A Prince Among Men (23 page)

Alexander could not help smiling. Passionate conviction made Ophelia shine.

Lady Searle batted her fan. "Ophelia, we have resolved this issue. Return to your guests. I have summoned Miss Gray's carriage. Her connections are so decidedly beneath—"

"Mother, it's beneath you to behave with such incivility to a guest."

"Miss Gray is not a guest, but an interloper who procured a card of invitation by some devious means and entered the ball surreptiously."

"I believe Miss Gray is with Jasper."

Lady Searle's cold gaze swung to Hetty. "Miss Gray, I warn you, your parentage makes any connection between you and my son unthinkable."

"That is for your son to decide," said Hetty, clinging to Ophelia. "My father is a gentleman in manner and mind, if not by birth or profession."

"It is not your father that sinks you, Miss Gray. It's your mother. The woman's a trollop and a scribbler. Byron is possibly the only fellow who's not been her lover."

"Mother!" Ophelia stepped forward as if to ward off a blow. "Come, Hetty," she said. But
Hetty didn't budge, her gaze fixed on Lady Searle.

"Whatever do you mean, Your Grace? My mother's dead."

A cunning look came into Lady Searle's eyes. "You are sadly mistaken, Miss Gray."

"Mother!" Ophelia warned sharply.

"Ophelia, return to your guests."

Ophelia gave Hetty's arm an urgent tug, trying to draw her away.

With ashen cheeks, Hetty froze in her tracks. "What do you mean, Lady Searle, that my mother is alive?"

Ophelia groaned.

Lady Searle drew herself up, a fierce gladness in her eye. "Amelia Hart is very much alive and living in Bloomsbury with her latest paramour."

Alexander stepped forward. "Your Grace, Miss Gray, Lady Ophelia." He bowed. The three women dipped into a curtsy. "I beg your pardon, ladies, but Miss Gray is a particular friend of mine and promised to go in to supper with me. Will you excuse us?"

His eyes met Ophelia's and in hers he saw gratitude. He wanted to prolong the silent exchange with her, the moment of shared feeling for a friend in distress, but he had to act.

The duchess glanced from Hetty to Alexander, obviously doubting the possibility of a connection between the prince and the untitled girl. Alexander concentrated on the tense, shaken figure of Hetty Gray, willing her to accept the fiction he'd created. He offered his arm, and Ophelia helped her friend to take it. He glanced at Ophelia, hoping for another moment of understanding
between them, but she didn't look up.

Gently he turned Hetty toward the doors at the far end of the ballroom. Her arm trembled on his as she looked the length of the room.

"Miss Gray, keep your eyes on me." When she obeyed, he put his hand over hers.

"Your Majesty, you're very kind. I cannot go to supper here. Truly I cannot."

"No matter. We're going to walk the length of this room, chatting with apparent amiability and composure. No one is to see your distress." Her expression told him that she'd prefer crossing a bed of hot coals. "Ready?"

She took a deep breath and they began their stroll.

"I must go home at once," she said, when they were less than halfway down the room.

Alexander glanced round for Jasper, but he was probably still conferring with Castlereagh. "Your carriage will be ready."

"Thank you."

In the marble foyer her knees gave way, and Alexander led her to a small bench. He sent one servant for her cloak, and another to find Jasper. The girl huddled where she sat, withdrawn into herself, apparently unaware of the flurry of activity around her. Alexander stood at her side, shielding her from the stares of servants.

Abruptly she stood. "Does Jasper know who my mother is?"

Alexander didn't know.

She started for the door, and Alexander caught her hand. "Oh, do let me go, Prince Alexander.
I
must get away before
…
"

"Your Majesty," said a footman, "the lady's
coach is here." Alexander released her, and Hetty dashed through the door, down the steps, and into the waiting carriage.

"Left her cloak, she did." A footman handed Alexander the abandoned garment as Jasper came striding into the hall.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"Fled. Lady Searle told her Amelia Hart was her mother. She's in shock. She didn't know."

"My God! I've got to go to her."

T
he Regent and his entourage were preparing to leave. Footmen passed through the crowd with trays of champagne glasses for the final toast to the young royal couple. Royal attendants cleared a path for the Regent and his party. Lord and Lady Searle and their sons gathered round their royal guests, preparing for the last formality. The orchestra played a brief fanfare.

