Awakened By The Prince’s Passion
Awakened By The Prince’s Passion
Bronwyn Scott
A lost princess…And the prince who will protect her!In this Russian Royals of Kuban story, Crown Princess Dasha is plucked from the flames of rebellion and sent to London with no memory of her past—everyone says she’s heiress to Kuban’s throne. Yet she trusts Ruslan Pisarev on first sight—he becomes her protector, her confidante, even her lover… But can Ruslan claim her for ever when she is awakened to the truth of her identity?
A lost princess...
And the prince who will protect her!
In this Russian Royals of Kuban story, Crown Princess Dasha is plucked from the flames of rebellion and sent to London with no memory of the past. Everyone says she’s heiress to Kuban’s throne... She trusts Ruslan Pisarev on first sight—he becomes her protector, her confidante, even her lover. But can Ruslan claim her forever when she is awakened to the truth of her identity?
Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries
Book 1—Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Book 2—Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Book 3—Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
Book 4—Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss—coming soon!
“The perfect read that will sweep you away.”
—RT Book Reviews on Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
“Scott delivers an absorbing tale with an uncommon hero, bold heroine, elements of foreign intrigue, treachery and passion. The witty byplay between the characters and their tension-filled battle of wills fuels the readers’ desire to turn the pages.”
—RT Book Reviews on Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com (http://www.bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Also by Bronwyn Scott (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
Scandal at the Christmas Ball
Wallflowers to Wives miniseries
Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss
Awakening the Shy Miss
Claiming His Defiant Miss
Marrying the Rebellious Miss
Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
And look out for the last book
Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss coming next month
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07393-6
AWAKENED BY THE PRINCE’S PASSION
© 2018 Nikki Poppen
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Sveta, Zhenya and Irina,
in celebration of the twentieth anniversary
of our summer together in Pskov.
Spasibo.
Contents
Cover (#u164a3c8e-e50c-5102-965d-e350c010f7c5)
Back Cover Text (#u68714fc7-305e-5787-bb36-a5998c20c619)
About the Author (#ua20947e9-59aa-5dc5-9cfe-b34c646531d4)
Booklist (#u9fa155e5-3dfd-5bda-aa62-7e2e94a9a5ee)
Title Page (#uf1691756-87ce-5630-a011-e83a359e8dd5)
Copyright (#u7020ece3-ca3d-55d2-8095-2e366d457341)
Dedication (#u02daf1cb-eafb-5129-ac93-e115284b2240)
Chapter One (#uf7cff519-086a-50b3-b449-8fe254a6dd80)
Chapter Two (#u1875a7ba-a854-524b-a911-87cc693bdb26)
Chapter Three (#ubda28bc9-9834-56ad-a3d4-8975c2ed711d)
Chapter Four (#u9cec1ea0-beb0-5dbc-aadd-986547695bd6)
Chapter Five (#uecee73f7-38d9-529e-bcd8-29fe50e72925)
Chapter Six (#u0b8975cc-f982-5aee-a422-172c6050175d)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
London—late August 1823
The trouble with revolution was that it made unlikely bedfellows, in unlikely locations, and at unlikely times. One moment Prince Ruslan Pisarev had been peacefully asleep in the bedroom of his newly acquired London town house, the next he was sitting behind his desk, dressed in nothing but his banyan and green silk pyjama trousers, reading reports that were at once exciting and horrifying. Part of him hoped the man across the desk was telling the truth and part of him hoped the man was lying, because the truth was dark.
Kuban, his home, was in turmoil. The Summer Palace outside the city—a place he’d visited multiple times—had been overrun by Rebels and set alight. To prove that change had come at last and permanently two months ago, the royal family had been dragged out and executed at dawn on their front lawn. The Tsar, his wife, his sons. Peter, Vasili and Grigori, boys, now men, whom Ruslan had grown up with.
The thought of his boyhood friends murdered in such a fashion threatened to swamp him. Ruslan pushed his grief aside. There would be time to mourn them later, in private. Right now he needed his wits, yet the thought lingered. All the House of Tukhachevsken dead, wiped out in a single morning. Well, nearly all of them, if the Captain sitting before him in the pre-dawn darkness of his study was telling the truth.
Ruslan studied Captain Varvakis with shrewd eyes, assessing the steady gaze and the straight posture of his ‘midnight’ caller. The term was loosely applied. Midnight had come and gone hours ago. The Captain was a military man to his core and with that core came a strong, unbreakable sense of loyalty to the organisation he served, in this case, the royal family. Varvakis had no reason to lie. Still, Ruslan had not survived this long without always asking the ‘if’.
Ruslan pushed a hand through his thick hair, a bad habit he indulged in too frequently since it left hairs sticking up on end. But what did it matter? He was already rumpled from sleep—a little more tousling wouldn’t matter as his mind assimilated the barrage of information. ‘You mean to tell me Princess Dasha escaped the fusillade and she is, right now, sleeping upstairs in my guest room?’ He’d seen little of the bedraggled woman Captain Varvakis had carried in upon arrival.
Captain Varvakis didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. I pulled her out of the flames myself.’ Ruslan closed his eyes and let the Captain describe the scene. In his mind’s eye, he walked every inch of the rescue with Varvakis. He could imagine with vivid clarity the Rebel hordes crashing through the wrought-iron and gold gates of the palace, marching up the wide drive with manicured green lawns on either side, to the huge double doors with their panels of carved bears, smashing the artistry of centuries with ramming logs, torching and looting as they went. The aesthetic in him wanted to weep over the destruction. Whether or not he agreed with the Tsar’s policies, the Summer Palace had been a place of beauty.
‘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 of Kuban or who I am. I have only this good man’s word.’ What would Prince Pisarev make of that information? Dasha settled into one of the chairs near the fire, taking comfort in the warmth. She was so very cold. Cold and empty, as she had been for weeks. The fire could do something about the one, but not the other. It seemed nothing could. Not even the information Captain Varvakis had given her filled the void. The Prince was looking at her with his steady blue gaze and something akin to hope leapt in her. Did he know her? Had he known her family? Was there something he could tell her that would help her remember again?
She wouldn’t ask him here in front of the Captain. He might feel compelled to give a certain answer. She would wait and get him alone, where he could only tell her the truth.
The tray arrived and the next few minutes were spent pouring drinks and making little plates of toast and jam and hot sausages. The Prince’s gaze never left her for long. He was gathering his thoughts just as she was gathering her resources. Her body and mind were tense in anticipation of defending themselves. He would want to question her, to prod her about her memories, and then, when she failed to recall anything, he would condemn her. But the Prince did none of that.
‘I know a doctor, a specialist who can perhaps help you,’ the Prince said when the servants had gone. ‘After the Peninsular Wars, many of our soldiers suffered memory loss from the trauma of battle. I’ll arrange for a visit today, if you’d like. I will also arrange for a lady’s maid and some clothes until we can get you to a dressmaker. I already have my footmen preparing a hot bath for you in your chambers.’
* * *
Embarrassing tears stung Dasha’s eyes. How silly it was to cry now over a bath and clean clothes and brandy-laced milk when there was so much loss to mourn. Her home, her country, her mind, her family. She’d not cried when Varvakis had told her. She’d been numb with horror, not only at the nature of their deaths, but at her lack of memory. She couldn’t remember them, she could only mourn them as an outsider mourned the inherent wrongness of a tragedy. She’d not cried when the boat they’d journeyed in from Ekaterinodar foundered in the Black Sea. She’d been brave for weeks. She’d not broken down once, but Prince Pisarev had managed to reduce her to tears in a matter of sentences over the smallest of kindnesses. She willed the tears away with a fierce determination.
‘Thank you for your hospitality, Prince Pisarev. It means more than you know.’ She rose to leave, knowing they would discuss her when she left. But it was either stay and fall apart in front of the Prince, or leave and preserve her dignity.
The Prince stood with her, capturing her hand in his. She felt the warm strength of him again flowing into her. ‘It is my pleasure. Please ask for anything you need. We will speak again later, when you’re settled.’ What a courtier he must have been. He was the sort of man who was able to arrange things for others without making them feel small or dependent. The sort of man who knew how to take charge without diminishing people. That could be dangerous. She would do well to remember how easily he wielded that power. She wanted to be under no man’s thumb. But that was a problem for later. At the moment, she could afford to bask fully in his generosity. Only a foolish woman turned down the offer of a hot bath after weeks of travel and, whoever she was, Dasha was no fool.
Chapter Two (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
‘The Princess is here. Congratulations, Captain. You’ve made it this far. Now we need to talk about why. Why me? Why London when there are places of safety far closer to Kuban?’ Ruslan put the long-forgotten glass in Captain Varvakis’s hand and picked up his own, taking charge of the conversation and its direction. Now, he really did need a drink. The Princess was a woman who could take a man by surprise and not let go. Even as bedraggled as she was from travel, there was beauty to her wildness: the ash-blonde hair, the sharp emerald depths of her eyes, the willowy strength of her body, slim and strong like Damascus steel when she’d fought him. But her most appealing attribute was her courage, her confidence. She’d not hesitated to speak for herself, or to challenge him with the truth—that she was a broken princess, a woman with no memories. It was a formidable circumstance for her to be in, and for him, given his family’s rather recent, rather tragic relationship to the throne.
‘What do you expect me to do with her?’ Ruslan mused out loud. Surely, Varvakis was not entirely oblivious to his severed connection to the royal family—a relationship his family had not chosen to sever, but one that had been deliberately cut off by the Tsar himself, disgracing the House of Pisarev. It was a disgrace Ruslan would erase if given the opportunity. Ruslan had his own plans, his mind was already whirling through options, but it would be interesting to see what Varvakis’s intentions were.
