To Wed a Wicked Prince Read online

  Aurelia accepted the fait accompli. “Yes, they’ll look pretty on the console table between the windows,” she agreed, telling herself that flowers were a perfectly respectable offering from a gentleman to a lady. It was only the quantity that was the problem here. Somehow such munificence seemed to detract from the general respectability of the gift.

  Livia, on the other hand, didn’t seem concerned at all, Aurelia noticed. She was laughing and chatting inconsequentially as she directed the prince’s labors, arranging banks of flowers on windowsills and tables, her cheeks delicately flushed and her gray eyes glinting with light like sun on the sea. Aurelia sent a swift prayer for Cornelia’s rapid return to town. She could do with reinforcements together with a second opinion, and the situation cried out for Harry’s investigative contacts.

  The house resembled a hothouse when the flowers were finally dispersed throughout the ground floor, the air heavy with their fragrance.

  “It’s like living in a garden,” Livia said with delight even as Aurelia sneezed. “Oh, dear, do they tickle your nose, Ellie?”

  “A little,” the other woman admitted, blowing her nose on a lace handkerchief. “But I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

  “Lawks-a-mercy.”

  They all turned to the door at the exclamation. Ada, Morecombe’s wife, stood staring, her gray hair drawn into a severe bun on the nape of her neck, the greenish cast to her pallor more noticeable than usual. She called over her shoulder, “Our Mavis, would you jest come an’ take a look at this lot.”

  Her sister appeared almost immediately with Morecombe at her back. “Well, I never did,” Mavis declared. “I never saw nuthin’ like it, not never.”

  “Eh, an’ jest who’s goin’ t’be waterin’ this lot, that’s what I’ve been wantin’ to know,” Morecombe stated.

  “Aye, take all day it will,” his wife agreed, her sister nodding vigorously. “If ’n you expects yer dinner on time, mum, ye’ll not be lookin’ to our Mavis an’ me to see t’ this lot.”

  “An’ ’tis not my job, neither,” Morecombe announced.

  “It’s quite all right. I’ll take care of it myself,” Livia said. “With Lady Farnham’s help, of course.” She shot Aurelia a look of anxious appeal.

  “Yes, of course,” Aurelia said, trying to contain her laughter at the disapproval on the faces of the three retainers. “Of course we wouldn’t expect any of you to take on such a monumental task. But I’m sure Hester can help, and Jemmy can fill watering cans.”

  “Oh dear,” Alex murmured as the trio departed without offering an opinion on the assistance of their juniors. “Somehow the practicalities of such an offering escaped me. Shall I come every morning and water them myself? Would that help?”

  “No, of course you shan’t,” Livia said on a bubble of laughter. “We’ll manage even if I’m condemned to wander amongst them with a watering can for the rest of my days. I’m sure I shan’t miss attending all the balls and the parties…although I confess I am particularly fond of the theatre,” she added with a mournful sigh. “It might be difficult to forgo that.”

  “Absurd woman,” Alex accused, thinking once again how much he enjoyed her laughter, even when she was mocking him. He glanced at the long case clock in the corner of the room as it struck ten. “Damn it, but I have to go. An appointment…” He hurried to the hall for his cane, hat, and gloves. “Livia, I came to ask you to join me in the park this afternoon. I’ll collect you at five o’clock…that is the hour for seeing and being seen, is it not?”

  “Generally yes,” Livia said, following him into the hall. “But has it occurred to you that I might have something else to do this afternoon?”

  He drew on a glove and frowned at her. “No…do you? Can’t you put it off?”

  “I might not wish to,” she said, on her mettle once again.

  His frown deepened. “I’m not very adept at this game of flirtation, ma’am. It has always struck me as pointless. If you don’t wish to join me this afternoon, then please say so.”

  “As it happens, I wasn’t flirting,” Livia retorted, the sunshine vanished from her eyes. “I don’t care to have my mind made up for me by someone else’s assumptions. You presume too much, Prince Prokov.”

