To Wed a Wicked Prince (18 page)

Resolutely he turned to the decorator. “Have you completed your consultation with Lady Livia?”

“Not as yet, Prince Prokov.” The decorator looked a little uncomfortable. “I was about to show her ladyship the swatches for your bedchamber.”

“Oh, in that case, I’ll take a walk around the house and see how the work’s getting on.”

“By the way, there’s something I most particularly wish to show you…in the dining room,” Livia said, a rather wicked gleam partnering the lingering desire in her eyes. “I’ll be finished here in about fifteen minutes. But just tell me what you think of this for the bed curtains. It’s rather handsome, I think.” She indicated a swatch of turquoise silk embossed with silver medallions.

Alex examined it solemnly for a minute, and then said, “My dear, I’m sure your instincts are impeccable in such matters. I leave it entirely in your hands. But don’t be long, I’m anxious to see this dining room mystery.” The words were perfectly straightforward, but his voice stroked her with promise and the look in his eyes spoke of another anxiety altogether.

Livia had never been cursed with a tendency to blush until she’d met Alexander Prokov, but now with the slightest inflection of his voice, a little flicker of blue fire in his eyes, he could bring a rush of color to her cheeks. And the damned man knew it. He never lost an opportunity to put her out of countenance.

“I’d welcome your opinion on the wall hangings in the salon,” she said, turning her attention sedulously to the swatches on the table. “I think the pale gold complements the straw-colored upholstery, but there was also an apple green that might be even prettier. Do go and look.”

“At your command, ma’am.” He clicked his heels and offered a formal bow that gently mocked her confusion and left the parlor. He closed the door behind him and then stood in the hall, looking around, letting the feel of the house settle around him.

It was only his second visit since his engagement to Livia, and the first occasion had been with the architect. He had said very little himself, offering few opinions, since it was clear that Livia had plenty of her own and she and the architect seemed very much of a mind about most issues. She displayed a sensitivity to the house that transcended a mere interest in beautifying a piece of property, and he thought it explained her strange and visible reluctance to agree to the clause in the marriage settlements that in essence gave him the house.

He was now quite determined that she should never know that the house had never belonged to her. It would be an unnecessary hurt and he needed no such overt acknowledgment from anyone but the lawyers. But his blood stirred anew as he looked around the handsome hall with its lovely proportions, the elegant curved horseshoe staircase, the frescoed ceiling, the beautiful parquet beneath his feet. All his life he had lived in palaces, and by contrast this was a rather modest house, but it had been his parents’ house and as such held a fascination for him so deep it was intrinsic to his soul.

He strolled across the hall towards the open front door, wondering if his followers were still there. Even though they had to know now that he was aware of the surveillance, they still persevered. They must know that if indeed he had anything to hide, he would be extra careful not to give anything away now that he was alerted to their presence. Nevertheless, they’d picked him up again as soon as he’d left his house this afternoon. He was getting so used to them these days, he’d probably miss them if they dropped their surveillance, he reflected with a sardonic smile. But he still didn’t know whose side they were on. Not that it mattered as long as he kept up his vigilance.

He stepped through the door onto the top step and looked around. No sign of anyone suspicious, but a man opposite was diligently shoveling horse manure from the street into a bucket. Not an unusual sight in these well-traveled streets, but there was something awkward about the way the man swung the shovel. He didn’t look as if he was accustomed to the task.

Alex shrugged. It was no business of his if his shadow spent a malodorous hour or so up to his elbows in steaming dung. He turned to go back inside when a movement in the square caught his attention. He looked back sharply. A head showed for an instant above a gap in the privet hedge behind the garden railings. And then it was gone. Alex frowned, pulling uneasily at his chin. Unless he was much mistaken, it had been Tatarinov. What business could he have in the square garden? He debated crossing to the garden to find out, but he heard the sound of Livia’s quick footsteps in the hall behind him. Confronting Tatarinov would have to wait. He stepped back into the hall.

“Ah, there you are,” Livia said as she accompanied the decorator to the front door. “Did you look at the wallpaper in the salon?”

“Not as yet,” Alex said, tucking Tatarinov away in another compartment of his mind. “Shall we look now?”

“Yes, let’s.” The dogs skittered around her ankles as Livia went into the salon, where the paper hangers were very busy. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I do hope you like the gold. I think it’s too late now to change it for the green.”

