Scoundrel's Honor (Russian Connection 3)

“I have faith in the knowledge you are not half the man that he is.”

Fury flashed through the beady eyes, and turning on his heel, Valik stomped heavily up the stairs.

“It’s no wonder your sister was so eager to flee your sour nature,” he growled. “I would have smothered you in your sleep.”

“Anya? Is she here?”

“You wish to join her? It is my pleasure,” he muttered, continuing up a second flight of stairs to the attics. He paused to unlock a heavy door, pushing it open to climb yet another short flight of stairs. At the top there were two doors on either side of the narrow hallway. He unlocked the one on the right-hand side, thrusting it open with a grim smile. “Enjoy your reunion. It is to be of a short duration. You are both to be sold tonight.”

Emma cursed as the servant dumped her over the threshold, slamming the door shut and locking it before she could react. Rising to her feet, she rubbed her bruised hip and glanced around the cramped room.

There was not much to see.

The ceiling was low and flat with a small ladder that led to a narrow opening in the roof. There were a few pillows scattered over plank wooden floor and an oil lantern billowing smoke and a grudging light on an upturned barrel in one corner, but no furniture and nothing to ease the bleak emptiness. Across the narrow room a piece of fabric was hung in a doorway, concealing the room beyond.

Where were Anya and the girls that Valik was holding hostage? If they were near she should surely hear something from them?

Were they bound and gagged? Were they being forced into silence by guards?

Were they…

She squashed her increasingly panicked thoughts, stepping toward the center of the room.

“Anya?” she called softly. “Anya?”

There was a rustle of fabric and Emma watched as the curtain across the door was thrust aside and her sister stepped into the room.

She sucked in a sharp breath, her anxious gaze running over her sister’s loose curls that were several shades lighter than her own and the pale face with a pair of large blue eyes that Emma had always envied.

Despite being clad in odd baggy trousers and a small embroidered vest that left her stomach exposed, she looked precisely as she did the morning she had disappeared and Emma felt a pang of surprise tug at her heart.

Perhaps she had expected Anya to look…different.

As if her terrifying adventure should have altered her in some visible manner.

Instead, she regarded Emma with a familiar petulant expression, her chin jutted to a stubborn angle.

“Emma?” Her voice was sharp. “What are you doing here?”

Emma blinked back her tears of joy, telling herself that Anya’s less than welcoming reaction was merely shock at her unexpected arrival.

“It was my intention to rescue you,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “Unfortunately, it would appear that I am to be hoisted on my own petard.”

“Hoisted on a what?”

“It does not matter. Where are the other girls?”

Anya shrugged. “They are being prepared for the auction in the rooms across the hall.”

Unable to reign in her need to touch her sister and assure herself that she truly was unharmed, Emma rushed across the room, wrapping her arms around the startled Anya. “Oh, dear Lord, it is so wonderful to see you.”

“Emma, release me,” Anya commanded. “I cannot breathe.”

“Forgive me. I am just so relieved to know you are alive. You cannot imagine how terrified I have been.” Emma pulled back, her hands running over her younger sister as she had done when she was little and had taken a tumble from a tree. “Come, let me look at you. Are you hurt? Have they…”

“For God’s sake, Emma, would you just stop your tugging on me?” Anya snapped, shoving away from Emma’s lingering touch with obvious impatience.

Emma bit her lower lip, wondering if Anya was fearful that she was about to be scolded on being so foolish as to have run off with virtual strangers. Her sister resented being in the wrong and tended to strike out in defense.