“Are the Bolsheviks on their way now?”
Dr. Stan frowned as he looked up from reading the new letters. “Who are these Bolsheviks and what is a popka?”
“Bolsheviks, Reds, communists. Murder imperial Russian family. Govern Russia now. My papa do business with if lucrative.”
“If you have nothing further to add to this case, I must insist you, sir, and the princess remove yourselves out of these doors.” Dr. Stan flipped open the folder in front of him and squinted between the filed papers and the new report in his hand. “In the meantime this board will suspend its vote. My apologies for extending your purgatory, Your Grace, but rather we should discover all of the truth than condemn a man for his duties as a physician. If you could but give us a few minutes more for discussion.”
“Certainly.” Wynn turned back to his wife, wanting with all his heart to leap across the low wall and kiss her senseless between words of love, but the impending danger outweighed all else. “Go to Savoy Hotel and wait for me in my room. You’ll be safe there until we can decide what to do next.”
The faintest hint of a smile curved her lips. “We’ll decide?”
What was it she had said once? Russians were never ruled by their hearts because they were too fond of misery? Perhaps when they returned to Thornhill they could let go of the misery and put more effort into matters of the heart. Their hearts.
“Yes, because that’s what we do. Together.”
“No worries, Mac. I protect Angel with life until you arrive. After you arrive too.” Furrows wrinkled Leonid’s brow. “Never much like Papochka as criminal. I always want family go straight, own proper bar and restaurant. Money more interesting for him. I make new family with you.”
With that inarguable proclamation, he offered Svetlana his arm and escorted her from the room. She glimpsed over her shoulder and smiled at Wynn, making his heart soar as the door swung shut.
Bam!
The gunshot echoed outside the door.
Wynn leaped over the divider and barreled down the aisle. Bursting into the corridor, he stumbled over Leonid sprawled on the floor in a thin puddle of blood.
Clutching the bleeding wound in his arm, Leonid fired off in rapid Russian, curse words if Wynn’s ear picked them out correctly, before switching to English. “That way, Mac! Go!”
Wynn sprinted after the distant echo of feminine heels clicking down the tiled hall. He knocked past men in white coats and orderlies pushing trollies until the heel clicks vanished behind a slamming door leading to the back alley of the building. Ripping open the door, he raced out.
“Wynn!” Svetlana screamed as she was shoved into a waiting carriage.
Dressed in Hugh’s stolen clothing, Sergey was wild-eyed as the devil himself as he leaped into the carriage after her and slammed the door. His accomplice, a man wearing all black and sporting a red armband, cracked the reins over the horses and the carriage shot off like a bullet.
Chapter 32
Svetlana stared at the man seated across from her in the carriage. A face familiar to her yet the man within utterly unknown.
“How could you do this? How could you turn traitor and become a Bolshevik? I thought I knew you better.”
“I am not one of them. Whatever foul thoughts you may have for me at present, at least know that truth.” Sweat dotted Sergey’s pale brow. Gripping a gun in one hand until his knuckles whitened, he withdrew a soiled handkerchief from his pocket with his other equally strained hand and swiped his face. Never in her life had she seen him without a clean linen or with frayed cuffs. He had been living rough since he’d fled Thornhill, and the loss did not agree with him.
Quaking inside, she refused to let him see her fear. “Then it is well you cannot read my mind, for it is black enough to blot out all manner of niceties. How dare you turn a gun on me? Stop this carriage at once.”
“There will be no stopping, at least not until we reach our destination. And do not think to take your leave early. The doors are locked.”
The secured shades closed off all recognition of the passing landmarks Svetlana could use to determine their route. Any clue along the way for a means of escape. Without visual aid, she tried following the map of Glasgow in her mind, but as the carriage veered around corner after corner the map tangled into confusion. “Where might our destination be?”
“You are going home. To Russia.”
“To be executed.”
A sob escaped from Svetlana’s mother who cowered against her daughter’s side. Dressed in a fine traveling ensemble of black and gray, she clearly had not been kidnapped. Her face had registered absolute shock when Svetlana was unceremoniously stuffed inside the waiting carriage.
Svetlana put her arm around her shaking mother. Whatever tension existed between them no longer mattered. “What did he tell you, Mama?”
“He told me you were in grave danger. That the Bolsheviks had found us and were lying in wait for you as you chased after Wynn. Little did I know it was he who was the Bolshevik.”
“Do not call me one of them again!” The gun shook in Sergey’s hand.
Mama bawled into her handkerchief before looking back to Svetlana. “I thought we were waiting in the carriage to whisk you safely back to Scotland.”
“Where is Marina?” Svetlana demanded. “And how did you get to Thornhill? Wynn banished you.”
“Your sister was in the village with that peasant woman you keep on a leash. I did not have time to wait for her to return, so you two will have to suffice. As far as that so-called husband of yours, he may be lord of the manor, but I’m cunning enough to slip past any arrogant roadblocks he set up. Particularly that watchdog butler.”
Mama clutched at Svetlana’s sleeve. Great fat tears rolled off her cheeks and plopped onto the material. “He told me Bolsheviks were watching the house and we had to slip off quietly. I didn’t know, Svetka. I swear I didn’t. I never would have gone with him if I’d known.”
“It’s all right, Mama. He might have tied you up and carried you out if he’d been forced to. Much easier to have a willing yet clueless victim.” Svetlana leveled a cold stare at him. “Why? What have we done for you to turn on us, your dearest friends? Why go through the lies of trying to reunite with us in Paris?”
He shifted restlessly on the seat, squeezing the gun’s handle again and again. The white of his knuckles pulsed like a heartbeat. “Because I was trying to reunite with you after fleeing Russia. When I arrived in Paris I had nothing. I was desperate, searching for you everywhere. One day I learned of the name Sheremetev and how he knew every Russian in the city, so I went to him begging for information about you. Your name sparked no delight for him, only cold-blooded hatred. He informed me that you had recently been married and no longer patronized his club with your dancing. I always adored your dancing, you know that, right?” His tone softened at the end. The tip of his gun wavered.
If he hoped to kindle good memories within her, he’d failed. “Sheremetev wants revenge for when I would no longer dance for him. He wants to murder me, Sergey, and all you care to do is spin compliments. How did you become tangled in his web?”
“He sold me to the Bolsheviks because of my connection to you. The Bolsheviks wanted to use my connection to seize you.”