To Wed a Wicked Prince (5 page)

In truth he couldn’t blame the czar. It was a safe assumption that it was the Committee for General Security who’d set the oversight in motion. It didn’t make his job any easier, though. Michael was a blustering old fool a lot of the time, which made him hard to second-guess. His loyalty to the emperor was absolute, as was his loyalty to Mother Russia, but for him the two were inextricably intertwined. Czar Alexander
was
Mother Russia and neither could do wrong.

But he had pleasanter matters to occupy him for the rest of the day. Alex called for Boris to fetch his hat and gloves, and a few minutes later he was strolling in the direction of Piccadilly and the business of Rundell and Bridge.

Within the hushed portals of that business a discreet gentleman, on hearing his identity, swiftly ushered him into a paneled chamber behind the shop, where he was introduced to Mr. Bridge, a dignified gentleman in black coat and waistcoat, who rose to greet him from behind a massive desk. “An honor, Prince Prokov. How may we be of service?”

Alex tipped the gems into the palm of his hand and then set them on the pouch on the desk. “I have a design in mind for these,” he said without preamble. “But I am also open to suggestions.”

The gentleman appraised the gems with one sweeping glance and said almost reverently, “Allow me to fetch our master jeweler, sir.” He slipped away as soundlessly as a black wraith and was back in seconds with a tall, impossibly thin man, whose hunched back indicated hours of labor bent over a workbench.

“This is Mr. Arkwright, sir,” the first gentleman said. “He is a master craftsman.”

Alex acknowledged the new arrival with a nod and gestured to the glittering pile of stones on the desk. “I have in mind a ring and a pendant. If you have paper and pen, Mr. Arkwright, I will sketch the designs I had in mind.”

The jeweler regarded Alex’s efforts with something akin to respect, then took the pen. “If I might make a suggestion, sir.” He made a few adjustments.

“I take it these are for a lady, not…how shall I put it…not a debutante, sir?” Mr. Bridge murmured. “Sapphires and diamonds, sir…not entirely suitable for the very young.”

“I am aware of that,” Alex said, and then wished he hadn’t sounded so dismissive, as Mr. Bridge hummed and huffed apologies for an interminable length of time. “You weren’t to know, Mr. Bridge,” he said, interrupting the murmur. “But as it happens, the lady is no longer a debutante and is well up to wearing such stones.”

“Yes…yes, of course, sir. Forgive me…”

“Let us dispense with that now, Mr. Bridge,” Alex said, waving a hand. “It’s a matter of no further concern.” He turned back to the jeweler who was weighing the stones. “So, Arkwright, will these stones do?”

“These stones are flawless, sir,” Mr. Arkwright said. He glanced up at the customer. “If you had more, I would suggest diamond ear drops with a sapphire center would be an admirable addition to the set.”

Alex smiled. “Yes, they would, but I don’t wish to run before I can walk, Mr. Arkwright. When the time comes, I will return with that commission.”

“Of course, sir. May I take them now?”

“Please.” Alex gestured to the stones in invitation. “How long do you think?”

“A month.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed, his fair brows drawing together. He
had
to carry the castle before then if he was to keep to his timetable. “Three weeks,” he stated.

Mr. Arkwright looked at his employer, who nodded at him. He scooped the gems into the pouch. “Three weeks it shall be, sir.”

“Thank you.” Alex picked up his hat from the chair where he’d deposited it on his entrance. “I’ll be back three weeks today.”

Mr. Arkwright gave him a nodding bow and hurried away. Mr. Bridge bowed more deeply. “Such a pleasure to do business with you, Prince Prokov.” He escorted his customer to the street and stood bowing until he’d disappeared into the throng.

L
IVIA DESCENDED THE STAIRS THE
following morning, her eyes on the sheet of vellum she was reading, and then her progress halted. She stared openmouthed at the hall below her and wondered if she’d somehow been transported to the botanic gardens. Flowers of every hue spilled from baskets, were massed in great copper jugs, covering the parquet floor.

“Good Lord, where did all these come from?”

“I’m trying to find out.” Aurelia popped up from behind an enormous basket of deep crimson dahlias. “I can’t find a card anywhere here. Come and help.”

