The Princess and the Rogue

by Kate Bateman

  “Petrov will start to sweat, wondering what we have on him and whether we’re about to expose him in public.”

  “And will you?” Dorothea asked.

  “If my guess is correct, it won’t come to that.” Seb inclined his head at the two women. “I’ll leave you to work out the details. I’m off to Bow Street to see about someone to watch over you both. Don’t leave the house until they get here.”

  Anya looked as if she would protest, but in the end, she said nothing at all, so he turned on his heel and left. He ignored the feeling that he was abandoning her, that he ought to keep her by his side. The niggling thought that no one, not even his best friends Alex or Benedict, could protect her as well as he could, followed him out the door.

  It was too dangerous for him to stay. There was only so much provocation a man could endure, and he knew his limits. Alex and Ben would be immune to her infuriating charms, each one being fatally in love with his own wife.

  * * *

  “A Russian princess?” Benedict repeated for perhaps the twentieth time. “You’re joking.”

  Seb rolled his eyes at his friend’s continued incredulity. “I only wish I were.”

  “Do you think she wears a crown to bed?” Alex chuckled. His eyes held an inquisitive gleam and Seb cursed inwardly. Alex had a mind as sharp as a razor, and he loved ferreting out secrets. It was why he was such an asset to Bow Street.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he said crossly.

  Alex sent him a frankly disbelieving look, but thankfully didn’t pursue the subject.

  The three of them were at Manton’s, the shooting gallery on Davies Street. Seb had sent a note around to Bow Street, asking Ben and Alex to meet him there. It was where he always went when he had something to sort out in his mind. The concentration needed to shoot accurately usually pushed everything else from his head. At least temporarily.

  With their trusty Baker rifles in tow, they made their way to the long gallery, which was conveniently empty at this early hour, since most of the members didn’t rise before noon. Seb had already given them a brief rundown of his adventures on Hounslow Heath and Anya’s near misses with Petrov’s thugs.

  “I need you to help me guard her. I’m going to set a trap for Petrov, and I don’t want her to be in any danger.”

  “You think he’s our spy?” Ben asked.

  “It’s more than likely, from what Anya—from what the princess says.”

  Ben and Alex exchanged an eyebrows-raised look as they caught his unintentional slip.

  Seb cursed himself again. It was hard to think of her as a title when he’d held the real woman in his arms. She wasn’t some abstract concept. She was a warm, beautiful, sensuous—

  No. No no no. Even thinking of her in that way was probably treasonous.

  Annoyed with himself, he shrugged out of his coat, loaded his firearm with brisk efficiency, and took up position on his stomach on the ground, propped up on one elbow, leg raised at a right angle toward his hip to act as balance. Alex and Ben did the same, on either side of him.

  He rested his cheek on the wooden stock and looked down the sight on the top of the barrel. With his left eye closed, he positioned the upright pin in the middle of the V and aimed at the paper target at the far end of the room.

  He cleared his mind. He became aware of his pulse, his breathing. He slowed his breaths, waiting for the pause between heartbeats before he squeezed the trigger. The paper target quivered as the shot hit the center. He reloaded with brisk efficiency.

  Bloody woman. She’d lied to him, manipulated him. He hated to be controlled, either by others or his environment. That was one of the reasons he’d joined the Rifles instead of the regular army. As a Rifleman, he was, more often than not, in control. The one with the target in his sights. The balance of life or death hinged on the pressure of his finger and the accuracy of his eye.

  He enjoyed the same feeling of omnipotence overseeing the gaming floor at the Tricorn, watching those below risk it all on the turn of a card. Such foolish whimsy was not for him. He liked being master of his fate.

  And yet when it came to Anya—no, Princess Denisova—he had no control whatsoever. The bloody woman had played him for a fool. He’d been her little experiment, a panting dupe to relieve her of her unwanted virginity and to satisfy her sexual curiosity.

  The fact that it had been the best sex of his life infuriated him even more, since there was clearly no hope of a repeat performance. Not now, not ever.