If Alexander could get five minutes with Ophelia now, he could explain. The situation wasn't hopeless. Her glance over Hetty Gray's head showed some fragment of their friendship remained intact, an ember in the ashes. He would blow on that small coal until it burned brightly again. Alexander paused, searching for Ophelia in the crowd, as the resplendent monarch lifted his hand to wave to his subjects.

Ophelia sank into a curtsy with the assembled lords and ladies in the suddenly hushed ballroom. Once the royals were on their way, she could find Jasper and send him after Hetty. Her father lifted his glass. Everyone followed. Charlotte and Saxe-Coburg were enormously popular.

Her father started speaking in his heavy mournful rumble. "It is an honor, a deep honor, for Searle House to mark in this humble way this occasion of great felicity, great fe
licity, for all Englishmen and
women."

Shrieks of laughter coming from the supper room abruptly pierced the solemnity. Lord Searle frowned and continued speaking, but Ophelia could no longer hear him as the shrieks came closer. The Regent jerked toward the sound, the bowed heads came up, a footman dashed out.

A lady screamed at the doorway. The crowd parted with ungainly shuffling, leaving an open stretch of parquet straight to the Regent's party. There was a moment of baffled expectation. Then Pet erupted into the open space, covered with streaks of icing and blobs of cream and flower petals. Before the stunned faces of the guests, the creature skidded on the polished floor, plopped his hindquarters down, and went into a long, gliding spin, smearing a purple streak of icing like a snail's track in his wake. Nimble lords and ladies leaped aside to protect
skirts
and spotless pantaloons. Champagne sloshed from fluted glasses.

The long slide slowed. Pet scrambled to his feet, and with a series of short, happy barks, launched himself into the silken skirts of the Duchess of Searle.

Silence, awkward and amazed. Then a lady tittered, a gentleman choked on a laugh, and the sound spread and grew until the ballroom erupted in hilarity.

That instant a strong hand closed on Ophelia's wrist.

"Come with me." Alexander dragged her through the laughing crowd, ignoring her protests.

At one of the tall doors he stopped and said in her ear, "Five minutes. Where can we go?"

She refused to answer, and he flung the door open. They were under the stairs at the back of the entry hall. He swore. She expected him to release her then, but as he looked at two opposite doors, clearly trying to decide which to take a chance on, Lucca appeared.

"This way, Majesty."

Alexander strode after him, his grip firm on Ophelia's arm as he guided her past the servants crowding the ballroom entry to catch a glimpse of the duchess's humiliation, through the door, down the steps, and into a waiting carriage.

"We will talk," he said.

Chapter 18

"
W
hat c
an you hope to accomplish by
abducting me?" Ophelia pressed herself into the corner of the coach as far from him as she could get. She crossed her arms, trying to cage a treacherous longing to let him hold her.

On the opposite seat Alexander twisted, shedding his evening coat. "I want to explain why I concealed my circumstances from you as long as I did."

"Your servant revealed your circumstances inadvertently. You never intended to tell me the truth. Did you plan to walk away from the stables saying nothing?"

"I couldn't w
alk away, thoug
h I should have after I took yo
u to Miss Gray's that first time."

"Well, now that I know who you are, there's really nothing to explain. Take me home."

"There's a great deal to explain." He offered her his coat.

Her chin went up. "Write me a letter. I promise to read it."

"I have a better idea. I'd like to tell you
a story."

She stared out the window. "I won't listen."

"You read Berwick's poem," he reminded her. "You were moved by the adventures of Prince Azim. Won't you listen to a true story?"

She turned on him then. "Truth from you? Unlikely."

With a sudden lunge he crossed to her seat and pinned her against the squabs with his coat. She twisted and squirmed, knocking her feathered headdress askew, but his body trapped hers. She fixed her gaze on the flicker of lights beyond the coach window, trying to block him from her mind. But his breath ruffled the curls at her cheek, a faint disturbance that threatened to crumble her defenses.

"I'll make my story as plain and honest as I can. You be the judge, Ophelia." His voice cracked a little.

She pressed her lips together, but her glance strayed to his.

"I won't try to deceive you about the least detail. I'll answer any question you ask." He waited, unmoving. He knew stories were her weakness. Words on the page, books, drew her.

She nodded solemnly.

"Take my coat." As abruptly as he had joined her, he pushed away, returning to the other seat. The coach wheels made a low rumble beneath them.

