After that, complex rapidly became murky. The king wanted the Inhaber dead, out of his way, for reasons that most probably went beyond the matter of some disputed land. So the English Prince Regent had agreed to welcome Novak to England, and then have him a.s.sa.s.sinated by Justin Wilde, the husband who was, after all, only protecting his wife and himself, since a wife"s possessions automatically became the possessions of the husband.
"And this killing of the Inhaber would have taken place in far-off England, with no hint of blame or conspiracy falling on King Francis?" she"d asked Justin, thinking perhaps she at last understood the impossible to understand. "And that"s the reason why you will be a fugitive? Your Prince Regent has agreed to make you into a murderer, hasn"t he?"
He"d agreed that she was correct.
And she"d known he had just lied to her. She felt certain-no, the look on Justin"s face had told her-that there was more, but that the entire truth would have to wait for another day. She had already begun a mental list of questions for the moment that day arrived. Beginning with why you, Justin? Why did the Prince Regent, of all the men in England, choose you?
"Those weren"t highwaymen that attacked our coaches, Tatiana," she said now, willing herself to relax as the companion went back to brushing her hair for her. "They were sent by Inhaber Novak. And you knew that, Luka knew that. Everyone knew that except me. That"s why we have to leave here, because his lordship doesn"t want his friends put in any danger, to which I certainly agree. But I don"t know where we"re going, because he won"t tell me."
"Does he know?"
Alina turned about so quickly, one of the brushes caught in her hair. "Do you think he doesn"t? That he"d planned to leave me here with Luka, all unknowing, until I told him about the attack on the road? Do you think he is just taking us away now, without a destination in his mind? But that would be..."
"Yes?" the companion prompted.
"That would be something he might do," Alina admitted, thinking of the man she had only just barely begun to know, if at all. "I don"t think he planned to go to London and confront his Prince Regent, but he did it once he"d figured out that he was to play the role of dupe, as he termed it, in all of this. He probably was very angry, and said terrible things to the Prince Regent. Mostly, I think he was showing off. He"s a very strange man, Tatiana. And now he"s a fugitive, an outlaw."
"The major trusts him."
"Luka is in bed with a wounded shoulder and is all but useless. He has little choice but to trust someone else. He told me as much when I went to see him earlier and demanded that he tell me the entire truth." She took Tatiana"s hands in hers. "How did this happen? How did I go from silly girl to silly woman to a woman marked for death, all without noticing?"
"You were busy ordering bride clothes, my lady."
"Please, don"t remind me of just how shallow and silly I have been. Do you know what I should do? I should return home and fight for the land. I may not have much Romany blood, but it would be my honor to give the land to them and confound the Inhaber. And the king as well, I suppose. Is it very much land, do you know?"
Tatiana shrugged. "I don"t know, but it is not important, my lady. It isn"t the land the Romany want, it"s the having it. If the Inhaber dies and you were to live, then yours is the only claim. The king would be forced to honor it. And the Inhaber deserves to die, for so many reasons. That is why the major has allowed any of this. His lordship sticking his nose where it has no place to be is making things difficult for all of us."
"I won"t tell him that," Alina said, sighing. "It would only make him happy, I"m sure. And still I"m left asking-where will he take me?"
"That I do not know, my lady. I do know how he will take you. We who care for you did not arrive on these sh.o.r.es unprepared to protect you. We simply could not know that your bothersome betrothed would not take you straight to London. But that"s all been fixed, and we are ready now."
Alina looked at her companion blankly, only smiling after the woman had begun her explanation.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
CHARLOTTE DAUGHTRY HAD been so kind and so very welcoming these past days. She hadn"t so much as blinked when Alina arrived covered in mud, as if visitors came to her door every day in that same sorry condition.
What Alina saw in the d.u.c.h.ess was not simply a beautiful woman, but a very practical one, the sort who managed everyone around her without making anyone feel managed. Her husband, the duke, obviously adored her, as did all of the servants.