“It would appear so,” Alex agreed. “But fortunately, my dear, I find the gold perfectly agreeable.” He looked down in pained exasperation as the terriers, for reasons known only to themselves, broke into a symphony of yapping, alternately pressing their bellies to the floor, tails thumping, and dancing up to his feet, before prancing back.

Seeing that they were not finding favor with the object of this adoration, Livia gathered up their leads, reining them in against her legs. “Do be quiet,” she said, trying to make herself heard above the racket.

Alex plucked at the knees of his doeskin britches and squatted on his heels. He spoke to the dogs in a low stream of words that Livia guessed was Russian. It worked as it always did and they fell silent.

“You know, those dogs will have to be taught some manners if they’re going to share a roof with me,” he observed, rising smoothly and brushing off his britches.

“You could try,” Livia said with a laugh, “but I wouldn’t give much for your chances.”

“Then they will have to go,” he stated. “Now, what were you going to show me?”

Livia was momentarily startled. It hadn’t sounded as if he was in jest. Indeed, he had seemed deadly serious for a second. Then she shrugged it off.

“In the dining room. But we’ll need a stepladder. We could borrow that one.” She gestured to one of the painter’s ladders at present unoccupied.

“This is certainly mysterious,” Alex said, lifting the ladder easily. “Lead on.”

Livia led the way into the dining room, where the furniture was shrouded in dust sheets, and the walls half painted. “We did some work in here when we first moved in,” she informed Alex. “Really just a cleanup and a touch-up coat of paint.” She didn’t add that it was all she could afford at the time.

“However, while we were doing it we noticed something very interesting.” She stopped in the middle of the room and pointed up to the ceiling. “Take a look at the fresco.” Laughter danced in her voice and she stepped back as he set up the ladder.

Alex, with a somewhat suspicious air, went up the ladder. He leaned his head back and stared up at the delicate painting on the ceiling. “Good God.”

“Isn’t it marvelously wicked?” Livia chortled from below. “Why would a respectable spinster lady like Sophia Lacey have such shocking artwork above her dining table?”

Alex was unaware how tightly he was holding the top struts of the stepladder as he stared up at the lascivious scene until he felt a tingling in his hands. He released his hold, flexing his fingers, unable to find words for a moment. His mother had commissioned this? Or was it his parents? Something they’d enjoyed, a private piece of sensual mischief? He couldn’t imagine his father having anything to do with such a thing. And yet…and yet what did he know of his father? Nothing beyond an austere distance, and an unshakeable sense of patriotic duty on whose altar he had sacrificed whatever relationship he had had with Sophia Lacey. The Czarina Catherine had demanded her subject’s return and Prince Prokov had obeyed. At least, that was what he’d told his son. Bare bones of a story that had to have had some emotional meat.

“Are you all right?” Livia sounded anxious. “Doesn’t it amuse you?”

He found his voice again. “Yes…yes, of course it does. It’s extraordinary. A Roman orgy, no less.” He managed a light laugh as he descended the ladder. “I suspect most people would paint it over.”

“That would be sacrilege,” Livia said, genuinely shocked. “It’s a beautiful thing, even if it is a little lewd. And besides, I feel as if this house is only on loan to me, or rather entrusted to me…I think that’s what I mean. I must honor its character, otherwise I suspect it will do something very nasty to me.” She laughed as if mocking herself, but Alex had the feeling she was deadly serious.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said easily, folding up the ladder. “Are there any more of those kinds of hidden delights?”

“Not really,” she said, following him back to the salon, where he replaced the ladder. “Just a few funny little things in the kitchen, a suspect jelly mold, and a very salacious piece of scrimshaw…still, it made us all wonder.”

“As it well might,” he said, still trying to absorb this new dimension of his unknown mother. “However, talking of the kitchen…where are the ancients while all this renovation is going on?”

Livia had no difficulty interpreting the question. “Oh, they and the house cat are happily grumbling away in their own quarters,” she told him, hauling back on the dogs, who were sniffing paint buckets. “They won’t let the workmen into their own apartments, so I’m leaving them alone. They’ll come back to work when everything’s completed.”

“Ah, yes.” Alex stroked his chin with a forefinger. “Maybe this is a good moment to talk about that. Shall we go back into the parlor?”

