“So you’ve said many times, in one fashion or another,” he said. “When my man didn’t arrive with the girl at the appointed time, I knew something had gone wrong. Eventually I learned why.”
“You went to a great deal of trouble to take May from the Haven,” Johanna said coldly. “Did her father hope to spirit her away with none the wiser? Did you both think I’d give up so easily?”
“Your stubbornness is almost admirable. But it doesn’t matter now.”
Johanna eyed the door behind him. What she needed was a diversion, one that would allow her to grab her gun.
“Why doesn’t it matter?” she asked, shuffling a step forward. “You cannot expect me to remain silent. I can make things very uncomfortable for May’s father. Ingram may be powerful, but, as you said, I am extremely stubborn.”
“You’re hardly in a position to threaten,” he said pleasantly.
“I do not fear for my reputation, professional or otherwise, if sacrificing it means saving May. And if you intend to use that”—she nodded toward his gun and moved another step—”you’ll hardly draw attention away from your patron, or yourself.”
“You’re right. And if it were my intention to take May to her father, I might even be concerned. But that was never my true object, Johanna.”
She checked her subtle forward motion. “What?”
“My dear girl, have I managed to surprise you? How delightful.” He smiled. “The focus of all my efforts—my seeking of your acquaintance and that of May’s father, my pursuit of the girl, everything I’ve done since we met—has been another of your patients. Can you guess which one?”
The face of each of the Haven’s residents flashed through her mind in the space of a second. It could be any one of them, except possibly Oscar—each had his or her own past secrets even she didn’t know.
But, without so much as a single iota of corroborative evidence, her intuition told her the answer.
“Quentin,” she whispered.
“Excellent. You’re a bright woman, for a human.”
The hair rose on the back of her neck. “Who are you?”
“Quentin knows me. We’re old friends.”
Behind him, the door groaned. Bolkonsky leaped about, graceful as a dancer. Johanna reached into her pocket and pulled out the gun. Bolkonsky thrust out one arm without even looking at her, knocking the gun from her hand. Then he hit her in the chest, and all the air poured from her lungs. She fell to her knees, gasping, just as Bolkonsky yanked the door open to reveal the man on the other side.
“Quentin!” May cried.
Johanna peered through the black spots that crowded her vision. Quentin stood in the doorway, hands at his sides, staring at Bolkonsky. Quentin, not Fenris. The difference was plain to her heart, if not her eyes. She had no voice to call out a warning.
“Quentin,” Bolkonsky said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Stefan Boroskov,” Quentin said, dull surprise in his voice. His gaze found Johanna, and May just behind her. “Let them go.”
“I think not.” Bolkonsky—Boroskov—retrieved Johanna’s gun, tucked it under his coat, and gestured with his own weapon. “Come in, old friend. We have so much to talk about.”
Quentin had expected disaster, but hardly of this magnitude. He could ill afford the luxury of astonishment.
He walked into a room half-familiar in its rank decay, and came to a stop between Johanna and Boroskov. His thoughts were reluctant to focus, but this was the time above all when he must remain master of his mind.
That brittle clarity was all he had with which to face one of his family’s oldest enemies.
Stefan Boroskov, who he’d last seen in England five years ago. Boroskov, with Johanna and May. Quentin knew how May had come to be here—Fenris had brought her. Johanna had surely followed in search of one or both of them. But Boroskov…
“Now that we’re all together,” the Russian said, “I think we should have formal introductions. If you please, Quentin?”
He ignored Boroskov and spoke to Johanna. “This was your Bolkonsky, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” She tried to convey some message with her eyes that he couldn’t interpret. “That is what he called himself.”