Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1)

by Anna Campbell

  One would assume the culprit would give London a rest this season. Yet he’s back stalking the salons and needing his fur coat more than ever with the cold not only on the outside, but in the turned shoulders of those he once called friends.

  And what of last year’s elusive widow?

  Part I

  How It All Began…

  Chapter 1

  November 15, 1899

  The internal lamps cast an amber glow over the plush brocade and leather interior of the carriage they’d hired for the duration of their stay. Ilya tugged at his shirt sleeves exposing the cuffs and smoothed down the form fitting red jacket with golden epaulettes.

  “Ready?” his brother Demetri asked.

  “To plow London’s demimonde senseless?” Ilya grinned at his scowl faced brother. “Always.”

  They’d arrived in London the previous day, had made themselves known to the Russian Consulate, dined with a small enclave of Russian expats sharing the latest news and political undercurrents from St Petersburg. Afterward they’d joined two of the younger Barons in sampling London’s night life and were now in possession of the best recreational establishments for their plan. The list contained: salons, a hive of artists, philosophers, and women; theatres and the latest offerings; coffee houses; tea houses; gaming halls. And of course, the obligatory brothels. Advice on which ball and which house party was important to attend, and which would not serve their family’s purpose – to cause enough scandal to ensure Demetri’s childhood betrothal to the daughter of a blackmailing businessman and swindler, would be called off. As the family’s libertine, Ilya had the dubious privilege of playing the lead role.

  The carriage came to a stop. The conveyance swayed as the driver climbed down to open the carriage door.

  “Try and leave something of my reputation intact.” Demetri growled in warning as the carriage door opened and the damp December air rushed into the interior.

  Not bloody likely.

  “Nothing worth anything is achieved without spilling some blood brother,” Ilya replied.

  His all-too-proper brother’s spotless reputation was now in Ilya’s hands as they fooled London into thinking he, Ilya was the betrothed Prince, allowing his brother to arrange the end of the betrothal while hiding his identity.

  Ilya’s jaw tightened.

  The lack of trust this strategy implied, slapped him across the face every time he thought about it. The easiest course of action would have been for Demetri to simply be himself, and for Ilya to negotiate the end of the Betrothal. But no, negotiating something so sensitive was considered past his capacity. So here they were, identities swapped.

  Always underestimated.

  Never taken seriously.

  Well he would do his part and do it in stellar fashion, but he would leave as many smears on Demetri’s reputation as he wanted.

  “Family honor brother.” Ilya reached for the door frame to steady himself as he rose to step out. “You’ll have to take the hit to your reputation!” Ilya intended to drown it in a bloodbath of debauchery as only he could do.

  Demetri flicked his head indicating Ilya get on with it. “Do what you do best brother. Rut London into a frenzy.”

  Ilya stilled in the carriage door. “I am not a dog. Nor a perverted caricature.”

  Demetri rubbed a gloved hand over his face then looked back at him. “No. No you are not. I am in your debt brother; I mean no offence.”

  “Of course not.” Ilya gave him a curt nod. They were both wound tight.

  It was not strictly true to say that Demetri’s comments hurt. His family thought him a rabble rouser, a rake, a libertine. He had certainly lived as one. And in all fairness to himself, he’d been encouraged from youth to play the part. His mother doted on him. Sought him out for tales of fun and to introduce her to the most fashionable and popular in the Russian court and St Petersburg elite. He had simply obliged. It was more that they thought him capable of nothing else, that cut. This event, the dark spot on their family’s honor, their father blackmailed into the betrothal of his eldest son, was something he could be trusted to help fix. He wanted to show them he could be counted on, that enjoying life didn’t mean that he didn’t know how to do what was required when needed.

  Ilya jumped out of the carriage and walked to the salon door as Demetri followed. They had three stops to start the night, more if more came to hand.

  Demetri went to enter first.

  Ilya’s hand shot out and stilled him. “I believe it’s now my privilege to go first.”

  Demetri scowled.

  It might be petty, but a wash of satisfaction filled him…he, Ilya was the eldest Prince of St Petersburg as far as London was concerned. He would get the honors and attention accorded that position. And now, as Demetri stepped aside, his brother would feel what it was like to always be second.

  Demetri lifted the large brass knocker and tapped their presence on the glossy black door to the modest establishment on Portman Square and stepped back. The area nestled close enough to Park Lane to be of some standing which meant those who frequented it would be suitably connected to ensure invites to social events would follow. The door opened and they were ushered into a softly lit corridor. It sported a mural painted by one of the impressionists who was rumored to have fallen for the salon’s patroness. Their hats, canes, gloves, and coats were taken, and they were led to a large curtained space. In pure theatrical style the plush red velvet curtains were drawn open, and their arrival announced.

  “Prince Vladimir Petroski and General Vladimir Petroski of St Petersburg.”

  Ilya stepped forward, his brother behind him, at his shoulder.

  The room went silent, all eyes on them.

  They inclined their heads.

  This was an informal affair. These were the demimonde, the bohemian, the artistic, the flaunters of convention. There were few formal curtsies and bows in return. Yet a wave of fan flickering passed across the room, as well as assessing gazes and nods which showed interest and welcome at their arrival.

