Svetlana flushed hot. His blatant philosophy insulted the very essence of tradition her life had been built upon. The foundation of who she was. Without it there was no purpose. She had no purpose. And he had the gall to make a point of it.
She wrenched from his grasp. “Who are you to speak to me thus? No one speaks to me in this manner.”
“A shame because they’re doing you a disservice.”
“And you think you’re the one in service, do you?”
“If it weren’t for me, you’d be having pickle juice ladled down your royal neck to cure a leg injury. Babushka showed me a jar of mushrooms.” He shook his head. “I never realized how many things can be pickled.”
He shifted topics quicker than a tiara on wet hair. Could he not allow her righteous outrage to simmer longer?
“Peasants pickle everything. It lasts longer.”
“Do they pickle humor? There seems to be a shortage of it.”
“Unlike Englishmen who abound with the sentiment.” She spiked her eyebrows in pointed disapproval.
“The English? No, dry as a peat bog in a drought, that lot. My charm comes from pure Scottish roots.”
“I believe your roots may have hit bedrock.”
Glancing up and down the street at the people hunkered into their collars against the wet, he leaned down close to her ear. “Careful, printsessa. Your humor is unearthing itself.”
“Only with you it seems.” She tugged the shawl ends closer around her neck, warding off the heat radiating from him.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The heat threatened the logic in her head. Not to mention his clean scent of wool splashed with cologne. Svetlana moved away before it proved too great a distraction.
“And I shall take my leave.”
He didn’t perceive the hint and moved along with her.
“Excellent idea. I was heading that way myself.”
“Your hospital is the other way.”
“Some days I prefer the long route. Prettier scenery.”
“I prefer to walk alone.”
“If the lady insists, but I hope you don’t mind me following a few paces behind. Take my umbrella. I’ve got a hat to cover me and you’ve not more than that soaked shawl. Don’t need you catching a chill.” He held out the umbrella to her. “Funny how I’ll take a patient with a broken arm over a fever any day. There’s nothing worse than having to watch a person wait it out of their system and not be able to mend it straightaway.”
“You are an impatient man.”
“Only when it counts. Other things, well, I’m considering they might be worth waiting for.” His gaze settled over her in a direct manner that combed through her tightly woven insides, spinning them out to singular threads humming with awareness.
She tamped the vibrations into submission. He was a stranger. No one could be trusted, especially not a self-professed charmer. The survival of her family remained paramount to any unwanted entanglements. Entanglements that confronted her with golden-green eyes that deepened under the brim of his hat.
As if delighting in the inner chaos he created, the edge of his mouth curled. He handed her the umbrella, brushing her fingers as she reached for it. The unraveled threads sang. Traitors to her very dignity. She had no better control of herself than an ingénue standing at her first barre.
She clutched the handle. “Thank you.”
“Pozhaluysta.”
The Russian word rang in her ears as she turned and walked on. How did he manage to manipulate a single word—spoken in a language deemed fit only for peasants, no less—into a flirtatious invitation? More vexing, why did she notice?
She pushed the unsettling thoughts away, but the man himself was not so easily ignored. His footsteps fell in line behind her. Bits of water from the tips of his shoes sprayed against her skirt with each step he took. She dared a peek over her shoulder. He smiled and tipped his hat.
He was entirely too cheerful. Very unRussian. And also very wet. Her desire to remain distant warred with her polite breeding. She wouldn’t dare claim it as a spark of humanity lest it flame out of control and she suddenly discover herself ladling at a soup kitchen. Best to pass over a few coins in such a situation, but she had no coin at present. Only a soggy man ridiculously smiling at her and, for the life of her, she could not leave him that way.
“Join me under the umbrella.”
“I’m sorry. Would you repeat that?” He cocked his head to the side as if he hadn’t quite heard.
Svetlana gestured impatiently. “Join me.”
“Is that a command or a request? Difficult to tell in all this rain.” As if to emphasize his point, he frowned and held out his hand for raindrops to plop against his palm.
He’d heard her perfectly well and they both knew it.
“Would you care to join me out of the weather under this umbrella you have so thoughtfully provided?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” He took shelter under the canopied protection, or rather, the right side of him did. The wide expanse of his left shoulder and back remained exposed to the elements. “Is it back to the church or do you have a few more clandestine characters to meet around the next corner?”
“I have no one to meet. Not in this neighborhood.” Svetlana curled her hand around the gems in her pocket. “Snobbish French. They do not trust us Russians. They are afraid we will bring our revolution to their streets. A hypocritical concern considering their own history with Madame Guillotine.”
Bam!
Gunshots. Feet pounding on pavement followed by shouts.
Bam-bam!
The terror that had scorched Svetlana’s nightmares since that burning October night clawed for breath. The revolutionaries. They were coming for her. They were here.
A man barreled out of the alleyway ahead of them. His jacket flapped around him as he twisted his wild-eyed stare over his shoulder. His foot caught. Down he went, smacking the sidewalk with his shoulder. Up and down the street people scattered and screamed like pigeons in a park.
Bam!
The man jerked and cried out. Red seeped from his shoulder.
Svetlana dropped the umbrella and spun away. The revolutionaries.
They’d found her.
Chapter 5
Wynn grabbed her and pushed her against the side of a building, covering her with his body. Svetlana didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the horrible image before her, but Wynn’s weight immobilized her against the wet stone with her unblinking eyes pinned on the shot man.
Scrambling backward on his hand, the man pulled a gun from his jacket and fired down the alleyway. The shot ricocheted off the walls.
“Cowards! Shooting me in back!” he shouted in Russian. Feet scuffled, growing farther away. “That is right. Run!” He collapsed, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
“Stay here,” Wynn hissed in her ear. His weight lifted from her, leaving a terrible chill in his absence as he rushed to the fallen man.
The blood rushed from Svetlana’s extremities until they shook from deprivation. She watched as if standing in a water bubble that deafened all sound, thought, and movement. She blinked heavily, yet her eyes could not belie what her brain tried to deceive her with. Reds. Guns. A man bleeding. Wynn bending over him, fingers prodding the wound.