To Wed a Wicked Prince (29 page)

Livia passed a cup to the servant who stood at her elbow. “Take that to Lord Eversham, please.” She glanced up at Alex from beneath her lowered eyelids and whispered, “I’d have been heading for Bedlam had you waited much longer. This is torment.”

He nodded gravely as if she had said something of great import and strolled over to a sofa where three ladies sat side by side like sparrows on a clothesline. Livia had no idea what he said, but suddenly they were on their feet.

“My lord, I think we must be on our way,” Lady Carmarthon said, with a flutter of her fan. She glanced sympathetically towards Livia.

“Yes, indeed, Eversham,” that gentleman’s lady agreed, with her own sympathetic look at Livia. “Such a pleasant evening, Princess Prokov…Prince Prokov. So kind of you to invite us.” She came over to Livia and whispered, “My dear, how wretched for you.”

Livia rose to her feet and responded with the wan smile that seemed appropriate in the circumstances.
What on earth had Alex said?
She shot him an inquiring look that drew only a solicitous smile in return.

“Yes, you poor dear, I know how dreadful these things can be,” Lady Eversham murmured, taking her hostess’s hand and patting it. “I trust it will pass soon.”

“You are too kind,” Livia murmured.
What was supposed to be the matter with her? Should she press her fingers to her temples, double over with a stomachache, dab at her eyes with her handkerchief?
She settled for fanning herself languidly and keeping the wan smile in place.

Alex escorted their guests to the door as soon as Boris reported that their carriages awaited, and Livia, acceding to the universal wish that she not disturb herself unnecessarily, remained in the drawing room with the teacups.

Alex returned after a very few minutes, looking remarkably pleased with himself, Livia thought.

“You look very smug,” she declared. “What’s the matter with me? I didn’t know what symptoms to play up.”

“You did very well,” he said with a grin. “I thought I should do something to give you a reprieve, since you endured the tedium with such a brave face.”

“Yes, but what did you say?” She looked at him a little suspiciously. There was something about that grin.

“I merely hinted that you were a little under the weather, a touch of migraine, only to be expected in the circumstances…”

“You implied that I was pregnant?” She stared at him.

“Either that or very much not so,” he said airily. “They could draw their own conclusions. But I have noticed that ladies, particularly those with the sensibilities of our guests, tend to respond to female complaints with instant sympathy.”

He laughed at her speechless indignation. “My dear girl, only an earthquake otherwise would have dragged their husbands away before they’d had recourse to my cognac. Their ladies needed to be sufficiently engaged with your complaint to overcome for once their overbearing husbands.”

Livia could see his point and her mouth curved in a reluctant smile. “Well, it was outrageously indecorous of you, but I’m grateful for the reprieve, however you managed it. But what was the evening about, Alex?” She was serious now, watching him closely. “You had something in mind, but I don’t understand what. I understood you to be a friend of the czar’s and yet you implied that you were his enemy.”

He didn’t answer immediately, instead pouring himself a glass of cognac. “May I pour one for you?”

“No, thank you,” she said with a touch of impatience. “I just want an explanation for why I’ve spent the last four hours in that company. What were you doing?”

“I was interested in their views,” he said. “I heard them talking in the club a few weeks ago and it interested me.” He turned back from the sideboard, his goblet in his hand. “I do on occasion feel rather far away from my home, my dear, and sometimes it’s a pleasure to talk about it.”

Livia frowned. “That’s all. You’re homesick and so you invited them so that you could talk about Russia and the czar?”

“In a nutshell.” He sipped his cognac.

“But why those men in particular?”

“It so happens that they all have a finger in the pie of foreign affairs,” he told her. “They’re not particularly important members of your prime minister’s team, but I was interested in their views and thought they would be more forthcoming in a social setting.”

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, and yet something niggled at the back of Livia’s mind. “Why did you let them believe that you and the czar are at outs?”

“To a certain extent we are,” he said simply.
And it was only the truth.

“Did he send you into exile?”

He shook his head. “No, no, we’re not that badly at outs. But I felt it might be wise to absent myself from St. Petersburg for the duration of this war.” He smiled rather ruefully. “Slavs tend to be hotheaded, Livia, and our royal courts can be dangerous places when a particular faction gets the wind beneath its wings.”

“You thought you were in danger?”

Again he shook his head. “Not really, but I felt a change of scene would be beneficial.” He came over to the sofa and sat beside her. “Are you satisfied, sweeting?”

