‘Percivale met with my father to share that his uncle is ill, perhaps for the last time. Percivale will become Ormond soon.’ She waited for him to see the implications of that. He did not disappoint. Of course, a prince like himself would understand the intricacies of inheriting and mourning.
‘He will want to marry before his uncle passes. If he does not marry before, he’ll have to wait until after mourning. It would delay him.’
‘Yes.’ Dove felt the panic rise in her when she allowed herself to think about how that affected her. She wouldn’t have even the Season of her childish fairy tales. They would marry in June, barely a month after her debut, or sooner if his uncle showed signs of worsening. ‘I know it’s silly, but I have these images of being awakened in the middle of the night and rushed downstairs in my nightclothes to marry Percivale in the drawing room before his uncle breathes his last.’
‘Every girl dreams of her wedding being a beautiful occasion,’ Illarion prompted. He wasn’t empathising with her, she knew, he was forcing her to admit to the real fear.
She shook her head. ‘It’s not the lack of a grand wedding that panics me, it’s the suddenness, the not knowing. My life hangs by a thread.’ It was her very own sword of Damocles. She tried to explain it was her freedom being cut without warning, being bundled into a life not of her making without a chance to protest, that terrified her.
Illarion had gone still while she spoke, his words quiet and urgent when she finished. ‘Then you will have to speak up before it’s too late or what you fear, Dove, will absolutely come to pass.’
She gave a bleak laugh. ‘That’s not the reassurance I hoped for.’
He turned her to face him, tipping her chin up to meet his gaze. ‘No, but it’s the honesty I’ve promised you.’ From inside, the soprano had been replaced by a string quartet. Strains of a Vivaldi Adagio wafted out into the garden. ‘Dance with me, Dove, beneath the stars and forget about Percivale for a night.’
His hand was warm and natural at her back as if it belonged there, as if she belonged there, with him. It was a slippery slope to seduction, then. She didn’t stop him from moving her into an improvised waltz, she didn’t stop him when he whispered provocative rebellion in her ear. ‘You don’t have to choose Percivale. It can be different.’ She certainly didn’t stop him when his mouth took hers in a kiss designed to show her how different it could be.
She was ready for him this time, hungry for him even in ways she’d not anticipated. Her lips opened for him, her arms reaching about his neck, the form of their waltz giving way to a more intimate posture, their bodies melding as the kiss deepened. She felt the hard planes of him beneath his clothes, the strong press of his hand at the back of her neck, the sensual flick of his tongue tasting her in slow teasing strokes that brought heat low in her belly and a dampness between her thighs.
‘Illarion.’ She ventured his name in a tiny, breathless gasp, as if saying his name, that one single word, expressed the sum of her feelings. This was what she’d dreamed of when she’d thought of her Season, of being swept away, of seeing her future in a single kiss.
‘You deserve this,’ Illarion whispered, hushing her with another kiss, another bout of intoxication. She breathed in the scent of him, savoured the touch of him, his hands on her, her hands on him; it was too easy to let her senses overwhelm her thinking, especially when thinking was too dangerous here in the garden. A woman might do anything if she believed those words, if she believed that kiss. It would change everything.
* * *
If he cried foul, it would change everything. Percivale crushed the remains of his cheroot under a heel with some force as he watched the scene in the garden. He’d come out for a smoke and this was what he’d found: Lady Dove waltzing with Prince Kutejnikov; Prince Kutejnikov kissing her with little regard for restraint! The damnable thing about it was that he could do nothing. If he called attention to it, Lady Dove would be compromised. She would be required to marry the Prince and that was precisely not what Percivale wanted. She was lovely and fine, well bred and precisely what he wanted in a duchess. She would run his home and raise his children, his heir, and do him proud at every turn. Although, at this particular turn, she’d momentarily been led astray by the guile of a more experienced man with no honour. But he wondered, watching her with the Prince, if she would ever gaze upon him with that same look, as if the stars were in his eyes instead of the sky. Fear of losing came to Percivale, who had never been denied anything in the entirety of his perfect life, for the first time. Something must be done about the Prince. Surely Lady Dove wasn’t the first woman he’d led astray. Heatherly and the others were right. The Prince must be stopped. He posed a danger to them all. But it must be done carefully, quietly, so as not to alienate the women folk who were so desperately taken with him, even if it was being done to protect them.
