nikolay could feel it in his warrior’s soul. There would be a time, when the country he loved would square off against the country he’d run to. It would be a time for choosing, a time for testing loyalties.
Perhaps Grigoriev knew it, too. Grigoriev wanted to be ready. But the ambassador would have to find another way into Kuban. Nikolay was not a marrying man. He allowed his gaze to slide surreptitiously over Klara’s fine profile. Not even a woman as beautiful as Klara Grigorieva was going to change that. He firmly believed a career military man like himself; a man who courted danger, had no business with a wife or children. It was hardly fair when the odds were they’d be widowed and fatherless a portion of their lives.
There was the selfish factor, too; he wanted to live and, to do that, he didn’t need the distraction of worry over what happened to him when he was leading raids and defending border forts along the river. The fastest way to be killed on a battlefield was to be distracted. The biggest distraction of all was the fear of having one’s family used against one as leverage. Dimitri Petrovich was proof of that. What he’d endured for years for the sake of his father and sister was lesson enough that love—true love—was hardly worth the sacrifice.
Nikolay
