Awakened By The Prince’s Passion. Bronwyn Scott
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‘We fought them, but there were too few Loyalists to offer real resistance.’ Varvakis shook his head sadly. ‘Princess Dasha was trapped upstairs. I saw her on the landing, fighting and trying to run, but the Rebels saw her, too. They already had the others and it was clear what they intended. I fought my way to her. They’d pushed her back to the flames. She had no choice but to burn or surrender. The flames would have taken her if the mob didn’t.’ Ruslan could see that staircase in his mind; it was curved and elegant. He’d slid on that banister in his youth. It was good for sliding, but not so good for fighting. It would have been difficult for a man coming up it. Varvakis had had no easy task.
The news disturbed Ruslan on many levels, not only the destruction and death but the politics beneath it. ‘The mob rules Kuban then?’ Ruslan put his head in his hands. While he favoured change, he did not favour violence. Hadn’t the French taught the world that? Now Kuban, too, was executing royals.
‘Yes, for now,’ Varvakis affirmed, his mouth set in a line of grim disapproval. A man like Varvakis would dislike chaos of any sort. For his part, Ruslan didn’t like it either, yet chaos had come to him. It was here in his home—a home he’d just purchased as a commitment to moving into his future and moving away from Kuban. He’d gone to bed one step closer to being a Londoner in truth and woken up only to be dragged back into the fray. His country was on fire, a fugitive princess was upstairs and a captain was begging for sanctuary.
‘It will not always be chaos,’ Varvakis was saying. ‘There will be a time when cooler heads rule, when Kuban will need their Princess again, someone who can bridge the gap between the old and new.’
Conveniently, Varvakis would be waiting with the Princess in tow. That was something to be wary of. He wouldn’t be the first military man to have political aspirations. Ruslan sighed. He could see it plain. Good God, the Captain wanted more than sanctuary. Varvakis wanted to continue the revolution under his roof, wanted to make him an accomplice in whatever political plan the factions had hatched. A drink might come in handy, just now.
Ruslan rose, went to the sideboard holding his array of decanters and poured two glasses. He had questions in spades now. Ruslan passed the Captain a brandy in the hopes that Varvakis having a drink in hand made his questions feel more like a conversation and less like an interrogation. ‘Here’s to journeys completed.’
They’d barely raised their glasses when a scream shattered the night. Ruslan exchanged a look with the Captain and dashed into the hall as a second scream followed. Ruslan’s eyes went up. At the top of the stairs, a woman staggered, her arms flailing at invisible enemies. Whatever tortured her did so from somewhere unseen.
‘Your Highness!’ Captain Varvakis called out. The woman’s wild eyes slid towards the sound of her name. She looked like an escapee from Bedlam; her gaze was vacant, her ash-blonde hair loose and tangled at her shoulders as if it hadn’t been washed or combed for some time. She came closer, nearing the stairs unsteadily, arms still waving. Ruslan saw the danger immediately and raced forward, taking the steps two at a time. If she reached the steps, she would fall.
Ruslan set aside any sense of formality in the hopes of waking her in time. He bounded upwards, racing against the inevitable as she took a step, teetering when her foot achieved nothing but air, her foot searching for purchase, finding none and coming down, the move putting her body off balance. Ruslan closed the distance, wrapping her in his arms as they fell in an inelegant sprawl atop the landing, safely pushing her back from the stairs.
Ruslan was acutely aware of the body pressed to his might-as-well-be nakedness. His banyan and pyjama trousers offered little protection against the feminine onslaught of soft curves straight from a warm bed. Beneath him, sharp eyes flashed with a spark of awareness as sleep transformed to wakefulness. For a moment there was peace when he looked into those eyes. And then she screamed again.
* * *
Where was she? Panic rocketed through Dasha. Not that the question or the panic were new. She hadn’t known where she was for weeks. Now, there was a strange man on top of her. She screamed and fought him out of habit and an instinct to survive. She thrashed beneath him, forcing him to subdue her, which he did with alarmingly little effort. This man was lean and strong, and barely clothed in a dressing gown and silk sleeping trousers that left little of him to the imagination.
‘Your Highness, please, be still. You’re safe. We’re in London. We made it.’ Captain Varvakis’s voice ended her resistance, his words bringing back what few new memories she had. ‘You were dreaming again.’
Dasha stilled and let her mind work, processing what she knew to be true. She’d been sleepwalking. Again. She was in the middle of a hall, propelled out of bed by the nightmare. Despite the horrors of the dream, it was the one thing that was hers entirely, her one complete memory. It had existed before she’d awakened in a wagon racing out of Kuban, of that she was sure. It had existed before Captain Varvakis had told her who she was. In the dream there’d been fire and fighting and death. She had a sword. She was fighting. There was someone at her back, someone she was protecting, but whom? She didn’t know. She always awoke before she could turn and see. Perhaps there was no one. Perhaps it was merely an invention of the dream as the Captain suggested.
‘Your Highness.’ Varvakis was worried. Again. She’d been nothing but worry to him. ‘Are you all right? Let’s get you back to bed. You need to rest.’ But it was the man who held her who helped her to her feet and wrapped a steadying arm about her, lending her strength as he waited for her response. Too many other men would have followed the Captain’s orders.
‘Perhaps some warm milk, or something stronger?’ he offered. This man might’ve come straight from bed. His hair was dishevelled. But his eyes were sharp, too sharp for a man newly roused. He’d been awake a while.
‘Both. Warm milk with brandy would be nice.’ Through the long window in the hall, she could see the fingers of sunrise flirting with the hem of the night like an eager suitor. It would be morning soon. Bed seemed pointless but the milk and brandy would calm her. She wanted to be calm and clear-headed. She was in a new place, with new people. It was inevitable there would be questions and she wanted to do the answering for once.
The gentleman in the banyan ushered her down the stairs to a study already filled with light and warmth. He pulled a bell cord and smiled. Even in total ungroomed dishabille, it was easy to see he was a handsome man. Thick, unruly red-gold hair framed a lean face with keen blue eyes and cheeks that rounded when he smiled, adding depth and dimension. ‘We’ll have milk here momentarily, and an early breakfast, too. Until then, perhaps introductions are in order. I am Prince Ruslan Pisarev.’ If anyone could look regal given these circumstances, it was this man. Even in nightclothes, even in the middle of the night, even after tackling her and being attacked by her, he still managed an elegant leg.
‘Princess Dasha Tukhachevskenova, or so I am told.’ The wryness in her tone caught his attention. His gaze slid towards Captain Varvakis with question and censure, proof that Varvakis hadn’t told him. He didn’t know about her particular condition.
‘Varvakis, what is that supposed to mean?’ the Prince asked.
But it was Dasha who answered. She might be confused, she might have spent the last weeks wondering where she was and who she was, but she was tired of having men speak for her in her presence. She met his gaze evenly and, she hoped, without shame.
‘What it means, Prince Pisarev, is that I have no memories