Smitty had followed in Lady Harley’s footsteps and vanished without anyone paying him much attention. But Ralph sat slumped on the floor, his back against the wall, watching miserably as all his pointless plans crumbled into the worst possible conclusion for him. No one paid him any attention, either.
Mr. Dillon, in a voice initially weak and wavering, but gradually growing stronger, read the marriage rite and guided them through their vows. Alba, her eyes gazing in wonder at Yuri, had no difficulty in saying, “I will.” And Mr. Dillon pronounced them man and wife in the tones of a man finally pleased to have done his duty well.
Yuri nodded to him in acknowledgement before threading his fingers through Alba’s and smiling at her. Her heart galloped wildly. I am married. Yuri is my husband.
“Princess Volkova,” he said softly.
“My lord…”
Then they each signed the certificate after Mr. Dillon and Oscar and Cairnshaw signed as witnesses.
Cairnshaw threw a careless arm around the clergyman’s shoulders. “Come along, my friend. I expect Lady Harley has left you in the middle of nowhere with no transport. I’ll drop you at the tavern where you can get a decent room for what’s left of the night.”
“Cairnshaw,” Yuri said and, when the captain turned, he held out his hand to him. His lips quirked. “Dashed good fight. We should do it again.”
Cairnshaw laughed and gripped his hand. “No chance. Farewell, my friend.”
“Let us go home, too,” the duchess begged. “It has been a long night and poor Rose will be wondering what happened to us. Especially to Alba!”
“Where is Rose?” Alba asked.
“We sent her home with John Coachman.”
Alba, once more hand in hand with Yuri, followed the others out of the cottage. She did not look at Ralph before Yuri closed the door behind them. It was a very odd wedding party, she thought amused, with the bride and groom about to ride home on the same horse, and her brother handing their parents into what looked like an old-fashioned gig before climbing up and taking the reins. He must have borrowed it from the tavern when he left his friends.
A strange click sounded in the darkness. It barely touched Alba’s consciousness, but without warning, at almost the same instant a loud bang rent the air, Yuri fell on her so heavily that she tumbled to the ground with Yuri on top of her.
“Yuri! Yuri!” she cried, terrified that he’d been shot. But he sprang up running like a hare into the trees, Cairnshaw and Oscar at his heels.
Alba stumbled to her feet, bewildered. “What…what just happened?”
“Someone let off a shot,” her father said grimly. “My guess is, it was aimed at Volkov.”
A shout went up in the trees followed by the sound of a scuffle. And then Yuri and the others re-emerged. Oscar carried a rifle and Yuri had an unknown man by the collar.
Behind her, the cottage door opened slowly and Ralph came out. He looked gaunt and sick in the lantern light.
“Another of yours, I believe,” Yuri said contemptuously to Ralph. He shook his captive like a rat. “You shot at me before, didn’t you? On the road from the village to Moreland?”
“You can’t prove that.”
Ralph peered at the shooter. “It’s Warne,” he said in surprise. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Warne was the servant who carried Mrs. Bethurst’s chair.
“Shooting at me,” Yuri said grimly shaking him again. He pointed at Ralph. “This man instructed you and paid you, I suspect.”
Warne laughed. “Then you suspect wrong.”
“Oh no,” Alba said, distressed. “It was…it was Mrs. Bethurst! How could she do such a thing?”
“She’d do anything to make you Ralph’s wife before she dies,” the duchess said unexpectedly. “I told her five years ago and again in the summer that that bird would never fly, but she was obsessive.”
“She’s ill,” Ralph snapped. But even he looked shocked. He swallowed and threw up his hands. “I’ll see to it. I’ll see to it,” he muttered. He glared at Warne. “No more, do you understand? You come to me first!”
“Don’t get high and mighty with me!” Warne said insolently. “You’d have been the first cheering if I’d got him. And you’ve got no cause to be superior, setting your cousin on to kill him in a duel!”
“Dueling is different,” Ralph declared and walked back inside.
