“Let us out of here,” Malcolm shouted, continuing to bang on the door.

Katya rolled her eyes and searched for more lamps. If she was going to be stuck in a tiny, two-room cottage with Malcolm in a rage for an indeterminate amount of time, the least she could have was light. As soon as the lamp on the counter in the kitchen area was blazing, she carried the matches she’d found around the room to light all the candles she could find.

“I don’t hear you talking to Lady Stanhope, Papa,” Cece scolded Malcolm from the other side of the door.

“If you don’t let me out of here this instant, young lady, I’ll—”

“Let it be, Malcolm,” Katya snapped from the other side of the room as she peered into the cottage’s small bedroom. “They nabbed us fair and square.”

As Malcolm pounded on the door one last time—more out of frustration, by the sound of it, than any real conviction—Katya stepped into the bedroom to search for a lamp. Her tired face dropped into an irritated frown at the sight of the room. The bed was freshly made with flower petals strewn across the pillows. A vase of flowers sat on the bedside table, along with a lamp. Did the children really think a few words would end with her and Malcolm in bed?

She huffed and snatched the lamp off the table, beginning to believe everyone who had told her she was far too liberal with her girls’ education had been right.

“This is insufferable,” Malcolm growled when she returned to the main room. He was pacing, running his hand through his hair as he did. Tension rippled off him.

Katya lit the lamp and set it on a tiny table near one of the windows that she supposed was the nanny’s dining room table. “Stop acting like a caged animal,” she said, sitting in one of the dining room chairs and crossing her legs. “You’ll only wear yourself out.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Malcolm bellowed, marching toward her.

“You’re supposed to talk to Mama,” Natalia’s voice came from the other side of the window, a mere foot from where Katya sat.

Katya clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at the window. “I won’t say a word if I know the lot of you are listening.”

Her threat was followed by a squeak and a rustle that Katya assumed was Natalia moving away from the window.

“They’ll just creep back up to the windows again,” Malcolm groused, returning to his pacing.

“Not if they know what’s good for them,” Katya said, directing the comment over her shoulder.

All the same, she got up and moved to the lumpy, old sofa closer to the fireplace, in the middle of the room. She was determined not to let a passel of young people get the better of her. As she sat, she crossed her arms, ready to wait as long as it took to prove to them her will was stronger than theirs.

“Sit down, Malcolm,” she ordered after a few minutes silence.

“I don’t want to sit down,” he grumbled. “I want to get out of here and wring their necks.”

“They’re not going to let us out unless they think we’ve talked things through,” Katya argued. “And they’re not going to believe we’ve talked things through unless some time has passed. So quit fussing like an old hen and sit down.”

Malcolm turned to her, the glare he sent her fading fast into a look of bitter resignation. He strode to the sofa and sat at the far end, crossing his legs and twisting away from Katya.

“That’s a fine posture,” she said, full of sarcasm. “Shut me out and behave like a child. You’re very good at it.”

“I’m good at shutting people out?” He shifted to face her, incredulity widening his eyes. “This from the queen of secrets.”

“There’s a vast difference between secrets and discretion and you know it,” Katya snapped, settling into her corner of the sofa. She knew Malcolm well enough to know the children were about to get exactly what they’d hoped for. Malcolm was less than ten seconds away from exploding like an overheated jar of jam.

“So it was discretion that kept you from telling me I had a child all these years?” he demanded.

Katya would have grinned over her ability to predict his actions if she hadn’t been so exhausted by his rage.

“As I told you,” she said, “Natalia is my daughter. I could no more have told you the truth of her paternity when she was born than I could have run to the moon and back.”

“Balderdash. You could have sent me a letter or sought me out in person to tell me,” he argued. “I had a right to know.”

“Your memory is appalling, Malcolm. Don’t you remember what things were like in those days?” Katya leaned slightly toward him.

“It shouldn’t have made a difference,” Malcolm said, but he couldn’t hold her gaze.