Livia felt a stab of unease, but she acceded with a nod and led the way back to the parlor, releasing the dogs, who collapsed breathily before the empty hearth. She shivered in the December chill. “We could light a fire in here. I’ll fetch coals from the kitchen.”

“
No,
” he said more sharply than he’d intended. He softened his voice, trying for a lightly amused tone. “Livia, dear girl, what’s appropriate in a country vicarage is not appropriate behavior for the mistress of a London house.”

Livia was not placated. “You may have a point…but there’s no one else to light a fire…unless, of course, you would care to do the honors, Prince Prokov?”

He decided not to rise to the unmistakable challenge. She’d made it all too clear over their short acquaintance that she didn’t respond too well to an authoritarian manner. “I think we can suffer the chill for a few minutes.” His smile was conciliatory.

He shrugged out of his coat. “Here, wrap this around you.” He draped it around her shoulders, drawing it tight under her throat so that her face was lifted towards him. “So fierce,” he said softly. “Let me see what I can do about that.”

A
LEX KISSED HER, GENTLY AT
first and then with increasing pressure, feeling her swaying into him as she lost the hard sinews of determination and annoyance. And he could hear his own blood beating in his ears as he held her, ran his hands over the supple curves of her body beneath his coat. Her scent intoxicated him as it always did, a mélange of rosewater, lavender, and beneath it all the purely female hint of arousal.

She had never made any attempt to hide her desire, and the honesty of her responses, her unself-conscious lack of inhibition, was a spur to his own desire, so much so that in these weeks of their betrothal he had been hard-pressed to hold himself back from tipping them both over the edge. Now was one of those moments.

Livia was no longer cold. Her skin was warm, glowing with heat from the blood racing in her veins. She reached against him, her mouth pressed to his, trying in some way to absorb him within her own shape. Her hands caressed his ears, palmed his cheeks, fingers tugged playfully on his earlobes, and she felt him hard against her, his penis pressing into her belly, and the sensation sent waves of shocking need through her loins, tightening her thighs. She heard her own inarticulate moan as his hands dug into the hard muscle of her backside, and her thighs parted without volition.

And without volition she fell back onto the sofa, his coat falling away from her, her legs sprawled in wanton invitation as he came down with her, his mouth still locked against hers. One hand roughly pushed up her skirt, flattened over her silk-stockinged thigh. His tongue pushed deep into her mouth as he continued to draw up her skirt. She felt the air, chill on her thighs above her garters, and her hips lifted to his probing fingers. A shiver ran from her scalp to her toes, her scalp tightening, her toes curling, as a wave of sensation more powerful than any she had yet experienced rocked her. His palm flattened, sliding between her thighs, spreading them further, and a charge like a lightning bolt jolted her loins and the pit of her stomach at an invasion so deep and so intimate that for a bare instant she tightened her thighs against the intrusion. And then she felt his fingers part her, slide within her body, moving within her, and the instant of resistance vanished and from somewhere way above her she heard her own ecstatic cry as a wave of delight flooded her to her core.

Alex held her against him until her breathing slowed. She opened her eyes slowly, looking up into his face as he held himself above her. “What was that?” she murmured.

He laughed softly. “A little taste of what’s to come, my love.” Reluctantly, he pushed himself back and stood up, looking down at her flushed face, her swollen lips, her gray eyes dark and heavy with fulfilled passion. “Damn…I hadn’t intended that to happen…not yet, at least.” He shook his head, painfully aware of his own acute physical discomfort. “But you’re so beautiful, Livia, and so passionate…”

Livia pushed down her skirt and sat up. She was still shaky but filled with a glorious languor. Now she knew what it was she’d been waiting for these long, frustrating, tantalizing weeks of desire. And she was certain that that, wonderful though it had been, was the mere tip of the iceberg in this business of lovemaking.

She looked at him wordlessly for a moment as the slow realization came to her that Alex had taken nothing for himself from those delicious pleasure-filled moments. If he had been as frustrated as she had before, he must be in agony now. But she could give back. Now, more than anything else, she needed to touch his body as he had touched hers.

She stood and reached for him, whispering, “Let me give you the same, Alex?”

Her hand brushed the mound of his erect penis beneath his britches and he groaned. Swiftly she unfastened his britches and pushed them off his hips. She clasped his penis, enclosing it in the warmth of her palm, and instinctively moved her hand up and down the shaft, a finger dancing over the moist tip. She seemed to know exactly what to do, and it felt so wonderfully right.

