Sins of a Ruthless Rogue

He’d prepared himself to have arrived too late. He thought he’d find her bloody and broken.

He hadn’t expected to find her sipping turtle soup and dabbing her lips with white linen. His own stomach rumbled. How many meals

had he skipped in his haste to get here?

She smiled at the youth next to her, a pimpled, sallow lad who couldn’t seem to look above her neckline. Count Arshun. Clayton had

discovered as much as he could in the few hours before he’d rushed here. The count was spoiled, vain, and cruel, hated by his

serfs, and ignored by other nobles. But he made grandiose promises to the poor of St. Petersburg.

Olivia smiled and lifted a bite of chicken to his lips.

Had she made a fool of him again? Was this some sort of trap laid for him? To lure him here? Clayton knew it sounded vain, but

why else would she still be safe in the hands of the most brutal revolutionary group in Russia unless the plan had been for him to give

chase?

The mill had received a sizable influx of capital a few years ago. Clayton had never been able to track where it had come from. He’d

assumed more of her father’s suspicious dealings.

But what if they had been hers?





chapter Six

Arshun unlocked the drawer to the desk and pulled out a paper. “Does this look familiar?”

Olivia shook her head. But rather than scowling at her as he’d done with increasing annoyance as the evening progressed, his chin

lifted. “You didn’t know Vasin made a copy, did you?”

“Of what?”

His scowl returned. “His orders. Directions on how to contact the agent he put in place.”

“You don’t know how to contact your agent?” Surprise sparked her words. From what she’d pieced together from Arshun’s boasting,

in one week the czar and his entire family would be slaughtered. Russia would be reborn. And Arshun would be very, very powerful.

From the way he’d spoken, she’d thought the outcome a certainty.

Arshun glanced at his guards, who studied the ground by their boots. His words were clipped. “We simply need to know how to

order him to proceed. The old fools who would have been able to break the code have been executed or sent to Siberia by the

emperor. Those durakov were going to let this plan fade away after Vasin’s death, but I saw the genius in it. I dug through the ashes

and rebuilt this group piece by piece. The people will rise up with me.”

“But only if you can break the code?”

“The agent is only one part of my plan. I am not a fool.”

She wondered if Arshun was who the original revolutionaries had in mind when they planned the rebirth of Russia. “You think La

Petit can break the code.” She reached for the page, but Arshun dropped it into the drawer.

“You will.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and dragged his lips back and forth across it. “Perhaps the translation can wait for the

morning.”

She yanked her hand away and wiped it on her skirt.

She shouldn’t have done that.

Arshun hissed and drew a knife, a glittery ornamental dagger, from a sheath at his waist. Olivia tried to retreat but the guard at her

back stopped her. Arshun pressed the blade to her throat. “If one of the former leaders I’ve sent for arrives before you break the

code, you will be useless to me.” He slid the blade along her neck. The metal burned as he sliced a short line right under her chin.

She cried out, jerking her hand over the wet trail on her throat. The knife now pressed against her cheek. “Cut me again and you’ll

never know what the paper says.”

She would have said anything to keep him from cutting her again. But she shouldn’t have said that.

Time. She needed more time. She didn’t know if she could break this code. “I will need to be left alone so I can break the code.”

“So you can plan your escape?”

“From that room? It’s delicate work. I will need to concentrate.” She spoke past the vile taste in her mouth. “I couldn’t do that with you

there.”

Arshun checked his guards’ reaction before lowering the knife. He removed her bracelets, then lifted the paper from the drawer and

handed it to her. “You will have this translated by morning. If you’re lying, you die. And I will know if you’re lying. Take her to her room.

”

A few minutes later, Olivia collapsed on the narrow cot, the page clutched to her chest. Sweet mercy, what had she done? She

pressed the blanket against the wound on her throat until the bleeding stopped. Then she wiped away as much of the blood from her

skin as she could. She had until morning to do the impossible. She’d bought herself a few more hours of life at most.

She knew little of codes, only what she’d learned deciphering the love notes Clayton had once sent her. She’d known Clayton for

two weeks before he’d sent her his first coded note.

She’d been utterly befuddled and slightly irate. It had taken her two days to realize the mash of letters was a code, then another day

after that to break it.

She’d been giddy with excitement.

She couldn’t remember a time she’d been giddy since Clayton’s death.

Oh, she hadn’t moped or wallowed since those first two years. She’d been pleased. She’d been proud. She’d even been happy.

But never giddy.

Olivia took a deep breath and studied the characters, but after only a few minutes the candle they’d left her sputtered. She should

have thought to block it from the draft from under the—

Too late.

The room plunged into darkness.

She’d die tomorrow then. Or be tortured and then die.

She stared into the all-consuming darkness of the room. She had to try to ask Blin to help her one more time. He’d been waiting at

her door when the guards brought her back, and he’d paled at the blood on her hands and neck. Surely, he wouldn’t want her to die.

She hated using his kindness against him, but she no longer had a choice.

She heard voices outside the door. She waited for them to quiet before sneaking over.

“Blin?”

She waited.

“Blin?” The lock rattled and she jumped back, dropping the paper. The door swung open. “Blin, my candle has—”

Even in the darkness she knew the man wasn’t Blin. She stumbled, something deep in her gut recognizing the height and lean

strength of the shadow before her. “Clayton?”

His voice was nothing more than a murmur. “Come with me.”

The last thing Clayton expected was for Olivia to come to a dead halt behind him in the corridor.

“What happened to the man guarding my door?”

She spoke in only a whisper, but Clayton pressed her against the wall with his hand over her mouth before her lips could stop

moving.

Her brows lowered and her mouth thinned against his hand. For a moment, all he could think of was how he’d pressed his hand over

her mouth to silence her giggles when they’d snuck away from her father’s office to steal a kiss.