Page 55 of To Catch A Rogue
Lark bowed her head and closed her damning eyes.
Keeping that promise had been more difficult than she'd ever imagined. And now she was here in Russia with Charlie, lured back to her own private hell by another of his schemes.
And tonight he'd made it more than clear he was interested in finally exploring this unresolved tension between them.
What was she going to do? Charlie was a distraction she couldn't afford.
Nobody could discover Irina Grigoriev still lived.
Especially not Charlie, because the damned fool would probably try to protect her if the man who'd murdered her parents realized who she was.
No more kisses. No more touching.
This had to remain strictly business between them.
Chapter 11
There was someone in the room with her.
Lark drew the knife from under her pillow and rolled. A woman knelt by the hearth, trying to coax the fire to life. When she saw Lark jerk upright, she held her hands up in a placating fashion,
"I’m sorry to wake you."The woman gestured with her hands in the sign language the Silent Brotherhood used. Then she grimaced, as if realizing Lark shouldn’t be able to understand her. She fumbled with the chalk she drew from her apron pocket, painstakingly writing upon the piece of slate that hung from a cord around her neck.Apologies, mistress. I am to see to fire and break fast.
Lark swallowed the lump in her throat. All the servants had been vetted and recommended by the mysterious Luther, who ran Malloryn’s spy network in Russia.
But she’d never expected to see one of the Silent Brotherhood.
Suddenly she missed Tin Man desperately.
"Please, continue,"she told the woman in sign language."I didn’t mean to startle you."
The woman’s eyes widened, and she answered hesitantly,"You learn sign language?"
"My uncle was bratstvo bezmolvnogo."
The Brotherhood of the Silent.
"What is your name?"she asked.
"Nadezhda."
"It's a lovely name.I am Lark.May the dawn rise on a new world,"Lark signed, which had been a catchphrase of the revolutionaries who'd been thwarted twenty years ago.
The woman’s face blanched."I do not know what you mean. I fetch you blood."
And then she stood and picked up the pair of buckets she’d been carrying and scurried from the room.
* * *
"You're avoiding me,"Charlie said, the second Lark's door opened and she stepped out, dressed in her leather trousers, shirt, and over-corset.
She'd missed breakfast.
And the meeting where Gemma chastised him thoroughly for riding after Dido last night without giving a thought to being lured into a trap. Not even the letter and the seal had been enough to assuage Gemma's anger.
It wasn't his imagination. Lark hesitated the second she saw him. "Don't flatter yourself. I was tired and slept through breakfast."
"Long night?" He fell into step with her as they headed for the sitting room, where Gemma was waiting to brief them on some information that had come in. "Nothing on your mind? Keeping you tossing and turning all morning?"