‘We keep her safe for Kuban,’ Varvakis said without hesitation, ‘until it is time to return and guide the country to peace.’ It was what one would expect from a man like Varvakis, a reliable officer with his country’s best interests at heart, a patriot to the core.
Ruslan made a mental note to confer with Nikolay, who’d been a captain in the Kubanian cavalry. Perhaps Nikolay knew of Varvakis and his reputation for the truth. ‘Well, then, it’s no wonder you came looking for me.’ Keeping a princess safe was no simple matter. ‘Safety’ could take a variety of forms.
‘As to why we’re here; you are the best. Your work in the underground is legendary among those who know.’ Captain Varvakis complimented deferentially, aware that he addressed his superior. ‘If there is anyone who can keep a fugitive alive, it’s you. Allow me to say, your reputation precedes you.’ Varvakis did not refer to his reputation as a prince, a man known for his royal arrangements, although he had a reputation for that as well. If the Tsar wanted a grand entertainment, or a hunt organised, Ruslan had seen to it. Everyone knew Ruslan was an expert organiser and an expert organiser had an exquisite network of connections.
As impressive as that accomplishment was, it was not the one Varvakis alluded to, but his other reputation as part of the Union of Salvation, the liberation underground. He helped certain people, who might otherwise find it unhealthy to stay, to leave Kuban. People like Prince Dimitri Petrovich’s sister, Anna-Maria, who needed to escape an unwanted marriage; people like his friends, Nikolay, who would have been tried for treason and found guilty, or Illarion, who’d committed lèse-majesté with a poem. He was known to those who faced danger.
And now he was to help the woman upstairs. Fugitive, future Queen, daughter of the man who’d cast his family into disgrace after generations of loyal service. Dasha Tukhachevskenova lived life in the extreme, at once both a woman with and without a country, a woman with a history and without, a woman with and without power. It was something Ruslan knew a little about. He, too, was a prince without a country. He’d chosen to vanish and, in doing so, he’d given up his claim to all he knew and, for the most part, all he had. The only difference between him and the Princess was that he remembered it.
Ruslan swirled his glass, watching a centrifuge form in the centre. ‘She remembers nothing at all?’ It was a question he’d not wanted to ask her. It seemed too intrusive. But he had to know if he was going to plot accordingly. It would be difficult to persuade others to follow a woman in her condition.
‘Nothing of merit,’ Varvakis admitted. ‘She remembers snatches of what happened. She dreams of the fire. It’s what gives her the nightmares, but she recalls nothing substantial.’
‘Except what you’ve told her?’ Ruslan asked pointedly. That was an interesting angle to consider. Her memories would come from Varvakis’s telling. He was the keeper of what she understood to be true. A Latin phrase ran through his head from John Locke: tabula rasa. A blank slate in the hands of the wrong man was a dangerous and powerful weapon. The Princess would believe what she was told. She had no alternative, no base to check the knowledge against. It was more important than ever to meet with Nikolay and determine if Varvakis could be trusted. Already Ruslan sensed the Captain had his own agenda.
‘As for protection,’ Ruslan went on, ‘I think we have two choices. First, we can assume Rebels have noticed her escape and have chosen to follow her to London for the purpose of assassinating her. That means we must keep her hidden. The other option is to assume we are beyond the Rebels’ reach. We take her out in society, such as it is in the autumn, and drum up support for her cause. We protect her by building a network abroad that will help her establish her claim to the throne when she returns.’ Such actions would make a Charles Stuart of her. Hopefully with better results.
‘Or we do both,’ Ruslan continued. Either option pointed towards Varvakis’s agenda: restore a Tukhachevsken to the throne, this time, one who favoured modernisation and reform. It hardly mattered what Dasha’s political beliefs were. She didn’t remember them. Varvakis would have the power to reshape those beliefs into a platform the country would accept. Ruslan smiled neutrally at the Captain over the rim of his glass, giving away none of his concern over such a strategy. ‘When do you intend to go back?’
‘That will depend on whatever news we receive about the revolution,’ Captain Varvakis said. ‘A queen must always be ready to serve her country.’ Or those who controlled her, Ruslan thought cynically. He pitied the woman upstairs bathing. Was she aware Varvakis viewed her as an artefact to be protected until it was time to be revealed? Did she share those views? That was what Ruslan needed to know next. He had no intention of promoting a restoration if the monarch in question was unwilling. Nor did he have any intention of promoting a monarch with a false promise simply for the expedience of putting a Tukhachevsken back in power. Kuban had risen up to claim a new life. He would not destroy that effort. It was a direction he and his family had wanted for the country, had sacrificed for.
Ruslan pushed a hand through his hair, his fingers meeting tangles. He’d done enough business in his pyjamas for one night. It was time to get dressed. If it was going to be a long day, it could at least be a productive one.
* * *
Three hours later, he was back in the drawing room, dressed and organised and waiting for the Princess. He’d sent word that she should come down at ten. The mantel clock was just striking the hour. A rustling at the entrance drew his eye and then stole his breath. The woman framed in the doorway barely resembled the ragged girl who’d gone upstairs. Her hair was done in a knot on top of her head, exposing the slender length of her neck, and a few curls had been left down to frame her face and soften the sharp heart-shaped angles of her jaw and chin. The rose gown made her skin glow and Ruslan found his eyes riveted on the simple strand of pearls that lay against the base of her throat. In a word, Dasha Tukhachevskenova was stunning.
‘Your Highness.’ Ruslan inclined his head from his position at the fireplace mantel. But Captain Varvakis went to her more formally and offered his hand.
‘Have the two of you decided my fate?’ There was an edge to her coy tone as she swept forward, disregarding Varvakis’s hand. Ruslan suppressed a smile. The Princess might have forgotten precise, physical memories, but she’d not forgotten what it was to be at court, where one had to watch every word, every association. There was hope in that. The Princess might prove to be less malleable than Varvakis believed.
‘I would not be so bold as to decide anything for you, Your Highness.’ Ruslan made a small bow of respect. ‘However, I have sent for a physician who is both discreet and knowledgeable about memory loss. Would you care to take the air in the rose garden while we wait?’ He gestured towards the wide French doors that opened into his prized garden. Garden space was at a premium in the city; he’d been lucky to find a home with one.
‘I would like that very much.’ The Princess shot him a considering look that said she guessed at a larger reason behind the offer. But it was a price she was willing to pay. Ruslan wondered what she wanted in exchange. Perhaps she, too, was interested in assessing him just as he was interested in assessing her—without the screen of Varvakis’s presence.
Outside, the sky was overcast as they walked the paved pathway that wound through his collection of roses. They made small talk as he introduced her to each type. ‘This one I got from a Lady Burton, she breeds them in Richmond. I call it the Debutante for its unique shade of white. But this one, I have grafted myself.’ Ruslan stopped at an ivory rose tinted with pink edges.
‘It’s beautiful. Does it have a name?’ Dasha bent to smell the flower, her eyes closed, long lashes fanning her cheek. If he were a painter, he’d want to capture the image of serene beauty she presented in that moment. An artist like Illarion’s wife, Dove, would appreciate the rose of her gown and the pink highlights on the flower. But he was not an artist. He was a thinker, an arranger.
‘Not yet.’ He held her gaze as she straightened. ‘Perhaps I should call it the Dasha, or the Princess. Your beauties complement one another.’
Dasha laughed. ‘Very nicely done, Prince Pisarev, but I don’t think you brought me out here to flirt.’ He would have, though, if circumstances had been different, if there hadn’t been so much at stake or so much unknown, if she’d simply been another pretty London debutante. She was just the sort of woman he liked: pretty and fresh, but not vacuous. Such traits were rather rare in fashionable society, or anywhere, actually. As a prince close to the Tsar, Ruslan had spent his days at court escorting the jaded wives of ambassadors and visiting generals. He knew just how rare such a woman was.
Ruslan chuckled. ‘I don’t think you came out here for flirtation either, so why don’t we cut line. Why did you come out?’
They began to stroll again, her arm tucked through his, to create the impression to anyone who might be looking on that nothing significant was taking place. It was a tactic he had used often to woo a secret or two from those worldly wives of diplomats. At court, one could never be sure who was listening.
The Princess wasted no time getting to her point. ‘Do you know me?’
The blunt sincerity of the question caught Ruslan entirely off guard. He’d expected questions about plans and plots, perhaps even an interrogation of his credentials. He slid her a considering glance. She would not want his pity, although he was tempted to give it. She’d been tugging on his somewhat less than objective heartstrings since she’d fallen into his arms, although he’d do well to resist the sentimental urge. Still, he wasn’t so heartless as to not recognise how horrible it must be to not know oneself. He admired her confidence in the face of such uncertainty, a reminder that she did know herself in some way, innately and instinctively if not exactly.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’ Ruslan gave her the truth, although it was not the answer she hoped for. He covered her hand with his where it lay on his arm. ‘I knew your brothers: Peter, Grigori, Vasili. We grew up together.’ He paused, his earlier emotions of the morning threatening to get the better of him when he thought of their deaths. ‘I am genuinely sorry for your loss.’
‘Forgive me, but you have me at a disadvantage.’ She stopped walking and turned to face him, grief etched in her gaze, but a different grief than one might expect. This grief was twofold. ‘It seems you know more about my family than I do. I do not know if they were good or bad, kind or cruel, but I do know no one deserves to die that way. Don’t you see, Prince Pisarev? I can’t fully mourn them, not yet, not until my memories return.’ She shrugged. ‘Will you think I am cowardly, if I say it’s a blessing I can’t remember? Perhaps I am somehow spared the pain of loss.’ She looked away to a point beyond his shoulder, disappointment shadowing her green eyes. ‘I was hoping you knew me.’
