Heels down? Was he joking? No one had told her that for years. She was no amateur and yet she begrudgingly discovered there was a bit of room in the stirrups still for the slightest of adjustments. She turned Zvezda around and pointed her towards the jump. Five even strides. She’d show that arrogant Russian prince perfection in motion. Heels down. Hah. That would be the last time she gave him reason to find any fault with her.
They worked on counting strides for the better part of the hour until the mare was tired, but not too tired, not too sweaty. Sweaty horses chilled easily in the winter. Nikolay Baklanov had a good eye, not just for the horse, but for the rider, too. His arrogance was well earned. His reputation did not disappoint. Even with her experience, she’d picked up a tip or two during their session which was something of a surprise in part because she’d not expected to and in part because learning something had only been a portion of the reason she was here. The other part was that she’d been sent on a mission of sorts to vet the young Kubanian royal. The Prince had been in London for two months; long enough to have called on the ambassador himself. Since he hadn’t, her father had decided to send her to call on him. She was to meet Prince Baklanov and establish his ‘quality’.
Klara dismounted to walk her horse while the mare cooled. The Prince fell into step beside her, debriefing the lesson with instructions on what to practise throughout the week. She could easily imagine him giving the same terse litany of instructions to his troops. He would be a commanding leader. Up close, he was tall, a novelty for her. She could look most men in the eye, but she reached only his shoulder, a very broad shoulder. There was no doubting he was a rider of superb calibre. He was built for it with long legs, muscled thighs evident even through the fabric of his trousers and lean through the hips. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, only muscle: well-trained, well-hewn muscle.
This was no dandified cavalry officer whose position had been purchased by his parents and good fortune of birth. This man was a warrior, a point accentuated by the dark hair worn long at his shoulders; the firm cut of his jaw and severe, chiselled lines of his face. A woman could look at that face for hours, could lose herself in the dark depths of his eyes—eyes full of secrets. He was a man who knew how to be dangerous to both men and women—a warrior to one, a lover to the other. He did not strike her as a man who’d appreciate being manipulated.
‘Do you keep a horse here?’ she asked when his debrief finished. Men loved to talk about themselves, it was always safe—and useful—conversation and that’s what she was here for: useful conversation with Prince Baklanov. Men gave hints away all the time, in their words if she was lucky, but in other subtle ways, too: the tone of their voices, the gestures they made, the way they held their bodies.
‘I keep three, actually.’ He smiled at the mention of his horses and the result changed his face entirely, translating the strong, stoic planes of his warrior’s face into breath-taking handsomeness. Zvezda was cool and they led her out into the aisle towards a stall. ‘We’re passing them now.’ He nodded to the left, a hand going to the pocket of his coat to retrieve a treat as they came up on the first stall. ‘This is Cossack. He’s a Russian Don by breed.’
‘He must be your cavalry horse.’ Klara ran her eyes over the muscled chestnut, taking in the horse’s shiny coat. ‘He’s magnificent,’ she complimented, but she could tell her comment, her knowledge, had surprised him.
‘Yes. I brought him with me when I left Kuban.’ She heard the wistfulness as his voice caressed the words. Perhaps he would rather not have left? The Prince moved on to the stall beside it. ‘This is Balkan, my stallion.’ He ran a hand affectionately down the long neck of a horse so dark, he was nearly black.
‘Let me guess.’ Klara took in the short back, the height of the withers. ‘He’s Kabardin, perhaps Karachay.’
‘Very good!’ He flashed her another handsome smile. ‘You do know something of the Motherland then.’
It was her turn to be uncomfortable with his display of insight. ‘I know something of horses and their breeds,’ Klara replied, leading Zvezda to her stall. She grabbed the blanket hanging beside the stall and stepped inside. ‘How did you know?’
The Prince lounged outside the stall door, arms crossed, eyes studying her as she tossed the blanket over Zvezda’s back. ‘You didn’t know what Zvezda meant when I told you. You don’t speak Russian and I would guess that your mother is English.’ He pushed off the wall and stepped inside to work the chest fastenings of the blanket. ‘I would go so far as to say you’ve never lived in Russia.’
‘You’re almost right.’ Her hands stilled on the blanket straps. What would this prince think of such a woman who had no knowledge of her heritage? ‘I haven’t lived there since I was a little girl. It’s true, I don’t remember much of it. We lived in St Petersburg for three years when I was four. We spent the summers in the countryside at an estate near Peterhof. That’s what I am told. What I remember are the grasses around the estate, how they were as tall as I was and I could hear the wind pass through them.’ She loved those memories. She’d lain for hours in those grasses looking up at the sky, happy and unaware how sadly the sojourn in St Petersburg would end.
No one paid much attention to her in those days—she would only understand why much later. In the moment, she’d been pleased. She could go where she willed, do what she wanted. She’d had grand adventures. Returning to England had been the end of those adventures, except for her horses. She might have gone crazy if it hadn’t been for them. England had been the start of special tutors, then special schools, the very best for a girl who was expected to grow up to marry a duke, to become a complete Englishwoman, her Russian heritage nothing more than a novel characteristic to be put on display the way one displays a parlour trick. Something interesting and entertaining, but not to be taken seriously, not even by her, although this was ground on which she and her father disagreed. She wanted to know about her Russian heritage, hungered for it, even against her father’s promises to her dying mother to raise an English rose.
‘St Petersburg is a long way from the Kuban Steppes,’ the Prince said neutrally and she had the sense that she was the one being vetted, quite the reverse of her intentions for this meeting. It made her nervous. What had she given away? What secrets had she inadvertently revealed?
She tried for a smile and a bit of humour. ‘We can’t all be patriotic cavalry officers.’
The effort failed. Her remark had been meant as a compliment, but it evoked something darker. The openness of his expression shuttered. ‘Who said anything about being patriotic? Come, you haven’t seen my other horse, she’s a Cleveland Bay. I acquired her when I arrived. I have hopes of breeding her with my Kabardin stallion.’ Any chance to follow up on his comment was lost in his rambling talk of a breeding opportunity. Klara was certain it was quite purposely done. The comment about patriotism had made him edgy. She had skated close to something with that remark.
They petted the Cleveland Bay and made conversation about mares and horses in general—safe ground for them both. But she was aware the atmosphere around them remained charged with wariness. They were both on their guard now, protecting themselves, cautious of revealing too much by accident to a stranger. She didn’t want him to see any more of her and her lack of ‘Russianness’. It was embarrassing to her that he should see it so clearly and on such short acquaintance. Would he be as disgusted by it as she if he knew the reason—that she’d been groomed to be an expensive pawn in a dangerous game she couldn’t escape? Would he even care? Disgust implied the pre-existence of caring. He was her riding instructor, nothing more. And as for the Prince—what was it he didn’t want her to see? What was he protecting? Why? More importantly, why did he think a diplomat’s daughter would care about his