The Princess and the Rogue

by Kate Bateman

  Not that she wanted to. Excitement made her stomach swoop as his warm breath sloughed across her cheek. This was too good an opportunity to miss. The man was clearly a rogue, but why deny herself the adventure of allowing him to kiss her? She was both curious and intrigued.

  His lips touched hers, neither tentative nor impatient, just the perfect weight, and Anya closed her eyes. He kissed her again, a little firmer this time, and she parted her lips instinctively. His low murmur of approval sent a shiver down her spine.

  When he slid his tongue against her lips, her knees almost gave out. Men had tried to kiss her this way before, but she’d always pulled back, repelled. But this, this was glorious. He wasn’t conscious of rank, afraid to offend. He was simply a man, showing a woman his desire.

  His teeth caught the fullness of her lower lip in a playful tug and the delicious sensation sent jolts of heat spearing through her body. Anya rose up on tiptoe, caught the lapels of his jacket, and pulled him down, returning the swirl of his tongue with artless enthusiasm. He tasted like brandy. Like sin. She wanted to keep on doing this forever.

  The click of the door barely registered in her mind, but his reflexes were clearly better than hers. He dropped his hand and stepped away with a cool rush of air. By the time Charlotte swept into the room like a lilac-clad angel, a perfectly acceptable distance separated them.

  He turned with an ease that belied the throbbing tension in the room. Anya took a flustered step back and sucked in a steadying breath. Good God! What was she doing?

  “Lord Mowbray!” Charlotte’s smile was radiant as she held out her hand in greeting. He bowed low over it. “Welcome. We’ve not had the honor of your company here before. But I’m confident we’ll be able to cater to your every need. I see you’ve met my good friend, Miss Brown?”

  The man turned back to Anya and his lips twitched in amusement. “We hadn’t got as far as introductions.”

  “Oh, well, in that case, Miss Anna Brown, the Earl of Mowbray.”

  He bowed, and Anya made a stiff curtsey, silently laughing at observing the formalities when he’d been kissing her witless moments before.

  “Sebastien,” he said. “I feel sure you should call me Sebastien.”

  “My lord,” she said, just to annoy him, and felt a jolt of dark pleasure at the irritated twitch of his brows. As a member of the aristocracy—presumably a wealthy one—he doubtless had everyone he met obeying his commands. A little insubordination would do him a world of good.

  “My girls are most anxious to meet you,” Charlotte said.

  “I don’t need to meet any of your other girls. I’ve made my choice. I would like to engage the services of Miss Brown.”

  Charlotte sent Anya a quick, questioning glance and gave a soft laugh. “Oh, I’m afraid that’s out of the question. Miss Brown is not one of my girls.”

  Anya picked up the book of fairy tales Tess had abandoned and clasped it to her chest like some kind of medieval shield. She was still shaky and breathless. “Indeed, I am not. Lord Mowbray, enjoy your evening.”

  She started for the door, but he sidestepped to block her escape and sent a dark glare at Charlotte. “Mrs. Haye. If this is some paltry attempt to try to secure a higher sum from me, it is quite unnecessary. You know of me?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Then you will also know that I have more than enough funds to afford whatever exorbitant fees you care to charge.”

  He strode over to the inkpot Jenny had abandoned on the desk, dipped a pen into it, and began to write on a blank sheet of paper. “I, Sebastien Wolff,” he said aloud as he wrote, “promise to pay Mrs. Haye of Covent Garden the sum of five hundred pounds.” He signed his name at the bottom with a flourish, thrust the paper at Charlotte, and raised his brows impatiently.

  Charlotte sent Anya a comically incredulous look.

  “It’s no scheme, my lord,” she assured him hastily. “As much as I would love to take your money, Miss Brown is not for sale. For any price.”

  Anya was barely listening. All she could hear was the ringing in her ears as she finally made the connection that had been eluding her ever since she’d heard the name Sebastien Wolff.

  This man was her employer’s great-nephew.

  She’d never met any of the dowager duchess’s relatives in person. She’d seen a few portraits, of course, dotted about the house, but the shockingly masculine specimen in front of her bore little resemblance to the dark-haired young man in those paintings.

