Читать книгу Wild: - Noelle Mack - Страница 8

After Kyril’s departure from Cheyne Row…

He asked not to go north to his house near Grosvenor Square as his coachman expected but to the east, following the road along the river. Tom Micklethwaite hunkered down as if his massive shoulders could protect the rest of him against the rain, and urged the four black horses on with a slap of the reins. No whip. His master did not like animals to be mistreated.

Miles away, an hour or more later, he stopped where Kyril had told him to, pulling up the reins and looking about nervously. They had come out from under the storm. Here, the wind was blowing from the opposite direction, pushing the clouds and rain back.

Tom heard his master open the door and step down quietly. The coachman reached for the stout cudgel that he kept under the seat. In sight of the Thames, the ramshackle houses leaned upon each other and there was no telling who lurked in the alleys between them. If heads had to be broken, he would break them and ask no questions.

Kyril looked up and saw Tom slap the cudgel against his rough palm. Once. Twice.

“I hope we will not need that, Mr. Micklethwaite. But the boat is coming. I will soon be on my way and you can go home.”

The coachman peered into the darkness, seeing nothing out on the water. They had stopped by a flight of stairs leading down to the river, slippery with moss and filth. Someone had left a lamp there, but its light was feeble.

Kyril gave a soft halloo when a bright point of answering light appeared in the distance, reflected in shattered fragments by the black, rushing water. Little by little, the light came closer and he heard the soft dip and splash of oars.

“Here he is.”

“An invisible man,” the coachman grumbled, “in an invisible boat. I wish you luck, sir.”

Kyril made no comment. Tom Micklethwaite was blunt by nature. But the Pack had needed a coachman who knew his way through the intricate web of alleys and crooked streets along the river, especially at night. The Thames waterfront was a maze that often trapped the unwary, with stairs and docks and landing places that took a lifetime to learn. Born in Stepney, Tom had proved to be their man and he was trustworthy.

“Coming about,” the man in the boat said in a low voice. He gave a final hard pull on the oars to propel himself to the narrow dock at the foot of the stairs, then kept one in the water to turn the boat around with.

Kyril handed the lantern on the stairs to Tom and, surefooted despite the slime on the stairs, went down to the boat. The other man drew both oar handles through the oarlocks and trapped them under a planked seat, keeping the wide, wet blades up in the air. They dripped into the river, gleaming in the isolated light of the lantern attached to the bow. He threw a line in a loop around a half-rotted piling, securing the boat to it.

“Neatly done,” the coachman said softly. “If that bad wood holds.”

“It will hold long enough.” Kyril clambered down into the rowboat. “I will be gone for some time,” he said over his shoulder to Tom, trying to stay on his feet. “Return the carriage to the mews and—” He swore under his breath when an unseen swell rocked the boat.

Lukian Taruskin leaned to the opposite side to steady it.

“See to the horses, Tom, and yourself—it was a long while to wait in bad weather and then the gallop—damnation!” The boat tipped to the other side.

“Sit down, cousin.” Lukian spoke in Russian. “The tide is turning and we must be off. Tom has not failed you yet.”

Kyril finally sat down.

Tom tipped his hat to his master once he was safely down and slapped the reins over the horses’ backs, turning them and the carriage in the opposite direction from which they had come.

The darkness swallowed the sound of their pounding hooves just as Kyril reached up to extinguish the little flame in the lantern. “Thank you for fetching me. We will not need this now.”

“No,” said Lukian, “perhaps we did not need it at all. But I wanted to be sure you would see me and I was prepared to wait. I saw the storm blow in over your part of London some hours ago.”

“The rain was very heavy.”

“I am glad we are not in the thick of it.”

“So am I.”

Lukian set to in earnest, pulling rapidly on the oars to get them well away from the treacherous bank.

After a little while he spoke again. “How did you get through the streets? London is ankle-deep in muck when it rains hard. I was surprised to see you at the dock.” His efforts took the boat straight through the strong current of the placid-looking Thames. Like Kyril, he was a powerful man.

“Micklethwaite made good time.”

Lukian’s breathing was deep and regular. He seemed to be enjoying the vigorous exercise.

“And where were you before this, Kyril?” he asked with amusement. “You smell of flowers.”

“Do I?”

Lukian snorted. “Let me guess. You were not picking violets in a churchyard. Who is she?”

“That is for me to know and you to find out.”

His cousin rowed on, thinking it over. “Hmm. Of the ladies of your acquaintance, there is only one who likes that particular perfume. I met her once. You dragged me to a soirée at her house when I was the worse for drink.”

“Are you speaking of—”

“Yes, her,” Lukian said impatiently. “The woman you hold in such high esteem. I don’t think she liked me. You know exactly who I am talking about.”

Kyril did, but something in his cousin’s tone struck him as odd. Lukian’s bad temper was nothing new, but his snappishness was. He was a lone wolf by nature, prone to dark moods which he usually managed to keep to himself. It was impossible to see his expression clearly now that the lantern had been put out.

“I doubt she remembers you,” Kyril said at last.

Lukian shrugged, which interrupted the rhythm of his rowing. The oars bounced on the water and splashed. “Good. What was her name again?”

“Vivienne Sheridan.”

“Yes, of course. She must have rubbed herself against you very thoroughly, Kyril.”

“Do not be so rude. She did not rub, as you put it. We embraced.”

“Aha. How romantic. Do you love her?”

There was a thin, razor-sharp edge to that unexpected question. Why on earth did his cousin even care? Kyril cleared his throat. “She is very beautiful.”

