Devlyn rose hastily as Prinny hefted himself to his feet. The wedding cannot occur. As you say, the combination, so near the throne… Not that I am worried, but—"
"I understand, Your Highness. You are regent now, and the nation is at war with a ruthless conqueror. Your safety is paramount to England's continued existence." A few more such falsehoods ensured Devlyn's place in the same hell that confined Nicholas Denisov, but the prince was soothed and smoothed and adamant.
"It's best that you came to me now, before the contracts were signed and the marriage announced. I owe you a great debt, Devlyn, and I shan't forget it." The prince's cowardice had not disappeared, however. "But what will Alexander say? Worse, what will Wellesley say?"
"Alexander will just shrug it off, I imagine, and realize we British are not the fools he took us for. With Napoleon on his heels, he can hardly make a fuss about this situation. You could, of course, assure him that this little episode will not have any effect on the great alliance our two nations will share. As for Wellesley, if you like, you may direct him to me. I am to blame, after all, for ruining all his plans."
"Not to blame, Major," Prinny protested weakly. But I would prefer, if you don't mind—"
Devlyn inclined his head graciously. "There remains the problem of the princess, Your Highness."
Prinny sighed. "Such a shame, for I like her very well. She always has a jest for me, loves to see me laugh. And now she's to be jilted. Doesn't seem perfectly fair, for it's not her fault. One can't choose one's parents, after all, as I know so well. But what can I do? Can't send her back, for who knows what horrors will await her in Russia, what with her cousin being disappointed and Bonaparte set to march. But what else can we do?"
"Perhaps you should leave that also up to me, Your Highness. I believe I can find a way to secure her future."
The prince squinted at him then, finally dropping back onto the couch in astonishment. "You? Secure her future?"
"I know I'm no royal, but she's hardly likely to do better, now that Cumberland's out. There's that damned—your pardon, sir—Bourbon, but I don't think she'll have him."
"You? Do you mean—?" Suddenly the prince peered suspiciously at the major. "You aren't bamming me about her father and all, are you?"
"Every word I told you is true," Devlyn said mendaciously, further blotting his heretofore spotless escutcheon. "But I suppose I did neglect to tell you of my own stake in the outcome."
"I should say you did," the prince cried, with mingled amusement and outrage. "And they say I'm a fool with women. I never thought you—well, she's a pretty chit, make no doubt. And a good gel, for all her bad blood. But—but doesn't that blood worry you?"
Inwardly rejoicing, for he sensed he was home free, Devlyn shrugged. "Why? She'd have nothing to gain, after all. I'm no prince. There's no throne for her to nab. And anyway, it's my patriotic duty, to keep her away from the court," he added, wondering if he was doing it up a little brown. But the prince started declaring his great debt again, and Devlyn could only look modest and agree. Somehow he had made it through, and the prince was even thanking him for it. Devlyn, he told himself, you are the luckiest man on earth.
Finally, when the prince's expressions of gratitude wore down, Devlyn returned to more prosaic matters. "In those marriage contracts Alexander sent along, did there happen to be a letter from Princess Tatiana's uncle giving his permission for her marriage?"
Struck by this, the prince sent a courtier for the papers. "Must have been, for she's not of age. What are you going to do with it?"
"Alter it, or copy it, I expect." It was liberating, really, to be so blithe about a capital crime like forgery. "It won't matter once we're married, but just in case the bishop kicks up a fuss, I'll need some document from her guardian."
"You are the most complete hand. Always thinking ahead," the prince said admiringly, then added, as the courtier returned and silently gave him the packet, "Oh, here it is." He spread a sheet out on the inlaid table. "Why, you're in luck. Prince Dmitry wrote it out and signed it, but look—"
Gazing over the royal shoulder, Devlyn saw a blank space where the prince stabbed a stubby finger. "Why didn't he fill in the groom's name?"
The prince frowned in concentration. "I remember now! We'd decided if Cumberland balked, we'd get m'brother Clarence to do it. You know, that might suit, after all. Clarence is a jolly fellow, not like Cumberland. I wouldn't have any worry, even if he did marry the Russian chit."