‘I would have been too old to know you. You would have been only ten when I was at court with your brothers and younger still when I was running about the palace with them.’ Even at that age, he’d been arranging entertainment for the boys, always the ringleader coming up with a new adventure to fill the days. Those had been golden years, as a child growing up in the palace, his family in high favour with the Tsar. Those years had burned brighter still when he’d come of age, home from university, 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 was why he had to remain absolutely objective. He’d been right to tamp down the wash of sentiment that had swept him in the garden. It would be easy to be lured by Dasha’s beauty, her desperate strength in the face of her personal tragedies. He could not afford to give into those emotions. Restoring the Princess was another project, not unlike the ones he’d done in the past, nothing more. The game was in motion once again. He’d do best to remember that small nuance.
But snuffing out hope was easier said than done. That tiny flicker of excited hope inside him refused to be extinguished entirely. If the Princess chose to take her place on throne, if he could see her successfully restored, perhaps he could find a way back, a way to erase the stain on the family name, to prove once and for all a Pisarev was loyal to the bone. It was the one thing he’d given up trying to do.
Ruslan looked about his newly acquired town-house garden. This house was proof of that decision. Proof that he’d given up thoughts of returning. A home implied permanence. He’d been moved in for all of two weeks. Ruslan laughed to himself. Just when he thought the door was finally shut on his past, it was starting to open again. Some would say Fate was a bitch. They were wrong. Fate just might be a princess.
Chapter Three (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
Prince Pisarev called it an intimate supper. Dasha called it a council of war. She surveyed the assembled guests from her vantage point at the drawing-room fireplace with a wary eye. The day had been spent in cautious meetings such as this; first with the Prince in the garden, then with the doctor and now this gathering. It consisted of one Russian diplomat in Alexei Grigoriev, the consul from St Petersburg; one Russian officer in General Vasiliev, also of St Petersburg; and three Kubanian princes. With the exception of Klara Grigorieva Baklanova, Dasha was the only woman present, further proof this was no ordinary supper party.
She sat at the foot of the table, a prince to her left, the darkly brooding Stepan Shevchenko. To her right sat another prince, Nikolay Baklanov, and his wife beyond him. Prince Pisarev sat at the head of the table with His Excellency Alexei Grigoriev. General Vasiliev and Captain Varvakis filled out the spaces between. Dinner was a tribute to Kubanian cuisine: a borscht soup with sour cream to begin, followed by beef and baby potatoes, all accompanied by wines from Ekaterinodar, one of the few areas in Russia where vineyards could be cultivated.
At the other end, Prince Pisarev raised his glass. ‘A toast to our lovely guest, Princess Dasha Tukhachevskenova. To safe arrivals and happier days. Na zdorovie!’ The Prince toasted her as if she were an honoured guest on a state visit, instead of a fugitive gone to ground.
Around Dasha, the words became a polite chorus. She smiled at the guests, graciously accepting the toast as if she had a right to the fiction the Prince created, all the time wondering how many of them, like herself, questioned her ability to make good on the claim. How many of them were sizing up the potential benefits of believing in her versus risks? No one did anything for nothing and supporting a princess with no memory of her own identity was no small thing to ask. This was the worst part of not remembering, of not knowing. Who did she trust? Who could she turn to?
When the chorus died down, she raised her own glass. ‘To our host, Prince Pisarev, whose hospitality has been unending.’ The Prince gave a slight incline of his head, his eyes steady on her as he drank. Was he also calculating the situation? Of course he was. His questions today indicated as much and he’d be a fool if he wasn’t—something she was certain he was not. Helping her was not without danger, should she choose to return to Kuban and embrace her heritage. It would be far easier for him if she chose anonymity. Far easier for her, too.
She wondered if, despite his vow to support her decision regardless of her choice, he would try to influence the situation towards a certain outcome? Would she ever truly be sure of his neutrality? Or truly sure that any decision she made was entirely hers alone? It occurred to her that Prince Pisarev was the man at this table she needed to be able to trust the most and the one she should probably trust the least, simply because he wielded the most power. She was in his house, under his protection, under his direction. Everything that had happened today was because of him—from her bath, to her clothes, to the excellent doctor and the dinner tonight. All of it was because of him. Thankfully, she didn’t have to decide anything tonight. But she’d have to decide soon, judging from the tenor of the conversation.
‘Are you saying the military is split on the rebellion?’ General Vasiliev questioned Captain Varvakis with a sharp eye. ‘If so, it is no wonder the Loyalists didn’t stand a chance, no ruler does without a unified show of military force.’
Captain Varvakis nodded in agreement and explained. ‘The Tsar’s restrictive marriage and career policies affected noble families perhaps the most. The younger generation of nobles felt increasingly alienated by the Tsar. He cut his support out from under himself, losing the allegiance of young nobility who were officers in his army.’ Along the table heads nodded. She did not know these men, Prince Nikolay Baklanov and Prince Stepan Shevchenko, but perhaps they had fled Kuban for precisely the same reason those left behind had rebelled. Her gaze rested on Prince Pisarev. Why had he left?
The consul, Alexei Grigoriev, looked contemplatively at his wine glass. ‘That being understood, the people in power would not be eager to welcome back a member of the Tsar’s family. The last thing they’d want would be a return to the past.’ He gave her a small, apologetic nod. ‘I speak frankly, Your Highness, that is all. I do not mean to slander you.’
Dasha smiled her own understanding. ‘Of course, no insult taken, Your Excellency.’ He’d done her a favour with his reference to her title, a subtle assumption of her authority. If he accepted her legitimacy, perhaps the others would, too.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Your Excellency,’ Captain Varvakis broke in quickly. ‘Princess Dasha represents the middle ground. She is of the royal bloodline, a natural ascendant to the throne as far as the hierarchy is concerned. But she is also young, and she has resisted her father’s policies as assuredly as the other young nobles of the kingdom have. The Loyalists will like and accept her as a ruler based on her lineage. The Rebels will accept her politics.’
Dasha tensed. Were those her politics? She didn’t know, quite honestly. As much as she didn’t like Varvakis or anyone else speaking for her, there was much she couldn’t speak for herself on. Who was she to say what she did or didn’t believe? It was a dangerous position for a future leader to be in. She was a blind woman, entirely reliant on Varvakis as her guide. She did not like feeling so exposed.
Prince Pisarev’s eyes were on her again, a small smile twitching at his lips. Perhaps he guessed her quandary, but his question was for Varvakis. ‘What rebellion is this? How has the Princess resisted?’ Yes, how? It was what she was wondering, too. What had she done? She was thirsty for knowledge as much as she loathed the need for that knowledge. She should know what she’d done. Dasha fought back the frustration that welled whenever the emptiness threatened. She would not let herself feel helpless. She would face the emptiness and she would fill it.
Captain Varvakis met the question squarely. ‘A year ago there was a marriage arranged for her with an important Turkish ally that would help secure trade routes along the Dardanelles. The Princess refused, vehemently. The Tsar feared the refusal would spark trouble beyond the palace walls coming so close as it did on the heels of General Ustinov’s young wife’s suicide, so he dropped the matter, but not before key nobles learned of it. They will remember the Princess stands with them, that she would be unlikely to continue her father’s practices.’
‘You remember none of this, Princess?’ Prince Shevchenko fixed her with dark eyes.
‘None.’ She paused, gathering their attention. Honesty would be her best way forward and theirs. ‘I might not ever remember any of it.’ That was the reality she needed to prepare herself for. The doctor today had said as much. Memory loss was supposed to be short-term, but hers showed no sign of abating. Prince Shevchenko shot a knowing glance around the table with a dark eye brow arched at the improbability of their quest. They were supposed to return a princess with no memories to Kuban and place her in power. They were gathered together tonight to discuss the risk analysis behind such an action. One by one, each of the men assembled looked away, gathering his own thoughts about the revelation and what it meant. All except Prince Pisarev. He smiled, unconcerned.
‘It’s far too early to decide either way and far too much is unknown. Anything could happen. The Princess may not want to go back. Her memories may yet return. The doctor suggested some memory aids. We are not without tools and resources.’ There was comfort in the Prince’s words, reminding her of his words earlier, that she was not alone no matter what she decided.
Men shifted uneasily in their chairs, restless with her presence. It was her cue to leave. They needed to talk amongst themselves. Dasha rose. ‘Princess Baklanova, if you would care to join me in the drawing room, we can let these gentlemen get on with their port.’ And their gossip. She was well aware she’d be the main topic of conversation with only Varvakis and Prince Pisarev to defend her. The others were likely to be merciless.
* * *
Sleep was mercilessly elusive. Long after the guests were gone, murmuring polite goodbyes while scepticism lurked in their eyes, Dasha was wide awake. At least awake, she wouldn’t dream. That was something to be thankful for. Lamp in hand, she made her way to the library. She didn’t dare indulge in any more brandy-laced milk. Maybe a book would help take her mind off the events of the day, which had not gone as well as hoped.
Perhaps she’d been overly optimistic. She’d hoped Prince Pisarev would recognise her. She’d hoped the doctor would give her a magical cure. Those things had not happened.
Dasha ran her hand over the spines of books. They were new, their spines stiff. Everything in this home was new. She’d noticed that today: the carpets, their bright hues not yet dulled from generations of boots; the curtains with their rich colours. It was all tastefully understated, but it was still new. Everything lacked the truly aristocratic patina of age and successions.