“Of course,” Livia said. How could she not be? But she wasn’t. There was a ring of truth but the tune was off-key. “I think I’ll go to bed. Are you coming?”

“In a short while. I have some correspondence to catch up with.” He leaned sideways and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Thank you, my sweet, for putting up with my whim.”

“What’s one tedious evening in the scheme of things?” she said lightly, rising to her feet. “Wake me.” She blew him a kiss as she left the drawing room.

Alex stayed where he was for a while, sipping his cognac. The explanation he’d given her had been close enough to the truth that it should have satisfied her. But he had the unmistakable impression that she was not convinced.

He got up with a sigh. It would have been easier all around if Sophia Lacey had named as her heir some nice mousy lady with an amenable disposition and a somewhat blunted intelligence. He glanced up at the portrait over the mantelpiece and raised his glass in a toast. Absurd to imagine that that vibrant, strong-featured woman could have chosen as her heir any woman who fitted his description. But why exactly had she chosen Livia Lacey?

He made his way to the library, thinking about this. Livia had said once that she’d been told Sophia wanted to leave the house to a woman who bore her name. Even if she didn’t know her, even if the kinship was as vague as Livia implied that it was. But why?

He sat down at his desk and dipped the quill in the inkpot, but for a moment he didn’t attempt to put pen to paper as he gazed into the middle distance. Sophia’s own child could not be named in her will. She shared no name with her own child. Could she have wanted to choose an heir who had a named connection with her, however tenuous? A female heir, someone who could not possibly remind her of the son she had given up?

His gaze went to the top shelves of the bookcase and he shook his head in defeat. Whatever mental gymnastics he put himself through, he could not reconcile the idea of a woman who possessed such texts with the father whom he had known.

He put pen to paper and realized that the ink had dried on the nib during his cogitations. He had little interest in writing his dispatch to St. Petersburg tonight, but it needed to be done while the ideas were still fresh. Diversionary tactics were complicated enough without a faulty memory.

Livia awoke the next morning with the now familiar sense of unease. She lay gazing up at the embroidered tester that portrayed a rather wonderfully erotic copy of a Fragonard painting. It had been part of the original furnishings of the house and she had come to like it so much that she had had it cleaned and repaired in the renovations. Another little piece of the puzzle that was Aunt Sophia. How many lovers had she enjoyed in this bed, gazing up at that richly sensuous scene?

Alex stirred beside her and as always came awake in an instant, clear-eyed and coherent, with none of the cobwebby tendrils of dreams and sleep that always plagued Livia for a few moments on waking. “Good morning, my love.”

“Good morning.” She stretched indolently and turned her head on the pillow for his kiss. “It’s raining.” The relentless drumming on the windowpanes was loud in the room.

Alex sat up. His gaze flicked upwards, as it always did in this bed, to the tester. And his thoughts were very similar to his wife’s. “That’s a nuisance, I was engaged to ride with some friends.” He pushed aside the covers and stood up, rubbing the back of his neck. “What are your plans for the day?”

“A lunch party, but I think I’ll make my excuses.” Livia hitched herself up against the pillows, enjoying the sight of her naked husband. “Will you ring for Ethel?”

He did so, came back to the bed to kiss her again, then went into the adjoining chamber to ring for Boris, who, despite his elevation to majordomo, continued to serve as the prince’s valet. He sharpened the razor on the strop and handed it reverently to his master, draping a warm towel around his neck.

Alex dipped the razor in the water. The dispatch he had written the previous night needed to be sent by the clandestine courier service, but he intended that it should also come to the notice of Prince Michael Michaelovitch before it went on its way. A nice piece of deflection that would cover tracks most effectively. How best to do that?

He was still considering his options when he went down to breakfast and found a message from Tatarinov beside his plate. It was oblique but clear enough to Alex.
Contact has been made.

Alex helped himself to a dish of creamed herring and poured a tankard of ale. Livia never joined him for breakfast; she maintained that his choice of diet in the morning turned her stomach. He considered her preferred menu of coddled eggs, bread and butter, and strong tea to be equally repulsive, but fortunately it was not a bone of contention. There were enough of those already, incipient for the moment certainly, but lurking, a layer of complexity beneath the apparently smooth surface of their marriage.

His wife was puzzled, confused. She was uneasy. Alex knew that. But he also knew he couldn’t give her the answers that would solve her problem. He needed her, needed the framework of this marriage within which to work, and he could not risk jeopardizing that framework.

