He said nothing just lifted her and carried her to bed. Made love to her, tender and deep. Whispered words of love, of gratitude until their bodies needed more. Then he rode them until they fell over the edge, until their bodies exploded into a bliss that felt like it fused their very souls together.
Afterward, he held her, and they talked. The light jokes gone. It was one heart to another, no space between them.
“I am not sure I will stay in Russia.” He said softly as she lay with him curled behind her. “There is unrest. Whispers of revolt and revolution. Many of the nobility have sold their land or mortgaged it to the bank. Many estates in Russia are poorly run, with the abolition of serfs who worked for sustenance not wages, the underlying poor management has become evident and many of the estates are no longer viable. The land is being parceled off and sold to the very serfs who used to work on the estate.
“Nobles have gone to the city and spend more than they can afford. There is only so long that can continue. Some have started to invest in stocks and bonds and others buy factories. The world of the Russian aristocracy is crumbling. The need to be a business man and an investor ever more important.
“Demetri does a good job with our estates but we both see a darkness coming.”
“Demetri runs your estates?”
“Shhh.”
She turned toward him, ran her finger over his chest. Ilya reached up and enclosed her hand in his. Things were not as they appeared between Demetri and Ilya, but what she wondered didn’t really make sense.
“I need to find my place Seraphina.”
They sank into a comfortable silence but neither dozed. They cherished this space they had created with their honesty and trust.
“I leave tomorrow.” It hurt her just to think about it.
Ilya wrapped her against him tighter and nuzzled into her hair. “I want you to stay.”
“I promised Emma I’d visit while I was up here.”
“I could come.” He nipped at her ear making her swat his arm.
“Scandalous. You’d have to marry me.” The words created a trickle of nervousness.
He said nothing, and her chest pinched even as her body pressed into the shape of him as he bit into her neck as he knew she liked. That wasn’t in his plans then. Foolish to have said the words.
It was best she leave. She was already too hopeful when she knew from the beginning there would be none.
“Marsden left early,” Ilya noted.
“His mother sent word they were coming to London. He had to go back and prepare for their arrival.”
“Do you have to go?”
“I promised Emma I would come regardless of how things turned out.”
“You set up an escape.”
Seph laughed. “Yes.”
“I should punish you for even thinking it.”
“You might have been grateful.”
“Never.”
Chapter 15
Ilya stood under the stone portico as the carriage pulled out of the circular forecourt and onto the drive. He was feeling agitated already.
“She’s a worthy woman,” Demetri said in Russian next to him.
“She’s the one,” Ilya replied in their mother tongue.
Demetri put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s still work to do, brother. While she was here, causing gossip with her was all well and good, but now she is not here we still need more. The new guest, Snowden, writes for the social columns in the London Times. You will need to give him something while I go back to London and see whether this house party was enough to break the betrothal.
“Anything I do is likely to get back to Seraphina.”
“Family first, Ilya. Family first. You will have plenty of time after the betrothal is canceled to explain and win her back if she gets upset. If she truly loves you, she will understand.”
“Women like her value integrity, fidelity even when there are no promises. I want to give her that.”
“She knows what kind of man you are. I am sure she expects nothing.”
Ilya slowly turned and pushed Demetri in the chest. “What kind of a man I am? What is that then? Someone who can’t give the woman he loves fidelity or a man who has no integrity, or both?”
Demetri held up his hands in a motion of surrender. “That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s exactly what you meant.”
Ilya pushed Demetri’s chest again.
Demetri pushed back and raised a finger to him. “You know your duty. You want integrity? Do what you promised your family you would do, no matter the cost!”
“Now if only I understood Russian.” Snowden sidled up next to them, a smirk on his face. “The Petroski Princes fight for the elusive widow. I think I have just paid for my expenses. Isn’t there a little bit of crumpet waiting for one of you.” He looked at Ilya, thinking him the elder, the Prince. It could only be days away that more and more of London came to know of the betrothal.
Ilya’s hands curled into fists.
Demetri was right. His integrity required him to finish his duty to his family.
That night Ilya played up. They drank deep into the night and the group played charades, three questions, ‘what, when, and how’ and then the team had to guess the sexual act or position. The night devolved with Ilya leading Ladies Harrow and Meriton out of the billiard room and into his bedroom.
Chapter 16
Seph got up early, dressed and went down to dinner as her bags were repacked.
“Emma, you didn’t have to get up as well. I am perfectly happy to get myself off to the train station.”
“Nonsense. I don’t see you enough as it is.” Emma helped herself from the breakfast service as Seph started on her eggs, tomatoes, and spinach. “Harrold says safe journey and come back soon.” The evening together had been delightful, almost making up for the sleepless night thinking about Ilya. She missed him already. What was she going to do when he went back to Russia? She would not be very successful at trysting if they addled her like this.
They talked as Emma read out items from the morning paper.
Then, Emma stilled.
“What is it?”
