Charmed and Dangerous (27 page)

“Sophie's just politics. There's nothing else…”

“Politics!” Laura gave him a searing look. “Do not try to confuse me. What politics could you and the countess—?”

“She has a scheme in mind,” Slanski interrupted, eager to redeem himself. “And it has possible…advantages for my country. So I have provided funds to support it.”

“Money?” It was a great effort to maintain her tone of reproach. She was about to find out the truth, and her heart was pounding.

“Others have done the same,” Slanski assured her. “It's nothing personal. There is no one but you…”

“But what is it for?” Laura hoped she sounded bewildered and half persuaded.

“She is organizing an uprising—”

To Laura's deep chagrin, his revelation was interrupted by a sound at the door. They turned to find Sophie Krelov's maid standing there with fire in her eyes.

“
D'anam don diabhal
!” she cried.

They both stared at her. Slanski took a step backward.

“What is she doing here?” the older woman added in English. Seeing that the count didn't understand her, she switched to French, “She is an English spy!”

Count Slanski gaped.

“You are a fool!” pronounced the maid. She turned to Laura like an avenging fury.

But Laura had taken this opportunity to remove something from her pocket. She leveled her pistol at them both.

Slanski looked astonished. “You have a gun,” he said, as if to verify the evidence of his own eyes.

“And I have spent a great deal of time learning to shoot it, so you needn't think I won't.”

“A gun,” he repeated incredulously.

She gestured with it. “Stand side by side.”

His dark gaze shifted to her face. He looked as if she had betrayed him. “You are a woman.”

And you are a half-wit, Laura replied silently. She gestured with the pistol again. She needed to work her way around them and reach the door. She had all the information she needed.

Slanski moved. But he kept turning his head to gaze at the gun as if he couldn't maintain belief in its reality. Sophie's maid, on the other hand, simply watched her. The ferocity of her gaze made Laura a bit nervous. She was thus only partly prepared when the older woman leaped at her and fastened both her hands around the gun.

They struggled violently for possession of it.

“Help me, you fool,” screamed the maid to Slanski. Jumping like a startled hare, he did so, and the two of them wrestled the pistol from Laura's grasp.

The woman took charge of it, holding it aimed at Laura's heart. She drew back the hammer and started to squeeze the trigger.

“What are you doing?” cried Slanski.

“She must be killed,” was the laconic reply.

“Are you mad?”

“She will betray us.” Her finger tightened.

“You cannot kill her here, now, in my house. Gunfire will bring every servant running.”

“Aren't your servants trustworthy?” she asked contemptuously.

“Most of them came with the place!” Slanski replied frantically. “Put down the gun.”

She didn't lower the pistol, but she eased the hammer back, frowning. “Send someone for Sophie,” she ordered.

As Slanski ran out to do so, Laura had the satisfaction of knowing that she had been right about this woman. She was no maid. The way she referred to the countess by name was evidence enough of that.

The count returned, panting, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “The footman's gone for her.”

Laura ignored them. She was listening for sounds below. Surely Annalise had found Gavin by now, she thought.

* * *

“How could she have left without anyone knowing?” raged Gavin.

The two footmen standing before him visibly quailed.

“What's your name?” he demanded.

“John, sir,” said one of the servants.

“Well, John, why did you let her go out alone?”

“But, sir, I…I only accompany Miss Devane when I'm summoned. I'm not aware of what she—”

“Your job is to keep her safe!” Gavin snapped. “And you've botched it.”

“She must have slipped out the side door,” put in the other footman, who had been stationed in the front hall. “Begging your pardon, sir, but the staff can't be responsible if—”

“Who is responsible, then?” Gavin would have enjoyed finding someone he could blame. It would have been some relief to his feelings.

“Good afternoon,” said a calm voice from the doorway.

Gavin turned to George Tompkins, who looked maddeningly unconcerned. “You know that Lau…Miss Devane is gone?”

“It appears she left the house about three.”

Gavin swore. “I told her she was not to go out without me!”

Tompkins looked at the two footmen. “You may go,” he said.

They hurried out.

