CHAPTER TWENTY

BLAST. I took off down the dark, narrow stairs after Mila, furious about all this exercise after a night of no sleep and much running around. Where did she think she’d run to? She was a Russian subject, only recently arrived in this country, and leaving again soon with Princess Kira.

She took off out the back door and across the garden, her half boots splashing in the puddles. I followed, shouting to the men in the carriage house as she approached, “Stop her! Stop that woman!”

Mila ran through the open door and inside the building. When I reached it, panting, I discovered there was no one inside and the door to the alley was open. I hurried over, holding my side over the pain that was stabbing me, and looked out. No one was in sight.

I leaned against the door frame, gasping in air and wondering where she was headed. Would she go to the tenement where Emma had been taken hostage by Griekev and his accomplices? Was she the woman Emma had heard?

Why else would she have run?

And why had I chosen to wear an outfit that required a tight corset on a day when the first thing I had to do was chase someone young and fit?

I needed to call Sir Broderick and have someone check to see if Mila was spotted in the area. If she were the inside person helping Ivanov, she wouldn’t come back now. So where was their attack going to take place?

Then I remembered the hunt for a lady’s maid for Nadia. That had allowed us to add Mary to the household to help me watch the Russians. Perhaps now Mary could help with the princess as well, until a new lady’s maid was found.

I walked back to the house, still trying to catch my breath and ease the pain in my side while hurrying to avoid the rain. Miss Whitten’s hat and gloves sat on the table next to mine in the back hall. At least I’d eliminated her as a suspect.

Ahead of me I saw Nadia cross the front hall heading toward the formal entrance. She wore her coat and hat. Had she returned with the grand duke after their meeting, or were they not on speaking terms? Had she caused an unpleasantness in the dining room? “Nadia. Wait.”

She ignored me as she increased her speed to escape. She grabbed an umbrella out of the stand before she rushed out the front door and shut it behind her. Where was Nadia’s lady’s maid, Mary? And Kendrick, the butler?

I headed for the back stairs, only to meet Mary coming up with the repaired gown in her hands. “Where did Nadia go?”

The girl shook her head. “I haven’t seen her since I spoke to you earlier.”

“If either Nadia or the princess leaves, find out where they’re going and let me know.” With Mila’s defection, I needed to know why Nadia had left the house so abruptly.

I retraced my steps and then cut down a side hall to reach the butler’s pantry behind the dining room. I’d give a footman a message to give to the duchess during the next course and then I’d hurry next door to phone Sir Broderick. We needed to find Mila before she disappeared into the crowded streets and neighborhoods of London.

And learn how things stood between Nadia and the rest of the Russians.

The butler’s pantry was small even when the butler and several footmen weren’t carrying dishes through it. Now they were just beginning to change courses and several men rushed past, on their way down to the kitchen or into the dining room. All of them carried trays and a few of them muttered curses as they dodged around me.

Seeing the butler, I said, “I need to get a word to the duchess.”

He gave me a glance. “Not now. Get out of the way. George, take that downstairs,” he said as he moved into the dining room.

I had to duck under a few trays before I reached the protection of the entrance to the linen closet. Still, one of the footmen clipped me with a tray full of dirty dishes and we both had to juggle to keep from spilling food and china.

In an effort to move out of the way temporarily, I opened the door and stepped backward into the small, unlit closet.

A sparkling light caught my eye. Had some fool set a lighted lamp in here? No, the light crackled as it marked a line along the floor. Heat came up my skirt as I realized the light was a fuse. I bent over to peer deeper into the closet and saw the flame rush toward a bundle of dynamite sticks.

Oh, dear Lord. Dynamite.

I stared at it for what felt like an hour, my mouth moving but making no sound. I was mesmerized by the sparkly light. The damage done to the houses by the dynamite thieves raced through my mind.

No. It couldn’t happen here.

“Get out!” I screamed. “Dynamite.”

I frantically tried to jerk the fuse out of the bundle, but the metal tube the fuse ended in was crimped. I couldn’t budge the wiry cord and I couldn’t tear it with my hands. The butler came up behind me, demanding, “What—?”

Why wouldn’t they just run? “Get everybody out. The house is going to explode.” I was screaming and I could hear voices talking over me in a Babel of conflicting orders. People shoved against my back while I listened to footsteps running in different directions. I wanted to run, too, but I was trapped by the people behind me.

I heard a footman say, “Her Grace asks—”

I thought of Blackford, the duchess, Lady Daisy. An instant ticked off as the burning fuse snaked toward the dynamite.

I felt as if I were in a dream. Everything was in slow motion. I pulled the duke’s knife from my pocket, opened it, and sliced through the fuse cord just below where it went into the crimped metal tube. I tossed the fuse on the floor as it burned my hand.

The pain woke me up. I stomped on the cord and kicked the dynamite sticks away as I sucked on my singed fingers.

