Compromised By The Prince’s Touch
Bronwyn Scott
An irresistible royal seduction…Daring Prince Nikolay Baklanov feels London is worlds away from his life of battle and revolution in Kuban. But then the Russian ambassador’s daughter, beautiful Klara Grigorieva, approaches him with her father’s dangerous proposition…Since her mother’s death, Klara has complied with all her father’s wishes. She’s virtuous, polished – a Society lady through and through. But meeting dashing Prince Nikolay awakens a rebellious passion in Klara…a passion that only this man can satisfy!
An irresistible royal seduction...
Daring Prince Nikolay Baklanov feels London is worlds away from his life of battle and revolution in Kuban. But then the Russian ambassador’s daughter, beautiful Klara Grigorieva, approaches him with her father’s dangerous proposition...
Since her mother’s death, Klara has complied with all her father’s wishes. She’s virtuous, polished—a Society lady through and through. But meeting dashing Prince Nikolay awakens a rebellious passion in Klara...a passion that only this man can satisfy!
Russian Royals of Kuban
Commanding princes unlace the ladies of London!
Princes Nikolay, Illarion, Ruslan and Stepan were once the toasted royalty of Kuban, renowned for their daring exploits. Now, banished and distanced from their titles, they’ve arrived in London—where balls and carriage rides take precedence over swordsmanship, revolution and battle...
But in this new and unknown city they’re about to encounter women the like of whom they’ve never encountered before. These ladies have resisted the rakes of London—but the princes are about to embark on the most alluring of seductions...
Read Nikolay and Klara’s story in
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Available now!
Read Illarion and Dove’s story in
Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Available next month!
And look out for Ruslan’s and Stepan’s stories—coming soon!
Author Note (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)
Let’s play True or False: What’s real in Nikolay’s story?
True: Kuban is a real region in Russia. It encompasses Sochi, where the Winter Olympics were once held. However, there was never a kingdom or a king like the one featured in this series.
True: the region of Kuban was indeed ‘settled’ by Russia in the mid-late 1700s in order to provide a buffer between the Ottoman Empire and Russia and to reclaim the Crimea for Russia. These efforts were stimulated by the 1768-1774 Russo-Turkish war.
True: a large part of the population that settled the area were Cossacks from nearby regions
True: the Cossacks were/are known for their ‘trick’ riding abilities in battle.
True: both rebellions cited in Nikolay’s story took place. The 1825 revolt Nikolay is tempted to join did occur and was unsuccessful.
True: the rebellions were led by officers and there were connections inside the palace. The Union of Salvation was a real secret society throughout Russia.
False: there is no historic proof that Britain, privately or otherwise, financed or supported the rebellion. The arms deal subplot is my own addition. However, members of the Union had what is historically described as ‘British ideals’ regarding government and industrialisation.
True: Soho was an immigrant neighborhood in early nineteenth-century London, as were the squares where Nikolay establishes his riding academy.
True: Soho was an immigrant neighbourhood in early nineteenth-century London, as were the squares where Nikolay establishes his riding academy.
I hope you enjoy Nikolay and Klara’s tale, set against this backdrop of the real and the imagined!
www.bronwynnscott.com (http://www.bronwynnscott.com)
www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com)
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com (http://bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Books by Bronwyn Scott
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
and Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks
Scandal at the Midsummer Ball
‘The Debutante’s Awakening’
Scandal at the Christmas Ball
‘Dancing with the Duke’s Heir’
Russian Royals of Kuban
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Wallflowers to Wives
Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss
Awakening the Shy Miss
Claiming His Defiant Miss
Marrying the Rebellious Miss
Rakes on Tour
Rake Most Likely to Rebel
Rake Most Likely to Thrill
Rake Most Likely to Seduce
Rake Most Likely to Sin
Rakes of the Caribbean
Playing the Rake’s GameBreaking the Rake’s RulesCraving the Rake’s Touch (Undone!)
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
For Joe and Alexis and the staff at Aleron,
who have all made us feel so welcome
in our daughter’s horse world.
Contents
Cover (#u67a6e45b-d4ed-5282-8051-d49a5065f776)
Back Cover Text (#u69dec08d-fac9-5c8c-b265-239cf2f928f6)
Introduction (#ud2cb310b-ea8a-50a1-b333-df539f494c06)
Author Note (#ub6e318a9-b188-52de-a22c-aefe698464cc)
Title Page (#u1fbe9e03-4d43-5d22-9812-d5a3bbd7b2fb)
About the Author (#uf4264c45-e509-5b36-888d-f3a6e2d84a46)
Dedication (#uaa9dfa8d-90c3-5092-9425-c3b171d80919)
Chapter One (#u2a0fdcd8-005f-5701-b769-0b9d442a9ccd)
Chapter Two (#u1ef8ad1c-6759-51f6-ad7e-33aa1b529763)
Chapter Three (#uef3e528d-9d98-5c65-84d5-9acbe5a327fc)
Chapter Four (#ue8b382c2-ab79-571b-9aed-cd2418c28040)
Chapter Five (#ub13fb5e8-01b3-52ce-9458-3313448a5621)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)
London—late winter, 1823
St John the Divine was entirely wrong about the end of the world. Prince Nikolay Baklanov had, in the last hour, arrived at a revelation of his own: the four horsemen of the Apocalypse weren’t men armed with swords at all, but, in fact, four young ladies, armed with formidable matchmaking mamas who would give those swords a run for sharpness. He was quite convinced, as he barked at Miss Ransome for the third time to get deep into the corners on her turns, that the world as he knew it would not be done in by widespread warfare and pestilence, but by the trampling to death of his patience over the course of several Thursday afternoons as the girls sawed on their horses’ mouths and disregarded his oft-repeated instructions.
‘Heels down, Miss Edgars, or you’ll come off your mount’s back at the slightest jolt! Miss Kenmore, remember the left-shoulder rule, unless you want a collision with Miss Ransome!’ He shouted orders from the centre of Fozard’s arena, home to one of London’s elite riding schools. But there was nothing elite about the skill of the four young misses trotting around him.
Make that three.
‘Miss Calhoun, why in heaven’s name have you stopped?’
‘My horse stopped, not I.’ The spoiled chit tossed glossy curls from beneath an expensive stovepipe hat and gave him a pout that had no doubt been practised far longer than her riding skills.
‘You are the master here, Miss Calhoun.’ Nikolay clung to the shreds of his patience. Surely their requisite hour was nearly up? Then just one more lesson for the day. Who would ever have imagined teaching four girls to ride was more difficult than marshalling an entire regiment?
‘But...’ Miss Calhoun began to whine. His temper flared.
But? She dared to argue with him? He, who was a Prince of Kuban? He, who had led and trained the Kubanian cavalry? A man who excelled on horseback? Nikolay raised his voice, overriding her excuses. ‘No buts, Miss Calhoun. Set your horse in motion or I will do it for you!’ The last was met with a significant amount of shocked rustling in the spectators’ gallery where the girls’ mothers and maids sat in vigilant attendance. He knew what they were debating in their heated whispers—the merits of questioning him for his harsh tone. Was it worth the risk of alienating him? Or did they allow him to scold Miss Calhoun in the hopes of securing his attentions?
He did not fool himself. That’s what they were here for: attentions, affections. It was what all his female pupils were here for, well-bred daughters of the British peerage, angling to snare a foreign prince, even one in exile from a place most had never heard of seemed to suffice, never mind that he wouldn’t be accepting any of those offers. He’d been in London for two months, since the Christmas holidays, and business at Fozard’s had increased exponentially—quite a feat considering much of London society was still in the country. The rustling ceased. The jury of mamas had decided to let his tone pass.
‘All right, ladies, that’s enough for today. Walk your mounts and then hand them off to the grooms.’ He strode towards the door, his words as rapid as his pace. If he exited fast enough, he could escape making polite small talk with the mothers before his next lesson. He headed for the private instructors’ lounge and slipped inside, breathing a bit easier. It was his first piece of luck all day.
‘Hoy, Nik. I see you survived the Misses Four.’ Peter Crenshaw, one of the other instructors, looked up from cleaning tack.
‘Barely. I’ve got one more and then I’m done.’ Done with this day that had started badly and gone downhill from there. The morning had begun with Lady Marwood slipping a key into his pocket with a note, making it explicitly clear she was more interested in riding him than the lovely bay mare her besotted older husband had purchased for her last week at Tattersall’s. That was how the day started and the Four Horsewomen of his personal Apocalypse had ended it. What he wouldn’t give for a strapping lad who could jump something.
Peter gave him a wry look. ‘You can always quit. You don’t have to put up with the girls or any of it.’ Nikolay didn’t miss the edge of envy beneath Peter’s words. Peter needed to work. Peter depended on the income. He was a half-pay officer in an army going nowhere.
Nikolay shrugged. ‘What would I do with my days if I didn’t come here?’ He needed to work, too, but perhaps for a different reason than Peter. The income wasn’t the issue. The scheduling of his days was. A year ago, he’d been a high-ranking officer in the Kubanian military. He’d spent his days out of doors on the parade grounds schooling cavalry units, leading manoeuvres. He’d spent his nights at palace revels, consorting with the loveliest women Kuban had to offer; waltzing, flirting, engaging in an affaire or two when the whimsy took him. Political calamity had changed that, or at least part of that. True, he still revelled at night. London, even out of the Season, wasn’t much different from Kuban’s glittering court and there were still women aplenty available for pleasure of the physical kind, just the way he liked it, with no strings attached. But his days had suffered. Oh, how they’d suffered.
He’d kept with his old military habit of rising early, only to discover London gentlemen rarely rose before eleven. He’d taken to walking the streets and parks, watching the town rise. He’d spent his ‘mornings’—a term he used loosely since they seemed to occur briefly between eleven and two—conducting the business of resettlement: establishing accounts, garnering memberships to clubs, settling his horses. All of which was handled efficiently and quickly with little effort from him. He’d spent his afternoons sightseeing with his comrades from Kuban, the friends who had fled with him. But when that was done? When all the pieces were in place to ‘begin’ living the London life? How did he spend his time then?