Chapter Ten
White’s was crowded for this time of day. Everyone, apparently, had got wind that there’d be vodka tasting this afternoon. For many, the certainty of drink among manly company had trumped the idea of tea and cakes under the watchful eyes of the ton’s matchmaking mamas.
Men pressed around Illarion as he held up a glass of clear liquid and called for attention with a provocative line. ‘Vodka is like a good woman, pure to the eye and soft when it goes down.’ Men chuckled, adding a few bawdy comments of their own before Stepan called them to order for a more academic explanation.
Illarion sat back and watched his friend work. He’d done his job by getting the group started; now Stepan could do his magic. He was hoping to convince White’s victualler to import vodka, along with several other gentlemen present today as well. Stepan, it seemed, had decided if he couldn’t be in Kuban, he was going to bring Kuban to London.
Well, to each their own, Illarion silently toasted his friend. They all had to make peace with leaving. Prince Nikolay Baklanov sat across from him, making a rare appearance in order to support Stepan’s venture. These days, Nikolay was busy with his new wife and new riding academy. Nikolay was happy. He had found his peace. Illarion envied him. The rest of them were still looking for it. Illarion wondered if he would ever find it. After a year, perhaps he’d been wrong in thinking a change of scenery would help him exorcise the past. Perhaps nothing would. After last night in the Hampton gardens he was more aware than ever how closely Dove’s situation paralleled Katya’s. What had started as the seeking of a muse to help with the exorcism of past demons had stirred the demons to life instead of squashing them to death.
Of course, not everything was parallel. He’d not kissed Katya, had not written an erotic poem about her. Katya had been his muse, but never his lover. That was where the two situations diverged. With Dove, he wanted more than a muse, more than a friendship. He’d never deliberately attempted to lead Katya away from her decision. Perhaps that had been his mistake. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps he should not have stood by as an empathetic shoulder to cry on, but nothing more. He was attempting to atone for that with Dove. He was showing her what she was sacrificing. That, too, was a dangerous choice. He would have to assume responsibility for the consequences should she decide to refuse Percivale.
Illarion held his glass to the light, playing along with the others, testing the vodka’s luminescence while his thoughts ran elsewhere, another sensual poem taking shape in his mind: vodka like a woman, pure in the light, soft in the night...a creamy swallow of sweet on the tongue. It was a bit too superficial for his taste, proof that his writer’s block still persisted. But it was the sort of poem the Countess of Somersby would appreciate. The Countess made no demure about what she wanted from him—the novelty of a Russian lover in her bed. He could be her consort for the Season.
It was precisely the sort of liaison society expected him to make, the dashing, rakish Prince with the licentious widow. It would allow society to continue to romanticise him, to tolerate him without having to truly acce
pt him. He could be a Russian Byron and bed all the merry widows he liked, just as long as he stayed away from their pure-bred English virgins.
It was also the sort of liaison he’d been looking for when the Season had begun, something physically consuming. He had no doubt the Countess was a liberated bed partner who could keep his body and mind busy until August. She was well read, intelligent and not without her own brand of power. But the Countess did not inspire him. She was too cynical, too worldly. She did not need him. While she might appreciate the sensual vodka poem forming in his head, it was not the Countess who inspired it, or anything else he’d written lately. Vodka, clear and pure, quicksilver like her eyes. No, the Countess could be his lover, but not his muse, even if he were interested. There was a difference between the two.
In Kuban, he’d often had both at the same time in two different women. A lover who took care of his body and a muse who took care of his soul, the caretaker of his spirit’s flame, the thing that lived at the core of himself. His body merely housed that flame. Never had he found women who could combine both roles. Which was not to say he had not found passion with a muse, or two, or three. He had indeed taken several to bed over the years, but those had been spontaneous occasions with no expectation of a long-term attachment.