“So she is.”

“And highly intelligent.”

Lukian snorted. “A paragon of womanly perfection, I suppose. Worthy of a pedestal.”

“Yes, Lukian. But not at all like a statue. She is extremely sensual,” Kyril added. “So much so that I very nearly forgot my meeting with you.”

Lukian’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Then I will count myself lucky. I suppose she refused you?”

“She did not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“It seemed best not to send one of my brothers in my place.”

Lukian laughed. “You are lying, Kyril. Though Semyon and Marko are good men. But they lack your experience at skulking around.”

“That is because they are still cubs.”

“Tall ones.”

“But cubs.”

“Have it your way, cousin.” Lukian returned his attention to his rowing, lost in thoughts that Kyril could not read.

Kyril let the matter drop, thinking of Vivienne instead. How ardently she had pressed against him, how much she had seemed to want him—why had she said no?

It had worked out for the best, of course. If Lukian had come to the north bank of the Thames, following the beacon that a confederate had set out before Kyril’s arrival, and not found him there, he would have been angry indeed. Given Lukian’s current mood, they would have come to blows over it.

Kyril sighed. Family was family, but his relatives were sometimes too fond of fighting. But there was nothing he could do about that. For reasons of security, the members of the Pack of St. James had to stick together and he had not found it easy to make friends among the English in any case.

If truth be known, his feelings for Vivienne were a combustible mixture of raging lust and the first, worshipful stirrings of tender love—a love that was likely to consume him if he was not careful.

She most likely wanted him for only one reason. And yet she seemed loving as well as sensual. But she was reserved. She had been wounded in some way years ago—he sensed as much. He would have to find out her secrets. It might not be easy. She did not reveal herself in artless chatter as so many females did.

No, she waited and listened and bided her time—

“Tell me more of Vivienne,” his cousin said. “Do you mean to make her your mate?”

“Lukian…” Kyril’s voice held a warning. “She is human and mortal.”

“And so she will remain. Unless you take her as yours forever in the rites of our kind.”

“I know that,” Kyril said a little irritably. “In any case, it is high time for me to—”

His cousin interrupted him. “To what? Find one woman and give up your wild ways?”

“Yes.”

Lukian gave a disrespectful snort. “You have been made welcome in a hundred beds, some say. And I hear that women will not wash the sheets after you leave. They vow to treasure them forever.”

“Ridiculous. And mostly untrue.”

“Oh?” Lukian inquired. “What part of it is true? The one hundred women or the sheets that bear your manly mark?”

“Who have you been talking to?”

“I did not make up these wild rumors,” Lukian said solemnly. “And I cannot trace them for you.”

Kyril was silent. Had Vivienne heard such tales? She was too intelligent to believe them. She would dismiss them as boozy jests. Or so he hoped.

The oars splashed in the water as Lukian laughed rudely. “No one is as good at being bad as you are, cousin.”

“A year ago I would have taken that as a compliment. But now…” Kyril did not finish the sentence.

“Since you met Vivienne,” Lukian prompted. “Go on. You still have not told me much about her.”

“We are friends.”

“Hah.”

“Perhaps not for much longer,” Kyril conceded.

“Of course not. We are wolves at heart.”

“We are men, Lukian. To all outward appearances. And we follow the conventions of men.”

“More’s the pity.”

Kyril felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. An ancient response…but the threat he sensed was somehow new. His cousin, blood kin, seemed deeply troubled. Lukian’s mind should have been easy enough for Kyril to read. But something seemed to have clouded it and Kyril could not pick up very much at all.

He did not understand Lukian’s irritable mood or his interest in Vivienne. Perhaps it would be best for Kyril to assert his claim upon her now so there would be no misunderstanding later.

“I am considering Vivienne for the rites,” he said at last. “Of course she must understand fully who we are and the nature of our mission in England, and that will take time. The men of the Pack mate for life but we are—”

“As wild as we want to be otherwise,” Lukian growled. “And rough. The women of London adore us.”

Kyril knew what he was talking about, but he had no wish to satisfy Lukian’s unwelcome curiosity about his own sensual adventuring. Kyril was quite sure that his feelings for Vivienne went far deeper. But they had been inspired by physical passion.

“I would never treat Vivienne with roughness, not even in play. She is different.”

Lukian rowed on. “All females are the same, cousin.”

Kyril made no reply to that, occupying himself by looking from side to side. Theirs was not the only boat on the river but it was too dark, even for him, to make out many details of the others. Some craft had lanterns at the stern, some at the prow. A few had no light at all.

It was possible that they were being followed. The agents of the Tsar were everywhere, now that the Congress of Vienna was over and the Russian eagle was spreading its imperial wings.

It seemed hardly fair that one powerful man could decide the fate of millions, Kyril thought. His own clan included. But they numbered only in the hundreds, even after generations of intermarriage.

They might vanish in a few more.

He pushed aside his forebodings and looked at Lukian, whose unerring sense of direction was keeping them on course. Nose to the wind. The old Pack motto. Whatever was clouding his cousin’s conscious mind did not seem to affect his instincts.

Perhaps the enfolding darkness heightened those. Kyril gave heed to his own and allowed himself to enjoy the journey. Moving swiftly over water in the night was a sensation something like flying. There was a tang of brine in the air. He inhaled deeply. The sea was not all that far away—if they continued around the Isle of Dogs, following the great loop of the Thames, they would soon join the ships heading for the open ocean.

