The Princess and the Rogue (Bow Street Bachelors #3) - Kate Bateman Page 0,69

he turned on his heel and left. He ignored the feeling that he was abandoning her, that he ought to keep her by his side. The niggling thought that no one, not even his best friends Alex or Benedict, could protect her as well as he could, followed him out the door.

It was too dangerous for him to stay. There was only so much provocation a man could endure, and he knew his limits. Alex and Ben would be immune to her infuriating charms, each one being fatally in love with his own wife.

* * *

“A Russian princess?” Benedict repeated for perhaps the twentieth time. “You’re joking.”

Seb rolled his eyes at his friend’s continued incredulity. “I only wish I were.”

“Do you think she wears a crown to bed?” Alex chuckled. His eyes held an inquisitive gleam and Seb cursed inwardly. Alex had a mind as sharp as a razor, and he loved ferreting out secrets. It was why he was such an asset to Bow Street.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said crossly.

Alex sent him a frankly disbelieving look, but thankfully didn’t pursue the subject.

The three of them were at Manton’s, the shooting gallery on Davies Street. Seb had sent a note around to Bow Street, asking Ben and Alex to meet him there. It was where he always went when he had something to sort out in his mind. The concentration needed to shoot accurately usually pushed everything else from his head. At least temporarily.

With their trusty Baker rifles in tow, they made their way to the long gallery, which was conveniently empty at this early hour, since most of the members didn’t rise before noon. Seb had already given them a brief rundown of his adventures on Hounslow Heath and Anya’s near misses with Petrov’s thugs.

“I need you to help me guard her. I’m going to set a trap for Petrov, and I don’t want her to be in any danger.”

“You think he’s our spy?” Ben asked.

“It’s more than likely, from what Anya—from what the princess says.”

Ben and Alex exchanged an eyebrows-raised look as they caught his unintentional slip.

Seb cursed himself again. It was hard to think of her as a title when he’d held the real woman in his arms. She wasn’t some abstract concept. She was a warm, beautiful, sensuous—

No. No no no. Even thinking of her in that way was probably treasonous.

Annoyed with himself, he shrugged out of his coat, loaded his firearm with brisk efficiency, and took up position on his stomach on the ground, propped up on one elbow, leg raised at a right angle toward his hip to act as balance. Alex and Ben did the same, on either side of him.

He rested his cheek on the wooden stock and looked down the sight on the top of the barrel. With his left eye closed, he positioned the upright pin in the middle of the V and aimed at the paper target at the far end of the room.

He cleared his mind. He became aware of his pulse, his breathing. He slowed his breaths, waiting for the pause between heartbeats before he squeezed the trigger. The paper target quivered as the shot hit the center. He reloaded with brisk efficiency.

Bloody woman. She’d lied to him, manipulated him. He hated to be controlled, either by others or his environment. That was one of the reasons he’d joined the Rifles instead of the regular army. As a Rifleman, he was, more often than not, in control. The one with the target in his sights. The balance of life or death hinged on the pressure of his finger and the accuracy of his eye.

He enjoyed the same feeling of omnipotence overseeing the gaming floor at the Tricorn, watching those below risk it all on the turn of a card. Such foolish whimsy was not for him. He liked being master of his fate.

And yet when it came to Anya—no, Princess Denisova—he had no control whatsoever. The bloody woman had played him for a fool. He’d been her little experiment, a panting dupe to relieve her of her unwanted virginity and to satisfy her sexual curiosity.

The fact that it had been the best sex of his life infuriated him even more, since there was clearly no hope of a repeat performance. Not now, not ever.

He hit the target again, dead center.

The deceitful little charlatan would appear next week as the virtuous Princess Denisova, as pure and untouched as the driven snow. Men would slaver over her, line up