  The duchess was inordinately fond of her youngest nephew. He regularly came to visit her at the Grosvenor Street mansion, but Anya had never been present; she’d always made sure to slip away whenever the duchess was expecting company. The fewer people in the aristocracy who saw her, the better.

  The chance of anyone recognizing her, either from Paris or from her life in St. Petersburg was slim, but until she had absolute confirmation of either Vasili Petrov’s death, or his marriage to some other unfortunate female, she refused to take any unnecessary risks.

  Wolff sent her a molten look. “Are you sure I can’t change your mind, Miss Brown?”

  Anya stifled a near-hysterical snort. The man was temptation incarnate.

  His surname was certainly apt. She’d seen a real wolf once, back in Russia. She and Dmitri had been out riding and a lone male had followed them for several miles, running parallel within the tree line. She’d caught flashes of its silver-grey fur, heard the tireless crunch of its paws in the snow as it ate up the miles, easily keeping pace with the horses.

  This man had the same unblinking stare and sinuous grace. He exuded the same subtle threat of danger. Anya shivered. Sebastien Wolff might appear civilized, in his perfectly cut jacket and snowy-white cravat, but every instinct told her to beware.

  She’d thought Vasili’s clumsy assault in Paris had given her a permanent distaste for men, but she was horribly tempted to take Wolff’s outstretched hand and allow him to draw her upstairs. To let him show her the pleasure he seemed arrogantly confident of providing.

  The thought was enough to shock her into action. “Good night, my lord.”

  With a regal tilt of her chin, she hurried from the room and heard Charlotte’s husky laughter as she moved forward to intercept him. Anya rushed back to the kitchens, desperate to leave, and found a cluster of girls chattering like a bunch of excited magpies.

  “Is it true?” Amy asked, catching Anya’s sleeve. “The big bad Wolff? ’E’s never been ’ere before.”

  “It is ’im,” Jenny insisted. “My friend Kitty’s seen ’im ’undreds of times at the theatre.”

  “The last of the Unholy Trinity,” Amy sighed reverently.

  “Unholy Trinity?” Anya echoed.

  “That’s what everyone used to call ’em. Lords Mowbray, Melton, and Ware. Before the war, before they were earls, they were the most shocking rogues you can imagine. But Melton and Ware are married now. Mowbray’s the only one left.”

  Long Meg, a ravishing natural redhead, chuckled. “Wonder what ’e likes? I bet ’e’s a right handful, big man like that. Think ’e wants a five fingered handshake?” She made a crude gesture with her hand, fingers meeting thumb as if encircling a pipe.

  Jenny gave a theatrical shiver. “’Ave you seen the size of ’is ’ands? I tell you, girls, I’d do ’im for free.”

  Anya snatched up her bonnet and gloves and made for the door. She truly didn’t want to hear any more of the conversation, but she couldn’t help looking back as Charlotte came in.

  “What does he want, Charlotte?” Jenny asked.

  “Let me take care of ’im!” Amy pleaded.

  “I’ll do whatever ’e asks,” Long Meg declared.

  Charlotte looked unusually harried. Two small lines had appeared between her brows. “Not the main course,” she said briskly, sending Anya a speculative look that Anya couldn’t begin to decipher. “Just something to take the edge off.”

  The girls let out a collective sigh of disappointment, b
ut Anya’s stomach tumbled in dismay. For all his protestations of wanting only her, it seemed Lord Mowbray was prepared to accept the ministrations of any female after all. She told herself she wasn’t disappointed.

  Charlotte turned to the brunette on her right. The girl had the most captivating mouth Anya had ever seen, with pouting lips and a fetching beauty mark on one cheek.

  “Nan, you’re best with your hands. You go.”

  The rest of the girls started to protest, but Nan looked like she’d been handed the keys to paradise. Anya quashed a sudden twinge of—jealousy? Surely not. She had no desire to do that to a man. The whole thing had sounded quite disgusting when the girls had first described it to her in the spirit of “broadening her education.”

  But the question of what Sebastien Wolff might look like, naked, aroused, intruded upon her brain and refused to leave. What might have happened if she’d said yes?