But they would not. They were only to observe and take notes upon the unloading of a Russian ship, the Catherine, at the Baltic Dock on the south side of the Thames. She had been listed as missing in the shipping news, but had been sighted two weeks ago and boarded by the officers of another, faster ship, who reached London first and relayed the news of her slow, perilous progress through drifting ice.

It was early in the year for that. The ship had sailed from Archangel on schedule, well before the port was locked in by winter, loading at the wharves of the Dvina before entering the White Sea and going on through the Baltic.

But northern seas were notoriously unpredictable and too many of the captains who sailed those dangerous waters were drunken brutes. The owner of the Catherine’s cargo, a wealthy man named Phineas Briggs, did not trust the ship’s master, whom he had not hired. Nor did he trust his Russian factors or his English middlemen. Kyril and Lukian had been recommended to him by a friend, and the deal had been sealed with a handshake and a few well-chosen words.

Phineas Briggs did not believe the story about the ice and held that the Catherine’s captain had detoured to a remote island to pick up something that was not on the cargo manifest. In a word, he suspected smuggling.

Someone would be clapped in irons, Kyril knew, or several someones, and a great fuss kicked up in the Admiralty. Then everybody would go right back to smuggling again.

He could not help that. He respected Mr. Briggs’s shrewdness but it was not as if he or Lukian needed the man’s money. Nonetheless, the case provided an excellent cover and a reason to be on the docks, should English officials inquire as to the reason for their presence.

And the Taruskins had intelligence of something else that was likely to be in the Catherine’s hold. Agents of the Tsar, traveling incognito. They apparently knew who many of the other members of the Pack were, if not precisely what they were.

Kyril sighed. He and Lukian would soon be on the south bank and at the warehouses on the dock, where they could observe the passengers leaving the ship in the morning—that would take place before the unloading.

They would have to memorize faces. The secret communiqué from their Archangel headquarters had given general descriptions, but warned that the information was not complete.

The Catherine’s captain might very well have picked up new agents who were not mentioned in the communiqué at all. The thought was troubling. Absently, he listened to the oars in the water. Dip, pull, up, dip. Over and over again. The sound was hypnotic.

“You are thoughtful, Kyril.”

“I suppose I am. Has the Catherine docked, by the way? I forgot to ask you.”

Lukian shook his head. “Not yet. But our man got the harbormaster roaring drunk and extracted a little useful information. He said she is downriver, riding low in the water. Her progress is steady, though.”

“Her cargo must be heavy. Did you obtain a copy of the ship’s manifest and the bills of lading?”

“Yes. Stepan Wisotsky boarded her at Gravesend in the guise of a customs inspector and made them wait while he inspected and memorized both. He was only able to make a cursory inspection of the cargo but he penned fair copies of the paperwork when he disembarked. A messenger brought them to me.”

“Very good. Stepan has prodigious powers of recall.”

“Yes. He was a bookish cub, as I remember. He would never come out to play in the Archangel winters.”

Kyril laughed in a low voice. “I remember that. Stepan was no fool.”

“How pure the snow was there and how white. Blindingly white.” Lukian sighed. “London snow is grimy even when it falls. Full of soot and ashes.”

“Yes, yes, the city runs on coal,” Kyril mused. “Does the Catherine have any in her hold? It is a risky cargo and sometimes explodes.”

Lukian shook his head. “Mostly timber, according to Stepan.”

“That is what Mr. Briggs is shipping. Nothing out of order there.”

“Stepan thought he saw a container marked as khodzhite.”

Kyril raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. I am sure our client knows nothing about it. Khodzhite is valuable and very rare. And far more dangerous than coal.”

“The shipment is safe enough. The container was made of lead.”

“Did Stepan estimate how much of it there is?”

“A thousand pounds, he said.”

“Hmm. No wonder the ship is slow.”

Lukian interrupted him. “The Russian captains overload their ships, no matter how valuable the cargo or perilous the voyage. They would sacrifice their own mothers for a kopeck.”

Kyril nodded. “Indeed.” He remembered the captain on his voyage out to England two years ago. The tightfisted bastard had served his passengers spoiled meat and the sailors had to subsist on hardtack. Lukian, on a different ship leaving months later, had been far worse off, with a very devil at the helm.

“They treat their men brutally. Even an officer can be flogged.”

Kyril knew that Lukian bore the marks of the cat upon his powerful back, deep scars that would never fade. Posing as a naval attaché on his way to England, his cousin had protested an ill-advised shortcut through drifting floes—the Taruskins had made the voyage in generation after generation, and a few of them could read the changing sea as well as their native ice.

Lukian had told Kyril much later that the captain seemed to suspect his otherness from the beginning—or had been told to break him.

The agents of the Tsar had already been looking for the Pack and gathering intelligence as to their travels, and their confidential assignments for the British Society of Merchant-Adventurers. None of whose members had been on Lukian’s vessel to intervene for him.

For daring to question the captain’s judgment, Lukian had been shackled for three days, unable to move. The captain made his punishment an object lesson to the others. He had been stripped to the waist in freezing weather, tied facing the foremast and flogged until his skin burst and the blood poured from his torn flesh, an agony he had endured in silence.

He had been taunted for that, loudly mocked by the captain and the petty officer who had flogged him, but still he said nothing. Then salt water was thrown by the bucketful upon his open wounds to wash away the gore and shredded flesh—and make his agony worse. But Lukian could not be broken by mere men, however cruel they were. He revealed nothing, not one secret of the Pack, or who and what he really was.

He was taken down half-alive, brought belowdecks and left alone to die. He hadn’t. Before the sun came up the captain was found in his cabin with his throat savagely ripped open, his dead body draped with the corpse of the man who’d whipped Lukian. Both were naked.