Contact had been made with their agent in the army. The man had the funds to act. Now he needed the opportunity.
And the courage.
He would be unlikely to survive.

Alex buttered a piece of black bread, wondering what kind of man it was who sent another man to his death while staying warm and safe at home.

Should he call this off…go and take care of it himself? The opportunity would present itself to him quite easily. But of course he couldn’t. He was the man who organized, arranged, and paid.

And he had a wife. Which brought him full circle. He would have to leave her in England and he couldn’t do that. It would leave her unprotected, and his personal protection was all he had to give her. A more personal involvement would endanger her even more than she was already endangered.

Most of the time he succeeded in ignoring the danger she was in by concentrating on the conviction that such a consideration was secondary to the vital business that had brought them together. His father had instilled in him the belief that there was no higher motive, no greater goal for a man, than patriotism. No sacrifice was too much for one’s country. But did he have the right to involve in his own patriotic struggle someone for whom the issue had no relevance?

Alex got up from the table with Tatarinov’s message and went into the library. He sat down and wrote a warm invitation to Prince Michael Michaelovitch.

T
HE RAIN SHOWED NO SIGNS
of lessening throughout the morning. Livia debated excusing herself from her luncheon party and then decided against it. For some reason she was restless and the weather didn’t help. Alex, undeterred by the wet, had gone to his club, and the prospect of staying alone with only a book for company, listening to the rain beating against the windows, seemed a poor prospect.

“Morecombe, I’ll take the berlin to Berkeley Square this morning,” Livia instructed as she crossed the hall on her way upstairs to change. “It’ll keep the rain off.”

“Oh, aye,” he said, and wandered away towards the kitchen regions.

Livia, unperturbed by this monosyllabic response, continued upstairs, knowing that Morecombe would send Jemmy to fetch the coachman, and indeed when she came down to the hall a little later Morecombe was standing sentinel at the front door.

“Coach is ’ere.” He struggled with the bolts and eventually pulled open the door.

Livia put up her umbrella and ran down to the street, where Jemmy held the carriage door open for her. “Nasty day, m’lady.”

“That it is,” she agreed, handing him the umbrella as she climbed into the gloomy and somewhat dank interior of the ancient coach. Slow and lumbering it might be when compared with the barouche, but at least it had a roof.

The rain had not diminished when she left Betsy Ormond’s house in Berkeley Square a couple of hours later.

“That’s such a wonderfully eccentric coach, Livia,” Betsy observed, accompanying her guests to the front door.

“Maybe, but it’s also very practical in this weather,” Livia said cheerfully. “May I take anyone else up?”

“If you don’t mind dropping me in Albermarle Street, my dear, I’d be grateful,” an elderly lady said, winding an extremely long fur boa around her neck and then tucking her hands into her muff. “Hargreaves has the carriage this morning, and I was going to send a man for a hackney, but I’d much prefer to travel in such delightful style.”

“I’ll be glad of your company, Lady Hargreaves,” Livia said. “Ah, here’s Jemmy with the umbrella.”

Jemmy ran up the steps with the umbrella raised to shelter the women the short distance from the door to the carriage. “Tell the coachman we’ll be going to Albermarle Street first,” Livia instructed as she stood back to give her passenger precedence into the carriage. She climbed in after her, careful not to step upon the trailing boa, and Jemmy closed the door.

“So, my dear, how’s married life?” her companion inquired, leaning forward eagerly, eyes bright at the prospect of a confidential chat.

“Well enough, I thank you,” Livia said, unsure as always quite how to respond to such inquiries, unless they came from Nell or Ellie.

“No happy event on the horizon as yet?” the lady asked. “Oh, impertinent of me, I know, my dear, but forgive an old woman’s curiosity.”

“Not as yet,” Livia said, hoping that would put an end to the topic.

“Ah, well, it can take a while,” Lady Hargreaves said comfortably. “So long as that husband of yours is patient.”

Livia simply smiled a response. Her companion leaned forward again. “It’s amazing what you’ve done with Sophia Lacey’s house…I was only saying to Hargreaves just the other day how she’d barely recognize it now. It was such a pity that in the last years she became so reclusive. Quite the gadabout she was in her youth, and even later when with all the goodwill in the world one had to admit she’d passed her prime.”

“How well did you know her?” Livia tried to conceal the extent of her interest.