  Impatient with herself, she waved her gloves at Charlotte over the heads of the fluttering horde. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Charlotte!”

  She heaved a sigh of relief as she trotted up the back stairs to her own apartment. Her lips were still tingling, her blood pounding in her ears.

  So. She’d met Sebastien Wolff. Kissed Sebastien Wolff. It had been wonderful. Extraordinary. But one thing was very clear: she must never encounter him again.

  Chapter 7.

  A week after her unsettling encounter with Wolff, Anya slipped into the library of his great-aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Winwick.

  “Oh, there you are, Anya,” the duchess said, glancing up from her seat at a handsome rosewood writing desk. “I have a present for you.” She indicated a large, leather-bound book in front of her. “It’s a collection of Russian fairy tales. Just look at these marvelous illustrations!”

  Anya crossed to the desk. A lump of emotion balled in her chest at the bittersweet pleasure of seeing her native language. Cyrillic was such a beautiful alphabet. She stroked her finger over a gilt-enhanced picture of a golden prince in a garden with a flame-colored bird perched in an apple tree. It was as richly decorated as a medieval manuscript.

  “Thank you,” she stammered. “I don’t know what to say. It’s wonderful.”

  “The whole thing’s in Russian,” the dowager said, with a glint of challenge in her eye. “I got it from a rare book dealer on Publisher’s Row. I thought you could translate it into English, and I’ll have it printed and bound. I like the idea of being a literary patron. We’ll make a special edition and I’ll give copies to all my friends.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  The dowager nodded. “I thought of it last week, at the Russian ambassador’s reception.” She gave a dismissive sniff. “Much as I hate to disparage your fellow countrymen, the food was rather inferior. And Dorothea Lieven is the most dreadful gossip alive. She wants to know everything about everyone. You should have seen the way she was clinging to Lord Castlereagh. Like a vine over a trellis.”

  Anya hid a smile. The newspapers and caricaturists often lampooned the ambassador for having a wife far more skilled at maintaining diplomatic relations than himself.

  “A whole bunch of your countrymen were there, in fact,” the duchess said. “Tsar Alexander’s sent some kind of trade delegation. I’d be surprised if you didn’t know some of them.”

  She sent Anya a quizzical look that was supposed to be innocent, but fooled Anya not a bit. The dowager was fishing for any hint of scandal.

  “One chap was particularly popular with the ladies,” the duchess said with studied casualness. “A war hero, so they say. Count Petrov, his name was.”

  Anya felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”

  The duchess was watching her closely, a shrewd gleam in her eye. “He’s been telling a fantastical story. Says he’s searching for his missing fiancée who disappeared just after he proposed. No ransom note was ever received, but he firmly believes she was kidnapped and brought here, to England. He’s been looking for her for months. He’s never given up hope that she’ll be found alive. Isn’t that romantic?”

  “No!” Anya practically shouted.

  The dowager gave a self-satisfied nod, as if her suspicions had been confirmed, and Anya cursed inwardly. She might have known she wouldn’t be able to keep the story from the duchess indefinitely.

  “He says he doesn’t care if she’s been ruined by her captors,” the duchess said mildly. “His love for her will forgive any slight. He’ll marry her even if she’s ruined.”

  Anya couldn’t keep silent. Blood was pounding in her temples. She grasped the surge of anger, since it was preferable to the icy shards of fear that had pieced her on hearing Vasili was here, in London.

  “He will forgive any slight? It’s not his honor that’s in question! It’s the woman’s right to forgive—or not to forgive—as she sees fit.” She thumped her palm on the leather tabletop. “This is what I hate about ‘polite society.’ If a woman is taken against her will, she’s ruined. If she gives herself to a man willingly, before marriage, she’s ruined. Yet no one expects a man to go to his marriage bed untouched. It’s such a double standard!”

  “Bravo!” The dowager chuckled. “And I quite agree. Society’s full of such inequalities and ridiculous expectations. If Count Petrov’s fiancée disappeared, I’m sure there’s a far more reasonable explanation than kidnapping. Perhaps she didn’t really want to marry him?” She studied Anya’s burning cheeks. “In fact, I think that’s exactly what happened.”