And mutilated.

Their balls had been ripped from their groins, then stuffed, sac and all, into each other’s mouths—no, their fate was worse, the sailors whispered. Their mouths had been stuffed before they were killed. To keep them from screaming. Before they drowned in the blood gurgling down their throats from the stumps of their severed tongues.

Persuaded, the first mate turned the ship and went the long way, around the ice, arriving in London a few weeks late.

The dead men had been buried at sea, wrapped in red-splotched shrouds of canvas and tipped into the waves. No holy verse was read and no tears flowed. And no one was the wiser in England. The dreaded execution dock of Wapping, built out in the mud of the Thames, did not creak under the last steps of the killer and no one was left in a noose for the tide to wash over him three times. Lukian left the ship and simply disappeared into London, finding his way to the Pack’s lair near the Palace of St. James’s, where he had healed.

Kyril had a great deal of respect for his cousin’s temper. And his toughness.

“They are fools as well as brutes,” Kyril said at last. “But captains earn nothing if they are forced to wait out the winter in Archangel and this fellow made it through.”

“We are supposed to think so. I for one agree with Phineas Briggs.” Lukian pulled harder on the oars, battling the swift current in the middle of the river. “But the northern seas will soon be choked with ice. It is lucky that the Catherine did not sink.”

They turned their heads, hearing distant shouts in the dark. Sailors called to each other and a bosun’s whistle piped. Kyril’s ears pricked. He thought he heard the name of the vessel they sought, though he could not see the ship. “That may be her.”

His own excellent hearing was not quite enough. But sounds traveled over open water in an uncanny way. In a little while his guess was confirmed.

“Well?” Lukian asked.

Kyril listened intently. “Yes, it is the Catherine. Her crew took advantage of the incoming tide.”

“Perhaps they kedged her.”

“A tedious business. Letting go an anchor and dragging to it makes for slow going. And I do not hear the rattle of chains.”

Lukian exhaled. “Then they are relying upon a pilot or a tug.”

“They would have to. Sailing upriver on so dark a night is treacherous.”

Lukian left off rowing and listened too. “The watermen guided them. The sons of the Thames are a race apart, like us. Sometimes I think they share our powers of perception, Kyril.”

“Perhaps.” Kyril smiled slightly. “But they are not as we are.”

Bobbing in the water, they looked in the direction from which the distant shouts had come, at last seeing the shape of a square-sterned cargo vessel riding low in the water. Looming in the darkness, it seemed unreal, a ghost ship under black sails, groaning.

Lukian set to the oars again, bringing them at last to the other side of the river and the Baltic Dock. They were well ahead of the Catherine and the smaller boats that attended her, their lights pinpricks in the dark. Lukian looked over his shoulder only once as he rowed, pointing the bow toward the open side of a ramshackle boathouse.

Here, though they were still in London, the sky seemed wider and higher, a great, dark bowl over the flat and marshy land of the docks. To the east, they saw the beginning of dawn.

Lukian nodded toward the horizon. “First light.”

“Well done. We are here. No one saw us.”

His cousin rowed almost silently now, angling the oars so that they cut into the ripples with even more precision. Kyril looked over Lukian’s shoulder at the boathouse, its open side a gaping, dark mouth that would soon devour them.

They shot in and the rowboat bumped against a thick mat of fibrous stuff at the other end. Kyril gripped the seat to keep from falling backward and Lukian laughed under his breath.

“You are safe. Dry land awaits,” he said.

Kyril made an obscene but cheerful gesture at his cousin.

“The same to you.” Lukian drew down the oars and watched Kyril tie up. He pulled a leather bag from under his seat and tossed it onto the boathouse floor. “Time to change clothes.”

“I had not thought of it,” Kyril said, using a cleat to pull himself up and out of the rowboat.

His cousin did the same. “That is because Miss Sheridan has got under your skin.”

Kyril pulled out a coarse shirt and trousers from the bag and scowled. “And if I wish to save my skin, I suppose I will have to wear these. The shirt stinks of sweat.”

Lukian made a sound of disapproval at Kyril’s finickiness. “And a good thing, too. You are much too handsome to go about among dockworkers and sailors smelling of women’s perfume and dressed in fine clothes. The manly ones will beat you to a quivering pulp if they catch you alone and the others will make indecent offers. It would serve you right.”

Kyril swung a fist, mostly in jest, and Lukian dodged it.

Lukian was already dressed in rough clothes, but his face was clean, Kyril noticed. Had his cousin forgotten that important detail?

He had not. The bag was lumpy. There were other things in it. Lukian rummaged and brought out two squat jars stopped with thick corks. “Rouge and powder.” He pulled out the corks and stuck his fingers into the first and then the second, smearing his face with grease and ashes. Then he cleaned his filthy fingers by dragging them through his hair. “How do I look?”

“Alarmingly ugly.”

“You are next.”

“Give me a moment. I am tying these shoes. What dead body were they taken from? Anyone we know?”

“I don’t think so,” Lukian said gravely.

The crudely made shoes were damp inside and the less said about the way they smelled, the better. Disgusting. But Kyril was grateful to Lukian for thinking of everything.

His cousin was not far wrong about Vivienne Sheridan getting under Kyril’s skin. He had stayed too late at her house tonight, hoped for more than she was ready to give—fie. Kyril prided himself upon his skill at knowing when a female was ready. Still, in her naive way, she was good about keeping her secrets. He had been told by someone else of her affair with the duke, of course, and that he’d provided for her.

