To Wed a Wicked Prince

by Jane Feather

  The vicar’s pony and trap, decorated with white ribbons in honor of the occasion, waited in the lane beyond the lych-gate, and they walked down the path through the cheering crowd and another rice storm. Alex handed Livia into the trap, lifting her train in after her, arranging it in a puddle at her feet, then he climbed nimbly up beside her.

  “I’ve a mind to be alone with my bride,” he said softly, lightly caressing her cheek with a fingertip. He turned to the boy holding the horse. “Give me the reins. I’ll drive, you may walk.”

  “Right y’are, m’lord.” The youth jumped down. “I’ll run ahead.” He set off at a rapid trot.

  Alex clicked his tongue at the stolid pony between the traces and the trap moved slowly down the lane to the vicarage, the rest of the wedding party following on foot.

  “I wish I could have provided my own conveyance,” Alex stated. “This is the most undashing equipage.” He flicked the reins, trying to encourage the pony to increase its pace. “Now, my curricle, on the other hand—”

  “Would have been very dashing,” Livia finished for him, glad for this light and inconsequential chatter. She was feeling suddenly and for the first time overwhelmed, as if she’d been living in some champagne bubble that reality had finally penetrated.

  “My father would not have let me leave his roof for my wedding in anything but his own transport,” she explained with a little laugh. “He can be rather old-fashioned on occasion.”

  “Well, when we do leave his roof later it will be in much more elegant style,” Alex promised.

  Livia turned to look at him, and the bubble enclosed her again. Her heart did a little skip of pleasure and anticipation. His fair hair shone in the sun, shot through with little coppery glints, and his profile, dominated by the long, straight nose, was as commanding as it was attractive. Aware of her gaze, he turned his full face towards her, an inquiring smile on his well-shaped mouth, and the full force of those blue eyes once again engulfed her in a hot flood of desire.

  “Where are we going later?” she blurted, her mind a riot of sensual images, of feather beds and tangled limbs.

  “Wait and see,” he said, as he had done every time she’d asked the question. “You won’t be disappointed, I promise.”

  “Oh, no,” she said softly. “I know I won’t be disappointed, Alex.”

  The double meaning was not lost on him. His eyes narrowed, his lips moved in the semblance of a kiss, but he said nothing further.

  The stable boy was already waiting for them when Alex drew rein outside the vicarage. Alex jumped down and lifted his bride to the ground, holding her in the air for a moment. “Two hours,” he stated firmly. “Not a moment longer, wife of mine. I want you all to myself, and if I must carry you off across my saddle, then I give you fair warning, I shall do so.”

  “That could be amusing,” Livia said with a grin. “But it would probably shock people. Besides…” She was serious again. “We must stay for at least a couple of hours. People have been so kind, it would be rude to abandon them too soon.” She took his hand to lead him into the house.

  Martha, who had stayed in the church just long enough to see Livia married, was already in the dining room supervising a troop of village girls arranging platters of food on the table. She flung her hands up when Livia came in and hurried to embrace her. “Congratulations, m’dear. What a lovely ceremony…and the vicar seemed so happy.” She patted Livia’s cheeks, her eyes misty. “Such a beautiful bride.”

  Belatedly she remembered the bridegroom, who stood beside Livia. Somewhat self-consciously she dropped a curtsy. “Congratulations, m’lord…uh…Your Highness. I wish you very happy, and I’m sure you will be with this angel beside you.” She wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron.

  Alex thanked her gravely, unsure if he would ever grow used to the informality of English servants, who in so many cases seemed to consider themselves family friends, and were treated as such. There were no such confusions in a feudal society. Serfs knew their place in the hierarchy. And the system bred the Tatarinovs of its world, he reflected a shade grimly.

  “Liv…Alex…oh, there you are.” Aurelia came into the dining room. “Come and greet your guests, Princess Prokov.”