Alex stood with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and Livia watched his expression as she continued to touch and to stroke, aware of a delicious feeling of satisfaction that she could give this much pleasure. And at the last, when he cried out as she had done, she reveled in a wondrous glow of triumph, not taking her eyes from his transported face.

At last, Alex came back to himself. His eyes opened again as he fumbled with his britches. “Dear God, Livia, where did you learn that?” he murmured.

“I don’t know,” she said with a delighted little chuckle. “It just came to me. It just felt right.”

He pulled her hard against him again. “Oh, it was certainly that,” he said into her tumbled curls. “And I don’t know how I’m going to wait for another two weeks before I can have the rest of you.”

Livia chuckled again. “Why do we have to wait?”

He sighed and tucked a stray curl into a loosened pin. “Because I want to love you at leisure. And I don’t want to be worrying that someone might barge in on us,” he added, casting a speaking glance towards the door. “Besides, anticipation is the most powerful aphrodisiac, my sweet.”

He ran his finger over her mouth. “We have a lifetime to indulge passion, to learn each other, to know each other in every possible way. It’s torment to wait, but a perversely sweet torment nevertheless.”

He took her hand and kissed her fingers, taking each one into his mouth in a slow, lascivious stroke of his tongue that made her nipples peak anew, prickling against the bodice of her gown.

“My father would approve,” Livia said, trying to ground herself again.

“How so?”

“Deferred gratification,” she responded. “It’s his credo. Assuming, of course, that gratification is appropriate in the first place.”

Alex thought of the dining room fresco and wondered again what that could tell him about Sophia Lacey and by extension perhaps himself. Would some knowledge of Livia’s parents tell him anything about her? “And does he think sexual gratification is appropriate, do you think?”

Livia considered the question. “Yes, I believe so,” she said. “He may be a country vicar, but he’s also a brilliant scholar and like most such he considers all subjects worthy of consideration. And he considers taboos to be the refuge of a small mind, so…” She shrugged a little. “I don’t believe he would disapprove of the gratification of passion.”

“What of your mother…their relationship?” He tried to hide his intense curiosity.

“I have no idea how they were behind the bedroom door,” Livia said. “But as I remember, they were friends, companions, both intellectual and familial. I think it would be hard to have such a depth of shared feeling if there wasn’t some passionate love to underpin it.”

She shook her head. “Why are we being so serious, Alex?” But even as she asked the question she knew the answer. They knew so little about each other…oh, they knew the basic facts, but very little of what made them as they were. And these were the conversations that teased out the little facts that would finally create the picture. But it would only be a completed canvas long after they’d taken the step to the altar.

Alex said with a laugh, “To distract ourselves, my love.”

“I suppose so,” she agreed. “Didn’t you tell me once that you never knew your mother?”

“I might have done,” he said carefully. “Since it’s true.”

“Dying in childbirth is so tragic,” Livia said. “And for your father…it must have been dreadful. To be left with a baby to bring up all alone. Did he every remarry?”

“No.” Alex shook his head. He didn’t think he’d ever actually said his mother had died giving birth to him, but it seemed easier to leave Livia with that assumption.

He reached for her hands again and pulled her in against him, but this time he held her lightly. “There will be plenty of time for questions and explorations, Livia. But I do want to talk about your ancient retainers.”

“What about them?” Unease prickled again.

“I understand we can’t turn them off,” he said carefully. “But a generous pension would surely satisfy them.”

“No,” Livia declared. “Sophia’s will states absolutely that they are to leave this service only when they choose.”

“Have you asked them about that?” He was treading carefully, aware that Livia had the same proprietorial feelings towards the retainers as she did towards the house itself.

“It isn’t necessary,” she said. “They know the terms of the will and when they’re ready to go they’ll say so.”

“I understand,” he repeated. “But surely you must see, Livia, that once we’re married, Morecombe cannot be the doorkeeper, let alone butler, in the household of the Prince and Princess Prokov?” He opened his hands in a gesture that could have been mistaken for supplication.

Livia did not make that mistake. “What do you suggest?”

Alex heard the edge to the question and debated whether to push the issue now or have it out when they were married and Livia would have to accept that Morecombe and the twins were his employees and potential pensioners. But honesty insisted that he continue.