Emma read the item:
‘Our royal guest has been keeping secrets. Who knew all this time he was galivanting around town, he was also looking for a ring for a long lost betrothal.’
“Let me have a look. The gossip columns write all manner of nonsense.” Seph read and re-read the listing in the gossip column, her heart thumping a little harder in her chest.
“They are implying that the Russian Prince Vladimir is betrothed to be married. Didn’t you say he was at the house party? How odd. Did he appear engaged to be married to you?”
Chest now tightening she shook her head.
“No.” She swallowed. “Not that I am aware.”
“Mother mentioned something last week about Georgina Franklin having been betrothed as a young girl. It was all rather shocking at the time, a prince and an industrialist’s daughter. You know many of those Russians are cash poor. It was so long ago no one thought more about it.”
It just didn’t sound like Ilya. He was a rake but not a scoundrel.
“I need to borrow the carriage, Emma. Do you mind? I think I have left something back at Ston Easton Park. I will go to the station from there.”
Seph stood.
“What is it Seph? You have gone quite pale.”
The words kept going around and around through her head. ‘He’s betrothed to be married. No can’t be.’ Like a loop. All those small incongruencies. The periodical describing him so opposite to the Ilya she knew. Even knowing him so well and meeting Demetri at the house party nothing added up. The idea was ludicrous, but it was if the descriptions were reversed. She clutched at the improbability, as the idea he was betrothed sliced her heart as it circulated around and around in her mind.
At Ston Easton Park, she showed herself upstairs saying she’d left something in the room. His room was right nex
t door.
She knocked lightly and turned the handle. “Ilya?”
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light.
The curtains were drawn, and the shadows meant she saw the tumbled bodies twisted in his sheets at about the same time one of them made their reply.
“Ilya’s gone to have breakfast.” Was the grumbled female murmur.
Chapter 17
It was early when he’d gone for a run. Ilya used a downstairs bathroom to change then entered the morning room through the patio doors, not expecting to see many or any after their antics last night. A few subdued guests; who wouldn’t be, they’d drunk half the wine cellar. The bulk of the night revelers still upstairs asleep.
“Morning.” He walked toward the servery. “I vote no playing with guns today.”
Not even the usual titter of laughter.
Ilya looked up to see what was wrong. And then he saw her.
She rose from her chair, a Venus de Milo in winter pink wool gabardine cuffed and collared in matching velvet, her golden hair covered by a hat she’d not removed, and soft coral lips. Her face was white, her mouth strained as her hand fisted tight around a newspaper.
“Seraphina,” he whispered as bile suddenly bit at his throat. He shook his head in denial even as he felt the invisible noose slip around his neck.
Which of his sins she had found out about, he wasn’t sure, only that a death blow to everything he held precious, everything he’d started to dream was possible, was about to fall.
“Perhaps we can adjourn to the library?” he suggested. If he could get her alone, he might be able to navigate through this.
She walked up to him. He saw it coming as if in slow motion. Her hand did a wide arc before she slapped him hard and solid across the face as the few mesmerized guests looked on.
Seraphina held up the paper. “I guess I am not invited to the wedding.” Her voice was passionless, bored, her face shuttered. Much worse than if she were angry. “Are you betrothed?”
The question reverberated around the room.
It was as if a tight band constricted his chest.
All eyes were on him. Snowden the little snake leaning forward in his chair.
What could he say?
That he was playing at being Demetri? That Demetri was in fact betrothed and the elder Prince Petroski. That he was the younger reprobate.
His eyes pleaded for her to understand, to remember the breadcrumbs. Pleaded for her to put it together but there was no life in the look she gave him.
His silence was as good as an admission of guilt.
“I’d like a moment in private,” he asked again and indicated they should leave.
Her face looked at him as if he must be mad.
“I don’t ever want to speak with you again. It’s Georgina Franklin isn’t it?”
Again, his silence damned him.
“She is a friend and you have knowingly placed me in a position to cause her pain and hardship. How could you come to London and run around as you have? How could you have cast me in that fiendish plot?”
“I can explain.” He stepped closer. The band so tight around his chest that it felt hard to breathe.
“Explain? I was hoping for that right up until I went up to see if you were awake this morning.”
His heart now thundered in his ears and he swallowed back the bile. She had been into his room. Would have seen them there, the two women he let use his room. Another secret that was not his to tell.
“Seraphina. Please.” He reached for her and she slapped his hand away.
“The sooner you go back to Russia, and back into the hole you crawled out of, the better.”
She threw the newspaper in his face and walked out. He followed.
“Keep him away from me,” she ordered the butler.
Ilya reached for her and the butler stepped between them.
“I beg your pardon your highness.”
Seraphina didn’t even look at him as she donned her coat, opened the front door herself and ran down the stone stairs. A carriage waited.
Ilya watched her go. Hands in his pocket. Nothing less than the whole truth was going to even come close to fixing this and that was not yet his to give her.