  An hour later Livia was beginning to feel her husband’s impatience as a palpable force. It was a small wedding and only the closest of her London friends had been invited. Alex was comfortable enough with Nick and David and Harry, and of course with her father, but none of the local gentry, the squire, the gentlemen farmers seemed to know what to make of this exotic foreigner. They stumbled through a few sentences about the weather, or the local hunting, then fell into an uncomfortable silence. Alex tried hard, she had to admit. He talked farming with the farmers, horses with the squire, but nothing would really draw them out.

  “My dear child, your poor husband is a fish out of water.” The vicar spoke softly as he came up beside her. “I think you should put him out of his misery as soon as decently possible.” He took an appreciative sip of the claret in his glass. “I must say, it’s a real pleasure to drink a fine wine once in a while.” His eyes held a twinkle of self-mockery.

  “You could drink it every night of the week if you so chose,” she said, laughing.

  “But I wouldn’t enjoy it so much,” he observed. “The good things of life should be savored in small doses.” He laid a hand on her arm, his expression now grave. “Come into the study with me.”

  “Of course.” She went with him into his study, where the quiet was almost startling after the buzz of voices, the chink of glasses, the constant rattle of silverware. “Is something the matter, Father?”

  “Not at all,” he said, leaning against his desk. “And you needn’t worry, child, I’m not about to embarrass us both by giving you a parental talk on the subject of your wedding night; you have your friends for that. And I’m sure they’re a lot more qualified than I.” His smile was dry.

  “However, I will say this. I am here, always. Should you ever need advice, support of any kind, you must promise me now that you will come to me. I have set aside a small trust fund for you to be released in the event of anything…” He paused. “Anything untoward happening.”

  “Untoward?” She frowned. “Like what, Father?”

  He shook his head with a touch of impatience. “I don’t know. But this is a foreign union, a journey you’re embarking upon that’s unfamiliar to us all, Livia. Alex is Russian, a man from a vastly different culture. He will have expectations that will probably take you by surprise. I believe you have the strength of mind, the fortitude, to face those challenges with humor, with a willingness to make concessions, but without compromising your own values. However, if anything arises that troubles you, then remember that you are not alone.”

  Livia stared at him, taken aback by the idea that her father, who had just married her in his own church, was now expressing deep-seated doubts about her new husband, about this union that he had just blessed. “Do you not like Alex, Father?” she stammered after a minute.

  He shook his head again vigorously. “I like him well enough, child. He’s a sophisticated, cultured, highly educated man. But it’s inevitable that he plays by different rules, and it’s inevitable that you will clash. I would be doing you no service if I promised you only roses in your path. There will be thorns…there are always thorns, but these might be sharper and more unexpected than those we’re accustomed to.”

  He pushed himself away from his desk and took her shoulders, smiling down into her stricken countenance. “No need for such a worried look, my dear. I have every confidence that you two will make a splendidly matched couple. But I don’t expect there to be no fireworks, and neither should you.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I pray that you and Alex will have as much happiness in your life together as your dear mother and I had in ours. And more than that I could not wish for anyone.”

  Reassured, Livia kissed him, holding him tightly for a few minutes, startlingly consci
ous now of how a phase of her life was behind her. Even though she had had her superficial independence these last months in London, she had still been first and foremost a daughter. Women were always defined by their primary relationship to the men in their lives. Now her husband was that primary relationship, and she was a wife.

  In essence, what difference did it make? In the ordinary scheme of things a woman exchanged a father for a husband. So why did that suddenly make her feel diminished in some way?

  A soft knock came at the door. “Livia?” It was Alex’s voice.

  “Come in, Alex,” the vicar called, stepping back from his daughter. He smiled warmly at Alex as he came into the room. “We were just having a family chat, but I’ll give you back your wife now.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Alex held out a hand to Livia, but his eyes were questioning as he looked at her, noting the pallor that had not been there before, and the slight uncertainty in her eyes. Just what had the Reverend Lacey been saying?

  “If you’re ready to leave, Aurelia and Cornelia are waiting to help you change,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile and a quick squeeze of her fingers.

