LITMIR.BIZ

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dusted the few crumbs from his hands, smiling at her again.

      “Now,” she said, settling herself on a stool. “You did not tell me enough about the ball.”

      “It seems to me that I have run through the entire guest list and made unkind comments about nearly all of them. What else would you like to know?”

      “What the women wore, from first to last.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      Natalya glared at him. “The night is cold, so begin with their cloaks and furs and hats, and then go on to”—she dropped her voice to a sensual whisper—“what lay beneath.”

      “Oh, I see,” he laughed. “Well, a gaggle of lady’s maids divested the female guests of everything they wore on top before they went into the ballroom, and then a footman took it all away. The gowns were certainly very pretty, although I cannot remember specific details, Natalya.”

      “Then who was the prettiest woman there?” she asked eagerly. “I am sure you remember that.”

      He nodded, making her wait for it. “Her name was Angelica Harrow and she was not exactly at the ball.”

      “No? Then where was she?” She looked at him narrowly. “You are a master of seduction from what I know and not to be trusted.”

      “The footman brought her the cloaks and wraps to put away and guard until their owners would want them again.”

      “She was a maid?”

      “I think she wanted to give that impression,” Semyon said carefully. “But to my ear and eye, she was not bred to the task.”

      Natalya looked sad and sympathetic. “Alas. A ruined beauty, forced to slave for a pittance.”

      Her melodramatic turn of phrase made him smile a little. “I have no idea.”

      She tore off a chunk of bread for herself and chewed it absently. “And did you engage her in conversation?”

      “I merely handed her my coat. But yes, we exchanged a few words.”

      Natalya nodded, thinking it over. “I thought you seemed different somehow when you came home.”

      “I was drunk.”

      She waved a hand. “Not that. Something else—you seemed to be elsewhere, as if you were thinking of something or someone lovely. Not the sots at your club, certainly.”

      He acknowledged her remarkable intuition with a nod. “Well done, Natalya. Angelica was on my mind from that moment on tonight. I hope to find out more about her.”

      “And when you do, will you tell me everything?” she asked eagerly.

      “If I think it is fit for your pretty ears, yes, most likely I will.”

      “I am a married woman now,” she said indignantly. “You can tell me anything. You and I are the youngest among everyone in this gloomy house, so you must. Who else am I to talk to? Not old Levshin—his nose is always buried in his ledgers. And Antosha is forever scribbling. I believe he is writing a history of the Pack.”

      “For many reasons, it will never be published,” Semyon said.

      “In any case, only those two are around much, so you have to talk to me when I need to be amused.”

      “I will do my best,” he laughed.

      Natalya nodded, pulling off another chunk of fresh bread and adding jam to this one, as if she needed to be fortified for the next installment of gossip. “If this Angelica took your coat from you, she also gave it back,” she said slyly. “So you spoke to her twice.”

      “Ah—not at our second meeting.”

      “Why not?”

      “She had fallen asleep on the pile of furry things. Holding a rose.”

      Natalya sighed. “Poor thing. But someone admires her besides you, it seems.”

      Her sly remark hit home and Semyon knew she was aware of it. “Yes, well, that is neither here nor there,” he said briskly. “I found my coat myself and left our sleeping beauty to the footman.”

      “Will you see her again?” Natalya asked innocently.

      Semyon wanted to make some equally sly response but found to his surprise that he did not have the heart to do so. He looked straight into Natalya’s wide questioning eyes and said only one word.

      “Yes.”

      Chapter 2

      The same night…

      Angelica awoke at last, but not where she had been. The curtain-draped room in the Congreve house, its walls and furnishings, the cloaks and furs given into her keeping, all of it had vanished in a swirl as utterly as if she had dreamed every detail.

      Someone had come in to that place—a man—but who? She tried to think. Her mind was as blurry as her vision for some reason and she lifted her head to look around. She was lying on a bare wood floor, a cuff of cold iron around her ankle, a chain rattling from it to a bolt set into a beam in the wall. A feeble light came from a candle in the far corner, throwing circles of shadows upon the walls.

      Who had brought her here? Not the handsome fellow with the foreign name who’d given her his coat. Not the footman Jack, who’d come and gone with armloads of women’s things.

      No. Someone different. An older man, someone she had taken for a guest at the party, lost, as Semyon had seemed to be.

      She clenched her fist and something sharp pricked her palm. Angelica lifted her hand and saw that she was holding a long-stemmed red rose. Then it came back to her in bits and pieces.

      The older man had come in shortly after Simon—Semyon, she corrected herself. His name had been Semyon Taruskin and she had written it down on a piece of paper and put it in the pocket of his coat. Just in case some other man was to come by with a similar coat…she vaguely remembered telling him something like that.

      She had spelled his name correctly and he’d seemed surprised but she had heard of him. Semyon had a rakish reputation that men envied, and women sighed over.

      Several more layers of blur seemed to fall away as she held on to the rose, letting it prick her palm to aid her memory, not minding the thin trickle of blood from the first inadvertent wound or caring about the white dress that was tangled about her aching body.

      Semyon’s sudden appearance had startled her in the extreme. By the time the second man, the older one, came through the curtains, she had been less wary.

      The rose in her hand…yes, he, the one who’d come after Semyon had been and gone, had given her that, a gesture that had puzzled her at the time as he’d said nothing about it. But she’d supposed he only meant her to hold it while he struggled out of his coat.

      She had taken the rose politely, not inquiring as to whether it was to be presented to a sweetheart, or if he wanted its stem clipped and the bud fastened to his lapel, expecting him to tell her.

      The older man had not said anything about it, just remained oddly quiet once he was out of his coat, holding that close to his body, as if he was waiting for her to do something. But what had he wanted? She still could not think clearly.

      He had seemed reluctant to hand the coat to her, beginning to fiddle with the waistband of his breeches while she averted her eyes. She’d listened absently to the distant strains of music from the crowded ballroom, noticing how it and the dancers seemed to thunder in unison as the gathering became more and more boisterous.

      He’d murmured a no when she’d finally asked if he needed a button sewn, praying that he would not. He just stood there, red in the face and sweating hard—his shirt was soaked with it and not clean to begin with.

      In fact, he seemed to emanate foul smells from all over his body that she

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