“There would be no reason for them to leave the house if they didn’t wish to vacate their quarters,” he said reasonably. “But their duties could be curtailed quite drastically without offending them, I would have thought.”

Livia realized that physical passion was a truly ephemeral sensation. “Quite apart from going against the spirit of Sophia’s will, such a move would make them feel useless and unwanted. This is as much their house, Alex, as it is mine, and their claim precedes mine, quite frankly.”

Her voice rose a fraction. “I can’t and
won’t
have them put out to grass. Quite apart from how they rallied around when Nell and Ellie and I arrived, with three squalling children and an outraged nurse in tow, the twins are the most wonderful cooks.”

She folded her arms, once again aware of the chill in the room. “I’m sure we can dissuade Morecombe from answering the door. I don’t think he’ll see that as a demotion since he doesn’t like doing it anyway, but everything else he does…”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, Alex. The twins continue to reign in the kitchen and Morecombe does what he chooses to do. That’s the way it has to be.”

“I have an excellent cook myself,” Alex pressed mildly. “His father was Russian, and he was trained in France. I don’t think he would take kindly to working under the supervision of two old ladies.”

“Then he must learn.” Livia realized that they’d reached some kind of line. And this was no time to be taking up definitive confrontational positions. She said quickly, “I’m sure I can persuade Morecombe to give up his responsibilities for answering the door, but I can’t tell him he’s no longer butler.”

She offered a conciliatory smile. “I have to get back to Mount Street to change for dinner. But surely these are things we can discuss later, Alex. It will all fall into place when we start to live here together. Everything will be in a state of flux, and everyone’s role will have to be redesigned. Who knows, maybe Morecombe and the twins will decide to leave of their own accord once they realize how things have changed.”

Livia fervently hoped for such a resolution, but doubted that it would be that simple. Morecombe, Ada, and Mavis were as much fixtures of the house in Cavendish Square as the dining room fresco.

Obviously this was a battle to be fought another day, Alex decided. Since it was inconceivable that he should lose it, nothing would be gained by a premature confrontation. He was not yet master of this particular household. And, in truth, he had no wish to distress his mother’s old retainers. He was very interested in listening to their reminiscences, and they certainly wouldn’t be open for a comfortable chat if they thought he was out to dispossess them. It would be possible to make incremental changes in their roles in the household once the new regime was established.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he said easily.

He opened the parlor door and Tristan and Isolde raced between his legs towards the spurious freedom of the hall. “Perhaps Morecombe could take sole responsibility for those creatures,” he suggested, with what he hoped was a note of ironic humor.

“He gives the impression that they annoy him too,” Livia said, responding in what she hoped was the same tone. “But actually he seems to like them and it seems to be mutual.”

“Then perhaps we’ve solved two problems with one solution,” Alex said, escorting her down to the street. “Let me take you back to Mount Street.”

Alex saw Livia into the house and left, blowing her a kiss with the promise that he would see her at dinner. Then he set off at a brisk walk towards Piccadilly. He picked up a hackney and directed the jarvey to Half Moon Street and Tatarinov’s lodgings.

He paid off the hackney and stood in the narrow street contemplating the tall house where Tatarinov had two small rooms. The man had no interest in the trappings of wealth and lived a very different life from that of the rest of their little band of conspirators. But then he was cut from a different cloth, Alex reflected, raising his hand to the knocker.

Tatarinov had presented himself to Constantine Fedorovsky on the latter’s journey to London. He had impeccable credentials, letters of recommendation that were sent directly by the small group of revolutionaries controlling the flow of information from St. Petersburg. His competence was unquestionable and for all the roughness of his manners, Alex and his fellows had accepted him in their number with gratitude rather than suspicion. Now Alex was not so sure.

He banged the knocker again and after a minute the door opened a crack. A young maidservant peered around. “Yes, sir?”

“Is Monsieur Tatarinov at home?” Alex asked politely.

“Aye, sir. Shall I tell him who’s come?”

“No, just show me in.” Alex pushed the door wide and stepped into a narrow hall. “Where will I find him?”

“Second door on the landing, sir.” She pointed up the stairs towards the darkened upper reaches of the house.

Alex nodded his thanks and took the stairs two at a time. He knocked sharply on the indicated door and waited, watching the tiny eyehole set close to the top of the door. There was no sound from within, but he saw an eye at the peephole, and then a key grated in the lock and the door opened.