Melting the Snow Queen

by Mary Lancaster

  Instead of the gentle, impersonal talk he had planned, leading, hopefully, to greater understanding between them, she said, “Who is it you lost?”

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “In the late war. I know you must have lost men and comrades, like Oscar, and seen your country ravaged by invaders. But there is more, isn’t there?”

  Too much more. He squashed the surge of pain and forced a smile. “Why do you say that?” he countered.

  “Because when I occasionally look out of my own selfish cocoon of grief, it seems I can recognize it in others.”

  He meant, as usual, to turn the subject away from what was unbearable, from the wounds he could not yet touch. But then he looked down and met her gaze. And said, “My best friend and my brother. And my father who died defending his home and his family.”

  Tears filled her eyes, distracting him with their soft sparkle. She gripped his arm more tightly, holding it against her. He hadn’t meant to melt the snow queen’s heart with his own grief, but that seemed to be what had happened. In fact, he had lost control of the situation altogether, for instead of civilized flirting, he found himself telling her about Boris and Nikolai, and how he hadn’t been able to get home to be with his family in their grief.

  Then he admitted, “I could have tried harder. I long to go home, and yet I’m afraid to see everything and everyone changed.”

  She nodded as though she understood. “But you will go home now,” she said.

  “Yes, I will,” he said, almost in surprise. He smiled. “I would love to show you my country. The vast plains, the mountains in the distance, the lake where we swim in the summer and skate in the winter. I would take you in a sleigh ride across the snow in the moonlight, from our house to my uncle’s, sing with you, dance with you.”

  He stopped, turning her to face him. Her expression was rapt, as though she saw the same visions he conjured in his own mind. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to place his hands on her shoulders and to smile down into her eyes just because she was so very beautiful, inside and out.

  He bent and kissed her lips, so warm and yielding that he was lost.

  ***

  She opened her mouth with shock, but from the beginning, she knew she didn’t want him to stop. In some way she barely understood, this was what she had wanted since she first saw him dueling in the street. And his kiss was delicious, warm, sweet, and tender, and so arousing that the butterflies in her stomach took flight in droves. His mouth sank deeper, persuasive and thrilling, and she responded with growing, melting excitement, for beneath the gentleness she sensed some wild, dangerous passion she longed to taste.

  No one had ever kissed her like this. Even Harry when…

  Harry.

  She gasped, tearing herself free and stumbling backward out of his hold. “No!”

  Her breath coming in short pants, she stared at him, appalled by her own betrayal. “What have I done?” she whispered.

  He took a hasty step nearer. “Alba—”

  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t face either him or herself, so she simply fled across the garden and into the safety of the house. At least here, she remembered her dignity and forced herself to walk calmly to the stairs and up to her bedchamber. But the journey seemed to take forever and even then, she had to send Siddons away before she could throw herself on the bed and weep with horror at what she’d done.

  She’d sworn to love Harry forever. And she did. She did. And yet she had let Volkov kiss her. She had kissed him back, and, God help her, she had liked it. She was faithless. At the first temptation, she had betrayed Harry and herself.

  ***

  It was perhaps fortunate that her father and eldest brother were due to arrive that day, thus distracting everyone from the awkwardness between herself and Volkov. His Grace and his heir were expected in the late afternoon, so at about eleven o’clock, Alba ordered the carriage and swept Kai and Gerda off to Moreland Manor to visit Mrs. Bethurst, Ralph’s invalid mother.

  Alba hoped devoutly that Ralph would be out and, at first, her wish was granted. Mrs. Bethurst, so frail that her skin was almost translucent, was delighted to see them. She ordered sweetmeats brought for the children and smiled at their chatter, even though her hearing wasn’t good enough to pick up most of their words.

  “I hear you have a visitor at Winbourne,” she said once to Alba.

  “A friend of Oscar’s,” Alba said with studied carelessness. “From Russia. He came to England with the Tsar.”

  The old lady’s eyes were piercing. Her greatest wish, Alba knew, was to see her married to Ralph. Alba had told her bluntly that would never happen, but the desire clearly had not faded. “And do you like him?” she asked.

