How To Distract a Duchess (28 page)

When they reached the top of the steps at the cathedral’s west entrance, Artemisia turned to her companion and stopped him with a hand to his forearm.

“Wait here, Naresh,” she said. “If I don’t return within a quarter hour, you know what to do.”

The tall Indian frowned at her. “I do not like this plan, Larla. It is too full of many dangers. Why do you not allow me to go into the crypt in your stead?”

“Because they are expecting Mr. Beddington,” she said, putting up a braver front than she felt. “Whether they like it or not, I am he. Besides, our time is nearly up. I must go or they will harm Mr. Shipwash.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “Please, Naresh, don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”

He gave a grudging nod and took his station, fierce determination creasing his usually placid brow.
 

The Banger, the biggest bell in the West Tower, chimed midnight in deep, mellow tones. At the twelfth strike of its monumental clapper, Artemisia slipped into the cathedral through the tall western door.
 

The long nave was lit only by a few tapers and silver shafts of moonlight filtering in through the high stained glass. She saw no late-night worshippers, but someone had pulled the heavy rope to sound midnight. It gave her comfort to know the sexton must be someplace within the echoing vault. But as she traversed the open space, the only set of footsteps she heard clicking down the central aisle were her own.

The gigantic dome that crowned the center of the cross-shaped structure receded upward in shadowed concentric circles. Before Artemisia reached the quire, she turned aside to make her way down the curving staircase to the crypt beneath the cathedral.

The air below ground was stale and thick. Artemisia shuddered. She fancied she could scent the moldering corpses of those luminaries interred beneath St. Paul’s dome. Did the ghost of Christopher Wren, the small genius who designed the great cathedral, sometimes haunt its empty halls? Or would the spirit of Horatio Nelson, hero of Trafalgar, rise from his brandy-soaked inner coffin to roam the labyrinth of his crypt?

“Dinna fret yerself, Larla,”
she suddenly heard her father’s voice in her head, his Scottish brogue thick and warm as boiled parritch.
“‘Tis not the dead ones ye need be worrit about. ‘Tis the live ones.”

 
A smile teased the corner of her mouth, and she straightened her spine. The daughter of Angus Dalrymple had some surprises in store for the live ones waiting for her in the crypt this night. She hoped it would be enough.

 
Lantern light shown against the whitewashed walls on the far side of Nelson’s black sarcophagus. She heard the faint sibilance of a whispered conversation. The abductors were here, then. She cast a silent prayer upward, and walked around Nelson’s tomb into the light. The Russian ambassador turned to her.

Trevelyn had done some damage while he covered her escape. A bruise purpled the ambassador’s jaw, the bridge of his nose was swollen and slightly askew. Artemisia smiled in satisfaction.

“Your Grace,” Kharitonov said with a frown. “What do you do here?”

“I’ve come to negotiate the release of Mr. Beddington’s assistant,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly even. So far, her prayer seemed to have been efficacious. Mr. Shipwash was there, after all. She’d feared they might have left him in his hidden location. Behind the ambassador’s bulk, her clerk was propped up by a man she recognized as the burly Lubov. But there was no sign of Trevelyn, and her heart sank. She swallowed hard and forced a polite nod. “How are you faring, Mr. Shipwash?”

“Tolerably well, madam,” he said gamely, despite a missing tooth and a swelling cheek. His mistreatment sickened her, but nothing would be gained by hysterics. She arched a brow at the ambassador and adopted her most imperious tone.

“I hold you personally responsible for his deplorable condition, sir.”

Kharitonov scratched his thick thatch of graying hair, obviously still confused by her presence. “Where is Beddington? Him you were to send.”

“Did my stepson tell you that?” she asked, trying to rattle them with her knowledge of their business dealings. “If so, you were woefully misinformed. Mr. Beddington is . . . indisposed at present. I am acting in his capacity in this matter.”