“She had some plan in mind, I believe,” he added.

Gavin couldn't seem to think as quickly as usual.

“And she is a very clever young woman,” Tompkins added.

“She has not dealt with real villains,” he replied.

“We don't know that she is attempting to deal with them,” the old man pointed out.

“Do we not?”

Tompkins looked concerned.

“She is alone,” railed Gavin. The word was like a knell.

“I believe I will send out some men to look for her.”

“I'm going,” Gavin assured him.

“It might be best if you stayed here. Others will search more efficiently.”

Gavin felt as if the blood might burst from his veins. “Do you doubt my abilities?” he snapped.

The look Tompkins gave him was kind. “I doubt your sensibilities. It is difficult to keep a clear head when one is deeply worried.”

“I'm not worried. I'm furious.”

“Even more so, then.”

“Do you intend to have me bound? Nothing else will keep me here.”

“It could be arranged.” Tompkins showed no reaction to the savage look that had made more than one bandit chieftain cower.

“Excuse me, sir.” The footman came only halfway into the parlor where Gavin and Tompkins were arguing. He looked as if he hadn't wanted to come at all.

“What?” snapped Gavin, who wasn't feeling very charitable toward footmen just now.

“There is a young person at the door. She insists upon speaking to you. She won't see anyone else, and she won't go away.”

Gavin was pushing past him before he finished speaking. He ran down the hall to the front door and confronted the girl waiting there. His hopes faltered when he took in her youthfulness and fresh open face, but he demanded, “Who are you? What have you to tell me?”

The girl looked uncomprehending, and his heart sank.

“You are Herr Graham?” the girl asked in German.

“Yes!”

“My name is Annalise. Fräulein Devane sent me to find you.”

“Where is she?”

She recited an address some distance away.

His horse might still be saddled, Gavin thought. He started to run for the stables. “Tell him,” he called over his shoulder to Annalise, gesturing at Tompkins, who had materialized in the hall.

It was one of the longest journeys Gavin had ever taken, despite his thousands of miles of travel. Try as he might, he kept thinking of Laura lying wounded, her life bleeding away. Every word she had spoken to him, every caress they had exchanged haunted him as he raced through the streets of Vienna.

* * *

“I cannot be involved with this any longer,” Slanski was stammering. “I did not bargain for anything like this. I cannot afford to—”

“Do be quiet,” said Laura and the other woman at the same moment. They exchanged a quick startled glance.

There it was, Laura thought, a stealthy sound downstairs. “What exactly is it that Sophie is planning?” she asked. She hoped to divert their attention and also to convince them that she did not know their secret.

The supposed maid gave her a contemptuous look.

“If you are going to kill me, there's no harm in my knowing. And it would be rather satisfying.”

Slanski nodded as if agreeing with this argument and opened his mouth.

“Keep quiet, you imbecile,” said the other woman.

His mouth snapped shut.

Laura moved, drawing their attention to herself. In the next instant, Gavin erupted into the room, struck the gun from the maid's hand, and trained his own weapon on the two of them. “Get the pistol,” he commanded.

Laura had already lunged for it. She felt much better when she held it trained on Sophie's confederate once again. “You were rather slow in getting here,” she said to Gavin.

“Your young friend was slow in finding me.”

“I'm sure she—”

“Could we discuss this at a later time?” he replied through clenched teeth. “We should be going.”

“Oh…yes. Sophie is on her way.”

“Indeed?” Gavin was backing toward her, keeping his gun steady on their adversaries. “Will you move?”

Together, they made for the door. When they reached the corridor, Gavin turned and took her arm. “Run!” he said.

They raced down the stairs and into the entryway. When Laura would have gone to the front door, he urged her in the opposite direction, heading for the back. But this did them no good. Even as they burst into the open air, they were caught and held by four very large men wearing Sophie's livery.

The woman herself appeared behind them. “If you have hurt Bridget, I'll kill you,” she hissed. She ran into the house.

“She's going to kill us anyway,” said Laura. Gavin gave her an odd look.