  “Ah.” He drew on the second glove, smoothing the fine leather over his hand, frowning as he did so. “It is perhaps a failing of mine,” he conceded after a minute. “In my culture men tend to make the decisions.” He looked across at her then and his teeth flashed in a smile. “I’m willing to learn the English way. Surely you can’t resist the opportunity to teach me, ma’am?”

  Perhaps she couldn’t. Livia debated the question, keeping him waiting for her answer, although his smile didn’t waver and that clear blue gaze didn’t move from her face. “I’ve always enjoyed a challenge, sir,” she said finally. “We’ll see if I’m up to this one.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, brushing her knuckles with the merest breath of a kiss. “At five o’clock, then.”

  “Five o’clock.” She moved to open the door but he reached over her to lift the latch himself.

  “Forgive the observation, ma’am, but isn’t there a saying about not keeping a servant and opening one’s own doors?”

  “The saying you mean goes something like, there’s no point keeping a dog and barking oneself,” she said. “And Morecombe and the twins are a law unto themselves. They don’t really work for me, they work for the memory of Sophia Lacey, as I think I explained…and talking of dogs…” She broke off as Tristan and Isolde came hurtling up the steps from the street, a flustered Hester struggling to hold on to their leashes.

  “I beg your pardon, mum, but I can’t hold ’em,” Hester panted as the leash was wrenched from her hand. “I was going to take ’em round to the kitchen.”

  “That’s all right, Hester,” Livia said above the yapping of the terriers, who seemed to have decided that Prince Prokov was their new best friend.

  He seemed untroubled by their attentions, merely brushing them down as if they were dust balls as they pranced on hind legs at his knees. He said something sharply to them in a language that Livia didn’t understand, but the effect was remarkable. They dropped to their haunches and gazed up at him, tongues lolling.

  “Whatever did you say?” Livia asked. “Oh, no, what a ridiculous question, they wouldn’t have understood you.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” he said carelessly. “The language of animals is universal. It’s not the sounds so much as the tone. I could speak to them in Mandarin in the same tone and they’d respond in the same way.”

  “Could you speak Mandarin?” she asked involuntarily even though she was bristling again at his calm assumption of some supernaturally superior power. Talk to animals, indeed.

  He gave her a shrewd look, sensing her annoyance. He shook his head, but with a smile. “No, as it happens I don’t speak Mandarin. But I do have a way with animals…even such unlikely-looking creatures as these.” The dogs drooled adoringly as if they knew he was speaking of them.

  Livia bent and picked up the dropped leashes. “Don’t let me keep you from your engagement, Prince.”

  “Until this afternoon, Livia.” He gave her a brief bow and then strolled down the steps to the street. He turned and raised a hand in farewell and the dogs howled.

  “Oh, do be quiet, you fickle creatures.” Livia hauled the animals into the hall and kicked the door shut behind her. She bent to release the leads and they skittered across the polished parquet towards a standing copper vase of greenery and roses. Excitedly they scampered around the vase, sniffing, tails in the air, and Livia began to get an ominous premonition.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, bending to scoop them up. “This may look and smell like a flower garden, my friends, but it is not.” She carried them to the baize door that led to the kitchen regions, opened it, and sent them through. Yet another complication of Alex Prokov’s incarnation
as a florist.

  She returned to the salon but there was no sign of Aurelia, just the heavy scent of myriad blooms. She ran her to earth in the parlor. “Ah, here you are.”

  “Yes, I needed some fresh air,” Aurelia said, putting down the periodical she was reading. “We managed to keep the flowers out of this room. What an impulsive man he is, Liv. Who would think to do something like that?”

  “I don’t think Alex Prokov considers it at all odd,” Livia said. “It seems to go hand in hand with pushing people into fountains if they’re in your way.”

  “Why do I think you don’t really mind his impulses?” Aurelia asked, watching Liv closely as she paced the room.

  Livia shrugged. “I don’t…at least not all the time. They’re rather exciting.” She stopped pacing and stood by the window, facing Aurelia. She still had that glow about her, Aurelia noticed, still that sunshine sparkle in her eyes. “I’m never bored in his company, Ellie.”

  “Well, I can certainly see the appeal there,” her friend agreed cautiously. “But don’t you think we should try to find out more about him?”

