Compromised by the Prince's Touch

by Bronwyn Scott

  An irresistible royal seduction...

  Daring Prince Nikolay Baklanov feels London is worlds away from his life of battle and revolution in Kuban. But then the Russian ambassador’s daughter, beautiful Klara Grigorieva, approaches him with her father’s dangerous proposition...

  Since her mother’s death, Klara has complied with all her father’s wishes. She’s virtuous, polished—a Society lady through and through. But meeting dashing Prince Nikolay awakens a rebellious passion in Klara...a passion that only this man can satisfy!

  Russian Royals of Kuban

  Commanding princes unlace the ladies of London!

  Princes Nikolay, Illarion, Ruslan and Stepan were once the toasted royalty of Kuban, renowned for their daring exploits. Now, banished and distanced from their titles, they’ve arrived in London—where balls and carriage rides take precedence over swordsmanship, revolution and battle...

  But in this new and unknown city, they’re about to encounter women the likes of whom they’ve never encountered before. These ladies have resisted the rakes of London—but these princes are about to embark on the most alluring of seductions...

  Read Nikolay and Klara’s story in

  Compromised by the Prince’s Touch

  Available now!

  Read Illarion and Dove’s story in

  Innocent in the Prince’s Bed

  Available next month!

  And look out for Ruslan’s and Stepan’s stories—coming soon!

  Author Note

  Let’s play True and False: What’s real in Nikolay’s story?

  True: Kuban is a real region in Russia—it encompasses Sochi where the Winter Olympics were held. However, there was never a “kingdom” or king like the one featured in this series.

  True: The region of Kuban was indeed “settled” by Russia in the mid to late 1700s in order to provide a buffer between the Ottoman Empire and Russia and to reclaim the Crimea for Russia. These efforts were stimulated by the 1768–1774 Russo-Turkish war.

  True: A large part of the population that settled the area were Cossacks from nearby regions.

  True: The Cossacks were/are known for their “trick” riding abilities in battle.

  True: Both rebellions cited in Nikolay’s story took place. The 1825 revolt Nikolay is tempted to join did occur and was unsuccessful.

  True: The rebellions were led by officers and there were connections inside the palace. The Union of Salvation was a real secret society throughout Russia.

  False: There is no historic proof that Britain, private or otherwise, financed or supported the rebellion. The arms dealer subplot is my own addition. However, members of the Union had what is historically described as “British ideals” regarding government and industrialization.

  True: Soho was an immigrant neighborhood in early nineteenth-century London, as were the squares where Nikolay establishes his riding academy.

  I hope you enjoy Nikolay and Klara’s tale set against this backdrop of the real and the imagined!

  www.bronwynnscott.com

  www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com

  BRONWYN SCOTT

  Compromised by the Prince’s Touch

  Bronwyn Scott is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing, she enjoys playing the piano, traveling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com. She loves to hear from readers.

  Books by Bronwyn Scott

  Harlequin Historical

  and Harlequin Historical Undone! ebooks

  Scandal at the Midsummer Ball

  “The Debutante’s Awakening”

  Scandal at the Christmas Ball

  “Dancing with the Duke’s Heir”

  Russian Royals of Kuban

  Compromised by the Prince’s Touch

  Wallflowers to Wives

  Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss

  Awakening the Shy Miss

  Claiming His Defiant Miss

  Marrying the Rebellious Miss

  Rakes on Tour

  Rake Most Likely to Rebel

  Rake Most Likely to Thrill

  Rake Most Likely to Seduce

  Rake Most Likely to Sin

  Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  For Joe and Alexis and the staff at Aleron who have all made us feel so welcome in our daughter’s horse world.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Mistress and the Merchant by Juliet Landon

  Chapter One

  London—late winter, 1823

  St John the Divine was entirely wrong about the end of the world. Prince Nikolay Baklanov had, in the last hour, arrived at a revelation of his own: the four horsemen of the Apocalypse weren’t men armed with swords at all, but, in fact, four young ladies, armed with formidable matchmaking mamas who would give those swords a run for sharpness. He was quite convinced, as he barked at Miss Ransome for the third time to get deep into the corners on her turns, that the world as he knew it would not be done in by widespread warfare and pestilence, but by the trampling to death of his patience over the course of several Thursday afternoons as the girls sawed on their horses’ mouths and disregarded his oft-repeated instructions.

  ‘Heels down, Miss Edgars, or you’ll come off your mount’s back at the slightest jolt! Miss Kenmore, remember the left-shoulder rule, unless you want a collision with Miss Ransome!’ He shouted orders from the centre of Fozard’s arena, home to one of London’s elite riding schools. But there was nothing elite about the skill of the four young misses trotting around him.

  Make that three.

  ‘Miss Calhoun, why in heaven’s name have you stopped?’

  ‘My horse stopped, not I.’ The spoiled chit tossed glossy curls from beneath an expensive stovepipe hat and gave him a pout that had no doubt been practised far longer than her riding skills.

