He seized her attention on one of the rare moments she wasn’t looking over his shoulder, his gaze becoming a smoulder as he drawled, ‘It’s my first time, too. We’re no longer virgins, you and I.’ He’d meant to shock her out of her neutrality. Women were never ambivalent about him and yet she was. He was ready for one of two reactions: a laugh because he’d finally melted her cold resistance with an audacious remark, or a stunned silence because she was far too innocent to marshal an adequate response. He got neither.
Dove Sanford-Wallis gave him a steady gaze. ‘I am neither shocked nor impressed by what passes as your attempt at wit. I am sure there are some women who find your bon mots appealing, but I am not one of them.’ She nodded her head to the corner of the ballroom where his coterie of pretty women sat eyeing them and waiting for his return. ‘I am sure they’ll forgive your momentary desertion,’ she hinted broadly. Good lord, Lady Dove Sanford-Wallis was pure as the driven snow and as frigid, too. Or was it something more? For a horrible moment, an idea flickered. Was it possible she didn’t like him?
Illarion bent close to her ear. ‘Do you know why you can’t tell a joke while standing on ice?’ he murmured. ‘Because it might crack. But I see there’s no risk of that here.’
‘Am I supposed to be the ice in your juvenile metaphor?’ The music was winding down. This had turned out to be a most intriguing waltz. He’d not anticipated such an outcome. He had anticipated something very different; taking his hostess’s goddaughter out to the garden, for politeness’s sake, spending a little time with her, giving her a few moments of his attentions and then politely disengaging her. But not this.
‘If the shoe fits, Princess.’ He bowed as the dance ended.
‘Thank you for the dance, Prince Kutejnikov.’ She dipped a small curtsy, turned her back on him and did the unthinkable. She fled the floor. It took him a moment to realise what had happened. He’d been glass-slippered. It was not only intriguing, but inspiring. Word pictures rose in his mind, his hand itched to write and a spark of hope sputtered to life; perhaps she was the one to break the curse that had plagued him since he’d left Kuban. She had only disappeared a moment ago and he already wanted her back.
Chapter Two
She wanted to see the Prince again. It was probably not a unique thought. Dove supposed that was how most women felt after meeting him. It was, however, an exceedingly incongruous thought to entertain over breakfast, especially when she’d made every effort last night to not see him again. She’d all but left him on the dance floor and her conversation had been designed to be off-putting. Apparently, her behaviour had been to no avail. He’d managed to spend the night in her mind and he was still there this morning. Not even her mother’s marital-expectations lecture had managed to drive him out of her head.
At the moment, those expectations were being drilled into her yet again over shirred eggs and kippers. ‘Drilled’ might be too harsh. ‘Politely laid out’ would be more apt. Her mother did not shout or raise her voice. Ever. Her mother did, however, tend to elucidate in the extreme. This must be the twentieth time since leaving Cornwall those expectations had been gone over.
Redruth’s daughter must comport herself with the utmost dignity, polite to all but never falsely encouraging those who are beneath her. Only marriage to another duke will do, that is how grand families are perpetuated. You, my dear, are from a grand family...
Dove was starting to feel less charitable towards those discussions. Fortunately, she had them down by memory so she could let her thoughts wander.
‘It will be interesting to see who comes to the at-home this afternoon.’ Her mother moved on to her second-favourite topic with a knowing smile. ‘Percivale will come, certainly, although I dare say if he’s smart, he’ll come late. I imagine Alfred-Ashby and Lord Fredericks will be here early. Lord Fredericks is a handsome fellow. It’s always nice to have a handsome man in one’s court even if he’s not a duke.’
Fredericks? Handsome? Perhaps if one liked a blank mind along with the golden hair. The combination wasn’t particularly to her taste. Dove’s own thoughts went straight to a man with a head less golden than Fredericks’, but with rather more going on inside. ‘What do we make of Prince Kutejnikov?’ Dove ventured with assumed nonchalance.