  “I don’t know that I want to,” Livia said, surprising herself as she spoke. “I rather like not knowing what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. It’s not as if I’m contemplating spending the rest of my life with him, Ellie. It’s just an interlude. For some reason he’s interested in me, and I’m enjoying his interest. What harm can it do?”

  “None, I hope.” But Aurelia was not completely convinced of that. As long as Liv kept her head, then all would be well, but while Liv was generally levelheaded, she could also go off at a tangent on occasion.

  “Anyway, I’m walking with him in the park this afternoon,” Livia said, as if that closed the conversation. “May I borrow your brown velvet pelisse, the one with the gray trimming? It goes so well with my gray silk, and at least I won’t go blue with cold when the sun goes down.”

  “Yes, of course,” Aurelia said readily. Until Cornelia had broken up the trio by marrying Harry Bonham, the three women had shared clothes and accessories as a matter of necessity. They’d learned that clever adjustments to a limited wardrobe could expand that wardrobe quite considerably. “And you should wear the high-crowned gray velvet hat, and the gray kid gloves.”

  “Exactly so.” Livia nodded her satisfaction. “Now, could you bear to have just one vase of flowers in here? I think those golden dahlias and tawny chrysanthemums would look lovely on the pier table.”

  “Yes, they would,” Aurelia agreed, getting to her feet. “It isn’t that I don’t love flowers, I do, but…”

  “In moderation,” Livia finished for her. “I’m not sure how much the Russian prince knows about moderation.”

  Aurelia said hesitantly, “Probably more than he lets on, Liv. I just have the impression that there might be more to him than he’s letting us see.”

  Livia looked at her, her head tilted to one side, her gaze quizzical. “Isn’t that true of pretty well everyone, Ellie? If I thought what I’d seen was all there was to see of Alexander Prokov, then I would have no interest in him whatsoever.”

  “You could be playing with fire.”

  “I could,” Livia agreed. “And if I burn my fingers, it will be with full knowledge.”

  Aurelia nodded. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I must go to Franny. I promised to take her for a walk. Are you in for luncheon?”

  Livia grimaced. “Letitia Oglethorpe has inveigled me into a small ladies’ luncheon to discuss the latest on-dits.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Liv…why did you accept?” Letitia was their bête noire.

  “Accidentally,” Livia said with a groan. “The invitation was in a pile I was answering and I found I’d accepted it without realizing who it was from. And by then Jemmy had taken it to the post and it was too late…I could plead a headache…” She brightened momentarily, then sighed. “No, I can’t. Not if I’m going to walk in the park with the prince a few hours later. Someone’s bound to see me and mention it.”

  “Well, good luck. I’m glad she didn’t invite me.”

  “She would have done if she’d known you’d be back in town,” Livia pointed out. “But you could always just come.” Her smile was mischievous. “You know how delighted she’d be to see you…and just think of all the questions she’ll ask about Nell and Harry.”

  “No, thank you,” Aurelia said firmly. “I’ll see you later.”

  “So, tell us about Prince Prokov, Livia?” Lilly Devries leaned forward in her chair, her eyes bright with curiosity. “A most handsome man, I thought. Where did you meet him?”

  “Oh, intrigue,” crowed Letitia Oglethorpe. “Is this a new man about town, Livia? I don’t know the name.”

  Livia sighed. She’d guessed this would happen as soon as she’d seen that Lilly was one of the select group of ladies at Letitia’s luncheon. “I don’t really know anything about him. I met him at the duchess of Clarington’s ball the other night and danced once with him,” she said, hoping that an assumption of careless indifference to the subject might put them off pursuing it.

  No such luck, of course. Letitia had an unfailing nose for sniffing out hidden morsels of gossip. “Well, is he handsome?” she demanded. “Handsome and rich?”

  “I have no idea whether he has money or not,” Livia stated a little sharply. “I don’t go around asking strangers the state of their financial affairs…rather vulgar, I would have thought.”

  It worked to a certain extent; Letitia pouted and turned her shoulder to Livia, demanding of Lilly instead, “Tell me about him. Where does he come from? How long has he been in town?”