Katya laughed and shook her head. “Robert was still alive when Natalia was born, but just barely. Or do you not remember how his health declined over that last year before his heart failed?” When Malcolm didn’t answer, she went on with, “Of course, you must remember. The entire reason you abandoned me was because you suddenly decided you couldn’t carry on with a sick man’s wife behind his back.”

“I didn’t abandon you,” Malcolm insisted, pink flooding his cheeks. “I had business to take care of and Cece to raise.”

“You ran faster than a thoroughbred the moment your conscience pricked you,” she said bitterly. “You left me with an indifferent, ailing husband, two toddlers, and a baby on the way.”

“Well you didn’t waste any time finding someone else to warm your bed,” Malcolm said with renewed anger.

Katya tutted and shook her head. “You always have had an overblown idea of my promiscuity.”

“Are you denying the fact that you’ve had a whole stable of lovers?”

Katya paused, glancing toward the fireplace. “No,” she answered at last.

Malcolm made a victorious sound and leaned back, crossing his arms.

Katya turned her head to glare at him. “You don’t know what it was like back then.”

“It must have been a true hardship to have so many men between your legs, servicing you every night,” he snorted.

If she’d been close enough, Katya would have slapped him. “I was forced to marry Robert when I was barely eighteen,” she said, her voice raised, instead. “I was younger than Cece is now. My parents arranged the whole thing without my knowledge. I was informed less than a fortnight before the wedding that not only would I not get a season or two, like every one of my friends and other girls my age, but I was condemned to marry a man fifteen years older than me whom I’d never met.”

“So you took revenge on them all by becoming a tart,” Malcolm grumbled, though Katya could see uncertainty beginning to form in his expression.

“I was no such thing,” she told him, the pain of that time in her life returning. “I was a child myself, but I tried to be the best wife I could be to Robert. He wasn’t a bad man, just indifferent. The only reason he wanted me was because of my family’s connection to the Romanovs. He wanted his heir to have royal blood. I did my duty and gave him an heir within a year of our marriage.”

“Good for you,” Malcolm said. “And once you’d done your duty, you opened shop for every other man who wanted a taste of something royal?”

Katya bit her lip, the young, lost woman she’d been crying through the hard layers life and age had built up within her. “It was Robert’s idea,” she said at last.

Malcolm’s brow knit in confusion, but he remained silent.

“It was Robert’s idea,” she repeated, as if justifying everything that happened next in her life. “After Bianca was born, he had what he wanted. It was clear Rupert was healthy and would live, so he didn’t feel the need to keep trying for another boy. He had a mistress at that point who he cared about far more than me. He styled himself a man of modern attitudes, and during one of the numerous house parties he threw in the summers, he encouraged me to bed whoever I wanted.”

“He didn’t,” Malcolm said, more an exclamation than a contradiction.

“He didn’t just encourage it, he made suggestions, introductions.” Katya glanced down to her hands in her lap. “I was terrified at first. I didn’t want to be an adulteress, but I was only twenty at that point and too terrified to contradict my husband’s wishes to say no. I shook like a leaf the first time a man who wasn’t my husband took me to bed.” Her mouth pulled into an ironic twist, but she continued to stare at her hands. “Robert was beyond clever, though. I think he made sure that first lover was young, attractive, and highly skilled. I felt things Robert himself had never made me feel.”

“Who was it?” Malcolm snapped, his tone thick with jealousy.

Katya sent him a flat stare. “Under no circumstances will I ever tell you, so don’t even try. The point is, Robert set me on a path that I felt helpless to resist, particularly as it provided me with so much pleasure. But as delightful as my nights were, my days were bitter with regret. I could barely meet my own eyes in the mirror, and I couldn’t look at Robert at all. Until you came along.”

Malcolm blinked in confusion. “Me?”

There didn’t seem to be any point in holding back anymore. Too much water had passed under the bridge. “I’d been had by half a dozen men by the time we met, Malcolm, but I never loved anyone until I met you.”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“You were fiery,” Katya pushed on, unwilling to let silence fall between them. “And grieving. You touched my heart along with my body. You were the first man to talk with me as though my opinion mattered, to tell me ribald jokes and laugh along with me instead of at me. I knew you were mourning Tessa, and I wanted to be the one to heal your heart.”