“Are there no men left in England that they send woman?” Kharitonov muttered. “Go home to painting, Your Grace. With woman, I cannot deal.”

She’d hoped to throw him off balance just so. “Nevertheless, I am all you will get. Let us proceed to business,” she said. “You are on British soil. It is unlawful for you to hold an Englishman against his will. I demand you release Mr. Shipwash and—“ here her voice faltered for a heartbeat “—and a certain other gentlemen I have reason to believe you hold as well at once.”

The ambassador folded his beefy arms over his chest. “Give me Mr. Beddington’s key, and he go free.” He jerked a thumb toward Mr. Shipwash. “No one else we hold.”

Her vision tunneled briefly, but she forced herself to draw a slow deep breath. “There was a man at your residence last night—“

“There was
thief
at my home,
da
. With him, he had woman, but she ran. Was dark. Her we do not know for certain.” Kharitonov narrowed his eyes in speculation, then shrugged. “The thief, he was not so fast. In Mother Russia, we know how to treat criminals. With him we have already dealt.”

“No, madam, he—“ Mr. Shipwash began but was silenced by a clout to his head from Lubov.

Artemisia flinched at the vicious blow, but a small flicker of hope grew in her chest at her assistant’s words. Had Trev won free somehow? But if so, why had he not contacted her? Her small candle of hope guttered.

“If you act for Beddington, you must have key,
da
?” The ambassador’s gaze turned crafty. “Give me to help you and I release your friend.”

“The key is not with me, but rest assured, I know where it is,” Artemisia said as she flipped her brooch watch up to check the time. “And unless Mr. Shipwash and I leave here together within the next few minutes, another friend of mine will send word that the key is to be destroyed. It’s your choice.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the ambassador, willing herself not to blink. Brinksmanship was not a game she relished, but her hand was so weak. She was obliged to make up for it with bravado.

The tramp of heavy boots echoed in the lime-washed crypt. Another Russian, even bigger than Lubov, rounded the corner to join them. He was carrying something over one shoulder. In the dimness, Artemisia couldn’t make it out. Once he reached the lantern’s light, the man deposited his burden on the stone floor. An inert body flopped bonelessly between her and Kharitonov.

Naresh.

Artemisia’s stomach did a back flip with sick foreboding. Then again with relief, when she saw his chest rise and fall. Only unconscious then.

“Good work, Oranskiy.” Kharitonov said to the newcomer before turning an evil smile on Artemisia. “This was friend who will send for key to be destroyed,
da
? Better friends you must choose in future, Your Grace.”

“Or less vile enemies,” she spat.

Kharitonov snorted at this. “High marks I give you for courage, madam, but you are—how you English say?—out of your depth. Come. We go now to get key.”

“No, Your Grace. Don’t give it to them,” Mr. Shipwash said. His captor shook him like a rag doll.

“Stop this instant,” she ordered Lubov. “Your Excellency, I must protest. I thought better of you. As a diplomat, you must realize your country’s reputation is in severe jeopardy through your actions. There’s no honor in abusing the defenseless.”

Artemisia doubted her appeal to the ambassador’s sense of decency would be effective. To her surprise, he raised a hand to restrain his lackey.

“Enough, Lubov. Time there will be to play later if Her Grace does not give key ,” he said before turning back to her with lowering brows. “Honor is small matter to diplomat. I am man under orders and not dare disobey. We do what we must do.”

Artemisia detected a smidge of remorse in the sigh that followed, but then the ambassador’s face hardened and he took a step toward her.

“You must give key. Or you force me hurt your friends.”

She bit her lip. The key must not fall into the wrong hands. She owed Trev that. But Kharitonov was right. She was out of her depth. She didn’t have it in her to make this choice. She never should have tried to do this. How could she let Mr. Shipwash and dear Naresh pay for her failing?

“Very well,” she said. “After you have helped Mr. Shipwash and I move Naresh into my waiting hansom, I give you my word I will shout out the location of the key to you as we drive away.”