Cairnshaw sighed and took Warne from Yuri’s grip. “I’ll deal with him, too. Please go home before any other members of my family turn up to harm you.”
In spite of everything, Yuri laughed and took Alba’s hand. “Good advice. Come, my love, let’s go.”
***
It was five o’clock in the morning before Alba finally dismissed Siddons. Rose and the twins had been waiting for their return and fallen on Alba in astonished delight to discover she was not only well but married to Yuri. It was Her Grace who had wakened Siddons and insisted she help Alba wash off all her dirt and don a clean night rail before she retired.
Alone at last, Alba yawned and, holding onto one of the bedposts, lowered herself to sit on the bed. She had left Yuri closeted with her father, no doubt discussing settlements and possible dates for her departure to Russia. The journey across Europe would be her wedding trip, the start of her new life. She wanted it with all her being, and yet part of her heart would always cling here, to Winbourne and her family.
She smiled and rose to blow out the candle on her dressing table. She had just done so when a scratch at her door made her turn back to face it. Expecting Siddons to have forgotten something, she did not even run to hide her modesty under the covers.
Yuri walked in with his own candle and her heart seemed to stop. “Yuri!” She started toward him and his gaze dropped, devouring her. “What is it? Is everything well?”
“Of course.” He set down the candle to take both her hands, gently stroking them with his thumbs. “I merely came to see my wife.”
She gave an embarrassed little laugh. “How funny that no one will now object!” Her whole body heated. Her skin tingled under his caress. His coat was open and the shadow of stubble darkened his golden skin. Gloriously familiar and yet, in this setting, a stranger.
“It will be light in a couple of hours, but I had to kiss you goodnight.”
Her fingers clung to his. “You are not going back to the inn?”
He shook his head. “Her Grace has given me my old bedchamber.”
For a moment, she couldn’t think why that disappointed her, too. Then she blurted, “Don’t you want to stay here with me?”
His eyes burned. “Do you want me to?”
She swallowed, lost in the depths of his eyes, and nodded. “Yes.”
His lips quirked as he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed each of them. “You are exhausted.”
“I am. So are you.”
“It has been a very long night for all of us. But I would love to fall asleep with you in my arms.” He kissed her softly and led her to the bed, then lifted the covers for her to slide in. Then he took off his clothes, dropping them carelessly on the floor, and she found she was holding her breath.
She loved the broad, strong expanse of his shoulders and chest, the thinning line of hair that run down his flat stomach to…
Her blood flamed. There had been no time. She was not ready for this, even with Yuri, who made her ache and tremble with love. But then he was in bed beside her, gathering her into his arms close against his naked body and she melted into delicious weakness. Especially when he kissed her with such tenderness. It would be fine. This was Yuri, her love, whom she trusted with her life.
“Go to sleep my love,” he whispered.
“Don’t you want me?”
“Always. But I can’t have you until the glint of fear has left your eyes.”
Blood flooded into her face. “I’m not afraid.”
He kissed her eyelids. “Yes, you are. But we have all the time in the world.”
&
nbsp; Even totally exhausted, she didn’t see how on Earth she could sleep with the excitement of him lying naked beside her, her breasts and hips pressed so sweetly, so disturbingly, to his. Perhaps it was the rhythmic stroking of his hand on her back, because she was so soothed that she fell almost instantly into deep, heavy sleep.
***
She woke to daylight, with the instant knowledge that something wonderful had happened.
She was Yuri’s wife.
More than that, his warm body was wrapped around her back and hips and thighs, his arm flung over her waist. She smiled because it was such a wonderful way to wake up, and just lay still, enjoying the closeness, his deep, even breath stirring her hair, the subtle male scent of him.
My husband.
She gave a little involuntary wriggle of pleasure, and at once he moved in response, pressing closer against her, caressing with his whole body. The fluttering in her heart spread through her stomach and lower, filling her with deep longing to be touched, to be somehow closer, especially when she became aware of the growing hardness against her buttocks.