Livia took the last few steps with a skip and a jump and plunged into the tropical garden. The mingled scents were almost overpowering. “There must be some mistake. Who brought them?”

“Some carrier, according to Morecombe.” Aurelia shook her head in bemusement. “Of course it didn’t occur to him to ask the man anything about the delivery, he just let them pile everything here and went off about his business in usual Morecombe fashion. I found all this when I came down five minutes ago.”

Livia gazed around her. She ran distracted hands through her curls. “What are we to do with them?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out who they’re from first. It might well be a mistake. You start on the right and I’ll take the left.” Aurelia began a methodical search of the containers.

“This is ridiculous,” Livia said after a few futile minutes.
“Morecombe.”
She raised her voice and yelled in the general direction of the kitchen regions.

“You’ll be lucky,” Aurelia observed with a grin. But to her surprise the elderly retainer shuffled into the hall a few minutes later.

“You want summat, m’lady?”

“Yes,” Livia said, straightening from a basket of roses. “Did the carrier say anything at all when he unloaded these?”

The butler shook his head. “Nowt that I ’eard, mum. Said as ’ow they were fer Lady Livia Lacey, an’ dumped the lot ’ere an’ went about ’is business, like any other God-fearing fellow.” He turned at the sound of the door knocker and grumbled, “Anyone would think we was a coachin’ inn.”

Livia exchanged a look with Aurelia as Morecombe plodded to the door and fiddled with the latch before finally opening the door a crack.

“Good morning,” a familiar voice said. “Is your mistress within?”

“Seems t’be,” Morecombe responded.

“Then would you announce me?” The prince’s voice was patient and pleasant.

Livia went to the door. “It’s all right, Morecombe.” She took the door from him and opened it wide.

Prince Prokov, hat in hand, bowed, the sun catching golden glints in his fair head. His eyes seemed particularly blue this morning, Livia thought somewhat distractedly, and his teeth gleamed very white as he smiled.

“My dear lady, what a great pleasure it is to see you.” She did look enchanting, he thought. She wore an informal morning gown of apple-green cambric and her curly hair was rather unruly, as if she’d been trawling her fingers through it, giving her the appearance of dishabille. Her complexion had a delicate pink flush to it as if she’d been exerting herself more than usual.

Livia wasn’t sure whether he was teasing her or not. It was a ridiculously flowery greeting, but there was something in his smiling gaze that flustered her a little. She said as firmly as she could, “Good morning, Prince Prokov. You’re paying calls rather early…unfortunately this is not the most convenient moment for us.”

“Oh, I don’t mind, please continue with what you were doing,” he said blithely. “I won’t be in the way, I promise.” He took a step up to the door and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, good, the flowers have arrived. Do they please you?”

“
You
sent them?” She stared at him, and then realized that she should have guessed all along. It was just the kind of flamboyant, overwhelming gesture she should have expected from this Russian prince.

“Yes. Didn’t you find my card?” He took advantage of her momentary disarmament to step past her into the hall.

“Good morning, Prince Prokov.” Aurelia emerged from a garden of hothouse tulips and regarded him with a cool smile and clear mistrust in her steady gaze. “Am I to understand we have you to thank for this…this largesse.” She made an expansive gesture encompassing the massed blooms behind her.

“I thought they might brighten your day, ma’am,” he said with a bow, his eyes searching her expression with a little frown in their depths. “Was I mistaken?”

“We don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Livia said quickly, “and indeed they are most beautiful…but what are we to do with them all?”

“Arrange them,” he suggested. “Isn’t that what ladies usually do with flowers?”

“A bunch at a time perhaps,” Livia said, unable to keep a chuckle from her voice. It really was absurd. “But not an entire botanical garden. Where did you get them all?”

“I have my sources,” he said. “But if they’re too much of a nuisance I shall have them taken away at once.”

“Oh, no, you mustn’t do that,” Livia exclaimed. “I don’t mean to be ungracious. It’s…it’s just that such a quantity is rather overwhelming.”

