A Prince Among Men (24 page)

"Well, I don't believe you. You shouldn't marry me, anyway. You need someone regal
like Miss Tesio, not someone…
like me."

"I want you."

Ophelia shook her head and turned her back. After a brief silence she heard him cross to the door and unlock it.

"Lucca will make things as comfortable for you as he can."

"What? You're keeping me here?"

"Until you think seriously about my proposal."

"I don't need to think about it."

"But you might, if you had time." His mouth quirked up in a brief smile.

"You can't keep me here."

"Yes, I can."

Ophelia saw that she had something to learn about crossing a royal will. "Jasper will come for me. He'll figure out where I am."

J
asper admired the way sunrise brought a pinkish cast to the upper windows opposite Hetty's door. He liked her street. The cobbles were bright, the facades regular and elegant. There was a kind of meter in the way the arched doorways broke the line of shiny black iron railings, a rhythm that seemed fitting for a poet's dwelling.

When he'd been refused admittance to the Gray house at one, he had quite stubbornly sworn he wasn't leaving the front steps until he could speak with Miss Gray. A rash utterance, but he was glad he'd made it and stuck to it. The cool night air had soon cleared the fumes of success from his brain and allowed him to think.

His mind had been idle for so long after he'd left school that when Lord Castlereagh had given him the assignment to find Mirandola, he'd been paralyzed. Underlying his inactivity and wasted motion had been the fear that he really was the frivolous imbecile that his colleagues in the Foreign Office took him for. Then he'd met Miss Gray, and the encounter had completely addled what was left of his brain.

The accident of finding Mirandola under his nose and the success of the planned meeting between the prince and the foreign secretary had made him giddier than he'd ever been as an adolescent with a bottle of claret. Just before Hetty'd arrived at the ball, Castlereagh had rested a hand on Jasper's shoulder and given him one of his lordship's rare smiles.

Jasper had felt invincible. He could do anything, have anything, and there was Hetty Gray, and he'd proposed, rashly, bluntly, with no thought for the obstacles to their union. He'd forgotten the inflexible opinions of his parents and his class. His own snobbery hadn't evaporated in the warmth of love. He would still hear a humble accent with a superior ear and note blunders of taste with a superior eye. He would
no doubt embarrass his love in such moments.

And he hadn't thought to ask her father's permission to pay his addresses. He had swept away her origins and treated her as if she'd sprung from his own fancy. He would do better this morning. The clear, cool night had given him time to know himself and to devise a strategy.

He stood and stretched his limbs, shaking off the stiffness of his long vigil and straightening his coat and cravat. He rubbed his jaw, feeling the stubble, and ran his fingers through his hair. Flawed and humble, he would offer for her again.

The housekeeper opened the door to his knock. "Miss Gray is not at home," she said, her sweet face flushing with evident discomfort at the common social evasion.

"I'd like to see Mr. Gray, if I may." Jasper saw at once that he'd caught her unprepared for such a strategy. She backed up, opening the door, and he seized that moment of polite behavior to step inside.

"Wait here, sir," she told him, gesturing to the little room where he'd spoken with Hetty twice before. He smiled as he crossed the threshold. Unless Solomon Gray had a pistol and the will to use it, Jasper wasn't leaving until he saw his love. He took a stand with his back to the hearth and waited.

Solomon Gray appeared promptly. Facing the older man's intense gaze and grim countenance, Jasper squared his shoulders, regretting his unshaven chin.

Solomon spoke without preamble. "What do
you mean, spending the night on my doorstep, sir?"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gray, I owe you an apology or two."

"Go on." Solomon's glare was unencouraging.

"Last night I offered for your daughter without first applying to you for permission to pay my addresses. I beg your pardon."

"If my daughter's refused you, what's the purpose of an apology now?"

Jasper thought he'd rather face a pistol than that level gaze, after all. "Actually, sir, Miss Gray accepted my proposal last night."

The fierce expression left Solomon's eyes. "My daughter had a painful shock last night, apparently at Searle House."

Jasper took a deep breath. "I am entirely to blame for that, sir. I invited her to my mother's ball, exposing her to the snobbery and bad manners of my family. I deeply regret having caused her pain."

Solomon Gray was now looking at the floor. He moved one booted toe slightly. "Actually," he said, "I am more to blame than you are, for concealing from her so long the truth about her mother." He sank onto the sofa, his features slack and drained of forcefulness, and gestured for Jasper to take the chair opposite. "The problem remains, however, that Hetty is distressed."

Jasper leaned forward. "Sir, with your permission, I would like to assure her that her mother's character and reputation cannot alter my feelings or my determination to make her my wife."

