To Wed a Wicked Prince (35 page)

“I don’t know,” he said. “That will depend on many factors. But you need to know that I have not given up, and that I will work for my country in whatever capacity strikes me as opportune at any time.”

“I see. And if I asked you to give that up, for my sake, for the sake of our marriage…our love…”

“I could not agree.”

“Well, at least you told me the truth for once,” Livia said, not caring that she sounded bitter. “I’m grateful for that. At least I know how I stand, and where I come in your priorities.”

“If you wish it…if you decide that that’s what you want…” he began, painfully feeling for the right words, “then I will leave you and return to Russia. There need be no scandal. You will remain my wife, Princess Prokov, with this house and a very generous income. It will be said that I was summoned by the emperor and had no choice but to go. We decided you should stay here rather than risk the rigors of a journey across war-torn Europe. My continued absence can be explained in many ways, and if you decide you would like to remarry, then I will arrange for a divorce in Russia and you will be free.”

Livia said nothing. She gazed at the bleak prospect of such a future and knew that she would never want to remarry. She would remain in a separated limbo for the rest of her life.

“Is that what you would wish, Livia?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Probably, but I need time to think.”

“Of course.” He bowed with a little click of his heels and left her.

Livia sat on the window seat for a long time, as the shadows lengthened and the winter dark set in. Ordinarily her instinct at such a time would be to go to Mount Street and seek comfort and counsel there. But she couldn’t face her friends with this. This was something she had to wrestle with alone.

Alex went downstairs, filled with a bleak despair. This journey had been so long in the planning, so complex in the execution, and it had taken so many twists and turns for which he had been utterly unprepared. He had not expected to find this love…this absolute need to nurture and protect. And he had never expected to find himself the recipient of such a need. He didn’t even know
how
to both give and receive it. He had never been taught how to open himself to such emotions.

He walked into the salon, where the lamps had just been lit and a soft glow suffused the room. His mother looked down at him from above the fireplace. Her eyes…his eyes…clear and steady.
Were they saying anything to him? What would she say to him…to her son?

“What was she to you, then?”

Alex turned, startled at the soft Yorkshire burr behind him. Morecombe, soft-slippered as usual, stood looking up at the portrait.

“My mother,” Alex said simply.

Morecombe nodded. “Aye, the lassies an’ me thought ’twas summat o’ the kind,” he said. “Ye’ve ’er look about you…O’ course it was afore our time, but we knew there was summat not right. Our lady ’ad a sadness to her…broke our hearts it did, when it came on her bad.”

“My father had it too,” Alex said quietly.

“Best not let ’istory repeat itself, then,” Morecombe declared laconically.

Alex shook his head. “I had come to that conclusion myself.”

“Good, then ye’d best be about it.” The old man turned and left the salon.

Alex stood in front of the portrait for a moment, then he nodded and went upstairs.

Livia was still exhausted; the few hours sleep she’d snatched in the inn that morning seemed to have happened in another lifetime. Every bone and muscle in her body ached and her eyes were tight and sore, as if she’d been weeping for hours. As soon as Alex left her, she went into her bedchamber, locking the door behind her. She could face no solicitous servants at the moment. She threw off her clothes, letting them lie where they fell, and dropped her nightgown over her head, turning wearily to the bed.

She had one upraised knee on the mattress when the adjoining door from Alex’s chamber opened. She looked over her shoulder to where her husband stood, his face white, his blue eyes filled with fire.

His voice, however, was quiet, although the determination, the fixed purpose behind his words was as clear as a thunderclap. “My father sacrificed his love for his country, there can be no other explanation for those letters, for his empty wasteland of a life,” he said. “But
I
will not. Livia, you are mine, and you are not leaving me and I am not leaving you. I can’t imagine why I even had such a ridiculous, asinine idea.”

He crossed to the bed in three strides and lifted her off, setting her on her feet in front of him, his hands gripping her shoulders.

“Look at me, Livia, and tell me you don’t belong to me. Tell me that I do not belong to you.” He shook her a little in emphasis. “Come on, Livia. Tell me.”

She looked up at him. “You know I can’t.”

“Yes, I do know it.” He pushed up her chin and kissed her so hard she was sure it must have hurt his battered mouth, but he held her thus for a long time, his mouth against hers, his breath rustling across her cheeks, his free hand tracing the line of her body from her breast to her hips.

He held her until the blood began to move warmly through her veins again, until the rigid sinews of resistance melted and she leaned into him. Then he lifted her against him and lay down on the bed with her, cradling her head in the hollow of his shoulder, trailing his fingers through the tumbled cascade of dusky curls.

“I am defeated, sweeting, unmanned,” he said softly. “I will give up my country if I must, and settle down and become an English gentleman with nothing on my mind but sports, and hunting, and cards.”

Livia smiled into his shoulder as a curious peace filled her. He meant it, but he didn’t know what such a sacrifice would mean for him. “What nonsense,” she said. “You can’t do that, you wouldn’t be you. Harry Bonham manages to serve his country and his wife perfectly satisfactorily, why shouldn’t you be able to?”

Alex smiled ruefully. “I wondered when you’d take me into your confidence about Bonham.”

“It wasn’t my confidence to break,” she said. “Did you know all along?”

“For quite a while,” he admitted. “But the situation is a little different, my love. Bonham serves the country he lives in and his loyalties are very clear-cut. It is rather different for a Russian and always has been. Loyalty to king and country makes sense for an Englishman, but not always for a Russian. The emperor is not good for his country.”

“Then you must work to remove him,” Livia said simply, remembering again her father’s advice on the issue of compromise at a crossroads. “I understand
that,
what I don’t understand is why things must be kept from me. Particularly things that make you the man you are, the man I love. I don’t like secrets and I loathe deception.”

“And I am guilty of both,” he agreed, bending an arm behind his head to pillow it. “I am by nature secretive, my love. It was the way I was brought up. My father kept everything about himself from me, everything about my mother. Until I saw those letters I never dreamed he was capable of any real emotion other than devotion to country and duty.”

“How lonely you must have been,” Livia said, hitching herself onto an elbow and stroking his cheek.

“I was,” he agreed, “but no lonelier than most children in my country. Russian parents tend to be distant at best.” He sighed a little and attempted a rueful laugh that failed miserably. “But I do wonder why my mother never asked about me in those letters. If she had, my father would surely have answered her in one letter at least.”

“No, I think it’s quite the opposite,” Livia said. “I think it was too painful for Sophia to think of you at all, let alone to ask about you. She had to go on living; surely it was easier for her to pretend that you did not exist for her. She must have been so young when she lost you and the love of her life. She had an entire life to live without what made it whole for her.” She shuddered a little, thinking how close she and Alex had come to just such a destiny.

“What a wise woman you are,” he said, bringing his arm down to stroke along her back. “I’ve married beauty, wisdom, and amazing courage and fortitude. I don’t quite know why I deserve such good fortune, but if you promise to be gentle and not squeeze me too tightly, I will endeavor now to show you how utterly and totally I love you, wife of mine…how I complete you, and you complete me.”

“Then show me, my prince,” she murmured, moving herself over him, her fingers deftly unfastening his britches. “But in deference to your bruises, I shall do all the work in this demonstration.”