Before he could guess her intention, she was leaping off the bed, her hair flying about her shoulders.
“What?”
“Damn, stay where you are,” he gritted, plucking her off her feet to lay her back on the mattress. Then, when it was obvious she intended to fight him, he sat on the edge of the bed and grasped her arms in a tight grip.
“What have you done with the letters?” she hissed, her eyes bright with accusation.
He frowned. Christ, she was beautiful with her face flushed and her glorious hair spread across the pillow. He was wise enough, however, to resist the urge to yank her into his arms.
The vixen was quite capable of drawing blood when she was in this mood.
“I told you…”
“You told me that you had them and then you return to claim that they have mysteriously disappeared.” Her suspicious glare seared over his face. “Did you go to order your servant to hide them?”
It took Stefan a long moment to realize that the wench was actually accusing him of stealing the damned letters. His hands tight
ened on her arms, infuriated by the knowledge she still refused to trust him.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” he demanded, his voice low and threatening. “If I wanted to keep the letters from you I would never have told you I retrieved them to begin with.”
“Perhaps it just now occurred to you what they are worth.”
“Are you suggesting, Miss Karkoff, that I am intending to use my mother’s letters to extort money from the Countess Karkoff?”
She licked her lips, suddenly appearing uncertain. “I…”
“Ah, but why halt there?” he silkily demanded. “Maybe I shall destroy Alexander Pavlovich and make my own bid for the throne. I do have a remote connection, after all.”
She at least possessed the grace to appear embarrassed by her insulting accusations. If only momentarily. Refusing to meet his hard glare, she lowered her head.
“If you do not have them, then where are they?”
“Obviously they have been stolen.”
“By who?”
The question had been plaguing him since Boris had revealed the luggage was missing.
“It could have been anyone. A local who strolled past and thought the bag might have money stashed inside.” He shrugged. “Or one of Sir Charles’s guards.”
Her head abruptly lifted, her eyes wide as she appeared to be struck by a sudden thought.
“Josef,” she breathed.
“Who?”
“The man who helped Sir Charles escape.”
Stefan had a brief memory of a small, scarred man who had appeared to haul Sir Charles into a waiting carriage. At the time he had been so consumed with the blood spilling from Leonida’s wound that he had no interest in the roughly attired peasant, or the madman he was helping to flee.
“He was not in the cottage when we entered,” Stefan said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “So it is entirely possible he caught sight of our approach and decided to hide in the woods to avoid capture.”
She chewed her bottom lip, her eyes troubled by some inward thought.
“He was the one who searched my rooms at the inn. He told Sir Charles he could not find the letters, but at the time I wondered if he knew more than he was willing to reveal.” She shifted restlessly beneath his grip. “Perhaps he deliberately left them behind in the hopes he could return later and retrieve them without Sir Charles realizing his betrayal.”
Stefan prepared himself for yet another battle. The fear for her mother was already etched on her tight features. Within moments she would be once again demanding that they return to St. Petersburg.