He’d found himself at a constant loose end. No wonder English gentlemen rose so late in the day. There was nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. So, he’d come here to Fozard’s, a place with horses, a place where he knew how to live—to some degree. He was painfully aware the parallel was not exact. He was a trainer of disciplined men, not spoiled girls. But it would do until he figured out who he was in this new life and what he wanted to be. It was a question which haunted him not a little these days. He’d been in England nearly a year and he still had no answer. His hopes of starting his own riding academy were still just hopes.
Nikolay picked up the file with his last client’s information in it. He scanned it once and then twice, the second time more slowly, more carefully, the hairs on his neck prickling at the name: one Miss Klara Grigorieva, a diplomat’s daughter. Another ‘Miss’, of course, because that was how his luck had run today. There was the immediate concern of her riding ability, which was probably negligible. He could only imagine how ill-suited to the saddle she would be. Diplomats’ daughters knew how to host afternoon tea parties and evening dinners. They might even speak a language or two and converse on a variety of subjects. But they were not equestrians. Even so, it wasn’t only that which had his neck hair prickling. It was that she was a Russian girl; Klara Grigorieva was the Russian ambassador’s daughter, which, on the surface, made it easy to see why she’d been paired with him. What Fozard’s couldn’t know was the suspicion such a pairing provoked for him. Did this pairing have more sinister undertones? Had she been sent to smoke him out? Was Kuban hunting him at last? He snapped the folder shut. He wouldn’t have any answers standing here. It was four o’clock. Showtime.
Only he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in the waiting area. She wasn’t wandering the aisles petting the horses or any of the usual places the other girls tended to be. They were going to start late at this rate, and to top it off, someone was in the arena riding when everyone knew he had one more lesson before the arena was free for instructors’ personal work.
Nikolay strode to the gate of the arena, prepared to halt the intruder, and found himself halted instead. Whoever the intruder was, he was an excellent rider: solid seat, straight back, rolled shoulders, elbows in. The rider urged the horse into a canter with an imperceptible use of hands and knees. Nikolay followed the rider’s trajectory to the jump in the centre of the arena—a jump that had become purely decorative. His students certainly didn’t aspire to it. It was high enough to be challenging. At three feet, a rider needed to know what he was doing. The rider lifted over the horse’s neck and the pair flew over the faux wall easily. The horse could go higher. Nikolay could see it in the tuck of the animal’s knees over the wall. He could also see the horse wasn’t one of their schooling string. This was no instructor riding early. Which begged the question—who was he?
The rider doubled back, preparing to take the jump from the other side, giving Nikolay a first glimpse of the rider’s face: sharp cheekbones, the firm but fine line of jaw, almost feminine beneath the helmet, the intensity of green eyes fixed on the jump as the rider sighted the target. Nikolay couldn’t be sure if the rider saw him. The horse and rider took the jump again, coming to a stop in front of him at the gate.
The rider undid the strap of the helmet and removed it, shaking loose a stream of walnut waves. He was a she. A not entirely warm smile played on her sensual lips. ‘Nikolay Baklanov, I presume?’ She tossed those glossy waves with presumption. ‘You are late.’
‘You are riding without permission or supervision. Klara Grigorieva, I presume?’ Nikolay countered. Best to begin as he meant to go on with this supercilious miss who clearly possessed a healthy dose of arrogance, if not common sense. Nikolay placed a booted foot on the rungs of the gate and gave his newest pupil a considering gaze from head to boot. ‘You’re the Russian ambassador’s daughter?’
She swung off the horse. ‘I am, and this is Zvezda, my mare.’ She smiled broadly, eyes sparking as her boots hit the ground. ‘Surprised? Not what you expected?’
‘No, not at all.’ She was also very tall for a woman, a fact emphasised by the male attire she wore, breeches that encased long legs and emphasised the slenderness of waist. Her hair fell to that trim waist, and she had a face that rivalled Helen of Troy, a beautiful mix of eastern exoticism in the seductive slant of those eyes arched with narrow dark brows, the sharp cheekbones of her Russian ancestors and the delicate jaw of an English rose—the perfect combination of strength and femininity.
‘“No, not at all”?’ she parroted. ‘What does that mean? No, not at all surprised? Or no, not at all what you expected?’
Nikolay put a hand on the horse’s bridle. ‘You know very well you had the advantage of me.’ But he would not be cowed by that surprise. Neither would he allow her to keep that advantage. Bold women were attractive up to a point. ‘I think you like surprising people, Miss Grigorieva.’ How intriguing; the ambassador’s daughter had a rebellious streak. He petted the horse, looking for neutral ground before their first encounter became overly adversarial. ‘Zvezda, that’s Star in Russian.’ He didn’t miss the spark in her eyes. She hadn’t known. Interesting. ‘Pretty name. Pretty horse.’ The mare was an excellent specimen of English horseflesh. A Russian name for an English horse, much like the daughter, apparently. Klara was a name that could bridge both worlds, where Grigorieva could not.
Nikolay watched her carefully, this Anglo-Russian creation standing before him. ‘What is it that you’ve come to me for, Miss Grigorieva?’ His eyes drifted, letting his gaze convey explicitly what his words implied. If she wanted to play with fire, he’d light the match.
‘Riding lessons, of course. This is a riding school.’ She didn’t flinch.
‘You already ride exceedingly well, as I am sure you know.’
‘I am told you’re the best. Isn’t that reason enough?’
‘The best at what?’ It was a provocative question, hardly the sort of thing one said to an unmarried young woman. But she was not the ‘usual’. One had only to note her breeches, as opposed to a riding habit, to know that much. The mischief in him wanted to knock Miss Grigorieva from her high horse. The officer in him wanted to control her, wanted to rein in the danger she might pose.
‘Riding,’ she answered with a cool arch of her brow that implied an innuendo of her own. She turned towards Zvezda, reaching up to grip the saddle and a bit of mane. ‘A leg up, if you please?’
Touché. All the better to see her with, Nikolay thought wryly. He cupped his hands to take her boot, keenly aware of the curve of her hip and buttock, so near to his face that he could kiss that derrière as he tossed her up. He opted for professional detachment. ‘Let’s try the jump again. This time, I want you to count your strides. Anyone can jump if they’re brave enough,’ he challenged. ‘Not everyone can do it on a pace count. That’s true art. Take it in five strides.’ Nikolay drew a line in the dirt with his boot. ‘From here.’
‘I’ll take it in four.’ She fastened her helmet.
‘I asked you to take it in five,’ Nikolay responded sternly. If this had been his cavalry, he would have had a soldier whipped for such insubordination. ‘If you study with me, I expect you to take direction as well as your horse, Miss Grigorieva. Can you do that?’
She wheeled the white mare around in a flashy circle but not before Nikolay caught the hint of a flush on her cheeks. Ah, so Miss Grigorieva was not used to being disciplined. He imagined not, with that haughty demeanour of hers. She was used to people doing her bidding, not the other way around. She took the fence in five strides, but it was a fight for the fifth before the mare lifted. She’d started too fast and the mare had eaten up too much ground. ‘Again, Miss Grigorieva! This time with five even strides so it looks like you planned it that way.’
She shot him a hard look and Nikolay chuckled. The wilder the filly, the better the ride. Part of him was going to enjoy taming the diplomat’s daughter and part of him was going to regret it. He just wasn’t yet sure which part was going to be larger. ‘Heels down, Miss Grigorieva. Let’s try again.’ London had just got more interesting, if not more dangerous.
Chapter Two (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)
Heels down? Was he joking? No one had told her that for years. She was no amateur and yet she begrudgingly discovered there was a bit of room in the stirrups still for the slightest of adjustments. She turned Zvezda around and pointed her towards the jump. Five even strides. She’d show that arrogant Russian prince perfection in motion. Heels down. Hah. That would be the last time she gave him reason to find any fault with her.
They worked on counting strides for the better part of the hour until the mare was tired, but not too tired, not too sweaty. Sweaty horses chilled easily in the winter. Nikolay Baklanov had a good eye, not just for the horse, but for the rider, too. His arrogance was well earned. His reputation did not disappoint. Even with her experience, she’d picked up a tip or two during their session which was something of a surprise in part because she’d not expected to and in part because learning something had only been a portion of the reason she was here. The other part was that she’d been sent on a mission of sorts to vet the young Kubanian royal. The Prince had been in London for two months; long enough to have called on the ambassador himself. Since he hadn’t, her father had decided to send her to call on him. She was to meet Prince Baklanov and establish his ‘quality’.
Klara dismounted to walk her horse while the mare cooled. The Prince fell into step beside her, debriefing the lesson with instructions on what to practise throughout the week. She could easily imagine him giving the same terse litany of instructions to his troops. He would be a commanding leader. Up close, he was tall, a novelty for her. She could look most men in the eye, but she reached only his shoulder, a very broad shoulder. There was no doubting he was a rider of superb calibre. He was built for it with long legs, muscled thighs evident even through the fabric of his trousers and lean through the hips. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, only muscle: well-trained, well-hewn muscle.
This was no dandified cavalry officer whose position had been purchased by his parents and good fortune of birth. This man was a warrior, a point accentuated by the dark hair worn long at his shoulders; the firm cut of his jaw and severe, chiselled lines of his face. A woman could look at that face for hours, could lose herself in the dark depths of his eyes—eyes full of secrets. He was a man who knew how to be dangerous to both men and women—a warrior to one, a lover to the other. He did not strike her as a man who’d appreciate being manipulated.