  A superbly dressed woman with mahogany hair and intelligent eyes, glided over to them.

  “Welcome to my salon, I am the patroness, Madam Debuverey.”

  “Madam Debuverey.” Ilya took her hand, kissed it, eyes glancing up at her. He was in his element. “Enchanted. The Russian court stands in envy.”

  Her eyes creased. Women like her knew men like him and liked the dance as much as he did.

  Demetri also took her hand and bowed over it, but she smiled over his head back at Ilya.

  “Two Russians, London is lucky indeed,” she purred.

  Her arm slipped through Ilya’s. “Let me introduce you around, show you the salon and the entertainments we have to offer. I hope we will not disappoint.”

  The rooms were well appointed, comfortable, and fashionable, but a man like himself, a man who played in the corridors of the Russian court, had seen better and grander. This was a stepping off point, a place to connect and make offers before going somewhere more suitable to have them met.

  They walked through the first room and were introduced to the people there, a few painters and a novelist.

  The second room was a theatre of sorts where some women, scantily clad in togas, lounged on settees before an audience of active voyeurs. Displays of silhouetted flesh by those who thrived on being looked at.

  A voice drifted in from the third room, the words not quite discernible.

  The rhythm of his heart changed; nerves rippled to life under his skin. Not in lust. Not in any way he’d felt before. Something essential, something fundamental, yet hard to define. Like the way he felt as he lay in the summer grass, the sun behind closed eyes as the heat soaked into his skin.

  But that didn’t make sense.

  The voice, feminine and rich in its tone held his attention as he shook hands with a group of men, titled men, men they would come back to.

  The meter of the words, the pauses and starts. It was a reading of sorts.
Prose, poetry, something equally mind-numbing—but that sensation grew the longer he listened.

  “And in the third room?” he asked their hostess as they moved away.

  “Not something I think would interest you a great deal. Tonight, we have readings from our local poets. A weekly occurrence that brings a more literary crowd. Do you like poetry Prince Vladimir?” The look she gave him said she read him well. He didn’t. What man who was awake and had a cock that worked, would?

  But that sensation, all warmth, all beckoning, continued to wrap around him.

  Comforting, familiar, and alluringly unknown.

  Ilya moved closer, released the arm of his hostess, and stepped to the arched entrance of the room.

  Heart suddenly beating faster, he glanced in and around to the voice.

  “And, little bird,” she read, “will you trust me?”

  Every part of him stilled as he looked at her.

  Looked at her and saw in a way he had never seen before.

  “The widow Seraphina Seymour, Duchess to the late Duke of Somerset.” His hostess said in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the reading.

  “Will the little bird sleep in my fur as the wind howls?”

  He passingly registered the beauty of her body, perfect skin, desirable figure, pale gold hair piled on a head that boasted a face of even, balanced proportions. A mouth whose smile was its natural state. Blue eyes that shone with intelligence, strength, and softness. And yet that’s not what he saw.

  No.

  He saw happiness.

  His happiness.

  He saw children playing on the long green lawn of his country estate in the late Russian summer. Heard her laughter, the way she would gaze at him, the knowing look couples have in shared contentment. He saw the woman he was meant to have, that single person in a million he was destined to be with.

  And in those moments, he saw the man he was meant to become.

  “Will you singe your perfect wings against the flames when the hunter comes?” Her poem, whatever it meant, paused.

  She smiled and their eyes met.

  Heat, lust, want, need… he’d felt them all before but not like this.

  Never like this.

  Recognition reverberated through her as well. He knew because he saw. Ilya tracked every telltale sign as it moved through her; the short sudden intake of her breath; the loss of thought that stopped the flow of her words; the frozen movement of her body. The stillness as basic instincts rushed to determine the response to threat—to invasion by something that had well and truly taken hold despite no outer barrier being breached. Then the delicious moment of recognition, the flutter of her pulse, the widening of her eyes, the soft color racing up her neck.

  “Yes…said the little bird… and the wolf…”

  Her audience murmured as her rendition came to a stuttered halt.

  Their gazes held.

  Random heads turned as people looked back at him, fans lifted, fluttered as voices whispered and giggles passed through the intimate audience clustered around her on love seats, tub chairs, stools, and wingbacks like supplicants to a goddess.

  “Prince Vladimir Petroski of St Petersburg, Russia.” He said to her…not the room. The room be damned—he just saw… her.

  She swallowed.

  He felt the movement in his own throat.

  Her stilted breath was his, her flush his.

  Ilya instinctively reached for what he knew best, he gave her the look, the face that had won a thousand conquests. “My apologies at the interruption please continue, I was enraptured.” He gave a small bow of his head but not enough to break eye contact. There was a twitter of feminine voices, there always was, but it was only her he looked to for a response.

  The flush touched her cheeks.

  He waited for the smile; the flutter of eyelashes that would beckon welcome.

  Her eyes scanned his face, the one that held that perfect look, the look that decimated.

  And she scowled.

  She rolled her eyes and gave a demonstrative sigh.