The arm across her waist shifted, his hand flattening over her stomach and then slowly caressing its way up to her breast. Her quickened breath hitched as his fingers found their way inside her night rail, smoothing over her skin, her nipple, exploring. Every stroke intensified the sweet, only half-understood arousal of her trembling body.
And she didn’t even know if he was awake, if he was simply dreaming. Did a man make love in his sleep? And if he did, did he know who he was loving?
She twisted her head on the pillow, whispering his name. His eyes were open, somehow both blazing and clouded, like sun penetrating a misty sky. He loomed over her suddenly, both hands sweeping the night garment upward and tugging it over her head.
He reared up. His hot gaze devoured her, his hand followed and at the same time his knee swept up the inside of her thigh and touched the tenderness between. She gasped in shock at the flaring desire that shook her and reached for him with both eager arms.
He smiled and lowered his head unhurriedly to hers, allowing the sweet anticipation to clamor. He kissed her mouth at last and, with a moan, she lost herself in pure sensuality.
He made her his, joining their bodies as well as their hearts in the dance as old as time. The changing light from the world beyond her bedchamber window played across his golden skin and her hands as she stroked and clutched him in wonder. The intensity of the ultimate joy he brought her took her by surprise and she cried out, reaching for his lips as she shook and writhed with rapture. But it was when he finally allowed his own release and collapsed on her, muffling the sounds of his pleasure in her hair, her skin, her mouth, that the sheer strength of emotion finally overwhelmed her and she wept with happiness.
“Tears,” he whispered, brushing them with trembling fingers. “I never meant to bring you tears. Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, half-laughing, half-crying. “Of course not. I think you just finally, irrevocably, melted the snow queen.”
Chapter Twenty
As she’d known it would be, Yuri’s home was white. It was well into February before they finally reached it, and there would be no thaw before the late spring. Despite the cold, the sheer, vast beauty caught at Alba’s breath, tugging at her heart almost as the early snow at Winbourne had. Only now, everything was overlaid with happiness, because all was shared with Yuri.
In the end, they had stayed at Winbourne for Christmas, and it had turned out to be one of the jolliest she could remember. She had never felt so loved by her disparate family, or indeed so loving toward them. Quarrels were rare and minor, laughter frequent, and the twins joined them much more often than usual. Friends and neighbors came to wish them merry Christmas and to wish Alba and Yuri happiness.
They had left in the New Year, with all the excitement and tears of parting, planning her family’s visit to Russia in the summer. Travelling first to London, they had both been received by the Prince Regent, who finally gave Yuri his answering letter to the Tsar.
“Do you know,” Yuri had said as they’d walked back to Ruthin House, “I don’t believe these messages between them were urgent, at all. I think the Tsar just wanted me to come back to England, to you.”
“Is he so concerned with such details of his subjects’ lives?” she asked doubtfully.
“Not normally,” Yuri allowed, and shrugged. “But he is given to random and generous acts of kindness. In among his otherwise selfish and petulant commands.” He smiled. “I suspect he heard of the snow queen and felt she must belong in Russia.”
From London, they had travelled to Dover and taken ship to France. For Alba, who had never been on foreign soil before, the entire trip added magic to the wonder of her marriage. Her days were filled with new and interesting places, her evenings with fascinating people, and her nights with passion. Well, the passion tended to intervene at other times, too, for Yuri was a very physical man, and Alba was more than happy to oblige him. Learning about love and Yuri was the best part of her exciting, new life. They stayed in Paris, Florence, Venice, and Rome, and then travelled north again to Vienna to mingle with the great and the good who were making peace there—and dancing every night. There, she was introduced to the Tsar, who claimed to be so enchanted with her that she wondered if Yuri’s theory was correct after all.
After a few days there, they travelled even farther north and crossed into Russia. She saw some of the wonders of Moscow and some of the tragic ruins left by the huge fire that had swept the city during the French occupation. Then, to her delight, they travelled by sleigh across huge distances she wasn’t even used to contemplating, sometimes staying in the great palaces of Yuri’s friends, sometimes at much more basic inns. Until, finally, they approached Yuri’s home.