‘Do you keep a horse here?’ she asked when his debrief finished. Men loved to talk about themselves, it was always safe—and useful—conversation and that’s what she was here for: useful conversation with Prince Baklanov. Men gave hints away all the time, in their words if she was lucky, but in other subtle ways, too: the tone of their voices, the gestures they made, the way they held their bodies.
‘I keep three, actually.’ He smiled at the mention of his horses and the result changed his face entirely, translating the strong, stoic planes of his warrior’s face into breath-taking handsomeness. Zvezda was cool and they led her out into the aisle towards a stall. ‘We’re passing them now.’ He nodded to the left, a hand going to the pocket of his coat to retrieve a treat as they came up on the first stall. ‘This is Cossack. He’s a Russian Don by breed.’
‘He must be your cavalry horse.’ Klara ran her eyes over the muscled chestnut, taking in the horse’s shiny coat. ‘He’s magnificent,’ she complimented, but she could tell her comment, her knowledge, had surprised him.
‘Yes. I brought him with me when I left Kuban.’ She heard the wistfulness as his voice caressed the words. Perhaps he would rather not have left? The Prince moved on to the stall beside it. ‘This is Balkan, my stallion.’ He ran a hand affectionately down the long neck of a horse so dark, he was nearly black.
‘Let me guess.’ Klara took in the short back, the height of the withers. ‘He’s Kabardin, perhaps Karachay.’
‘Very good!’ He flashed her another handsome smile. ‘You do know something of the Motherland then.’
It was her turn to be uncomfortable with his display of insight. ‘I know something of horses and their breeds,’ Klara replied, leading Zvezda to her stall. She grabbed the blanket hanging beside the stall and stepped inside. ‘How did you know?’
The Prince lounged outside the stall door, arms crossed, eyes studying her as she tossed the blanket over Zvezda’s back. ‘You didn’t know what Zvezda meant when I told you. You don’t speak Russian and I would guess that your mother is English.’ He pushed off the wall and stepped inside to work the chest fastenings of the blanket. ‘I would go so far as to say you’ve never lived in Russia.’
‘You’re almost right.’ Her hands stilled on the blanket straps. What would this prince think of such a woman who had no knowledge of her heritage? ‘I haven’t lived there since I was a little girl. It’s true, I don’t remember much of it. We lived in St Petersburg for three years when I was four. We spent the summers in the countryside at an estate near Peterhof. That’s what I am told. What I remember are the grasses around the estate, how they were as tall as I was and I could hear the wind pass through them.’ She loved those memories. She’d lain for hours in those grasses looking up at the sky, happy and unaware how sadly the sojourn in St Petersburg would end.
No one paid much attention to her in those days—she would only understand why much later. In the moment, she’d been pleased. She could go where she willed, do what she wanted. She’d had grand adventures. Returning to England had been the end of those adventures, except for her horses. She might have gone crazy if it hadn’t been for them. England had been the start of special tutors, then special schools, the very best for a girl who was expected to grow up to marry a duke, to become a complete Englishwoman, her Russian heritage nothing more than a novel characteristic to be put on display the way one displays a parlour trick. Something interesting and entertaining, but not to be taken seriously, not even by her, although this was ground on which she and her father disagreed. She wanted to know about her Russian heritage, hungered for it, even against her father’s promises to her dying mother to raise an English rose.
‘St Petersburg is a long way from the Kuban Steppes,’ the Prince said neutrally and she had the sense that she was the one being vetted, quite the reverse of her intentions for this meeting. It made her nervous. What had she given away? What secrets had she inadvertently revealed?
She tried for a smile and a bit of humour. ‘We can’t all be patriotic cavalry officers.’
The effort failed. Her remark had been meant as a compliment, but it evoked something darker. The openness of his expression shuttered. ‘Who said anything about being patriotic? Come, you haven’t seen my other horse, she’s a Cleveland Bay. I acquired her when I arrived. I have hopes of breeding her with my Kabardin stallion.’ Any chance to follow up on his comment was lost in his rambling talk of a breeding opportunity. Klara was certain it was quite purposely done. The comment about patriotism had made him edgy. She had skated close to something with that remark.
They petted the Cleveland Bay and made conversation about mares and horses in general—safe ground for them both. But she was aware the atmosphere around them remained charged with wariness. They were both on their guard now, protecting themselves, cautious of revealing too much by accident to a stranger. She didn’t want him to see any more of her and her lack of ‘Russianness’. It was embarrassing to her that he should see it so clearly and on such short acquaintance. Would he be as disgusted by it as she if he knew the reason—that she’d been groomed to be an expensive pawn in a dangerous game she couldn’t escape? Would he even care? Disgust implied the pre-existence of caring. He was her riding instructor, nothing more. And as for the Prince—what was it he didn’t want her to see? What was he protecting? Why? More importantly, why did he think a diplomat’s daughter would care about his secrets? In his case, caring assumed his secrets contained something of value he was not willing to share with another. Which was precisely what her father suspected.
A stable hand came to announce the arrival of her father’s carriage and Nikolay gave her a formal incline of his head. ‘It is time to say do svidaniya, Miss Grigorieva.’ He leaned close and she smelled the scents of man and beast on him, not an unpleasing fragrance to a woman who preferred horses over the dandified fops of the ton. ‘That means “until we meet again”.’
‘What makes you sure I’ll come back?’ She let her eyes linger on his face, her voice low. She was flirting with him as he’d flirted with her, with private words and lingering glances.
‘You didn’t quite get what you came for, Miss Grigorieva. You’ll be back. Did you want to wait until next Thursday or perhaps you’d like to try again sooner? I have an opening on Monday.’
‘Monday? That’s three days away,’ she answered the challenge with a bold confidence she didn’t feel. This man had a way of pushing her off balance at the most unlooked for moments. What did he think she was hunting? She hardly knew herself. ‘How about Saturday in the park?’ she countered. ‘We will ride. You can bring Balkan. Call for me at two.’ She paused. ‘Unless you’re worried I might get the rest of what I came for.’
He grinned, a wicked warrior’s smile that sent a most unladylike tremor all the way to her toes, despite her usual dislike of arrogant men. He seemed to be an exception. ‘I’m not the one who should be worried, Miss Grigorieva. Two o’clock Saturday it is.’
* * *
‘You should be worried, Nik. I don’t like the sounds of this at all,’ Stepan counselled at dinner that night. The four of them—Illarion and Ruslan, Stepan and himself, all royal expatriates of Kuban—were pushed back from the table, enjoying vodka and sampling some of Stepan’s latest samogon—the Russian version of an Englishman’s John Barleycorn. Drinking together was their nightly ritual, an attempt to recreate something from their old life in Kuban, to create something of their own, something comfortable in this new world they were learning to navigate.
Nikolay shoved his glass forward for more. Klara Grigorieva had disturbed him on more than a political level. She disturbed him on a sensual level, too, something, he might add, which had not happened in the time since they’d left Kuban. He thought his last, nearly fatal run-in with a woman had resolved his susceptibilities to feminine charm. Apparently not. The man in him wanted to pursue her, but the warrior in him counselled caution, as Stepan did. For now, he was happy to let his friends debate the issue for him.
To his right, Illarion, always the romantic, argued leniency. ‘We might just be paranoid. The girl’s not Russian, for one, not really. She was raised here. Nik says she doesn’t even speak the language. It’s hard to believe she’s invited into her father’s counsels or that she has any interest, like most of these English girls.’
‘Unlike most English girls—’ Stepan tendered his rebuttal ‘—her father is indisputably Russian. He’s an ambassador. It is his job to represent Russian interests in England.’ Stepan had become their unofficial adahop during the months they’d been in London, the one they all turned to for advice. ‘If anyone is supposed to be loyal to one’s country, it’s the ambassador.’
Therein lay the true concern. Perhaps the ambassador would be loyal enough to see a renegade prince, wanted for royal murder, returned home.
This had always been the risk; that Kuban would want him back and that the Kubanian Tsar would not be willing to settle for having his number-one troublemaker out of the country. Nikolay was starting to regret the group’s decision to not learn more about the Russian situation in London. The four of them had decided it would be better to simply go about their lives and let the ambassador come to them if he was interested in London’s four newest Russian citizens. It had been an easy choice. There had been much to do in resettling.
The strategy had worked. To date, the ambassador had been uninterested. Today, that had potentially changed. Unless Klara was only what she seemed: a riding pupil, another English girl looking for ways to fill her long, empty days until she married. But the scenario didn’t suit the woman he’d seen in the riding house. In his gut Nikolay knew that wasn’t a legitimate assumption. She had not ‘seemed’ only a riding pupil today. Whatever she’d wanted from him, she’d wanted it badly enough to swallow her pride. He’d not missed how much it galled her when he’d shouted to keep her heels down, or to check her pacing. She might be there to ride, but she was there for something else as well.
Across the table, Ruslan, always the diplomat, seconded Stepan’s advice. ‘You have to admit it looks strange; the Russian ambassador’s daughter, who is already an exceptional rider, shows up asking for lessons? Why? Especially given your circumstances.’ Ruslan looked around the table at each of them. ‘We are all awkward expatriates.’
They were indeed, especially if a condition of expatriation was ‘voluntary’ relocation. Nikolay wasn’t convinced even a loose definition of voluntary applied to him. His choice to leave hadn’t been much of a choice at all when his other option was facing imprisonment and trial for a murder that could be couched as treason, a trial he might not win. He’d argued against the traditions of the kingdom once too often. Whether the charges against him held was not the issue. The Tsar had reason to make sure that they did. There’d been plenty of occasions when he’d clashed with the traditional-minded Tsar, but this last time, blood had been spilt. When his friend, Prince Dimitri Petrovich, a man who had abdicated his title in Kuban in order to claim a bride forbidden to him under Kubanian law, had written asking him to see to his sister’s safe passage to England, Nikolay had jumped at the chance as much out of the deep bonds of friendship as for his own personal benefit.