It was not the sort of spontaneity he could enjoy with Lady Dove. To take her to bed would require an understanding of the matrimonial sort. He did not deal in those, but he couldn’t deny the physical pull of her. He’d been attracted to her looks since the first night in Lady Burton’s ballroom. That attraction had only deepened as their association lengthened. Last night in the garden had been proof of that. She’d been exquisite, her face tilted to the stars, her eyes the colour of moonlight, her body warm and aroused yet innocent. Just thinking of awakening that innocence, the possibility of bedding her was tempting. He realised with a rather visceral intensity that he wanted to be her first lover, the lover who showed her passion’s promise, that he could not bear the idea of someone else having that opportunity, of having her.
When they’d danced, he’d held a moonbeam. There was poetry in that image. It was laying in fragments on sheets of paper in his room. How long would his moonbeam last? Already, she understood her fate too well, as did he. Percivale and society would not let her play the moonbeam for long. Marriage to Percivale would crush her, slowly, accidentally even, over the years, wearing down her joy, her dreams, until she was a shadow of her former self, her ebullience lost. Illarion swallowed down the last of his vodka. What would it take to save her from that fate?
Around him the men started to applaud, bringing his thoughts back to the present. The vodka tasting was going well. Nikolay had his sword out, balancing a full glass on the flat of the blade while Stepan and Ruslan each held an end steady. It was an old Cossack ritual of manhood to drink a glass from a blade without spilling or cutting oneself. Nikolay was just about to drink when the door to White’s opened, a group of gentlemen entered laughing, walking sticks swinging, expressions freezing, good humour evaporating when they laid eyes on the group. Viscount Heatherly and Percivale were at the centre. ‘Well, what do we have here?’ The derision in Heatherly’s tone was thinly disguised.
‘Vodka tasting.’ Ruslan came forward with a tray of glasses, sweeping aside any acknowledgement of hostility. ‘Join us. Prince Baklanov is about to demonstrate an old Cossack tradition.’
The group ignored the offer, letting the immaculate Heatherly speak for them. ‘I understand vodka is nothing more than fermented potatoes, the food of serfs and Irishmen.’ This got a cold round of laughter from the group. Illarion’s gaze drifted over Percivale. Heatherly might be the one engaging, but Percivale made no move to intervene and put a stop to it. Perhaps Percivale had orchestrated this, put Heatherly up to it as he might have put Lady Hampton up the seating arrangement last night. That was the way of the ton—indirectness. It prevented Illarion from outright accusing Percivale of any wrongdoing.
Well, he simply wasn’t going play that game. Illarion rose and stepped towards the newcomers. This wasn’t about vodka, not really. It was about him. ‘You’re mistaken, Lord Heatherly. Vodka is the drink of all Russians.’ He held his arms out wide and proceeded to quote, ‘Prince Vladimir in the tenth century remarked, “Drinking is the joy of all Rusi. We cannot do without it.”’
‘Here, here!’ Nikolay seconded, clinking glasses with anyone near him, rousing the quieted group surrounding Stepan, many of whom were looking uneasy, perhaps reconsidering their association. ‘I dare say we’re not alone in that.’ Illarion felt Nikolay’s presence at his shoulder—Nikolay the warrior, Nikolay who would rather fight than think if given the choice. Illarion wondered where the Cossack sword had ended up. ‘Englishmen are so desperate for their brandy they’ve been known to bring it in illegally.’ Nikolay didn’t even pretend to be polite. No one was allowed to insult the motherland in his presence. Nikolay remained fiercely patriotic in spite of exile, believing fully that one could hate one’s Tsar, but not one’s country.
Something dangerous glinted in Heatherly’s eyes as they shifted to Nikolay. ‘It could be liquid ambrosia and I still wouldn’t drink it with the likes of you. I don’t drink with men who claim to be one thing, but are quite another. How interesting that Amesbury died with you and the others here in hot pursuit. Is that what passes as princely behaviour in your country? Running a duke to death?’
