Klara’s hand was still tingling when the door shut behind the last guest, which was quite possibly what the prince intended, the arrogant man. She’d like to forget him and his seductive effect. She’d like to think he affected her no differently than any other man, but she was not in the habit of lying to herself. Her reaction to Nikolay Baklanov was going to complicate things.
‘The Prince handled himself well this evening. Can he be of use to us?’ Her father issued his question to the two remaining guests—his most intimate advisors, Amesbury and Vasilev. He stood in the doorway to the drawing room, inviting them to join him in consultation. ‘Shall we talk it over?’ She would join the men as a matter of course to work through impressions. This was the custom ever since she’d turned eighteen and had been presented to society. In this manner, her father had subtly coached her in the ways of a diplomat: how to understand people, how to read between the lines of their conversation. Such an education had only been given to her because it served a purpose. She was not the sole beneficiary of the privilege. Her father gained the advantage of his astute daughter’s insights. He understood full well how unguarded men could be in the presence of a pretty young woman, especially when they assumed she was harmless to them, a female expected to be vacuous because she was beautiful.
Her father poured each of them a small glass of viche pitia. He toasted them, ‘Another insightful evening.’
Insightful for Nikolay as well. Klara hazarded a surreptitious glance at Amesbury as she sipped. Nikolay had correctly guessed that Amesbury coveted her. She was acutely aware the Duke wanted to possess her the way a man wanted to possess a fine carriage and excellent horses. The Duke caught her gaze, his eyes hard over his glass, a cold smile hovering on his lips, cold enough to send a shiver down her spine.
Her father was speaking to Vasilev. ‘What do you make of Baklanov?’
‘He understood you were vetting him tonight,’ Vasilev said thoughtfully. ‘He was very careful with his words. He’s not sure what you want him for.’
‘He does now. Can he be a revolutionary?’ her father queried. ‘We dropped enough breadcrumbs for a smart man to follow. Will he? Klara, I defer to you on this.’
It was an honour to be addressed thusly in front of the General and the Duke, a sign of her father’s esteem for her. But it was an honour that made her uncomfortable and yet she could not refuse. The words had brought Amesbury’s intent gaze her direction, his pale blue eyes narrowed in speculation as he drawled, ‘Yes, Klara, you know him best, it seems. You’ve spent more time with him than any of us.’ His words carried a subtle accusatory edge to them.
She locked eyes with Amesbury. She was not afraid of him and his veiled accusation that spending time with Nikolay had been somehow inappropriate. He might intimidate others with his power and his wealth, but not her. She had those things, too. Any thought of demurring faded. She couldn’t afford to. It would mean she was soft, that perhaps she harboured a burgeoning attraction to the Kubanian Prince. Amesbury had noticed their tête-à-tête in the drawing room before dinner. To confirm that impression would be disastrous. It would raise the Duke’s hackles, which would not please her father, and it would prove she was indeed as vacuous as any other female whose head was turned by a handsome face. There was a certain mordancy that the best protection she could give Nikolay was through betrayal.
‘As soon as he knows it’s not a trap, he will follow your breadcrumbs and decide if he can afford to join you,’ she said. It was a small betrayal of Nikolay to be sure, based on her intuition only. But she knew her intuition spoke the truth; the hesitation he’d shown in the park, the ferocity when he’d told her he could not go back to his country, proved her correct. Reticence was a reflex often ascribed to a man who had something to hide, a man who was wary of a trap that would seek to expose what he protected.
Her father and the General nodded. Amesbury sneered. ‘Since you are playing the fortune-teller, perhaps you can tell us if your Prince will join us? Since you know him so well.’
‘My prince? He is hardly that,’ Klara snapped, her hand clenching around the little stem of her viche pitia glass. It was a struggle to keep her tone neutral. Amesbury was jealous. He had no reason to be. Nikolay Baklanov might flirt with a woman, but he was not the sort of man who allowed himself to belong to one. She did not think Nikolay’s flirtation, as delightful, as sensual as it was, was an exclusive commodity. ‘If you are asking about his willingness to join the Union of Salvation, I cannot say. You saw tonight that he is no newcomer to court intrigue. He will not readily reveal his secrets to anyone.’
Her father split a swift glance between the two of them and intervened. He speared Amesbury with a quelling look. ‘There is no need to fight amongst ourselves. Klara was doing the job we assigned her. We must convince the Prince of the rightness of our cause and the importance of him taking a role in it. We need him to take the arms to St Petersburg and to help rally the troops when the time comes. He’s a man others will follow.’ He turned his diplomatic censure on Klara. ‘However, we all risk much by taking him in too soon. We must be sure of him. The group depends on the quality of its associates. One weak link and we go from being patriots to traitors. The line is very thin. Our next step is to discover what has brought Prince Baklanov to England and talk then.’
The glasses were empty and her father made no move to refill them, a polite signal that it was time to leave. General Vasilev rose and made his farewells, but Amesbury lingered, his thin, aristocratic mouth—proof of generations of impeccable English breeding—tight. ‘Walk me to the door, Klara, I’d like a word.’
Klara obliged, for how could she refuse? On the surface, everyone would assume the Duke wanted a moment to apologise for his rudeness, that he would explain it away as a sign of his concern for her. But those assumptions would be false. The Duke apologised to no one and for nothing. Although he was similar to her father in many regards, his inability to apologise was not one of them.
The Duke was a big man with a bearing that neared military in stature. Even though she was tall, Klara had to fight the feeling of ‘smallness’ in his presence, for she did indeed feel small with him, unlike with Nikolay who was his equal in height. Some might call the Duke handsome with his strong facial bones and the grooves etched on either side of his mouth, reinforcing the sternness, the hardness of him. She called him cold, an iceberg personified, complete with glacial blue eyes. She walked beside him in silence, waiting for him to speak.
‘I did not want to say anything in front of the others,’ Amesbury began, ‘However, since I have much at stake in this venture, and perhaps...’ he paused here, attempting a modest demeanour that failed to convince ‘...a certain burgeoning relationship of a personal nature with you, I have the right to ask. How have you come by your information, Klara?’
‘What are you suggesting?’ She removed her hand from his arm and stood apart from him, erasing any façade of a polite couple. She had to stop those presumptions right here. If he presumed they had the foundations of a relationship, who knew what else he would presume? His arrogance would promote all nature of assumption beginning with the idea that a woman couldn’t possibly find him resistible.
‘I’m suggesting that you would have had to work hard to get that information. A man like Baklanov, who likely has much to protect, would not give up information easily. We saw that tonight. How is it that you’ve been privy to such insight? He is not immune to your charms. That was made clear tonight as well. I saw the two of you with your heads together.’
Klara did not flinch at his accusation. She crossed her arms. ‘You call yourself a gentleman and yet you dare to accuse me of seducing the Prince. That’s what you’re implying, isn’t it? That I’ve inappropriately enticed him? The Prince has acted far more the gentleman than you.’
He strode towards her and gripped her arm, his