"With my permission? I fear I've lost the power to influence my daughter in any way."

Jasper took another deep breath. "I don't believe that, sir. You may be the only parent to approve a marriage between us, and I want to assure you that should Lord and Lady Searle dislike my marriage and cut me off, I will still be able to support a wife."

"It seems you've thought of everything."

"It was a long night."

A wan smile transformed Solomon Gray's face. "For what it's worth, you have my permission to address my daughter." He stood, offering his hand.

Jasper rose and clasped the offered hand. "Thank you, sir."

"I'll send her to you." Solomon's face became serious again. "But be advised, she will not recover easily from the blow of this discovery."

Half an hour later Jasper decided she wasn't coming. He stood at the window, watching the street fill up with vendors and carriages, trying to think of the next phase of his strategy.

A click of the door latch made him turn. She was utterly pale, her eyes and even the tip of her nose reddened, the hollows in her cheeks exaggerated, her hair pulled back in a simple clasp at her nape.

He forgot all the careful things he meant to say, crossed the room in two strides, and took her in his arms, pressing her head against his chest.

"When you left last night, I lost my head. Nothing mattered. Not Mirandola, or Castlereagh, or my career."

She gave him an embrace so brief he might
have missed it, and the tightness around his chest eased a fraction.

Words tumbled out of him about need and hope and the hollowness of his life before he met her. "I was wrong, careless, to expose you to my mother's cruelty. I hope you will forgive me in time."

"Jasper," she said, addressing his right arm, "did you kno
w who my mother was when you…
when you asked me to marry you?"

He swallowed. "My mother told us when she forbade Ophelia to come here. I thought you knew."
He pulled her closer and steeled himself to confess a further selfishness. "The day of the ball, Ophelia warned me that you didn't know about your mother, but I wanted you there, even as I anticipated the danger to you."

She let out a short breath. "Neither you nor Ophelia is to blame for keeping the truth concealed from me. My parents did that."

Jasper heard the pain and knew he had no remedy for it except his love. He was willing to stand and hold her for as long as her heart ached. Gently she pulled away from him.

"I've no more tears for now, I think," she sai
d. "You must realize that my… origins make it im
possible—"

Jasper reached out and stopped her words with the press of his fingertips against her lips. He shook his head. "Don't say that today." He released her lips. "All your life you have been Amelia Hart's daughter. It has never made you less lovely or less good or less worthy to be my wife."

She lifted her stricken face to his. "But now I know who I am."

Looking into those despairing blue eyes, Jasper felt in his bones the cold of those long hours in the night air. "I want to marry you, Hetty. Don't say no to me until you've lived with this truth awhile."

She clasped her hands and lowered her gaze. Jasper stepped forward and took her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head. "I'll come back soon."

Chapter 19

O
phelia woke, stiff and chilled, to the smell of coffee. She lifted her head from her arms, pushing back from Alexander's desk, where she'd fallen asleep over his writing sometime before dawn. A thin curl of steam rose from the spout of a silver pot on the table beside the hearth.

She groaned. By falling asleep, she'd obviously missed a chance for escape. Mirandola or his servant must have opened the door within the last few minutes.

She eased to her feet, shivering in the prince's coat and her crumpled silk dress, and moved quietly to the door. The lock was the sort that could be worked by a key from either side of the door. She rattled the knob to see whether the key was in place. It was.

Disappointment made her stand stupidly for several minutes before she could bring herself to examine the contents of the tray. When she had put herself to rights as much as her situation allowed, she curled her cold toes under her in the arm chair and wrapped her hands around a cup
of coffee, feeling its welcome heat through the delicate porcelain.

He had asked her to marry him, and the idea of it would not leave her mind. For nearly two years, she had been avoiding marriage and all it would entail—hearing the banns read, balls, parties, wedding clothes, standing up in St. George's, Hanover Square. But none of those things came to mind with Alexander's proposal. Wicked images had come to mind, and she had avoided the wicked visions through the long night, by walking, by thinking of Hetty's shock and distress, of her mother's embarrassment, of the dog, and finally, by reading his papers—his "Declaration of the Democratic Principles of Government by the People." He was a careful writer, crossing out words, recasting phrases, working toward a taut elegance.

She absolutely refused to consider his proposal. The cynical voices she had heard all her life reminded her that he had not asked her to marry him intentionally. Her anger had prompted his offer. And he had asked her only after he'd seen her family's connection with the Regent, after her brother had helped him rescue his country.

It was plain that he would do anything for Trevigna: sell his horses, his house, his coats. Marry—Miss Tesio, his beautiful, wealthy countrywoman—or Ophelia, with her dowry and connections. Then she remembered her dream.

