Trev knew he couldn’t match the larger Russian blow for blow, so he lashed out with his feet. He knocked Lubov’s boots off the coach rail and his weight and gravity did the rest. The big man lost his hold and cartwheeled to the pavement.
Trev scrambled to secure his own footing on the rail and then turned to look over his shoulder. Lubov rolled to a stop in a tangled heap, his limbs splayed in unnatural angles. The big Russian would trouble no one else this night.
One down, two to go. Wonder if that driver has a blunderbuss under his seat?
As it always did, the intoxication of The Great Game sent blood screaming through his veins. But the Game had taken a deadly turn and Larla was still in the middle of it. He shoved the thought aside. If he let himself dwell on her danger, it would paralyze him and he needed to act to save her.
Now.
* * *
From inside the swaying coach, Artemisia heard the shouts but couldn’t understand the Russian words. The ambassador fidgeted in his seat and craned out the window trying to see what disturbed his subordinates.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” the ambassador snarled.
Several loud thumps sounded over head, as if someone were on top of the coach. Before Artemisia had time to wonder what it meant, the vehicle swerved wildly, knocking her from one side of the seat into poor Mr. Shipwash’s already battered form and back again. Then there was another cry and the coach bounced into the air as first the front wheels, then the back lurched over a large bump in the road. Artemisia knew the condition of several London streets was deplorable, but surely not so bad as that.
Her breath hissed over her teeth. Had a person fallen beneath their carriage? If someone were trying to interfere with their progress, that someone could only be Trevelyn. The thought of him lying broken along the cobblestone street almost caused her to be sick on the spot.
The coach continued to rumble into the night, and she heard the deep tolling of Big Ben’s chimes sounding three-quarters past the hour. The ambassador settled back in his seat, satisfied that his men had dealt with the problem. If Trevelyn had intercepted them somehow, surely they wouldn’t still be clattering toward Westminster.
Tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to give the ambassador the pleasure of seeing her weep.
“We are near bridge.” Kharitonov reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a derringer. “Do not to try my patience, Your Grace.”
The coach rolled to a stop at the west end of the bridge.
“Out,” the ambassador said to Mr. Shipwash. “And do not run or I have to shoot you. That would give to me pain.”
“Heaven forefend we should cause you pain,” Artemisia observed tartly. She climbed out of the coach after her assistant, relieved that he was able to stand on his own. In the waning moonlight, a lone figure stood at mid-span on the dark bridge. Faithful Cuthbert was there with the key in hand. At the far end of the bridge, a carriage waited to bear them all away.
“Call to come here your man.” Kharitonov hauled his bulk out of the coach.
“He is under orders to remain where he is no matter what. The only thing he will do now is toss the key into the Thames at my command,” Artemisia said. “Cuthbert has given me his word of honor he will not respond if I countermand my previous directive under duress. Believe me; the gentleman has a will of iron. If you want the key, you must release us. Once we are settled in the far coach, I will direct Cuthbert to leave the key on the stone railing.”
“Clever, Your Grace, but I more clever,” Kharitonov said, one bushy eyebrow cocked. He brandished the derringer in her direction. “Come. To him we go.” Without taking his gaze from her, he barked an order to his driver. “Stay with coach, Oranskiy. Lubov, come.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Ambassador, but Mr. Oranskiy left the coach some blocks back,” a cool-sounding voice came from the driver’s perch. “Along with the unfortunate Mr. Lubov.”
Artemisia looked up to see the face she wished most to see in all the world. Trev grinned down at them, despite having one eye nearly swollen shut. A blunderbuss rested comfortably on one knee, the barrel cocked and ready to fire at the ambassador. Relief flooded her at finding Trevelyn well and whole—barring the shiner, of course—and most especially, firmly in possession of a wicked-looking firearm.
“You, sir, will kindly allow the lady and her friend to leave unmolested,” Trev said, his tone even, almost cordial, but there was a glint of steel in his eyes as he glared down at the ambassador.
“Nyet, Shipwash can go, but I keep duchess.” Kharitonov grabbed Artemisia and yanked her in front of him. She felt the cold circle of the derringer’s barrel at her temple. Her blood pounded against the steel. “Don’t move, Your Grace. This trigger, very—what is word?—touchy. For it to go off by accident I would hate.”
“I’m sure none of us want that. Please, Your Excellency, I’m not really large enough to make do as a shield, you know. We’re rational adults here. We can come to an agreement we can all live with,” she chattered, knowing she did so, but unable to keep her mouth from rattling on.
“Here is agreement Her Grace can live with,” Kharitonov said to Trevelyn with menace. “You blunderbuss to put down and I bullet do not to put in her brain.”
“If you harm the duchess, you’ll never leave this bridge alive.” Trevelyn was unmoving as granite.
“In game of chance, man who cares least wins. Who cares least I wonder, whether this lovely woman alive tomorrow? I give to count of three. One . . . two . . .”
