by Anna Bradley
“Take this back,” she said. “You’ll freeze without it, my lord.”
Ben reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders, halting her attempts to remove the garment.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “And I’d much rather you have it.”
She blushed prettily and nodded her consent.
“This ‘my lord’ business will never do, you know.” He kept his tone conversational even as confusing emotions rioted around inside him. “If we are to be engaged, surely you must call me Ben?”
He watched, fascinated as her blush deepened.
“Very well,” she said softly. “Ben. Then you should call me Talia.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Hearing his name on her lips did something strange to his heart.
“Come,” she said brusquely, sounding much more like herself. “We’ll both freeze if we stay out here much longer. Let’s return to your aunt’s. I gave Bea the recipe for a Russian tea that you can try.”
Ben couldn’t contain his grimace at the mention of tea, and Natalia laughed softly as he escorted her to her mount and helped her into the saddle.
“Don’t worry,” she quipped. “It’s not as bad as you might think. And it’s the fastest way I can think of to warm you up.”
Ben almost groaned aloud as he climbed onto his stallion and followed Natalia’s gelding down the hillside toward Aunt Elizabeth’s.
He could think of faster, and far more pleasurable, ways for them both to warm up.
Ways he really shouldn’t be thinking of at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Are you sure you’re quite well, Ben? I’ve never seen you fidget so.”
Ben smiled down at his younger cousin, trying desperately to appear outwardly calm when inwardly, he was anything but.
This was it. The first day of the scheme. The first time he’d meet Natalia’s family.
“I told you, I’m fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Beatrice said airily. “Perhaps because you’re about to meet Talia’s family and lie to them, and everyone else, about wanting to marry her?”
Ben’s smile turned to a frown.
He hated hearing the censure in his cousin’s tone. She’d always looked up to him the way his sisters had. And it pained him that this madcap scheme meant he’d gone down in her estimation.
“It was her idea,” he said weakly, knowing he sounded like a petulant child.
Bea sighed and turned to face him fully.
“Of course it was her idea. It’s Talia,” she said with the exasperation that only the beautiful Lady Natalia could evoke in a person. “But you should know better, Ben.”
Ben felt the beginnings of a headache press against his skull. It would appear that he only had to be talking about the chit now to get a headache, rather than be in her company.
Although, shocking though it was to him, spending this past week in her company had been far more pleasant than he’d imagined it would be.
Perhaps that was just because she tasted as good as she looked.
Ben had to steal himself not to groan aloud as he remembered for the thousandth time just what it was like to kiss Natalia Soronsky.
“Don’t you want your friend to stay in England?” he asked, dragging his mind from the gutter and back to the conversation, or rather lecture, at hand.
“Obviously I want her to stay.” Beatrice rolled her eyes. “It’s the only reason I agreed to keep your dirty little secret.”
“I feel it’s only fair to point out that I didn’t tell you about our ‘dirty little secret’ Bea, just as I didn’t come up with it in the first place.”
“Well, someone has to lend credibility to your happy news,” she answered sarcastically. “And being Natalia’s best friend, it makes sense that I would know about it.”
A sudden commotion at the door brought both Ben’s and Beatrice’s attention to the front of the drawing room, and there was Natalia looking impossibly lovely in ice blue silk, the exact colour of those eyes.
Ben allowed his eyes to travel slowly over every part of her until he finally reached her face and saw a hint of pink staining her cheeks.
Before he could react to that tell-tale sign, however, his attention was caught by a man who was as close to a giant in both size and stature as Ben had ever seen. The man was glaring at Ben with eyes the same shade as Natalia’s. Eyes that bored into him.
“Oh dear,” Bea whispered most unhelpfully. “It seems you’ve managed to upset her father, and you’ve yet to speak a word.”
“Yes, I can see that, thank you,” he snapped back.
As Ben watched, Count Soronsky bent his head to speak to Natalia. She nodded subserviently. She, who had never been subservient in her life.
After a moment or two, the entire Soronsky family, along with Lady Mulberry, Natalia’s aunt, made their way toward where he stood with Beatrice.
“I’d start praying to Our Lord, Ben,” Beatrice whispered, her hazel eyes widening as the army of Russians marched toward them.
“Why is that?” he whispered back, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.
“Because as you well know, Natalia is a crack shot.”
Ben frowned in confusion before she spoke again with a really quite inappropriate smile.
“And she got her talent from her father.”
***
Natalia resisted the urge to fidget as she made her way over to where Ben stood.
Perhaps she had over done it a bit in her gushing about the earl to her father.
She and Ben had discussed what they would do; spend this house party ‘slowly falling in love’ in front of their respective families, then announce their betrothal.
Natalia had insisted that Beatrice be informed. For one thing, Natalia had said, Beatrice could help them make the whole charade believable. And for another, Talia had never kept anything from Bea before.
When Ben had pointed out that Natalia hadn’t told Bea about them kissing, Natalia had stopped talking to him.
