“Hold still,” he said, and then he raised a knife.
Olivia looked up, saw the glint of metal as it came toward her, and screamed.
It was a sound Harry never wanted to hear again.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said to her, trying to sound as calm and reassuring as possible. His hands were steady as he cut through her bindings, but on the inside, he was still shaking.
He’d known he loved her. He’d known he needed her, couldn’t possibly be happy without her. But until that moment, he hadn’t understood the breadth of it, the depth of it, the absolute knowledge that without her, he was nothing.
And then her scream, her fear…of him.
He’d nearly choked on the anguish of it.
He freed her ankles first, then her wrists, but as he reached out to comfort her, she made an almost inhuman sound, and leaped off the bed. She moved so quickly he wasn’t able to stop her, and then, when she hit the floor—her feet must have been burning with pins and needles—her knees buckled, and she tumbled to the floor.
Dear God, she was terrified of him. Of him. What had they said to her? What had they done to her?
“Olivia,” he said cautiously, and he reached out to her, keeping his movements slow and even.
“Don’t touch me,” she whimpered. She tried to crawl away, dragging her useless feet behind her.
“Olivia, let me help you.”
But it was as if she did not hear him.
“We need to go,” Vladimir said, saying the words in gruff Russian.
Harry didn’t even bother to look at him as he insisted on another minute, the Russian words rolling off his tongue without a thought.
Olivia’s eyes widened, and she looked frantically toward the door, clearly intending to make a break for it.
“I should have told you,” Harry said, suddenly realizing the cause of her panic. “My grandmother was Russian. It was all she spoke to me when I was a child. It was why—”
“We do not have time for explanations,” Vladimir said harshly. “Lady Olivia, we must go now.”
She must have responded to the authority in his voice, because she nodded and, still looking unsteady and scared, allowed Harry to help her to her feet.
“I will explain everything soon,” he told her. “I promise you.”
“How did you find me?” she whispered.
He looked down at her as they hurried from the room. Her eyes had changed; she still looked shaken, but he could see her again in their depths. Before, there had been nothing but terror.
“We heard your noise,” Vladimir said, holding his gun at the ready as he checked around a corner. “That was very fortunate of you. Possibly very foolish, too. But it is good that you did it.”
Olivia nodded, and then, to Harry, she said, “Why is he speaking English?”
“He is a bit more than a bodyguard,” Harry said, hoping that would be enough for now. It wasn’t the time to unravel the entire story.
“Come,” Vladimir said, motioning for them to follow.
“Who is he?” Olivia whispered.
“I really couldn’t say,” Harry replied.
“You will never see me again,” Vladimir said, almost offhandedly.
As much as Harry was beginning to like and respect the man, he fervently hoped that was true. This was it. When they got out of here, he was giving notice at the War Department. He would marry Olivia, they’d move out to Hampshire and have a passel of little multilingual babies, and he’d sit at his desk every day doing nothing more exotic than adding numbers in a ledger.
He liked boring. He craved boring.
But boring, unfortunately, was not to be the watchword of the rest of the evening…
Chapter Twenty-four
By the time they reached the ground floor, the feeling had returned to Olivia’s feet, and she didn’t have to lean quite so hard on Harry.
But she didn’t let go of his hand.
She was still in a panic, heart racing and blood pounding, and she didn’t understand why he was speaking Russian or holding a gun, and she wasn’t sure if she should trust him, and even worse, she didn’t know if she could trust herself, because she feared she might have fallen in love with a mirage, a man who didn’t even exist.
But still, she didn’t let go of his hand. It was, in that terrifying moment, the one true thing in her life.
“This way,” Vladimir said curtly, leading the way. They were heading to the ambassador’s office, where her parents waited. They still had a way to go, or so Olivia assumed from the silence in the halls. When she could hear the hum of the party, then she would know that she was close.
But they were not moving quickly. At every corner, and at the top and bottom of each staircase Vladimir would stop, placing one finger to his lips as he pressed himself against the wall and peered carefully around the corner. And every time, Harry followed suit, pushing her behind him, guarding her with his body.
Olivia understood the need for caution, but she felt as if something inside of her were about to burst, and she just wanted to break free and run, to feel the air whistling past her face as she flew through the halls.
She wanted to go home.
She wanted her mother.
She wanted to take off this dress and burn it, to wash herself, to drink something sweet or sour or minty—whatever would most quickly wipe the taste of fear from her mouth.
She wanted to curl up in her bed, and pull the pillow over her head—she didn’t want to think about any of this. She wanted, for once in her life, to be incurious. Maybe tomorrow she’d want all of the whys and wherefores, but for right now, she just wanted to close her eyes.
And hold Harry’s hand.
“Olivia.”
She looked over at him, and it was only then that she realized that she had closed her eyes. And nearly lost her balance.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
She nodded, even though she wasn’t. But she thought she might be all right enough. Enough for this night, for whatever it was she needed to do.
“Can you do this?” he asked.
“I have to.” Because, really, what other choice did she have?
He squeezed her hand.
She swallowed, looking down at where they touched, his skin against hers. His grip was warm, almost hot, and she wondered if her fingers felt like sharp little icicles in his palm.
“It’s not much farther,” he assured her.
Why were you speaking Russian?
The words hovered on her lips, almost tumbled out. But she caught them, held them inside. This wasn’t the time to ask questions. She had to focus on what she was doing, what he was doing for her. The ambassador’s residence was enormous, and she’d been unconscious when she’d been brought to her little upstairs room. She couldn’t find her way back to the ballroom herself, could she—at least not without getting lost along the way?
She had to have faith that he would deliver her to safety. She had no choice.
She had to trust him.
She had to.
Then she looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since he and Vladimir had rescued her. The strange gauzy fog that had washed over her began to lift, and she realized that her mind was finally clear. Or rather, she thought with a funny, rueful little twitch of her lips, it was clear enough.