The ambassador threw his head back and laughed unpleasantly. “
Nyet
, Your Grace, I will have key first.”

Artemisia knotted her fingers together. She was running out of cards to play.

Kharitonov made a low growl in the back of his throat, impatient at her delay. “Kill the Hindoo.”

“No!” Artemisia fell to her knees, trying to shield Naresh with her own body. “I will take you to the key, but you must not hurt him.”

“Very good, Your Grace.” The ambassador extended a beefy hand to her. “Wise choice. We go now,
da
? Bring prisoner,” he barked to Lubov.
 

“What of him?” Oranskiy pointed to Naresh’s prone figure.

“Tie him and leave him,” Kharitonov said. “Him, no one find till morning. By then, we out of England and back to land of borsch and stroganoff. Not too soon either.” He laughed mirthlessly and grasped Artemisia’s arm. “Come, madam.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but dragged her up the stairs and back through the silent nave. She heard the shuffling of Mr. Shipwash being propelled behind her by Lubov and Oranskiy. For a moment, she thought one of the statues on the right side of the narthex moved. She decided it was only a quirk of moonlight as Kharitonov hurried her through the darkened central aisle. Just before they reached the tall western doors, he broke the silence.

“Where we go, Your Grace?” he asked as if he were offering her a pleasure ride in his barouche.

“Westminster Bridge.” She swallowed back the knot in her throat. It had seemed a good idea at the time. With Cuthbert positioned dead center on the aging structure, he could see an advancing party from any direction. At her word, he was fully prepared to throw the key into the Thames and devil take the hindermost. “But I must warn you, Ambassador, if Mr. Shipwash and I do not present ourselves there unharmed by a certain hour, the key will be destroyed regardless.”

“Then haste we must make,
da
?”

If only Naresh hadn’t been taken, she might have been able to bluff her way through and see Mr. Shipwash free right there in the crypt. She’d made a mistake of thinking of Kharitonov as the slightly bumbling functionary she’d met at her masquerade. Now that notion was crushed like a bug.
 

At least part of her plan was still intact. Cuthbert was waiting for them, ready to act at her command.

She just didn’t know now if she could give it.

* * *

As soon as the door closed behind the duchess and the rabble that held her, the statue broke his pose and headed for the crypt at a run. Trevelyn thanked the stars for his training as Larla’s figure model. He doubted he’d have been able to hold himself motionless like that without it.

He’d tried to arrive at St. Paul’s in time to stop Artemisia from going into the crypt. It had taken him longer than he anticipated to liberate a horse from his father’s stable. He was slipping silently through the church’s side yard when Naresh succumbed to the big Russian’s superior size and strength. Trev considered engaging the man in hand-to-hand combat, but he was more interested in Larla’s whereabouts, so Trev followed him and the unconscious Naresh into the cathedral. Thanks to a trick of acoustics, he was able to listen to the conversation in the crypt from the top of the steps.

It took every ounce of his will not to vault down the stone stairs to come to Artemisia’s rescue. He would have happily shaken her till her teeth rattled for going down there alone, but the odds were three against one, and he couldn’t be sure he could extricate her without endangering her further.

Such action violated all his intelligence training. If he followed his instinct and tried to save her from this predicament, he jeopardized his mission to retrieve the key.

What a perfectly vicious little circle.

His gut churned. So this was why the Service recommended men involved in the Great Game remain bachelors. It was too hard to choose between personal and state interests. If push came to shove, he had no doubt Queen and country would fall a distant second to the Duchess of Southwycke.

“Westminster Bridge,” he repeated under his breath. On horseback, he could beat the ambassador and his captives there by taking a few judicious shortcuts. But he needed reinforcements now that he knew where to send them.

He found Naresh struggling against his bonds. With a few slashes of his penknife, he cut the man free. “Are you well enough to run for help?”

Naresh nodded. “Where shall this help be coming from then?”