It was that sort of odious behaviour that had her despising the man. Kisses and peculiar longings notwithstanding, he was still a thorn in her side.
But she had waxed lyrical about him nonetheless, and now her father was most anxious to meet the man.
Papa’s disapproval was coming off him in waves. And Natalia was worried that this scheme of hers might not work after all.
She had convinced herself that a betrothal to an earl would mollify her father enough that he’d give up on this plan to drag her back to Russia in order to marry a stranger.
But what if he still insisted that she go?
The first thing he’d said to her when he’d arrived at Aunt Mary’s was that he’d found two princes and a count for her to choose from.
There’d been no emotional reunion after eight years apart. No declarations of love or affection. Just a list of men to whom she could shackle herself.
The Christmas Eve ball was to be held in two weeks, where Ben and Natalia had planned to make their official announcement.
That meant Ben had two weeks to charm her father. And since he hadn’t managed to charm her in eight years, Natalia had her doubts about his capabilities.
But that’s not entirely true, an irritating voice whispered in her head. You’ve been more than a little charmed by him this past week.
She chose to ignore that voice.
Natalia and her family stopped before Ben and Beatrice, and Natalia couldn’t help but notice how handsome the young earl looked in the flickering candlelight.
How had she never noticed how unusually beautiful his eyes were? Probably because they were nearly always narrowed disapprovingly when looking at her.
“Mama, Papa, may I introduce Lady Beatrice Trafford, the daughter of our host? Beatrice, my parents, the Count and Countess Soronsky, and my brothers, Petr and Andrei.”
Beatrice and her parents and siblings made all the appropriate noises, bowing and cur
tseying and doing everything just as they should.
“May I introduce my cousin, the Earl of Staunton?”
Natalia watched nervously as Ben met her parents and brothers.
To her amazement, within moments Mama was blushing and beaming, the twins were grinning ear to ear, and even Papa ended the short conversation with a friendly clap on Ben’s back.
The bell rang for dinner and her family dispersed, leaving Ben to hold an arm out to her, a smug smile on his face.
“Did you see that?” he whispered.
“Yes, I did,” she answered.
“Quite the charmer, wasn’t I?” he asked arrogantly.
Natalia turned a sickly-sweet smile on him.
“Indeed you were, my lord.”
They reached the dining room, and Ben pulled out Natalia’s chair, waiting until she was seated before taking his own seat.
“I admit, I was impressed,” she continued. “Considering you’ve had so little practice.”
Ben uttered a muffled oath under his breath.
“Wench,” he muttered, and Natalia found herself responding to his grin with one of her own.
CHAPTER NINE
“Mama is beside herself, of course. Desperate to impress your family. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her fawn so much over anybody or anything in my whole life.”
Natalia laughed at Bea’s description of Lady Fortescue’s behaviour. It was true, however. The lady practically salivated telling each new arrival to her house party that they were in the company of Russian nobility.
It made Natalia feel quite isolated from those whom she had previously thought of as within her sphere.
Now, she wasn’t just Lady Natalia. She was Lady Natalia Soronsky. The Russian. The outsider.
Not that anyone was impolite about it, of course. If anything, they were most interested in her company, even though she’d been attending these Christmas house parties for years and nobody had ever taken this much interest in her before.
Her family conversed in Russian when chatting amongst themselves, and Natalia supposed that had something to do with the intrigue surrounding them. And her.
“There have been comments, too, about you and Ben,” Beatrice continued, leaning forward to pluck another tartlet from the plate before them.
They were having tea in Bea’s favourite drawing room awaiting the arrival of a mantua maker. Lady Fortescue had ordered some gowns for Beatrice for the house party.
Every year the lady invited copious amounts of young bachelors in the hopes that her daughter would marry one of them.
Every year she bought her daughter a wardrobe fit for Town in the Season.
Every year, Beatrice remained single.
But Lady Fortescue was nothing if not determined.
Natalia had ordered two gowns herself but when Papa had arrived, he’d brought with him a trunk full of new gowns for his daughter. They were more elaborate than Natalia would have wanted to wear, but it was her father’s wish that she wear them, and so she would.
“What comments?” Natalia asked, her stomach fluttering in the most peculiar way.
Comments were what she wanted, after all.
Since that first dinner party two nights ago, Ben had been attentive and, she supposed, charming.
Papa actually seemed to like him, though he rarely allowed anything more than a few minutes of conversation between just the two of them before he interrupted or sent Mama or one of the twins.
“Oh, just about how attentive Ben has been,” Bea said airily, waving around the strawberry tart she held. “How you seem to be amenable to his attentions when you have never shown an interest in anyone before. Your acting skills are quite impressive.” Beatrice grinned.
Natalia’s stomach flipped at Beatrice’s words.
“Just what we wanted,” she responded weakly, taking a sip of her tea.
She couldn’t have said why Beatrice’s news made her feel so peculiar. After all, it was just what she had wanted, just what she’d planned.
