Innocent in the Prince's Bed

by Bronwyn Scott

  These were not the blue eyes she wanted to look into every day for the rest of her life. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I thought I could, but I just can’t.’ She pulled her arm away. She pulled her arm away and pushed into the crowd.

  Her heart was full to bursting. If she could reach Illarion, all would be well. What was it her mother had said: that when you were with the one you loved, you were invincible? The crowd surged towards Illarion, everyone wanting to be the first to shake his hand. She pushed onwards, aware that Percivale was behind her, giving chase in his confusion, in his misery. The crowd was her friend and her enemy. If it slowed her, it slowed Percivale, too. A tall man cut in front of her, blocking Illarion from view. Someone stepped on her toe. Someone else stepped on her hem. She heard her hem tear. She persevered. She twisted and slipped through a hole in the crowd. One more manoeuvre and she was there.

  ‘Illarion!’ she called, vying for his attention. His head turned. His eyes found her.

  ‘Dove!’ Then his eyes went past her. Silence fell almost instantly as the crowd parted, revealing Percivale. This was the moment London had been waiting for, for weeks—the perfect Strom Percivale facing off against the imperfect Prince who had managed to steal the hearts of the Season’s most eligible girls and now attempted to claim the most eligible of them all, Percivale’s own intended.

  Dove’s breath caught. Surely Percivale’s own good breeding would prevent a scene. She was counting on it. But it was Percivale’s own good breeding that had led to this; his sense of honour demanded he stand up to the rebel Prince. It was hard to tell who the villain was here.

  ‘You!’ Percivale called out to Illarion. ‘How dare you slander an innocent Englishwoman with your heathen poetry? How dare you implicate a good, virtuous woman as your muse? She is to be my wife, a future duchess.’ Percivale was shaking with fury. She’d never seen him angry, had not thought he had it in him to express intense emotion.

  Illarion turned to her. ‘Is this true, Lady Dove? Are felicitations in order?’ I will take you away from all this if you but say the word. That word being no. It was now or never. Her mother was standing behind Percivale, her face white. For a moment it was enough to stall her. Her mother would be hurt, her father would be livid. But she could not give her life for them. She could not doom herself to a life with Percivale to secure their happiness. She made to speak, but Percivale was faster.

  ‘You are too forward, sir, to question a lady like that in public!’ Percivale challenged.

  Illarion crossed his arms. ‘Are you afraid to let the lady answer for herself?’

  Percivale’s face contorted with rage. ‘You make a scandal of her. A lady is to be seen but not heard.’

  ‘I thought that was children who were supposed to be seen but not heard.’ Illarion was playing with him now. The conversation was growing dangerous. ‘Perhaps to you there is no difference? After all, you don’t hesitate to slander a man with false rumours.’ Dove tensed. They had the room’s entire attention now.

  ‘Are you calling me liar?’ Percivale’s words were a blatant prelude to a challenge. Dove moved into action. She would not allow them to duel over her.

  She stepped between the two men, a hand on Illarion’s chest, pushing him back. But it was too late to stop the ominous words. ‘Why, I do believe I am,’ Illarion drawled. ‘Liar.’

  Percivale’s fist balled and swung. Dove was too slow. His fist caught her jaw, sending her head snapping backwards. She was falling, Illarion’s arms were there as she sank, cushioning her fall, cradling her as blackness swam before her eyes. The world had come undone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dove stretched in the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window, savouring these precious few moments of freedom when her thoughts were clear, her body and her mind entirely her own. Her parents had taken her back to Cornwall. It was one of the three things she knew with any certainty in the days following the debacle in the Hathaway salon. All else was a drug-induced haze of ambiguity. She barely remembered the drive, only that it had been made with all the speed her father’s ducal carriage could manage, covering the distance of four days in three. She remembered the drive. She’d been ill on the journey. Before that, she remembered awaking in her bed at Redruth House to a flurry of packing, a bout of nausea and a fever, her body finally succumbing to the stress of the Season, of the situation. She remembered asking for Illarion, but it was her mother who’d arrived and delivered the news: she was never to see Prince Illarion Kutejnikov again. They were taking her home.