  He hit the target again, dead center.

  The deceitful little charlatan would appear next week as the virtuous Princess Denisova, as pure and untouched as the driven snow. Men would slaver over her, line up to fill her dance card.

  Only he would know how beautiful she looked with her hair spread across his pillows like a river of honey, how her lips grew puffy from kissing. Only he would know the sweet sounds she made when she neared her climax, the scrape of her fingers against his scalp urging him on—

  He missed the target completely.

  “Bollocks.”

  Beside him, Ben chuckled softly. “Finding it hard to concentrate, are we? Something—or someone—on your mind?”

  “Bugger off,” Seb grunted.

  The problem was, he and Anya were remarkably similar. She was determined to be mistress of her own fate. And while he might deplore her methods, he couldn’t really fault her desire. Not when it burned so strongly in himself. Having met Petrov, he could even understand her need for subterfuge.

  Seb sighed. The worst thing about this whole situation was that for one bizarre moment, back in his study, he’d actually imagined himself married to her … and it hadn’t felt wrong at all.

  Which it was, of course. Completely wrong. He didn’t want to be married to anyone, least of all a prickly ice princess who smelled like jasmine and tasted like perfection. Compatibility in bed wasn’t enough to base a marriage on. He only needed to look at the example set by his own parents for a case in point. They were certainly no shining example of matrimonial bliss.

  Seb frowned at the distant target. He certainly desired Anya physically, but honesty compelled him to admit that what he felt for her was more complicated than mere lust. He liked her, with her quick wit and her ridiculous superstitions. He admired and respected her, despite her stubbornness—or maybe because of it. He loved the way she challenged him. She fed his soul, met his energy with her own. In a paradoxical way, she both stimulated and calmed him.

  He yearned for her.

  “Well, you know we’re with you, whatever you need us to do,” Alex said.

  Ben nodded in agreement.

  “Sounds like you had quite the week with her at the Tricorn,” Alex prodded. “The princess sounds like a fascinating woman. Brave, too, if she was willing to risk exposure to help us listen to the delegates. I’m sure Emmy and Georgie would get along famously with her.”

  Seb let out a noncommittal grunt. “They’ll get to meet her at the ball. And she’s not fascinating; she’s irritating. Always issuing demands and ignoring my orders. I spent the entire week trying not to strangle her.”

  With a flash, he remembered Alex and Ben urging him to find some gorgeous someone who irritated him enough to want to strangle her. Seb blinked. Anya was that someone. He wanted to scold her and hug her simultaneously. He wanted to show her off to the world and keep her all to himself.

  Bugger.

  He had to stop thinking about her. There could be nothing permanent between them. Their one night had been a brief, glorious interlude—one he would probably dream about for the rest of his natural life—but it was over. From now on, it would be purely business. He would keep her safe from Petrov because he was a Bow Street Runner and it was his duty to protect and serve the inhabitants of the city.

  And he would watch from the sidelines when she chose some less tarnished, more suitable partner to marry and disappeared out of his life forever.

  Chapter 29.

  Wolff was corre
ct in his assessment that the late invitation would have no effect on attendance, Anya thought. Acceptances flooded into the Grosvenor Square mansion, and she read each one aloud to an increasingly ecstatic dowager duchess. A few guests tried to deliver theirs in person, to sneak a peek at the newly discovered princess before the night itself—as though she were some strange animal just introduced at the Royal Exchange—but all callers were denied by the stone-faced Mellors.

  The prospect of throwing open the house had invigorated the dowager. Anya’s middle finger developed a callused bump on one side from transcribing a myriad dictations: orders for flowers and wine, for musicians and beeswax. The staff had been whipped into a frenzy of polishing and dusting, and even the duchess’s cook, a no-nonsense Scotswoman named Mrs. MacDougall, had been prevailed upon to cede her kitchen to the world-famous Lagrasse for the night. He was promising “an unparalleled dining event.”