Dimitri’s request had come at a time when Kuban was no longer safe for him, as it was no longer safe, in varying degrees, for the other three men who sat at the table with him. Stepan Shevchenko; who had helped him escape the Tsar’s dungeons in a very literal and perhaps unforgivable sense; Illarion Kutejnikov, whose only claim to fame before he’d used his poetry to protest Kubanian marriage practices was that a cousin had been a general during the recent wars; and Ruslan Pisarev, who might or might not have been involved in a questionable underground operation to help people leave the country. Ruslan’s knowledge in escaping Kuban without detection certainly indicated he might be guilty as charged. They could make no claim to Kuban now, except for perhaps Ruslan, who might be the one who found a way to return some day.
For now, all four of them were homeless princes abroad in a strange land, living off Dimitri’s good graces. The first months they’d arrived in England, they’d stayed in the country with Dimitri and his English wife, Evie. But they did not want to overstay their welcome, not with Evie expecting a baby. Their friend had a family of his own. They needed to strike out for themselves. But even that bit of independence was a misnomer. The four of them had come to London, thanks to the generous loan of Dimitri’s London residence, Kuban House, a loan they were all keenly aware couldn’t last no matter how much Dimitri insisted it could. Eventually, they would have to find homes of their own. But for now, it was all they had, a very new concept to Princes who had once owned palaces and summer homes that far exceeded their need.
Former Princes, Nikolay supposed. He had to get used to thinking of himself that way. Or perhaps not? Could one ever be a ‘former’ prince? The term ‘Prince’ was nothing more than an honorific now. They had no palaces, no land, none of the trappings that made them princes. They’d left it all behind in the hopes Kuban would make no claim on them.
The question was whether or not Kuban had let them go. Would Kuban come after them, or was London far enough to outrun the arm of Mother Russia? That was the question he saw mirrored in the eyes of his friends as he looked around the table. Was the lovely, sharp-witted Klara Grigorieva the advance scout for a larger scheme to drag the Princes home? If so, was that net truly after all of them, or just after him? He was the only one with official charges against him. Until he knew for sure, how he chose to handle Miss Grigorieva could affect them all. For the sake of his friends, he needed to know what he was up against.
Nikolay swallowed the samogon and pushed back from the table. ‘I’ll ride with her on Saturday. If she’s truly setting a trap, then cancelling the appointment will alert her to our suspicions. I can’t learn about her intentions if I don’t spend time with her.’ That would not be a hardship. Klara Grigorieva was intriguing in her own right. He’d want to spend time with her without the need to unravel the mysteries she presented, a foreign ambassador’s daughter raised to be English. He had responded to her mentally, physically, from the moment she’d taken off her helmet, shaken down all that glorious hair and chastised him for being late, to the moment she’d invited him for a Saturday ride. Call for me at two. There’d been no doubt in her mind that he would accept. A woman like that would keep a man on his feet. Klara Grigorieva wasn’t for the fainthearted, but no one had ever called him a coward.
Chapter Three (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)
Klara’s finger moved south down the page of the atlas from St Petersburg, past Moscow and Kiev, to a spot between the Black Sea and the Don Steppe. Kuban. The home of Nikolay Baklanov; a land of mountains, steppes, grasslands and rivers.
She ran her finger over the ridges depicting the Caucasus range and along the curve of the river. A land of mild climates and severe mountains if the map was to be believed. A land of contrasts, just like the man himself. One could know much about a man if one knew where he was from. Men were products of their places. Women were, too, for that matter. She did not exclude herself from that generalisation.
The image of Nikolay’s smile was imprinted in her mind. It had transformed his face completely, the smile made him approachable, made it seem possible that a woman had a chance to solve the mysteries behind those dark eyes. What might those mysteries be? What caused a man to leave his country? Not just any man, but a warrior, a man trained to fight for that country, to defend it. What caused a prince to teach riding lessons to spoiled girls?
The answers to those mysteries surely lay behind the granite-dark eyes. There were other mysteries, too, more sensual mysteries that lay behind those eyes, those lips. This was a man of deep passions. She had not been oblivious to the considerations of his gaze yesterday which had not been limited to an assessment of her riding. He had found her interesting in the way a man finds an attractive woman ‘interesting’.
That made him dangerous. She drummed her fingers on the atlas page. A dispossessed Russian prince was hardly the type of man her father was saving her for, had raised her for. But obedience was not enough to stop a trill of excitement from running through her at the thought of their Saturday meeting—a chance to be with him again, a chance to trade wits, to probe beneath surfaces. Would he flirt with her? Would he look at her with those hot, dark eyes? Would he be ready with his wicked innuendos? Would he smile? Would he pursue his ‘interest’? Would she let him even knowing she had to ensure the pursuit was ultimately futile? She was meant for an English peer, and soon. But knowing that couldn’t stop the wondering. What would it be like to be the object of such a man’s attentions? Affections?
Klara sighed, wishing she could see beyond the map. What kind of country produced such a man? Such passions? Such intensity? What did Nikolay’s Kuban look like? Perhaps it was the idea of Kuban that drew her to him more than anything else. That was easier to explain than pure physical attraction. Russia was forbidden fruit. She was to be English in all ways, English like the mother who had died in St Petersburg at the end of that final summer, but that didn’t stop the craving, only made it understandable.
The door to the library opened, admitting her father, and she deftly slid another book on top of the atlas. To give in to the craving would hurt him. Russia had taken his wife; he would not tolerate it taking his daughter. Her father strode towards the table, all smiles. ‘At last, we have time to talk, Klara.’ He was a handsome man, a tall man, in his fifties but still possessed of youthful vigour. Only the streaks of grey in his hair hinted he might not be as young as he appeared. He pulled out a chair beside her and sat. ‘Tell me everything, how was your lesson with Baklanov?’
Her father was a good man, Klara reminded herself. He did care about the lesson. He’d always encouraged her riding and he was proud of her, she knew that unequivocally. But he wasn’t strictly interested in only the lesson today. He wanted her assessment of the Prince. She should feel proud he trusted her input, that he allowed her to help with his work, yet she felt some guilt, as if telling her father made her a spy, a betrayer of trust. No, that was too dramatic. She was making too much out of recounting first impressions. How could she betray a man she’d met only once and knew nothing about?
Perhaps that was where she was wrong. Even after one meeting, she did know him. She knew the caress of his wicked gaze as he flirted with her. She knew the compassion he held for his horses, had seen it in the gentle stroke of his hand on their long noses, heard it in the words of his stories. Now, she was being asked to turn those experiences over to her father. Perhaps that was the real issue. She wanted to treasure the encounter, to have it just to herself instead of giving it over to ‘the game’. She had so little in her life that didn’t belong to her father’s game. The game had become the basis of their relationship as she grew up. Her father was waiting, patient and calm, across the table from her. Certain she’d give up whatever she’d learned for the greater good. His good.
‘The Prince is very talented. We worked on pacing. Even at my level, he found ways to help me improve.’
Her father listened politely before saying, ‘What of the man himself? What is his character?’
‘He is intense. Committed.’ She recalled hearing him shout at the unfortunate Miss Calhoun while she’d waited outside. The Prince gave his best to whatever he did and he expected the best from those around him.
‘Those are useful attributes,’ her father mused. That was how he assessed people and characteristics. There were only two categories as far as he was concerned: usable and unusable. Perhaps she should be grateful she fell into the former classification. Yet there were days when she wondered what her life could have been like if she’d been unusable to him and left to have a life outside the game, like she had before a summer fever and a deathbed promise had committed her to other people’s dreams.
For a moment, she thought her brief insight would be enough, but he wanted more. ‘Do you suppose he feels that intensity, that commitment still for his country, or is he ready to attach those feelings to a new loyalty? A man does not leave his country without provocation.’
‘I couldn’t say on such short acquaintance.’ It was only a partial lie. She thought of the wistfulness she’d heard at the edges of his words as he’d talked of his horses. He hadn’t talked of ‘bringing them’, but of ‘not leaving them’. Such a word choice implied he did at least ‘look back’ occasionally, that he still thought of Kuban as home. That nostalgia might create a loyal bond difficult to break.
‘Perhaps you need a longer acquaintance, then.’ Her father smiled. ‘We could use an intense man of commitment.’ We. A shiver ran down her spine at the mention of that evocative pronoun. We meant the Union of Salvation, the covert group of officers and palace politicos like her father who plotted against Tsar Alexander back in St Petersburg. The Union had already been defeated once before, three years ago. Therein lay the danger. They were forced now to plot abroad or ‘underground’ in order to continue the game. That game of intrigue had become his life and she wanted to be part of his life, wanted to have his love and attention. She wanted to prove herself to him.
That was what dutiful pawns and daughters did, they obeyed and protected those they loved. She never would have played the game if her mother had lived and neither would have he. There would have been no need for it. She studied her father. Up close, one could see the first signs of ageing faint on his face, the lines about his mouth, the tiredness around his eyes; the first tolls taken in a life lived between countries. He blamed Russia’s backwardness for her mother’s death; a summer fever even though they summered in countryside, far from the sewage-laden Neva River of the city. Distance had not been enough and neither had the country doctor’s competence. That had been in 1810. By 1817, flush from victory over Napoleon and a tour of duty beyond Russian borders, others felt as her father did: that Russia was behind the rest of Europe in all ways. Modernising Russia was her father’s passion now, a way to avenge his wife’s death and a way to serve his country.
‘When will you see the Prince again?’ her father asked, his mind already hard at work behind his intelligent eyes. Every day was a chess game and she played because she loved him.
‘We are riding together on Saturday. Perhaps I can learn more.’ She said nothing of the shadow that crossed Nikolay’s face at her reference to patriotism. Her father would find that reference as encouraging as the nostalgia had been discouraging.
‘Excellent. Ask him to stay for our dinner with the Duke of Amesbury. Prince Baklanov would be a perfect addition. General Vasilev and the others will attend. We can all take his measure then.’
