Free Silver Nights by Jane Feather Page B

the all-important question. The bedchamber opened directly onto the living room, and clearly she could not risk leaving by that route. It would have to be the window. She looked doubtfully at the tiny aperture. It appeared barely big enough for an adult, even a tiny one, to squeeze through. But at least she was tall rather than stout. Resolutely, she dropped her possessions through the window, hearing the soft thud as they hit the earth beneath. Swinging herself onto the stone sill, she managed with an elaborate contortion to get her legs through the window. Leaning backward, so that her head was clear of the top of the window, she slithered forward until most of her was hanging in space. Then she dropped, ducking her head, to land intact and relatively quietly beside her bundle.
    She paused, listening to the night noises of the steppe. They were the usual noises, the sough of the wind, the howl of a wolf, nothing to alarm…no human sounds. Picking up her bundle, she crept around the corner of the house, clinging to the shadows of the walls, wishing the sky were less clear. The stars were so bright, it could almost have been day.
    The low stable building loomed ahead, but she had to cross open ground to reach it. Again, she paused, motionless, straining every nerve and fiber to sense another human presence. But again there was nothing, just the lightless building at her back, the white streak of the dusty road, a screen of trees on the other side of that road, and her goal in front of her. Crouching low, she ran across the open ground.
    Adam broke from the trees just as she reached the stable door. For a moment, he wasn’t sure whether he had really seen that unmistakable figure, whether it was not a trick ofthe strange light. Then he was running across the road. Stealthily, he slipped into the pitch darkness of the stable behind her. Straw rustled beneath the nighttime stirrings of the beasts in their stalls, but there was no way in the blackness to tell which horse was where. She would have to traverse the entire length of the building, he thought, in order to identify Khan, and he skinned his eyes into the darkness. But he could see no shadow separate from any of the others, could hear no sound of movement other than the horses. Then came a soft clicking sound that was definitely human. It was answered by a low whicker, indicating that Khan and his mistress had their own form of communication.
    The sound had come from Adam’s right, and he padded on tiptoe toward it. A shape solidified out of the shadows, reaching up to unlatch the gate to a stall.
    He pounced; so fast Sophie had no time to register his advent before he had grasped her around the waist with an iron arm, his other hand clamped to her mouth. “You are incorrigible, Sophie!” he hissed against her ear. “Now, don’t make a sound or you’ll bring the entire troop down from the loft.”
    In her shock, Sophie offered no resistance; yet despite the painful pounding of her heart, she noticed that for the first time he had used her familiar name. She was hustled, still clutching her bundle, out of the concealing darkness, back into the night brightness.
    â€œJust what have you got there?” Adam demanded. He had one arm still around her waist, but he held out his free hand imperatively for her burden.
    Once he saw its contents, she would have no chance of persuading him that she had simply wished to take a nighttime ride after her day of enforced idleness. Never again would he be careless enough to afford her such an opportunity for flight. Sophie looked defeat squarely in the eye. She was going to St. Petersburg with the escort of Count Adam Danilevski, and there was no point fighting the fact any longer. Without a word, she yielded up the bundle.
    Adam went through it in silence, whistling soundlessly atthe contents of the gem casket. He thrust her pistol into his belt, placing the rest of her possessions upon the ground