Sophie returned with the older woman, but there was no sign of Slanski. “Tie them,” she said to her men, and Laura and Gavin were bound and gagged before being hustled into a carriage and forced down onto the floor for a very uncomfortable ride.

“We cannot take them to your house,” said Bridget. “They will be searched for.”

“I know exactly where I am taking them,” declared Sophie.

They clattered through the streets for nearly twenty minutes. Gavin fought to keep his sense of direction and feel in the sway of his body the turns they made. But being unable to see anything except the carriage floor and several sets of feet, he soon lost track. He could tell only that they were traveling into a poorer quarter of the city. The sounds and smells were clear evidence of that.

When the vehicle finally stopped, scarves were tied around their eyes before they were half carried, half pushed into a building and up several flights of stairs. The slam of the door and the sound of a key turning told him that they had been imprisoned. Immediately, he used his bound hands to tear the scarf away.

Laura was there, standing very still and seeming to listen intently.

His chief fear relieved, Gavin worked at the knot of his gag and soon had it off. The ropes on his wrists would take longer, but he was confident he could get them off as well. He had used his teeth for such a task before. Seeing that Laura was already at work on her own bonds, he began to examine their prison.

It was a small attic room with a slanting ceiling. The furnishings consisted of one dilapidated straight chair and a sagging wooden bedstead with a straw pallet flung on top. There were two dormer windows. He strode to one of them and looked out. They were four stories above one of Vienna's less savory neighborhoods. He didn't recognize the nearby streets, but the towers of St. Stephan's could be seen in the distance. He could easily find his way back.

“Where are we?” asked Laura.

The emotion Gavin had been holding in check burst out in sheer rage. “We are locked in a small room in a back slum, where we would
not
be if you were not an utter fool.”

She drew in a breath.

Gavin didn't give her time to speak. “How could you go off alone to that scoundrel's house? Telling no one what you meant to do, putting yourself helplessly into the hands of—”

“I sent Annalise for you!”

“Having no idea where I was or when she might find me.” She deserved the wounding sarcasm in his voice, Gavin thought. No woman—no one—had ever frightened him as she had today.

“You came alone,” she accused.

She was impossible, he thought savagely. “I have the experience to deal with such people!”

Laura looked around the room and then back at him as if to point out that they were both captives.

Gavin clenched his fists, which reminded him of the ropes that still confined him. He started to pull at one of the knots with his teeth.

“I could untie that for you,” said Laura.

“I can do it!”

“I'm sure you can, but why gnaw at it when I could do it more easily?”

If she were anyone else, he'd throttle her, Gavin decided.

“Here,” said Laura.

She was at his side in an instant, and when her fingers touched his wrists, Gavin felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him. The delicate brushes of her fingertips as she struggled with the bonds were as arousing as intimate caresses. “You seem fated to untie me,” he said a bit unevenly.

This reminder of their imprisonment on the ship brought a tinge of rose to her complexion. She kept her eyes on her task.

Gavin's gaze followed the curve of her eyelids, with their fringe of dark lashes, and dropped to her cheek and then to her lips—slightly pursed in concentration. He couldn't look away. He couldn't break away. Something irresistible pulled his head down closer; he was determined to take those lips for his own.

“There.”

In the same instant, the ropes fell away from his wrists and Laura looked up. He had come so close that her lips softly brushed his, a brief galvanizing touch, like a butterfly's wing dipped in fire. Her startled gaze met his; her lips were still tantalizingly parted.

Gavin could feel her breath on his lips. His pulse pounded in his temples. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted her, he thought.

She took a step back, retreating from whatever she saw in his gaze.

He grasped her hands to keep her near. “I must free you,” he murmured, sliding his fingertips over hers and up to her wrists.

The quickened rise and fall of her chest gratified him amazingly. He began to work at the ropes, taking his time, letting his fingers stray over her forearms, the smooth skin of her hands. When at last the bonds fell away, he caressed the scrapes they left behind, lacing his fingers around her wrist. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

The expression she gave him was so filled with longing that he could wait no longer. He stepped close, to take what was his.