He knew nothing about her family. She was well-bred and well-educated. Given her beauty, it was a puzzle to him why Vivienne had not married well. She had been very young when the duke made her his mistress, Kyril knew that much.

Howard? Horace? What was his first name? The old fellow had paid for the soirées at her Audley Street apartments and, in the end, deeded her the house on Cheyne Row and provided for her comfortable retirement from the business of love.

A business that was conducted like any other in London—prudent terms set in advance, a reasonable outlay of money, a dash of goodwill, and a final nod from the solicitor who looked over the necessary documents to end it.

Sealed with hot wax and a cold kiss.

The experience seemed to have left her curiously untouched. Almost innocent. Or as innocent as a nobleman’s plaything could be.

It would be amusing to find out what else Vivienne might be keeping from him. Kyril had time to find out. He might go so far as to return to her tomorrow night.

In another minute they were walking through the boathouse door. The Baltic Dock was less than a quarter-mile away from it and the Catherine was entering the connecting canal. They hastened to the empty warehouse in which they would hide to watch the unloading.

Kyril took out a heavy iron key that opened a rear door, and both men stole inside. There was nothing to trip over or bump into—the walls echoed their every footstep as they climbed to an upper floor.

They sat down to wait, familiar with the tedious process that was about to unfold.

Lukian patted his pockets and found his tobacco and his pipe, lighting it and smoking while Kyril looked out a dusty window.

The light of dawn streamed in by the time the ship had entered the calm, flat water of the dock’s immense pool. Men swarmed over her, uncoiling massive ropes as thick as their own arms, throwing them as easily as cats played with yarn. Cranes swung huge hooks and slings over the Catherine’s deck and hatches began to open. The work of unloading was beginning. It would take most of the day and they had been told to stay there until the bitter end.

Kyril’s belly grumbled but he ignored it. He had come away so quickly from Vivienne’s house, disturbed that he had forgotten all about meeting Lukian at the river until she had finally told him to go. He had not thought of what he would eat the next day and it had not occurred to him to ask Tom to stop the coach and buy something.

But they would feed well at their lair tonight near the Palace of St. James’s. A traditional Howl had been planned to welcome a new member of the Pack, a man he did not know.

Lukian heard his cousin’s belly rumble. He reached into the leather bag and took out two small parcels wrapped in paper.

“Here you are. Bread and meat.” He tossed one of the parcels at Kyril.

Kyril caught it. “You think of everything.”

Lukian snorted. “I have no mate and no distractions.”

“I am not impressed. Celibacy is nothing to brag about.”

“I did not say I was celibate, did I?” The other man laughed, then stopped quickly. Both men heard an animal whine. There was a dog in the warehouse.

“Probably a stray,” Kyril whispered. “But we should be careful.”

Lukian stood up, unwrapping the other parcel as he walked to the landing of the stairs. There at the bottom was a very large, short-haired dog. Its ribs showed and its belly was hollow, lifted up almost to its protruding spine. Its penis trembled. The dog stared at Lukian, who stared back. The dog’s lips drew back in a snarl that ridged its muzzle.

“Hello, my friend,” Lukian said calmly.

The dog only growled.

Kyril saw his cousin press his lips together. Lukian was about to respond in kind. One touch of the tongue at the top of his mouth and long, tearing teeth would descend over his human ones. Most of the Taruskins had the trait. But they seldom used it.

Lukian smiled, fangs bared. The dog’s tail curled between its back legs and it lowered its head. But it kept its wary eyes on Lukian.

“I see that we understand each other,” he said. He separated the meat from the bread and threw it down to the dog. “Eat that. You are starving. Go in peace.”

The dog snapped at the meat, devouring it in an instant. It looked up hopefully.

“Kyril…”

“Yes, yes. I am coming.” Kyril joined Lukian at the top of the stairs and threw down his portion of meat. Minus one bite. He was no saint.

In another hour the first passengers paused at the head of the gangplank, a little unsteady on their legs at the end of their long voyage. Kyril and Lukian ran downstairs to another window where they would have a better view. There were scores of people jostling each other on the deck.

The English left the ship first. Lukian checked and counted them silently against the manifest. Traders in fur, lumber, jewels, coal, and minerals. Red-faced, boisterous, and glad to be home.

Then came the Russians, at least the richer ones.

Merchants led the procession—there was no mistaking their pompous air or their plump bellies. Their wives waddled after them.

Several other men of various nationalities followed. One wore pince-nez and carried a valise. Kyril cast an inquiring look at his cousin.

Lukian hazarded a guess. “The ship’s doctor. He carries the most valuable cargo of all.”

“Which is?”

“Morphine.” His cousin’s tone was curt. “Cheap to buy but worth more than gold when a man needs it.”

Then a bearded boyar wearing ankle-length robes and a fur hat strode down the gangplank, swinging his arms inside his long sleeves. His wife followed him.

Kyril straightened. “Who is he?”

His cousin looked at the scribbled copy of the ship’s manifest in his hand. “Not anyone who is looking for us. There are only two Old Believers listed. As you know, they have some understanding of our kind—”

“Lukian, what is his name?” Kyril wanted to know before the fellow and his wife were engulfed by the others like them on the dock, waving handkerchiefs and smiling through their tears.

“He must be…Vladimir Kromy of Moscow. And that is his wife Lizaveta.”

“Ah! I have heard of him. Deeply religious and a thorn in the side of our dissolute nobility. But what are they doing here?”

Lukian only shrugged. “Meeting that horde of relatives, I suppose.”