“Oh, not well, my dear. She was fifteen years older than I…we moved in different sets.” She gave a small laugh. “My mama would not permit me to mix with Sophia’s circle.”

“Oh, why not?”

“She had a reputation, my dear.” Another chuckle punctuated the confidence. “There was always talk wherever Sophia went…men around her like bees at the nectar, and her door knocker was never still with the parade of gentlemen calling upon her. None of us gals was ever permitted to get too close…always whisked away at the most interesting moments.”

“Was there ever a scandal?”

Lady Hargreaves shook her head. “There was always talk, but I never knew any details. Whatever it was happened when Sophia was very young, long before I knew her…some mad love affair, I daresay, but no one would ever talk of it openly.”

She sighed. “I admit I always envied her…such excitement…to be considered not respectable always seemed so dashing to us poor conventional debutantes. Ah, Albermarle Street. Thank you so much for the lift, Livia dear.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

“I did enjoy our little chat,” the lady said, enfolding herself in the fur boa again as she edged out of the carriage. “Give my regards to that handsome husband of yours…I’ve often thought I’ve met him somewhere before…nonsense, of course…quite impossible, but sometimes there’s an unmistakable impression.” She shook her head. “I’m becoming a foolish old woman. Good-bye, my dear, good-bye.” Waving merrily, she gathered up the trailing fur and went up to her own front door.

Livia chuckled. She liked Lady Hargreaves, as did Nell and Ellie. The ladies of that generation were in general a lot less silly than those of their own and on occasion had a refreshing candor about subjects that modern society considered taboo. She’d confirmed Livia’s suspicions about Sophia Lacey rather than offered any new insights, but nevertheless, what little she’d said had whetted Livia’s perennial curiosity about her benefactress.

The carriage drew up outside the house in Cavendish Square and Livia hurried out of the rain into the lamplit hall. “Is my husband in, Boris?” she asked as she unbuttoned her pelisse.

“He has a visitor, Princess. In the library.”

“Ah.” Livia nodded. Off-limits, in other words. She went to the stairs, hurrying up to her chamber to take off her hat and pelisse. Alex was occupied, it was still raining, and a book by the fire seemed no more appealing than it had that morning. On the other hand, the memory of the conversation in the carriage was still very fresh in her mind. On impulse she picked up the oil lamp that was already lit on her dresser and made her way up the narrow staircase to the attic.

She’d only been up here once since she’d taken up residence in Cavendish Square. It had been dirty and dusty, full of shrouded shapes, trunks, and boxes, and as she stood on the threshold, holding the lantern high, she reflected that, unsurprisingly, things had not improved. Something scurried across the floor in a dark angled corner. Rats…mice…squirrels?

Livia was not squeamish about livestock, however. She hung the lantern on a hook suspended from the steeply gabled ceiling and a pool of light illuminated the central part of the attic. The corners remained in shadow. Four round windows under the eaves were obscured by a lacy tracing of cobwebs, but there was little enough light outside anyway, so they made little difference.

Livia looked around, wondering where to start. Dust-covered shapes that were obviously discarded furniture were of no interest. If there were treasures up here she would be very surprised. It was the trunks and boxes that intrigued her.

She was struggling with the catches of an iron-bound chest, which seemed to have rusted in place, when she heard her name. It was Cornelia’s voice from the floor below.

“Liv…Liv, where are you?”

“Up here, in the attic,” she called back, scrambling to her feet, brushing the dust and dirt off her cambric skirt.

“What on earth are you doing up here?” Cornelia appeared at the head of the stairs. She looked around with interest. “It’s filthy.”

“I don’t suppose it’s been cleared out in years,” Livia said, regretting that she hadn’t thought to change into something old. “Is Ellie with you?”

“Yes, she’s downstairs talking to the twins. Franny has been pestering her for days for some of those gingerbread men that our Mavis bakes, so she’s asking her to make some.”

“That’ll please Mavis,” Livia said somewhat absently. “I don’t really know where to start.”

“I think the question is why would you want to start in the first place?” Cornelia said. “God knows what’s up here.”

“That’s exactly the point,” Livia told her. “There could be anything.” She gestured expansively at their surroundings.

“Liv…Nell…are you up here?” Aurelia’s quick step sounded on the stairs and she emerged into the attic. “What on earth are you doing?”

“My question exactly,” Cornelia said. “If you want to go through all this stuff, why don’t you get the servants to carry it downstairs so that we can look at it in a civilized manner?”