She had dreamed of sea-bathing in one of the machines at a resort. She trembled on the bench in the damp wooden hut, her heavy bathing costume clinging to her limbs. The slits in the plank walls admitted narrow, piercing bands of sunlight. The attendant lashed his horse, and the cart lurched forward down the shingle until gentle swells lapped against the sides. The dipper, a portly woman, knocked on the door, calling to her in a coarse voice. Timidly she emerged, but instead of her expected assistant there was Alexander, and then she was in the sea, her pale limbs naked and free, the water a caress against her skin.

She shook off the lingering effects of the dream. She felt suspended in time, taken out of her usual pattern, almost like the sleeping princess in the fairy tale, for whom even the flies on the walls stopped their buzzing. Judging by the sunlight streaming through the window, it was nine or ten. Everyone in her family would sleep late, especially after the debacle of Pet's eruption into her mother's party. She could probably return to Searle House unnoticed except by the servants as late as midday. It was Jasper she was counting on. How soon would he miss her, and would he look for her here?

As the coffee warmed her, she tried to feel confident. Her situation was ridiculous but certainly not hopeless. The prince would have to release her. He could not carry on delicate negotiations with the British government while keeping a subject of the Crown hostage in his rooms. Whatever madness had seized him the night before, daylight was likely to bring a return to rationality. Her gaze drifted to the stack of papers on the desk. As for herself, she understood perfectly now why they could not marry. She had seen
him for what he truly was—no fairy tale figure with a dress sword like Prince Azim's, but that rare leader, a practical man of dreams, with a destiny far from hers.

The lock rattled. She swung her feet to the floor, banged down her cup, and lunged for freedom, coming up short under Alexander's nose. He caught her by the waist and pushed the door shut behind him. As she looked up into his eyes, the fixed certainty of her refusal crumbled. The ringing "no" she meant to deliver faded like the peal of a distant church bell. She wrenched herself out of his hold and stalked to his desk.

"You can't keep me here."

"Did you sleep?"

She glanced over her shoulder. She saw the weariness in his face and his unshaven chin. That roughness tempted her hand. "Did you?"

"Not much. I was thinking of ways to court you."

"A fruitless exercise." She picked up the loose papers on the desk. "I used my time more wisely. I read your writings."

He looked away. "If you marry me, you can attend the constitutional convention."

Ophelia turned to face him, holding the papers against her chest. "I can't marry you. We wouldn't suit."

His expression gave away nothing. "Dukes' daughters do marry princes."

"True." She looked at the floor. "In the eyes of world it would be an acceptable match. You are pledged to Miss Tesio, however."

"My aunt's idea. Why do you think we're unsuited?"

Ophelia's throat tightened. She looked at the papers she was holding. "A Declaration of the Democratic Principles of Government by the People." She paused so as not to betray herself by the least quaver of her voice.
"
You have these grand dreams for the nineteenth century, Your Majesty. You would bring down all the old regimes not by war but by reason. You would plant democracy in Trevigna and spread the se
eds of it to the most feudal corn
ers of Europe."

"You don't like that dream?" He stood still as stone.

"It's a beautiful dream." His words had made her weep for the vision of men free, equal, and at peace with each other and with nature. "It is too grand a dream for me.
I've never been more than a…
schemer." She put aside the papers. "I don't dream. I plot. I break a few rules for my own independence."

He smiled. "I like that in you." He advanced, closing the distance between them, his gaze unwavering. "I like your shrewdness and your tricks, and your refusal to be bound by mindless conventions."

There was nowhere to go, just as he intended. Ophelia pressed back against the edge of the desk. "You can't want me."

"I can. I do."

The blue gaze was melting her will. Ophelia wrapped her arms across her chest. At the gesture, he checked, a sudden alertness coming into his eyes. She tried to undo the motion, straightening her arms at her sides, but she hadn't fooled him.

"It's something else, isn't it?" His voice was
taut, his eyes penetrating. "You've been hiding, too."

"I've nothing to hide."

"You were hiding a secret life at Miss Gray's."

"I just wanted more freedom than young ladies are customarily allowed."

"No, that's not it." He was reading her, gathering certainty from each detail. "You wanted a place where you were most yourself, where you could be as bookish and quick-witted as you liked."

"Don't." She flattened her hand to his chest, holding him back, a mistake. Beneath her palm she could feel the swift beating of his heart and the tight stillness of his body in response to her touch. "You'll be feeling sorry for me, and you shouldn't. I've always found ways get around the rules."

"I'm trying to tell you I admire you, but you're holding back. That's why you shrink from my lovemaking."