‘That sounds dangerously close to a slur against my character and my wife’s. Would you care to make one or do you insist on hiding behind your insinuations?’ Nikolay snarled, still heated over the venomous gossip that surrounded his marriage to the Russian ambassador’s daughter, Klara Grigorieva. Illarion put a hand on Nikolay’s chest. If Heatherly wasn’t careful, there would be blood spilled and it would likely be his. He needed to separate Percivale from the group and take care of the real problem. He gestured towards a table by the window. ‘Percivale, a word?’
Percivale was not an unattractive man: tallish, a strong jaw, trademark guinea-gold hair and blue eyes, the kind of looks the English treasured. What went on behind those eyes was anyone’s guess. He was something of an emotional vacuum. ‘You’ve behaved inappropriately towards Lady Dove Sanford-Wallis,’ Percivale ground out in low tones, showing more feeling than Illarion had seen him display to date. Illarion understood the insults directed at Nikolay now. Percivale had not wanted to publicly implicate the lady in question. Far easier to cast aspersions with a net that caught them all instead of singling him out, so he’d had Heatherly do the dirty work. And why not? Illarion had seen Heatherly shoot at Manton’s. The man seldom missed. One would think twice about challenging Heatherly even against the most damning of slander.
Illarion crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Are you the lady’s champion? Has she come to you with a complaint?’
‘She is innocent. She does not understand what a man like you is capable of. I am here to see that she never does.’
‘A man like me?’ Illarion couldn’t resist goading Percivale a little further. ‘What sort of man might that be? A royal prince of the house of Kuban, a man with a title that outranks any you currently possess, although I did hear that your uncle had taken a turn for the worse. I am completely a gentleman in all ways according to English standards.’
‘A foreigner and a rake,’ Percivale snarled. ‘You are a prince with no kingdom. That makes you a fortune hunter in my book. You’re hardly a prince at all. A prince would never have done what you did. You were with her alone last night. I saw you dancing in the Hamptons’ garden. Dancing!’ He spat the word as if it were filth in his mouth.
Illarion assessed the situation. Percivale had seen them, likely not just the dancing from the vituperation with which he spoke the word. To his credit, the young man seemed genuinely horrified.
‘Apparently you stayed long enough to watch. Did you enjoy that? Some men do.’ He saw Percivale’s nostrils flare with th
e implication that coming upon them had been an act of voyeurism. It was a harsh goad, but if Percivale wanted to impugn his honour and sling slanderous barbs, he needed to be prepared for the same in return. Percivale was jealous and there was nothing the man could do without ruining his own chances at winning her. ‘You’re in quite the pickle. You can’t tell anyone what you saw for fear of losing her,’ Illarion reminded him.
‘I can tell you,’ Percivale retorted. ‘Consider yourself warned. I will see you dead before I allow her to fall into the hands of a scheming foreigner. Dove Sanford-Wallis is mine. I will not be so polite about it next time.’ He turned on his heel, collected Heatherly and strode towards the door.
‘Are we going to let him go?’ Nikolay materialised beside him. ‘A sabre slice has a way of changing one’s opinions.’
‘We will not be cutting anyone today.’ Illarion blew out an angry breath. Percivale was not to be underestimated. He commanded the ton; he dictated who they associated with, who was received and invited. His remarks could put the princes beyond the pale of society, as he’d demonstrated today. Through Heatherly, he’d dealt Nikolay’s fledgling riding school a dangerous blow by unearthing the unsavoury details of Amesbury’s death and Nikolay’s association with it.
Illarion had seen such games before in the Kubanian court. While he could understand it, he could not tolerate it. He needed to take Dove out of Percivale’s orbit. The best way to accomplish that was to keep her too busy to receive the man. But unmarried girls didn’t go about with eligible bachelors without a chaperon. He was going to need a lady’s help and there was only one that he trusted. ‘Nikolay, I need Klara to call on the Duchess of Redruth.’
‘Redruth? What the hell are we plotting over here?’ Stepan inserted himself between them with an angry whisper. ‘Do you know who Redruth is? Next to Ormond, he controls more seats in Parliament than anyone else. Now, what the hell do you want with the Duchess? Tell me you are not having an affair with her? I didn’t think she was the sort. Redruth seemed a decent chap the one time I met him.’
Innocent in the Prince's Bed Page 9