by Elsa Holland
Some of the items were close to her size and others had been pinned down to her measurements.
The first to be slipped over her head was a velvet gown of burnished russet velvet, cut to twist around her waist and drape over an undersized bustle. It was adorned with jet beading and cut wide over her shoulders displaying an impressive amount of her décolletage. One of his selection that made her look all the more closely at what he saw, look for how he saw her. The colors of the gown enhanced her eyes and the flecks of auburn in her hair. Her freckles also stood out more, a reason why she avoided the color. Yet he’d trained his fingers over her freckles, whispered little nonsenses to her in the train carriage as he traced them, making her feel as though they were a dusting of gold luminescence on her skin that lured in younger brothers to Russian Princes and melted their hearts.
She walked out and showed herself with her heart beating a little too fast, Demetri pacing the showroom as he waited.
He turned.
Turned and stilled.
Pleasure flushed her skin pink at the look he gave her, an openly approving and hungry look the sizzled down through her body and made her want to curl her toes.
He took a few steps to the side and looked, then walked around and stopped at the other side. “Something’s missing….”
“Missing?” Georgie looked at the dress, it was exceptional, she looked back up to him, that strange look in his eyes.
He clicked his fingers and in moments, as if waiting for his signal, three staff came in with black velvet trays laden with the minimal Danish jewelry she had so admired in the fashion show. Demetri, looking somewhat more fluffed up, proceeded to make a show of having each piece draped over her. They were all beautiful. Breathtakingly so. After many times having the items placed on and off of her, they selected a neck collar that allowed different hangers to be hooked on the front. Two hangers, one of amber that shone like her eyes and another rather rustic quart still in its original crystal shape that reflected blues as the shards caught the light were agreed on.
“Demetri….” Her heart ached, ached for her future self who would wear this gift without the man in her life to see it.
“I insist.” His gaze burned; he would hear of no refusal as he shooed the staff away with their choice made.
This is what it felt like to have a man’s interest. To have his desire focused on you. Georgie was lightheaded. Her body alive and everything that could go wrong…would go wrong was somewhere far, far away from these precious moments.
The afternoon preceded, with the purchase of a woolen suit of burnished red with black fur at the cuffs, neck and the hem of its poplin jacket. Demetri said she looked like a fox. There was a fur hat that made Demetri laugh, and she made the staff put it on her head again while she showed him a smart white lace shirt, with exquisite embroidery, matched with a wool and silk skirt and jacket which had buttons carved into little butterflies. He barked a laugh as she strutted around the room with the ridiculous little hat, all shyness gone as she reveled in his pleasure and masculine regard.
The blue dress from the window was brought in, and bless all the angels, it fitted to her.
“Oh Miss.” Maria’s eyes shone.
“Put on the hat.” Georgie insisted.
“No, no.” Maria begged.
But she went out with it on, but he didn’t laugh…he smoldered. Demetri stalked over to her, sliding the fur oddity off her head when he reached her. “Bushka….” He murmured as his teeth found the place where her shoulder and neck connected sending shivers through her body and over her skin. He stalked around her until she was dizzy, heart hammering in anticipation. And just when she thought he would do nothing but burn her with his gaze, he pounced wrapping his arms around her, ran the fur down her neck, across her chest making her skin burn as he mumbled words in Russian, words she knew, words that were nonsense like he’d murmured under the bridge.
The afternoon rushed by and far too quickly they were back in the carriage, boxes of their efforts followed in another conveyance to the hotel. She had two hours to rest and prepare for their evening at the Tivoli Gardens.
The carriage slowed and joined a procession of conveyances all inching to the main entrance and depositing their occupants at the gate. It was late afternoon and only a few hours of sunlight before the winter night limited what could be seen.
Georgie glanced sideways at Demetri for what felt like the thousandth time. He turned and the creases around his eyes told her he knew of her plight and was pleased she found it hard to stop looking at him, that she wasn’t alone in the struggle to stop from looking at each other. In fact, the man almost puffed up.
They walked around the grounds, enjoyed the gardens, the lakes. They took a ride on the merry-go-round and a scenic railway that passed the oriental theatre which apparently had a mechanical curtain fashioned like a peacock’s tail. The strands of Strauss’s waltzes drifted on the air and the light faded.
As the night fell the park became a fantasy land of lights. The dinner service finished, and Demetri stood.
“Mr. Franklin if you will excuse us, the fireworks are due to start, and I promised Georgie a walk in the grounds as we viewed them…with your permission of course.”
Her father stood as Demetri drew back her chair.
“Naturally my boy, Georgie would like that wouldn’t you dear?” Her father came and kissed her on the cheek, a glint in his eyes. What was happening between them was not missed on him and he did not seem inclined to warn her away from it. “I’ll be heading back to the hotel. What time do we convene for the ferry?”
“We will meet in the lobby at seven.” Demetri informed him.
“Very well I will see you there or at breakfast.” And then he was off.