"Maybe you overrate your lovemaking."

He smiled wryly. "You like my kisses, but when I want to touch, it's always the same—you close like one of those pink underwater flowers. It makes me wonder. Did something happen to you?"

"You imagine things. You don't know me at all. A few weeks of flirtation. What do your rules say? A lady may withdraw without blame up to the third stage. Well, I'm withdrawing. Surely, it is the man's part to accept my decision."

He took her hand from his chest, holding it in both of his, rubbing a thumb over her knuckles. "But I don't accept it, Ophelia."

"You won't get me to marry you by compromising me." Her voi
ce was thin. "I have the right
of refusal."

He released her hand and turned away, and perversely, her
hand felt abandoned. From the
door he looked back. "I've already compromised you, as Jasper knows."

"What?" She couldn't keep the surprise from her voice. "Then why keep me here?"

"Because I'm going to find you out as you found me. I'm going to unmask you."

W
hen Jasper did not appear by late afternoon and a wary Lucca had come and gone with a lunch tray, Ophelia decided she had to escape. Alexander would have to go out, had perhaps already gone. His concern for Trevigna demanded that he now court London society.

She set her mind to thinking about the problem, which meant thinking about the locked door and Lucca. She must lull him, then surprise him, taking advantage of his weaknesses. She paced the narrow room, picturing the man in her mind, the haughty countenance, the instant obedience to Alexander, the magnificent livery he had worn to the ball and still wore.

When he brought a tea tray around four, she was ready. She lifted a tear-streaked countenance as the door
opened and pretended to search
madly for a handkerchief.

"Miss," he exclaimed, hastily depositing the tray and offering her his own immaculate linen. Under her lash
es Ophelia saw the door swing
almost closed, the little key on the edge of the tray.

"Forgive me," she said, taking his handkerchief and giving him her tremulous smile. "I didn't mean to become a watering pot. It's just that it's been a long day."

Lucca frowned. "His Majesty regrets leaving you alone."

Ophelia shook her head. "I'm sure he forgets me entirely."

"Never. He has the memory of an elephant. Come, you must have your tea." He bowed, and she rose from the desk chair. It was almost too easy to cover the little key with the handkerchief and lift it from the tray.

She turned back to Lucca. "Will you join me?"

As he drew himself up for a stiff refusal, she picked up one of the delicate cups with the blue coat of arms. "The royal plate of Trevigna?" she asked.

"His Majesty's mother's set."

"He was very close to her?" Ophelia feigned ignorance, turning the cup in her hands.

Lucca gave a tragic sigh. "She died when he was bo
rn
, but always he keeps her china and her paintings." He pointed to a watercolor over the mantel. Ophelia felt a pang. His mother's things, his father's books—little enough to hold onto when his parents were lost to him.

Ophelia raised her gaze to Lucca. "This must have been a difficult time for you."

A suspicious gleam came into his eyes, but Ophelia persisted. "Living here, above this shop. Bringing the royal plate into such low surroundings. The hiding, knowing your prince was doing common labor in a stable."
Lucca shuddered. "Miss, please, the tea will grow cold."

"If I take my tea, will you stay?"

"Yes, miss." He was looking at the tray as if he found something odd there.

"But you must not hover over me. I could not bear that."

Lucca brought the desk chair over to the little table while Ophelia poured her tea, watching as her reluctant companion adjusted the fall of lace over his wrists. She kept her head lowered, gazing into her teacup. Her plan was working.

"You must be
pleased, now that Prince Miran
dola will return to his throne."

Lucca's eyes took on their tragic aspect again. "His Majesty does not want to be king. He wants a republic." Lucca spoke the word as if it were particularly disagreeable. "He wants to be a citizen."

"I know. I read his framework. But that's not what you want?"

Lucca leaned forward conspiratorially. "His Majesty should be a king. A monarch should not be this fat prince of yours or that old fellow of France. He should be a leader, a man of courage and honor, a man who is generous, not like these Bourbons who devour their people."

Ophelia forgot her plan for the moment in Lucca's unexp
ected vehemence. "Is Prince Mi
randola a soldier?"

"The best. In the mountains he led many raids against the French, the Austrians. Always successful. When the French stole from our farms and the people were starving, His Majesty went
and stole all the cows back, even the chickens, the ones that were left."

Ophelia felt her heart contract. He was more gallant than the fictional Azim. His were not fairy tale adventures, but true hardships. He had endured cold and hunger, faced death, even, for his people. What had he been thinking that night at Hetty's when she had defended the Regent as a man of taste?

"If Lord Castlereagh has his way, His Majesty will be crowned this summer."