She nodded, not allowing her dislike for the guest list to show. Amesbury would be there. She’d rather have the Prince to dinner without the Duke. Amesbury was a formidable man with intimidating opinions. It was no secret in their circles that the Duke was a powerful politico interested in British–Russian relations. Her father had seen to it that the settlement of boundaries in the American north-west stood to benefit the Duke’s fur trade investments. She did not know what the Duke had given him in return. Something, to be sure, her father always got paid for his efforts in favours or connections. The Duke also had some very strong opinions about the backwardness of Russia. Letting the Duke expose those opinions would be the perfect test for Prince Baklanov’s loyalty. Would the Prince be a traditionalist or a modernist? A twinge of guilt pricked at her. It hardly seemed fair to invite the Prince to dinner simply to ambush him. She should warn him, but it would hardly serve her father’s purposes to have the Prince hide his true thoughts. Saturday would be...interesting.
* * *
Saturday arrived with blue skies and crisp air, the perfect—and rare—winter day for being out of doors. Everyone in London was taking advantage of it. Even though the Season wouldn’t officially start for another three months, London was always busy. Today, Hyde Park was bursting with activity—riders and carriages with their tops down, occupants bundled against the cold in fur robes. ‘I suppose the cold doesn’t bother you.’ She glanced at Nikolay riding beside her in greatcoat and muffler, a furred Russian ushanka on his head. ‘Does Kuban get terribly cold during the winters?’ She’d start her probing harmlessly enough. Everyone talked about the weather.
The Prince laughed. ‘Cold is an understatement. Below freezing many times. There is snow, of course. We have mountains. But there is also rain, a lot of rain.’ There was a hint of wistfulness in his voice. Again. Like the first time back at Fozard’s. She hadn’t invented it.
‘I imagine British mountains are more like hills to you.’ She gave a soft laugh. ‘Do you miss it? Kuban and all of its ruggedness?’ She would miss such a place. She’d not been many places outside of England, but she understood intuitively that the ruggedness of England was relegated to its borders. How did that compare to Kuban?
‘Britain does take a bit of getting used to.’ He gave her a smile, dazzling and brilliant, meant to derail. She didn’t allow herself to be distracted.
‘Why did you leave, then?’ Perhaps the casual nature of the ride, the idea that they were surrounded by others, would cause him to drop his guard. After all, how secretive could a question be if it was asked out in the open? What could she be probing for in public?
Nikolay was too astute. His response was quick and stern, all riding master. ‘Perhaps I’ll tell you some day, Miss Grigorieva, but not today.’
‘Klara,’ she corrected. She knew full well that to ask a man to use her first name was bold indeed, that such an offer implied other liberties might be welcome, but if they were to move beyond instructor and student, she had to rid them of the formalities. ‘Call me Klara, at least in private,’ she added, suggesting the idea that there could be two sides to their association.
‘Then you must call me Nikolay.’ His eyes sparked at that. He had not missed her careful invitation. More than that, he’d accepted it. It indicated she’d seen his hot gaze and had understood it. Perhaps it even suggested she was willing to act on it. Was such an invitation true? Would she act on his flirtation? In all honesty, a very curious part of her wanted to see where such a flirtation could lead. The part that obeyed her father knew better than to engage in such useless foolishness.
‘Klara,’ the Prince repeated, his tone caressing her name, making it sound exotic on his tongue, a true Russian name. Klah-rah, with soft a’s, not like the harsh, long-vowel sounds she was used to hearing; Clare-uh. He made the ordinary sound beautiful, as if the name belonged to a seductress, a woman with the power to captivate men, to captivate him. ‘Are there any less crowded routes in this park of yours?’ Now he was being bold, all but asking to be alone with her. The possibilities inherent in such a request sent a frisson of excitement down her back. She was not used to men affecting her this way.
‘There is a place where we can walk the horses down to the water.’ She gestured towards the trees, not wanting to dwell too long on comparisons between Nikolay and the English gentlemen she’d debuted amongst. The destination she had in mind would be private, away from the other riders crowding the paths. She could try her probe again from a different angle. At the trees, they dismounted and led the horses to the water’s edge. ‘Sometimes the Serpentine freezes and there’s skating.’ She smiled coyly. ‘When I was eleven, the Thames froze for a month. There was the most amazing frost fair. My father took me one day. It reminded me of the Neva River in St Petersburg. I had only been home from St Petersburg for four years, then, and still remembered it. The Neva froze every winter without fail, December through March or even April. I skated almost every day with my nyanya.’ The Russian word for nurse came easily to her after all these years.
She shrugged, surprised at herself. ‘I haven’t thought about that for years.’ It was quiet down here, the water dark and cold. Perfect for disclosures. ‘I was only there once and I was very young, but I miss it,’ she hinted carefully, hoping he would take the opportunity to share something of Kuban with her, a story of himself, a chance to get to know him. What did he miss about his home? Surely there must be something to have spoken of Kuban with such wistfulness in his brief remarks.
Nikolay did not take the hint. ‘You will go back some day.’ He was redirecting the conversation, back to her, away from him. It didn’t matter. She had her opening from his own words. If he wouldn’t tell her why he’d left, perhaps he’d tell her if he intended to return.
‘And yourself?’ she asked. ‘Do you plan to go back?’ There was no crowd to blame his reticence on now. Their horses stopped to drink and he faced her squarely, a glimmer of warning, in his eyes. ‘I cannot go back, Miss Grigorieva.’ His words were stern, a punishment for having intruded into his private realm. ‘Is that the answer you are looking for?’ She had gone too far. She immediately regretted the intrusion. She took an involuntary step back from his fierceness.
‘I’m sorry, I had no wish—’
‘To pry?’ Nikolay finished sharply, advancing, not allowing her the distance. ‘You had every wish. Do not deny it. It has been your intention since we met.’
Klara’s chin went up in defiance. She’d been caught, but she would not give him the satisfaction of making her feel ashamed or cowed. ‘If you’d been more forthcoming, I wouldn’t have to pry.’ She took another step back. This close, he was far larger than when Zvezda walked between them or when she looked down at him from Zvezda’s back.
‘Why pry at all? I was unaware riding instructors had to provide their pupils with detailed histories.’ His advance forced her back another step. She was running out of room and becoming sharply aware that the tenor of this exchange was transforming into another sort of challenge, their awareness of each other palpable.
‘Not all pupils are the daughters of foreign diplomats. Our lives are under scrutiny from two nations. We have to be careful with whom we associate.’ They stood toe to toe now and she had nowhere to go, her back firmly up against a tree.
‘I am a prince who cannot return to his kingdom. I, too, must be careful with whom I associate.’ His voice was a caress, low and husky with caution. It was not caution for himself, but for her, a warning she realised too late.
His mouth was on hers, sealing the distance between them. He kissed like a warrior; possessive and proving, a man who would not be challenged without choosing to respond in kind.
Her mouth answered that challenge, her body thrilled to it. This was what it meant to be kissed, not like the few hasty kisses she’d experienced during her first Season out before it was clear she’d been set aside for the Duke. That should have told her something. Well-meaning gentlemen held their baser instincts in reserve, they didn’t kiss as if the world was on fire. There was nothing altruistic about Prince Nikolay Baklanov when it came to seduction and he wanted her to know. As a warrior, as a lover, he took no prisoners.
Two could play that game. Her arms went about his neck, keeping him close, letting her body press against him, feeling the hard ridges and planes of him, knowing he felt the curve and softness of her. She let her tongue explore his mouth, her teeth nipped at his lip as she tasted him. There were things she wanted him to know as well. She was not one of his spoiled students. She would not be cowed by a stern look and a raised voice. She was not afraid of passion. Nor was she afraid to take what she wanted, even from him. She was good at showing people what she was not. It was easier than showing people what she was: a girl forced to marry, a girl who knew nothing about where she came from, a girl caught between worlds. Her hands were in his hair, dragging it free of its leather tie. She gave a little moan of satisfaction as his teeth nipped at her ear lobe.
At the sound, he swore—something in Russian she didn’t need to understand to know what it meant: that their kiss had tempted him beyond comfortable boundaries. He drew back, his dark eyes obsidian-black, his voice ragged at its edges as if he’d found a certain amount of satisfaction and been reluctant to let it go. But there was only that glimpse before the words that indicated this might have only been a game played for her benefit, to show her what it meant to poke this particular dragon. ‘Forgive me,’ he began, ‘I did not intend...’
Cold fury doused the newly stoked heat of her body. ‘Yes, you did. You’ve had every intention of kissing me since we met.’
‘Touché.’ He gave her a short, stiff gesture, more of a nod than a bow. ‘Then that makes us even.’
His audacity angered her. She wanted to lash out in a fiery display of temper, to slap him for the advantages he’d taken, but he’d like that. It was what he expected, perhaps even what he’d been playing for—a wedge to drive between them, or even to drive her away. She had too much on the line to allow that, or anything that bore the slightest resemblance to victory. She played her trump card. ‘Hardly even. My father wants you to come to dinner.’ She gave him a look, part cold anger, part dare. If she’d learned anything about Nikolay Baklanov thus far it was that he wouldn’t back down, especially if he believed she thought he would.
‘I’ll be there.’
She felt the guilt prick her again. Surely a small hint of warning would salve her conscience without betraying her father’s intentions in inviting him. ‘Don’t you want to know why?’ The words came out in a rush. She hadn’t much time left with him here in this quiet grove. The horses were getting restless. They’d have to leave soon.
Nikolay gave her a frustratingly confident grin. ‘Don’t worry, kotyonok moya, I already do.’
* * *
‘You’ve invited a potential viper to dinner,’ the Duke of Amesbury postulated from the comfortable arm chair in front of Alexei Grigoriev’s fire. It was hardly an original idea. Surely Grigoriev was already keenly aware of the risk he took in inviting the Russian prince to dinner. Amesbury’s sharp eyes watched the ambassador as he paced the long windows of his study to the gardens beyond.
