finance a nation. There is no other jewel like it on earth. It is the rarest of rarities. In the hands of the right man it might become a tool for greatness. In the hands of the wrong man, it would become a weapon of tyranny. Who is to say who that man might be or what he might become? For that reason, the diamond has been secretly entrusted to us. It is up to us to see that no one possesses it. The risk is too great. This was the charge given to the Stefanovs four hundred years ago in Constantinople, and it is the same charge we continue today …
Lilya bolted upright in bed clammy with sweat, her breathing coming fast and hard. She’d been dreaming of the last terrible days before the uprising. Her family had been there, all of them; her brother Alexei, her aunt Natasha, baby Constantine, and her father.
Lilya’s breathing returned to its normal pace and she squinted against the invasion of bright light. She’d fallen asleep with the curtains open. It was morning and from the looks of it, the morning was well advanced.
Her stomach rumbled, confirming that she’d slept through her usual breakfast hour. She reached for the hand pull to call for a cup of hot chocolate. But she’d no more than reached for the pull when a knock sounded at her door.
‘Come in.’ Lilya fell back against the pillows, resigned to a rumbling stomach. It would be too much to hope for that her maid would be that efficient.
Philippa stood there, dressed for driving, a sharp contrast to her own nightgown. ‘Good, you’re up. Beldon’s here and he has invited us to ride in the park.’ Philippa smiled warmly and wagged a finger at her, taking a seat at the foot of the bed. ‘You didn’t tell me Beldon was there last night, and that you’d danced.’ Philippa had stayed home from the ball pleading a headache the last minute.
Lilya turned her attentions to her wardrobe, hoping her face didn’t give her away. ‘He did his duty. He was very polite and it was considerate of him to think of me.’ The last thing she needed was Philippa playing matchmaker. Coming up to London for the Season had been an excellent excuse to be in town while the peace talks over Greek Independence were going on. She’d felt compelled out of loyalty to her father and the family charge to be on hand for the occasion for which they’d fought and died. But it was becoming harder than she’d expected to avoid potential entanglements. It seemed everyone was in town for two reasons: marriage or politics, and some were here for both.
‘Beldon plans to marry this Season,’ Philippa announced.
Ah, suspicions confirmed. Everyone was in town for two reasons. Even Beldon was here for marriage. She hoped he wouldn’t marry too soon. The thought of him devoted to another was oddly deflating.
Lilya shrugged into her gown, trying not to think of Beldon married. It would be to someone else, of course. She certainly wasn’t marrying anyone. She could not ask anyone to share the burden of the diamond. Her father had tried to do both. He’d had a family while protecting the diamond. He ended up dead and most of his family with him. She would not make the same mistake and drag anyone into the covert dangers of her life.
She turned her back and let Philippa do up her buttons.
‘Personally, I think he’s going to choose Lady Eleanor.’ Philippa gave the buttons a final pat to signal she was finished. ‘Perhaps that’s the reason he’s so keen on riding in the park today. It’s usually a bit too tame for him.’
‘Lady Eleanor Braithmore?’ Lilya asked, somewhat surprised that the smooth-faced Lady Eleanor would garner the attentions of a man of Beldon’s depths. She snatched up a bonnet, tamping down a ridiculous stab of disappointment. What would a virile man like Beldon want with a girl who had the personality of a milquetoast?
‘Does that displease you?’
Lilya shrugged, unwilling to say anything disparaging. ‘No, Lady Eleanor’s a lovely girl. It’s just happened so quickly, I suppose.’
‘Beldon is not a man to remain idle once his mind is set on a goal. Don’t worry, it will happen for you, too, just wait and see. We’ll find you someone to marry. Now, as to that, has anyone snared your attentions? You’ve been surrounded by so many, surely one has stood out.’
Lilya kept her response vague. ‘No one yet, though many are pleasant.’ She could no more say ‘yes’ than she could say ‘no’. The only man of note was inappropriate. She couldn’t very well say Beldon.
‘Perhaps the marquis’s son will be riding in the park,’ Philippa continued, handing her a pair of gloves. ‘He’s twenty-eight and well situated even before he inherits. I noticed he has been avid in his attentions. Val knows his father. If you would encourage him just the slightest, I think he’d come up to scratch.’
‘Yes, I will consider him especially … to avoid most assiduously,’ Lilya murmured, buttoning up her jacket. What a disaster it would be if she became a marchioness. Any marriage was unthinkable for the risk it posed, but marriage to a high-ranking peer would be the worst. Her life would become excessively public. She’d be written about in society columns and it would be all that much easier for someone to find her.
Assuming that was the kind of marriage she wanted. In all honesty, the diamond protected her from thinking whether or not an English marriage would suit her. In truth she did not think an English marriage would fit her temperament. The English girls she’d met and many of the young wives, too, were insipid creatures with no temerity of their own. They were utterly their husbands’ property right down to the opinions they possessed. She had never lived like that and she did not believe she was capable of it, certainly not for a man.
Philippa’s intuition was correct. They did encounter Lady Eleanor Braithmore in the park, sitting demurely in a white landau twirling a frothy confection of a parasol. Beldon was all dashing solicitude, paying compliments to her beauty from atop his bay hunter, bareheaded in the sun, so strikingly handsome, the very picture of English manhood, that Lilya had to remind herself to breathe.
Did the girl understand the import of his attentions? Surely she must. As an earl’s daughter, she’d been raised to make a match like the one Beldon would offer her.
Lilya sighed against a tender remembrance of long ago. She’d tried love foolishly once, before she’d understood the depth of her father’s mistakes. At sixteen, she’d had attentions such as the ones Beldon lavished on Eleanor Braithmore. The result had been disaster. The young man, an importer’s promising son, had died. She’d learned from the tragedy of that single indulgence. She must remain alone.
She told herself she did not begrudge Lady Eleanor Beldon’s specific attentions, just the sentiment behind them. Such a courtship would never be hers with anyone again.
A trio of gentlemen approached their carriages where they were pulled over on the verge, drawing Lilya’s attention away from Beldon’s courtship efforts.
‘Pendennys, it is good to see you,’ one of the young men called out. Lilya recognised him vaguely as being Lady Eleanor’s brother, a cocky young blood of twenty-two. She thought she saw Beldon cringe slightly at the young man’s familiarity, but the expression was quickly concealed.
‘Bandon, it’s good to see you.’ Beldon’s jaw tightened with annoyance, affirming her thought earlier that Beldon was not a man to be approached casually.
‘I’d like you to meet some of my friends. This is Lord Crawford and this is Mr Agyros, who is in town for the London talks. M’father is involved with those, of course,’ young Lord Bandon puffed with his borrowed self-importance.
The
