curricle. He handed her up as if there’d been no break in the conversation. ‘Of course, it’s dangerous. They want you to wear the title. It’s easier for them if you’re not a person. It’s easier for you, too; you forget to think about what you want, until you realise it’s too late.’
He moved around the horses’ heads and sprang up to his seat, his body taking up space beside her. His thigh rested against hers unapologetically as he gathered the reins, making her even more aware of him now than she had been on the drive out.
He clucked to the horses. ‘Is it me or my ideas that make you uncomfortable?’ He slid her a sideways glance. ‘Perhaps it is my kisses? You may have stopped the kiss, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t like it.’
She was seized with the urge to put her hands over her ears, to shout at him to stop! It was too much to take in for one day, his radical ideas, his kisses. Her mind was swimming in the newness of her thoughts and the confusion they brought, panicking even. Like a drowning victim who would drown her rescuer along with her in her confusion, she lashed out. ‘I’m beginning to think you didn’t leave Kuban. They most likely kicked you out if this is how you behave.’ She’d meant the words to be scolding, the kind of set down a lady might offer a forward gentleman who’d crossed the line of politeness. She had not expected her words to hit a target.
The line of Illarion’s jaw went hard, the features of his face going tight, his words terse. ‘You know nothing about me.’ He didn’t like the quizzing glass turned his way, although he hadn’t minded probing her psyche.
‘And you know nothing about me.’ Dove straightened her shoulders and fixed her gaze on the road. Another lesson learned today: this was what happened when one confided in someone one didn’t know well. ‘I was wrong to have burdened you with my confidences. I was unforgivably impetuous. I would appreciate it if you would forget my disclosures.’
A proper gentlemen would accept her apology and would understand what it meant: that they should limit their association. She was counting on Illarion to know that and to act accordingly. But he did not. ‘What about the kiss? Should I forget about that, too?’ His tone was hard with cynicism as if he knew she could not forget that as easily. Indeed, she suspected she might think about that kiss far longer than was prudent.
The town house came into sight and she was saved from answering as Illarion pulled the carriage to the kerb. The street was quiet and for a moment they were nearly alone except for the servants sitting on the back. She slid him a questioning look when he didn’t immediately come around. ‘Give me your hand, Lady Dove.’ The hardness had left his face and he was charming once more, his voice low. ‘I want to give you a talisman. If you would forget the first kiss, perhaps you would do better to remember the second.’ He took her hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her open palm. It was nothing like the first kiss, but gentle as the gesture was, she could feel the fire start to burn once more. Would it be like this now every time he touched her? The question was wickedness itself in the assumption that there would be a next time. She was allowing herself to be tempted.
A footman spotted them and came down the stairs to assist her. Illarion—Prince Kutejnikov, she strongly reminded herself—released her hand. ‘Good day, Lady Dove.’
‘Good day, your Highness.’ She could not take even the tiniest step down the road of familiarity. Dove stepped down from the curricle with a strict politeness she hoped made it clear that there would be no first names, no private permissions. She promised herself she would not be like the other ladies who followed him around ballrooms and patiently waited while he danced with others. She couldn’t be like them. It simply wasn’t permissible. She was the Duke of Redruth’s daughter and she was held to higher standards. Always and in all things.
He inclined his blond head, the fragments of a smile on his lips as if he knew a secret. ‘Thank you for an interesting afternoon, Lady Dove.’ It was done so well, Dove imagined she was the only one who noted the mocking tone beneath his propriety. Halfway up the steps, he called to her, ‘Lady Dove, was your deal with the devil worth it?’
She glanced over her shoulder. She linked her gaze with his and let a coy smile take her mouth. ‘Was yours?’
* * *
It was damn well worth it and he had the pages to show for it. Illarion sat in paradise, otherwise known as the back veranda of Kuban House, a glass of Stepan’s homemade samogan to hand should he need it and papers spread before him. His thick mass of hair was piled into a bun atop his head, not unlike an eastern warrior’s, a testament to how seriously he was working. He preferred his hair out of his face when he wrote. He’d discarded his coats, too, the moment he’d arrived home. The fewer distractions the better. He liked his body as free as his mind. He’d write naked out here if he could, but Stepan would kill him if he came home and found him nude in the garden. He’d tried it once, so he knew. Now he reserved that particular artistic luxury for the privacy of his chambers. Right now, shirtsleeves and trousers would have to do. He wanted to be outdoors, wanted to capture what it had felt like at the park; the feel of spring, the scent of grass and Kuban House’s gardens were ideal, especially at night when the lanterns were lit.
Illarion leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, letting his mind wander through the afternoon’s images: Dove walking along the shore edge, all unconscious grace, a swan princess perhaps with her platinum hair and elegant length of neck? The personification of spring and innocence? That picture conjured up a rather provocative series of subsequent images: of Dove walking the shore clad in a gossamer gown that left nothing to the male imagination; high, firm breasts with rose-tipped nipples pressed hard against the thin fabric, her bare feet scything through the long, fresh spring grass; of Spring removing her gown, her body unveiled to hidden eyes, her hands reaching up to take down her hair. Dove as Spring was the perfect juxtaposition of new innocence and womanly knowledge. She’d shown him both sides today.
The images he’d conjured from that inspiration were certainly powerful if the beginnings of his arousal were anything to go on, but Illarion was not satisfied. Any poet could depict a young virgin in the freshness of spring. Spring was the season of birth and newness, the season of the virgin and the woman. But spring wasn’t entirely the right season for a woman like Dove, with her snowy looks. Physically, winter was her time and yet it was a far more difficult task to cast Dove’s innocence against a season that was often symbolic of death and dormancy.
Ah. Dormancy. That was the key. His poet’s brain fired. Today, winter had awakened. He recalled how the sun and a bit of temper had brought a flush to Dove’s porcelain cheeks. He focused on the flush. He’d liked the colour in her cheeks, proof that his cool ice queen from the night before was still there, but that she also possessed a warm core. Fire. Ice. An ice princess awakening... That conjured a stronger image and he hastily scribbled a single word, a Russian word. Snegurochka. The Snow Maiden of Russian folk tales, a girl of great beauty who, according to some of the stories, had melted in the spring when she’d ventured from Father Frost’s forests in pursuit of love.
He was writing furiously now, the allegory pouring from him. He wrote of Snegurochka trapped in spring, a season not of her making, of winter’s princess far from home, surrounded by Primavera’s blushing roses, her paleness a marked contrast. His mind was a blur of thought and image.
When he finished, his glass of samogan was untouched, the lanterns were lit. A tray of cold meats sat at his elbow, waiting for him. The servants must have brought it. He had not noticed. He’d been too caught up in all that had been revealed today. He had not thought to see so much. In truth, he’d gone today for selfish reasons, to see if she could inspire him again as she’d inspired him last night on the dance floor, to see if he could capture what had slipped away from him last night. He’d got more than he’d bargained for; he’d glimpsed a woman who was figuring out the game,