And if there was one thing Alina knew, it was that you could not fool the servants. They were the ones who saw you most, and at your most vulnerable. Anyone could manage to be polite and friendly in company. It was behind closed doors that the real person was revealed.
She"d also observed Charlotte with her son, one of the sweetest infants she"d ever seen, and one of the most fortunate. Little Rafael Fitzpatrick Daughtry had his mother"s soft eyes and his father"s determined chin, and he seemed to smile all the time. Alina had caught herself wondering how the product of a mix of her and Justin Wilde would look, and then quickly had banished the thought because first, well, first they"d have to...do that.
Except that this afternoon, when Justin had sat so close to her, and he"d looked at her in that strange way, and even as he told her things she found difficult to believe, she"d found herself half hoping he"d kiss her. And those parts of her that had slumbered for so long had stirred yet again. It was all very...interesting. She"d found herself watching his hands tonight at dinner, how they held a gla.s.s, how he used them when speaking. She watched his mouth, the slight upturn of his lips when he was genuinely amused. Her breath had caught in her throat when a lock of that dark hair had dared to fall forward onto his smooth forehead, and he"d casually brushed it back with his spread fingers...wondering what he would do if she copied his gesture when they were alone.
"You seem distracted, my dear," Charlotte whispered as she pretended to be admiring the embroidery on the sleeve of Alina"s gown as they returned to the drawing room after a relaxed and delicious dinner. "Are you nervous now that Justin has returned? He"s harmless, or so says Rafe"s sister Lydia, who knows him much better than I. Although, from everything I"ve heard about him, I"m frankly surprised that he"d agree to an arranged marriage, no matter if the king himself had asked it of him. That doesn"t seem anything like him, especially after his first marriage, which Rafe tells me was disastrous."
Alina shot a quick, involuntary look toward the two men standing in front of the mantelpiece, sharing drinks and conversation. "His first marriage, you said?"
Charlotte took her new friend"s hand and led her to a lovely flowered couch, urging her to sit down. Which Alina did, although she was faintly surprised that her suddenly stiff legs remained capable of bending at the knees. "Oh, Alina, I"m so sorry. I should have realized you might not know. But it was all very long ago, almost ten years, I believe. You stay here, and I"ll go fetch you a gla.s.s of wine. You"re terribly pale."
Alina nodded, her gaze still on Justin. She told herself she didn"t care, that a marriage that was no longer a marriage was no concern of hers. Just as she"d told herself that it didn"t matter that Baron Wilde was such an arresting figure, so very handsome. And clean, and young, and as prospective husbands went, probably a most wonderful catch. If she"d been looking for a husband, which she hadn"t been. But since being presented with him, she"d fairly well accepted him as such...right up until the moment he"d announced that there would be no marriage.
Could he really decide that on his own, when the announcement of their upcoming nuptials had already been made in Francis"s court? The banns had been read in church for the third time only two days before she had begun her journey to England.
She probably ought to tell him that. Tell him that, at least in her country, they were already as good as married. Or would that make her seem a pathetic creature?
What he"d done was to put her in some sort of Limbo; that"s what he"d done when he"d announced they would not marry. And told the Prince Regent as much, if he could be believed. She"d left her home an affianced bride, and landed in England only to be rejected by her affianced husband.
It was all so humiliating.
For some reason, one she didn"t care to delve into too deeply, or else she would look more foolish than she already believed herself to be, this unforeseen development upset her more than the thought that Inhaber Novak wanted her dead.
And now to learn that Justin had been married before? What would be next? Did he have an entire gaggle of children hidden away somewhere she wasn"t going to know about, either?
"Here you are, dear," Charlotte said, handing her a gla.s.s as she sat down beside her. "I was cudgeling my brain as I was pouring your gla.s.s, and I"m afraid I cannot remember much of what Rafe told me about Justin"s marriage. She had an accident of some sort while Justin was on the Continent. Really, it"s nothing to concern you. I shouldn"t have mentioned it at all. He"ll tell you everything in his own time. After all, you"ve barely met, haven"t you? Truth to tell, I find it disturbingly medieval that you two should be all but ordered to wed each other in the first place. And if Rafe heard me say any of what I"ve just said, he"d remind me that none of this is any of my business."