  His face felt suddenly tight. He’d made a mistake. Those glances back at him now held back laughter. That was of no consequence, he made many people laugh over the course of an evening. But…he’d made a mistake in judgement and it mattered.

  His goddess muttered; the word ‘parasite’ clearly audible. She looked at her audience then resumed reading as if he had vaporized with her dismissal.

  “Yes, said the little bird. And the wolf was satisfied for he knew her secret. Knew what was hidden in her small, feathered form. Knew what she couldn’t possibly know about herself.”

  Heads turned back from time to time and he made sure they saw his smile.

  He boldly stared at her.

  She stubbornly refused to look back; her every movement and tone a rejection.

  Magnificent.

  His face relaxed as she continued her recital and he listened, listened and didn’t hear anything except the words wolf, little bird; wolf, little bird; as they repeated in rhythms and prose that made the words dance.

  Wolf.

  Little Bird.

  Chapter 2

  From her peripheral vision—heart still racing, throat tight, and brain uncomfortably foggy—Seraphina watched him finally leave the room. For a brief second, it was as if every poet’s description of soul deep recognition had come to life. As if a veil lifted and she understood the elusive and sought-after twin-flame connection with another soul. And then his face had fallen into the even, arrogant, and insufferable expression of a rake. A man so confident in his ability to win a woman that he treated her like a predictable little puppet to swoon and paw for the pleasure his look promised her.

  Growing up in a house full of brothers, she knew what men thought about women and how they played them. Her deceased husband had given her every placating, mollifying expression, action, and statement imaginable. This man was a pup in comparison.

  “Marvelous as always, my dear.” Lord Marsden handed her down from the small diesis where she’d done her reading. “How’s the book coming along?”

  Seraphina smiled at her childhood friend. “That’s not what you want to ask.”

  He grinned. “I don’t need to ask when I know the answer, sweetheart.”

  She raised her eyebrows, she didn’t know. She had no idea what just happened. However, it wouldn’t happen again…not after that look.

  It was a half hour later when they made their way to the back room with Fitzy and Gloria, both painters, both mad for each other and both pretending no one else could tell.

  The fourth room in the salon was darker. A place you sank into for a myriad of reasons. It had strategically placed tall, voluminous, potted palms, giant greenhouse ferns on wooden pedestals, and Romanesque statues in all positions of nude embrace. Nooks and enclaves for people to slip into under cover of the shadowy light, to be embraced by lush velvet and leather overstuffed chairs, sofas, and ottomans. A place where secrets were whispered, liaisons established, and perhaps even touches and kisses exchanged as promises were made of something more…later…elsewhere.

  And there he was, the rake, Prince Vladimir take-her-breath-away.

  Women on either side of him giggled and snuggled into his broad chest, playing with the golden epaulettes on his jacket as he sat, arms stretched out along the back of the sofa.

  Their gazes met. And again, her body rioted with powerful, alluring sensations.

  The man didn’t move, wasn’t even remotely self-conscious of the fawning duo he sported.

  His eyes burned into her, promising things that belied his situation. Seph flushed with unwanted heat…with annoyance.

  She pointedly rolled her eyes.

  Pretended to yawn behind her hand.

  The corner of his mouth turned up and his gaze blatantly ate at her lips, her breasts, her waist, her… She turned her body away, ignored the fire he’d ignited with just a look, just a promise of what he would do if he had access t
o those parts of her.

  The Prince stood.

  Panic flared.

  “I’m bored let’s go back to the front room,” she said and whirled around. Seph didn’t even look to see if they followed, nerves tight.

  “We just came from the front room,” Marsden growled at her side. He was most likely getting cabin fever. Knowing him well, there was only so long he could float between rooms, caged, bored, well behaved.

  “We could go to Hell’s Hall,” she suggested.

  “Seraphina? What are you up to?”

  “You’re bored,” she beamed at him.

  Marsden’s lips thinned, “I don’t need you to find my entertainment, Seph. I am perfectly capable of doing and going where I want.”

  “I’m bored,” she challenged. She suddenly wanted desperately to be somewhere else, somewhere she felt free, wild, exotic, rather than a dreary widowed Duchess who wrote poetry.

  They left.

  Moved between salons: The Luminous Scroll; Ode to the Wilde; The Blue Room.

  At each location Seph feeling as if the Prince would walk in at any minute, and annoyingly disappointed when he didn’t.

  Three hours later they left Fitzy and Gloria in The Blue Room, a hive of painters, and much to Marsden’s disapproval, arrived at Hell’s Hall. The large Mayfair house offered a members-only gaming hall that catered exclusively to the richest and the elite. Yet, Seph saw his shoulders relaxing as they were shown into the smoke-filled gaming hall despite his reluctance to bring her.

  The converted ball room was hung with opulent chandeliers, filled with dozens of large round tables with black linens and leather tub chairs. Men of all ages filled the room, smoke from their cigarettes and cigars forming a water line high above them as cards were shuffled, dealt, and folded. Money and promissory notes were piled at the center of tables or next to players and tumblers of amber fluid sparkled in masculine hands. There were a few women at the tables, confident in their posture and actions, women Seph saw immediately, who lived as they chose despite social convention.