Turning around to face the crowd in the butler’s pantry, I found myself staring at Blackford as he shoved the last of a group of curious servants out of his path to reach me. He picked me up by the waist and swung me out of his way to see the bomb.

“Did you cut the fuse, Georgia?” he asked, removing his still-open knife from my uninjured hand.

“Yes. I don’t think it’ll blow up now.” My words came out in little gasps as I struggled to catch my breath. Looking down, I could see scorch marks in the wooden floor where the fuse had burned.

“It won’t.” He pocketed the knife as he turned to the butler and said, “I think you might want to send some of these people downstairs.”

The butler dispatched the footmen with various orders while Blackford held me up with both hands firmly gripping my shoulders. I started to shake. I blinked away tears. I had almost died.

Someone had tried to kill all of us.

“We n-need to find out who was in here.” My voice was now a whimper.

“We will. But first, you need to sit down.” Blackford moved me into the dining room and sat me on the closest chair. Then he pressed a wineglass into my hand. “Drink this.”

I took a sip, swallowed, and then tried to take a deep breath. I felt a little less shaky as Princess Kira demanded, “What is she doing in here and what is going on?”

“You were almost blown up. I cut the fuse,” I snapped. “Oh, and your maid left shortly before all this happened, when I accused her of theft.”

“Mila? Mila tried to blow us up?” the young woman said and dropped back into her chair. Sussex sat next to her, holding her hand.

“No. She couldn’t have. She wasn’t here to light the fuse.” Then it hit me. “But Nadia was.”

“No. No. No. Nadia would never hurt me. We’re sisters.”

I shook my head, fury in my tone. “Silly girl. Haven’t you seen the way she looks at you? She hates you.”

“Where did you see Nadia?” Blackford asked me.

“She was walking out of the front door when I was coming in here to try to send Her Grace a message.”

“No. Nadia wouldn’t do anything like this. She just wants to be treated like the aristocrat she is. Her great-grandfather was Tsar of All the Russias,” the princess proclaimed.

“Perhaps. But she is still a bastard,” the Russian ambassador said. “Her mother caused all sorts of trouble for the royal family. Making demands. Wanting honors.”

“Is that why she was murdered?” I asked.

He nodded. “I suspect so.”

“They should have given her the honors,” the princess shrieked at him. “They should never have killed her. And they tried to kill Nadia.”

“An arrangement might have been reached,” the ambassador said, lowering his tone and speaking calmly. “But Marina wouldn’t listen to good counsel. She was always headstrong. Putting on airs. Embarrassing your parents, Kira.”

“But to kill her? And Nadia, too?” The princess’s voice was barely above a whisper. She seemed to have wrapped herself in a blanket of numbness to muffle the blows to her beliefs.

“Not Nadia. I was instructed to give her every assistance when she arrived in England. But she is too much like her mother, I fear. She makes demands to be treated as a princess. She says it is her right.” The ambassador shook his head, sounding aggrieved.

“You might have warned us before I invited the girl to stay in my house,” the duchess said, her posture as rigidly stiff as Blackford’s when he was angry.

“I fear she has joined the anarchists,” Grand Duke Vassily said to the princess.

“I won’t believe it until she tells me herself,” Kira said, pulling her hand away from Sussex and wrapping her arms around herself protectively.

Blackford was still hovering over me. “Do you think she’s the woman Griekev and Ivanov have been working with?” I whispered to him.

He glanced at the princess, who was cringing away from a hurt-looking Sussex. “It would make sense. They, rather than the anarchists, have been carrying out robberies using pistols and dynamite. Someone would have had to show her how to set the fuse.”

“Unless she’s been involved in the other explosions and already knew how to build a bomb. She could have smuggled the parts needed into the house a little at a time. Nadia and Kira have been sneaking out to the Russian Orthodox church with some frequency.”

Blackford frowned. “No. The church is firmly behind the tsar. They wouldn’t help the anarchists or criminals.”

“But you don’t know what goes on in the congregation during service,” I told him. I turned to the princess. “Princess Kira, does Nadia meet with anyone when you slip out to go to church?”

“How did you—oh, the coachman. Of course.” She could have been discussing the weather in her bored tone. Brushing the air with one slender hand, she said, “There is a young man Nadia talks to. He’s quite smitten. Always bringing her presents.”

“Has she shown them to you?”

Kira shook her head.

“Do you know his name?”

“Andrei Griekev. He lives quite close to the chapel, apparently—he said across the street—and he and Nadia arrange to meet there.”

My tone turned hard. Someone had to talk sense into this girl. “Andrei Griekev is a notorious robber who uses dynamite to break into aristocrats’ safes and carries a pistol. He pays anarchists to hide him and his fellow thieves.”

Her expression was furious as she stared at me. “How could Nadia know this?”