Alina smiled. "No, I think you"re correct. It"s very strange. I had thought only royal princes and princesses were married off to strangers for the sake of some government alliance. But I was given a choice-my aunt was very specific about that. It"s my decision to be here." She looked over at Justin again, still deep in conversation with the duke. "I don"t know why his lordship agreed."
"And I don"t know why I"m continuing to tell tales, but I am. According to Tanner, Lydia"s husband, the Prince Regent has some sort of control over Justin. What sort of control I don"t know, but it would seem that in order to remain in England, Justin has to do whatever the Prince Regent requires of him. He"s only recently returned, you know-or perhaps you don"t-after living abroad even since before his wife died, even throughout the war with France. I really should pay more attention, but as I always profess to abhor gossip, I try not to listen too well when people tell me things, or at least to forget them as soon as I"m told. Ah, and here"s the tea tray. Thank you, Grayson."
As Charlotte went about the business of pouring tea, Alina sat very still, digesting all of this. So that was why he"d gone to London. To inform His Royal Majesty that he would no longer obey him. And that was why he"d called himself a fugitive. It had nothing to do with her, or whether or not it would be so horrible for him to marry her. Here she"d been, thinking herself repulsive to him in some way. Too young, too silly, too foreign-something. And all the time, as she"d variously worried, fretted and considered wreaking mayhem on the man, it hadn"t been her at all. It had been Justin"s private problems with the Prince Regent that had sent him haring off to London.
There were a few things she knew-very few. There were a few more things she"d guessed, rightly or wrongly. It had never occurred to her that she was no more than a convenient reason for Justin to go to the man and, in the words she"d overheard one day from one of the grooms, tell His Royal Highness to b.u.g.g.e.r off.
He was either very brave, or the most foolish, dangerous man in creation.
Alina put her hand to her mouth and pretended a huge yawn. "Oh, I"m so sorry, Charlotte. I can"t seem to keep my eyes open. Would you mind terribly if I excused myself and went upstairs? I"ve already been warned that we"re making a very early start in the morning."
Charlotte rose at once, announcing that Alina would be leaving them, and the two men immediately joined them to say their good-nights.
"It has been our pleasure to have you here, my dear. I won"t see you in the morning before you go, I"m afraid," the duke told her, and then surprised her by kissing her on the cheek. "I know this man. He"ll let no harm come to you," he whispered softly before stepping back.
Alina smiled her thanks and had already turned toward the foyer when Justin took her hand and threaded her arm through his. "You look rather pale. Wrestling with kittens has fatigued you?"
"Wrestling with many things has fatigued me," she countered as they stopped in the foyer and she reluctantly withdrew her arm. "But I am confident that I shall find answers to all that troubles me very soon. In fact, I"m convinced of it. Until we meet again, my lord, good night."
She ascended the first few steps sedately, but once she was sure Justin had returned to the drawing room, she hiked up her skirts and raced to her bedchamber, for once praying that Danica was waiting to help her into her nightclothes. After all, the sooner she was thought to be safely tucked up in bed, the sooner she would see Danica"s disapproving back following her pimple-dotted front toward the door.
"Is that the best I"ve got, out of all these trunks of clothes?" she asked almost plaintively a few minutes later as she stood in the middle of the room, stripped to her chemise, and looked at the same night rail she"d worn that first evening in Portsmouth.
"I can only lay out what is there to lay out, my lady. It is you who chose to think only of how you could impress everyone with your fine gowns."
Alina made a face as the chemise fell away and she immediately became half-buried in yards of aged white muslin dropped over her head by the dresser. She had to fight her way free, shoving her arms into the sleeves that covered her past her wrists, and then stepped back as Danica went to close the dozen or more front b.u.t.tons that would cover her almost halfway up her neck.
"Thank you, that will be all," she said, covering yet another feigned yawn. "I"ll wear the rose tomorrow to travel, Danica."
"You"ll wear the blue. Everything else is packed."