  Embarrassingly, Ralph must have described the prince as some kind of threat to his own chances. Alba’s sense of guilt increased.

  Alba shrugged. “I don’t dislike him, ma’am. He is perfectly amiable,”

  “We like him,” Kai volunteered.

  “Yes, but you like everyone,” Alba teased.

  “No, we don’t,” Gerda murmured.

  Alba turned her head in surprise. “Why, who don’t you like?” Then, belatedly, she hoped they wouldn’t say Ralph, and frowned in warning.

  “Harry,” Gerda said quietly.

  Alba’s jaw dropped. Hastily, she closed her mouth and turned back to her hostess, changing the subject.

  Ralph came in shortly after that, delighted to have caught Alba before her departure. Before he could find the visit too encouraging, Alba brought it to an end and herded her siblings back to the carriage.

  As they drove home, she couldn’t help bringing the conversation back to Harry. “Why do you say you didn’t like him? Surely you can barely remember him? You must have been only five years old when he died.”

  “Six,” Kai corrected.

  “Barely,” Alba pointed out.

  They shrugged. “We do remember him,” Gerda insisted. “He didn’t like us because we were always in the way when he wanted to be alone with you.”

  It wasn’t something Alba had ever noticed, though thinking about it now, he had objected more than once to taking the twins out with them. And he had sent them from the room on one occasion. He hadn’t really been patient with them, but then men weren’t, usually, with children. She had probably indulged them too much.

  In any case, the sin of wishing to be alone with her was one she could easily forgive.

  “Prince Volkov is a kinder man,” Gerda observed.

  “And funnier,” said Kai.

  “I fail to see why you would compare him with Harry in the first place,” Alba said coldly. All the same, it entered her head that over the years she had forgotten Harry’s faults and set him on something of a pedestal, an ideal that no other man could ever attain.

  But Prince Volkov kisses better.

  Shocked at her own thought, which melted her insides, she tried to banish both Volkov and Harry from her mind. Instead, she focused on her parents, on what her father thought of bringing Rose out into society so young, and what ailed her stepmother.

  But when her father arrived at Winbourne, she quickly discovered her original assessment had been correct. The duke quite clearly had no objection to his second daughter making her society debut at the age of sixteen if her mother thought it appropriate. When Alba tried to discuss it, he merely snapped, “I have no time to debate this nonsense. The girl is sixteen, not twelve, and if you’re jealous of her stealing your thunder, Alba, you should have married years ago, as I advised, instead of leaving yourself on the shelf like any other ageing spinster.”

  Her eldest brother, James, the Marquis of Sawlford, only shrugged ruefully when she caught his eye.

  But when they gathered in the library before dinner, Alba did finally find an ally in James’s wife, the downright Augusta, who happened to be sitting beside her as Rose walked in.

  “Ridiculous!” Augusta uttered. “What is Her Grace thinking?”
>
  Perhaps fortunately for the harmony of dinner, her exclamation got lost in the buzz of introductions as Volkov entered behind Rose and had to be presented to the duke and James and Augusta. Without fuss, Alba stood and went to join Rose in order to avoid Volkov.

  The pleasure she had taken in his company, the excitement of getting to know him, were gone now, lost in the confused morass of guilt over her betrayal.

  Dinner was something of a trial, particularly as her father told amusing tales of the rudeness of the Tsar’s sister, the Grand Duchess Catherine, who had snubbed the Prince Regent and just about everyone else.

  “What do you think of that, eh?” he shot at Volkov.

  “Oh, I gave up long ago fathoming, let alone excusing, the behavior of royalty,” Volkov said easily. Which was a subtle reminder that the Prince Regent’s own conduct was hardly above reproach.

  Alba’s lips twitched, but as Volkov’s gaze landed on her just then, she repressed the impulse to smile and merely looked away.

  When the ladies finally left the gentlemen to their port, Alba hoped her father would keep them there as long as possible. But it was not to be. After a mere half hour, during which Augusta tried to reason with Her Grace over Rose’s coming out and was given short shrift, the duke led his sons, Volkov, and Mr. Harper into the room.