  Of the Tricorn’s three owners, Anya saw only two. Benedict Wylde and Alex Harland, both equally charming, had taken turns to guard her. They’d regarded her with keen interest, as if intrigued to see the difficult woman their friend had been saddled with at the Tricorn, but neither had spoken to her any more than was strictly necessary. They’d loitered unobtrusively during the days and presumably hovered, unseen, during the nights.

  Of Wolff himself, there was no sign. Anya told herself she didn’t care, but her chest ached with a strange undefined yearning, and at night, in the sumptuous bedroom she’d been assigned, she dreamed wicked dreams—of his mouth at her ear and his hands on her skin, fulfilling the melting promise of his words.

  Bond Street’s most celebrated modiste, Madame Cerise, had come in person to measure her for a gown “fit for a princess.” Anya had stood still as an ice sculpture as she’d been prodded and pinned, even as she felt herself retreating behind a wall of cool reserve.

  The resulting dress was a magical confection, a dazzling dove-grey satin shot through with silvery threads that made the skirts look like a mercury waterfall frozen midstream. Metallic embroidery on the bodice and hem created the illusion of thousands of tiny ice crystals and added a sparkling richness that made even Anya catch her breath.

  She sent another note to Elizaveta, to let her know she was well. A scrappy urchin named Jem Barnes was enlisted to deliver the note without being followed, and Anya was delighted to receive a prompt reply from her friend.

  I’m more than well. Elizaveta had written. I’m engaged! Oliver and I went for a walk in Regent’s Park yesterday and—after dropping the ring in a flowerbed, poor darling!—he asked me to make him the happiest of men and be his wife. Of course I said yes! I know that you will wish me happy, my dearest friend, and I cannot wait to see you in person. I’m so glad that you’re staying with the duchess now and have the protection of the men from Bow Street, but I still worry for you. I won’t rest easy until Petrov is back in St. Petersburg and far away from both of us. With love &c, Eliz.

  Anya’s happy tears at Elizaveta’s engagement had mingled with a gut-wrenching, bittersweet grief. Elizaveta, her childhood rock, her other half, her faithful companion and youthful confidante, was leaving her. And while she was so happy for her friend, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was changing, and not necessarily for the better. Everything she’d once taken for granted, everything safe and secure, was slipping between her fingers like sand through an hourglass. Soon, she would be left with nothing but memories and thin air.

  She didn’t want to examine her feelings for Wolff too closely. They were too complicated, too contradictory. He’d seen her as nothing more than a duty to be discharged. He’d washed his hands of her as soon as he could.

  Anya gave a mournful sigh. He was also generous, unselfish, and honorable to the core. When she’d given herself to him she’d thought it only physical attraction, but somewhere along the way a whole host of deeper emotions had become engaged. Now she was both furious with him for abandoning her—and desperate for a glimpse of his surly, handsome face.

  * * *

  The night of the ball finally arrived. Anya accepted the ministrations of the friseur to arrange her hair and allowed Tilly, the duchess’s timid maid, to lace her into her dress and apply a fine coating of silvery powder to her skin with an enormous powder puff. Her shoulders and chest shimmered in the lamplight like pale moonbeams, and Anya studied the stranger in the mirror, searching for some hint of recognition.

  She was every inch the poised, perfect princess. Her blue eyes looked huge in her pale face, her rouged lips a striking contrast to the silver dress.

  This was not the same carefree girl who’d left Russia eighteen months ago. There was a sadness in her eyes now, an understanding that the world was both more cruel and more wonderful than she’d ever imagined. There was determination too, and pride, and a new, distinctly feminine awareness.

  Tonight, her first foray back into “polite society,” would be an ordeal. It would have been far more bearable with Wolff at her side, poking fun at the pomp and circumstance and staring down those who would challenge her right to be there. Without him, she felt as cold and frozen as a bulb beneath the surface of the soil. He was the warmth she needed to thaw the ice and coax her into the sunlight. He’d taught her to glow, to burn.

  But he was not in the drawing room when she joined the dowager duchess before their grand entrance to the ballroom. A few select guests had assembled, and Anya felt all eyes upon her as she paused in the doorway.