"But...but the blue was ruined in the mud."
"A few stains, here and there, but good enough to ride in a coach, bad enough to not suffer too much if you see a puddle you might wish to jump up and down in...my lady."
"Danica, you"re impertinent, do you know that?" Alina wanted the woman gone, not just from her bedchamber at this moment, but from her life, her employ. "And clearly you are unhappy here. Perhaps you should return home. I am certain his lordship can arrange suitable transport."
The dresser didn"t burst into tears, nor did she throw herself at Alina"s feet and beg for her position, but her stern face did take on a faintly wounded expression. "This is how I"m thanked for leaving my homeland in order to serve the daughter of the good and kind General Leopold Valentin, so beloved of his countrymen, so mourned upon his death at the hands of the outlaw Bonaparte, so-"
"Oh, Danica," Alina exclaimed in a horror of remorse, clasping the unbending woman to her. "I"m sorry. I"m so, so sorry."
Danica took hold of Alina"s shoulders and sternly put her at arm"s length, her hatchet face once more implacable. "Gut. Good. Then that is settled, you have apologized as you should, and we will speak no more of this. You will wear the blue."
"Uh...yes?" Alina said, caught between surprise and an insane urge to laugh. "I will wear the blue. Most definitely. I can"t imagine why I thought otherwise. I"ll braid my hair myself-you just go to bed now. Good night, Danica."
Once the woman was gone, Alina stripped off the offending night rail and climbed back into her chemise, which at least didn"t b.u.t.ton to her chin, and then wrapped herself in the ermine-tipped cloak already laid out for the morning chill.
Before she could reflect too much over what she was about to do, she then opened the door to the hallway, stuck her head out far enough to be certain she would not be observed, and then raced on bare tiptoes down the length of the corridor before entering Justin"s chamber, closing the door and flattening her back against it to catch her breath. She"d made it!
And then she very nearly leapt out of her skin when Justin spoke to her.
"You were somehow detained? I"d expected you a full ten minutes ago, and was just now feeling I"d misjudged you. How gratifying to see that I haven"t. You"re as foolish as you are brave."
The silky voice had come from somewhere in the dimness lightened by only a few candles. "And looking quite fetching, I might add," Justin said as he stepped forward, making himself visible in the candlelight.
"You knew I"d come? You"ve been waiting for me?" Alina shook her head at her own foolishness. "Yes, of course you did, of course you are. Now I feel foolish and...predictable."
Justin took her arm and led her toward the fire and the pair of facing leather wingback chairs that were much like the pair in her own chamber. As she"d already decided these chairs were less than comfortable, she sank to her haunches on the hearth rug, the cloak forming a velvet puddle around her.
Justin looked toward one of the chairs, and then shrugged his shoulders as if to say why should he be any different than his guest, at which point he also lowered himself to the floor, still holding a snifter of brandy delicately in one hand. He looked...magnificent. Without his evening jacket, with his shirtsleeves hanging loosely, the neat ruffling of his cuffs tickling at the backs of his hands, with his neckcloth gone and his waistcoat undone, he managed to look both wonderfully groomed and approachable. Human.
She should remember that he was probably neither.
"How did you know I"d come to see you?"
"I couldn"t be certain," he told her, swirling the brandy in the snifter. She felt her eyes drawn to it, losing herself in its honeyed highlights. "If you hadn"t, I would have found my way to your chamber. Charlotte, you see, apologized to me after you"d gone. She believes she may have been indiscreet."
With some effort, Alina tore her gaze from the brandy snifter. "About your dead wife, yes. But you would have told me in your own good time."
"If I didn"t disappear again, as I did from Portsmouth."
"I hadn"t thought of that, but yes, I suppose so. But mostly, if you were to go through with the marriage, that is, which you aren"t, so I really have no reason to be curious about your...personal past."
"Ah, but you"d give that fine cloak to know, wouldn"t you?"