“He was been quite focused on this trip.” Demetri noted as he collected their coats and slipped hers over her shoulders.
“He gets this way when he is working on a venture.”
“No doubt.” Was all that Demetri said. They left the restaurant and started toward the small paths that meandered through the gardens. There was snow covering miniature hedges and the trees, but the paths had been cleared and were lit by small lights.
“If Prince Vladimir met me and liked me would he uphold the betrothal?” It was simply a question of interest. She would rather eat a bucket full of frogs.
“No.” the answer was immediate.
“Not even if he liked me a great deal?” And now she was simply taunting him. Demetri got wonderfully stiff over these questions and something in her rather enjoyed it.
“No.”
“Is that why he didn’t come to see me?” Well, that one smarted her too.
“No.”
“It was never going to happen was it?” Ouch.
“It’s a matter of family honor, Georgie.”
“But…” his gloved finger pressed against her lips.
Christmas carols floated through the trees and the snow blanket seemed to sparkle.
“There are a few clandestine locations where a couple can be hidden and can still see the fireworks. Would you like to find one?” He whispered against her ear. The promise of more Demetri kisses washed away the tensions of their previous topic and replaced them with a warm hum of anticipation.
“Yes.” Georgie smiled up at him making his chest tighten.
He guided them to a location Ilya told him about. Ilya, a libertine to the last breath who knew every location in every city where a man could seduce a woman in public and remain unseen. Even as a child Ilya delighted in creating maps, now as a man he continued the habit but of locations for pleasure and debauchery. He made them and gifted them to the men in his life before they travelled. And on this occasion, Demetri had a map which contained the secluded areas in the gardens.
Demetri gave a discrete glance around before ushering Georgie on the other side of a large ivy trellis. On the other side was an enclosed area created by more trellises covered in ivy. Small white stones crunched
underfoot, three, braziers burned and although the enclave wasn’t exactly warm, it was not cold. The glow of the flames and their fanning warmth would allow a layer of clothing to be shed and not to freeze. A reclining bench with cushions and furs, open to the sky, a perfect for viewing the fireworks due to start shortly.
“Have you been here before?” He heard a slight tightness in her voice. Of course, she wondered if he took her to a place, he and taken others.
“No.”
The small lines of tension eased in her face, and it gave him more pleasure than it should have.
“How do you know this existed?” She looked back over her shoulder.
“My brother.” He said the words before he realized what they meant.
She stilled. “Your brother?” Her betrothed.
He drew her against him. “I can reassure you that the Prince did not know of this location.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“The Prince, your betrothed never used a place like this, simply came across its existence as men do.”
“And he shared it with you?” She looked up at him scanning his eyes, his face.
What if he told her who he was? What if he simply sat down with her and her father and untangled it all?
You would never really know.
At first he played the role of his brother so he could orchestrate the annulment of the betrothal and now it gave him anonymity. Her reactions her affection he was sure were for him, not for his position and status. That was something he had not had before and strangely he needed to know with more and more certainty that it was him and not the title she wanted. That she’d clutched his miniature to her for all those years for something more than the elevated life she would be getting.
He was confident she cared for him and yet she would not relinquish the betrothal. Her father was up to something and was holding her to the arrangement and she was somehow complicit. He had a lifetime of men and women befriending him for what his title brought them. The idea that Georgie would do that was unpalatable. Over and above the blackmail of his father and the honor of the family, he wanted her to choose him first. Choose the man without the position. He had only a few days to make that happen.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
Demetri drew them to the pillow clad bench, removed her coat and lay her down, he unfolded a fur blanket and threw it over her, then he removed his own coat and slipped in next to her. She tucked into the crook of his arm and he kissed her, kissed her and slowly tugged down her bodice and palmed her breasts, each touch each sigh she emitted driving him to pusher further, mark her in another way as his. He kissed and sucked on her peaks until she started to twist her fingers tight in his hair and chant his name as her hips twisted for attention.
“Bushka,” he growled against her lips, his skin hot and tight as his need grew, “I will show you another kiss men and women share.”
Her fingers dug into him.
“Yes, yes Demetri. Show me.” She mewed, sending shards of heat threw him. She would make many more sounds before this was done.
The fireworks started and he moved down the day bed and lifted her skirts, tugged at her pantaloons and took them off, then pressed his face between her legs, the damp musky curls pressing against his cheeks, the flat of his tongue flicking at the salt of her sex. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t press close enough into her core, her taste, her scent. She filled his lungs, his mouth, his world shrinking into nothing but the folds of her sex. His fingers pulled her lips open and he sucked, licked and flicked at her sex as she made sounds, pants, calls as the tension climbed and her hands became rough, more aggressive holding him against her and he thought he might die at the need coursing through him. Demetri moved her legs over his shoulders angling her sex up for him and feasted on her as she undulated under him and the fireworks popped overhead. Somewhere in the distance Christmas carols were sung in some far part of the gardens and floated faintly in the air.