He led her from the carriage to his room, and seeing it again, she felt a bewildering mixture of hope and humiliation. He had shown himself to her that night, as she would have realized had she not been so besotted. Tonight he lit a plain lamp. There was no moonlight to turn the scene
to one of enchantment. She removed her slipping headdress and set it on his desk. She would be hardheaded and would judge his story on its merits as fairly as she had judged Berwick's poem. The storyteller's handsome face would not turn her brains to butter.

He was handsome with the lamplight gilding his hair and lashes and slanting across the lines of his face. They took two seats, like a student with his tutor. He leaned forward in his chair while she pressed back in hers, keeping her gaze on his clasped hands hanging down between his knees.

"Once upon a time," he began, "in the faraway land of Trevigna, a prince was bo
rn
. His mother the queen died the same night, and the king, grieving for her, vowed that her monument would not be some marble tomb, but the care of their son."

He told the story as if it were a familiar tale from childhood, the words conned from repeated hearing.

"Trevigna was troubled by enemies on all sides. When the prince was still a boy, two armies invaded the land, so the king sent the prince and his servant to England, where the prince could grow to manhood in safety. Every week the king wrote his son letters, teaching the boy how to be both a king and a man. And one by one the king sent the books he considered important to a ruler's education."

Ophelia risked at glance at him. When he spoke of his father, there was a slight but noticeable alteration in his voice. Her gaze passed to
the old volumes on his desk with their gold lettering.

"The prince loved England. He might have been lonely, except that on his first day there, the carriage passed endless green fields full of horses. If the prince had a weakness, it was horses. And he liked the school, his first, and wanted to do well so that he'd be ready to go home. Some of the masters reminded him of his father, men of learning who exercised an amiable, effortless control."

"Surely it was not easy for you to begin school here. Did you speak English at all?"

"Some." His mouth turned up for an instant. "It was harder for Lucca. For the first month, everyone thought he was the prince. He tried to correct their mistake with his fists."

Ophelia straightened her skirts, avoiding his gaze. She would not smile. She'd made a mistake taking the coat. It was as if she'd wrapped herself in his arms. She thought she could shut him out, but somehow he got inside her and understood as if by magic what she was feeling. "How were you discovered to be the true prince?"

"Francesca came and straightened everything out."

There was more to that episode than he was telling. She could see the autocratic Donna Francesca taking on the masters of Winchester.

"While th
e prince studied in England, the French and the Austrians divided Trevigna between them. The king, in hiding in the mountains, wrote more letters, encouraging the prince to continue his education. Then, in the summer of 1808, the old king, fleeing from Austrian
troops, was captured by the bandit Ferruci, sold to the French, and executed as an enemy to France. A gentleman—"

"Stop." Ophelia's eyes stung and her throat ached. His tone betrayed nothing. He'd used the plainest words, and yet she felt the thing that haunted him—the lonely indignity of a father's death.

She swallowed hard. "Why didn't the French allow your father to be ransomed?"

It was a moment before he answered in the same toneless voice. "They believed he was a symbol around which resistance forces would rally."

Ophelia took a deep breath and turned away. After a pause he went on.

"A gentleman fro
m the Foreign Office brought…
me the news at Oxford and advised me that I could expect the protection of the British Crown. I declined, and rather against the wishes of the Foreign Office, returned to Trevigna to join the rebel forces in the mountains. I had to learn to know my country again, and I had to study the ideas that divided Trevigna into republican and royalist factions."

"How old were you then?" She tried not to look at him, but her gaze was drawn against her will.

"Two and twenty. With the defeat of France in 1814, I saw the first hope of reclaiming Trevigna. I sent friends of my father's as ambassadors to the Congress of Vienna and returned to England to raise money."

"What happened when Napoleon's escape broke up the Congress?"

"The one piece of good fortune for Trevigna in twenty years. She was overlooked. The boundaries of France and Austria were redrawn without her. She was free, but her coffers were empty, her people divided. No council, no parliament, no court had operated for over fifteen years. No village schools, no newspapers."

Ophelia toyed with the buttons of his coat. He was coming to the part of the story that involved her.

"In England I tried to keep Trevigna's plight before Lord Castlereagh. But until last fall, no one in the Foreign Office was particularly interested in meeting with me. I ran out of money. I sold my house and my horses. Then a Turkish gunboat fired on an English frigate. England's control of the seas was threatened, and the foreign secretary summoned me to a meeting the next day."

Ophelia did not have to look at him to know the ironic twist his mouth would have.

He stood and moved to the hearth, picked up the poker, and idly stirred the dead coals.