She selected a book of Russian fairy tales and took it to the sofa by the fire. The pages had been cut, but the book still gave a crackle of newness when she opened it. She ran a finger down the table of contents: Ivan and the Firebird, Father Winter, Ruslan andLudmila... Her finger stopped on that one. Ruslan the Knight. She’d forgotten. It had been a long time since she’d read fairy tales. Pushkin had published a poem by that name as well a couple of years ago. She turned to the page, letting the story come back to her in pieces—the beautiful Ludmila stolen from home on her wedding day, the gallant Ruslan riding to her rescue and facing down a series of foes while Ludmila lay unconscious and unknowing. Dasha looked into the fire. She might enjoy the tale more tonight if the parallels weren’t so obvious, right down to the very name of her own gallant knight.
‘Ah, so you’ve discovered the library. Have you found anything good to read? I haven’t had time to explore the offerings yet.’
Dasha jumped, casting about for a weapon. Her eyes lit on the poker. Could she reach it? How could she have been so careless to sit down defenceless?
‘I don’t think you’d reach the poker in time.’ Prince Pisarev stepped forward, dressed only in a shirt and waistcoat. His jacket and cravat had been discarded. Without the jacket, his lean body was on full display, elegant and urbane even in moderate dishabille. ‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ He took the chair on her left, a glass in his hand. She felt silly and self-conscious. Who had she thought it would be? Who could it be but Prince Pisarev or Captain Varvakis?
‘Old habits, I suppose.’ Maybe. Who knew if she made a practice of beating people over the head with pokers, or even if she had need for such a skill? She tugged at the light blanket she’d thrown around her shoulders before coming down, reminded suddenly of how underdressed she was for meeting a man at midnight, even if that hadn’t been her intention when she’d left her room.
‘Nothing wrong with old habits.’ Ruslan smiled and took a swallow. ‘Can’t sleep? Would you like something?’
‘No.’ Dasha played with the folds of her nightrail, pleating them between her fingers.
‘I confess I’m glad you’re still awake. I’d like to discuss a few things, if you’re up to it.’
She nodded her permission. Did this man never sleep? It was after midnight, approaching twenty-four hours since her ignominious arrival on his doorstep, and he was still working.
‘Thank you. The doctor suggested it may help prompt some memories if you surrounded yourself with reminders of your old life, if you lived and acted as if you knew yourself to be a princess. To that end, I’ve engaged a few individuals who can help with that: a dancing master, a dressmaker, a French tutor since everyone at the Kubanian court speaks French, an etiquette coach. At the very least, the skills will help you feel more at home among the English aristocracy.’
‘And at the best?’ Dasha asked sharply, not entirely liking where this proposal was headed and what it might signify.
‘It may prompt your memories. You might discover you are already fluent in French, or that you can already dance. It might be all you need to break through your mental block.’
‘Or perhaps it is all you need to convince people I am truly capable.’ Did he think she was naïve enough to not see what this was? She was to be trained. If she could not remember being the Princess, she could be transformed into one effectively enough to convince anyone who needed convincing. It made the option of becoming an anonymous émigrée moot. London society would not let a Kubanian princess with a right to the throne fade into anonymity. Anonymity required a new name, a new history.
Dasha rose and paced before the fire, her mind racing. ‘So it’s already been decided, has it? I left the room and your war counsel decided I am to go back, as if I am a pawn without any say in the matter.’ She speared him with a hard stare. ‘I hoped for more from you, Prince Pisarev. Your promise to me was merely hours old before you broke it.’
* * *
Broke his word? How dare she imply such a thing, especially to a man who had nothing but his word? The Princess went too far when she impugned his honour after all he’d done for her today, without question, and there were plenty of far less pleasant questions he could have asked. Ruslan narrowed his eyes, letting his gaze suggest his displeasure, his tone cool. ‘Nothing has been decided. I meant every word. I will not force you to go back. But should you decide to return, you will need certain skills, certain pieces of knowledge. What you can’t remember can be taught, but it will take time and we don’t know how much of that we have. We have to start now. We have to be prepared.’
‘We?’ Dasha snapped. ‘The last time I checked, there was just me. Just one Princess.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. The moment you entered my house you made this my concern. I thought I had made that clear.’ If anyone needed safeguarding, it was she. Dasha was brave, but she was entirely vulnerable even among those who meant to help her. He’d seen just how vulnerable at dinner, listening to Varvakis discuss her political views because she couldn’t, and later, listening to the men take her apart in her absence, bandying about words like ‘puppet princess’—a clear indication that she would be the front for those who would run the government on her behalf. Such an assumption would have led to a duel had she been a man. Despite the practical objectivity required of such analysis, something fierce and protective had risen in him in the dining room on her behalf as General Vasiliev had bluntly outlined the risks of helping her and the potential rewards of controlling the provincial kingdom in exchange for the effort. Ruslan would have gladly taken his dinner knife and gutted the man if it would have served any purpose, but despite his anger he had an aversion to killing people for telling the truth.
‘If we’re in it “together”, as you suggest, you have the unenviable job of being my advisor of sorts.’ Her tone suggested she was not satisfied with his answer. Her eyes sparked as she crossed her arms over her breasts. The fire caught her slim silhouette beneath her nightrail, illuminating long legs that disappeared up beneath the opaqueness of the blanket she wrapped around herself, but not before the sight of those legs reminded Ruslan she was naked beneath the cotton. Being her self-appointed advisor would be a far easier job if she was a tad less attractive and a tad more clothed.
Ruslan crossed his leg over a knee, trying to dispel the beginnings of arousal. Politics aside, Dasha was a beautiful woman and he was naught but a man. Circumstances being different, he might have acted on the burgeoning attraction, but politics and opportunity could not be put aside or compromised. She was a princess in exile with a decision to make that would decide the fate of a nation. That was complication enough.
Dasha hugged herself, some of the anger leaving her body—anger she had every right to claim, Ruslan reminded himself. She was no fool. She knew what had happened in the dining room after she’d left. ‘I don’t know who I am supposed to be. A princess? An exile? Someone else entirely?’ The desperation in her eyes drew him.
Against his better judgement, he set aside his glass and went to her at the fire, his hands firm at her forearms, his body close, his voice husky from the lateness of the hour. ‘Think of your situation as a blessing. Many people would envy you that choice. You have a chance to remake your life, to remake yourself. You can be whoever you want to be, no history, no backstory, no chains to your past. That can be a gift, Dasha. I will help you find a new name, a new life if you want.’ Being this close to her was wreaking all kinds of sensual havoc on his body. He was doing this for encouragement’s sake, or so he told himself. But his body had other ideas—all of them bad.
Ruslan licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry, his mind aware of the details of her. She smelled of sweet summer roses, she was warm and naked beneath the nightclothes. All the ingredients for a disaster were there: the late night, the long day, a beautiful woman in distress looking at him with emerald eyes that begged for resolution and relief, comfort and companionship. She must have sensed it, too. He felt her body move into his. It was the smallest of movements, but it was enough to warn him, her lips parted in slight but unmistakable invitation.
His reflexes were faster. He placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. ‘You’ve had a trying day, Your Highness.’ He was giving her absolution, an excuse to fall back on when she awoke in the morning and realised what she’d done, what she’d asked for. Given the circumstances, it was entirely understandable. She was confused and alone. She would seek comfort where she could. He had no such convenient excuses. He had to resist the temptation on behalf of them both. Ruslan stepped away from her. ‘Best get some sleep, Princess, lessons start tomorrow.’
Chapter Four (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
She’d nearly kissed him! That one thought kept running through her mind as Dasha pored over pattern books in the morning room. The dressmaker, Madame Delphine, had been there since ten o’clock, trying patiently to tempt her with fabrics and designs. But her attention was having difficulty focusing on anything except that moment last night: his hands on her arms, their heads close together in front of the fire, his voice low and private, their bodies so near. It had only been a matter of inches, the tilt of her head, such small, insignificant gestures to manoeuvre for a kiss.
Dasha understood why she’d done it. It was only because of circumstances, because she was desperate. She couldn’t connect to herself so she wanted to connect to someone else, with someone else, and Ruslan had been there, full of command and control, a tangible human bulwark against the abstract form of her despair. Understanding her rather immediate attraction was theoretically simple. The Prince was empathetic, shrewd and yet kind, and he was easy on the eyes—a handsome prince in all sense of the word. He was the Ruslan of fairy tales come to life. He would fight for her, whatever she chose. Did she dare believe he meant it? The offer was too good to be true. Inherently, such conditions made the offer suspect. The monster of distrust reared its ugly head. Could she trust Prince Ruslan Pisarev? Could she trust Captain Varvakis, a man who, according to his own account, the only account, had saved her from certain death?
Her conclusion was that trust came with a price. She could trust these men if she gave them what they wanted. She knew what Varvakis wanted: a princess of his choosing on the throne. What did Prince Pisarev want? If she hadn’t been foolish last night, she might have known. There’d been more he’d wanted to discuss, but they’d never got to it.
Dasha turned a page in the pattern book absently. Madame Delphine would be disappointed in her progress. She wondered what Captain Varvakis would do if she chose not to return? Would he be as generous as the Prince? All his plans would be in ruins without her. He would have risked himself for nothing. It was easier for the Prince; he had less to lose if she chose to stay. Perhaps he’d even prefer that. It would be less effort on his part and less risk. And yet, what did the Prince gain if she did go back? Surely there must be some benefit for him, otherwise why go to all the work to hire tutors, to house her, to dress her? How would he feel about that level of investment if he knew her real fear?
