A Lady Unrivaled

by Roseanna M. White

  “I didn’t realize Lady Melissa was seriously considering Mr. Kensington. Though I have met him, and they seem a good match. He has a strong but quiet personality.”

  A laugh slipped out. “A fine foil to hers indeed. I wish them well.”

  “So you said.” She was watching him—even without turning his head, he could feel the steadiness of her gaze. “The question is, did you mean it, or were you just saying it because you deemed it in her best interest?”

  He looked at her now. “More information for Brook?”

  “Obviously.” She had dimples. Two perfect little creases in her cheeks when she grinned—how had they escaped his notice? He needed to correct his drawings again. Dimples changed everything.

  Cayton smiled too. “I meant it. I meant everything I said.” But the smile couldn’t hold for long. He let it go with another sigh and faced the sky again. “I wasn’t a good man. Not as bad as those I associated with, I grant you, but not good. I don’t know why she ever loved me. Why either of them ever did.”

  “Some women like the challenge of a man who needs saving. Others see the potential hiding under the layers of the world, and it is that they love.”

  “Hm. Which type are you?”

  She laughed softly but with music enough to rival the orchestra. “Neither. Fall for a man in need of saving and you will be sorely disillusioned to find you are no savior. Fall for a man who is only potential, and you shall be constantly disappointed that he doesn’t live up to it. No, my lord, I prefer gentlemen who already know redemption and who have sloughed off the ways of the world.”

  “Wise of you.”

  “And probably why I am unattached. But I am in no hurry—much as I would love to find the prince to complete my fairy tale, better to wait years for him than to wed too quickly and find my so-called prince is an evil sorcerer in disguise.”

  How could he help but smile at her? “An evil sorcerer?”

  “Life is more interesting with a bit of fancy thrown in—don’t you think?” She leaned back onto the bench and made a show of studying the sky as he had been doing. “What do you see when you look at the clouds, Lord Cayton? More rain on the horizon?”

  “No.” He hesitated, turned to study them too. And couldn’t quite stop the truth from slipping out. “I see the spires of a castle, tinged in gold, barely peeking through those great tufts of lavender. Do you see its standard flying from that peak there? And then I see violet deepening it with every second, edging its way toward indigo. I see a sky ready to go dark with the softest kind of night, where stars will soon dance.” He tilted his head, gaze on those imagined spires. He could do a painting for Addie’s room of this, with but a few added touches. “It needs a Pegasus flying through the sky yonder, I think. Or perhaps a winged unicorn.”

  He realized he had said it aloud only when Ella clapped her hands together. “A winged unicorn, to be sure!” She gazed up at the sky as if she could see it as clearly as he did, and with the same shade of delight he imagined Addie someday feeling as she looked upon the painting and imagined herself flying through the clouds with her fantastical pet.

  Melissa would have laughed, but not with delight. Adelaide—the only woman other than his mother to see his paintings in progress—would have patted his hand and declared it a fine idea, but she would never have seen it. Not until a work was done, and even then she never saw beyond the strokes on the canvas to the vision behind it.

  He stood, held out a hand. “I believe you promised me a dance, Lady Ella.”

  “I didn’t, as well you know.” She put her hand in his, though, let him help her up. But then she frowned. “I will dance with you, Lord Cayton . . . but only if you dance with quite a few others first. And after. On the brink of an engagement as she may be, I daresay Lady Melissa is feeling territorial just now. And I don’t much relish being the object of her fury—she is absolutely frightening when she’s angry.”

  “You really are as wise as you are witty.” He glanced toward the house, with its crowds of people waiting to swarm. Young women waiting to be given an introduction. Eager mothers waiting to shove him toward their daughters. The very idea made his head ache. He turned to Ella, bowed. “I can hear the music quite well from here. What say you?”

  Her answer was a curtsy, and a return of the sparkle to her eyes. She placed her hand on his shoulder, her other still in his, and let him draw her into the opening stance of the waltz.

