Drake cast Victoria a shy smile. When she offered her hand, the boy accepted it and went with her.
“We had better get this over with,” Rudolf said, once the boys had disappeared.
“You’re damn right about that,” Duke Magnus said.
Dreading what was to come, Samantha felt queasy. She had no one to blame but herself. If she hadn’t given the prince her virginity, she would be able to assume an affronted attitude and swear that nothing had happened. Unfortunately, she had never been a good liar.
“You look pale, “Rudolf said, grasping her arm. “Would you care to lie down instead of accompanying us?”
The prince was giving her an escape route. In that moment, she loved him more than ever.
And then her old friend insecurity stepped from the shadows of her mind. Why did he want her upstairs? What did he think would happen in this interview?
Samantha managed a faint smile. “I will be fine.”
“Have you been ill?” Aunt Roxie asked, concerned.
“Samantha has been feeling under the eaves lately,” Rudolf answered.
“How do you know?” Samantha asked, snapping her gaze to his.
“I notice everything about you.”
Duke Magnus cleared his throat and gestured to the stairs, saying, “Let us retire to my study for this discussion.”
Samantha sat in one of the chairs placed in front of the duke’s mahogany desk. She folded her hands on her lap and stared at them as if they were the most interesting feature inside the room.
Aunt Roxie sat in the chair beside hers and reached over to pat her hand. “All will be well, my darling.”
With his arms folded across his chest, Robert stood near the window. Duke Magnus sat behind his desk while Rudolf sat in the chair beside her aunt’s. Samantha had the sudden feeling the prince was trying to distance himself from her.
“Your Highness, would you care to give us an explanation for the past three months?” Duke Magnus asked.
“Samantha and I were abducted by Vladimir’s agents and taken to London,” Rudolf told him. “We escaped and journeyed to Sweetheart Manor to disappear until my three younger brothers arrive in England this spring.”
“What a frightening experience,” Aunt Roxie exclaimed.
“Roxie, I’ll handle this.” Duke Magnus looked at the prince. “We managed to keep your disappearances quiet. We gave out that Samantha was visiting friends in Scotland, and you had traveled to the Continent on business.”
“We appreciate that, Your Grace,” Rudolf said.
Samantha peeked at the prince. He seemed to have relaxed a bit since entering the study. The situation wasn’t as bad as she had assumed.
From this moment, she and the prince would go their separate ways. That thought wrenched her heart, and her stomach rolled, leaving her queasy. She closed her eyes and fought the nausea.
“So no harm has been done,” Rudolf was saying.
Duke Magnus cleared his throat. “I took the liberty of announcing your betrothal to Samantha in the Times.”
“What?” Samantha was stunned.
“Oh, my darling, yours will be the wedding of the year, if not the decade,” Aunt Roxie gushed.
Rudolf looked decidedly unhappy. “I hadn’t considered remarrying,” he said, his expression grim, “but, of course, I will marry her.”
Her? Now she was her instead of his love? Was the prince forcing himself to marry her? She did not want to marry a man who did not want her.
A tidal wave of humiliation washed over Samantha. Because of the prince, she had been abducted and nearly killed. He had seduced the virginity out of her and ruined whatever chance she’d had to make her dream of love come true.
You must bear part of the blame, an inner voice reminded her. She had allowed the prince to seduce her and, in the doing, had killed her own dream.
The room spun dizzyingly, making her even queasier, and she heard the pounding rush of blood in her ears. She couldn’t bear any more rejection and needed to get out of that room.
“I am going upstairs now.” Samantha rose unsteadily from the chair.
With all the dignity she could muster, Samantha crossed the study to the door. A hand touched her arm to prevent her leaving, and then she heard the prince’s voice.
“My love—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.
“You do not understand,” he said. “My reluctance has nothing to do with you.”
Samantha gave him a cold stare. “I understand very well. Release my arm.” When he silently refused, she added in a broken voice, “Please, let me go.”