"And the rest?" Ophelia managed to ask.

"Castlereagh wanted to restore me to the throne immediately, by force, if necessary, in return for the port and whatever funds I needed to maintain a government. I stalled as long as I could. Then a group of London investors approached me. If their bond scheme worked, Trevigna could be independent of England. I needed to avoid Castlereagh until the bonds sold, so I disappeared."

He turned and Ophelia found herself looking
straight into his hot blue gaze. "Why a tailor's shop?"

He laughed. "The tailor was bankrupt, and all I had left were my coats, dozens of them, and a servant who's clever at alterations."

"What did you think to gain by hiding?"

"Time and money and support at home for a new government."

It made so much sense. Ophelia's spirits sank. She could not fault him for his actions in the service of his country. They were honorable. So why had his treatment of her been so dishonorable? She did not want to follow that thought.

"How did you end up working in my father's stable?"

He moved to the des
k chair, resting his hand on it
s curved back. "I missed horses. I just wanted to be around them. When I came upon Raj, he was blindfolded and four of your father's grooms were trying to hold him on long leads. I thought, I
know just how you feel."
He shrugged.

"Clagg offered you a job."

He nodded. "You were not in town. He'd sacked William that morning."

She knew it was more than that. Clagg had seen the obvious empathy between the man and the horse. It happened sometimes that a horse and a rider understood each other so completely, that like strings of a perfectly timed instrument, they vibrated in harmony with one another.

Alexander was looking at her intently now, and her fingers stilled. He had explained it all, except the parts that had to do with her.

"Thank you," she said. "You've been candid and plain, and your explanation makes good
sense." She sat up straight in her chair and reached for her headdress. It was time to end their visit and take her leave. She had done her part in listening to him, really, far beyond the five minutes he had asked of her. A quick glance at his face showed her he had other plans.

"There's more, Ophelia," he said.

"Don't." He shouldn't say her name like that. It was unfair.

"Ophelia," he repeated, his voice treacherously full of longing.

She took a deep breath and gripped the edge of the chair. "Go on, then."

"When Clagg described the girl I was to accompany to the park each morning, I pictured a twelve-year hoyden."

She flashed him a sharp glance.

He smiled. "When you appeared, I thought you'd see through me. You spotted the clothes, the accent. I thought I'd have to quit and desert Raj."

"But I wasn't so clever, was I? Even then you had me fooled."

"Not fooled. I just realized that for all the details you spotted about me, you couldn't know how to add them up. You had to take me for a groom." He came around his chair and stood directly over her.

"So you decided to amuse yourself at my expense." It was painful to say, but she wanted it clear. She wanted him to acknowledge the thing he'd done. She wanted to put all the times he'd called her by name or touched her or kissed her into a sealed box, like one of the red Foreign Office dispatch boxes. Then she could put the box
away in some deep closet of memory unopened.

"No." He sounded surprised, and she looked up. "I want you to marry me."

His expression was earnest, his eyes that beguiling blue. For a stunned moment, Ophelia's spirits soared, a swift uprush of joy. Then the humiliation and hurt returned. He could ask her to, marry him here, where he'd betrayed her not three days earlier? She jumped up, clutching her absurd headdress.

"Marry you?" In spite of her effort at control, her voice trembled. "I cannot marry you. You were my friend and you betrayed me."

"I never meant to deceive you. I couldn't tell you the truth at first, and
then…"
He
reached for her, but she jerked away, knocking her chair back with a scrape. He caught her shoulders in an unforgiving grip, and his mouth descended on hers in a scorching kiss that made a mockery of resistance. Ophelia felt hers melt like frost in sunlight.

"You are not indifferent to me, Ophelia."

He made her weak and witless, and she struck back with the first weapon she could grasp. "Have you forgotten Miss Tesio?"

"My aunt's candidate for my hand. There is no attachment there."

That was probably the truth, but it didn't alter necessity. "Prince Mirandola must marry for political reasons." Ophelia set her mouth in a firm line.

"Prince Mirandola is as penniless as a groom. If the fund fails, he'll be a puppet in an uneasy kingdom. If it succeeds, he'l
l have work to last a lifetime tr
ying to restore his impoverished nation. There'll be no palaces or pomp for him." His blue eyes took on their heated aspect. "But there could be love."

Ophelia's mind stopped working sensibly. Anger, hot and furious, took over. "Is that what you're going to say now—that you love me?"

He released her shoulders. "It is a customary part of a marriage proposal."