completely deserted her. She, the queen of polite small talk, who’d spent years making effortless conversation with everyone from cardinals to courtesans, could think of nothing to say to this man who’d come to mean far too much to her.
She stepped back, instantly regretting the cool distance that swept between them. “I … Excuse me. I need some air.”
His dark bows lowered into a frown. “You can’t leave the house. Don’t even venture into the gardens. Not until we know where Petrov is.”
She nodded and slipped away through the crowd, employing his tactic of pretending not to hear those who hailed her. She needed a moment of quiet to process the jumbled feelings churning in her chest.
The tiara was giving her a headache. She gave a half-hysterical laugh at the irony. Wasn’t it one of Shakespeare’s kings who’d bemoaned, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”? The weight of her position was quite literally pressing down upon her.
She nodded to Mellors, who was guarding the corridor that led into the private wing of the house, and slipped into the unoccupied pink salon. The noise of the ball dulled as she closed the door behind her and sank into one of the pretty upholstered French armchairs.
She removed the tiara and placed it gently on a side table with a sigh. She’d drawn it from memory, so it wasn’t exactly the same, but it was still remarkably similar to the one she’d crushed in Paris a year ago. Back then, she’d mourned the future Denisov brides who wouldn’t be wearing it to wed, but Wolff had given her a chance to resurrect that family tradition.
Not that a wedding looked to be on the horizon for her any time soon.
Her stomach knotted in misery. Wolff’s proposal, back at the Tricorn, had been utterly unexpected. Her instinctive refusal had been a rejection of the situation, rather than the man, although he hadn’t seen it that way. She sighed. Despite what she’d told him, she did want to get married someday. And the thought of accepting any man other than him left a heavy ache in her heart.
He’d been right; he’d ruined her for anyone else—but not in the physical sense of having been the first in her bed. He’d ruined her because nobody else made her feel as wanted, as seen as he did—as if he understood the silly, stubborn woman she was beneath her royal robes, and preferred her to anyone else. She couldn’t imagine another man touching her as intimately as he’d done. She wanted him. His kisses, his smiles. A lifetime of sparring and teasing and learning his secrets.
Anya stilled. Dear God, she’d fallen in love with him.
A rap on the door interrupted her stunned amazement, and Mellors slipped unobtrusively into the room. “There is a gentleman at the back door, my lady. He says he needs to speak with you in private. Most urgently.”
Her heart lurched in alarm. “A Russian gentleman? Count Petrov?”
“No, madam. He says he is a barrister, one Oliver Reynolds. The fiancé of your friend Miss Ivanov?”
“Where is he?”
“At present, in the scullery. He did not want to interrupt the ball by using the main entrance. Shall I bring him here?”
Anya was already on her feet. “No, I’ll go to him. Thank you, Mellors.”
The majordomo nodded placidly.
Anya made her way to the back stairs and hurried down them. In the kitchen, she could hear raised voices—Lagrasse and Mrs. MacDougall were having a difference of opinion on how to make “proper” custard, but she was too worried to smile at their squabbling. She entered the scullery and one look at Oliver’s face was enough to strike fear into her heart.
“Oliver! What is it? What’s happened?”
The young man raked his hand through his sandy hair. “Thank God! It’s Elizaveta. She’s been taken.”
“Taken? When? By whom?” Anya already suspected the answer.
“Less than an hour ago. We were returning from the theatre when a carriage pulled up alongside us. I barely paid any attention until two men jumped out. One struck me down”—he rubbed the back of his head as if in painful memory—“and the other one caught Elizaveta around the waist and bundled her into the carriage. They drove off before I could do anything to save her.” He looked as if he was going to be sick.
Anya hugged her arms around her waist as equal parts fury and terror coursed through her. “Those men were working on the orders of a man named Vasili Petrov. He’s a monster.”
Oliver’s