“Their faith is strict,” Kyril said. “They will find London a perfect Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“They are not wrong about that,” Lukian said shortly.

The next passengers to disembark were a mixed lot. Kyril guessed at the nationality of each, then looked at the manifest to see if he was right. A massive Dutchman. Rawboned Germans, tall and strong. Ukrainians and Swedes, blond as angels. Several strapping African men, laughing together, their kit bags over their shoulders. Their bearing was proud, not like the hangdog look of ordinary swabbies. Kyril glanced again at the manifest in Lukian’s hand. There they were. Three harpooners, two ship’s carpenters, and one cook.

On and on. More came, clutched the ropes of the gangplank, made their way down. No one stood out. If there were agents of the Tsar on board, they ought to have appeared by now. Perhaps Kyril had not recognized them.

Then a horde of peasants, the men in caps and the women in shawls, stormed up from steerage, disheveled and exhausted, children clinging to their mothers’ skirts as they were swished along in them to the bewildering strangeness of a new land.

“Hmm. Is that all?”

Lukian looked down at the manifest. “Wait. There are more to come. I have been counting.”

The officers and crewmen of the Catherine were still onboard, running about yelling orders to the dockworkers they would supervise. They ignored the five tall fellows dressed like English laborers who came to the top of the gangplank and paused.

“There they are,” Kyril said. He had never been surer of anything.

“Yes. The officers are pretending not to see them. I expect they were told to make them look like Englishmen. They did not succeed.”

“They look like what they are—Cossacks. Bloody-minded Cossacks.”

Kyril nodded as he memorized their faces. Their upper lips were pale, he noticed. The long mustaches, the mark of their tribe, had been shaved off. “It would not be more obvious if it was stamped upon their foreheads.”

Their height, their swagger, their ferocious cockiness—they would be easy to avoid. Or to hunt down, if it came to that. They would not be killed by any member of the Pack unless they killed first.

The five men still waited, as if someone was about to join them. A man who was even taller than they came up behind them, his coat collar turned up and his hat brim turned down. He spoke to one of the others, who nodded respectfully.

“Wait—I think my count is off by one,” Lukian said. He stared at the manifest as if he could mentally add up all the people who had flowed down the gangplank once more.

The very tall man looked up. His gaze swept the pool of the dock and the quay teeming with laborers. He looked at the immense warehouses, built in ranks, strongholds that bore a distinct resemblance to prisons.

There was something about him that suggested he had once worked in one. His watchfulness, for one. For a few seconds, he seemed to be looking at the very window behind which Lukian and Kyril stood.

Even from here Kyril could see the livid scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his mouth—and that his eyes were the color of ice. Bleak and freezing cold. He kept still, aware that he and his cousin could not be seen, given the direction of the light. The man’s gaze returned to the Cossacks.

Kyril realized that they were only his bodyguards. The imperial secret service had not needed to send a team of agents. The man with the icy eyes was capable of slaughtering the entire Pack by himself, given time and the right weapons.

“No, Lukian. Your count is correct. I suspect that man, the last one, was exempted from appearing on the manifest. By special order. An order that had to be obeyed.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

Kyril pointed and made sure that Lukian’s gaze followed. “That devil. His identity is a closely guarded secret.”

“Then how do you know it?”

“I had an affair with the wife of the head of the Tsar’s secret service. In St. Petersburg. A talkative woman. She described him well.”

“Were you trying to get us all killed?”

Kyril clasped his hands behind his back and shook his head. “At the time, and that was two years ago, it was the only way to find out anything about the man. And she was very pretty.”

“Who is he, Kyril?”

Kyril stared fixedly out the window. “That is Volkodav. It must be. Have you not heard of him?”

“No.”

“Otherwise known as the Wolf Killer?”

Lukian nodded, his expression suddenly grim. “That name is one I know.”

Several hours later…

He had left Lukian stationed where he was to observe the complete unloading of the ship. Phineas Briggs was a powerful man and it would not do to accept his fee and not find out more about the smuggled goods aboard the Catherine.

The matter of the khodzhite was intriguing. As far as Kyril knew, the rare mineral had never been allowed out of Russia. Military scientists and strategists regarded it as a secret weapon, although its lethal properties made it so dangerous to work with that several had died and been duly rewarded with posthumous medals. And now a thousand pounds of it were about to land on a London dock.

The lead box would protect human beings from its harmful rays until it was unsealed. Nothing would protect the members of the Pack from Volkodav, however. His unexpected arrival might prove disastrous. When one of the clan died—Kyril corrected himself—if one of the clan died, it was as if they were all diminished in strength and spirit. They could not afford to lose a single man.

Kyril had crossed the river unobserved in the crowd on the ferry and followed the men he was watching to Threadneedle Street and the Antwerp Tavern. He sipped a pewter mug of ale, eavesdropping on the conversation of the Catherine’s captain. It was a one-sided conversation for the most part. The man sat at a round table about five feet away, blathering about his glory days. His junior officers wore glazed expressions as they listened patiently.

Eager to be out among the whores, no doubt, who greeted every incoming ship with sincere enthusiasm.

Kyril looked up when the captain paused for breath. Most of the younger men rose, made some excuse and departed.

Their places at the table were quickly taken by the Cossacks. The tavern was crammed with Russians—the captains and crews of the ships who sailed the Baltic routes came here.

Volkodav was not with them at the moment, although Kyril had seen him enter the tavern flanked by all five.

As Kyril had thought, the captain went out of his way to be generous and courteous. He greeted them in their dialect. “Welcome, my friends! Sit with me.”