Her mother hesitated. ‘Well, now there’s a handsome man, to be sure.’ She cast an enquiring look at Dove’s father, who had managed to glance up from his newspapers. ‘He’s popular and on everyone’s guest list this Season. He’s the new novelty.’
‘No one knows much about his antecedents,’ her father said calmly, reaching for another slice of toast. ‘Olivia dear, I hear the Constable picture at the Academy art show this year is most impressive.’
Her mother smiled at her father, the Prince forgotten between them. ‘I am looking forward to it. I am told he’s made remarkable use of the light in how he depicts the weather.’ The Duke and Duchess of Redruth dismissed the Prince somewhere between the newspaper and the marmalade. It was so subtly done, one could not truly be offended. Indeed, Dove thought, if one didn’t know her parents well, one would hardly notice what had happened. But she did. The brevity of her father’s comment said it all. The Prince was not to be considered. By any of them. He was beneath them, an outsider and certainly not a contender for her hand.
Illarion Kutejnikov had just become forbidden fruit. Dove had heard her mother’s lectures about expectations often enough to know the words by heart. But she had not fully understood their import until now. Some people mattered. Some people didn’t. Couldn’t. Because they’d not been born to the right family, at the right time, in the right place, or the right country even. Such a judgement seemed uncharacteristically harsh.
Dove quietly studied her parents as they talked about art, the one appreciation all three of them shared. She’d always seen her parents as kind, conscientious people, who took their roles as community providers responsibly. Her father didn’t drink or gamble excessively, like other men of the ton. Her mother was always dressed in the height of fashion, but not extravagantly so; she did charity work, she took care of the sick and infirm in their village. They’d raised her in love. Dove had never doubted their affection for her. And yet, those same people who loved her and whom she loved in return had just set aside an individual as if he was no more than an ant on the floor to be crushed beneath an arbitrary boot heel.
Something rebellious stirred inside Dove, perhaps flickering to life for the first time, stoked by the questions blooming in her mind, or perhaps it had already existed, ignited by her dissatisfaction with London and her first brush with the reality of the Season and all that entailed. She was meant for the likes of Percivale or someone of his calibre. Even Alfred-Ashby and Lord Fredericks had been relegated to the hangers-on, those who were merely window dressing for the main pursuit of catching a duke. But knowing that didn’t make her like Percivale any better.
What would happen if she didn’t comply? Would she, too, lose her value? This was new ground. It had never occurred to her to not comply. Her parents had always wanted what was best for her and she’d been raised to obey those decisions. She’d never thought to question those decisions. She’d never had a reason to. Until now. These were heady thoughts, indeed, as if she’d seen light for the first time.
* * *
A blazing glare of white light attacked Illarion’s eyelids in one sweeping, orchestrated assault. He groaned and flung an arm over his face in a belated attempt to ward off the morning. Who the hell had let the sun in? To answer that question he’d have to open an eye, or wait until the intruder spoke. He didn’t have to wait long.
There was a growl of disgust from the window, which meant the intruder was Stepan, his friend and occasional adhop. When the four princes had fled Kuban, they’d needed a leader and Stepan had effortlessly stepped into the role, giving them direction and making decisions. Now that they’d arrived in London, they seemed to
need him even more as they adjusted to their new lives, whatever those might be. ‘What happened in here? The place looks like a storm passed through.’
‘Inspiration struck,’ Illarion ground out. His tongue felt thick. It was hard to find the motivation to make the words.
‘Looks more like lightning.’
Illarion could hear Stepan moving about the room, clearing a path as he came. There was the sound of books being stacked, papers being shuffled in to order. ‘Don’t touch anything!’ he managed a hoarse warning.
‘I don’t know how you can find anything in here. I should send a maid up to clean.’ That galvanised Illarion into action. He pushed himself up, remembering just in time how narrow the sofa was that he’d fallen asleep on, and how uncomfortable. His neck hurt, his back was stiff, his legs cramped. Inspiration was deuced difficult on a body.
‘I don’t want a maid, Step. I have everything just the way I like it.’ Illarion pushed his hands through his hair and tied the tangles back with last night’s ribbon.