  Tea was ordered, and then the duke, clearly under orders from his wife, said jovially, “Come then, Rosie, let’s hear what you can play on that instrument now! I gather your voice has improved greatly, too.”

  “I hope you think so, Papa,” Rose said eagerly, jumping up.

  Feeling for her sister’s anxiety, which hovered only just beneath her desperation to impress, Alba made to rise to help her with the music. But the duchess’s fingers closed around her wrist warningly. Clearly, Rose had chosen her music earlier, for it was already propped up on the pianoforte.

  As Rose sat down and began rifling with the music, the duchess said, “Perhaps someone would turn the music for her?”

  Volkov obviously knew his duty and went with good grace to the piano. Rose bestowed a dazzling smile upon him, providing a glimpse of the true beauty she would be in a year or so. Perhaps Volkov would see that. God knew he deserved happiness, and beneath the nonsense her mother was feeding her, Rose was, at heart, a sweet-natured girl. Not a frozen hearted, faithless one.

  But Volkov, who was gazing at the music, didn’t appear to see the smile, merely waited for her to begin, and turned the pages at the appropriate moment. Rose did well and it was a pleasant enough performance, better than the last, and deserving of everyone’s applause.

  “Well done, Rosie,” her father said jovially. “You’ll beat all those other debutantes to flinders.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” Rose said, blushing fierily.

  “You’re a credit to your mama,” the duke told her. “What of you, Alba? You had better give us a song, too.”

  “Oh, I think I am old enough to be excused,” Alba said lightly, “and to spare the company.”

  Her father was not stupid. He knew she was casting his previous words in his face. He wasn’t unappreciative, as the faint twinkle in his eye proved. However, he did not care to be thwarted. “You must let me be the judge of that,” he said in the tone of voice that brooked no refusal.

  And so, despite her best efforts, Alba found herself in the worst possible place, with all eyes upon her and Volkov close by her side.

  “There is no need,” she said. “I play from memory.”

  “But your memory might fail you at just the wrong moment.”

  She could say nothing more without causing a fuss. It was difficult to play let alone sing with him standing so close, occasionally reaching over her to turn the music. Her voice did not shake precisely, but to her own ears, it sounded breathless and weak. Perhaps it suited the sad song of lost love, for when she finished, she caught Volkov’s warm smile.

  “Another?” he asked.

  She shook her head, stood almost blindly, and gathered up the music to put it away.

  “I’m sorry. Did I make you angry by kissing you?”

  Heat surged up from her toes, flooding her face. “I am not angry with you,” she managed. “Merely, I will not have a repeat.”

  “Then we are friends?”

  “Of course,” she said unconvincingly and bolted to sit in the empty seat beside Augusta where no one else could join them.

  She had never been so grateful to be more or less sent to bed by the duchess’s retirement from the room. But as she followed with Rose, Oscar called after her, “Game of chess, Alba?”

  She shook her head with a quick smile and carried on.

  “I suggest everyone retire early,” the duchess said. “Tomorrow will be a busy day—and night.”

  ***

  Alba did not go to the rose garden the following morning. Instead, she kept busy with last minute preparations for the ball—which largely meant smoothing the ruffled feathers of the servants to whom Her Grace had been quite unreasonable. The duchess seemed to be expecting a lot from this ball, though Alba could not see how or why. But she had never seen her stepmother so wound up and tense over any entertainment.

  Just after mid-day, the guests who had come some distance and had been invited to spend the night at Winbourne, began to arrive. The ladies were more or less those Alba would have expected, apart, perhaps from Lady Harley, a very smart young matron who was considered just a little fast. Alba did not care for her, though, according to Oscar, she seemed to have become a friend of Her Grace’s. She was escorted not by her husband but by her brother, Horace Denville, who had once offered for Alba and been rejected by the duke who’d called him “A gazetted fortune hunter and a dashed loose screw.”