“Then allow me to help you arrange them.” He tossed his hat onto the Jacobean bench by the door and followed it with his cane and gloves. Then he bent and lifted a woven basket of lilies. “Now, where would you like me to take these?”

“In the salon, I think, don’t you, Ellie? They have the most wonderful scent.” Livia cast a helpless glance towards her friend.

Aurelia accepted the fait accompli. “Yes, they’ll look pretty on the console table between the windows,” she agreed, telling herself that flowers were a perfectly respectable offering from a gentleman to a lady. It was only the quantity that was the problem here. Somehow such munificence seemed to detract from the general respectability of the gift.

Livia, on the other hand, didn’t seem concerned at all, Aurelia noticed. She was laughing and chatting inconsequentially as she directed the prince’s labors, arranging banks of flowers on windowsills and tables, her cheeks delicately flushed and her gray eyes glinting with light like sun on the sea. Aurelia sent a swift prayer for Cornelia’s rapid return to town. She could do with reinforcements together with a second opinion, and the situation cried out for Harry’s investigative contacts.

The house resembled a hothouse when the flowers were finally dispersed throughout the ground floor, the air heavy with their fragrance.

“It’s like living in a garden,” Livia said with delight even as Aurelia sneezed. “Oh, dear, do they tickle your nose, Ellie?”

“A little,” the other woman admitted, blowing her nose on a lace handkerchief. “But I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

“Lawks-a-mercy.”

They all turned to the door at the exclamation. Ada, Morecombe’s wife, stood staring, her gray hair drawn into a severe bun on the nape of her neck, the greenish cast to her pallor more noticeable than usual. She called over her shoulder, “Our Mavis, would you jest come an’ take a look at this lot.”

Her sister appeared almost immediately with Morecombe at her back. “Well, I never did,” Mavis declared. “I never saw nuthin’ like it, not never.”

“Eh, an’ jest who’s goin’ t’be waterin’ this lot, that’s what I’ve been wantin’ to know,” Morecombe stated.

“Aye, take all day it will,” his wife agreed, her sister nodding vigorously. “If ’n you expects yer dinner on time, mum, ye’ll not be lookin’ to our Mavis an’ me to see t’ this lot.”

“An’ ’tis not my job, neither,” Morecombe announced.

“It’s quite all right. I’ll take care of it myself,” Livia said. “With Lady Farnham’s help, of course.” She shot Aurelia a look of anxious appeal.

“Yes, of course,” Aurelia said, trying to contain her laughter at the disapproval on the faces of the three retainers. “Of course we wouldn’t expect any of you to take on such a monumental task. But I’m sure Hester can help, and Jemmy can fill watering cans.”

“Oh dear,” Alex murmured as the trio departed without offering an opinion on the assistance of their juniors. “Somehow the practicalities of such an offering escaped me. Shall I come every morning and water them myself? Would that help?”

“No, of course you shan’t,” Livia said on a bubble of laughter. “We’ll manage even if I’m condemned to wander amongst them with a watering can for the rest of my days. I’m sure I shan’t miss attending all the balls and the parties…although I confess I am particularly fond of the theatre,” she added with a mournful sigh. “It might be difficult to forgo that.”

“Absurd woman,” Alex accused, thinking once again how much he enjoyed her laughter, even when she was mocking him. He glanced at the long case clock in the corner of the room as it struck ten. “Damn it, but I have to go. An appointment…” He hurried to the hall for his cane, hat, and gloves. “Livia, I came to ask you to join me in the park this afternoon. I’ll collect you at five o’clock…that is the hour for seeing and being seen, is it not?”

“Generally yes,” Livia said, following him into the hall. “But has it occurred to you that I might have something else to do this afternoon?”

He drew on a glove and frowned at her. “No…do you? Can’t you put it off?”

“I might not wish to,” she said, on her mettle once again.

His frown deepened. “I’m not very adept at this game of flirtation, ma’am. It has always struck me as pointless. If you don’t wish to join me this afternoon, then please say so.”

“As it happens, I wasn’t flirting,” Livia retorted, the sunshine vanished from her eyes. “I don’t care to have my mind made up for me by someone else’s assumptions. You presume too much, Prince Prokov.”