  Anya met her gaze and felt resistance bleeding out of her.

  “We’ve become friends over the past months, have we not?” the duchess said softly.

  “Yes, ma’am. And I have been extremely grateful for your kindness toward me.”

  The dowager snorted. “Oh, pish. It’s hardly kindness to enjoy the company of an intelligent young woman. Most girls in the ton are vapid, well-bred twits. I get far more from you than you get from me. And you can trust me to keep your secrets, child. You are Petrov’s missing fiancée, are you not? The Princess Denisova?”

  Anya sighed. “I am the princess, or, at least, I was, but I am not Petrov’s fiancée. He wanted to marry me, and I refused. On several occasions. He did not take the rejection well.”

  “Men rarely do.” The dowager’s expression darkened. “Did he hurt you, child?”

  “He would have done, if Elizaveta hadn’t hit him with a vase. I tried to make it look as though I’d killed myself. We escaped Paris and came here. I hoped he’d forget all about me.”

  “Apparently not,” the duchess said grimly. “What a tangle. I take it he’s the reason you never wanted to attend any society gatherings with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s here now, whether by luck or design.” A mischievous twinkle appeared in her dark eyes. “Do you know, I’ve grown quite tired of the ton lately. So exhausting. I need a little time in the country, to rusticate. You can keep me company.” She closed the book of fairy tales with a decisive thump. “Bring this along. It’s much quieter at Everleigh. You’ll be better able to concentrate.”

  Anya reached down and gave the dowager an impulsive hug.

  The older woman stiffened in surprise, then returned the gesture with an affectionate chuckle. “There, there. It will be all right. Do you recall my youngest nephew, Sebastien?”

  Anya straightened in alarm. Recall him? She hadn’t stopped thinking about him for the past week. That kiss had been the stuff of epic fantasy and fevered, confusing dreams.

  She’d finally asked Charlotte what had happened after she’d left the brothel. To her surprise, instead of taking Nan upstairs, Lord Mowbray had made his excuses and left.

  She shouldn’t have felt relief. The man was a stranger. A healthy, single male, fully within his rights to sate his physical needs wherever he chose. She shouldn’t care who or what he did.

  But part of her was glad.

  “I don’t believe you’ve ever met him,” the duchess sai
d, oblivious to Anya’s inattention. “Nor his older brother, Geoffrey. He’s heir to the dukedom, of course, but a bit of a stick in the mud. Sebastien’s my favorite. He’s an utter rogue, but always willing to help. I’ll ask him to accompany us to Everleigh as an outrider, for extra protection.”

  “Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary!” Anya said quickly. “I’m sure he’s very busy. Didn’t you tell me he owns a gambling club?”

  “He does, indeed.” The dowager nodded, a hint of pride in her expression. “And he’s made a damn fine go of it too. I expect you’re right, however. He is very busy. Perhaps he can suggest a couple of burly young men instead? It doesn’t hurt to be sensible.”

  Anya’s shoulders sank in relief. The thought seeing Sebastien Wolff again was … unsettling.

  “How long do you need to get packed?”

  “An hour or so. And I would like to say goodbye to Elizaveta. She finishes work at four.”

  “She’s welcome to come too. Everleigh has twenty-two bedrooms.”

  Anya shook her head. “She wouldn’t want to leave her employment. Or her beau. I think she’ll be glad of the space.”

  The dowager nodded in understanding.

  A weary sense of déjà-vu gnawed at Anya as she walked back toward Covent Garden. Going to the country was a sensible precaution, but she hated the thought of running away. It felt like cowardice. The fact that she needed to hide from Petrov yet again made her blood boil with impotent frustration.

  She kicked a flurry of leaves with her boot, startling a nearby pigeon. If she were a man, she’d have faced Petrov long ago on a dueling field. She’d have made him pay for his treatment of her, and for his treachery. Justice would have been served.

  As a woman, she had no such recourse, nor did she have a male champion to stand on her behalf. How many more times would she have to disrupt her life to escape men like Vasili Petrov?

  Chapter 8.

  Benedict poured two generous tumblers of brandy and held them out. Alex nodded his thanks, but Seb barely roused from his gloomy contemplation of the fire.