“May I ask your name?”
“You may ask if you are so inclined.”
Tatya snorted through a puff of smoke. “All class, this one.”
“So I see. Could do very well for us.” Pyotr pulled the cigarette from Tatya’s mouth and flicked it in the gutter. “Why don’t I take the two most beautiful women this side of the Neva River out for a drink? Catch up on old times with the tsar, determine the best place to find stroganoff, and pour a glass of vodka for the comrades we left behind.” His arm slipped around Svetlana with a light touch to the small of her back. Leading in a dance she had no desire to join.
Having reigned a lifetime in ballrooms armed with the noble art of avoidance, Svetlana sidestepped his nefarious intentions with ease.
“As I’ve told the duchess here, I have my own errands to see to.”
Tatya leaned forward, poking her head just under the protection of the umbrella. “That right. She looks place to stay. I show her Sheremetev place.”
Pyotr tilted the umbrella more over his own head and away from Tatya. “Ah, Sheremetev. The man who knows everyone and everything happening from Paris to Petrograd. Whatever you need, he has it or the ability to procure it.”
Whatever Svetlana needed. The promise of hope so near at hand crooked its beckoning finger at her, enticing her with deliverance from fear. Could it be so simple as knowing the right man’s name? Such information never came without a cost, but it was a fortune she would gladly pay to keep the Bolsheviks from finding them.
“Where might I find this Sheremetev?”
“A stroke of fortune in that I’m heading to the White Bear now to meet him. I’ll introduce you.” A smile slicked across Pyotr’s wide mouth as he no doubt imagined himself landing his prize.
But she was no game piece to claim in victory. He’d overplayed his hand from first introduction, and it was high time he learned a lesson in civilized defeat.
“I will produce my own means of introduction should I find myself in need of such services. Yours are not required.”
“No need to be cold, printsessa.”
The careless tossing out of her rightful title stung. She had a right to claim it and rebuke his insolence, but no longer were they at the imperial court. No longer did her title carry clout. It was a death warrant in the wrong hands, and if her instincts were correct, Pyotr’s hands were far from clean.
“If I were as cold as you claim, you would have been frozen to the spot long ago. As such, I’ll thank you to remove your hand and never dare touch a lady again.”
He stepped closer. Spiced wine fouled the air. “I’ve met tyolka like you before. Braying about, thinking you’re better than everyone.”
“I try not to presume such a claim, but in your case I’ll make an exception.”
“We’re not in Russia anymore. Your kind are toppling.”
“A shame if your kind were crushed in the rubble.”
“Move away from the lady.” Wynn’s voice cut through the building tension. He thrust himself into the space between Svetlana and Pyotr. Anger rolled off him in heated waves. “I said, move away.”
Tall as she was, Svetlana saw little beyond Wynn’s wide shoulders. They blocked everything from view. She peered around him.
“Who are you to interrupt so rudely a conversation that does not concern you, anglichanin?” Pyotr sneered, nearly knocking Wynn in the head with his umbrella.
Wynn didn’t flinch. “I’ll ask you once to move along.”
“Or what?”
“It’ll end with broken bones and they won’t be mine.”
Aiming a disgusting spit at Wynn’s feet, Pyotr grabbed Tatya’s arm and yanked her away. Tatya’s feet skipped to keep up. Passersby stared at the uncivilized behavior before shrugging it off as wont to do for a girl of her working station. She cast a pitiful look over her shoulder at Svetlana before she was hauled around a corner and out of sight.
Wynn turned on Svetlana, thick eyebrows crushed together. “Why is it I always tend to find you in verbal altercations on random footpaths? Is the church cellar so dull that you seek out entertainment elsewhere, never mind the notoriety of these little run-ins?”
She dismissed his indignation as the triviality it was. “It is none of your affair.”
“A lady being assaulted on the street is my affair.”
“His lack of manners was the only assault to me. It was not the first time I’ve deflected boorish attacks.”
“This isn’t some fancy salon where a rap on the man’s knuckles with your fan will do the trick. Men like him don’t stop at the word no.”
“You know this how?”
“Work in enough hospitals and it’s easy to learn the type when you’re patching them up from pub fights.” Shifting a parcel under his arm, he popped open his umbrella and angled it over Svetlana’s head. The drizzle had turned into a mist that thickened the air with a cloying dampness.
“What is this pub?”
Wynn released a gusty sigh that loosened the tense line between his eyebrows. “A public house. A tavern, barroom, saloon. A place where drink inflates men’s egos and they duke it out in the back alley defending said ego.”
“I would never dare step foot into a place of debauchery.”
“Good. That rules out half of Paris the next time I’m forced to find you out wandering on your own.”
This man and his high-handed ways. As if he held the right to intrude on whoever and whatever he pleased. She had more important matters to occupy herself with than wondering when he would next show up. Or what color the light would turn his eyes. Today, touches of brown.
Svetlana plucked at the shawl clinging to her head to ward off her study of him. “No one has forced you to do anything. I do not understand why you are here in the first place.”
“The chemist a block over was able to secure a specially made stethoscope for me.” He jostled the package under his arm. “Upon picking up my order, whom should I see but Your Serenity making new friends.”
“I did not realize that upon our brief acquaintance I am required to provide a list of names of whom I should be conversing with. Might I also note that these persons were not sought out but came to me. Most uninvited.”
“Does that include me?”
“Increasingly so.”
His mouth cocked up at one corner and he rocked back on his heels. The amused reaction felt far more intimate than the generated distance suggested.
“Why is that? As far as I know, I’ve been nothing but polite and helpful, yet you’re determined to make a nuisance of me. Some might call that ungratefully snobbish.”
The barb hit quick, its defiance slicing past years of defense erected against its sting. All her life she’d stood apart, followed every rule and protocol for the sake of propriety, never once accepting an offering that was said to be beneath her. It was the expected nature of a princess. It had served her well, but she was not immune to the whispers behind drawing room doors: cold, conceited, condescending. She’d taken them in stride as petty jealousies, but the man before her had no reason for spite. If she’d learned anything about him in their short association, she knew he was not a bluffing man.
She turned away. “I will not stand here and be insulted on the street.”
His hand locked around her elbow, halting her departure. “Before you get on that high prancing horse, let me stop you there, Princess.”
“I do not require your halting, marquee.”
“It’s marquis, but let’s not get tangled on semantics. I said some people might call you that. I would call you a woman who’s had the path ripped out from under her slippered feet and has fallen back on old world habits. The problem is, this is a different world and old habits won’t survive here. We have to adapt else we lose the fight.”