  Lilly threw up her hands. “I don’t know anything, Letitia, except that he’s a Russian prince and I at least thought him handsome. But Livia’s tastes may run to a different kind of look.” She glanced at Livia as she said this.

  Livia decided it was probably best to get the subject over and done with. “He’s fair, with blue eyes…tall, quite slim, dresses well,” she said, counting the points off on her fingers. “I have the impression that he’s relatively new to London, but he hasn’t confided in me…I barely know the man.”

  “Well, I shall ask Oglethorpe as soon as he comes in,” Letitia stated. “I must say, Livia, your lack of curiosity is unnatural. An eligible bachelor arrives in town and solicits your hand for a dance, and you don’t have any interest in him at all. It’s not natural, is it?” She appealed to the three other women in the salon.

  “Not everyone is as inquisitive as you, Letty,” a somewhat older woman said, offering Livia a sympathetic smile.

  “Maybe so, but I think it’s most ungenerous of Livia not to share her opinions,” Lady Oglethorpe declared. “Let us go into luncheon.” She rose from her chair in a swirl of orange taffeta and tucked her arm into that of Lady Devries. She led the way to the dining room, leaving the remainder of her guests to trail along in her wake.

  Livia glanced at the clock as they crossed the hall. It was half past one. Another hour and a half and this torment would be over.

  Chapter Five

  AURELIA WAS RETURNING FROM A walk in the park with Franny when Livia stepped down from the hackney carriage that had brought her back to Cavendish Square.

  “Aunt Liv…Aunt Liv, we’ve been in the park,” the little girl shouted. “We fed the ducks.” She tugged on her mother’s hand, prancing on tiptoe in her eagerness to reach Livia.

  “How was it?” Aurelia called, as she obeyed her daughter’s insistent tugs and hurried across the road, clutching Franny’s hand tightly. The child had a habit of shooting off on frolics of her own if not firmly tethered.

  “Ghastly,” Livia said, pressing her hands to her temples. “It will teach me not to hurry when I’m answering invitations. I can’t think how I missed the card. Guess what the main topic of conversation was?” She bent to kiss Franny, whose chattering monologue continued unabated.

  “Prince Prokov,” Aurelia hazarded.

  “
Spot on.” Livia turned to the steps to the front door. “Are you coming in?”

  “Yes, I think I’ve probably succeeded in tiring Franny sufficiently to take an afternoon nap.” Aurelia, still holding Franny firmly by the hand, followed Livia up to the door and they waited the usual interminable time before Morecombe opened the door.

  The heady scent of the flowers hit them as they stepped into the hall. “I’m guessing you didn’t mention the prince’s inordinately extravagant gift,” Aurelia said, releasing Franny’s hand and picking her way past an ornamental shrub that seemed to have thrown out tendrils, since it was carefully positioned on one side of the front door. Franny, shrieking with delight, ran from one display to another, like a bee sipping nectar.

  “You guess right,” Livia agreed above the child’s excited babble. “Can you imagine what the gossips would make of it?” She shook her head with a grimace.

  “If he continues to pay you attention, though, it will get out,” Aurelia warned her. “You are prepared for that?”

  “Yes, but as long as the attention’s within bounds, it’ll be no more than the usual gossip,” Livia said, making her way to the stairs. “Talking of which, I’d better get ready for our jaunt in the park. That will stir some tongues certainly.”

  “But it’s a perfectly respectable jaunt,” Aurelia said with a soft laugh. “Not like the florist’s shop. By the way, I left the brown velvet pelisse on your bed.”

  “Thank you, you’re a love.” Livia hurried upstairs.

  Half an hour later Livia examined her image in the cheval glass in her bedchamber and decided that if she wished to make a favorable impression on the Russian prince, then she was certainly going to succeed. The brown velvet pelisse had a richly luxuriant glow to it that set off her black curls, and the gray fur trimming brought out a faint bluish tint to her gray eyes. The high-crowned gray velvet hat gave her height and an air of elegance, nicely matched by gray buttoned boots and long gray kid gloves.