‘Or,’ Grigoriev drawled with considerably more optimism than Amesbury felt, ‘I’ve invited the perfect solution. Serving Russia’s better interests is always a delicate proposition, never more so than now when the country’s better interests aren’t shared by its ruler. I think an exiled prince would be hungry for two things: revenge and regaining his place. We can give him that.’ Amesbury gave the idea a moment’s attention as Grigoriev went on. ‘He could be perfect. He’s a military officer, a leader of men. We can send him to St Petersburg with the arms when the time is right to raise and rally the troops.’
Ah. A man to play the martyr. Amesbury could get his mind around that. Baklanov could be transformed into a scapegoat if anything went wrong. They knew from experience just how much might go wrong. The Union of Salvation, of which Grigoriev was a devout member, had been forced underground after the failed military revolt in 1821. They could not afford to fail again, but neither could they afford not to try again. Now, the Union plotted in secret and in safety, abroad in England and elsewhere. It was a sign of how great the discontent was that Tsar Alexander’s own military was willing to consider revolutionary action. Not that Amesbury was particularly interested in the principles of the revolt, only the profit. Selling arms to the upstart revolutionaries emerging throughout Europe after Napoleon’s demise had become lucrative in the extreme. Grigoriev’s revolution could be the most lucrative of them all.
Grigoriev continued to proselytise from the windows. ‘The military will respect the Prince and he has knowledge of courtly manoeuvres. He can handle the politics.’
‘In theory,’ Amesbury drawled. ‘That has yet to be proven.’ He liked the idea of a scapegoat if the revolt failed. He didn’t like the potential, however, of Grigoriev liking this Prince more than him. He rather liked being the ambassador’s right-hand man. This arms deal was a sure pipeline to profit.
‘He is perfect.’ General Vasilev, the third member of their select group, gave his moustache a thoughtful stroking from the chair opposite him. ‘Have you thought of that, Alexei? When things are too good to be true, they probably are. Perhaps he’s been sent to smoke us out.’ Vasilev could always be counted to speak like a true Russian. In this case, Amesbury was quick to second him. It wouldn’t do for Grigoriev to go trusting the Prince too much.
The ambassador fixed the General with a stern stare. ‘If it was a trap, he’d have come forward sooner and made himself known. He can’t entrap anyone from a distance.’ Grigoriev grimaced. ‘Besides, if we want to move forward, I don’t think we have the luxury of doubt. We need someone to go to Russia with the arms...’ he paused here with a dark look for each of them ‘...unless one of you two is willing to do it?’ The last was said with an obvious dash of challenge. Neither he nor Vasilev wanted to take that risk.
Amesbury would rather talk about the Prince than his own reticence to accompany the arms to Russia. ‘Consider this for a moment,’ Amesbury drawled. ‘If Baklanov didn’t want to be noticed, it means he’s hiding something. That could be useful.’ He liked sowing doubt. Grigoriev and he both assessed people through their usefulness, but where they diverged was in motives. Grigoriev used people to promote his principles. He, on the other hand, used people strictly for personal gain. His motives were selfish whereas Grigoriev’s could, at times, be sacrificial. He’d prefer Grigoriev not discover he operated by a different code far more practical than the ambassador’s idealism. He would allow Grigoriev to include Baklanov in their plans, as long as it didn’t usurp his position until he could secure a more permanent station by the ambassador’s side, one such as marriage. He’d had his eye on Klara Grigorieva for quite some time now. He didn’t want new-come Princes destroying those plans.
He could feel the hint of a contemplative smile twitch at his lips at the thought of Klara Grigorieva; firm breasted and feisty. She would be an asset on his arm. Every man in any room would want to look at her. He’d turn her out in the finest of gowns, bedeck her in the most expensive of jewels. Thanks to her father, he had the money to do that and more. In public, he’d celebrate her beauty, and his triumph in winning a woman other men had failed to claim. Behind closed doors, he’d enjoy taming that long, slim-legged spitfire. He hadn’t had a woman that wild in ages and Klara was the best kind of wild, the kind that would fight when cornered. He shifted slightly in his chair, crossing a leg over a knee to subdue the effects raised by such images.
He loved a good fight, especially the sort that ended up with his belt lashing out victory against round, white buttocks. He would let her run, let her fight, let her think there was the possibility of escape until she ran the length of her tether. But she would never be able to ultimately resist him. Her father had ensured that just as assuredly as her father had ensured his wealth the moment Grigoriev had invited him into this little coven of Russian rebels. Grigoriev would need his protection before this venture was through and for Klara’s sake he’d give it, but, oh, how he’d make her pay for it; decadently, sinfully, naked and on her knees. Oh, yes, Alexei Grigoriev was too useful of an ally to lose to an exiled prince. But first, it seemed one more hurdle remained—ferreting out Nikolay Baklanov’s secrets. If the Prince had secrets, it meant he could be blackmailed into compliance. If they knew what those secrets were. Everyone had their price. There were only so many reasons a prince of wealth and status fled his country.
Chapter Four (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)
There were only so many reasons an ambassador asked an expatriate prince to dinner, but Nikolay was uncertain which one had prompted Alexei Grigoriev’s invitation. He did, however, recognise an ambush when he saw one.
This one was dressed in an expensive gown of dark blue silk that gathered enticingly beneath firm breasts and sparkled with discreet diamonds in the brunette depths of her hair. Klara was to be the distraction, the forward action upfront in the hopes that he’d leave himself open to attack from behind. It was not a bad idea. The sight of her formally dressed was a stunning contrast after seeing her in breeches and a riding habit. Tonight she rivalled, even surpassed, the beauties of Kuban. ‘This is classic military strategy,’ he said in low tones to Klara as she circulated the room with him making introductions.
‘I beg your pardon?’ She moved them smoothly from the rotund, greying General Vasilev, who was in attendance with his wife and pretty daughter, to a group of young officers standing by the Italian marble fireplace.
‘Are you familiar with Hannibal’s ambush at the Trebia River?’ Nikolay murmured, liking the sensation of having her to himself in a room full of people. She was still bristly from their encounter in the park, having not quite forgiven him for the kiss. Or perhaps it was herself she hadn’t forgiven. She’d liked it well enough, had participated in it fully. Perhaps she didn’t like knowing he’d been the one to break it off.
She gave a husky laugh as if she, too, was flirting with him. ‘I know who Hannibal is, but alas, I am not a student of military tactics like yourself.’
They stopped between the two conversational groups and Nikolay took advantage of the privacy, his mouth close to her ear. ‘Hannibal openly engaged the Roman corps and, while they were distracted, they were ambushed from behind by the rest of Hannibal’s army.’ He spoke the words as if they were endearments. As close as their heads were, the words might have been just that to the onlooker—the opening manoeuvres of a sensual game.
A coy smile crossed Klara’s mouth, ‘Am I the “distraction” in your theory?’ Her fingers discreetly played with the diamond pendant that hung just above her breasts, highlighting her décolletage and drawing his eyes downwards. ‘How am I doing?’
‘No gentleman can safely answer that,’ Nikolay murmured. He was in no hurry to distance himself from her. He was enjoying this far too much and they were attracting attention from the Duke of Amesbury, whom he’d met upon arrival, the only Englishman present. That interaction had been cool, the politeness glacial. ‘If I say you’re doing expertly, I’ve implied you have loose morals. If I say you’re doing poorly, I’ve implied you have no charms.’ He chuckled softly, aware that the low rumble of his voice and the nearness of his body had the pulse at the base of her throat racing steadily. ‘Either way, I end up slapped.’
‘Do you get slapped often?’ Klara teased wickedly.
‘Worse. Sometimes I get called out.’ He nodded discreetly towards Amesbury. ‘Should I be worried? He’s been watching us.’
Klara hesitated only slightly, but it was enough to draw his notice before she dismissed his concern over Amesbury with an airy wave of her hand he didn’t quite believe. ‘We are in the middle of a drawing room surrounded by guests. He can hardly be jealous of that.’
‘Why would he be jealous at all?’ Nikolay prompted. ‘Does he have an interest in you, Klara?’ He found the possibility disappointing.
‘He has an interest in my father,’ Klara snapped too quickly. Ah, so there was some history in that direction. The Duke’s interest in Klara might not be formally acknowledged or reciprocated, but she was aware of him and how he thought of her. Nikolay shot a covert glance in the Duke’s direction. Amesbury would be a dangerous enemy. There was a coldness around the Duke’s eyes, even at a distance, that suggested one would not want to face him with pistols. Nikolay had seen that look before in the eyes of battle-hardened soldiers who didn’t know the meaning of mercy. Amesbury wouldn’t be the sort to delope.
The butler announced dinner and Klara tucked her arm through his, steering his thoughts away from Amesbury’s firearm skills. ‘You are to take me in this evening.’
‘Of course I am.’ Nikolay laughed, pleased but not surprised by the turn of events. ‘After all, kotyonok moya, you are the distraction.’
Nikolay surveyed the elegant setting of the ambassador’s dining room: the long, polished table set with heavy silver, multi-armed candelabra, an expensive, squat epergne filled with fruits that were hard to come by in winter and the equally rare Lomonosov porcelain made only in Russia with its distinctive cobalt and white pattern. The setting confirmed the tone. The evening was unmistakably Russian from the china place settings to the guests. The table could seat twenty-four, although tonight it had been arranged to seat an intimate twelve—Grigoriev’s inner circle and their wives.
Nikolay helped Klara into her chair at the foot of the table and took his on her right, letting his gaze drift over the guests, assessing. Grigoriev would ambush him here. He would call him out surrounded by witnesses. The opening salvo would come from one of them, not Grigoriev himself. That would be too obvious, and contain no element of surprise. Would it be General Vasilev, who he’d already met? The young Count visiting from St Petersburg with his friend who had eyes for the General’s pretty daughter? Perhaps the two men near his own age in uniform, protégés of the General, whom he’d not had the chance to meet officially?