Was it that she was worried her acting skills weren’t, in fact, all that good? That she was amenable to Ben’s attentions because since he’d been pretending to be attracted to her, she’d begun seeing him in a completely different light? That the memory of his kisses plagued her, and she found herself desperate to experience them again?
“Talia, are you quite well? You’ve become terribly flushed.”
Bea’s concerned voice distracted Natalia from her alarming thoughts, and she quickly offered her friend a smile of assurance.
Before she could speak, however, the butler arrived with the announcement that the mantua maker had arrived.
“Will you stay?” Bea asked as she stood and shook out her skirts.
“No, I should return. I told my father I wouldn’t be too long.”
And with that, Natalia quickly took her leave and headed outside.
She’d walked over to see Beatrice this morning, wanting some time alone. She’d hoped that a brisk, cold walk through the winter’s morning would clear her head.
If anything, Beatrice’s words left her feeling more confused than ever.
How could it be that Ben had only spent a handful of days even being nice to her, yet there was a yearning inside her for his attentions to mean something sincere, to be real?
Surely she wasn’t so foolish as to develop real feelings for Benjamin Trafford?
Before Natalia’s heart could race any quicker, she shook her head and gave herself a stern talking to.
“Of course you’re not,” she muttered to herself and the surrounding woodlands. “It’s just an unusual set of circumstances. He’s only pretending to be nice, in any case,” she continued, really getting into her stride now. “He’s conceited,” she reminded herself, stomping through the frosty grass toward the woodland that bordered Bea’s home and hers. “He’s arrogant. He’s not even that handsome.”
Here she stopped.
That simply wasn’t true, and Natalia could be honest enough, at least with herself, to admit that.
He was handsome. Devastatingly so.
“But that’s beside the point,” she muttered again. “The point is you don’t even like him.”
The snapping of a twig behind her interrupted her admittedly quite mad rambling, and Natalia spun round to see the object of her spiralling thoughts on horseback, coming through the trees.
“Talia.”
Ben drew the horse to a stop and was off the beast and striding toward Natalia before she could panic about whether he’d heard her talking to herself like a madwoman.
He stopped mere steps from her, his golden eyes gazing at her, an emotion she couldn’t name turning them to liquid fire.
“G-good morning,” Natalia managed past a sudden lump in her throat.
This wouldn’t do.
The second she’d seen him her heart had taken flight, silly organ that it was.
He frowned suddenly, looking around before his eyes met hers once more.
“Are you alone?” he asked. “And on foot?”
“Yes. I’ve just been visiting Bea. I wanted to – to walk. Clear my head.”
He raised a brow.
“Thoughts muddled, are they?”
“No!” she answered hastily. “Just – well, there’s a lot going on at Aunt Mary’s with my family over. And – “
“And your father doesn’t let you out of his sight,” Ben interrupted with a grin. “So how did you manage a morning walk alone?”
Natalia could feel heat beginning to rise in her cheeks.
“Oh, he doesn’t mind me being alone all that much,” she lied. “And – and he never minds me leaving to see Beatrice,” she lied some more.
“Hmm.”
She looked up to see that Ben was gazing sceptically at her, and she felt irritation flicker inside her.
She welcomed it. Embraced it. Irritation was good. Familiar. Safe. Irritation was not, for example, inexplicable attraction.
“A
m I to assume you left without telling anyone?”
Drat the man. He was right.
Natalia had been feeling more and more like a prisoner since her family’s arrival, and that feeling brought with it a whole host of other unpleasant ones.
Guilt gnawed at her every time she had such thoughts. This was her family. She loved them. She missed them. She shouldn’t be feeling that Papa was overbearing and controlling. She shouldn’t be trying to keep away from them. She should be ecstatic to be reunited and looking forward to returning to her homeland.
In addition there was the uneasiness she felt in lying to everyone. Why hadn’t she thought any of this through? The shame she and Ben would bring to everyone — their friends, their families — when they broke off this “engagement” would be acute. It was selfish, Natalia knew, to disregard the effect her actions would have on others.
And yet…
The idea of being dragged home to be married off to a stranger filled her with horror.
And now, the idea of never seeing this irritating specimen in front of her again made her feel ridiculously close to tears.
It was too much. Too confusing.
“Assume whatever you like.” She tried and failed to sound nonchalant, instead sounding like a petulant child.
“You’re a hoyden. Has anyone ever told you that?”
His smile evoked a small one in her.
“You have,” she reminded him. “Frequently.”
“Yes, but you listen to me even less than anyone else, so it doesn’t count.”
“Well, we can agree on that,” she quipped, feeling more like herself.
He laughed softly.
“You’re a brat, Natalia Soronsky. You’re supposed to be in love with me. Do you know what that entails?”
Natalia ignored the flutter of panic in her stomach at his words.
“You’re supposed to swoon when I’m around. Fawn over me. Wax lyrical about my virtues.”
“Yes, but you’d have to have any for me to wax lyrical about them,” she responded tartly.
Ben scowled at her, though there were merriment in the gold of his eyes.