  She hadn’t wanted to go. She did recall fighting, physically trying to get out of bed until she’d had to be restrained. That was when the drugs had started. She’d been given something to drink laced heavily with laudanum, to help the fever, to calm her nerves, her mother said. But it had made her sleepy. When she’d next awakened, she’d been in the carriage and it had been too late to fight. They were taking her away from Illarion. Away from the duel.

  That was the second thing she knew. Percivale and Illarion were going to duel over her. Or had it already happened? The days had become a blur of sleeping and waking and not much else. The drink they’d been dosing her with had to go. She needed the clarity that came with the first moments of the day before her maid discovered she was awake. She wanted to think clearly, wanted her days to herself, not spent in bed, not spent asleep. She wanted news of the duel. She had to know if Illarion was alive. She had no doubt Percivale would shoot to kill if given the chance. Was Illarion, even now, dead or lying wounded at Kuban House? It was too much to think about, dwell on. He could not help her now, miles and days away in London. Would he come for her, assuming that he could? Or would he decide that she wasn’t worth the journey? The trouble? He’d faced death because of her.

  The third was that her parents were furious with her. Her father had not spoken to her, had not even come to her room. Her mother had come, but had said very little, disappointment shadowing her eyes. Her mother looked at her differently now, as if she were a lost cause, a broken toy, something that had to be handled gently for fear it would shatter completely. She had made a bid for her freedom, for independence and this was the result: her father could not stand the sight of her and her mother had decided she was to be treated as an invalid, confined to nightgowns and her bedchamber with a diet of laudanum to calm her nerves. This was not what freedom looked like.

  Dove sat up carefully in bed, careful not to make the room spin by moving too fast. She was appalled by how weak she’d become in such a short time. Surely no more than a week had passed since she’d been bundled out of London. She would need to dress before her maid arrived. Right now, the effort that required seemed enormous. She would find a loose dress, one that didn’t require stays and underskirts, one of her country dresses, perhaps the green one she wore when she worked with the village children at the art school. She put her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, slowly inching her way to the wardrobe, one hand on the bed for balance the entire way.

  * * *

  She was dressed and sitting by the window when her mother arrived. ‘Darling, what are you doing out of bed? And you’re dressed.’ Her mother’s surprise contained both parts shock and concern over this turn of events as if people did not get out of bed and dressed every day.

  Dove smiled as if this were the best of news, however. She’d decided the best way to deal with her mother would be to pick up the normal pace of her Cornwall life as if nothing had ever happened. ‘Yes, I have lain around too long. It’s time to get up. I have the art school to look after. I feel as if I haven’t seen the children in ages.’ The school would be her purpose now as she put her life back together after the disaster of London. ‘I was thinking I might teach them a little painting this summer.’

  The plans flustered her mother. ‘Are you sure you’re well enough? Jeannie is coming with your breakfast and your medicine.’

  ‘I am
fine, Mother. There will be no more medicine.’ She would stand firm on this today. ‘I am not an invalid.’

  Her mother’s expression took on a pityingly look. ‘You have had a nervous collapse, we must be careful you do not stress yourself unduly or it will happen again. The doctor says some female constitutions simply are not strong enough to bear strain. You need the medicine, you must stay calm so you do not hurt yourself or become a danger to others.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘London was too much for you. I did not realise...’ Her voice trailed off in sincere regret. Her hand reached out to softly stroke Dove’s cheek, a gesture from childhood. ‘My darling girl, your father wants to send you away where you can get help, but I can’t do it. I want you here with us. We can keep you safe. It will just be the three of us, like it was before.’ Jeannie came in with the breakfast tray—beef broth and toast and the dreaded milky drink.