The prince dropped his hand. Samantha quit the chamber.
I cannot make anyone happy, Rudolf thought, staring at the closed door. He had never made Olga happy, and now he had brought Samantha pain.
Go after her, an inner voice told him.
Rudolf reached for the doorknob, but the duchess blocked his way. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I need to explain myself.”
“I will see to my niece’s needs,” Roxie told him. “You may explain yourself to His Grace. Do not leave this room until I return.” She looked beyond the prince to the marquess.
“If need be,” Robert promised, “I’ll tie him to the chair.”
Satisfied, Roxie left her husband’s office.
“Your Highness, be seated and explain yourself,” the duke said.
The Duke of Inverary sounded infinitely more relaxed than he had a few minutes earlier. Rudolf’s stress rose in direct proportion to the duke’s relaxation. How could he have done this to Samantha and himself?
Trying to appear relaxed, Rudolf sat down in the chair in front of the duke’s desk and stretched his long legs out. He fixed his black gaze on the older man’s.
“Marrying Samantha will endanger her life,” Rudolf told him. “Vladimir wants me dead and will use her against me.”
“You are not actually opposed to marriage?” Duke Magnus asked.
“I had decided never to marry again,” Rudolf admitted, “but I am not opposed to marrying Samantha and will, of course, do my duty.”
“Why do you dislike the idea of marrying?” Robert asked.
“That is none of your business,” Rudolf said, “but I will answer your question. Love is less constant than the wind.”
“Love has nothing to do with marriage,” Duke Magnus said.
“I believe my intended was hoping for marriage and love.”
“Samantha will survive without love,” Duke Magnus said. “My wife has planned the wedding for the twenty-third day of April. Invitations have been sent to six hundred of our closest friends.”
The situation was worse than Rudolf had thought. Refusing to marry Samantha would not only hurt her feelings, but humiliate her in front of six hundred aristocrats. Of course, those six hundred would repeat the tale to another six hundred who, in turn, would do the same.
“I must travel to my estate on Sark Island,” Rudolf said. “I left my mother and daughter there for safety’s sake.”
“Your mother and daughter are rusticating at my country estate,” Duke Magnus told him.
“You bloody bastard.” How dare this man endanger his family?
The marquess bristled at the insult to his father. “Now, see here—”
The duke gestured his son to silence. “I assure you, Your Highness, my parents were married.”
Rudolf balked at being forced to do anything, especially by this man. “You may be legitimate issue, but you suffered no qualms about scattering your seed far and wide.”
The marquess lunged for the prince.
“Sit down, Robert,” the duke ordered.
“But he—”
“I said, sit down.”
“Were you planning to blackmail me into marrying?” Rudolf asked.
“Call it an incentive,” Duke Magnus answered. “I would never have allowed you to tarnish Samantha’s reputation by refusing to do the
honorable thing.”
“I find talk of honor amazing coming from your lips,” the prince said.
Robert growled. The duke gestured him to remain calm.
“I want my mother, along with Boris and Elke, returned to Sark Island,” Rudolf insisted. “Strangers disturb her. I want my daughter brought to this house and guarded until the trouble with Vladimir is finished.”
“I can do that,” Duke Magnus agreed. “Do you see an end to it soon?”
“My three younger brothers will arrive in England shortly and will negotiate with Vladimir.”
“Vladimir is ensconced at Montague House,” Duke Magnus told him. “I advise you to leave him there until this trouble is settled. I will have him watched. Why don’t you stay here? You will be close to your daughter and Samantha. You do agree to the marriage?”
Rudolf inclined his head. He looked the duke straight in the eye and said, “You will live to regret this, though. You do not know who I really am.”
“What do you mean?” the marquess asked.
“I am no prince.”
“You’re an imposter?”
“I am Prince Rudolf Kazanov,” he said. “However, I am not my father’s son, but another man’s bastard. Fedor Kazanov is too proud a man to refute his firstborn and acknowledge that his English bride was less than pure. My mother suffered because she bore me.”