“From what we’ve learned, she’s been planning these robberies with Griekev.”

“No. Nadia wouldn’t—” the princess whimpered.

A commotion from the front hall signaled the arrival of a police inspector and a group of bobbies. At a nod from the duchess, Blackford went with her to deal with the police. The grand duke and the Russian ambassador joined them in the front hall. The rest of the women and Sussex stayed in the dining room, waiting silently. Listening.

I stayed where I was, sipping the duchess’s very nice red wine and admiring her gray and lavender decor. The dishes matched the colors in the wallpaper and the rug. The draperies used the same fabric as the seat cushions on the chairs. The silver gleamed. The ivory tablecloth glowed in the light of the chandelier, and the ivory lace curtains muted the gloom outside.

I admitted to myself that I’d love to live on such a grand scale. I could understand Nadia’s jealousy. What I couldn’t understand was her desire to hurt people because they had what she wanted. Or to destroy this perfect room.

Did Nadia think the only thing that mattered was what she wanted? And was that a trait she shared with Kira?

As I glanced over at the princess, I caught her staring at me. I held her stare, and she looked away.

“I’ll take the princess out of here while the police carry out their investigation,” the Duke of Sussex said.

“That’s not a good idea. They’ll want to question everyone about what they saw. And what they know,” I told him.

“But she’s distressed.”

“So am I. I found the bomb.” And defused it. Something I didn’t want to do ever again. My fingers throbbed.

“But she’s a princess.”

With that pronouncement, the Duke of Sussex became my third-least-favorite person, right after Nadia and Kira. “We would have all been dead, Your Grace. That distresses everyone. Even servants.”

My attention was caught by a snort that turned into a cough. Blackford stood in the doorway to the hall. “They’re looking for Nadia, but they don’t hold out much hope she’ll resurface. They think it likely she’s headed back to Russia.”

I shook my head. “No. She wouldn’t go someplace where she’s known and not wanted. How much do you think Griekev and she kept from their burglaries?”

“Almost everything was recovered by the police.”

“If they had a lot of valuables they could sell to maintain their lifestyle, I would have guessed they’d go to the continent. They could pass themselves off as anyone. But with no money? I’m sure they’re staying in London, looking for a way to raise another fortune.”

He looked glum. “The only question is how.”

A bobby came in and asked the princess and Sussex to speak to the police inspector. They left, and Blackford followed them out of the room. A moment later, I could hear him speak to the Russian ambassador and Grand Duke Vassily.

Mila and Nadia were both missing. I needed to get the Archivist Society looking for them. I rose and slipped around by back halls to the front door, where a helmeted constable stood on guard. “I just need to post a letter for Her Grace. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I assured the youngster as I picked up an umbrella and walked past him.

The bobby looked like he should still be in school. Fortunately, he was as green and innocent as a schoolboy. He let me pass without question.

I went out to the sidewalk and walked next door. The butler was getting used to me showing up on Blackford’s front step. “Hello, Stevens. I need to use the telephone.”

He opened the door farther, a dubious expression on his face. “His Grace is not in at the moment.”

“I know. He’s next door. I just left him.” I walked past Stevens and down the hall to the study. Once there, I picked up the instrument and spoke into the mouthpiece, giving the number.

Jacob answered the phone.

“Get Sir Broderick immediately. And listen in. We need your help, too.”

Sir Broderick came on a full minute or two later. “I was downstairs, Georgia. What is going on?”

“Both Mila and Nadia have disappeared, and someone rigged dynamite to blow up Hereford House. I think it was Nadia. And I think she’s Griekev’s accomplice in the robberies.”

“Good grief. I’ll have everyone in the Archivist Society on the lookout for both women.”

“Nadia probably waited for the house to blow up. When it didn’t and the police came, she would have gone into hiding. She and Griekev must be plotting a way to raise a lot of money quickly so they can leave the country.”

“Then she’ll be dangerous. And Mila?”

“She’s been stealing food from the house. Check the Russian community in the East End for some poor immigrant relations of hers. We need to talk to her to clear her, but I don’t think she’s a danger.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Sir Broderick asked.

“I don’t think I am.”

“I’ll send Jacob and the others to the East End to look for Mila, Nadia, and Griekev. I’ll tell them to report their sightings of Nadia and Griekev to a constable. The sightings of Mila can safely be reported to me if you’re sure.”

“I am.” I thanked him and rang off.

I slipped out of Blackford House and walked next door as if I was doing exactly what I should be doing. An older bobby was on duty in the doorway now and he immediately challenged me. “Are you Miss Peabody?”

“Yes.”

He put a forceful grip on my shoulder. “We’re trying to find the bomber and the guv wants a word with you.”

“Tell him you found me, and all will be well.” At least I hoped so.

Not releasing his grip on my shoulder, he dragged me at a quick trot into the house. “Sir. Sir! I found the woman who escaped.”