Outside the locked door, there was a hoarse, deep cough.

The sound struck Gavin like a whiplash. Of course they had left a guard, he thought. What was wrong with him? He had never, in all the years he had worked for the British government and with all the pleasant dalliances he had fitted into those years, so forgotten himself in the midst of a mission.

He stepped back, still damnably aroused but now outraged as well. Any slip would put Laura in danger, too. It wasn't only himself he risked. Had he gone mad, to be thinking of…?

Gavin moved farther away from her. His eyes fell on the chair. Picking it up, he jammed the back under the doorknob, bracing it firmly. When he turned back, Laura was watching him. “I don't like people entering my room uninvited,” he said. It sounded curt, Gavin thought, but he couldn't help it.

“There is a guard.”

It wasn't a question. He simply nodded, then went to check the windows again. It was a long fall to the street.

“How shall we escape?” Laura asked.

She had come up behind him to look over his shoulder. Gavin moved away. “I'll think of something.”

“I must get back to Mr. Tompkins. I have figured out what—”

“You might have thought of that before you went wandering off on your own,” he cut in. She seemed to have no understanding of how hard it was to be near her.

Laura's eyes flared. She shut her mouth firmly and went to sit on the bed.

“That is probably full of fleas,” Gavin informed her and watched her jump up again with savage satisfaction. So she wanted an adventure, did she? How would she like crawling on her belly through freezing mud, infested with a small army of such vermin, as he had done in Persia?

But the image offered him no gratification. He wanted her safe, he thought. He wanted her far away from blackguards like Slanski and vixens like Sophie Krelov. He wanted her…

Gavin turned to the door and examined it more closely. It was suspiciously sturdy for such a building. No doubt it was new. He would not be able to kick it in and overpower the man who waited outside.

“Perhaps they don't mean to kill us after all,” said Laura. “If they keep us locked up until—”

“I wouldn't count on that.”

“Sophie will be reluctant to kill
you
, at least.”

Gavin continued his survey of the walls. “Why should she be?”

“Well…when one has been…that is…when there have been such intimacies…” she stammered to a stop.

Gavin frowned at her. “What the deuce are you muttering about?”

Laura stood straighter. “Sophie mentioned…that is, she told me that you had…she was…”

“What?”

“That you were lovers!” she blurted out. “She may wish to kill
me
, but surely she will not—”

“Sophie cares no more for her lovers than a black widow spider.”

The look he got in response startled him. It seemed positively despairing.

“And in any case, we were never lovers. I managed to evade that particular sacrifice for my country—barely.”

“You didn't…?”

Something in her face dissipated all Gavin's remaining anger. “No,” he said very clearly.

“But she told me things. She said you…” Breaking off, Laura looked at the floor.

Was it relief he saw in her expression? Sophie was a bitch, Gavin thought. But for some reason, he felt almost grateful to her in that moment. “The countess has a variety of…experience. I'm sure she was able to make up something convincing.”

“She wanted to divide us,” murmured Laura.

Gavin had to strain to hear it. She spoke as if it was a thought she had had before, but hadn't dared believe. His pulse was speeding up again, he realized. He couldn't afford that. “I'm certain they are only waiting for a convenient time to dispose of us. We mustn't allow them the opportunity.”

As soon as he said it, he regretted his bluntness, but Laura simply nodded. “What shall we do? We could rip up the pallet cover and make a rope.”

“It wouldn't be long enough.”

“Oh. No.” She looked around the room.

“It wouldn't reach the ground,” he added meditatively.

She turned to him again.

“But it might—”

“To a lower floor!”

Her mind was remarkably quick, he thought. She was already reaching for the cloth that covered the straw of the pallet, ready to dare the fleas. Then she drew it back. “Will they hear it ripping?” she whispered.

Amazingly quick, he thought. “Can you manage it? I will distract them.”

“Certainly. I don't suppose you have a penknife?”

“They took everything from my pockets.”

Laura nodded, and without further conversation, she lifted the dusty fabric and tore a beginning rent with her teeth.