“How did she suffer?” the duke asked.
“If you have seen her,” Rudolf answered, “then you must have noticed she is vacant at times.”
The duke nodded. “She didn’t recognize me.”
“You knew his mother?” the marquess asked.
Both the prince and the duke ignored the marquess. Their black eyes were fixed on each other.
When Rudolf spoke, there was no masking the hostility in his voice. “My mother was carrying me when she married Fedor Kazanov. When her childbearing days ended, he locked her in an insane asylum. She passed fifteen years there before I was able to free her and bring her home to England.”
The Duke of Inverary winced visibly.
“My God, what a monster,” the marquess exclaimed.
Rudolf wasn’t listening. All of his focus centered on the duke. His voice filled with cold contempt when he said, “She suffered greatly because of you.”
“You know?” Duke Magnus asked.
Rudolf inclined his head. “Sometimes my mother has lucid moments.”
“What does the prince know?” Robert asked his father.
Duke Magnus was silent for long, uncomfortable moments. He took a deep breath and answered, “His Highness knows that I am his natural father.”
Robert appeared stunned.
“Your father is admitting I am your half-brother, albeit from the wrong side of the blanket,” Rudolf said, without taking his black gaze off the duke.
“I am an old man who cares nothing for his reputation and will acknowledge you if you wish,” Duke Magnus offered.
“I do not need your validation,” Rudolf told him, his voice laced with bitterness.
The duke looked hurt by his words, and a bolt of guilt shot through Rudolf. Why should he care about the duke’s feelings? The duke had never cared about his mother or him.
“Fedor Kazanov acknowledges you as his firstborn son,” Duke Magnus said. “To the world, you will remain that.”
“I do not want Samantha or anyone else to know the relationship between us or my origins,” Rudolf said.
“Robert and I will guard your secret,” the duke assured him. “May I call you Rudolf.”
“No, Your Grace, you may call me Your Highness.”
The duke inclined his head, saying, “I hope you will forgive me someday for the pain I caused your mother and you.”
Rudolf stared hard at the man. He seemed sincerely sorry, but Rudolf could not put away the pain of the past twenty-eight years. This man had seduced his mother and then forgot about her, indifferent to her welfare.
“I passed my whole life waiting for this moment, planning your downfall in myriad, horrific ways,” Rudolf said. “And now that the long-awaited moment has arrived, I am beset by other, more important problems.” Rudolf smiled, but it did not quite reach his eyes, eyes that resembled the older man’s. “I suppose I should be grateful to you. The thought of bringing you down kept me strong when Fedor beat me.”
“I am so sorry,” the duke said, his voice hoarse with emotion.
Between Samantha and the duke, Rudolf felt an insistent tugging on his heartstrings but steeled himself against it. He had learned to be suspicious of people.
“I understand your bitterness,” the marquess spoke up.
“Do not patronize me,” Rudolf said, rising from his chair. “You will never understand what being a bastard and the cause of your mother’s suffering means to a man.”
Robert inclined his head. “Why does Vladimir want you dead?”
“Vladimir knows he is the true heir.”
“If you left Russia permanently and renounced your claim, Vladimir would inherit,” Robert said.
“Vladimir stole something I valued,” Rudolf told them. “In return, I left Russia with a valuable meant for the heir. I consider this reparation for the harm done to my mother.”
Duke Magnus smiled at that. “I do believe you have inherited some of my finer points of character.”
Rudolf would not—could not—warm to the duke.
He glanced toward the door. “What is delaying Her Grace?”
Chapter 11
“My worst fear is confirmed.”
Samantha knelt in front of the commode and gagged dryly. Sweat mingled with the tears streaming down her cheeks. She turned her head at the sound of her aunt and, in a voice that mirrored her misery, said, “I’ve made myself sick.”