It was a most intimate circle indeed, a circle that now surrounded him, a newcomer, and Alexei Grigoriev reigned over it all from one end of the table. Klara reigned from the other, dressed subtly but richly, diamonds twinkling at her ears, the blue silk of her gown nearly the shade of the dishes. There was no mistaking the Grigorievs lived handsomely in their Belgravia townhouse.
They feasted handsomely, too. Dinner began with oysters on the half-shell and caviar from the Caspian Sea, followed by a clear soup—a Russian standard—and then fish as the guests made small talk, all in English despite their ability to do otherwise. Perhaps out of deference for Klara and Amesbury? Or perhaps to illustrate another, more subtle point? By the time the roast and vegetables were on the table, however, talk had changed to sharper topics. The polite conversation of the early courses had gradually meandered into the political. The ambush was coming. They wouldn’t wait until the ladies left the table.
Nikolay ran through his options once more, reassessing why he’d been invited. To take his measure, of course, but as to what? He didn’t like where his conclusions led. An exiled prince might be angry enough to betray his country. Why would Grigoriev want to know that? To catch a traitor? Was this part of Kuban’s attempt to trap him and bring him home? The timing would be right. He’d been in England almost a year; long enough for news to travel north to St Petersburg and a correspondence to take place over a course of action. Was Stepan right? Was Grigoriev to be feared? Or was there something else at work? Did the ambassador have schemes of his own?
He leaned close to Klara, aware that Amesbury was watching him and fingering his butter knife. ‘Is this why you’ve brought me here? Your father wishes to test my political loyalties?’ The ambassador might know who he was, but he didn’t yet know what he was; Should he be classified as a patriot? A traitor? Or something in between, something more dangerous than either, a revolutionary—a man who loved Russia enough to want to change it.
Klara slanted him a look that would reduce a lesser man to an intellectual toddler. ‘Are you always so cynical? Perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps tonight gives you a chance to test his.’
Nikolay held her gaze, considering the truth of her statement. Was it possible? Or was it merely an attempt to disarm him? There was too much unknown to draw a solid conclusion. Did Grigoriev know what he’d done to warrant exile? Did St Petersburg care that a prince from a newly created ‘kingdom’ of the empire had essentially deserted? Kuban had only been firmly Russian for three generations of princes. Without knowing the answers to those questions, he could draw no definitive conclusion that this was a trap.
He let his mind pick up the thread of Klara’s insinuation that her father wanted to test him for his own purposes. What might those purposes be? Treason? Rebellion? Matrimony possibly, given that there was matchmaking underway for the General’s daughter based on the glances being tossed across the table. He had already contemplated compliance and treason. Why not contemplate matrimony, too?
Nikolay considered Klara; the heat of her kiss, the sharpness of her wit. Had she been trying to tempt him for nothing more than marriage? It seemed a small thing compared to entrapment for treason. Alexei Grigoriev wasn’t the first ambitious ambassador looking to connect his daughter with a royal family of the empire. If Grigoriev thought there was a chance he would return to Kuban and take up his responsibilities in the military, it would be advantageous to have Klara in a position that could advance his own career. Such arrangements were made all the time in Kuban. Marriage was a political concern, romance was a personal one that was often expected to occur outside of that marriage.
It stood to reason Grigoriev would be interested in Kuban. It was an area of growing political concern. As an officer, Nikolay understood how important Kuban would be in the next several decades. The Ottomans were weakening. Their empire would fall and Russia would want its piece of the spoils, as would England. The Crimean Peninsula stood, metaphorically speaking, between England and Russia in the west, the Khyber Pass of Afghanistan stood between them in the east, Russia’s gateway into British India. The time for war was not yet, but it was coming. Nikolay could feel it in his warrior’s soul. There would be a time, when the country he loved would square off against the country he’d run to. It would be a time for choosing, a time for testing loyalties.
Perhaps Grigoriev knew it, too. Grigoriev wanted to be ready. But the ambassador would have to find another way into Kuban. Nikolay was not a marrying man. He allowed his gaze to slide surreptitiously over Klara’s fine profile. Not even a woman as beautiful as Klara Grigorieva was going to change that. He firmly believed a career military man like himself; a man who courted danger, had no business with a wife or children. It was hardly fair when the odds were they’d be widowed and fatherless a portion of their lives.
There was the selfish factor, too; he wanted to live and, to do that, he didn’t need the distraction of worry over what happened to him when he was leading raids and defending border forts along the river. The fastest way to be killed on a battlefield was to be distracted. The biggest distraction of all was the fear of having one’s family used against one as leverage. Dimitri Petrovich was proof of that. What he’d endured for years for the sake of his father and sister was lesson enough that love—true love—was hardly worth the sacrifice.
Nikolay wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back to let the footman take his plate. Klara smiled at him, something challenging and hot in her eyes. Oh, no, marriage was definitely not for him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t beyond a little flirtation.
Across the table, one of the young protégés expounded to the group at large about the current situation. ‘The military will support Constantine as successor when the time comes.’ Somewhere between contemplating treason and matrimony, the conversation had moved on without him. He had to catch up.
‘When will that be?’ the Count put in. ‘Tsar Alexander is healthy enough. Are we to twiddle our thumbs and wait until he dies? He’s only in his forties. If he’s like his grandmother, he’ll live for eons. Russia cannot take two more decades of his “religious fervour”.’
‘Here, here.’ General Vasilev, brilliant in a decorated scarlet uniform, raised his glass. ‘Russia needs innovation if it’s to catch up with the rest of Europe. If there’s anything good to say about Napoleon, it is this: our boys went out into the world, looked around and saw their country lacking. Too long have we been a land of farmers and feudal princes.’ He aimed a sharp look at Nikolay. ‘Your presence excluded, Your Highness. I do not mean any offence.’ He inclined his head, but his eyes never left Nikolay’s. The man was waiting for him to declare himself. This was the ambush.
‘None taken.’ Nikolay met his gaze with a nod of his own, never believing for a moment those two words would be enough, but hoping he might be lucky.
Amesbury smiled, a cat anticipating cream. A wise man would know the grin was not benign. ‘Does that mean you side with General Vasilev in regards to Russia’s lag in the world?’
Nikolay felt Klara stiffen beside him, evidence that this was the trap that had been laid for him. A test of his loyalties confirmed. Nikolay met Amesbury’s remark, confidently. ‘I believe a man should be able to voice his opinion freely without fear of repercussion. The General is free to say what he will in my presence.’ Even if that speech included plotting rebellion, for surely that’s what lurked beneath the surface of this talk about successors and progress. How interesting. Even more interesting was the hint that they wanted him to join them. Why else would they speak of such things in front of him? To be sure, it was all very oblique, but it was there.
At the other end of the table, Alexei’s eyebrows, dark like his daughter’s, rose in approval. ‘That is a very generous attitude, Your Highness. One that would be revolutionary in its own right in certain conservative circles.’
‘We’re in England, where it’s hardly a remarkable courtesy,’ Nikolay replied broadly and then decided some table-turning might not come amiss. He raised his glass to Grigoriev. ‘My compliments, Your Excellency. What a wonderful night it has been to share a meal with countrymen like myself, men a long way from home. Zazdarovje!’ There was a rousing chorus of Zazdarovje and the clinking of glasses but Nikolay was sure his message had not been missed by the ambassador or by anyone else at the table.
They could ruminate all they liked on his reference to being so far from ‘home’. They could also speculate on his awareness that he knew they plotted, safe on English shores. It was hardly a unique idea. Russia was always plotting, but that made it no less dangerous. ‘Just so we’re clear, gentlemen, I have no desire to engage in politics. I intend to live here quietly.’ Looks were exchanged, topics were changed. His remark altered the tone of the evening. By the time cheeses were set in front of him to end the meal, politics had disappeared entirely from the table. Even when Klara rose and indicated the ladies should follow her to the salon and the brandy decanters came out, politics made no reappearance, which shortened the evening, by a good two hours.
The men did not linger over brandy, and the ‘musical’ portion of the evening was blessedly brief. Why linger when it was time to go? He’d been here long enough to know what he needed to do, and that was disengage. There was nothing here for him but danger and trouble. He had not left Kuban to be dragged back into the mess of politics, sexual or otherwise. It didn’t matter what form the politics took, it was still danger and he had no time for it, no room for it in this new life he was trying to carve out. It was a shame that Miss Grigorieva would be a casualty of that decision, but there was no other choice for it. Better to make that choice now before he might become otherwise invested or had his judgement clouded by less reliable issues than logic.
* * *
‘You are something of a killjoy,’ Klara murmured as she walked him to the hall, the party breaking up shortly before midnight. ‘Go out often, do you?’
Nikolay laughed. ‘No, not to functions like this.’
She arched a brow. ‘I can see why. Are you sure you’re not a politician disguised as an officer?’
‘I leave the politics to my friends, Stepan and Ruslan, when I can. But I’ve yet to meet a military man who doesn’t have the wit to handle both on occasion.’ The butler helped him with his greatcoat. Coat settled, Nikolay took Klara’s hand and bent to it, lips grazing knuckles. ‘Do svidaniya, Miss Grigorieva. Thank you for such an...enlightening...evening.’ Revolution was afoot in Belgravia and while his logical mind knew he should run from it, his heart was already protesting his declaration of living quietly. When had he ever lived quietly? Did he even know how? How ironic that the one thing he’d hoped to avoid in his new life was the one thing that had found him, the one thing that stirred him—if one didn’t count Klara Grigorieva. She stirred him in an entirely different, but no less dangerous, way.