‘Half-empty sheets with words scrawled on them randomly strewn across any available space? You like it that way? It’s impossible to find anything.’
Illarion gave an exasperated sigh. Stepan didn’t always grasp the nuances that went with having an artistic temperament. That Stepan tolerated such nuances was a sign of the tenacity of his friendship. ‘I write poetry, not novels. I don’t need to fill up pages.’
Stepan waved a crumpled sheet. ‘When I said half-sheets, I was being generous. There’s five words on this page. “A bird in my hand...” That’s not even a complete sentence.’ Or a terribly original one when it came down to it.
Illarion grimaced and lurched forward, grabbing for the paper despite the pounding in his head. ‘Give me that! Of course it’s not complete, it’s not done.’ He hated people reading what he wrote before he was ready, especially people who didn’t understand the artistic process, people like Stepan who understood numbers and balance sheets. Protectively, he smoothed the sheet and set it down beside him. ‘You should know better than to disturb a writer at work.’ In Kuban, he’d been a royal poet, the Tsar’s own laureate. But his latest efforts were an embarrassment.
Stepan gave a harsh laugh. ‘At work? I would hardly call the state I found you in work, or the schedule you’ve been keeping, up all hours of the night, asleep all hours of the day.’ Stepan made an up and down gesture indicating the length of him. ‘Look at you. You’re as dishevelled as the room. Your hair’s a wreck, your clothes are wrinkled from sleeping in them, I might add, and they’re starting to hang. You’re losing weight, you need a shave and this place is a shambles: half-empty decanters, dirty glasses and not a plate in sight. When’s the last time you ate something?’ Sometimes having a friend like Stepan was a pain in the backside. He saw too much.
Illarion stumbled to the basin and poured water. Cold. Good. It would wake him up faster. ‘You know how it is when I’m trying to write.’ He braced his hands on either side of the bowl and caught sight of himself in the little mirror above it. Good lord, Stepan was right. He did look a bit rough, but nothing a razor and a hot meal couldn’t fix. He just wished his stomach didn’t rebel at the thought of the latter.
A knock at the door brought the servants and the threat of Stepan’s hot meal materialised. Illarion gave a tentative sniff: sausage, toast, coffee. Ah, coffee. That would help immensely. He took his time washing while a space was cleared and food laid out, giving his stomach a chance to ready itself. Breakfast was starting to smell delicious, a good sign he’d get through the meal and pacify Stepan, whose residence in a newly excavated chair made it clear he wasn’t leaving until he was satisfied his friend had eaten.
It was time to get a place of his own, Illarion thought, like Nikolay had done. Stepan was worse than having a father sometimes. Of course, Nikolay had married first. One couldn’t very well be living with three bachelors when one had a new wife. Illarion had no such intentions of marrying. There were far too many women in the world for sampling to limit himself to just one. Besides, the institution of marriage Kubanian style hadn’t exactly recommended itself to him, with all its rules and expectations. Love was not one of those expectations. He’d seen too many people—close friends—forced into marriages not of their choosing. And then he’d seen them wither away; strong people, vibrant people like Katya, becoming husks of their former selves.
Illarion dried his face and took a chair across from Stepan, letting Stepan pour him a cup of coffee. ‘How’s the writing going?’ Stepan passed him the cup, his tone less surly.
‘Better.’ If one called five cliché words strung together in a phrase ‘better’. He’d hurried home from the Burton ball last night, scribbling madly in the carriage, racing to his room to pull out paper and pen in an attempt to capture the emotions brought on by the haughty Lady Dove Sanford-Wallis. The flurry of images, however, had flown, his pen unable to capture the feelings in words, his mind unable to focus, preferring instead to follow the questions she’d prompted. Why hadn’t she liked him? He’d done everything right; he’d allowed the hostess to introduce him, he’d made the guest of honour the centre of his immediate attentions. He’d waltzed with her, made conversation with her. He’d been the ideal gentleman. No woman in Kuban could have faulted his manners or his deportment. But she’d found fault aplenty and, truly, he didn’t understand why.