“You were,” he said, though the words came out with stilted reluctance, making Katya question whether he meant them or whether he was humoring her.

“My young heart thought it had found its match at last,” she said with a sigh, remembering how beautiful and innocent the feeling had been. “I knew that you were the father as soon as I fell pregnant again. I hadn’t been with anyone else for months before you, not even Robert.”

“So Robert knew he wasn’t Natalia’s father either?” Malcolm asked.

“He knew,” Katya said, more emotions she thought were long dead pinching her insides. “He didn’t care. He told me he’d claim the child as his, but he knew it wasn’t. I think he suspected that his illness was more than a lingering pain by that point anyhow. He died less than a month after Natalia was born.”

“You should have told me,” Malcolm said, though this time the words held an entirely different kind of regret. “I would have been by your side in a heartbeat.”

Katya swallowed, pressing a hand to her stomach at the memories of the worst days of her life. “Everyone and their brother was by my side, and every one of them wanted a piece of the pie that had fallen into my lap. Robert’s brother Henry tried to sail in and take over control of the title and the estate, saying he would act as a sort of regent until Rupert came of age. My father tried to use me as a way to drain the Stanhope wealth as well. I had solicitors at the house every day, Robert’s seedier friends stepping forward with offers to ‘comfort’ me in my time of trial. I had at least ten proposals of marriage, including one from a man who went so far as to corner me in a sitting room in an attempt to rape his way into marriage.”

“I’ll kill him,” Malcolm growled. “Whoever he was, I’ll kill him.”

Katya sighed and rubbed her forehead. “He’s been dead eight years now, so be my guest.”

“You should have sent for me, I would have—”

“Joined the legion of men offering to protect me and organize my affairs for me?” Katya asked, then huffed a laugh. “No thank you. I beat the man who tried to rape me off with a candelabra, and in the process, I realized a hard truth. If I was going to be anything other than a pawn in some man’s game, I had to learn to fight for myself, to fight for my children. I had to be smarter than every man in the room. I had to know more about running an estate and about politics and about the world than anyone I came across. I had to claim what was mine and hold onto it with an iron fist. I had to take lovers the way that men did to stop them from seeing me as a fragile flower who could be plucked and controlled.”

Malcolm gaped at her. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t want to take all those lovers. That would be a bald-faced lie.”

“I took the men I wanted as lovers and rejected the ones I didn’t want, which is far, far more than most women have the luxury of saying. I made friends with people I trusted, which, as you will recall, is how our paths crossed again.”

“Was it Basil?” Malcolm asked, his jaw tight. “Was he your lover?”

Katya kept her lips pressed tightly shut.

“Were any of the others your lovers too?”

She met his eyes and held them tight. “You know I would never betray the confidences of my true friends.”

“It was—” Malcolm stopped, then sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, sinking back into the sofa. “So what was I, then? Another way to prove you had power over men?”

“You were my reward,” she admitted, lowering her eyes.

Malcolm snorted. “Fantastic. I was a prize in your game.”

“Not a prize.” She met his eyes. “My reward. For establishing myself as I wanted to be.”

He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I had gained control of the Stanhope title and estate. Every man who had tried to take what rightfully belonged to my children had been set in his place. My reputation as a powerful woman was established. I had nothing left to prove to anyone.”

“So you celebrated by inviting me to your flat in St. John’s Woods for supper and sin?” he asked, trying to sound tough but clearly confused.

“Yes,” Katya answered with a shrug. “For me, that night was a way to mark the end of the war I’d been waging and the beginning of the rest of my life.”

He studied her with narrowed eyes, clearly delving into his memories to recapture that night. “All I remember was that I was so happy to be back in your arms again that, well, I outdid myself.”

“You certainly did,” Katya agreed, a wicked grin playing at her lips.

“But that was just one night,” Malcolm went on, shaking his head. “You were still the catch of London in those days. You had men lining up for the chance to be seen with you.”

