“I’m here to make it up to you.” Her chest tightened, one foot wanted to leap and the other to run. The man was too dangerous this close. She needed obstacles he couldn’t ignore.
“I’m engaged to someone else.” She raised her chin.
“So I heard.” His gaze seemed caught at her lips as if her movement offered them up to him.
“I think you can let me go now.”
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
His gaze met hers and just like that her body started to tremble. An uncontrollable shiver of emotional need, hurt, grief.
“I am free now to tell you everything.”
“I’m not even remotely interested.” He lowered her to her seat, and she clutched at the armrests, willing the sudden weakness in her body to resolve.
“I thought you might like to go for a drive.” He moved to sit. “We can talk.”
“Please do not sit down.” Her voice held the slightest trace of pending hysteria. Seph took a deep breath and started again. “I want you to leave.”
He stilled. “I deserve the chance to explain.”
She shook her head no. “I have had my fill of slumming with rakes.”
He didn’t look hurt. He looked sad and that sliced through her.
“Perhaps I can call on you?” he asked.
She shook her head no. “I will never be in residence to you.”
His eyes softened and she hated him for instinctively knowing she’d lost her courage. That she’d taken that leap with him, been burned, and now, like some wounded thing, shied away at any unexpected movement.
He inclined his head. “Perhaps at a more opportune time.” Then he turned and walked to the door, the bell rang discordant as he opened it and left.
He walked across the street to his motorcar. Glanced her way before starting the engine and leaving. Leaving her wondering if the pain in her chest was there because he was gone or because he had come.
It will get better with exposure, she reassured herself.
Yet two days later, at a picnic arranged at Hyde Park, she saw him promenading along the path with a woman she understood to be his sister. Seph made her excuses, citing a sudden migraine and fled. Marching off in god knew what direction just to get away. Walked until she found herself on entirely the wrong side of the park and had to hail a cab to get home.
Naturally, he would be here at the Easton’s Ball.
“You will have to face him sometime, Seph,” Marsden said as he scanned the crowd looking for his evening’s entertainment.
Seraphina scowled as she watched a procession enter the ball room to be announced. ‘A Prince Vladimir Demetri Petroski, A Princess Georgina Petroski, A Prince Vladimir Ilya Petroski, and a Princess Tatiana Petroski.’ They were a veritable blaze of handsomeness and beauty as they stood on the threshold, and heads turned. London had forgiven their charade marking it down to Russian exuberance given that the betrothal went ahead as planned. Every hostess in town wanted them to attend their functions now.
“Have you seen St Alban?” her heart felt as if there was a little bird trapped inside, madly fluttering its wings and circling the four chambers looking for an exit.
“I believe he’s talking with the Prime Minister over the other side.” A world away. What was the use of having a fiancé when he wasn’t there to rescue you from your heart’s desire?
Her gaze darted back to the glowing Petroskis. Of course, their gazes caught, hers and Ilya’s. She broke contact by stepping behind Marsden.
“You’re a veritable coward Seph.” Marsden stepped forward and she was back in Ilya’s line of sight and yes, he was heading straight for them.
“I don’t care. I’m not wearing my iron breastplate and my heart is still recuperating from the last dalliance. Don’t men know you need a few lifetimes to recover from these things.”
“Well, you might feel better just facing him and getting it over with. I’ll come along later and shovel your bleeding heart back under your rib cage if he eviscerates it, but in my experience declarations of love only eviscerate undergarments.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I am not available for declarations of ardor…I am engaged. Besides more happened than a pretext at being the betrothed prince.”
Marsden raised his eyes in that ‘do tell’ look of his.
Seph rolled her eyes as she scanned for an exit.
She had been assaulted with the details of their scheme at Christmas by every tongue in every parlor she’d visited over the last two days. Everyone was talking about how romantic it all was. It had evolved into a charade to allow the betrothed couple to get to know each other in secret. And, well the younger brother was what he was. London loved a rake and he was forgiven.
But what of her heart?
Her sensibilities?
They had been crushed.
Ilya had made good pace from across the room. For a moment she considered staying, facing Ilya with Marsden by her side, but the thought made her suddenly feel ill.
Courage be damned, she needed to survive intact.
Seph turned and blindly headed deeper into the house. It was not beneath her to find a cupboard to squeeze into and hide.
Chapter 23
“Marsden. Keep an eye on my sister.” Ilya’s gaze followed Seraphina as she made yet another hasty retreat from him. A bundle of vermillion silk and golden hair hurrying down the corridor.
“Demetri’s here, sounds like he’s got her covered. Besides, I have just spotted the Dolton twins, you know how I like them.”
“Tatiana needs more than one set of eyes on her. Dance with her. She likes that. Show her how dangerous you are, she likes shiny things. But,” Ilya raised a finger between them and held Marsden’s gaze, “don’t you touch her.” The finger dropped to point, his thumb raised like a pistol, “I’ll kill you. My brother will kill you. Every man in St Petersburg will kill you.”
Marsden rolled his eyes. “You are spoiling a potentially decadent evening; those girls fight over me in the most delicious ways.”