A chill shot through Devlyn at the thought of Tatiana handed so cavalierly from one prince to another. He seized the quill beside the regent's elbow and scrawled his own name in the blank space, then folded the sheet up and pocketed it.
The prince was startled, but eventually he laughed, his mirth shivering his portly frame. "Devlyn, I like you. You do manage things well. How would you like to be war minister?"
Devlyn was arrested by the thought and almost, as a joke, accepted. But he was a bit ashamed of himself, for the prince was absurdly gullible. So, with only a bit of regret, he demurred. "No, you would dismiss me in a week when I advocated selling the crown jewels to buy boots for the troops. But I should have loved to see Wellington's face when he heard his aide was become his superior."
The prince nodded wistfully. "It would have been worth anything, to see Wellington and Liverpool and Wellesley, too, when they heard a major was to be war minister. I'm sure you'd be a fine one, of course, but the triumph—they'd remember who's the monarch of this land, then, they would indeed." Reluctantly he let go his dream of a major-minister. "Well, I wish you every happiness with the princess. She seems a nice, biddable girl."
"Exactly my impression," Devlyn said gravely, now rather too comfortable with falsehoods. "But I haven't asked her yet. She may refuse me."
The prince's pale eyes focused on Devlyn, and he said with rare intuition, "Oh, I think she will accept you. You have the most impressive way of getting what you want, with whatever means are at hand." He waved his hand in dismissal. "Go, go, make your proposal. Tell her I'll give her away—only right, as I'm her cousin. There's a chapel here in Carlton House—not used much, I wager, but presentable enough."
"You are too kind, Your Highness," Devlyn replied, surprised at his real gratitude. The prince's blessing would make the potentially scandalous wedding legitimate. Now Devlyn did not have to worry about court-martial or cashiering—only Tatiana's response.
"Out, Lancelot, your lady awaits! Oh, I don't think I've had such fun in months. A romance like this—Well, go, lad! And, Devlyn—"
Already at the door, the major turned back to see the prince's hand raised as if in blessing. "Welcome to the family!"
Devlyn wasted no time getting to Sherbourne House, but the butler told him stiffly that Her Highness was out. All day. And all night. Behind the butler, however, was Devlyn's favorite greedy footman, grimacing in quite a horrible way and pointing toward the mews behind the house. A few minutes later the panting footman met him in the alley. He wouldn't speak, however, until his breath was restored by a couple of guineas.
"She really is gone, Your Lordship. She's staying the night at the countess's place in Surrey. A party in the pavilion there. The royal duke is in attendance."
Another sovereign produced the direction of the manor house and the footman's fervent good wishes. "And if you and the princess have need of a head footman, your lordship, you remember me, will you?"
Only after locking up all the silver, Devlyn thought. He stopped at his home only long enough to saddle Ciardi, then headed out of town. His head was whirling in quite a dizzying manner, and he couldn't get hold of his thoughts enough to develop a proper speech. He'd never really expected to get to this point, and of course he'd never proposed to anyone before. But surely Tatiana would make it easy on him, throwing herself into his arms in her impetuous way, telling him with kisses just how happy he had made her.
Such thoughts warmed him, but were not entire proof against the early snow that started
falling before he reached the outskirts of London. He hunched down into his fur-lined coat and surprised himself by longing for Lisbon, where the winters were mild. At least Tatiana would feel at home tonight.
Dusk came early to this overcast day, and as he approached Sherbourne he could see lights blazing in the pavillion attached to the back of the house. It was too early for the dancing to have begun. The guests were doubtlessly preparing themselves sartorially for the evening as the servants prepared the hall. But, after he settled his horse in the stables, he rejected the enticement of the warm house and crossed back to the formal gardens behind. The countess would not welcome him to her party, but a maid might be bribed to take a message to the princess.
But even as he was testing the French doors leading to the conservatory, Devlyn heard behind him the soft tread of boots on snow. With the telepathy of a lover, he knew only Tatiana would be out on this snowy evening. Even as he turned, she whispered, "Michael," and he heard the anguish in her voice and crossed the distance between them in a few strides to catch her in his arms.
