His words were cut brutally short as Tipova smashed his fist into Charles’s mouth.
Tumbling backward, Charles groaned in agony. His lip was split and it felt as if someone had thrust a hot poker through his side. His vision momentarily clouded, making his heart clench with panic. Slowly his eyes cleared and he belatedly wished that he had passed out.
Gazing upward he found Tipova hovering over him with a feral hatred etched on his face.
This was more than a man angered by the loss of his money or the inconvenience of replacing his dead whores.
His revulsion toward Charles was a tangible force in the air that held no mercy, no compassion.
“Your attempts to blackmail Countess Karkoff have accomplished nothing more than your humiliation,” he said, his lips curling with scorn. “Now you have nothing to offer me beyond your slow and painful death.”
Cowering on the floor, Charles desperately clutched at his only hope of avoiding his horrifying fate.
“You will be shot for this,” he hissed. “I am a nobleman. You cannot harm me without answering to the Emperor.”
Tipova crouched down beside him, his golden eyes glowing with a terrifying anticipation.
“Actually I have been assured by those in authority that I am quite at liberty to do whatever I please with you. It was not at all wise to kidnap the Emperor’s daughter.”
“You lie.”
The words had barely tumbled from his lips when Tipova deliberately pressed a knee hard against his knife wound, making Charles convulse in anguish.
“Did Miss K
arkoff do this to you?” Tipova murmured, digging his knee deeper. “Obviously a spirited wench. I really must meet her.”
“I will slice open that whore’s throat,” he gasped.
“Ah. It bothers you to be bested by a mere woman,” the bastard taunted. “You like them at your mercy, do you not? It makes you feel less a worthless coward when you abuse a frightened, helpless creature.”
“Go to hell.”
Tipova reached into Charles’s pocket to remove his favorite dagger.
“Eventually, but not before I have sent you ahead to prepare the path,” he murmured, stroking the razor-sharp blade down Charles’s cheek.
Charles’s heels burrowed into the rotting planks of the floor as he futilely tried to scoot away from the dagger. The fear he had created in his victims was not nearly so pleasant when he was the one beneath the blade.
“Please,” he whimpered, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I will find the money for you. I swear.”
“Too late.”
Charles screamed as the dagger sliced through his face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ALTHOUGH IT HAD BEEN LATE when Leonida returned from the Czar’s dinner, she was up with the sun, attiring herself in a peach silk carriage gown with ivory lace around the hem and a triple strand of pearls around her neck to hide the nearly healed wound. Her hair she left loose to tumble about her shoulders, too restless to remain still long enough for Sophy to style it in a more elegant knot.
The sense of restlessness continued to plague her as she finished her breakfast and retreated to a small parlor that overlooked the sunken rose garden.
It was a charming room with pale yellow silk on the walls and French furnishings that were painted gold and covered in a cream satin. The tables were topped with agate and held a collection of delicate cameos. The ceiling had been painted with a scene of cupids dancing among the clouds.
It was not the beauty of the room, however, that drew Leonida. Instead it was the morning sunlight that streamed through the high arched windows that made it her favorite.
Curling on a low sofa, she attempted to lose herself in a book, refusing to ponder her brief encounter with Stefan the night before or the message he pressed into her hand just before leaving the palace.
If she had learned nothing else over the past weeks, it was that she was wasting her time to attempt to make sense of the Duke of Huntley.