  It was easy, too easy to fall into the rhythm, to gaze down into her lovely face and wonder. Too easy to let his heart go soft and yearning. Too easy to recall how perfectly happy Addie had been in her arms.

  But he’d made the mistake before of letting his heart wander down the easy path, and look where it had led him.

  Ella’s brows drew down. “You’re not plotting how to turn me into a frog, are you?”

  His smile could last only a beat, a pulse. Then it faded away. “No. I assure you, I only do that to people who are very deserving.”

  A smile flit over her lips, but it was as swiftly gone as Pegasus in the clouds. She seemed to sense his internal pulling back. She went stiffer, her chin came up, and the light in her eyes dimmed.

  He wished he could take back the spontaneous offer to dance. No, go back and undo their exchange in the garden yesterday. Or perhaps think to ask Mr. Norton where Stafford was before just heading to the library the day before that.

  Or better still, go back and put a different face to paper when he was trying to find an image of a smile. She surely wasn’t the only laughter-prone woman he’d ever glimpsed. Why in thunder had his fingers and mind had to put her down upon the page? If he hadn’t, he would have viewed her entirely differently upon an actual introduction.

  The moment the music hit its cadence and came to a halt, Ella stepped away. She studied him for a moment, as if trying to puzzle out the riddle of what kind of man invited her to dance in a garden and then acted as though he’d rather have run the other way.

  Perhaps she found her answer. For she stiffened, nodded a brief farewell, and turned toward the path from which she’d appeared.

  Evans was right. The best, most worthwhile things in life were the difficult ones. Hadn’t he and Stafford discussed that very thing in their study yesterday? The easy thing was seldom right.

  Well, then letting Lady Ella Myerston walk away was the best thing, without question. Because it was far more difficult than it should have been.

  Six

  You don’t sound French.”

  Kira nearly dropped what she was doing and spun at that, the first words her new mistress had deigned to speak to her. But she granted herself only a brief pause and otherwise kept at her task of folding all the lady’s clothes around tissue and placing them into the trunk with the same level of care she’d have given them were they her silks and satins rather than a stranger’s.

  The history Andrei had made her memorize about her supposed-self covered this. While her French was good, with only a hint of a Russian accent, her English bore testament to her roots. “My father was French. My mother Russian. I spent most of my growing-up years in Russia with her people before moving back to Paris.”

  Lady Pratt’s only answer was a disinterested hum that made Kira wonder why she’d even bothered commenting. Darting a glance to her left, she verified that the lady was in the same position she had been ever since Kira entered the room—in a chair by the window, looking out at the busy streets of Paris. The rented flat gave only a mediocre view . . . but Lady Pratt probably saw little of it anyway. Her eyes had a haze before them, it seemed, making her look always within rather than at anything without.

  Did Andrei know she suffered from some invisible torment? Was this why he had opted for espionage rather than a more heavy-handed approach? He could probably hold a gun to this woman’s head and she would only blink at him.

  Kira slid the last of the dresses into the trunk and stood. “I believe I smell tea.” The English treasured nothing like their tea,
da? Perhaps that would rouse her. “Will you join your brother?”

  But the lady didn’t stir. Though her hair was brushed and coiffed, though she wore a simple but elegant day dress, Catherine, Lady Pratt, had the look about her eyes of a woman who hadn’t left her bed in half an eternity. “No. I don’t want to get up.”

  And if the way her dress hung on her was any indication, she hadn’t wanted to get up for things like meals for quite some time. “Shall I bring you something, then, my lady?” The title, so very English, still felt strange on her tongue.

  The lady shrugged. “Do as you please.”

  Doing as she pleased would involve stalking from this modest flat and to the other side of town, to where her own house had a better prospect and servants waiting to attend her. But no—if she didn’t do this, they wouldn’t be her house or her servants for long.

  She smiled, dipped her knees in what was more plié than curtsy, and moved silently from the room.

