filled with ambition, before his family had fallen from grace. She would have been too young, too isolated to know of it. ‘Besides,’ Ruslan added, ‘you were raised in traditional fashion and kept out of public view.’ As were all gently bred Kubanian girls of high birth. They were sequestered away to the point of oppression. It was one of the contentions that had seen his friends, Nikolay and Illarion, exiled from Kuban, seen his father imprisoned and out of favour and now it had become one of the central issues that had sparked the revolution.
‘It is not surprising I don’t recognise you.’ He racked his mind for the least bit of memory and came up with one. ‘I do recall one Christmas, though. You were perhaps seven. We were home between terms from our respective universities and it had snowed. We had a snowball fight on Christmas Eve, with you, Grigori and Vasili against me and Peter. You wore your hair in braids with blue bows.’ He smiled fondly at the memory. ‘Kuban gets the best snow, not the wet stuff we have here in England.’
‘It sounds lovely, like something I’d want to remember.’ Dasha looked away, her gaze troubled.
Ruslan was quick to offer her consolation. Consolation came easy to him. He’d offered reassurances to other people in seemingly hopeless situations over the years. ‘It’s only been a few weeks. These things can take time. Sometimes the best remedy is to not try too hard to remember, to just let it happen.’
‘You are very kind.’ She offered him a faint smile and he did not bother to correct her. He was not kind. He was merely doing his job. Pretty as she was, she was just another project like all the other people he’d ferried out of Kuban over the years. The difference was that while they had wanted to get out, she wanted to get in.
‘And yourself, Prince Pisarev? It’s your turn. Why did you want to get me alone?’
‘I wanted to know your opinions about Varvakis’s plans. He would see you restored to the throne. That is an ambitious, if not dangerous undertaking, and one I would not support without your consent. Is that a road you wish to travel?’
They had reached the edge of the garden where a fence separated his luxurious home from the alley. She paused to fiddle with the ivy growing rampant against the wood. ‘I should wish it, shouldn’t I? A princess should want to go back, I should want to rally people to my cause, to my throne. Perhaps I should even want to avenge my family.’
‘But you don’t want those things?’ Now they were getting to the heart of it; not just her fear, but her doubt of her capabilities.
‘No, I don’t. Right now, anonymity is appealing. I would rather fade into nothingness than return to a place that might prefer to drag me out on my lawn and finish the task they started instead of negotiate with me, simply because of my father’s policies.’ She paused and gave him a reflective stare. ‘What sort of princess doesn’t want to go home or rule her people? What sort of princess chooses anonymity?’
Ruslan studied the woman beside him with careful eyes. She’d meant to shock him. The defiance in her eyes said so and she had. If she doubted her ability, others would, too. Her reservations would have to be downplayed or, better yet, changed.
‘Have you said anything about your concerns to Captain Varvakis?’ Ruslan asked quietly, intrigued by this new revelation. It seemed Varvakis was not only more confident in her ability to retake the throne than she was, but he was also more committed to the idea as well.
The French doors opened and Captain Varvakis hurried towards them. They hadn’t much left of their privacy and Ruslan had something more to say. ‘The doctor has arrived, Prince Pisarev. You must come at once. The butler isn’t sure where to put him.’
Ruslan nodded slowly, indicating he was going to be less flustered by the doctor’s arrival than Varvakis. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Captain, we’re nearly finished here. If you would, please, go ahead and tell Thomas to put the doctor in my study.’ It was a masterful dismissal, the kind of order Captain Varvakis was used to taking without question from his superiors.
Dasha smiled as the Captain hurried off again. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because I have something to say to you, Dasha, just you.’ Ruslan held her gaze for the space of a few seconds, long enough to let silence fall between them, long enough for her to acknowledge these words were not to be taken lightly. When one was talking of rulers and restorations, it was deadly serious business. ‘I am your ally whether you seek the throne or not. You should feel free to use the safety of this house as you desire. If your desire is to stay hidden and recover your memory, or simply to stay hidden and a build a new life, to take a new name and set all trappings of Kuban behind you, I will support that as I am able. If you wish to stage an effort to reclaim the throne on the grounds of modernising Kuban and abolishing archaic law, I will support that, too. But I will not pressure you one way or the other. No one can decide what happens next but you.’ It was the same reassurance he’d given others who had nowhere to go and nowhere to turn, although on a far less grand scale. Never before had those people been members of the royal family. ‘You are safe with me. I am here for you.’ Nothing less than honour and objectivity required that be his position.
‘Whoever that is?’ she questioned sharply.
‘Yes, whoever that is, émigrée or refugee princess.’ He dismissed her with an encouraging smile. ‘Now, go and see the doctor.’ He’d brought her the best and he was confident she’d be well taken care of. As for himself, he needed time with his thoughts before he faced Varvakis again. It was entirely possible the revolution would succeed or fall without any intervention from Princess Dasha, especially if no one suspected she was alive. He certainly wasn’t going to stake his life on forcing the issue unnecessarily and he definitely wasn’t going to force anyone else to do so, least of all a woman who might not be interested in the plots of men.
A single word from you, a little persuasion, could change that. You could make her see the possibilities such plots presented.
The temptation whispered itself into being and took up residence in the lodge of his conscience.
You could do it, too, you’ve done it before, helping men and women see things the way they needed to be seen, especially the women. You remember how to seduce...
Yes, dammit, he did remember. It had been a point of pride to know that when the Tsar needed a diplomat to change his mind on a trade agreement or an export tax, he’d sent Ruslan to ‘speak’ to their wives; ‘pillow talk,’ he’d called it. In that way, Ruslan had served Kuban and his Tsar, although it had all amounted to nothing when his father had fallen from favour. That was the way of Kuban. If one member of a family was disloyal, the entire family was blackened with the same brush.
You would be serving Kuban by persuading her. Varvakis is right, she’s the one they need. She can heal the country’s breach.
His conscience was relentless.
That was the larger temptation, because the ends did quite nobly justify the means. Persuading the ambivalent Dasha to return was in the country’s best interest. Under that aegis, he could conveniently overlook the personal gain to himself. Whatever he gained could just be a beneficial happenstance. He’d told Dasha he would not make that decision for her. But he’d said nothing about attempting to influence the decision. Would she even be aware he was influencing her?
Such things, as crass as they might be, must be contemplated when the fate of a kingdom hung in the balance. Revolutions created all nature of opportunities for those bold enough to take them—even opportunities for him. Which