Surprise and admiration held Gavin immobile for a moment. But when she threw him a questioning look, he went at once to the door and began to pound on it and shout, effectively covering the sound of cloth tearing. There was no other woman like her in the world, he thought.

Some minutes later, Gavin felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking back, he saw that the pallet had been reduced to a pile of dusty straw and a number of long strips of cloth. Adding a curse and a sharp kick on the door for good measure, he abandoned his distraction and went to kneel beside these materials. “We will have to wind two strips together or it won't hold,” he murmured, beginning to do so.

Laura followed suit. “A bowline?” she asked when they were ready to be tied together.

When he gazed at her, she flushed.

“I once looked through a treatise on knots,” she said.

He couldn't suppress a smile.

“The ones on the ship were
not
tied by a sailor,” she declared, her flush deepening. “They were a tangled mare's nest.”

“A bowline would be quite suitable,” replied Gavin, a warmth that was only partly laughter swelling in his chest.

They worked quickly together, and the makeshift rope was soon finished. “Does it look long enough? I could rip up my petticoat…”

“It will do. Help me carry the bedstead over to the window. Quietly.”

He chose the side window, thinking them less likely to be spotted from the alleyway than from the street in front. Tying the rope securely to a bedpost, he pulled the bed up against the wall under the window. “I will climb down and break into the lower floor. Wait here until I come back for you.”

“But…”

“Here,” he commanded.

“What if you—?”

“You will obey me in this!”

She subsided—into obedience, Gavin hoped. He wanted to say something else, something less preemptory, but he couldn't find the words. Instead, he put one leg over the windowsill and ducked under the open sash. He yanked on the rope to test its strength, then looked at her a final time. “I'll be back for you,” he said and swung out over the long drop.

* * *

With a mixture of hope and foreboding, Laura watched him descend. One of her chief fears was that the rope wouldn't hold. The cloth had been ancient and nearly rotten.

The bedstead banged against the window, then creaked with the strain of supporting Gavin's weight. Laura braced herself against it, glancing worriedly at the door. Had their guard heard the sound?

Peering out once more, she saw that Gavin had reached the window they had spotted on the lower floor. He was working with one hand to open it—without success. After a moment, he pushed against the house with his legs, swinging out and then back, his feet smashing the panes. As he disappeared inside, Laura clenched her fists. Everyone would have heard that.

She waited, every muscle tense. There were shouts below, then a thump and a crash. What if Gavin was in trouble? she thought. What if he was overpowered? They might kill him in the fight.

The doorknob of her prison rattled. The key turned in the lock, and the door moved slightly before jamming against the chair Gavin had placed there. If it was Gavin, he would call to her, she thought. An expletive in Russian confirmed her fear. The guard was trying to get in.

There were more shouts from below. Pounding began on the door panels. Taking a deep breath, Laura pulled up her skirts and climbed over the windowsill. The drop was daunting. The thought of trusting herself to the flimsy rope made her feel ill.

She grasped the rope with both hands and eased out of the window. Swinging sickeningly over empty air, she strove to brace her feet on the rope as she had seen Gavin do; then she began the descent.

It wasn't that far, but the climb down was frightening. The rough cloth chafed at her hands; her feet slipped. She was trembling all over by the time she came even with the lower window and was able to rest on the sill. A series of shouts and a crash drove her on immediately.

The opening was full of broken glass and the jagged remnants of the frame. Laura kicked at them before carefully lowering herself through. One of the remaining spears grazed her shoulder and left a line of blood behind.

Twisting, she landed on the floor of an empty room. With another deep breath, she straightened and went to the door. The sounds were coming from the stairs. She looked around for a weapon, but found none.

Trying to hurry and be cautious at the same time, she made her way along a hall. Gavin was there, grappling with one of Sophie's guardsmen on the steps. As they teetered back and forth, Laura spotted a cudgel on the floor. She picked it up and approached the pair, looking for an opportunity. When Gavin saw her, he bared his teeth in a grimace that might have been encouragement or anger. But he jerked away from his opponent for a moment, and Laura brought the cudgel down sharply on the man's head.