  The flat was small, and Kira had no choice but to pass by the parlor to get to the kitchen. She glanced inside as she did, expecting to see Lord Rushworth, but it was empty. Perhaps he had taken his tea elsewhere today.

  “Lareau—come here.”

  She jumped and came to a halt, searching the room again. Lord Rushworth was there, in a chair tucked into the corner. Edging into the room, Kira dipped a quick curtsy again. “Forgive me, my lord. I did not see you there.”

  Rushworth offered the bare outlines of a smile. “No need to apologize for a skill I have hewn so carefully over the years.” He pointed to a chair. “Sit. I take it my sister declined joining me for tea again?”

  She had dined with princes and dukes. She had laughed with the richest men on the continent. But somehow it felt completely wrong to lower herself to that cushion across from him when in the drab grey dress of a lady’s maid. What choice did she have though? She perched on the very edge of the chair and folded her hands primly in her lap. “She did, my lord. I was going to fetch her some from the kitchen.”

  “Don’t bother, she won’t drink what they make her.” He turned to the pot on the table at his side. “But I know how she takes it. She may at least have a few sips if I make it.”

  Kira tried to imagine one of her brothers making her a cup of tea, but the image wouldn’t come. Boris, if trying to pull her from a mood, would poke her in the side and try to jest her from it. Evgeny would instead ask her to do something for him. Reasoning, he would say, that if she helped someone else, she would think less of her own woes. And the younger boys . . . They probably scarcely remembered her.

  Sometimes she missed her family. Sometimes. Until she remembered the look in their eyes when she told them she would join the ballet. The disapproval. The disappointment. The judgment. Because they all knew what other life most ballerinas embraced. And they had apparently also known she wasn’t strong enough to resist it, though she had promised them she would.

  Rushworth glanced up at her. “We leave at first light. Is Lady Pratt packed and ready?”

  “Oui, my lord.” She nearly rolled her shoulders back but caught herself just in time. And lowered her chin too.

  Rushworth breathed a laugh that held no amusement. “You needn’t keep pretending to be French. My sister, when she rises from this morass, may appreciate the pretense—French maids being so very in mode—but I assure you, it is the fact that you are Russian that got you this position.”

  Now her spine snapped straight before she could stop it, and her chin came back up. Her brows pulled heavy and questioning over her eyes. “I do not understand.”

  “Oh, but I think you do. That is just the thing.” Leaning back in his chair, Rushworth rested his chin on his hand and made a show of studying her. “What think you of Tolstoy?”

  “Tolstoy?” What in the world did he have to do with anything? But Rushworth didn’t so much as blink, so she moistened her lips and tilted her head. “He is the voice of Russia. My family traveled to his funeral a few years ago and wrote to me about it—he was to be forbidden a Christian funeral, being still excommunicated from the church, but the people . . . the people would not have it.” Her eyes slid shut at the description of all those bodies pressed together. Thousands of people, all there in defiance of the very church they so loved. “They sang the chants anyway. And the police who were there to stop them joined them instead.”

  “Mm. I have read about his last moments. Have you?”

  She opened her eyes again, trying to divine where he was headed. But the man’s blue-green eyes made not a flicker to tell her the thoughts behind them. His dark blond head gave nothing away in its angle. Kira shook her head.

  Rushworth nodded. “He wondered about the peasants’ deaths. A familiar refrain with him, I understand, this idea that no one understood life and death so well as a Russian peasant. From what I can tell, everyone else agrees. Do you?”

  “I . . .” She had to pause, shrug, clear her throat. “I have never thought of it, my lord.” But she remembered the way Babushka had crossed herself when Mamochka had died. The way she had gathered Kira and all her siblings, the new babe in her arms, and told them that their mother was a spirit now, and they would put bread on her grave that Easter, and the birds would come and assure them that her soul was flying in the heavens with God.

  The babe flew with Mamochka now too. She’d not lived to her first year.

  Rushworth’s eyes narrowed. “You needn’t tell me. But my sister . . . Kitty needs someone who understands these things. It has been six months since her baby died, and still she stares out the window as if waiting for him to toddle down the street.”