Chapter Twenty
Turnip oil, Tatiana had assured her maid, was an old Russian manicure secret. So Monique hied off to the kitchens, ready to try anything to mend the princess's once elegant nails, now bitten nearly to the knuckle. But as soon as the maid rounded the corner of the hall, Tatiana snatched up a dark green Kashmir mantle and escaped down the backstairs to the garden. Only solitude could give her the resources she needed to face the next few days—and the rest of her life.
In the shadowy garden, snowflakes settled on the late-blooming orange and yellow mums lining the path to the lighted pavilion. Tatiana drew a great tingling breath, almost missing Russia and the austere cleansing winters she'd so long lamented. Well, at least she had done her part for Russia, although she knew better than to expect anyone there to thank her for her sacrifice.
Unobserved, she stopped beside one long pavilion window to watch the servants prepare for the rout opening the long weekend of celebration of the royal betrothal. The officious caterer stood in the center of the parquet dance floor, his posture slumped, his hand laid dramatically across his forehead. As servants bustled about him with displays of flowers and brimming punchbowls, his mouth moved in an inaudible but no doubt tragic soliloquy about the impossibility of catering a royal ball out here in the backwoods.
The travesty of celebration to begin in a few hours was for her, the renowned Princess Tatiana. Like the virgin selected as a sacrifice to the angry gods, tonight she would be honored; tomorrow she would stand alone at the edge of the volcano. .
At least the agonizing debate was done, and she knew some relief that she couldn't turn back. Now Tatiana just had to live the rest of her life with the memory of what she had given up. Renouncing Michael might have been the only moral choice. But when she recalled the despair in his eyes at the realization that she was lost to him, she knew she would never forgive herself.
As she turned back to the house, she saw him: a man, just on the edge of the light spilling from the pavilion, testing the latch of the French door to the conservatory. For a burglar, he was distinctively attired, with a dark blue cloak flung back from his fine shoulders. She wondered dizzily if she had conjured him up out of pure longing, for surely Michael would not have risked all to come out here, not on the eve of her betrothal to the royal duke. But in the reflecting candlelight, the snow glinted so on his dusky curls. "Michael," she whispered, and he let go the latch and turned. She saw joy dawn in his eyes, the same joy that dawned unwanted in her heart. Then he crossed that separation and caught her up in his arms.
Tatiana tasted the texture of him: the rough wool under her cheek, the slide of his leather glove against the back of her neck, the reassuring solidity of his chest. She could not breathe. His cloak fell over her and she was in the circle of his warmth, just as on that distant day in the balloon, when he had kissed her with this same fever. Her treacherous lips opened under his, and her eyes closed, for the love in his cloudy eyes left her dizzy.
It took all her resolve to twist away, so she had none left to fuel her flight. As if he sensed her ambivalence, Michael kept a possessive hand on her arm as he brushed the snow off a low stone bench and guided her to a seat. She drew herself up straight, clenching her fists at her sides, trying at least to appear brave until her bravery could return.
But Michael undermined her meager resources with a shake of his dark head. "No bonnet, no gloves. Tatiana, you court death by frostbite," he chided, capturing her hands between his own. He looked lighthearted, as she had never seen him, as if all his problems were solved. He must have decided to toss his principles to the wind and become her cher ami after all. But the realization left her bleak. Couldn't he accept that their destinies were always to be alone? Now she would have to hurt them both by refusing the little bit of love he could offer her.
"So you wish to recant." Her voice sounded curiously flat in the crystalline twilight, and some of the light left his eyes.
But he distracted them both by unclenching her fists, finger by finger, and then rubbing some warmth into her hands. "Recant? As a heretic does? Oh, I've committed a raft of sins of late, but heresy hasn't been one of them." Michael's voice was wry, tinged with laughter. She glanced up at him through her lashes, unwillingly intrigued by his mention of sin. Encouraged, he bent his head closer to hers, so that she could feel his words stir her hair. "Tatiana, I've come to take you away."