  “Yes, it’s high time you two got on with your lives,” Reverend Lacey declared briskly. “Go and change, Livia.” He shooed her from the room.

  “Ah, there you are.” Aurelia and Cornelia were waiting at the bottom of the staircase. “Alex is getting impatient.”

  “You can’t really blame him,” Cornelia said. “These people must be as alien to him as the man in the moon.” She looked at Livia sharply. “Is something the matter, Liv?”

  Livia shook her head. “No, of course not…what could be? Let’s go upstairs.” She hurried ahead of her friends up to her bedchamber.

  Cornelia exchanged a look with Aurelia, who shrugged her own perplexity, and they followed Livia.

  “Was the vicar giving you the obligatory pre-nuptial-night words of advice, Liv?” Cornelia asked casually as she helped Livia unfasten her gown.

  “Not exactly,” Livia said, her voice muffled in the folds of her dress as she lifted it over her head. “He said you two were better suited for that particular talk, and probably more knowledgeable than he is anyway.”

  Aurelia chuckled as she hung the wedding gown reverently in the linen press. “Any questions then, Liv? We’re more than ready to oblige with answers.”

  “No,” Livia declared, stepping into a driving skirt of dark red broadcloth. “Most of it I know already, and I’m rather assuming that any other questions I might have will be answered empirically in the very near future. Thank you anyway.” She fastened the catch at the waist and smoothed the skirt down over her hips.

  “It’s to be assumed your prince will know what he’s doing?” Cornelia said with a mischievous smile as she held the matching jacket for Livia.

  Livia thrust her arms into the sleeves. “I am certainly making that assumption,” she responded, her attempt at a lofty tone collapsing on a choke of laughter. “What an absurd conversation.”

  “At least it made you laugh,” Cornelia said. “So, what did your father say to trouble you, Liv?”

  “What makes you think he said anything to trouble me?” Livia demanded. She fastened the tiny buttons of braided black silk down the front of the jacket, lifting her chin as she struggled with the topmost button on the high collar.

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Liv, we know you too well.”

  Livia sighed. “It was just a dose of reality, that’s all. And I didn’t really want to hear it. I like living in my bubble at the moment, and I don’t want it burst.”

  “And is it burst?” Aurelia asked, watching her face.

  Livia considered, then shook her head, the glint returning to her gray eyes. “No,” she said definitely. “No, it isn’t. I am so hungry for him, my dears, that I could swallow him whole.”

  She laughed as the exhilaration returned in full measure. “I am in a turmoil of lasciviousness and I can barely keep my hands off him. If we don’t get away from here soon I shall do or say something that will shock the old biddies downstairs to their collective core.”

  Her friends exchanged a relieved glance at this return of the old Livia.

  “Do you think this is as elegant as we thought it was?” Livia surveyed her image in the long glass.

  “Without question,” Aurelia said firmly. “It fits you like a glove.”

  Livia put her hands at her waist and considered with her head on one side. Aurelia was right. She could almost have been poured into the jacket that nipped her waist and clung to the swell of her hips and bosom. “It’s a good color.”

  “With your coloring you could never go wrong with red,” Cornelia agreed. She lifted the matching hat from its stand, smoothing the black plume. “Do you know where Alex is taking you?”

  “No, he still won’t tell me.” Livia set the hat on top of her crown of dusky curls. The brim curled up on one side, and the black plume on the other swept to her shoulder. “There.” She gave the hat a final pat. “That’s as good as it gets.”

  She turned away from the mirror and smiled at her friends. “Wish me luck.”

  “All the luck in the world, love.” Cornelia embraced her tightly, then moved aside for Aurelia.

  Livia clung to them both for a long moment, then straightened, putting back her shoulders with a decisive gesture. “Let’s go.”

  Alex came to the foot of the stairs as the three women came down. He reached for Livia when she was still five steps up, catching her around the waist and swinging her down beside him. “At last,” he said. “I was about to come in search.” He took her hand and led her through the crowd of guests and outside into the bright and frosty late afternoon.