They scraped back chairs and sat down, half sprawling.

“Our legs are too long for this country.”

“The women have bad teeth.”

“English ale tastes like the piss of horses. Is there no vodka?”

“There is gin,” the captain said. He spoke to a passing barmaid in English. “The damned English love their gin.”

She giggled when he pinched her round arm. “So do the dirty Dutchmen,” she said pertly.

“They are dirty,” the captain agreed. “Dirty hands and dirty arses—”

The massive man Kyril had noticed on the gangplank stood up and threw the captain a menacing look. “I am a Dutchman and all of you can kiss my dirty arse.”

He spoke in Dutch and the Cossacks took no notice. The captain wisely chose to ignore him. The Dutchman looked a little disappointed but sat down again.

“So, Captain Chichirikov, you old rogue,” one of the Cossacks said, talking in Russian. “Tell us how to catch a wolf. That is why we are here.”

“There are no wolves in London.”

Volkodav returned as his bodyguard answered, “We have heard differently.”

“Then you heard wrong.” The captain signaled the barmaid and asked for brandy.

“Shut up, both of you,” Volkodav said. “We may not be the only Russians here.”

The girl brought five big glasses of brandy and the Cossacks toasted each other and drank them down in one gulp. The captain ordered another round.

Chichirikov looked around. “No, we are. I know everyone here, except that fellow”—he nodded at Kyril without catching his eye—“and he is a Cockney. Filthy people. Brawlers and thieves. They barely understand the King’s English, let alone Russian. We can talk in safety.”

“Good,” the first Cossack continued. “We are also looking for a man.”

The captain gave the one who had spoken a narrow look. “Describe him.”

“He is tall—”

“Many men are. But Cossacks are the tallest of all,” the captain said genially.

It was shameless flattery but it worked. The Cossacks ordered the next round and toasted the captain’s health.

Volkodav scowled his disapproval of the drinking. “Will you excuse me? I have to piss. I ought to do it on you five.”

Kyril wondered how they would take that. But the Cossacks only laughed—carefully. The man with the icy eyes looked at them with contempt and walked to the back of the tavern where the pisspots were hidden behind a screen.

“As I was saying,” the man who had spoken coughed, “he is tall and good-looking. A Russian. Dark hair and blue eyes.”

“So? He could be anybody,” the captain pointed out, wiping his beery lips.

“He passes for a gentleman in London. His name is Taruskin. Kyril Taruskin.”

Kyril looked down into his pewter mug, glad that his face was dirtier than the workingman’s clothes he had on. His dark hair was hidden under a dockworker’s knit cap, the last of the things in the leather bag.

Not even he could take on five drunken Cossacks and expect to survive. Not with Volkodav to deal with at the last. The Wolf Killer was more dangerous than all the rest put together.

Kyril had to wait.

If nothing else, his sense of honor prevented him from attacking them now. None of their number had made a move against him or a member of the Pack. He reminded himself that he had been sworn to defend the English crown as well as his own kind. Picking fights in taverns fell far short of that lofty vow.

“He belongs to a club,” Volkodav said. “A very old one, which was founded in Russia. A branch of it was established in London more than a hundred years ago.”

The captain seemed unimpressed. “What of it? Every man needs a place where he can gamble and fornicate in peace.”

“Yes. But this club exists for other reasons.”

Chichirikov guzzled the last of his ale and set his mug down on the table with a thump. “What is it called?”

“The Pack, I believe. Just the Pack.”

“Ah. Like a pack of dogs, eh? I suppose they are worthless dogs at that.”

Volkodav gave him a thin smile. “Mongrels.”

“I see. Well, I am sure this pack can be found. Most gentleman’s clubs are in Regent Street or near it. Or in—” He named several more streets, all in Mayfair.

“Our agents have been to all of those. There are more of us than the five who accompany me. They have already fanned out through London.”

Good God. Kyril had not picked them out from the crowd, which was now a faceless blur in his mind. Kyril remembered the ale he was supposed to be drinking and put the mug up to his face to hide his shock.

“Have they reported back?” the captain asked.

“Not yet,” Volkodav said calmly. “Finding the Pack has always been a problem.”

“But surely—”

“The men who belong to it are equally at home in the wilderness or cities. They have a maddening ability to vanish in either one.”

“I see. What are their names? The other ones.”

Again Volkodav gave the other man an unpleasant smile. “At the moment?”

“Yes.”

“Besides Kyril Taruskin, there is his cousin Lukian—a man to be reckoned with.”

Yes. He would cut your throat without a moment’s hesitation, Kyril thought.

“And Kyril has brothers, Semyon and Marko.”

The captain nodded. “Do you have pictures of any? Drawings or miniatures, perhaps? This fellow’s description”—he nodded at the Cossack—“was vague.”

“It is what I was told,” the Cossack said earnestly. “We have to kill him, you know, or risk the firing squad.”

The Cossack’s loyalty was admirable but stupid. He did not have to return to Russia to be shot. Kyril or his brothers could do the honors here in England.

“Taruskin is no better than an animal,” Volkodav said quietly. “He must die first. A degrading, painful death that his brothers will witness. Then it will be their turn. This is the wish of the Tsar.”

One of the other Cossacks spat on the floor. He might not be quite so loyal as the others. Kyril studied his face for as long as he dared. If he could turn one of the five against his comrades in time—

“And you are prepared to do this?” the captain was saying.

The Cossack who had spoken opened the front of his coat no more than an inch. Kyril glimpsed a flash of steel.