  “Princess!” Dorothea came forward to take her hand. “You look wonderful, my dear. Come and meet everyone.”

  A tall man with sandy hair and a friendly face stepped forward.

  “Princess Denisova, allow me to present my eldest great-nephew. This is Geoffrey, Marquis of Cranford.”

  Sebastien’s half-brother.

  The man bowed low over her hand. “Delighted to meet you at last, Princess.”

  Anya studied him. There were few physical similarities between the two men, apart from their height. Geoffrey’s hair was a lighter brown. And unlike Wolff, who only had to look at her to melt her into a puddle, Geoffrey’s eyes were soft and unthreatening. His ready smile reminded her of Dmitri, and Anya felt an instant affinity.

  “I hear you like to ride?” he said. “Seb tells me you’re an excellent horsewoman.”

  Her stomach twisted at the thought that Wolff had complimented her, albeit in her absence. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then perhaps you’ll do me the honor of meeting me in the park sometime? We can exercise our mounts together.”

  “I would like that very much.”

  He presented her with a small box wrapped in ribbon. “It is customary to give young ladies a token on the eve of their first official ball.” He smiled. “I’m aware that this is not your first ball, Princess, but it is your first English ball, and I hope you’ll accept it in the spirit of friendship.”

  Anya tugged open the ribbons to reveal an exquisite silver beaded evening bag.

  “It’s a reticule,” Geoffrey said unnecessarily. “I’m sure you’ve a hundred already, but I’m told ladies can never have enough. You can keep coins in it, or handkerchiefs, or whatever else it is you like to cart about with you.”

  Anya smiled up at him in genuine pleasure. “Thank you! It matches my dress. But I do hope you’ve already placed a coin inside?”

  “A coin?”

  “It’s a Russian superstition. If you give someone a purse or any other kind of money holder as a gift, you must put some money inside. If it’s empty, it’s said to cause bad financial luck.” She shrugged wryly. “It’s ‘seed money’—the belief is that it grows and attracts even more money.”

  “That’s a nice theory.” He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, pulled out a gold sovereign, and handed it to her solemnly. “Here you go. May it multiply into a vast fortune for you, my lady.”

  The dowager chuckled at their antics.

  “Any more superstitions I should know about?” Geoffrey
asked with a smile. “Have I, perhaps, been putting my feet into my boots in the wrong order this whole time? Should rice pudding only ever be eaten during a full moon?”

  Anya laughed. His dry sense of humor was rather like that of his brother. “Oh, there are hundreds. We Russians are a superstitious lot.” She gestured toward a vase of flowers on the side table. “For example, while it’s never a mistake to take a bouquet of flowers when invited to someone’s home, you must make sure that bunches for festive occasions have an odd number of flowers. Bouquets with an even number are reserved for funerals.”

  “Heavens!” the dowager said lightly. “I had no idea. One, two, three—” She began counting the blooms then let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness, fifteen. I feel so much better now. Our ball is a guaranteed success.” She turned toward a shadow in the doorway. “Ah, Sebastien. There you are.”

  Chapter 30.

  Seb’s gaze found Anya the moment he stepped into the room, and all the air left his lungs in a rush. He’d had the same sensation when he’d taken that artillery blast at Waterloo: a roaring in his ears and a squeezing of his chest that almost knocked him backward.

  She was wearing some silver concoction and smiling up at his brother, and Seb had never seen anything so blindingly beautiful in his life.

  The past week had been hell. The Tricorn—usually his one place of comfort and repose—had been dull and empty without her. She’d breathed life into it, despite the short time she’d been there. He’d found evidence of her occupation everywhere: a stack of papers piled haphazardly in the library, half-read books left lying, spine up, on tables. The tantalizing scent of her perfume in the air. Every time he entered a room, he was haunted by images of her defying him, teasing him, challenging him.

  The servants had noticed her loss too; Lagrasse had been grumbling about “unappreciative audiences” for days and even Mickey had been unusually morose.