‘I met a woman who inspired me last night,’ Illarion began, sipping at the hot coffee. ‘The first in a long while, to tell the truth. She was like...sin in satin.’ He had been stirred not just by her beauty, but also her spirit, buried deep behind those eyes, a rebel in white, the outer purity of a debutante juxtaposed against the inner shadow on her soul, the shades of rebellion hidden within. He found it intriguing even if that rebellion had been aimed at him. He wondered now in the clarity of daylight if her dislike had been of him or of the occasion? Was it possible she hadn’t enjoyed the ball? He’d thought she was lying earlier when he’d asked.
‘That sounds promising,’ Stepan encouraged.
‘It was!’ Illarion replied passionately. ‘Right up until I got home and nothing would come. My head was so full I couldn’t get the words out and then the images were gone, just like her.’
‘Ah, hence the bird in the hand,’ Stepan murmured. ‘I like sin in satin better.’
Illarion gave a wry smile and reached for a pen. ‘That is pretty good, isn’t it?’ He’d been disappointed in himself last night. He’d tried everything, even brandy, to get the creative juices to flow, but nothing had worked. Candles had burnt down and eventually he’d thrown himself on the mercy of sleep just before the sun had come up, another night that had begun with promise, wasted. He couldn’t afford many more nights like that. ‘She inspires me, Stepan, and I have to write something. I have the reading in three weeks and nothing to perform. An original work is expected.’
It was to be a grand affair, attended by the ton’s best. He’d been invited to do a reading from some of the poems that had got him exiled from Kuban. People had been clamouring for months now. He’d wisely kept them under wraps until the time was right to make the most of them. But there was also an expectation he’d have something new as well, perhaps something that celebrated his new life in London. To capture that celebration, to seek inspiration from the subject, he’d immersed himself in the ton, with all its beauty and entertainment, its lavishness and grandiosity, and he’d come up empty night after night. Until last night when a woman who disdained him had lit a spark. ‘There’s nothing for it, Stepan, I have to have her.’ He pushed a hand through his hair and went to his wardrobe. He had an introduction and her name. It shouldn’t be too hard to find her.
Stepan, however, was more cynical. ‘You have to have her? How, precisely, do you mean that? Surely you don’t mean to bed her. Is she even beddable?’ Meaning, was she of the merry-widow variety and eminently available, or was she a virginal d
ebutante, and as such, untouchable? It was a highly salient question indeed, although one Illarion had no intention of answering. For one, it gave away who the muse was and he wanted to savour the thrill of the secret. For another, he simply didn’t have an answer.
Illarion turned from the wardrobe. He hated when Stepan was a step or two ahead of him. The truth was, he didn’t know exactly what ‘having’ Lady Dove Sanford-Wallis entailed at this point. He was only interested in feeding his muse, but Stepan, as usual, had a point. He couldn’t bed her, not without marriage first and that seemed a bit extreme to contemplate at this point. He just wanted to write poetry the way he used to—poetry, by the way, that focused on avoiding marriage, not engaging in it.
‘Well?’ Stepan pressed. ‘This is important, Illarion. You can’t seduce every Englishwoman you meet.’
Illarion thought back to the night before and all the men gathered around her. ‘I will be part of her court, nothing more. A few dances, a few social calls, a bouquet of flowers now and then.’ It would probably take more than that for what he had planned, but the answer would pacify Stepan and it actually seemed a good place to start when he thought about it. He would play the potential suitor well enough to get her alone, long enough to be inspired. His mind hummed with a plan.
‘You, the swain? It’s hard to imagine,’ Stepan teased.
‘Well, desperate times call for desperate measures.’ Illarion didn’t laugh. He was deadly serious about finding his muse. ‘I have to do something or I will show up to my own reading empty-handed.’ He dived back into his wardrobe, rummaging for a waistcoat.
‘I am sure it’s not as dire as all that. Something will come to you, it always does. In the meantime, I’ll send someone to clean up,’ Stepan offered the reassuring platitudes nonwriters gave their literary friends.
Innocent in the Prince's Bed Page 2