“I’m trusting you to be brotherly.” The weight of it shimmered in the space between them. Marsden gave a single nod.
“She’s not my sort.”
“She’d better not be. Remember what I told you happens to men in Russia, horses and genitals!”
Ilya followed Seraphina, strode down the corridor that led deeper into the house. There was no sight of her, no flashes of vermillion silk. He checked each room as he went, first listening and then stealthily opening. It was bad form to compromise a couple if you found them in flagrante delicto; weddings were forced for less.
Murmurs and soft whispers in the shadowed darkness of a reading nook, a card game for high stakes with cigar smoke fogging the ceiling in the study, checkers in the library but no Seraphina. At the end of the corridor he looked through the window, across the patio and then through the fogged glass in the conservatory…movement. Nothing of what he saw was clear and yet instinctively he knew it was her.
A few moments later he stepped into the greenhouse. Tall palms, ferns and soft broad-leafed plants filled the two-story, steel-framed, glass greenhouse. Moonlight filtered in from above. Old style gas lamps scattered throughout, gave an orange glow. The hostess, understanding the need for guests to wander, had candles placed in glass containers bordering the pathways snaking through lush tropical foliage creating a fairy tale trail to wander.
Ilya moved quickly and quietly around the space, scouted it out, making sure they were alone. Then doubled back to the entrance and closed the door. A garden spade resting against the wall served as a makeshift lock when he wedged it against the door. He needed some uninterrupted time with his stubborn quarry.
Seraphina was at the far end looking through a pane of clear glass. The lawn and gardens on the other side were washed silver by moonlight. Except for the blaze of warm illumination coming from the ballroom. That glow lit the evergreen pines and the lush branches of the poplars in war
m hues.
Ilya stood behind her. His reflection discernable in the glass as they shared the view.
“Go away.” She didn’t turn.
He reached out and rested his hands on her shoulders, leaned down till he could inhale the warm air around her; the silkiness of a stray lock of hair tickled his face. “Stop running Seraphina.” His lips nuzzled the soft coolness of her ear.
“I am done Ilya. There is nothing between us.” She moved her head aside but didn’t step away. That was good.
His heart squeezed tight at the hurt sitting deep behind those words. Hurt he had wrought. He’d seen it at the bookshop, her uncontrollable shaking telling him of how deeply he had hurt her. And not just the minor wound inflicted because a liaison ended too early for one of the parties involved. No, a cut to the core.
That hadn’t happened before. The women he’d had in the past were as inured to him as he was to them.
Not Seraphina. They were both afflicted with a deep connection that would deliver a mortal wound if left unattended.
“You loved me at Christmas,” he reminded her.
“Everyone catches a cold from time to time, I got over it.”
He kissed her hair.
“You know what happened, why I had to do what I did and why I couldn’t tell you. I tried to give you clues, little breadcrumbs.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” Again, she moved her head away from him. And yet she still didn’t step away or out from under his hands as they rested on her.
“My family were relying on me…” He murmured, “The Salons, the social flirtations, it was all meaningless, all games for show, nothing real….”
She shrugged.
“It was important to them and important to me that I didn’t let them down. That I showed them I could be relied on.”
She huffed. “Just leave it Ilya. We were lovers. I am over it.” She was far from over it. Neither of them were.
“Hey, hey. That’s not how it goes.” His hand stroked her. Moved over small fragile shoulders that had borne the brunt of things these last five and a half months. “Lovers are light all the way through. We were never light,” he whispered to her. “We had something more. Far more.”
“Did we? I don’t recall.” His little bird was hurting. He’d done that, made her bury everything so deep she couldn’t move forward. It burned through him that he had caused this. And yet. That she felt so deeply about him. That she was running for her very life to protect herself told him how much she’d felt when they were together. He was the one who had to guide them out of this.
“That morning in Bath...at the house party when you came back and went to my room.” He took a chance, homed in on the topic neither of them had spoken about.
She twisted away from him. Forcefully pulled her arm from his hand.
“I said leave it, Ilya!”
Ahh, that was the wound, that was the cut that festered.
Her back was to him, her chest rapidly rising and falling.
Ilya turned her, pulled her tight to him even as she pushed at him and then hit his chest.
He murmured nonsense, soothing nonsense, encouraged her to let it out as those breaths became sobs.
He held her tighter, her pain becoming his as a knot twisted in his chest, his throat thickened. Ilya pressed her head against him, held her so soft and warm; kissed her head and crooned. “You are so precious to me,” he murmured. “You are the balm to all of my pains.”
He kissed her hair. “The source of all joy.” He kissed her head again, held her tighter. “My heart’s very reason to beat.”
“I let you in. Really let you in.” Her voice burned with pain, muffled against his chest as his heart twisted like it was bitten by the fangs of an adder.
“That night, as bad as it looked, I did nothing other than let them sleep in my bed. Made sure that Prince Vladimir’s exploits continued to reach the paper and gossip columns. I slept quite uncomfortably on one of the chairs in the library. Prince Ulyanov is still in London. He can support that.”
“Ridiculous. I don’t believe you.” Seraphina pushed away from him, her hands smoothing her hair. She was going to leave.