  He placed his hand on his heart as Alba joined the welcoming party. “Lady Alba,” he exclaimed, “my snow queen! Tell me your icy heart has melted toward me at last.”

  “I’m sure it would if only I had one,” she said wryly. “But it seems I lack that organ altogether. Welcome to Winbourne, sir. Lady Harley.”

  Lady Harley’s gaze flickered from her to Rose and back. “Still the beauty of the family, Lady Alba,” she drawled.

  “Only if you don’t count Oscar,” Alba teased.

  “Ha!” said her brother, shaking hands with the new guests.

  But Lady Harley had already moved on, smiling, her gaze fixed on Volkov in the background. “Why, Yuri, they said I would find you here and I did not believe them.”

  Alba’s stomach tightened. It didn’t matter who Volkov’s friends, or even mistresses, were. She had no right to jealousy or any other emotion over them.

  To Alba, the male guests were an odd mixture of the staid and the fashionable, the old and the young, the clever and the foolish—serious men as well as rakes the duchess would not normally accord more than a distant nod.

  “I have to say this is a thoroughly bizarre combination of guests,” Oscar murmured to Alba and James as they gathered in the library before dinner. “What’s Her Grace about, inviting such a collection of loose screws and Friday faces?”

  “They have one thing in common,” James said thoughtfully.

  “Most of them are single,” Alba said.

  “That,” James allowed, “and shockingly wealthy.”

  Alba frowned. Rose had no need to marry money—although, of course, no one would object if she did. But such a high concentration of the very wealthy and single at one social event was certainly curious.

  Strangely enough, Alba was placed beside Lord Rawley at dinner.

  “I’m so glad,” Rawley said frankly. “I believe I owe you an apology for holding up your carriage in Grosvenor Street last week. Unforgivable to have subjected you to such a sight and I regret the incident more than you will ever know.”

  “It certainly woke me up,” Alba admitted with a hint of humor. “But I understand there was no real harm done and, I assure you, I don’t dwell on it.”

  “I’m sure Volkov has made his own a
pologies.”

  “Indeed,” Alba said and quickly turned the subject to Rawley’s sister, who had come out the same season as Alba. “How is she and her little baby?”

  “Both well. In fact, she is expecting another in the winter.”

  Now that she thought about it, James’s theory must be wrong, she thought, for Rawley, while of old, titled family, was not counted a particularly rich man. Something she pointed out to Oscar under her breath as they all retired after dinner to change for the ball.

  “No, that’s true,” Oscar admitted, “but I’m afraid I invited him. Cursed dull party without a few choice spirits.”

  Alba tended to agree. Worse, as the daughter of the house, she could not avoid dancing this evening.

  Chapter Six

  Once she was dressed to Siddons’s satisfaction, she went to Rose’s chamber, where the duchess and her maid were already in attendance. Rose was dressed in delicate white muslin, as suited a debutante, but to Alba, the gown was adorned with so many frills, at the neck and arms and under the bust as well as around the hem, that its elegance had got lost. Nor did it suit Rose’s plump figure.

  But it was a new gown, bought specially for this purpose, and it was far too late to make alternative suggestions. All Alba could do was maintain Rose’s confidence by telling her she was beautiful.

  Rose smiled smugly as though she already knew it and looked Alba up and down. “Why, that gown is quite old, is it not?”

  “Yes, but I still like it,” Alba said. In truth, she had not bought new gowns for years. If the duchess or Augusta complained, she merely sent Siddons to buy new trims and carried on. Which meant she had a vast amount of accumulated unspent pin money. Recently, she had begun to think of beginning a charitable foundation with it, though she hadn’t got as far as deciding exactly what kind. Although she had withdrawn the money and brought it to Winbourne with her.

  “It doesn’t matter what Alba wears,” the duchess said, in direct contradiction to her remarks in the spring. “Everyone’s eyes will be on you, my love.”

  Alba thought that was probably true, though not for the reasons Her Grace was imagining. The twins knocked on the door and came to admire everyone’s dresses before Miss Ellington hailed them off to bed.