“My congratulations. Now, if you do not mind, I came here for a specific entertainment that does not include spectators.”
“Your entertainment will have to wait until after our little chat,” Sir Charles sneered, twirling the whip in his hand.
“I told you that the Karkoff bitch refuses to give me the money without proof of the letters. What would you have me do?”
“Did you know the Countess sent her daughter to England? Surrey to be precise.”
Nikolas frowned. The Countess Karkoff could rot in hell as far as he was concerned.
“Why should I care?”
“For one thing, it proves there is something in those letters worth discovering. The Countess would never send her daughter on such a journey otherwise.”
“Wait,” Nikolas growled. “I thought you knew what was in those letters.”
“Howard Summerville claimed they must hold nefarious secrets since they were not only written in a mysterious code, but the Duke of Huntley had nearly beaten him to death when he caught him with them in his hands. It was worth taking the chance to discover if the boorish imbecile had truly stumbled across the means of acquiring a fortune or was making his usual empty boasts.”
Nikolas stiffened in outrage. He had risked his life on a mere hunch?
“You lied to me.”
“I told you what you needed to know.” Richards dismissed his accusation with a shrug. “Now, however, Miss Karkoff’s presence in Surrey endangers our tidy little plot.”
“How?”
The unnerving black eyes narrowed in frigid anger. “Because that is where the letters were last seen, you idiot.”
“Does she have them?”
“And how would I know?” Richards tossed the whip onto the bed in an impatient motion. “I sent my servants to search the Duke’s home weeks ago, but Miss Karkoff’s presence complicates matters.”
Nikolas tugged at his wilted cravat, not for the first time wishing he had never allowed Sir Charles Richards to convince him to take part in the dangerous scheme.
Not that you truly had a choice, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.
Gambling had always been his weakness and when he’d lost far more money than he possessed to the Englishman, he had no choice but to listen to his outlandish scheme. And in truth, the thought of gaining a small fortune with such ease had been a temptation he couldn’t resist.
Now he could do no more than curse his stupidity.
“We should never have approached the Countess until we had our hands on those letters.”
“You were as eager as I was to claim the fortune. Who would have suspected the Emperor’s whore would have the nerve to question your threat?” The dark eyes glittered with a cruel light. “Obviously you were not very convincing.”
Nikolas shuddered, his skin crawling with an indefinable fear. “I did what was asked. It isn’t my fault the Countess—”
“Shut up,” Richards interrupted. “I weary of your excuses.”
Nikolas swallowed the lump lodged in his throat. “Fine. We gambled and lost. C’est la vie.”
Richards took a step forward, his expression grim. “This is not over. I will have my money.”
“How? If the daughter manages to discover those letters then they will know that we have never seen them.”
“My men have orders to keep a close eye on the female. If she does manage to uncover the letters they will be able to retrieve them from her.”
“And if she does not?”
“Then she will return to Russia with the information that the letters are indeed missing.”