  ‘You are the master here, Miss Calhoun.’ Nikolay clung to the shreds of his patience. Surely their requisite hour was nearly up? Then just one more lesson for the day. Who would ever have imagined teaching four girls to ride was more difficult than marshalling an entire regiment?

  ‘But...’ Miss Calhoun began to whine. His temper flared.

  But? She dared to argue with him? He, who was a Prince of Kuban? He, who had led and trained the Kubanian cavalry? A man who excelled on h
orseback? Nikolay raised his voice, overriding her excuses. ‘No buts, Miss Calhoun. Set your horse in motion or I will do it for you!’ The last was met with a significant amount of shocked rustling in the spectators’ gallery where the girls’ mothers and maids sat in vigilant attendance. He knew what they were debating in their heated whispers—the merits of questioning him for his harsh tone. Was it worth the risk of alienating him? Or did they allow him to scold Miss Calhoun in the hopes of securing his attentions?

  He did not fool himself. That’s what they were here for: attentions, affections. It was what all his female pupils were here for, well-bred daughters of the British peerage, angling to snare a foreign prince, even one in exile from a place most had never heard of seemed to suffice, never mind that he wouldn’t be accepting any of those offers. He’d been in London for two months, since the Christmas holidays, and business at Fozard’s had increased exponentially—quite a feat considering much of London society was still in the country. The rustling ceased. The jury of mamas had decided to let his tone pass.

  ‘All right, ladies, that’s enough for today. Walk your mounts and then hand them off to the grooms.’ He strode towards the door, his words as rapid as his pace. If he exited fast enough, he could escape making polite small talk with the mothers before his next lesson. He headed for the private instructors’ lounge and slipped inside, breathing a bit easier. It was his first piece of luck all day.

  ‘Hoy, Nik. I see you survived the Misses Four.’ Peter Crenshaw, one of the other instructors, looked up from cleaning tack.

  ‘Barely. I’ve got one more and then I’m done.’ Done with this day that had started badly and gone downhill from there. The morning had begun with Lady Marwood slipping a key into his pocket with a note, making it explicitly clear she was more interested in riding him than the lovely bay mare her besotted older husband had purchased for her last week at Tattersall’s. That was how the day started and the Four Horsewomen of his personal Apocalypse had ended it. What he wouldn’t give for a strapping lad who could jump something.

  Peter gave him a wry look. ‘You can always quit. You don’t have to put up with the girls or any of it.’ Nikolay didn’t miss the edge of envy beneath Peter’s words. Peter needed to work. Peter depended on the income. He was a half-pay officer in an army going nowhere.

  Nikolay shrugged. ‘What would I do with my days if I didn’t come here?’ He needed to work, too, but perhaps for a different reason than Peter. The income wasn’t the issue. The scheduling of his days was. A year ago, he’d been a high-ranking officer in the Kubanian military. He’d spent his days out of doors on the parade grounds schooling cavalry units, leading manoeuvres. He’d spent his nights at palace revels, consorting with the loveliest women Kuban had to offer; waltzing, flirting, engaging in an affaire or two when the whimsy took him. Political calamity had changed that, or at least part of that. True, he still revelled at night. London, even out of the Season, wasn’t much different from Kuban’s glittering court and there were still women aplenty available for pleasure of the physical kind, just the way he liked it, with no strings attached. But his days had suffered. Oh, how they’d suffered.

  He’d kept with his old military habit of rising early, only to discover London gentlemen rarely rose before eleven. He’d taken to walking the streets and parks, watching the town rise. He’d spent his ‘mornings’—a term he used loosely since they seemed to occur briefly between eleven and two—conducting the business of resettlement: establishing accounts, garnering memberships to clubs, settling his horses. All of which was handled efficiently and quickly with little effort from him. He’d spent his afternoons sightseeing with his comrades from Kuban, the friends who had fled with him. But when that was done? When all the pieces were in place to ‘begin’ living the London life? How did he spend his time then?

  He’d found himself at a constant loose end. No wonder English gentlemen rose so late in the day. There was nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. So, he’d come here to Fozard’s, a place with horses, a place where he knew how to live—to some degree. He was painfully aware the parallel was not exact. He was a trainer of disciplined men, not spoiled girls. But it would do until he figured out who he was in this new life and what he wanted to be. It was a question which haunted him not a little these days. He’d been in England nearly a year and he still had no answer. His hopes of starting his own riding academy were still just hopes.