Demetri pressed his fingers into her feeling the soft silken pocket around his fingers, sucked on her peaked fleshed at the top of her sex and rubbed his face against the soft silken hair begging her with each stroke of his fingers with every flick of his tongue to choose him, to step back from whatever hold her father had on her and follow her heart and to come to him.
She called out her release. A sound that pulsed through him in triumph. He moved back up to her and she clutched at him, drew him down and kissed him hard. “Let me please you too.” She whispered against his lips. “Show me Demetri, show me what to do.”
He wasn’t gentleman enough to refuse her. He unbuttoned his trousers and drew down her hand, his skin tight and heart thumping.
Her intake of breath as he wrapped her hand around his cock, a delightful flattery that made him harder, made him imagine the sounds as he pressed into her, as he drove her to completion. He moved her hand showing her how to please him, showing her what he needed. He pressed his face into her hair, kissed her neck as his hips bucked in her small hand, then he kissed her, pressed his tongue deep as he came, as the pleasure shook through him and she was pressed so close he wanted nothing more than this moment for the rest of his life.
The fireworks continued above them as he held her.
“I love you.” She said softly. His heart did a strange lurch and there was the most delicious ache in his chest, and he wanted more than ever that they found a way through this.
The fireworks stopped and eventually so did the carols.
“We need to leave.” He murmured.
Demetri stood up and straightened himself then helped her up, slipped her back into her drawers and coat. All buttoned up he rested his hand on her shoulders and held her gaze.
“Call off the betrothal Georgie. Call it off and give us a chance.”
“I can’t.” She stiffened in his hold. “My father…he needs to speak with my betrothed.”
Demetri stepped back. “This is about money isn’t it? He will extort the Prince and you are supporting him.”
“No, no it isn’t like that.” She was wringing her hands, she wasn’t sure.
“Then call off the betrothal.” He growled.
“I can’t.”
“You can, yet you will not.”
“No. It’s not like that.”
He banked down the frustration, the hurt and walked to the opening in the trellis. “Let me escort you back to the hotel.”
They walked back through the main pavilion and up ahead was her father with a tall well build man with sandy hair.
“Thomas!” Georgie called out, slipped from his arm and hurried over.
“Georgie girl, I bumped into Thomas on my way out but couldn’t find you.” Her father’s gaze scanned between him and his daughter as she hugged the handsome pup, eyes hooded. The man was too canny to be trusted.
Introductions were made. Mr Thomas Delaware was heading back to India the day after tomorrow. That made Demetri feel somewhat appeased as Georgie’s arm linked with the man’s. A spice plantation, the father said. A childhood friendship, the father said.
“How fabulous, Thomas,” Georgie said with far too much honesty.
Georgie turned around and looked over her shoulder at him. Demetri knew that look, uncertain, searching. Are you alright? Demetri gave a nod, nothing more. She beamed a smile at him and turned back to the usurper.
This was the man she would run to. This was the man who would get her after the betrothal was annulled.
His jaw tightened.
Chapter 19
Strangely, after their days in Paris and Copenhagen, ‘London’ Demetri was back. On the ferry trip to Stockholm and on their arrival at the small well-appointed hotel in the center of town, he was stony faced, reserved, and impossible for Georgie to read. After their closeness, after he had been so affectionate, it hurt.
Instead of making time to be with her, he apologized, said that he had business in Stockholm and would be unable to join the
m for dinner.
The second man she needed to talk to was her father, yet he was out the door just as fast as Demetri, waiving off her urgent need to discuss the betrothal, muttering about caviar and vodka as if that served as am explanation.
She and Maria went for a stroll down the famous Gamla Stan shopping street and enjoyed the window displays with their Christmas goods and decorations. The snow was white and crisp under her feet as they walked through a small snow flurry back to the hotel. Although it was only three in the afternoon the night sky was already settling above them.
In the hotel lobby stood one of the largest Christmas trees she had ever seen and a grand piano with a man dressed as St. Nicholas, playing carols. Good to their word, neither her father nor Demetri joined her for dinner in the dining room with its luminous chandeliers, so she went to bed early.
Invariably, she was wide awake by eleven that night. How fast would everything unravel and fall apart if she told Demetri that she would not go ahead with the betrothal, had long planned on not going ahead with the wedding? Tell him now, rather than later as her father insisted. Nor wait to see her betrothed and close the matter together.
Georgie slipped into her embroidered oriental dressing gown and belted it. Poured a glass of water, savoring the coolness against her tongue and down her throat.
She had no doubt her father was working hard to find a solution to their financial problems but in the meantime she worried Demetri was taking her reluctance to break the betrothal as a lack of strength in her feelings for him. Her brow creased, everything felt awkwardly tangled.
The betrothal was well and truly over, all that remained was the formalization of that reality.
Once that was done, she was not naive enough to think that there would be anything left between herself and Demetri. She was beginning to think that maybe that was why Demetri was acting the way he was. He was a man of the world, his family rejected her, he knew there was no future for them.