“Ah.” He drew on the second glove, smoothing the fine leather over his hand, frowning as he did so. “It is perhaps a failing of mine,” he conceded after a minute. “In my culture men tend to make the decisions.” He looked across at her then and his teeth flashed in a smile. “I’m willing to learn the English way. Surely you can’t resist the opportunity to teach me, ma’am?”

Perhaps she couldn’t.
Livia debated the question, keeping him waiting for her answer, although his smile didn’t waver and that clear blue gaze didn’t move from her face. “I’ve always enjoyed a challenge, sir,” she said finally. “We’ll see if I’m up to this one.”

“I don’t doubt it for a minute.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, brushing her knuckles with the merest breath of a kiss. “At five o’clock, then.”

“Five o’clock.” She moved to open the door but he reached over her to lift the latch himself.

“Forgive the observation, ma’am, but isn’t there a saying about not keeping a servant and opening one’s own doors?”

“The saying you mean goes something like, there’s no point keeping a dog and barking oneself,” she said. “And Morecombe and the twins are a law unto themselves. They don’t really work for me, they work for the memory of Sophia Lacey, as I think I explained…and talking of dogs…” She broke off as Tristan and Isolde came hurtling up the steps from the street, a flustered Hester struggling to hold on to their leashes.

“I beg your pardon, mum, but I can’t hold ’em,” Hester panted as the leash was wrenched from her hand. “I was going to take ’em round to the kitchen.”

“That’s all right, Hester,” Livia said above the yapping of the terriers, who seemed to have decided that Prince Prokov was their new best friend.

He seemed untroubled by their attentions, merely brushing them down as if they were dust balls as they pranced on hind legs at his knees. He said something sharply to them in a language that Livia didn’t understand, but the effect was remarkable. They dropped to their haunches and gazed up at him, tongues lolling.

“Whatever did you say?” Livia asked. “Oh, no, what a ridiculous question, they wouldn’t have understood you.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” he said carelessly. “The language of animals is universal. It’s not the sounds so much as the tone. I could speak to them in Mandarin in the same tone and they’d respond in the same way.”

“Could you speak Mandarin?” she asked involuntarily even though she was bristling again at his calm assumption of some supernaturally superior power.
Talk to animals, indeed.

He gave her a shrewd look, sensing her annoyance. He shook his head, but with a smile. “No, as it happens I don’t speak Mandarin. But I do have a way with animals…even such unlikely-looking creatures as these.” The dogs drooled adoringly as if they knew he was speaking of them.

Livia bent and picked up the dropped leashes. “Don’t let me keep you from your engagement, Prince.”

“Until this afternoon, Livia.” He gave her a brief bow and then strolled down the steps to the street. He turned and raised a hand in farewell and the dogs howled.

“Oh, do be quiet, you fickle creatures.” Livia hauled the animals into the hall and kicked the door shut behind her. She bent to release the leads and they skittered across the polished parquet towards a standing copper vase of greenery and roses. Excitedly they scampered around the vase, sniffing, tails in the air, and Livia began to get an ominous premonition.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, bending to scoop them up. “This may look and smell like a flower garden, my friends, but it is
not.
” She carried them to the baize door that led to the kitchen regions, opened it, and sent them through. Yet another complication of Alex Prokov’s incarnation as a florist.

She returned to the salon but there was no sign of Aurelia, just the heavy scent of myriad blooms. She ran her to earth in the parlor. “Ah, here you are.”

“Yes, I needed some fresh air,” Aurelia said, putting down the periodical she was reading. “We managed to keep the flowers out of this room. What an impulsive man he is, Liv. Who would think to do something like that?”

“I don’t think Alex Prokov considers it at all odd,” Livia said. “It seems to go hand in hand with pushing people into fountains if they’re in your way.”

“Why do I think you don’t really mind his impulses?” Aurelia asked, watching Liv closely as she paced the room.

Livia shrugged. “I don’t…at least not all the time. They’re rather exciting.” She stopped pacing and stood by the window, facing Aurelia. She still had that glow about her, Aurelia noticed, still that sunshine sparkle in her eyes. “I’m never bored in his company, Ellie.”