  Nikolay picked up the file with his last client’s information in it. He scanned it once and then twice, the second time more slowly, more carefully, the hairs on his neck prickling at the name: one Miss Klara Grigorieva, a diplomat’s daughter. Another ‘Miss’, of course, because that was how his luck had run today. There was the immediate concern of her riding ability, which was probably negligible. He could only imagine how ill-suited to the saddle she would be. Diplomats’ daughters knew how to host afternoon tea parties and evening dinners. They might even speak a language or two and converse on a variety of subjects. But they were not equestrians. Even so, it wasn’t only that which had his neck hair prickling. It was that she was a Russian girl; Klara Grigorieva was the Russian ambassador’s daughter, which, on the surface, made it easy to see why she’d been paired with him. What Fozard’s couldn’t know was the suspicion such a pairing provoked for him. Did this pairing have more sinister undertones? Had she been sent to smoke him out? Was Kuban hunting him at last? He snapped the folder shut. He wouldn’t have any answers standing here. It was four o’clock. Showtime.

  Only he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in the waiting area. She wasn’t wandering the aisles petting the horses or any of the usual places the other girls tended to be. They were going to start late at this rate, and to top it off, someone was in the arena riding when everyone knew he had one more lesson before the arena was free for instructors’ personal work.

  Nikolay strode to the gate of the arena, prepared to halt the intruder, and found himself halted instead. Whoever the intruder was, he was an excellent rider: solid seat, straight back, rolled shoulders, elbows in. The rider urged the horse into a canter with an imperceptible use of hands and knees. Nikolay followed the rider’s trajectory to the jump in the centre of the arena—a jump that had become purely decorative. His students certainly didn’t aspire to it. It was high enough to be challenging. At three feet, a rider needed to know what he was doing. The rider lifted over the horse’s neck and the pair flew over the faux wall easily. The horse could go higher. Nikolay could see it in the tuck of the animal’s knees over the wall. He could also see the horse wasn’t one of their schooling string. This was no instructor riding early. Which begged the question—who was he?

  The rider doubled back, preparing to take the jump from the other side, giving Nikolay a first glimpse of the rider’s face: sharp cheekbones, the firm but fine line of jaw, almost feminine beneath the helmet, the intensity of green eyes fixed on the jump as the rider sighted the target. Nikolay couldn’t be sure if the rider saw him. The horse and rider took the jump again, coming to a stop in front of him at the gate.

  The rider undid the strap of the helmet and removed it, shaking loose a stream of walnut waves. He was a she. A not entirely warm smile played on her sensual lips. ‘Nikolay Baklanov, I presume?’ She tossed those glossy waves with presumption. ‘You are late.’

  ‘You are riding without permission or supervision. Klara Grigorieva, I presume?’ Nikolay countered. Best to begin as he meant to go on with this supercilious miss who clearly possessed a healthy dose of arrogance, if not common sense. Nikolay placed a booted foot on the rungs of the gate and gave his newest pupil a considering gaze from head to boot. ‘You’re the Russian ambassador’s daughter?’

  She swung off the horse. ‘I am, and this is Zvezda, my mare.’ She smiled broadly, eyes sparking as her boots hit the ground. ‘Surprised? Not what you expected?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ She was also very tall for a woman, a fact emphasi
sed by the male attire she wore, breeches that encased long legs and emphasised the slenderness of waist. Her hair fell to that trim waist, and she had a face that rivalled Helen of Troy, a beautiful mix of eastern exoticism in the seductive slant of those eyes arched with narrow dark brows, the sharp cheekbones of her Russian ancestors and the delicate jaw of an English rose—the perfect combination of strength and femininity.

  ‘“No, not at all”?’ she parroted. ‘What does that mean? No, not at all surprised? Or no, not at all what you expected?’

  Nikolay put a hand on the horse’s bridle. ‘You know very well you had the advantage of me.’ But he would not be cowed by that surprise. Neither would he allow her to keep that advantage. Bold women were attractive up to a point. ‘I think you like surprising people, Miss Grigorieva.’ How intriguing; the ambassador’s daughter had a rebellious streak. He petted the horse, looking for neutral ground before their first encounter became overly adversarial. ‘Zvezda, that’s Star in Russian.’ He didn’t miss the spark in her eyes. She hadn’t known. Interesting. ‘Pretty name. Pretty horse.’ The mare was an excellent specimen of English horseflesh. A Russian name for an English horse, much like the daughter, apparently. Klara was a name that could bridge both worlds, where Grigorieva could not.

  Nikolay watched her carefully, this Anglo-Russian creation standing before him. ‘What is it that you’ve come to me for, Miss Grigorieva?’ His eyes drifted, letting his gaze convey explicitly what his words implied. If she wanted to play with fire, he’d light the match.

  ‘Riding lessons, of course. This is a riding school.’ She didn’t flinch.

  ‘You already ride exceedingly well, as I am sure you know.’

  ‘I am told you’re the best. Isn’t that reason enough?’

  ‘The best at what?’ It was a provocative question, hardly the sort of thing one said to an unmarried young woman. But she was not the ‘usual’. One had only to note her breeches, as opposed to a riding habit, to know that much. The mischief in him wanted to knock Miss Grigorieva from her high horse. The officer in him wanted to control her, wanted to rein in the danger she might pose.