“Of course,” she said with a coquettish shrug. “I was a wealthy, powerful widow who had entered politics. Escorting me to the opera instantly raised a man’s status in the eyes of other men. I can name half a dozen men whose political careers advanced because they danced with me more times than was proper at a ball.”

“I bet you can,” Malcolm muttered, jealousy hot in his expression once more.

Katya tsked and shook her head. “You don’t understand. After all this time, you still don’t understand.”

“I understand that you take far too much pleasure in what you can do for eager young bucks,” Malcolm snapped.

“Being seen with me made their reputations. My endorsement helped them politically.” She paused, meeting his eyes and holding them. “I never went to bed with any of them.”

“Of course you did,” Malcolm said, looking confused again. “You just said—”

“I said that, after Robert died, in order to protect myself and build the reputation I needed in order to control my own destiny and my children’s fortune, I carefully chose a series of lovers. And then I said that once I’d achieved my goal, I chose you as my reward.”

Malcolm started to speak but stopped himself. Slowly, like bricks falling into place, understanding began to dawn in Malcolm’s eyes. Katya watched as the truth took hold, as he fought against it, rejecting the possibility that he’d been wrong for so many years, and then as startled acceptance left him reeling. It was time for the full truth to be told.

“Malcolm, you’re the only lover I’ve had for the past twelve years. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved at all,” she said, surprised at how easy the words were to speak after all this time.

“You can’t…you don’t mean that, do you?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“I am telling the gospel truth,” she said, staring straight at him so that there was no way he could doubt her veracity.

“They why didn’t you marry me?” he burst, full of emotion. “I’ve asked and asked and asked, but you’ve always turned me down. Why would you be so cruel if you love me?”

“Because if I’d married you, everything I spent all those years working for would be ruined,” she said, meeting the intensity of his emotion. “I love you, Malcolm, but given half the chance, you would have marched into my life, taken control of the earldom, barred me from my own finances, and forbidden me from living a political life, just like every other man in my life has tried to do.”

He gaped at her. “No I wouldn’t have,” he nearly shouted. “How dare you even think that?”

For the first time since sitting down, Katya felt uneasy. “Of course you would have,” she said. “You’re always arguing with me and contradicting me and trying to get me to do whatever you tell me to do.”

“Because I like arguing with you, you madwoman,” he shouted. “I like fighting with you. It arouses me in ridiculous ways. No one challenges me the way you do. I’ve spent my whole life with people kowtowing to me because I’m a stupid, bloody marquess, but not you. You’re strong. You’re fierce. Do you know how many pale, fussy, insufferably dull women have tried to throw themselves or their daughters at me so they can reap the benefits of the Campbell fortune? They’re all idiots compared to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Malcolm. You’re not that twisted,” she said, in spite of the fact that her body reacted to his confession in entirely inconvenient ways.

“I am,” he argued, leaning toward her. “You’re the only woman who has ever been able to boil my blood at a moment’s notice in every possible way.”

“That’s a flat lie,” Katya said, shifting to face him more fully. “You loved Tessa far more than you ever loved me.”

He jerked back, staring incredulously at her. “Is that what you think?”

“I think it because it’s true,” she said. “You risked your life to save Tessa, and everything you’ve done since her death, the way you’ve pursued Shayles with single-minded focus, is because of her.”

“Yes,” Malcolm admitted with a nod. “I’ve dedicated my life to bringing Shayles down because of what he did to Tessa, what he’s done to too many women since then. But you don’t know the whole story.”

“Then tell me,” Katya pleaded. “The whole point of the children locking us in here is so we share the secrets we’ve been keeping from each other. You know all my secrets now—yes, you do, so don’t give me that look.” She pointed at him before he could protest. “It’s your turn to bare your soul to me, Malcolm Campbell.”

“Fine,” he snapped, the old fire back in his eyes. “You want to know all my secrets?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then how’s this for a secret—Tessa never loved me.” His voice faltered with a sudden burst of pain that went far deeper than Katya would have expected. Silence hung between them for a moment. “She never loved me,” he repeated.