Despite Yuri’s assurances that his family would love her, a knot of nerves formed in Alba’s stomach. As the sleigh swept up to the front door of the white, palatial house, she was both delighted and touched to see everyone dashing to welcome Yuri home, just as he had once described to her.
Dogs barked, running ahead of people to hurl themselves upon him with glee. Alba laughed, and then blinked to see servants and peasants alike kissing his hands. Children hurtled from various doors to throw themselves at him, with laughing, weeping adults not far behind.
Alba stood back, moved by their emotional greetings. And yet it made her feel very alien, very British. Nor could she understand most of what they said, for they spoke in a rapid, incomprehensible mixture of French and Russian. Like most well born females, Alba had been taught French, but she was not very used to speaking it. And although Yuri had begun to teach her Russian, her lessons were not far enough advanced for her to have a clue what anyone was saying in this situation.
At last, Yuri detached himself from a tall, handsome woman of middle years and turned to Alba, smiling as he held out his hand.
She had imagined this meeting so many times, how she would smile and win the hearts of Yuri’s charming family. Yet now, she recognized what she should always have known, that his family was made up of personalities as large as his. And she saw from their suspicious eyes that all they knew of her was that she had made Yuri unhappy.
Her smile stiffened on her lip as she walked forward to be introduced to her wary-eyed mother-in-law, Princess Volkova, and her other offspring, the equally mistrustful Andrei, Natalia, and Maria. Natalia’s husband, Fyodor, was also introduced, and then their children, one of whom thanked her in pretty French for her amusing embroidery.
Alba, remembering the ill-sewn funny faces she had worked into it, laughed nervously and immediately straightened her face once more. Her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth and refused to move, let alone speak the warm, hopeful phrases she had planned. Yuri’s family didn’t look as if they’d appreciate anything she said.
Yuri took her hand, squeezing it as though to comfort her and give her strength, but she couldn’t help feeling she had already rui
ned this most momentous occasion and, therefore, her entire life with Yuri’s family.
“My mother says they have redecorated apartments for us,” Yuri said. “We’ll go and see them first, and then I’ll show you everything after tea.”
Everyone trooped through the wide halls and up marble staircases after Yuri and Alba. They had been given separate bedchambers with two sitting rooms between, all decorated in an opulent, eastern style that, for all its beauty, oppressed Alba further. With the fading light from the windows, everything seemed dark and heavy. She tried to smile and nod her approval while Yuri exclaimed and hugged his mother.
“Oh, Yuri, Yuri, come and see!” his sister Maria cried, dragging him away by the hand.
Everyone else, apart from Princess Volkova, followed, and panic at being alone with her disapproving mother-in-law swept over Alba. She did what she always did and lifted her chin to defy her timidity. But instantly, the princess’s eyes hardened in response, as though she took the gesture as insolence.
“Come,” the princess said coldly, turning toward the door. Alba cast one last glance at the whiteness beyond the bedchamber window and followed her. However, her own nervous inattention combined with the darkness of the room to ensure she didn’t notice the bag in her way and she tripped over it, stumbling heavily into the bed.
Instinctively, she protected her jarred, stinging belly, muttering embarrassed apologies about her clumsiness. But the princess’s expression changed completely, and she hurried to Alba with obvious concern.
“Oh, my dear,” she said in soft, clear French. “Are you enceinte?”
Alba’s breath caught. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think so, but I can’t…I haven’t said anything to Yuri because we’ve been travelling and there’s been no one—”
The princess put gentle arms around her, urging her to sit on the bed. “No one to talk to or to ask about such matters,” she said in sympathy. She took Alba’s hands and smiled at her. “And your own mother so far away. Well, we shall see, but my guess is, you are expecting a child.” The princess enveloped her in a hug, and with a sob of relief and surprise, Alba hugged her back.
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