“At once. As soon as we find him.”

“London is a much bigger city than Moscow, my friend.”

The captain’s comment sparked a ruckus. The men shouted over each other as to which city was greater, claiming Moscow, the beating heart of their beloved motherland, as the fairest metropolis on earth. Anyone who disagreed should expect to be disemboweled, drawn, and quartered.

Sentimental and vicious, Kyril thought. Not an unusual combination.

He hated listening to their bluster. He could not pick them off in so public a place and he wanted to leave. But he had to stay with Volkodav as long as possible.

“Enough!” The captain held up his hand. “I will help you track down this animal—no, this man. Where does he take his pleasure? That is the easiest way to find a fellow.”

“He is often with a lady. Blast—I forget her name.”

“Brandy,” another said.

“That is not a name.”

“Of course not. I want more, you fool!” He snapped his fingers at the barmaid.

Another of the Cossacks withdrew a folded paper from his pocket. Kyril strained to see. He mispronounced the name he read aloud but Kyril understood him only too well.

He had said Vivienne Sheridan. Kyril was thunderstruck. How had they known of her? The imperial secret service had a long reach.

But the address the man read next was her old one, in Audley Street. Kyril was thankful for that.

Flooded with fear, he did not know whether to go to her and tell her to flee to the countryside or—it might be best to avoid her entirely. What if he was followed to the house in Cheyne Row?

She could be easily used to bait him. And as far as he knew, she was not in love with him. What if she turned against him—no, the thought was impossible. The secrets he sensed she was keeping were those of a gentle soul betrayed. She was a woman of the world but he truly believed in her essential purity of heart.

Lukian would have told him that he was a sentimental fool for thinking so.

So be it.

Somehow Kyril would protect her, at the cost of his own life if necessary.

You will have to. The thought flashed into his mind when he saw Volkodav come toward the table again.

“Where were you?” one of the men asked.

“I told you, you drunken idiot. I had to piss. But it is time we left. It is hot in here.”

The air in the tavern was humid and the windows were covered with mist. Streaks of water created clear spots here and there—Kyril spied a young whore peering in, looking at the new faces. Through the blurry window, she looked a little like Vivienne. Dark hair and dark eyes. Delicate features. His heart ached for her.

By and by, she sauntered in and the illusion of the resemblance vanished. Young as she was, she had been too long at her trade and her careworn face showed the strain of it. But she perched upon the knee of one of the Cossacks as if she were a new girl on the street, afraid of no man.

They roared with laughter, and the man she’d chosen put his arm around her waist. He fondled her bum, squeezing hard through her bedraggled skirts with his free hand. The girl looked nervous but she was game, smiling and joking though she understood not one word of their talk.

“Nice piece of chicken.”

“Take her to bed.”

“No, save your money. Fuck her on a table. It’s cheaper and you can keep your breeches on. And your boots.”

“None of that here,” the captain said. “There is a brothel close by. The madam is an old friend. She will not overcharge.”

“Then we will go there. But first we drink again.”

The barmaid brought another round and escaped a groping hand. The whore was not so lucky. The Cossack’s fondling had grown rougher and her threadbare gown showed it. The bodice was ripped and so was the waist.

“I should pull this off you and fuck you in front of everybody.”

She smiled desperately, not understanding.

“Then I will give my friends a turn, eh? One of us in every hole you have!”

The men roared with cruel laughter.

“But Grigor—she has only three!” one yelled.

He squeezed her waist so hard she gasped for breath.

“Then we will make her more,” he growled. “One in the bum!” He jabbed her there with two bent knuckles. “And one in the head!”

The blow split the skin just above her eye and his knuckles came away bloody.

The girl shrieked with pain, but he opened his hand and boxed her ear with all his strength. Dazed, she still showed spirit and struggled against him. The Cossack tightened his grip and slapped her across the mouth. Her lip split and more blood trickled down her chin.

Something snapped in Kyril. He rose and hit the man on the side of the head as hard as he could with the pewter mug. The Cossack fell backwards in his chair, not releasing the girl even though he was unconscious.

She sunk her teeth into his arm and he let go at last. She scrambled to her feet and ran out the door, wiping the blood from her lip on her sleeve and holding a hand over her injured ear.

A blow like that might leave her deaf. It was a wonder she had escaped with her life—

Volkodav stepped in front of Kyril and took the mug from his hand. Kyril stood his ground.

Icy eyes looked into his. Flat. Expressionless. There were flecks of steel-gray in the other man’s pale irises and his pupils were unusually small. Kyril saw no flicker of recognition.

“You are gallant,” Volkodav said in English. “But you are also a fool.” He looked down at the unconscious Cossack on the floor. “And so is he.” His next words were just as calm. “Go. I have no wish to fight you for his sake.”

Kyril dared not answer. Volkodav had not recognized his face but Kyril could take no more chances.

He had to warn Vivienne…Kyril realized that the other man was looking intently at him. He should not have even thought her name.

He nodded, ready to walk out the door. He would not run.

Volkodav raised the mug in his hand so swiftly that there was no chance to react. He smashed it into Kyril’s face with extraordinary force.

Kyril felt his cheekbone crack and swayed on his feet. Blood filled his mouth. He spat it into Volkodav’s face and punched him so hard he could feel the other man’s guts give way under his taut skin.

Volkodav’s eyes rolled to the whites. He swayed on his feet and bile spurted from his open mouth.

The others stared with shocked surprise as Kyril delivered two more punches and the Wolf Killer joined the Cossack on the floor.