“I’m certain she did,” Katya said, but her conviction was slipping by the second.

Malcolm shook his head and fell back against the sofa, rubbing his face. “I met her after I came back from the war,” he said, his tone haunted. “The war was terrible. Too many young men, cut down in the prime of their lives. And for what? It was a stupid cause. We never should have gotten involved in the Crimea. I came home sick, wounded, and angry at the world.”

“And you found Tessa,” Katya suggested when it looked like he might not go on.

Malcolm shook his head, his face contorted in bitterness. “I found Shayles. I’d known him at university, but we met again by chance. He told me he’d recently started a club for gentlemen, one where frustrations like the kind he could see in me could be soothed. Damnable idiot that I was, I took him up on his offer to be let into the inner circle.”

A long silence followed that Katya didn’t feel she could break. Malcolm was clearly reliving things that went back further than she did.

“I’m not proud of the things I did,” he said at last in a shaky voice. “Though back then, the club didn’t hold a candle to what it became. It wasn’t much different than a regular brothel. One woman in particular calmed my anger over everything the way I needed it to be calmed. Only later did I find out she was Shayles’s own wife, that she was a dubious participant in the activities of the club, and that Shayles got off on humiliating her.”

“I always knew he was a bastard,” Katya said, shaking her head.

“Tessa begged me to rescue her from Shayles one night,” Malcolm went on. “That’s when I turned a corner. My life was no longer about the horror of the war, it was about justice, redemption. I nearly ruined my fortune and my reputation getting Tessa away from Shayles. We escaped from the club one night. I hid her in my townhouse for months and helped her initiate divorce proceedings. She couldn’t initiate them herself, of course. Shayles had to be the one to set things in motion. I was close enough to Shayles to pay him off and blackmail him into letting her go.”

He paused, shaking his head and lowering it. “I should have known.”

“Known what?” Katya asked gently.

Malcolm sighed and sat straight, still not looking at her. “Shayles must have contacted her behind my back. I don’t know what they said or how often they communicated, but he let her go far too easily. Or rather, he let her go for the gigantic sum I had to mortgage my townhouse to pay him. As soon as the divorce was final, I married Tessa. She was pregnant in no time. Honestly, I think she was already pregnant before we were officially married. She was happy, but there was also a wistfulness about her. I explained it away because she was with child.”

He stopped. Katya respected his silence. She knew what happened next at any rate. Tessa had died in a difficult childbirth. Cece had almost died as well. Malcolm had told her everything when they’d met six months later at one of Robert’s house parties.

As if to confirm that his thoughts had gone to the same place hers had, he said, “The birth was a nightmare. The midwife tried to keep me out, but I refused to be anywhere but by Tessa’s side. The screaming, the blood.” He swallowed and shook his head. “It was a miracle Cece survived.”

Katya scooted closer to him, reaching out to take his hand as it rested on the cushion, but he pulled away.

“The last words Tessa spoke,” he said in a harsh whisper. “The last thing she spoke as she lay there, bleeding to death because of me, was to call for Shayles.”

Katya gasped, the pain she could see in Malcolm’s face echoing in her heart.

“After everything I’d done for her, everything she meant to me, she called out his name as she died,” he said, staring hollowly at the fire. “And I never got answers,” he went on. “I never found out if she loved him or was cursing his name, or if she ever loved me, or why she begged me to take her away from him. I never found out what she and Shayles said to each other behind my back. I never found out for certain if she was a willing participant in his club or if she’d been forced into it, as she told me. I’ll never know.”

A tear slipped from Katya’s eye and tickled her cheek, startling her. She wiped it away and sniffled. “You could have told me, you know,” she said. “I would have listened.”

He turned to stare at her. “You could have told me about Natalia, even if it meant telling me to stay away as well.”

She glanced down at the expanse of sofa between them. He was right, though there was no way she could have known it until now. “It seems we’ve spent so much time being lovers and rivals that we’ve failed to simply be friends.”

He huffed a humorless laugh in agreement and stretched his hand toward her. Katya took it, simply holding it.