  “That is what holds her prisoner?” She shifted, darting a glance at the cup. How long did they steep their tea? And why did Rushworth think her the right one to help his sister grieve? She had never lost a child. And rarely a sibling. Only two of them had died, her two sisters—far fewer in her family than any of their neighbors could boast.

  “An excellent choice of words—and yes.” He leaned forward again, poured the tea into a cup, and dropped a cube of sugar into it. “That is what has rendered her nearly comatose. She handled it well enough when her husband was killed. I never would have thought . . .” Rushworth shook himself and pulled a plate forward. “If you don’t feel up to the task of serving such a mistress, now is the time to say so, before we leave Paris.”

  If only she had such luxury. Kira forced a smile. “I will serve Lady Pratt as well as I know how, my lord. I cannot guarantee to help her heal, but . . .”

  “You will do well enough, I am sure. Princess . . . Forgive me, I will probably mangle her name. Alyona Vitalova? Is that right? She spoke very highly of you and assured me that you came from sturdy peasant stock.”

  Kira barely kept from snarling. Andrei had brought his precious princess into this? Had, what, listed her as a reference? “Did she?”

  “Mm. I, of course, then had to question why she was letting you go, but now I see her point.” His lips twitched into a smile as he set the cup onto the plate. “I daresay any young lady would think twice about having such a lovely maid when she is on the cusp of marriage.”

  Usually she would have been listening for suggestion in such a statement—just now, she could hardly see past the rage clouding her vision. They claimed she had been lady’s maid to Princess Alyona? And what had Andrei told his darling when he asked her to meet with this man and talk of Kira? That it was how they could be rid of her? For surely Alyona knew of Andrei’s relationship with her, everyone did, and no doubt she liked Kira no better than Kira liked her. She had probably taken pleasure in claiming she had been her servant.

  “I see I have touched a nerve. My apologies.” He didn’t sound repentant as he arranged pastries around the teacup.

  “Think nothing of it.” But she couldn’t convince her fingers to relax, and the pain in her knee made a sudden throb.

  He nudged the plate toward her. “See if this tempts my sister.”

  The words
that sprang to her tongue were Russian, so she bit them back and stood, reached for the plate.

  “Do you read Russian?”

  Her fingers paused, the anger still simmering. “Da.”

  Rushworth’s lips still wore that little half smile. “Forgive me if the question has offended you—though I’m under the impression that much of the Russian populace is illiterate. Am I not correct?”

  And what exactly had the princess told him about her family, their “sturdy peasant stock”? Surely not that her grandfather had been a huntsman before the serfs were freed, one of the highest male servants on a vast estate. Certainly not that her grandmother had been trained by her master as an opera singer, had risen to fame before her master had deemed her too old for his harem and had married her to Dedushka, giving her a generous dowry. And so, not that they were among the most educated and well-off of the peasants. Heaven knew that wouldn’t suit the princess’s fancy.

  Kira forced a smile. “I can read and write Russian, German, French, and English.”

  Though he made an impressed face, the emptiness of Rushworth’s eyes somehow spoke of suspicion. “Can you, now? You must have been in someone’s favor growing up.”

  “My father taught us all. He was the one who had special favor as a boy.” Probably because he was their old master’s son, not Dedushka’s, but that was a topic never raised, a question never asked. Babushka didn’t speak of her life before her marriage. If ever it came up, the pain filled her eyes far too quickly.

  “Well, it may be of use to me, if you would agree to translate.”

  Her suspicion flared too—what need would he have of a Russian translator, unless it had something to do with his dealings with Andrei? But she granted herself only a moment’s hesitation before nodding. “Of course, my lord.”

  “Good.”

  Well then, perhaps this would be easier than she’d feared, and she would find the information Andrei sought within a week or two. Buoyed by that happy thought, she picked up the plate and cup and turned toward the door. “I had better take this to Lady Pratt.”