Dasha turned more pages in the pattern book, marking a few items that caught her eye to appease the dressmaker, her guilt growing. She’d not been entirely truthful with the Prince in the garden. She did remember nothing; she did doubt her capabilities to rule without those memories. That was all true. But she’d held back her third fear: that the reason she doubted her ability to rule, the reason she hadn’t remembered being the Princess, was because she simply wasn’t the Princess. Surely a real princess would not question the decision to return to her country. And yet she did.
Dasha stared at the pattern book, unseeing. Questioning her identity was not a conclusion she’d been drawn to out of mere whimsy. That damnable dream had pushed her there, night after night, leaving her awake and screaming. In the dream, she felt someone was with her on that flame-engulfed landing, behind her as if she was protecting them. But who? She always woke up before she was even sure there was someone. She woke when the flames killed her. She’d heard it suggested people only woke up when they ‘died’ in their dreams.
The incompleteness of the horror left her with a final question. If she was not Dasha, who was she? In the absence of an alternative, the question was answered by default. She was Dasha Tukhachevskenova because Captain Varvakis rescued her and he said so. She was Dasha Tukhachevskenova because Captain Varvakis, and the Moderates who kept Kuban from outright civil war, needed her to be, because Dasha Tukhachevskenova was more useful to powerful men like Ruslan Pisarev than a woman with no name and no lineage.
‘Your Highness, have you decided?’ Madame Delphine stood at her shoulder expectantly. Dasha scanned the page and pointed at random to a gown. Madame Delphine nodded appreciatively. ‘An excellent choice. The gown is simply cut but, with the right fabrics, simplicity can be its own elegance. You have a good eye.’ She gestured towards the fabrics laid out across chairs and sofas. ‘Let me show you some materials, perhaps the silks. Here’s a nice aquamarine for that gown.’ Madame Delphine passed her a swatch.
Dasha ran her hand over the dressmaker’s fabric, rubbing it between her fingers. She held it to the light, checking the lustre. ‘Do you have something more delicate perhaps?’ This was not high-quality silk. There was nothing wrong with it. It was sturdy enough, pretty enough to fool the casual observer, but she knew instinctively this was not what a convincing princess would wear.
The dressmaker smiled knowingly and went to an unopened trunk. ‘I think I have something you will like. It just arrived from India.’ Inside lay bolts of fine silk in varying colours.
Yes, this was more to her taste. Dasha rubbed the first bolt. Eyes closed. Good silk sounded a certain way. It seemed ages since she’d had something fine and she relished the little luxury after weeks in coarse, often dirty clothing. But the luxury was followed by guilt. A pretty dress was a petty concern and it was charity. Her family was dead. She had no money of her own. Nothing of her own. Dasha set aside the silk to the alarm of Madame Delphine.
‘Is something wrong, Your Highness?’
Dasha gave her a soft smile of reassurance. ‘The silk is fine. It is too expensive, however. Perhaps there are some muslins that would do?’
‘The Prince has given instructions that price is no object,’ Madame Delphine scolded, sounding more imperious than a queen. ‘You are to have a full wardrobe. Undergarments, nightclothes, day dresses, walking dresses, carriage ensembles, ball gowns, pelisses and all the necessary accessories: bonnets, gloves, shoes, stockings.’ She tutted, taking in Dasha’s outfit, another dress borrowed from Nikolay Baklanov’s wife. ‘No woman is herself when she’s walking around in another woman’s clothes.’ Madame Delphine pulled out a tape measure as if all was settled. ‘Now, let’s get your dimensions so my girls can start on your new wardrobe.’
* * *
The wardrobe took the better part of the day. Building one from the basics up was ridiculously exhausting. Dasha had just closed the last pattern book with relief when Ruslan appeared at the door, dressed for going out in buff breeches and a jacket of dark blue superfine, his unruly waves combed into something close to submission. He looked immaculate and fresh despite the day being nearly gone, the exact opposite of how she felt and probably how she looked. Feeling self-conscious, Dasha tucked an errant curl behind her ear.
‘My morning room has been overrun, I see,’ Ruslan said expansively, clearly in good humour. ‘I stopped by to see how things were getting on and to see if I might persuade you, Your Highness, to come for a walk. It’s a lovely day out.’
A walk sounded lovely after being cooped up. Dasha smiled at the offer. ‘Let me just tidy my hair.’ Then she paused, smoothing the lavender skirts of her borrowed dress. ‘Is my gown smart enough?’
Madame Delphine was all brisk efficiency. ‘We have a ready-made walking dress that should do from an order a woman didn’t pick up.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Suzette, help Her Highness change, quickly now, while monsieur and I step into the hallway.’ No doubt, Dasha thought, to inform the Prince of the atrocious bill that awaited him and perhaps even to tell the Prince how she’d performed today. Suzette came forward to strip off her gown and Dasha sighed. A princess had no privacy. Her body, her actions, her every movement was up for public dissection, it seemed.
Suzette had her transformed in record time with a saucy hat perched on her head to match the blue walking ensemble and soft ivory-coloured half-boots and gloves. Ruslan was waiting for her in the hall, while Madame looked smugly pleased with herself. ‘Definitely worth waiting for, you look lovely.’ Ruslan offered her his arm and the awkward moment last night loomed large between them in her mind, although not his. Dasha wished she could be as assured as he, able to act as if her misstep last night had not happened. But she couldn’t forget she’d tried to tempt him to kiss her and that he’d rejected the overture. Well, technically he’d only averted the overture. She wasn’t sure if that was because he simply didn’t want to or because he was being a gentleman.
The air outside was crisp and fresh. Autumn hung in the balance as the seasons transitioned. The trees bore hints of yellow in their leaves. ‘There’s a garden at the centre of the square, it should be private this time of day.’ Ruslan led her across the street, helping her avoid the carriage traffic, and opened the gate with a small key from his pocket. He held up crossed fingers and gave her a friendly smile as he ushered her forward.
‘London is a busy city,’ Dasha said, slightly breathless after the adventure of crossing the street. The garden was quiet and empty in contrast.
‘It takes some getting used to.’ Ruslan shut the gate and the busyness behind them. ‘It’s an exciting city, though, full of modern advancements. I am eager to show it to you, as soon as you feel able. There’s an international district in Soho with a Russian neighbourhood. Prince Baklanov has his riding academy there.’ The hints were subtly layered as they walked and Dasha did not miss a single one. To go out into London required making a decision. How was Prince Pisarev to introduce her? How was she to see London? As the Princess Dasha, frequenting embassy balls and state events? Or as a woman who had yet to be named, an émigrée who would take up residence somewhere in Soho with others looking for new lives far from home? No one in the Prince’s lofty circles would maintain a long acquaintance with that woman.
‘How much time do you suppose I have?’ Dasha asked bluntly.
The Prince did not pretend ignorance. ‘I would not wait long. Word could come from Kuban at any time, although I would not expect it for another month. Still, by the time news comes, it will be too late to start preparing. We’ll have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’
He allowed her to walk in silence beside him. She appreciated the conversational reprieve. He was giving her time to ponder that news, but there must be more. He was patiently holding back, perhaps recognising either decision was daunting. To reinvent herself meant to give herself up entirely, to stop seeking answers, to stop hoping she’d wake up one morning and remember. Instead, she would have to hope she would never remember. Remembering risked discovering she was wrong. What if she woke up one day and knew with a certainty she was Princess Dasha? She’d have thrown away a chance to lead her people when they’d needed her most. That guilt would haunt her the rest of her life. ‘It is an impossible decision,’ Dasha said. They’d reached the far corner of the park where a bench waited under a tree.
The Prince sat, dusting leaves off the seat beside him for her. ‘Not impossible, just difficult. Would you like to talk about it?’
Why not talk with him? Hadn’t he, too, decided to reinvent himself? ‘How did you decide?’ Dasha sat, arranging her skirts. There were some similarities between them. He was a prince, a man of status and wealth and family in Kuban. He’d known her brothers. He’d been close to the royal family. Of the two of them sitting on the bench, he knew her life better than she did herself. He knew precisely what reinvention would cost her.
Ruslan gave her a smile. She was learning to read him. It was one of his wry smiles, the sort where only part of his mouth curved upwards. She thought far too much about his mouth. Best to look elsewhere. ‘I didn’t think about it, I just did it. When the moment came, I just kept going and never looked back. My friends needed me and, I suppose, I needed them more than I needed Kuban.’ It posed a question, perhaps as he’d known it would. What did she need more than Kuban? What was she willing to do, willing to give up?
Dasha leaned forward, the intrigue of his statement irresistible. ‘Tell me.’
Chapter Five (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
If reticence had a facial expression, Ruslan was sure his face was wearing it now. Tell her? The woman who was the daughter of the man who’d imprisoned his father and caused his friends to flee their homeland? Ruslan did not miss the irony. But, he could not bring himself to hate Dasha simply because of her relationship to the Tsar, any more than he’d been able to bring himself to despise his boyhood friends, the Tsar’s sons, for the actions of their father. Neither could he overlook the importance his story would hold for Dasha. It would influence her decision, depending on how he told it. Told one way, it would encourage her to stay; told another, it would encourage her to go back. As a man of honour, he could cross neither line. He must tell it with all neutrality possible. ‘It may be unpleasant, Your Highness,’ he warned. Unpleasant for them both.
‘Much in my recent life has been unpleasant,’ she countered. Then she went on the offensive. ‘You promised to help me, no matter what I chose to do. How can I choose wisely if I don’t have information?’ It was entirely unfair to use his own words against him. He saw the steel in her then, the strength that lay beneath her beauty and her youth. Being young did not make her naïve.
