Sins of a Ruthless Rogue

She glanced around the cart. All the poorer men had thick, heavy beards.

“But the policeman let you past. He couldn’t be suspicious.”

“They’ve set someone else to follow us.”

She started to jerk around, but Clayton gripped her knee. “The old man by the gate is police as well. He signals who needs to be

followed.”

She hadn’t seen the old man do anything. Who could he have signaled— “The bread seller?”

Clayton lifted a brow and nodded.

It took a minute for the rest of his comment to register. “Someone else?”

“Someone has been trailing us since shortly after the mud.”

The mud? That had been over an hour ago. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“Our tracker is keeping his distance. I saw no reason to worry you.”

“Or you assumed I already knew?”

“The thought did occur to me.”

How much would it hurt him if she hit him on the head with a cabbage?

“What did the man following us look like?” she asked.

“I never got a clear look.” When she was tempted to glance about, Clayton tightened his hand on her knee, but then he winced and

drew away.

“Is your hand injured?” she asked.

He tucked it in his coat. “Nothing of import.”

“How did you hurt it?” She’d always loved his hands. Except for the constant ink stains, they’d been like the hands of a farm laborer

or a dockhand. Strong. Long-fingered. Blunt-tipped. One of her favorite pastimes had been trying to imagine what those hands

would feel like caressing her naked skin. She’d thought she’d outgrown that.

Apparently not. A tendril of awareness twined up the skin of her thighs.

“It’s an old injury.”

“But what—”

“When we reach the dvor, we’ll leave the cart and lose our admirers in the crowds of the marketplace. Stay close.” He pulled on the

reins, and the pony stopped abruptly in front of a huge building wedged in the intersection of several wide streets. Elegant arched

windows, columns, and balustrades stretched an entire block. Where was the market?

Clayton climbed down and Olivia did the same, not waiting for him to help. She suspected speed would be important here.

He led her straight through the throng of people crowding around the main doors. Old women carried bags that should have been

too heavy for a grown man. Thin, sharp-faced wives had their hands tucked into muffs, children tottering around their ankles in thick

coats.

The building was the market. Or rather the market was inside the building.

Clayton caught her arm to stop her from gawking at the hundreds of shops that filled the space, and led her, instead, into the thickest

part of the crowd. Past old bookstores, past shops selling furs, perfumes, and gilded icons. Past shopkeepers shouting that their

silver was the finest in Russia.

With every step, Olivia felt eyes on her. “How do we know who to avoid if we don’t know who’s following us?”

“We don’t try to avoid anyone. Our best chance is for them not to know we realize they’re there.”

A man walking past with a pile of cloaks brushed her shoulder and sent her stumbling. Clayton’s tug kept her from stepping on a

hound tied to a metal ring outside one of the shops, but the dog barked in their wake.

Clayton swore and pulled her through a nearby doorway that swirled with thick woolen scarves. He tugged down two, one a bright

crimson red and the other navy blue. Without a word and only a few coins passed to the proprietor, they slipped out again.

Clayton handed her the red scarf. “Tie this one around your head instead.”

“Isn’t the red too—” But then she noticed three other women nearby wearing the same color.

Clayton removed his sheepskin coat, revealing a much finer greatcoat, and tied the blue sash around his waist. “Tuck the old scarf

into your coat to disguise your shape.”

She did as he said.

He paused at a storefront a few feet away. “Buy a snuffbox and do not move.” He dropped a few coins in her hand and left her in

front of a row of brightly enameled boxes.

She jumped at a hand on her elbow, but it was only a young, dark-haired boy. He beamed at her. “What do you need? Come into

the shop to find it.”

“Just looking.” She tried to mumble so he wouldn’t note her accent. She pretended to study a golden snuffbox decorated with a

portrait of the czar, who preferred to be called Emperor Alexander.

Where was Clayton?

She glanced around, searching for him, and bumped into a familiar massive chest. She dropped a snuffbox inlaid with a sunset of

amber.

“Blin!” She lowered her voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Followed you.”

“Is anyone else with you?”

“No. Tracked you. I’m good at tracking. Had to hunt deer to feed my family.” He smoothed his matted beard. “I had to make sure you

were all right. Sorry the count hurt you. I should’ve taken you away. But I was too scared.”

“I’m fine.”

“But your man blew up the count’s house.”

“What?”

“Part of it at least. He went back to the count’s last night and blew up one of the barns.”

Clayton had gone back. Had he killed Arshun? Arshun deserved to die, but the thought of Clayton returning to slay him chilled her. “

Was anyone hurt?”

Blin shook his head. “Not this time, but Nicolai told me all about the people the Englishman had hurt. Nicolai was scared of him.” He

shifted, dislodging dried clumps of mud from his boots.

Is this what Clayton was now? A killer who’d been stripped of all the good things he’d once been?

“Are you scared of him? I’ll keep you safe if you need me to,” Blin said.

But despite Clayton’s anger and resentment, she’d never feared him. “No. He rescued me.”

She didn’t want Clayton to find Blin. She couldn’t risk Blin getting hurt and she couldn’t risk Clayton deciding that she was a

revolutionary. Not before she could warn the czar and not before she could change his mind about the mill. Keeping him here might

have bought the mill some time, but she had to ensure he never went after it later.

Blin’s stomach rumbled.

She frowned. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I had some of the cabbage you left behind.”

She pressed the coins Clayton had given her into Blin’s hand. “Get yourself some food. Then go somewhere safe.”

He stared at the coins in his hand. “I’m not going.”

Clayton brushed the snow off his jacket as he ducked into the smoky tobacco shop. He had to give the bread seller credit; he’d had

to go farther than he’d expected before he lost him and could double back to the dvor.

The young girl led him into the rear of the shop, where an old, hunchbacked man sat. “I need information on Vasin.”

The old man shooed his granddaughter from the room, then took a long drag on his pipe. “I have nothing to do with all of that now, as

you can see.” He pointed to his clouded eyes and the open crates of dried tobacco sitting around him.