  His curricle stood at the gate, a groom holding the bridles of a handsome pair of match bays who were tossing their heads and shifting their hooves, their breath steaming in the cold air.

  “We’d better not be going far,” Livia muttered with a shiver.

  “Indeed, Prokov, an open carriage in the middle of December.” The vicar sounded disapproving as he bent to kiss his daughter good-bye.

  “Don’t worry, sir. There’s a lap robe and a hot brick for Livia’s feet,” Alex said with cheerful insouciance. He lifted his bride without ceremony into the carriage, shook hands briefly with his father-in-law, and jumped up beside her.

  It was apparent to all and sundry that this bridegroom was very anxious to be away with his bride.

  Alex took up the reins. “Let go their heads, Jake.”

  The groom released the bridles and eagerly the horses started forward. The lad jumped up behind as the carriage went past him and took his place on the board at the rear of the curricle, balancing easily as Alex dropped his hands and the horses obediently increased their pace.

  “Warm enough, sweeting?”

  Livia felt a prickle of pleasure at the first endearment he had ever used. She murmured her assent, snuggling into the fur lap robe as she looked up at the sky where the evening star had just appeared.

  Chapter Fifteen

  LIVIA WASN’T SURE HOW LONG they drove down country lanes beneath a clear and increasingly star-filled sky. She was warm as toast in her fur wrap and her feet were blissfully cozy. Alex drove in silence, but the hint of a smile played over his fine mouth and every now and again he would look sideways as if to check that she was still there, and then the smile would broaden and his eyes would glitter as if reflecting the starlight.

  Livia was content with the silence. She was both tired and not tired, inhabiting a quiet world of anticipation until Alex turned the horses onto a narrow lane that threaded through a thicket of birch and beech towards the lights of a cottage in a clearing ahead.

  She sat up. “Are we here…where are we?”

  “Journey’s end,” Alex said, drawing rein on a gravel sweep in front of the cottage. Actually, Livia realized, it was a lot more than a cottage. A substantial brick lodge with a slate roof, smoke curling from two chimneys, yellow light showi
ng from behind diamond-paned windows. There were thatched outhouses and stables to one side, and all around the ancient trees of the New Forest.

  “Whose house is this?” she asked, wondering exactly where in the forest they were, and how Alex, a stranger to this part of the world, could so unerringly have found his way here.

  “Mine,” he said calmly, jumping down from the curricle. “Or rather yours. Come, madam wife?” He reached up and lifted her from the carriage.

  Livia put her arms around his neck as he held her and rested her head on his shoulder. Her tiredness had vanished. Very soon now, finally, she would be making love with this extraordinary, generous, impulsive man. She smiled dreamily at him in the moonlight. “When did you buy a house in the New Forest?”

  He leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth, cradling her tightly. “I didn’t buy it myself, my agent found it and acquired it for me,” he replied. “I thought you might appreciate having a place in a countryside you know well, and that’s also quite close to your father. It’s a wedding present, my love.”

  Livia was stunned. She knew how much he enjoyed giving presents, the more extravagant the better pleased he was, but this was such a thoughtful, such a caring present. While she struggled to find words the front door opened, releasing a flood of golden lamplight across the gravel.

  “Ah, and here’s Boris,” Alex said. He strode with her to the open door. “You must meet Boris, my majordomo. You will find that he runs an admirably smooth household and you may safely leave all tedious domestic details in his more than capable hands.”

  “Put me down, then,” Livia whispered.

  “No,” he said with a chuckle. “Not until I can put you where I want you…” His eyes narrowed and his lips curved in a suggestive smile. “I imagine you can guess where that is.”

  She felt herself blush as her body responded to the soft promise in his voice. She couldn’t begin to offer a dignified greeting to the stately black-suited gentleman, who, seeming not to notice his new mistress’s present position, bowed low and said in faintly accented English, “Congratulations, Princess Prokov.”