"Away?" she repeated. She had a vision of their proud balloon carrying them away to that little French cottage, where they could cobble shoes and make cider and no one would pay them any mind at all. "It's just a dream," she whispered, for her nights had been filled with exactly that longing vision.
The touch of leather glove on her cheek was smoother than his hand would have been, a caress tormenting in its tenderness. "Not so far away as a dream, my love. Just home."
Home. Her mind could do nothing but echo those lovely, impossible words—away, home, love. Such impossible hopes he inspired with his heartbreaking words. She tensed under the inadequate armor of her mantle and edged away from his touch. But she could feel his inquiring gaze. He must be puzzled, she thought distractedly, for he wouldn't expect resistance after her shameless proposition last night.
She closed her eyes, searching within herself for that center of strength that had sustained her since she left the Tower. But she found only an aching awareness of his nearness, his quiet breathing, his sudden wariness. "Tatiana, look at me."
With a gentle hand, he tilted her chin up and regarded her steadily. She tried to shutter her expression but knew she had failed. From their very first encounter, Michael could read her heart in her eyes, and now he would search out all her secret dreams and hopes and offer her every one.
Tenderness led his hand to cup her cheek, and he traced her lip with his thumb. "Are you frightened? You needn't be. I just want to ask you to share your life with me. For I need you to share mine, you know, or I'll have no life to share."
Her breath caught in her throat. She could not look away from his loving eyes, but she couldn't answer him either. She was paralyzed with longing, with dread. The longing she understood, the dread she could not explain.
Then, in the resonance of that snowy evening, she heard other seductive pledges—her father's promise, "We'll send for you in the summer;" Peter Korsakov's whisper, "I'll speak to your uncle;" her own brave prediction, "I shall be free!"— pledges creating visions of love and liberation that flickered as she approached and then vanished altogether like the mirages they were. Share your life with me
"I can't," she whispered. She remembered Buntin's unspoken warning—if you speak the words you'll never be able to call them back. "You know what you want can't be. I won't have you ruin your life, and I won't give Napoleon more ammunition against my nation and yours. So stop plaguing me."
"Plaguing you? By loving you?" Confusion made him brisk; he tugged her hood up over her hair, tied the t
railing ribbons under her chin, folded her hands in her lap, and tucked the mantle edges under her legs. When she was swaddled like a baby, he kissed a snowflake off her cheek and murmured, "Don't you know, my darling, how much I love you? And if you love me too, and I know you do, my life will be complete."
"I do love you," she said in a broken whisper, "too much to destroy you."
"Ah, Tatiana, if you knew how I've longed to hear those words—"
"Michael, listen to me!" She had to struggle to get her hands free of the enfolding mantle, but finally, breathing hard, she pushed at his chest until he withdrew a few inches. Only then could she complete the declaration that broke her heart. "I have considered this endlessly. Endlessly. And there's no answer but to give you up. I can't ruin your career and your reputation and force you into exile—and I can't let the alliance founder at this critical point, just for my own happiness. And so it's because I love you so much, so"—her voice faltered here, and she closed her eyes tight to hold back the tears—"so very much that I can't let you do whatever it is you are planning to do."
"I am planning to marry you."
As those words penetrated Tatiana's awareness, she was obscurely glad that his intentions were as honorable as he. And she had to wrench her refusal like a dagger from her heart. "I wish—oh, you know I wish that we could. But the whole world—" The thought was too inchoate to complete, but she shivered, hearing the stomp of hobnail boots on snow, the thunder of cannons across the vast steppes.
"My brave darling." She couldn't resist anymore the comfort of his arms, and rested her aching head against his chest. "Those damned politicians, putting an innocent girl in the center of a war. What a time you've had of it, with me twisting one arm and Bonaparte and Wellesley the other." His voice was soft, muffled against her hair. "But it's all over. We can be married immediately. The regent has offered his chapel for the wedding."
Pulling away, she had to repeat the words out loud to translate them into meaning. "The regent has offered his chapel for a wedding? He has given his consent? But—Cumberland is here—the announcement will be made official tomorrow!"
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