  Pure terror ran through Dove as the depths of her situation rolled over her. Her mother believed it was true—that she’d suffered a breakdown from which there would be no recovery. Cornwall, this house, was to be her prison. There would be no more balls, no more anything. She was to live in seclusion until this fantasy of her mother’s became real in truth, until she became the invalid of her mother’s imagining. It was the doctor’s fault, of course. He had concocted this ridiculous explanation and in her grief over the disaster of London, her mother had believed it. What else could explain a destroyed daughter?

  Dove fought back the panic that made her want to argue, to protest. She could do neither. They would only alarm her mother. Her best tool now was to stay calm. Any outburst would be used against her as proof of her instability, proof that she would be better off tucked away somewhere with other crazy women. And yet, she could not resist the pull to make one argument in her defence. ‘Mother, I did not have a nervous collapse. I fell in love,’ Dove ventured quietly.

  Her mother patted her hand, ignoring the remark for lack of response. ‘Men will not bother you again. Percivale has withdrawn his suit, of course.’ Her mother paused, seeming to debate something with herself. ‘It’s for the best. You are in no condition for a wedding and the doctor fears the rigors of being a duchess will prove too debilitating for you.’

  ‘What happened after I fainted?’ Dove probed, careful not to show undue interest. But she craved news. She had no idea what had happened after she’d intervened and been struck with Percivale’s fist.

  ‘A common fisticuffs. He brawled with the Prince, leapt for him actually, and then there was the issue with the duel.’ Her mother patted her hand again and took a deep breath that ended in a smile. She would say nothing more on the subject. ‘That’s all in the past. What matters now is that you’re home and safe.’ Safe meant out of earshot of the gossip. London must be burning with gossip these days. Dove could imagine the cutting remarks veiled in false pity and shock: the Duke’s daughter who had everything, the most popular debutante, the girl who had the pick of the Season’s eligible bachelors, ruined, toted off to Cornwall to live in reclusive disgrace.

  Her mother rose. ‘I’ll have Jeannie leave your medicine just in case. We can try today without it and see how you do. I’ll check on you later.’

  The moment her mother was gone, Dove dumped the drink in the chamberpot. She’d eat the beef broth and toast. She needed her strength, but she wasn’t going to get it on broth and toast. She’d have to ask for something more substantial for lunch. Dove looked out into the garden. The weather was gorgeous today and the roses were in bloom. She would go down and draw. That would be harmless enough. Dove brushed out her hair and plaited it into a loose braid. She couldn’t manage anything more difficult without her maid and she did not trust Jeannie or any of the servants. The servants would answer to the Duchess, they would believe as her mother did that she was fragile and needed to be cosseted. They would report every request, every move, to her mother. She did not want her mother to be the arbiter of what she could and could not do. If her mother had her way, Dove would stay in her room permanently.

  Dove gathered her drawing supplies and went down to the garden, fighting the urge to slink furtively around the house. She needed to walk as if she had every right to go where she pleased—which she did, she reminded herself. No one would believe nothing had changed if she didn’t believe it first.

  Well, that was painting it a bit too rosy. Everything had changed. She had changed, but it had not damaged her. Dove settled in the garden on a bench, balancing her sketch pad on her knee. She brushed idly at a bee buzzing too close, and breathed in the scent of flowers in summer. It felt good to be out of doors.

  If anything, her experience had opened her eyes. She’d been shocked to hear of the marriage situation facing well-born girls in Kuban, blind at first to how much the situation paralleled her own. London merely dressed it up a bit better. Her eyes had not been fully opened until she’d heard Illarion’s poetry. Fragments of lines came back to her. Her hand started to move on her paper. Trapped, imprisoned, forced. Powerful words translating into powerful images. Figures took shape on her sketch pad. Disturbing images to some, perhaps, but cathartic to her. Drawing had always been a way to explore her feelings, to express her reaction to something. But never had the reaction been so thorough or so dark.