“Stop,” Trev said with an upraised hand. “I agree to your terms. Now I’m going to move very slowly and stow the weapon under the seat.”
“Da, that will do.”
Without taking his eyes off Kharitonov, Trevelyn uncocked the blunderbuss and slid it back into its niche. Then his gaze flitted to Artemisia.
In that split second, she read his frustration, his fear and his love for her. She also saw that every muscle in his body was tense as a watch spring.
“Better,” the ambassador said.
Artemisia felt the derringer ease away from her skin, still perilously close, but no longer touching.
“Now what?” Trev asked the ambassador.
“Now, Mr. Thief.” Kharitonov turned the derringer on Trevelyn. The gray muzzle glinted in the moonlight. “Is your turn to die.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Artemisia cupped her mouth to shout. “Cuthbert! Toss the key!”
As time expanded and contracted around her, Artemisia was acutely aware of a multitude of things at once. She turned to see her butler heave a small weighted packet into the sludgy water with the force of a cricket pitch.
“Nyet!” Kharitonov screamed in fury.
Trev leaped onto him and they rolled together to the pavement, fists flying. The pop of the derringer was followed by a man’s groan. Then from the darkness on the far side of the bridge, there was a flash of light, followed by the stench of sulfur and a gray cloud.
Another flash and cloud burst closer to them. Then another. She was robbed of her night sight by the brief brilliance. Westminster Bridge came alive with tiny explosions, followed by expletives about burned fingers. Artemisia distinctly heard a voice ask “Did you get the picture?”
It was Mr. Wigglesworth and his fellow members of the press slinking belatedly from their places of concealment to capture the story. Artemisia had hoped the journalists would show themselves in sufficient numbers to warn Kharitonov off from his plans, but they cowered overlong in the darkness waiting till the opportune moment had passed.
She waved away the choking smoke. Trevelyn and the ambassador lay in a heap, neither of them moving. She ran to them and found the big Russian’s inert form on top of Trev.
“Trevelyn, are you hurt?”
There was no answer.
She tried to push the ambassador off, but couldn’t budge him. However, her hand did come into contact with something wet and warm and sticky. A coppery tang filled her nostrils.
Blood.
And she had no way to tell whose.
Chapter 32
A soft rap on the guest room door roused Artemisia from lightly skimming the surface of sleep. She rubbed her eyes and rose from the chair next to the bed.
“Come,” she said softly, massaging the crick in her neck with both hands.
Cuthbert poked his head in. “Has Mr. Deveridge wakened yet, madam?”
Artemisia looked back at the still form under the clean linens and shook her head. She waved the butler in without a word. Cuthbert bore a silver tray heaping with buttered scones and a fresh pot of chocolate, which he set on the desk by the shuttered window. He pulled back the drawn drapes and let the full light of midmorning wash the room.
“The doctor did say he thought Mr. Deveridge would wake naturally, did he not?” Cuthbert said, his voice unusually bright as if he were putting the best face on a grim situation.
“Yes, but he made no promise of when.” Artemisia took the offered cup of chocolate and sipped slowly lest she burn her tongue.
Last night—had it only been last night?—she’d been on her knees, trying to separate Trevelyn and the ambassador when she was set upon by half a dozen armed men, led by none other than Naresh.
“Friends of Mr. Doverspike,” the Indian explained.
Trev’s reinforcements from The Blind Dog had arrived only in time to lift the ambassador’s body from his. To her relief, it turned out to be the ambassador’s blood filling in the cobbles on the bridge. Kharitonov had been rushed to hospital, but was not expected to recover from the round he’d taken from his own gun.
Trevelyn however was far from unscathed. In his scuffle with the big Russian, his head had been knocked against the stone of Westminster Bridge. Cuthbert had sent for a physician who pulled back Trev’s eyelids to examine the pinpoints of his pupils.
“It appears he’s taken more than one blow on the head. If only Your Grace would allow me to bleed the patient, perhaps that might speed the recovery,” the doctor had suggested.
Artemisia took a look at the stained condition of his lancet and bowl and ordered Cuthbert to show the good doctor out. She only hoped he was a better prognosticator than his medical equipment might indicate.
“Does Madam wish to send word to the Earl of Warre?” Cuthbert pressed a plate of scones into her hand.
She nodded, almost too tired to speak. Surely under these circumstances, the earl would shelve his differences with Trev.
“Might one suggest we also send this?” Cuthbert handed Artemisia a neatly pressed edition of The Tattler.
She ran her gaze over the copy beneath the blurry image of a woman kneeling beside a man’s prone form. She knew it was a picture of her and Trevelyn, but no one else would be able to guess their identities from the shadowy daguerreotype. The prose was execrable, but to Mr. Wigglesworth’s credit, the facts were essentially correct. The article detailed the exploits of a certain unnamed peeress and an intrepid son of a prominent member of the House of Lords in their quest to preserve national secrets from grasping foreign spies. The Russian menace on the Indian sub-continent, a favorite subject of war mongers in the Empire, was discussed with strong invective, if few facts.