“No, that’s too much trouble. I’m happy enough up here, but you don’t have to stay.”

“Oh, yes, we do,” Aurelia stated firmly. “Having braved the rain to visit you, we’re not going to turn tail.” She bent over the chest that Livia had been wrestling with. “These locks need to be pried loose. There must be something up here, like a crowbar or something.” She looked around.

“Try this.” Cornelia picked up a thin metal file from a gate-legged table with one leg missing.

“Let me try.” Livia took it from her and knelt in the dust again, prying the locks up with the end of the file. It took a few minutes but finally they sprang loose. “Now, what have we here?” She lifted the lid and sneezed as a cloud of dust rose from the interior of the chest.

“It looks like old clothes.” Cornelia peered over her shoulder.

Livia lifted out the top layer of heavily embroidered gold taffeta. “Heavens, it’s a ball gown of some sort.” She shook out the folds. “It would have had a hoop underneath with panniers and suchlike.”

“I do believe it’s the same gown that Sophia’s wearing in the portrait in the drawing room,” she said. “Oh, it’s full of moths…what a pity.”

“I’m going to look in those boxes over there.” Cornelia went over to a pile of boxes under the eaves. “Do you want to help, Ellie?”

“I want to investigate that trunk over there,” Aurelia said, now as caught up in the project as her friends.

Livia lifted out the layers of clothes in the chest, fascinated by the elaborate designs, the yards and yards of material. In these clothes Sophia would have worn powdered hair and strategically placed beauty patches on her face. As she sorted through the clothes Livia felt a strange connection with the woman who had worn them; it was almost as if Sophia’s spirit were lurking in these dusty, moth-eaten folds.

Ridiculous fancy, of course, but one she rather liked. She buried deeper in the chest and her fingers closed around something that was not cloth.

“What’s this?” She lifted it out. “Oh, it’s a writing case, I think.” She got to her feet and carried the case to the rickety table. “It’s locked. I wonder where the key could be.”

“Probably still in the chest,” Cornelia suggested, sitting back on her heels.

Livia went to look. She took everything out, shaking out the folds of material while a veritable dust storm enveloped her, but there was no key.

“You can probably break the lock with that file,” Aurelia suggested, still burrowing in the trunk. “There’s some lovely cashmere in here, and a beautiful mantilla. What a waste to leave them for the moths.”

But Livia was too absorbed in her task to pay attention. She pushed the file into the lock and tried twisting it, then wrenching it. Brute force would ruin the writing case, but since it had been moldering in the attic for heaven only knew how long, it hardly mattered. Finally the lock gave way and she opened the case.

Packets of letters tied with blue ribbon lay neatly stacked inside. She picked up one packet, untied the ribbon, and picked up the top sheet. The paper was yellowing and the seal on the back was broken, but it was of thick, heavily embossed red wax. She put the edges together and saw the initials AP.

“What have you found?” Cornelia asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“Letters, packets of them.” Carefully Livia opened up the sheet, afraid it would disintegrate. The ink had faded somewhat but the writing was strong and masculine.

The letter began:

Livia read on, feeling like a trespasser, an eavesdropper, and yet unable to stop herself. It ended simply.
Yours unto death, A.
And then, at the bottom, engraved on the paper, was the name
Prince Alexis Prokov.

Livia stared at it, uncomprehending. It didn’t make sense and for a lunatic moment she thought the letter had to be from Alex. But of course it wasn’t. How strange, she thought disjointedly, that Sophia had also known a man called Alexis Prokov.

“What is it, Liv? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Cornelia came over to her.

“I have,” Livia said. She handed the letter to Cornelia and opened another sheet. The same name engraved on the bottom, the same initials, the same outpouring of love and sorrow.

“What does it mean?” Aurelia asked, reading over Cornelia’s shoulder. “Who is this Alexis Prokov?”

“I have no idea,” Livia said, opening letters feverishly now, scanning them with hungry eyes.

Cornelia exchanged a worried glance with Aurelia, then she said gently, “Liv, I don’t see how it could be pure coincidence.”

Livia looked up from the letter she was reading. “No,” she agreed, a deep frown between her brows. “No, I don’t see how it could be.” She looked in the writing case. “There are dozens of them in here, they must cover several years, I would have thought.”

“Are any of them dated?” Aurelia asked.

“None so far. Here, you take some and have a look.” She handed them a packet each and then continued with her own. The three of them read in concentrated silence, each moved by the deep emotion the letters revealed.