* * *
She was watching him with those silver eyes that hid and revealed her by turn. He could feel the intensity of her gaze on him. That gaze would expose her if he looked up. But he didn’t need to. He knew what she wanted. ‘I will not give you a lie, Lady Dove.’ Illarion concentrated on the paper before him, on the words flowing out of his pen. He almost had it. He wouldn’t look up until he was done. ‘I cannot give you what I don’t possess.’
‘And what is that?’ She was cross with him anew, no doubt for giving her riddles when she wanted a very certain speech from him.
‘Remorse.’ He did look up then, setting aside his pen. ‘You want an apology from me. I cannot give it since I possess none over our last exchange. In short, I am not sorry for a single word I said.’ He watched her gaze move from him to the paper on the writing desk. He blew on the sheet once more to ensure the ink was dry and tucked the sheet inside the case. ‘Did you think I was writing you an apology?’ Lady Dove had confidence in spades to make such assumptions, to think that every man she met was dying of need to make himself presentable to her.
‘I did think it was a possibility given the nature of our conversation.’ The straightforward expectation of her due was fast becoming part of her appeal. Illarion studied her carefully, seeing beyond the outer shell of loveliness. There was a beautiful boldness to such naïve belief that she would never be denied. It was that which he had tried to capture on paper today, not an apology. That boldness could not last. It was like a bloom of spring, a bright splash of colour for a season, but ultimately destined to fade after heat and weather had its way. He had seen it happen to too many women. He didn’t want to see it happen to Dove.
He rose, tucking his writing case back into the canvas bag. ‘Since I cannot offer you an apology, I shall make a peace offering. Before we go, I would like to show you one of my favourite places, if you’ll permit?’ He placed a hand lightly at her back, guiding her towards the path, the gesture giving her permission to stay a while longer. He had decided for them. He guided her down the Lancaster Walk towards the Queen’s Temple, keeping up easy conversation as the building came into view through the trees. ‘It was built for Queen Caroline in 1734. It was meant to be a summer house.’ How odd to be the guide and not the tourist. Perhaps London truly was becoming his home now.
He paused long enough to let her study the classical parchment-coloured architecture of the last century before leading her inside where it was dim and cool and empty. Whatever treasures the Queen had once kept in here for her comfort had long been removed. Illarion let Dove wander through the three chambers ahead of him, taking in the grace of her movements, the way her hand trailed against a wall, tracing the etched initials irreverently marking the presence of guests before them. ‘That’s a shame,’ she murmured. ‘To deface a thing of beauty by marking it.’
Illarion stopped behind her, close enough to catch the light spring lilac of her perfume. ‘This is naught but an empty building to the public.’
She shook her head. ‘But once it was someone’s refuge, a place they went for privacy, where the world could not touch them for a brief while.’
There was such longing in her voice and knowledge, too, about the value of such a place. Illarion could not help but ask, ‘Did you have refuge like this in Cornwall?’
She did not look at him. Her gaze remained riveted on the ignoble etching on the wall, but a smile quirked at her lips. ‘I did. We had an orangery. It was always warm, even in the winter. I would go there and draw. In the summers, I would open the doors and sit outside.’
‘Had?’ Illarion gave a laugh. She talked as if she’d never go back. ‘London isn’t the end of the world.’
Her grey gaze swivelled to him, her voice quiet in the empty space. ‘It may not be the end of the world, Prince Kutejnikov, but it is the end of the world as I know it. Lady Dove Sanford-Wallis will not go back there. When I return, it will be as someone’s Duchess if my father has his way. I will only return to visit, never to live, never to stay. My place will be with my husband. There is no question of if I will “take” this Season, or if I will wed. The only thing left to be decided is to whom.’
She moved away from him, her back to him as she spoke as the enormity of her realisation swamped her anew. ‘The stories, the fairy tales I’d been raised on about the Season, all grew my hopes. I was so excited to come and it distracted me from what coming here really meant.’
‘And what is that?’ Illarion asked carefully. He could feel the old anger begin to stir in him, the anger that had seen him exiled from Kuban, the anger that had earned the Kubanian Tsar’s displeasure.
‘That I have a duty to my family in marrying well, and that marrying “well” is not defined by finding someone with whom one shares a mutual affection, but by finding someone who’s bloodline and title and wealth are worthy of your own. My duty is to show up at the church, a beautiful symbol of my family’s part of the alliance. A symbol!’ she spat. ‘Not a person with any free will of her own.’ Her resentment was raw, palpably new and she was grappling with what it all meant.
Illarion was struck by the irony beneath her struggle. For all the liberalism of London, for all the modernity of England, some things had not changed. Even among the glittering ballrooms of the ton with its silks and jewels, women were still slaves. The hatred of such a system flooded back to him, a reminder of how dormant his passions had been in the year since he’d left Kuban, of how he’d tried to bury them, forget them. Life was easier when one did not trouble oneself with issues of social justice. It had also proven to be emptier.
Here, in the dimness of the Queen’s Temple, he felt himself coming to life. The poet-warrior in him waking after hibernation, old habits, old emotions surfacing. He closed the distance between them, wanting to touch her, wanting to give her reassurance, protection against the reality she’d glimpsed, the anger she felt over the betrayal and her own impotence, he wanted to remind her that she was a person, with free will and real feelings. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t have to be that way for you.’ He let his voice linger at her ear, let his hands rest at her shoulders as he whispered his temptation.
‘Of course it does. I cannot shame my family.’ He heard the resignation in her tone. Despite her anger, she was a loyal daughter. Did she even think of fighting it? Or like Katya, did she feel forced to accept her fate?
‘At the expense of your own happiness?’ he said softly, urging her to think about the cost of her acquiescence. He turned her then, moving her to face him, his hand tipping her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘It’s easy to give up that which you don’t understand. You don’t fully know what you’d be missing.’ He wanted to awaken her, wanted to give her a reason to fight. He could show her and, if she drew certain conclusions from the demonstration, then so be it. He dropped his eyes to her lips in the briefest of warnings before he claimed them.
He teased her lips apart, his mouth patient in its instruction as she opened to him, her body answering him along with her lips and he knew then he was her first kiss, her first taste of desire, first taste of a little wickedness, too. He deepened the kiss, slowly, expertly, so as not to rush her or pressure her, but to answer her, to lead her at her pace where he wanted her to go. She was delicious in her inexperience, eager and hesitant by turns. He would ensure she didn’t regret this...until she did. Without warning, she was out of his arms and thwack!
Her palm struck his cheek, her eyes ablaze. ‘What the hell was that for?’ He was too stunned to correct his language. It wasn’t the first time curiosity over a kiss had sparked a rebellion, but it was the first time he’d been slapped for it.
Sweet heavens, her hand hurt! She hadn’t bargained on that.