Had Jenna returned without his knowledge? Impossible. She was going to tend to a sick sister, and her family took precedence over work.

Dodson quietly went back into the study and removed the hunting rifle from above the fireplace. With trembling hands, he rummaged through a desk drawer until he found a box of shells. He loaded the rifle and made his way to the kitchen.

The light had been left on. He stepped inside, and his eyes went immediately to the broken window pane in the back door. The floor was littered with shards of glass. The sharp sound could have been someone walking on a broken piece of window. Burglars. Damned cheeky breaking into a house with somebody home. Dodson walked over to the door for a closer look. As he was bending over to examine the damage, he caught the reflection of movement in an unbroken pane.

He whirled around. A man had stepped out of the pantry, pistol in hand.

“Good evening, Lord Dodson,” the man said. “Please give me your rifle.”

Dodson was cursing himself for not checking the pantry first. He lowered the rifle and handed it over. “Who in the blazes are you and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Razov. I am the rightful owner of a valuable object that you have in your possession.”

“Then you've made a big mistake. Everything in this house is mine.”

The man's lips widened in a sardonic smile. "Everything?”

Dodson hesitated. “Yes.”

The man took a step closer. "Come, Lord Dodson. It's not dignified for a proper English gentleman to be caught in a lie.”

“You'd better leave. I've called the police.”

“Tut-tut. Another lie. I cut your telephone line after I had a little chat with your housekeeper.”

“Jenna? Where is she?”

“In a safe place. For now. But if you don't start telling the truth, I will have to kill her.”

Dodson had no doubt the man meant what he said. “All right. What is it that you want?”

“I think you know. The crown of Ivan the Terrible.”

“What makes you think I have this-what is it? Some sort of Russian crown, you say?”

“Don't try my patience with your futile bluff. When I failed to find the crown with the other tsarist treasure on the Odessa Star, I did what any experienced hunter does. I backtracked. The crown was with the tsar's family until they arrived in Odessa. But the tsarina had a premonition that she and her family would never complete their journey. She wanted to make sure that even if the family died, the crown would find its way to a surviving Romanov who would use it to reclaim the Russian throne. She entrusted the crown to an English agent.”

“That would have been long before my time.”

“Of course, but we both know that the agent was in the employ of your grandfather.”