Chapter 18
She shook. Every part of her shook and she didn’t think she would ever be able to stop. The sight of Lady Harrow and Lady Meriton, both in Ilya’s bed painted in excruciating detail behind her closed eyes. But worse still was his failure to deny any of it. That he was not able to deny that he was betrothed. What kind of a woman did he think she was? That she would enter a liaison with a man who was engaged to be married. A man who, if the papers were correct, didn’t even visit his betrothed. No instead he was running around London and the countryside with her. All her happiness gained at the expense of another woman. It churned her stomach.
Her pride smarted as she berated herself for thinking it wasn’t him. That the descriptions and the odd incongruencies pointed to something other than him being the betrothed prince. Foolish, foolish woman.
She was going to get as far away from him, from the ensuing gossip and scandal, as she could.
Chapter 19
The florist refused to deliver anymore flowers to Seraphina’s address saying they were not welcome. That their deliveries were placed out on the street.
“A Prince Vladimir Petroski.” He was announced into Lord Marsden’s drawing room.
Ilya walked through the door. Pain exploded through the back of his eyes as he received a fist to the face. Marsden swung again and Ilya ducked, jaw throbbing, dragging Marsden off balance by his green satin smoking jacket.
“You bastard. I told you not to hurt her.”
Marsden wrapped an arm around Ilya’s waist and threw a punch to Ilya’s gut. They staggered and fell, taking a small side table and lamp on their way down. Arms came around them and pulled them apart, dragging Ilya toward the door. The butler and the valet had stepped in.
“Where is she?” Ilya demanded.
“Go fuck yourself. Throw him out.” Marsden growled.
It was the little pig, Snowden’s column which conveyed that ‘the Elusive widow was heard to be refitting at a Parisian dressmaker. Well who wouldn’t want to lift their appeal, one little kitten waiting for a ring and two little kitty cats who warmed a royal comforter.’
Demetri, his betrothed Miss Georgina Franklin, and her father and business ventureist, Mr Franklin were in Paris the day after Ilya arrived in the city. A message left with the front desk and Demetri met him at Ilya’s Hotel three doors down.
“Demetri. I need to find her. I want you to come. To help me explain.”
Demetri shook his head. “Not until the betrothal is broken. Everything is still in a very delicate balance. It’s not the time to risk things getting out.”
“What does it matter? The plan didn’t work. You are still betrothed.”
“I have another plan, and I need to stay you for a while longer. Go back to St Petersburg. The family will need to be together when this unfolds. We need to stand together and clear the family honor. Then we’ll see what we can do about Seraphina. If you still want her.”
Fury rolled through him. “If I still want her?”
“Come on Ilya, you run hot you run cold where women are concerned. So now you are on the boil. Give it a month or two and you are just as likely to run cool.”
It was everything Ilya could do not to punch him.
“I am losing the woman I plan to marry. She is in pain, somewhere in the city. I need to explain.”
Two days later Paris had closed ranks on him. No one knew of her nor had seen her. For all he knew Snowden had gotten it wrong all together.
And he had to travel back to St Petersburg. Be there as Demetri had requested as they finally put an end to the betrothal and blackmail.
Part II
And How It All … Ended
Chapter 20
July 1st, 1900
The floor length, thick r
ed velvet curtain, the entrance to Madame Debuverey’s salon, drew open and the newest guest was announced.
“A Prince Vladimir Ilya Petroski.”
The room stilled. A group playing charades were the only ones who continued to laugh and talk, oblivious to the perceived cad who’d entered their midst.
“I can’t believe he’s here.”
“Who does he think he is?”
“What a poser.”
The not-so-whispered cuts and disapproval scurried around the salon.
Ilya sauntered in with a walk that belied the tension churning in his gut. He scanned the room, scanned through the arch to the room behind, noted the doors leading to the last two rooms were closed for the night.
She was supposed to be here.
He navigated around the room ensuring he could see in each sectioned area. No. Not here.
“It’s the Prince.”
“Russia was soooo last season.”
A barked laugh.
Ilya clenched his jaw tight and stopped behind a chair, placed his hands on Lord Marsden’s shoulders, and massaged them. Bent down and said in a loud whisper. “Something to say to me, friend?”
Marsden stiffened. “You couldn’t stay put in Russia?”
Ilya dug his fingers into that spot on the shoulders and…yes. Marsden’s posture crumbled as the pain in the pressure point lanced through him. All the while Ilya scanned again the darker pockets of the room in case he’d missed her. And…no. No, Seraphina.
Ilya released his friend, took a seat in the group who had heralded him as a social sovereign at Christmas last year. The same who now scowled at him as they panned the room for an exit.
“So, Russia was cold.” He lifted his hand and clicked.
The tumbler of vodka was immediate. Some people remembered him.
All the gents in the group, apart from Lord Marsden, stood and left without a word.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1) Page 92