Ilya reached out. Her gaze turned back to his.
“My body has not tasted a woman’s since our night together. Since we met it has only ever been you.”
She wriggled out of his hold. “How gullible you must think me. Be brave enough to tell the truth.”
“What?” He let go of her, her words burning in his chest. “That libertine Ilya has no control, lazy Ilya only knows pleasure, Ilya only knows fun, Ilya has no responsibility, no morals and no values.” He waved his arm around. “Go ahead, join the rest, join them all.”
“Don’t make this about you. You are not the aggrieved party. You did the damage; you wrought the deceit. Don’t you dare act the hurt innocent.”
He leaned down to her. “How many letters did I send you Seraphina? How many did you send back? All of them!”
“I have to go.” She lifted her skirts to leave.
“I followed you to Paris. Tried to find you after Bath, before I had to leave for St Petersburg.”
She looked at him perplexed. “I was never in Paris.”
Ilya swore. Damned gossip columns. The frustration of months twisting through him.
“Where were you?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She turned, looked back along the path toward the exit, her eyes way to sad in a face so young and beautiful. “St Alban is no doubt wondering where I am.”
The name burned through him. The idea that Seraphina kissed him, that she’d held him twisted through Ilya.
“You are cruel to toy with him.” Ilya moved closer, his body towering over her.
“I am not toying with him.” But her beautiful eyes darted away. And a wave of satisfaction rolled through him, she’d used the man to hide from him.
“I ask that you check.” Ilya reached out and took her dance card and wrote down the names of the two women he allowed in his room and Prince Ulyanov. “Ask them what happened that night. Tell them Ilya needs you to know.” He moved to leave and then turned back and took up the dance card again. “And here, ask my brother what I have been doing since our return, ask him about Ilya’s whoring in Russia this year. And when you do Seraphina, I expect you to be smart enough to know that it was you who changed me. And that although I know what we did hurt you, it was for you and for a chance that we might become something special that I have become the man I am now. Then decide if we are over and if you are over your…cold.”
Chapter 24
Seraphina watched Ilya leave, nerves charged with emotion as he turned a bend in the conservatory path and the luscious tropical foliage obscured him. All that running, she finally understood what it was. It wasn’t the pain, she felt that already. It was for this moment right now when she shamelessly wanted to run after him. To overlook it all and be wrapped up in his arms. She wanted to be his. Ached to be his. Wounded pride, the principle of being kept in the dark, the questionable nature of the charade itself. It all threatened to crumble away if she could trust him. But …could she?
If what he said was true, he had done everything he could to ensure fidelity to her, ensured she was his only amorous relationship in a charade that demanded he have many. The image of him sleeping in a library chair, the two women in his room an odd beacon of hope, though hard to understand. Why would they sleep in his room and him somewhere else?
Seph looked down at the masculine script scrawled across her dance card.
Lady Harrow. Lady Meriton.
The image of them naked and entwined in the sheet still devastatingly clear in her mind. She was not going to track them down and ask them if Ilya has slept with them, the thought was humiliating. But Marsden could find out.
Georgie was in London with Demetri, Seph could call on her, could ask after Ilya in St Petersburg, have a chance to apologize for her role in the charade las
t Christmas. Prince Ulyanov she would have to make enquiries about.
If what Ilya said were true. That he had been successful in keeping the line between playing the libertine for his family and fidelity to her, did they stand a chance?
Her heart, the one that had been a constant ache for the last five and a half months, trembled in hopeful beats.
All those letters she had sent back unopened. Had he tried to convey this to her earlier? Had she protracted the pain herself? Immediately and ongoing, she had assumed the worst of him.
Seph, slipped the dance card into her purse and made her way through the candle lit paths to the conservatory door and stepped back into the hall. She walked down the corridor to the blaze of light that was the Ballroom. A soft rumble of a crowd all speaking, laughter leaping out of the hum, the percussive clink of glasses. It was as if she had just come from another world.
“Where have you been?” Marsden murmured. His eyes scanned her face.
“Did you tell him where I was?”
“I didn’t know where you went, and I didn’t have to. The man was determined, he’d have gone to the kennels out the back and unleashed the hunting dogs if he’d needed to.”
“Where’s my fiancé?” She searched over heads with feathered plumes and glittering hair pieces, between gaps of people in shimmering gowns and formal black and whites.
Marsden gave an exaggerated huff. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”
The orchestra was between sets ensuring the dance floor was empty.
“That is what he is. I have some things I want to talk with you about but not here. I’ll call on you.” Seph saw St Alban over the other side deep in discussions near the patio doors with his parliamentary crowd. “There he is.” There was no wave of warmth as she looked at him. Ilya was a tidal wave of emotions even at the mere promise a shape could be him in the crowd. Her gaze scanned for Ilya, there was no sight of him, and still her heart shivered knowing he was somewhere in the room.
“St Alban doesn’t even know that his claim is being eroded by a determined and preferable Russian.” Marsden said under his breath. “That lack of observation doesn’t bode well for parliament nor you.”
Have Yourself a Merry Little Scandal: a Christmas collection of Historical Romance (Have Yourself a Merry Little... Book 1) Page 94