Sobbing with humiliation, Samantha turned away from her aunt and again gagged dryly. Her only thought was the prince’s reluctance.
Feeling her aunt’s comforting arms holding her steady, Samantha surrendered to her misery. She sobbed as if she would never stop, which made her gag dryly again.
When her tears were spent, Samantha leaned against her aunt’s legs and tried to regain enough strength to stand. Her aunt helped her up and across the chamber to the bed.
“Eat this.” Aunt Roxie held a piece of bread in front of her face.
Leaning against the headboard, Samantha began to shake her head but stopped lest the queasiness return. “I cannot eat a bite.”
“Do as I say,” her aunt ordered.
Samantha would need to have been dead to miss the annoyance in her aunt’s voice. She lifted the bread from her aunt’s hand and took a bite. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply.
“I’m so tired.” Samantha took another bite.
“Do not get comfortable, my dear,” Aunt Roxie said. “You need to return to the study before you can sleep.”
Samantha looked at her through eyes mirroring her misery. “I am not going downstairs.”
Aunt Roxie sat on the edge of the bed. “Darling, arrangements need to be made for your wedding.”
There will be no marriage pounded in her head. She couldn’t marry the prince unless he loved her. “There is no need for a wedding.”
Aunt Roxie burst out laughing as if she were privy to a joke that eluded Samantha. “Are you telling me that the prince and you were not physically intimate?”
Samantha lifted her chin a notch, a high blush staining her cheeks. “That is precisely what I mean.”
Aunt Roxie narrowed her gaze on her. “Do not lie to me.”
“Yes, the prince and I—” Samantha broke off, unable to finish.
“Have you been feeling poorly? Dizzy? Nauseous perhaps?”
Samantha inclined her head and looked with suspicion at her aunt. What point was she trying to make? What did her health have to do with marrying the prince? People took ill. That was the way of the world.
And then an outrageous thought popped into her mind. Samantha looked with dawni
ng horror at her aunt.
“When did you last have your menses?” Aunt Roxie asked.
Samantha closed her eyes against the reality of her situation. She couldn’t recall the last time, certainly before the prince and she fled to Scotland.
“I thought so,” her aunt said, her smile feline. “Queasiness without menstruation means you are carrying the prince’s child.”
“Rudolf doesn’t love me,” Samantha said. “I cannot marry him if he doesn’t love me.”
“You were ready to marry Alexander Emerson,” Aunt Roxie reminded her.
Samantha was unable to suppress a sob. “I love Rudolf and couldn’t bear his hatred.”
“Why would the prince hate you?” her aunt asked. “His actions speak otherwise.”
“Don’t you see?” Samantha said. “Rudolf will grow to hate me because you—my pregnancy—forced him into an unwanted marriage.”
“All men consider all marriages unwanted,” Aunt Roxie said, giving her a dimpled smile. “Darling, the prince’s gaze on you positively screams his love.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want to know a man’s mind, watch what he does, not what he says,” Aunt Roxie said. When Samantha dropped her gaze to her hands folded in her lap, her aunt added, “That would require you to lift your head and to look people in the eye instead of keeping your gaze glued to the carpet because you mistakenly believe you are inferior.”
She was inferior to other ladies, wasn’t she? Had her aunt forgotten her deformed leg?
“Let’s return to the study.” Aunt Roxie held out her hand, adding, “The prince needs to be informed of his impending fatherhood.”
“I can’t.” Samantha shook her head, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “This whole situation is too humiliating.”
“Darling, your wedding is scheduled for one month from now,” Aunt Roxie told her. “The invitations have already been sent. We need this matter settled before society learns of your return to London. Come to the study willingly, or I will drag you down.”
“Give me a few minutes to freshen myself,” Samantha acquiesced. She worried her bottom lip with her small white teeth. “Could you—I mean, would you—?”
“I will inform the prince of your condition.” Aunt Roxie patted her hand. “You will not be subjected to anyone’s initial reaction.”
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