Ruslan held her gaze, letting her see his own resolve, his own warning. ‘It began as an attempt to smuggle Princess Anna-Maria Petrova out of the country. Like you, she faced an unwanted marriage, but it became so much more.’ It became the largest group of people he’d ever smuggled out of the country at one time, a group that contained everyone he cared for, everyone he loved. That alone had raised the stakes considerably. ‘The four of us, the Princes you met at dinner last night, plus Illarion Kutejnikov, who is on his honeymoon, had been friends since we met at school at the age of ten. Since then, I cannot remember a time when the four of us weren’t together. As we came of age and assumed our positions in the court, Nikolay and Illarion acquired a habit of speaking out against the Tsar’s restrictive policies regarding the ways in which the noble families may serve Kuban.’
Dasha interrupted him with a hard look. ‘You are being delicate. It is not necessary. I, apparently, know precisely what the Tsar was capable of. Even his own family was not spared the opportunity to marry well for the country. Have you forgotten Captain Varvakis’s mention of my own engagement?’
Ruslan nodded. ‘I had not forgotten.’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘Good. Then you needn’t be careful for my sake.’
Ruslan continued. ‘Illarion had written a poem called “Freedom”, and shortly afterwards, his friend, Katya, who had married General Ustinov, killed herself. The Tsar blamed Illarion. Nikolay protested quite vociferously and not for the first time. One night, the Tsar sent an assassin in the form of his cousin, Helena, Nikolay’s current mistress, to Nikolay’s bedchamber. She attacked and Nikolay killed her in self-defence, but he was severely wounded and arrested. The Tsar intended for Nikolay to stand trial for treason and he was in the process of having Illarion arrested for writing libel against the crown.’
He watched Dasha take in the news, letting her digest it before he continued. ‘It was apparent Nikolay would not get a fair trial. The Tsar meant to be done with him. Stepan arranged to have Nikolay taken home to recover from his wound, but we knew we had to leave immediately. I arranged our departure. We gathered the wealth we could carry and our fastest horses, strapped Nikolay to a saddle and left in darkness.’
Even with more than a year’s buffer between him and that fateful night, he could remember it with perfect clarity. Nikolay, burning with fever, barely able to stay upright as his father hugged him goodbye; Stepan on his huge black horse with Anna-Maria seated before him, a protective arm wrapped about her; her father, looking too frail to survive the journey, mounted on one of Nikolay’s Cossack-bred warhorses. Ruslan had ferried his friends through backroads and discreet mountain passes to the borders of Kuban, spending long nights keeping watch and nursing Nikolay. When the moment had come to go forward or go back, Ruslan had known they needed him. Stepan and Illarion could not manage caring for Nikolay, watching the company’s back and arranging the rest of the journey. Arranging was his specialty, so he’d taken that step over the border.
‘Until then, had you not known you would go?’ Dasha was studying him with her green eyes, lining his story up with hers, looking for parallels and guidance.
Ruslan shrugged, thinking of the substantial wealth he’d packed for the journey. ‘Maybe. I had brought supplies with me, like the others. Perhaps I knew in my heart there was a good chance I wouldn’t return. I was prepared for either eventuality.’ There’d been nothing to return for at that point, besides vengeance. His father was dead by his own hand in prison, his mother a few weeks later of a broken heart.
Dasha’s eyes flared and he knew she understood that parallel. ‘Then I should play the Princess a while longer, regardless of how I might choose in the end? Is that your advice?’ she divined.
‘Yes,’ Ruslan said. ‘I think that is the safest course.’
‘But a short one. It does not remove my choice.’ Those green eyes were piercing, alluring. They could look into a man’s soul.
Ruslan nodded at her astute assessment of the situation. ‘Nor does it delay it.’ He gathered his words. ‘There is something more I meant to tell you last night that might affect your decision. If you go public with your presence here, as the self-proclaimed Princess, a lone survivor of a royal massacre, the Rebels will know you’re here with a certainty they may not currently have.’ He shook his head. ‘I am not so worried about that. Kuban is far away, news takes time to travel and plans take time to make. I am more concerned about that news reaching the local émigré cells. The Union of Salvation, do you know it?’ He looked for recognition from her, but she offered no confirmation of knowledge. ‘It’s also known as the Society of True, Loyal Sons of the Fatherland,’ Ruslan explained, ‘but now it’s sometimes referred to as the Union of Prosperity. Anyhow, it’s a secret society, there’s a northern branch in St Petersburg and a southern branch headquartered in Tulchin in the Ukraine.’
Dasha laughed. ‘As secret as all that? If you know where they are, how secret can they be?’ Then she sobered as realisation hit her. ‘You know because you’re a member.’
‘No, not exactly,’ Ruslan hurried to clarify. ‘I’ve done some work for them. I’m not an official member.’ Neither were his friends, but Nikolay and Illarion were indeed closely aligned with the group. ‘I share their goals, but not their methods,’ Ruslan explained. ‘They want a constitutional monarchy. I don’t disagree with that. But they are willing to see it done at the cost of armed revolt. Violence in the name of democratic progress is acceptable to them. It is not acceptable to me.’ It was easier for Nikolay, he was a soldier. He’d been raised to violence, but Ruslan was a diplomat.
Dasha pondered the information. ‘The Rebels Captain Varvakis speaks of are members, then?’
Ruslan nodded. She was quick, intelligent. ‘Yes. They are most definitely behind the Rebel forces. They will want a monarch who will work with their new parliament, if they tolerate a monarch at all.’ He highly suspected, drunk on their own power, they’d want a monarch they could control, a person of their own choosing, or that they’d see no need for a monarch at all. While he, as a student of John Locke’s teachings, was not opposed to such models of self-government, such an arrangement did pose a danger to Dasha.
She saw that danger immediately. ‘They will not want a Tukhachevsken. They will want to start fresh. But the Loyalists will cling to the old, to the Tukhachevsken name.’ She paused, her fair brows knitting in thought. ‘Certainly, that is a danger if I return. But you said as long as I was in London that threat was negligible due to distance.’
‘It would be, if the Union was limited to Russia and Kuban. The concern is that Russian émigrés have a cell of the Union here, that they will learn of your presence if you declare yourself, and, not having the insights or guidance of the Moderates in Kuban who see you as a bridge to peace, they will act on their own and seek to eliminate you.’ And by doing so, fuel open civil war.
‘You’re talking about assassination,’ Dasha replied coldly, her face pale.
‘Yes, I am. And civil war, too, if they are successful.’ If she didn’t want him to dress up the facts then he wouldn’t, although he would spare her the weight of these decisions if he could. It hardly seemed fair after all she’d been through to add to her burdens.
She rose from the bench, pacing, as she thought. ‘Is anonymity even a possibility any longer? After last night, so many people know. And now, Madame Delphine...’ Her voice trailed off, implying the rule that secrets were hard to keep among many. At least nine people knew there were aspirations of her being the Princess.
‘Those men at dinner have no desire to expose you against your will or to trigger a civil war with their carelessness. I personally assure their discretion,’ Ruslan vowed.
‘And Madame Delphine? Can you vouch for her, too? Dressmakers are notorious gossips. It’s good for their business.’
‘You have nothing to fear from Madame Delphine.’ Ruslan chuckled. ‘Do you think I would allow such a woman as you describe near you?’ Perhaps he was bragging a bit here, wanting to impress this intriguing woman who matched him thought for thought.
Dasha looked up, recognition sparking in her eyes. She smiled. ‘She is one of yours, isn’t she? An émigrée you helped reinvent herself.’ She blew out a breath. ‘What happens if I don’t go back? If I let you reinvent me?’
‘Then the various factions will have to find a new leader. Hopefully they can do it peacefully. I think there’s a better chance of that if they think there was no choice, that you died with the family, than if the Loyalists think you were deliberately gunned down in London by the opposition.’ Ruslan watched her dissect his words.
‘But the very best chance of a peaceful transition is if I go back and become the bridge between all factions,’ she surmised. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I want,’ Ruslan challenged carefully. She was watching him closely. ‘Varvakis has asked me to protect you until the situation is resolved. That is all.’
‘That is not all. It does matter. Why are you doing all of this for me if not to get something for yourself in return? Why would you simply do what Varvakis asks?’
Why indeed? He had shared uncomfortable truths with her and now it was time for him to face some of his own. His dilemma was a strong one. Who did he protect? The woman who stood before him, or the country that might be born with his help? Protecting the woman would mean hiding her away along with her true identity, to let Princess Dasha fade into history. To birth the nation his father had died for, his mother had died for, Nikolay and Illarion had suffered for, might require permitting Dasha to become a sacrifice. ‘Can’t I simply do this for you in memory of your brothers?’ He opted for an easy answer. ‘I would help you, as a way to honour them.’ He rose and brushed his hands against his breeches. It was time to head back before she could ask any more uncomfortable questions. But his efforts were too late.
‘That’s a nice sentiment,’ Dasha replied sharply, her tone implying she didn’t believe him. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t kiss me last night? Because I am the little sister of your friends? Or because I might become the future Tsarina instead of another anonymous émigrée?’ A more perceptive woman Ruslan had yet to meet. Damn that perceptiveness, though. He could do with a bit less of it.
‘Perhaps both.’ He trod carefully here. Kissing princesses came with political entanglements. He was aware of the emptiness of the park, the light breeze. No one would know what transpired here, no one would hold them accountable. But they would. Kissing her was still a bad idea.
She reached for his hand with a touch that made his blood pound even through their gloves. ‘If I was nothing but an émigrée woman like Madame Delphine, would you kiss me?’
Yes. Without hesitation. His objectivity was under siege.