  The ideas behind the images were haunting: women locked up for protesting a violent husband, for seeking a divorce, for crying out against a desperate situation. She had never questioned those places before, but she questioned them now. How many women were there like herself, who had dared to speak their minds, to strike out for themselves? All she had done was fall in love with a handsome prince and she was to be condemned for it for the rest of her life. That was the price of her freedom.

  Illarion’s gift to her. Her hand stilled and she flipped the page to a clean sheet, stroking furiously. Illarion had set her free. He’d shown her the possibility of freedom, opened her eyes to it and then he’d made it possible. She looked down at the paper, studying the face that emerged there: Illarion’s strong bones, the strong chin, the nose, the fullness of his mouth, always on the brink of laughter. He had given her everything. Perhaps he had even given his life. Tears threatened, but she couldn’t let them fall, couldn’t let anyone see her cry for fear they would bundle her back to bed and dose her with medicine. She had to be strong, stronger than she’d ever been.

  * * *

  She learned fast that strength and freedom meant being alone. She could trust no one. Not her mother, not the servants. She managed them all with kid gloves, taking everything in baby steps. Once they got used to her drawing in the garden, she started going for brief rides. Her favourite spot was the cliffs that looked over the sea. She would take a groom and go for hours to draw the waves, to draw the birds, and to think. It was easier to think away from the house, where she didn’t have to guard herself.

  Today’s ride had been particularly invigorating. Dove stepped into the cool dimness of the hall, stripping off her riding gloves. She’d made a decision today, a rather difficult one, but she was getting used to those: she couldn’t stay here. She needed a plan. Soon. It had been two weeks since she’d found the resolve to get out of bed and get on with her life. It was longer than that since she’d been separated from Illarion, since she’d had news. Daily, the same questions chased around in her head. Why hadn’t he written? Why hadn’t he come? Because he couldn’t? Or because he wouldn’t? Had he decided she was too much trouble? It wasn’t that she needed rescuing like a princess in a tower that prompted those thoughts. She would not allow herself to be helpless. It was worry. The questions were just a variation on a theme: what had happened to Illarion? If she could have afforded it, she would have allowed herself to be worried sick. But that was a luxury. If she allowed it, she might never get out of bed again.

  The thought of Illarion, of how those questions might be answered, was a strong reminder of all that needed doing. Physically, she was recovered from t
he weakness she’d felt that first day up, although her mother refused to see it. Her mother watched her with hawk-like intensity, enquiring after her health and encouraging her to rest at every turn. But Dove didn’t need to rest. She needed to fly. There had never been anything wrong with her. She was well enough to travel, should she choose. Travel was too tame of word for what she intended. Run was more apt. Her parents would never let her go otherwise.

  She would not run yet, although the temptation pulled wickedly. Daily, she looked down the drive leading from the estate. How easy it would be to ride down the drive and simply keep going. But ease was an illusion. Running was not easy. Running was expensive—another way in which she sensed women were kept socially imprisoned. She had no money—was allowed no money—she had no destination except London where all her answers lay.

  She wanted to run to London, to Illarion. But she would be followed. That destination was too easy to guess. Her parents would run her down before she got there. Even if she made it, she wasn’t sure of her reception. What if Illarion wasn’t there? What if he didn’t want her? What if...? It was too hard to complete the last thought. What if he was dead and Percivale was alive?

  She would only get one chance to run. She could not spend it carelessly. If she was caught and dragged back, it would be the end. Nothing would stop her father from sending her away then. He still had not spoken to her, still had not looked at her.

  ‘Dove, come in here.’ The voice halted her in mid-step. Apparently, her father had decided the time had come to end his silence.

  Dove approached the estate office uneasily, wondering which was worse; his silence or his acknowledgement. Her father sat behind the desk, large and intimidating, his dark eyes on her. ‘You look well,’ he managed in cold, polite tones.