Chapter Five (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)
Klara’s hand was still tingling when the door shut behind the last guest, which was quite possibly what the prince intended, the arrogant man. She’d like to forget him and his seductive effect. She’d like to think he affected her no differently than any other man, but she was not in the habit of lying to herself. Her reaction to Nikolay Baklanov was going to complicate things.
‘The Prince handled himself well this evening. Can he be of use to us?’ Her father issued his question to the two remaining guests—his most intimate advisors, Amesbury and Vasilev. He stood in the doorway to the drawing room, inviting them to join him in consultation. ‘Shall we talk it over?’ She would join the men as a matter of course to work through impressions. This was the custom ever since she’d turned eighteen and had been presented to society. In this manner, her father had subtly coached her in the ways of a diplomat: how to understand people, how to read between the lines of their conversation. Such an education had only been given to her because it served a purpose. She was not the sole beneficiary of the privilege. Her father gained the advantage of his astute daughter’s insights. He understood full well how unguarded men could be in the presence of a pretty young woman, especially when they assumed she was harmless to them, a female expected to be vacuous because she was beautiful.
Her father poured each of them a small glass of viche pitia. He toasted them, ‘Another insightful evening.’
Insightful for Nikolay as well. Klara hazarded a surreptitious glance at Amesbury as she sipped. Nikolay had correctly guessed that Amesbury coveted her. She was acutely aware the Duke wanted to possess her the way a man wanted to possess a fine carriage and excellent horses. The Duke caught her gaze, his eyes hard over his glass, a cold smile hovering on his lips, cold enough to send a shiver down her spine.
Her father was speaking to Vasilev. ‘What do you make of Baklanov?’
‘He understood you were vetting him tonight,’ Vasilev said thoughtfully. ‘He was very careful with his words. He’s not sure what you want him for.’
‘He does now. Can he be a revolutionary?’ her father queried. ‘We dropped enough breadcrumbs for a smart man to follow. Will he? Klara, I defer to you on this.’
It was an honour to be addressed thusly in front of the General and the Duke, a sign of her father’s esteem for her. But it was an honour that made her uncomfortable and yet she could not refuse. The words had brought Amesbury’s intent gaze her direction, his pale blue eyes narrowed in speculation as he drawled, ‘Yes, Klara, you know him best, it seems. You’ve spent more time with him than any of us.’ His words carried a subtle accusatory edge to them.
She locked eyes with Amesbury. She was not afraid of him and his veiled accusation that spending time with Nikolay had been somehow inappropriate. He might intimidate others with his power and his wealth, but not her. She had those things, too. Any thought of demurring faded. She couldn’t afford to. It would mean she was soft, that perhaps she harboured a burgeoning attraction to the Kubanian Prince. Amesbury had noticed their tête-à-tête in the drawing room before dinner. To confirm that impression would be disastrous. It would raise the Duke’s hackles, which would not please her father, and it would prove she was indeed as vacuous as any other female whose head was turned by a handsome face. There was a certain mordancy that the best protection she could give Nikolay was through betrayal.
‘As soon as he knows it’s not a trap, he will follow your breadcrumbs and decide if he can afford to join you,’ she said. It was a small betrayal of Nikolay to be sure, based on her intuition only. But she knew her intuition spoke the truth; the hesitation he’d shown in the park, the ferocity when he’d told her he could not go back to his country, proved her correct. Reticence was a reflex often ascribed to a man who had something to hide, a man who was wary of a trap that would seek to expose what he protected.
Her father and the General nodded. Amesbury sneered. ‘Since you are playing the fortune-teller, perhaps you can tell us if your Prince will join us? Since you know him so well.’
‘My prince? He is hardly that,’ Klara snapped, her hand clenching around the little stem of her viche pitia glass. It was a struggle to keep her tone neutral. Amesbury was jealous. He had no reason to be. Nikolay Baklanov might flirt with a woman, but he was not the sort of man who allowed himself to belong to one. She did not think Nikolay’s flirtation, as delightful, as sensual as it was, was an exclusive commodity. ‘If you are asking about his willingness to join the Union of Salvation, I cannot say. You saw tonight that he is no newcomer to court intrigue. He will not readily reveal his secrets to anyone.’
Her father split a swift glance between the two of them and intervened. He speared Amesbury with a quelling look. ‘There is no need to fight amongst ourselves. Klara was doing the job we assigned her. We must convince the Prince of the rightness of our cause and the importance of him taking a role in it. We need him to take the arms to St Petersburg and to help rally the troops when the time comes. He’s a man others will follow.’ He turned his diplomatic censure on Klara. ‘However, we all risk much by taking him in too soon. We must be sure of him. The group depends on the quality of its associates. One weak link and we go from being patriots to traitors. The line is very thin. Our next step is to discover what has brought Prince Baklanov to England and talk then.’
The glasses were empty and her father made no move to refill them, a polite signal that it was time to leave. General Vasilev rose and made his farewells, but Amesbury lingered, his thin, aristocratic mouth—proof of generations of impeccable English breeding—tight. ‘Walk me to the door, Klara, I’d like a word.’
Klara obliged, for how could she refuse? On the surface, everyone would assume the Duke wanted a moment to apologise for his rudeness, that he would explain it away as a sign of his concern for her. But those assumptions would be false. The Duke apologised to no one and for nothing. Although he was similar to her father in many regards, his inability to apologise was not one of them.
The Duke was a big man with a bearing that neared military in stature. Even though she was tall, Klara had to fight the feeling of ‘smallness’ in his presence, for she did indeed feel small with him, unlike with Nikolay who was his equal in height. Some might call the Duke handsome with his strong facial bones and the grooves etched on either side of his mouth, reinforcing the sternness, the hardness of him. She called him cold, an iceberg personified, complete with glacial blue eyes. She walked beside him in silence, waiting for him to speak.
‘I did not want to say anything in front of the others,’ Amesbury began, ‘However, since I have much at stake in this venture, and perhaps...’ he paused here, attempting a modest demeanour that failed to convince ‘...a certain burgeoning relationship of a personal nature with you, I have the right to ask. How have you come by your information, Klara?’
‘What are you suggesting?’ She removed her hand from his arm and stood apart from him, erasing any façade of a polite couple. She had to stop those presumptions right here. If he presumed they had the foundations of a relationship, who knew what else he would presume? His arrogance would promote all nature of assumption beginning with the idea that a woman couldn’t possibly find him resistible.
‘I’m suggesting that you would have had to work hard to get that information. A man like Baklanov, who likely has much to protect, would not give up information easily. We saw that tonight. How is it that you’ve been privy to such insight? He is not immune to your charms. That was made clear tonight as well. I saw the two of you with your heads together.’
Klara did not flinch at his accusation. She crossed her arms. ‘You call yourself a gentleman and yet you dare to accuse me of seducing the Prince. That’s what you’re implying, isn’t it? That I’ve inappropriately enticed him? The Prince has acted far more the gentleman than you.’
He strode towards her and gripped her arm, his voice a menacing growl. ‘The Prince, a gentleman? Is that what you call him? He had his damn mouth at your ear with all the presumption of a lover.’ His grip hurt, hard enough to bruise. ‘Forgive me my conclusions. You have never allowed me such liberties.’
But he was taking them anyway. The tenacity of his grip of her arm was more than a little frightening. It took all her cool élan not to let him see it. He had never laid hands on her in such a fashion before and this glimpse of possessive violence made her uneasy. What made him think he could do so now? It was a disturbing insight into what relationship with such a man might be like and Klara was determined to put a stop to it.
‘Take your hands off me. The Prince and I rode in the park and we talked.’ All true, but slightly incomplete. There was that kiss, that glorious kiss with an erotic roughness behind it that was far different than the harshness the Duke was exhibiting here in the hall. She would combat the Duke’s physical boldness with a boldness of her own. ‘Jealousy does not become you, nor do you have any claim to such envy.’
‘Perhaps not yet. However, it cannot have escaped your notice that I aspire to have such a claim.’ He removed his hand and stepped back with a curt nod, his words causing an uneasiness in her stomach that rivalled the violence of his touch. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then, Klara.’ There had been no ‘forgive me’ or ‘I beg your pardon’. Simply ‘goodnight.’ Asking for forgiveness would imply he’d done something wrong, an impossibility to Amesbury’s arrogant mind.
She breathed easier when the door was shut behind him. She’d never liked Amesbury. But until recently, she’d never disliked him either. She’d merely found him blandly neutral, a shuttered, arrogant man who held himself aloof from others by nature of his birth. Now, she’d had a glimpse behind those shutters and it had been quite frightening. Klara wrapped her arms about herself. He’d laid angry hands on her in her own home. Perhaps she was reading far too much into it. Men were by nature competitive creatures and Nikolay had provoked him, perhaps she had provoked him. She’d known the Duke watched her. She hadn’t been unaware of how she and Nikolay would have appeared to an outsider. Maybe she had even encouraged it. If one didn’t poke the sleeping dog, it wouldn’t bite you. Recklessness had its consequences, after all. But such reasoning didn’t dispel the shiver that took her when she thought of Amesbury’s hands on her. Nikolay wasn’t the only one with secrets.
It came to her that perhaps her father had a secret, too. The Duke presumed a relationship between them that she felt certain she’d given him no cause to believe in. Had her father? Amid his treaties and plans of revolution, had he alluded to the potential of her hand in exchange for...something? She rapidly sorted through what she knew. Her father had increased the Duke’s wealth. What was he getting in exchange? Was she somehow part of that? She’d always known her father would seek an English marriage for her. She’d been groomed for it. But to the Duke? She hoped not.
Her father strolled into the hall. ‘Have they all gone then?’ he asked. ‘Quite the night. You did well. Baklanov was taken with you, as he should be.’ Her father smiled. ‘My daughter is beautiful.’ Then his gaze turned serious. ‘Can you do it? Can you mine Baklanov’s secrets?’ He was asking her to betray Nikolay to a larger extent.
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