She moved into him, her arms about his neck, her hands in his hair. For a young woman raised in the seclusion of the palace, Dasha was bold. ‘Then, it’s best you kiss me now, I think, while I am still in limbo, while I am still nothing.’
‘You could never be “nothing”.’ Ruslan’s response was a low rasp.
‘Then what are you afraid of, Ruslan Pisarev?’ Her hips shifted against him in subtle, perhaps accidental invitation. Lord, the woman was a temptress.
‘I’m not afraid,’ Ruslan growled. Her physicality flooded his body with abrupt desire, her convenient logic flooding his better judgement. He was going to regret mixing business with pleasure, but perhaps it would be worth it to prove to her a kiss was not worth the crown. Better she learn that lesson from a man she could trust, whether she knew it or not, than from a man who would not hesitate to manipulate those desires for his own gain, and there would be plenty of those if she went back. He would not always be there to protect her, but he was here now and perhaps this kiss was a sort of protection. Feeling justified in his rationale, he bent his head and captured her mouth, all for the purpose of instruction...
Chapter Six (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
Dasha gave a low moan that was part-gasp, part-murmur of surprise. She had not been prepared for this, for the heat that flared low in her stomach and bled into her veins like slow, deliberate lava, for the warm strength of his body against hers. Kissing was more than mouths on mouths, more than the brief pressing of lips. It was hands and bodies, tongues and tastes. It was an offer of comfort and communion, momentary completion. How remarkable to feel such a thing, with this man she barely knew but was irrevocably drawn to, and how addictive. She wanted to fall into it, wanted to give herself over, to his hands, to his mouth. Her own hands, her own mouth, joined his in this quiet, lingering exploration. In the still of the garden, there was no rush to end it, her only compulsion was to savour it. Who knew when it could happen again, or if it would happen again? Her hands tangled in his hair, those glorious, unruly waves, as if she could hold him in this moment for ever.
He made the slightest of adjustments and deepened the kiss—they were moving from tasting and testing to something more. Seduction, and what a seduction it was; not just a seduction of the body, but of the mind, a taste of what the émigrée could have, but the Princess could not. Was that what he meant to show her? What woman would choose a throne when it meant giving this up? But that was illogical. It was one kiss and that kiss would end. There were no promises beyond it.
Somewhere in the distance of reality, the garden gate opened. Ruslan drew back, the eternity of the kiss broken. Time had lost all meaning, but now it started to run again as she stepped away. She smoothed her skirts to give her hands, her mind, something to do. What did one say after such a kiss?
‘We should return. Madame Delphine will have last-minute details to clear with you.’ The words were not what she expected. They were perfunctory, as was the way he snapped back to reality without hesitation, as if the kiss hadn’t overwhelmed him, as if it hadn’t meant as much to him as it had to her. That’s when she knew it hadn’t. While she’d been losing herself to the fantasy, he’d been...leading her on and nothing more. It was not a pleasant realisation.
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, gathering her dignity. She couldn’t retract all the emotion she’d allowed herself to display any more than she could pretend it hadn’t happened. But she could call him on it and make him accountable. She met his gaze with an even stare that she hoped was as aloof as his. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you kiss me?’
Why did you make me feel as if the whole world rested on that kiss?
‘You needed instruction.’ Ruslan dusted at his immaculate sleeve.
‘Instruction in kissing?’ That was appalling. She couldn’t help the flush that crept up her cheeks. How embarrassing to appear so desperate as to need charity kisses.
‘No, not in kissing. In guarding your emotions. Better to learn that from someone who has your best interests at heart than from a scoundrel who would willingly seduce the crown out from under your pretty head, or for any number of royal favours.’
Dasha looked away, her cheeks burning. How naïve he must think her, how stupid. She had indeed been willing to be seduced by that kiss, been willing to believe someone cared for her. She was far more lonely, far more desperate than she’d thought. She gave a curt nod. ‘Then you have my thanks, Prince Pisarev, for such a necessary and instructive lesson.’
‘Ruslan. Please. We are to be together far too much in the next weeks to stand on ceremony,’ he offered, giving no indication that he’d witnessed her embarrassment.
‘And you must call me Dasha,’ she offered in return, taking his truce. He’d kissed her to prove a point because she’d provoked him. They were square now.
Ruslan smiled and took her arm. ‘Tell me all about your new wardrobe.’ The walk back was mercifully taken up with discussion of her dress session. He had all sorts of questions. Had she ordered enough? Madame Delphine felt she should have more, perhaps she would reconsider adding two or three more dresses to the order and another ball gown?
Dasha laughed. ‘You make it sound as if spending more of your money is a favour. I assure you, I’ve spent plenty.’ Especially if she decided to fade away. A penniless émigrée would not have a finer wardrobe than she already had, if that was what she chose. Ruslan stopped them before the gate and covered her hand with his where it lay on her sleeve, his gaze serious. ‘Money is no object. Think of spending it as a favour to me, to see you gowned as you ought to be.’ As a princess ought to be. Was he so sure she’d choose that path even after that kiss? Although after his disclosures, that option seemed more likely than it had this morning. In fact, it hardly seemed that she had options at all.
‘You’ve been generous.’ She was hesitant to accept too much. No one did anything without getting paid and her debt to Ruslan was mounting. ‘I have no money and no promise of money in the future to repay you with.’ Especially if she decided to fade into anonymity. He must be very certain of her indeed.
Ruslan narrowed his gaze. ‘Do not insult me, Dasha. I am not doing this for money. This is a matter of honour.’
‘Do not insult me,’Dasha cut in. ‘A man is not the only person with a sense of honour. A woman has pride, too, and there are other forms of payment besides money.’
Sexual, political, promises of power.
Ruslan’s jaw tightened, his mouth set in a grim line, but he did not dismiss her concern. ‘I do not think you are the sort of woman who can be bought for a few dresses and pretty baubles. I would hope you’d believe I wasn’t the sort of man who would think so little of you.’ He opened the gate with a curt nod and motioned for her to pass through. No, she didn’t think that of him, yet how else was she to explain the grand kindnesses he’d shown to her?
He gave her a small smile. ‘I know, you can’t help it. It’s a consequence of court, of royalty, always thinking of motives. Take it as a good sign, though. You are thinking like a princess.’ It was ruefully said. ‘It is how a prince thinks, too, always wondering why people have done something for you, what they might want. What do they expect you to give them?’ His hand was at her back, ushering her across the street, and she was reminded once more of the commonalities between them, or at least the commonalities that should be between them, assuming she was who the Captain claimed she was. What would Ruslan say to her doubts? She felt a pang of guilt. He was investing in the woman he thought she was, not just with his money, but with his reputation and credibility when he represented her to others. Was it right to mislead him? To not make him privy to her doubts? Would he take her doubts seriously or pawn them off as Varvakis had done?
Once inside the house, Ruslan bid her farewell. ‘I will not be home for dinner. I have instructed Cook to prepare whatever you wish, and my staff has been apprised that you should make free with my home. Please, Dasha, entertain yourself. There is a pianoforte in the conservatory, books in the library, as you know...’ He paused here and smiled at the mention of the library. ‘I hope you will not be bored.’
How could she possibly be bored? She had too much to think about, a kiss and a handsome prince not the least of those things. And she had a decision to make. But she would miss him. Perhaps he knew his absence was for the best. Perhaps he’d even planned it, to give her space in which to think without being unduly influenced by his presence.
* * *
Dasha dressed slowly for dinner, savouring the luxury of sliding into a clean gown, one of the ready-mades Madame Delphine had left. Even though she dined alone, it felt good to wear well-made clothes and to take time with her appearance. This particular gown was an eggplant silk. Except for the aquamarine, she’d chosen subdued colours out of respect for mourning her family, but she hadn’t chosen all black with an eye towards the other reality—that if she wasn’t the Princess she needn’t wear it at all. Everything, it seemed, hinged on that decision, even something as trivial as her wardrobe. Did she embrace being the Princess or did she create a new identity?
Dasha studied her reflection in the mirror while the maid put up her hair. Who did this face with its serious green eyes belong to? Was it enough to assume that because she thought like a princess she was the Princess? Why was it so hard for her to accept Captain Varvakis’s rescue story? Why did the idea of being the Princess sit so awkwardly on her shoulders?
The maid put in a final pin and offered her the small jewel case. ‘Might I suggest the jet earrings?’ Ruslan had not only thought of everything, he’d found everything. Where he had found these exquisite earrings was beyond her. Dasha fastened them, appreciating their subdued elegance. They were appropriate for this half-mourning she’d fashioned for herself, for a family she couldn’t remember but would honour anyway. Maybe some day she’d remember them and be able truly to mourn them.
She could throw it all off and begin again if she chose. But how would she do that? Beyond the theoretical guilt she might feel, there were practical issues. How would she support herself? How would she live? Where would she live? Would she become another face in this Soho district Ruslan talked about? Ruslan would certainly give her an allowance to start out on should she ask and she had no doubt he’d see to the arrangements, but what then?
She could not lean on him, could not live off his largesse for ever, which begged the next question. Could she choose to live in restrained circumstances? A woman with a name that had no history except that which she acquired? She would be a fraud of sorts the rest of her days. Silk dresses and maids proffering jewels would be a thing of the past. It might be worth it, though. There was a certain appeal in anonymity. In time, she could become the wife of another émigré, perhaps a nice man who taught music or dancing to wealthy gentlemen’s daughters. They would live in shabby gentility and no one would ever importune them for favours. She would never need to worry about being used or manipulated. She might make real friends.
