Cornwall?’
She did not look at him. Her gaze remained riveted on the ignoble etching on the wall, but a smile quirked at her lips. ‘I did. We had an orangery. It was always warm, even in the winter. I would go there and draw. In the summers, I would open the doors and sit outside.’
‘Had?’ Illarion gave a laugh. She talked as if she’d never go back. ‘London isn’t the end of the world.’
Her grey gaze swivelled to him, her voice quiet in the empty space. ‘It may not be the end of the world, Prince Kutejnikov, but it is the end of the world as I know it. Lady Dove Sanford-Wallis will not go back there. When I return, it will be as someone’s Duchess if my father has his way. I will only return to visit, never to live, never to stay. My place will be with my husband. There is no question of if I will “take” this Season, or if I will wed. The only thing left to be decided is to whom.’
She moved away from him, her back to him as she spoke as the enormity of her realisation swamped her anew. ‘The stories, the fairy tales I’d been raised on about the Season, all grew my hopes. I was so excited to come and it distracted me from what coming here really meant.’
‘And what is that?’ Illarion asked carefully. He could feel the old anger begin to stir in him, the anger that had seen him exiled from Kuban, the anger that had earned the Kubanian Tsar’s displeasure.
‘That I have a duty to my family in marrying well, and that marrying “well” is not defined by finding someone with whom one shares a mutual affection, but by finding someone who’s bloodline and title and wealth are worthy of your own. My duty is to show up at the church, a beautiful symbol of my family’s part of the alliance. A symbol!’ she spat. ‘Not a person with any free will of her own.’ Her resentment was raw, palpably new and she was grappling with what it all meant.
Illarion was struck by the irony beneath her struggle. For all the liberalism of London, for all the modernity of England, some things had not changed. Even among the glittering ballrooms of the ton with its silks and jewels, women were still slaves. The hatred of such a system flooded back to him, a reminder of how dormant his passions had been in the year since he’d left Kuban, of how he’d tried to bury them, forget them. Life was easier when one did not trouble oneself with issues of social justice. It had also proven to be emptier.
Here, in the dimness of the Queen’s Temple, he felt himself coming to life. The poet-warrior in him waking after hibernation, old habits, old emotions surfacing. He closed the distance between them, wanting to touch her, wanting to give her reassurance, protection against the reality she’d glimpsed, the anger she felt over the betrayal and her own impotence, he wanted to remind her that she was a person, with free will and real feelings. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t have to be that way for you.’ He let his voice linger at her ear, let his hands rest at her shoulders as he whispered his temptation.
‘Of course it does. I cannot shame my family.’ He heard the resignation in her tone. Despite her anger, she was a loyal daughter. Did she even think of fighting it? Or like Katya, did she feel forced to accept her fate?
‘At the expense of your own happiness?’ he said softly, urging her to think about the cost of her acquiescence. He turned her then, moving her to face him, his hand tipping her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘It’s easy to give up that which you don’t understand. You don’t fully know what you’d be missing.’ He wanted to awaken her, wanted to give her a reason to fight. He could show her and, if she drew certain conclusions from the demonstration, then so be it. He dropped his eyes to her lips in the briefest of warnings before he claimed them.
He teased her lips apart, his mouth patient in its instruction as she opened to him, her body answering him along with her lips and he knew then he was her first kiss, her first taste of desire, first taste of a little wickedness, too. He deepened the kiss, slowly, expertly, so as not to rush her or pressure her, but to answer her, to lead her at her pace where he wanted her to go. She was delicious in her inexperience, eager and hesitant by turns. He would ensure she didn’t regret this...until she did. Without warning, she was out of his arms and thwack!
Her palm struck his cheek, her eyes ablaze. ‘What the hell was that for?’ He was too stunned to correct his language. It wasn’t the first time curiosity over a kiss had sparked a rebellion, but it was the first time he’d been slapped for it.
Sweet heavens, her hand hurt! She hadn’t bargained on that. And, oh, dear Lord, she’d marked him! Dove stared at Prince Kutejnikov in stunned disbelief. She’d never struck anyone, or anything, in her life and now the palm of her hand was a glaring red mark on the Prince’s cheek. This was insanity! She’d only wanted to scold him for his impertinent boldness and now they were both smarting. The Prince rubbed his jaw, glaring his surprise and his disapproval. He probably wasn’t used to being slapped. Women probably liked his kisses. She certainly had, although she wouldn’t dare admit it to him, not now that she’d put her handprint on his face. What she hadn’t liked was the indiscretion of the act. In no way did it embody any aspect of her mother’s rules.
‘Have you no thought for our reputations?’ Dove gathered her thoughts long enough to answer his question. ‘We are in a public place where anyone could come strolling through and my maid is just in the other room. She could have walked in at any time! Do you know what could have happened if we’d been caught?’ That lesson had been drummed into her quite thoroughly: kisses of any nature were compromising. They led straight to the altar, the very thing the Prince seemed intent on counselling her against. ‘Perhaps the better question is not what was I thinking, but what were you thinking?’
The Prince’s blue eyes were hot flames fixed on her, his voice low. He might have been stunned for a moment by her act, but he was not angry. He was...amused? But his words were serious. ‘I thought you should know what you’re sacrificing, what your parents and society are asking you to give up in order to make their alliance.’
Something inside Dove shrivelled and she realised she’d been hoping for a different answer, something along the lines that she’d been irresistible, or that he’d been overcome. The Prince gave a wry smile. ‘You are disappointed. Still clinging to the fairy tale, are we?’
Dove flushed. Perhaps she was. Perhaps it took more than two hours to kill a dream after all. ‘Prince Kutejnikov, I think we should return home.’ There was no reparation that could call back the peace of the day now.
‘I think after this afternoon you should call me Illarion.’ He offered her his arm, negotiating again: the use of his name in exchange for escorting her home. ‘And I shall call you Dove.’
‘First names are shockingly informal. It is impossible. It cannot be done.’ If she allowed such a liberty, she’d be admitting to their intimacy. Admittance meant acceptance. Acknowledgement. At the moment, she would rather not acknowledge what had passed between them, the press of his mouth on hers, the way her body had responded. She’d been all too aware of the need to lean into him, the shocking thrill to feel the hard, muscled planes of a man’s body up close for the first time. Even through layers of clothes, there’d been an intoxicating intimacy in that physical connection. Her reaction had surprised her, confused her.
Illarion gave a wicked chuckle. He was laughing at her again. This time at her expense. He thought her a prude. ‘We’ll use those names only in private then.’ He winked, assuming her consent.
They stepped out into the lingering sunshine. Late afternoon shadows had begun to fall, hinting at the onset of a spring evening. Illarion leaned close to her