"I most certainly would not," she protested, finally unable to resist looking him in the eye. He had such arresting green eyes, different from any color she"d ever seen. "But I do have a perfectly lovely reticule with seed pearls st.i.tched all over it in the design of a peac.o.c.k, if you think you"d fancy it."
"Now I"ve upset you."
"You can"t upset me, my lord, if I don"t wish to be upset. I am only curious about the man I am not going to marry. Anyone would be, you know. You"re exceedingly strange. May I have a sip? I"ve never tasted brandy, but I like the smell of it. You warm it with your hands, don"t you?"
He offered her the snifter, and she took it with both hands, holding it beneath her nose and breathing in its heady fragrance before touching the gla.s.s to her lips. The moment the warmed liquid hit her tongue she had to force herself not to gasp, and determinedly took a long swallow before handing the thing back to him.
"Here," he said, holding out a handkerchief he"d produced from somewhere on his person. "Your eyes are tearing. You are supposed to sip, kitten, and then hold the brandy in your mouth for a few moments, allow it to caress your tongue, and only then swallow. When something is good it is to be savored. Not gulped."
And then, without taking his eyes off her, he raised the snifter to his own mouth and demonstrated what he meant.
Those slumbering parts of her had clearly only been napping since she"d first seen him again this afternoon. Now they yawned, stretched and slowly began to wake up once more. "Why do you make me feel this way when you look at me?" she asked him before she could stop herself. "I don"t like it."
"No, kitten, you don"t understand it. There"s a difference."
His gaze was steady, unwavering and mind-shatteringly unnerving. She tried to get up to leave this man and his unsettling way of saying what she didn"t think he knew. But when he held out his hand she subsided, sighing.
He took her hand in his, stroked his thumb against her palm.
The entire world seemed to have suddenly narrowed to include only the two of them, wrapped inside the soft glow from the fire. He was so intensely male. She, for the first time in her life, believed she might know what it meant to be a female.
"You want to kiss me again, don"t you?" she asked him quietly.
"No, kitten. That is precisely the last thing I want to do."
She looked down at her hand, lost in his, believing his touch put the lie to his words. "Forgive me. There was a time, my lord, when I thought I was a fairly intelligent person. Do you think it"s that the air here in England is different? Is that why I"ve been so very stupid ever since I left the ship? Or...or perhaps it was the brandy, because, you know, I"ve never really drunk strong..."
His finger beneath her chin signaled that he wanted her to raise her head, look at him. Her heart beating madly, her breath somehow gone, she couldn"t seem to refuse.
"Have you ever wondered about the difference between what we know we shouldn"t do and what, against all good sense, we find we have to do?" he asked her, his face close to hers, the smell of brandy on his breath somehow intoxicating her more than the drink itself. "And, much as I shouldn"t want to do this, kitten, I find that I have to.... I really, really must...."
Alina"s eyelids fluttered closed as, only his light touch beneath her chin holding her in place as if she had lost the power to move, he put his lips to hers. And this time he didn"t move away again.
She didn"t know what to do, how to react. She tried pursing her lips, but that didn"t seem right. She tried simply tightening them against her teeth, and half felt, half heard his soft chuckle, so she knew that had to be wrong, as well. She probably looked like Danica in one of her disapproving att.i.tudes.
So when Justin put the pads of his thumbs to either side of her mouth and began to lightly ma.s.sage her skin, she simply relaxed, deciding that he knew much better than she what a kiss between a man and a woman was all about.
"Better," he breathed, moving back slightly, just enough to look into her eyes. He tipped his head slightly to one side, his eyes alight with mischief. "Now let"s try that again, shall we?"
"I...but I..."
He didn"t allow her to finish, which was probably a good thing, as she had no idea what she might have said, but just captured her mouth even as she was speaking.
He kissed her, and then he kissed her again, and yet again. Each time she felt she learned more, until she actually became frustrated each time he withdrew, and found herself lifting her face to him, seeking out his next kiss.
He nipped lightly at her upper lip, which rather tickled. He actually drew her full bottom lip between his teeth, and ran his tongue along the soft underside of it, sending a trumpet blast to her sleeping parts and rousing them to full attention.