“I feel so old,” Malcolm said at last with a sigh. He rubbed his free hand over his face. “I’ve failed at so many things for so long, and I don’t have the energy to keep pretending I’m young.”

“You haven’t failed at everything, Malcolm,” Katya said, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “You’ve beaten Shayles more times than you realize. It was you who did the work that led to his arrest, regardless of Christopher’s help.”

Malcolm snorted. “I knew all along he wasn’t your lover. I just despise the young pup for being by your side when I wanted to be.”

“In all fairness,” Katya said with a weak smirk, “I believe he’s in his thirties. And he asked me to help him find a suitable young bride, because he’s had no luck catching a girl’s eye on his own.”

“Are you everyone’s matchmaker now?” Malcolm turned to her with an exhausted smile.

Katya huffed. “I’ve never felt so ancient as I did when he asked me to find him a young woman. Men like that used to ask for me.”

“His estate is in Cornwall, isn’t it?” Malcolm asked, the question a peaceful signal that the storm of their past was over. When Katya nodded, he said, “What about Victoria Travers?”

“That’s exactly who I was thinking.”

He smiled and squeezed her hand. They continued to sit at arm’s length, hands joined, the weight of the world still pressing down.

Time seemed to drag, so Katya had no idea how much of it had passed before Malcolm said, “I withdraw all previous offers of marriage.”

Katya blinked and turned to him. “You do?”

He nodded heavily, staring at the fire, not her. “They were made without a full grasp of the situation. You deserve better than that.”

The corner of Katya’s mouth twitched, but she wasn’t sure if it was a smile. Her heart felt oddly empty. “And you deserve better than to live in the shadow of self-doubt.”

He turned to her, a questioning eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know whether Tessa was true or false with her affections,” Katya went on. “I never knew her. But I know that your intentions toward her, your efforts to save her, were as pure and genuine as could be. You did the right thing, Malcolm. I knew it from the first moment I met you. It’s why I fell in love with you. And either way, Tessa gave you Cecelia.”

“I didn’t know love like that was possible until I held Cece in my arms and thanked God she survived,” Malcolm said, dissolving into tears. “I’m so proud of the woman she’s become.”

Katya blinked into tears with him. She slid across the sofa, closing the gap between them, and tucked her arms around him in a quiet embrace. There was nothing suggestive or lascivious about the way their bodies fit together, only deep respect and a love that ran far closer to the bone than either of them had realized.

“I haven’t just been fighting against Shayles, you know,” Malcolm said a minute later, sniffing and clearing his throat as he sat straight and resumed his gruff demeanor. “I’ve been fighting for the bill we want to pass, for the rights of all women. That’s the true battle of my life, and I’m fighting it for Cece, and for you.”

“And you’ll win, I’m sure,” Katya said, wiping away her tears. “You’re the most experienced fighter in Parliament. It’s only a shame that silly title of yours prevents you from running for a seat in Commons.”

“Maybe I should give it up,” he said with a lop-sided grin. “I don’t need a title anyhow.”

“Oh no.” Katya shook her head. “If you gave it up, that sniveling nephew of yours would become marquess, and nobody wants that.”

“It’s a shame women can’t inherit. Cece would make a brilliant marchioness.” He paused, tilting his head to the side. “Maybe I’ll fight for equal inheritance laws once we win this first battle for women.”

Katya laughed at the idea, not because it was foolish, but because it was so far beyond progressive that even she had never thought of it. “I would stand behind you all the way,” she said.

“Good,” he answered.

He brushed a hand over her face, cradling her cheek and leaning in for a kiss. Katya closed her eyes and parted her lips, finally ready to give in to him as part of her had longed to do for ages.

But before Malcolm’s lips met hers, there was a horrendous crash and the front door flew open, revealing Rupert. Katya and Malcolm jumped apart, but the expression on Rupert’s face was not one of excitement or joy that his plan had worked. Instead, he looked far more alarmed than Katya had ever seen him.

“Mama, Lord Malcolm, you have to come now,” he said, all seriousness. “Shayles’s trial has been moved to tomorrow.”