But she would never know the truth of her identity. Or if she did, she’d never be able to acknowledge it, not even to her husband. However, the chances of that seemed slim. Ruslan’s doctor had said the more familiarity she surrounded herself with, the better her chances of recovering her memories. Her ‘familiarity’ was a thousand miles away. The best chance for her to know who she was lay in going back. The best chance for peace lay in going back; the best chance to help her country lay in going back. The reasons were mounting, tipping the scale against the one niggling ‘what if’ that remained.
What if she wasn’t who Varvakis thought she was? Was it enough doubt to risk the fate of a nation?
It would be so much easier if she could simply believe the Captain.
* * *
‘You believe the Captain. You’re going to help them,’ Stepan said with characteristic boldness and no small hint of accusation as they sat over early evening drinks at White’s. The table between them was cluttered with bottles in varying degrees of emptiness. It was always drinks, plural, with Stepan. A little vodka, a little samogon, a little whisky on occasion. Stepan thought Englishmen were too boring, too predictable with their predilection for a constant brandy.
Ruslan sat back in his chair. The emptiness of the bottles was making them both bold. ‘Is there a reason I shouldn’t? Perhaps it’s my patriotic duty. A soldier travels across a continent and an angry sea with the only surviving member of the ruling family, shows up on my doorstep and asks for help in the name of a peaceful transition, a transition you and I were exiled for, if I might remind you. That seems like a good reason to help.’
Stepan took a long swallow from his glass. ‘For a man who considers all angles, you’re taking a lot on face value, including the most basic question: Is Varvakis telling the truth? It’s rather convenient for him and for the Moderates to be in possession of such a valuable commodity as Dasha Tukhachevskenova and have her remember nothing, not even who she is. That doesn’t even begin to explore the profit in being able to produce this valuable commodity at the right time. Need I point out how this will position Varvakis and his friends for the future? Right behind the throne?’
Something clenched inside Ruslan. He didn’t like Stepan discussing Dasha as a commodity, yet that’s what she was, what she had to be if he were to keep his detachment. Objectivity was crucial to an organiser, especially one who specialised in organising escapes. Risk analysis, he liked to call it. Without it, bad decisions were made. Dasha was merely another cargo to transport from one destination to another. ‘Are you suggesting she’s not who she says she is?’ Ruslan swirled his drink, not wanting to admit Stepan might
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Bronwyn Scott
A lost princess…And the prince who will protect her!In this Russian Royals of Kuban story, Crown Princess Dasha is plucked from the flames of rebellion and sent to London with no memory of her past—everyone says she’s heiress to Kuban’s throne. Yet she trusts Ruslan Pisarev on first sight—he becomes her protector, her confidante, even her lover… But can Ruslan claim her for ever when she is awakened to the truth of her identity?
A lost princess...
And the prince who will protect her!
In this Russian Royals of Kuban story, Crown Princess Dasha is plucked from the flames of rebellion and sent to London with no memory of the past. Everyone says she’s heiress to Kuban’s throne... She trusts Ruslan Pisarev on first sight—he becomes her protector, her confidante, even her lover. But can Ruslan claim her forever when she is awakened to the truth of her identity?
Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries
Book 1—Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Book 2—Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Book 3—Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
Book 4—Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss—coming soon!
“The perfect read that will sweep you away.”
—RT Book Reviews on Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
“Scott delivers an absorbing tale with an uncommon hero, bold heroine, elements of foreign intrigue, treachery and passion. The witty byplay between the characters and their tension-filled battle of wills fuels the readers’ desire to turn the pages.”
—RT Book Reviews on Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com (http://www.bronwynnscott.com), or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Also by Bronwyn Scott (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
Scandal at the Christmas Ball
Wallflowers to Wives miniseries
Unbuttoning the Innocent Miss
Awakening the Shy Miss
Claiming His Defiant Miss
Marrying the Rebellious Miss
Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
And look out for the last book
Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss coming next month
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07393-6
AWAKENED BY THE PRINCE’S PASSION
© 2018 Nikki Poppen
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Sveta, Zhenya and Irina,
in celebration of the twentieth anniversary
of our summer together in Pskov.
Spasibo.
Contents
Cover (#u164a3c8e-e50c-5102-965d-e350c010f7c5)
Back Cover Text (#u68714fc7-305e-5787-bb36-a5998c20c619)
About the Author (#ua20947e9-59aa-5dc5-9cfe-b34c646531d4)
Booklist (#u9fa155e5-3dfd-5bda-aa62-7e2e94a9a5ee)
Title Page (#uf1691756-87ce-5630-a011-e83a359e8dd5)
Copyright (#u7020ece3-ca3d-55d2-8095-2e366d457341)
Dedication (#u02daf1cb-eafb-5129-ac93-e115284b2240)
Chapter One (#uf7cff519-086a-50b3-b449-8fe254a6dd80)
Chapter Two (#u1875a7ba-a854-524b-a911-87cc693bdb26)
Chapter Three (#ubda28bc9-9834-56ad-a3d4-8975c2ed711d)
Chapter Four (#u9cec1ea0-beb0-5dbc-aadd-986547695bd6)
Chapter Five (#uecee73f7-38d9-529e-bcd8-29fe50e72925)
Chapter Six (#u0b8975cc-f982-5aee-a422-172c6050175d)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
London—late August 1823
The trouble with revolution was that it made unlikely bedfellows, in unlikely locations, and at unlikely times. One moment Prince Ruslan Pisarev had been peacefully asleep in the bedroom of his newly acquired London town house, the next he was sitting behind his desk, dressed in nothing but his banyan and green silk pyjama trousers, reading reports that were at once exciting and horrifying. Part of him hoped the man across the desk was telling the truth and part of him hoped the man was lying, because the truth was dark.
Kuban, his home, was in turmoil. The Summer Palace outside the city—a place he’d visited multiple times—had been overrun by Rebels and set alight. To prove that change had come at last and permanently two months ago, the royal family had been dragged out and executed at dawn on their front lawn. The Tsar, his wife, his sons. Peter, Vasili and Grigori, boys, now men, whom Ruslan had grown up with.
The thought of his boyhood friends murdered in such a fashion threatened to swamp him. Ruslan pushed his grief aside. There would be time to mourn them later, in private. Right now he needed his wits, yet the thought lingered. All the House of Tukhachevsken dead, wiped out in a single morning. Well, nearly all of them, if the Captain sitting before him in the pre-dawn darkness of his study was telling the truth.
Ruslan studied Captain Varvakis with shrewd eyes, assessing the steady gaze and the straight posture of his ‘midnight’ caller. The term was loosely applied. Midnight had come and gone hours ago. The Captain was a military man to his core and with that core came a strong, unbreakable sense of loyalty to the organisation he served, in this case, the royal family. Varvakis had no reason to lie. Still, Ruslan had not survived this long without always asking the ‘if’.
Ruslan pushed a hand through his thick hair, a bad habit he indulged in too frequently since it left hairs sticking up on end. But what did it matter? He was already rumpled from sleep—a little more tousling wouldn’t matter as his mind assimilated the barrage of information. ‘You mean to tell me Princess Dasha escaped the fusillade and she is, right now, sleeping upstairs in my guest room?’ He’d seen little of the bedraggled woman Captain Varvakis had carried in upon arrival.
Captain Varvakis didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. I pulled her out of the flames myself.’ Ruslan closed his eyes and let the Captain describe the scene. In his mind’s eye, he walked every inch of the rescue with Varvakis. He could imagine with vivid clarity the Rebel hordes crashing through the wrought-iron and gold gates of the palace, marching up the wide drive with manicured green lawns on either side, to the huge double doors with their panels of carved bears, smashing the artistry of centuries with ramming logs, torching and looting as they went. The aesthetic in him wanted to weep over the destruction. Whether or not he agreed with the Tsar’s policies, the Summer Palace had been a place of beauty.
‘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 of Kuban or who I am. I have only this good man’s word.’ What would Prince Pisarev make of that information? Dasha settled into one of the chairs near the fire, taking comfort in the warmth. She was so very cold. Cold and empty, as she had been for weeks. The fire could do something about the one, but not the other. It seemed nothing could. Not even the information Captain Varvakis had given her filled the void. The Prince was looking at her with his steady blue gaze and something akin to hope leapt in her. Did he know her? Had he known her family? Was there something he could tell her that would help her remember again?
She wouldn’t ask him here in front of the Captain. He might feel compelled to give a certain answer. She would wait and get him alone, where he could only tell her the truth.
The tray arrived and the next few minutes were spent pouring drinks and making little plates of toast and jam and hot sausages. The Prince’s gaze never left her for long. He was gathering his thoughts just as she was gathering her resources. Her body and mind were tense in anticipation of defending themselves. He would want to question her, to prod her about her memories, and then, when she failed to recall anything, he would condemn her. But the Prince did none of that.
‘I know a doctor, a specialist who can perhaps help you,’ the Prince said when the servants had gone. ‘After the Peninsular Wars, many of our soldiers suffered memory loss from the trauma of battle. I’ll arrange for a visit today, if you’d like. I will also arrange for a lady’s maid and some clothes until we can get you to a dressmaker. I already have my footmen preparing a hot bath for you in your chambers.’
* * *
Embarrassing tears stung Dasha’s eyes. How silly it was to cry now over a bath and clean clothes and brandy-laced milk when there was so much loss to mourn. Her home, her country, her mind, her family. She’d not cried when Varvakis had told her. She’d been numb with horror, not only at the nature of their deaths, but at her lack of memory. She couldn’t remember them, she could only mourn them as an outsider mourned the inherent wrongness of a tragedy. She’d not cried when the boat they’d journeyed in from Ekaterinodar foundered in the Black Sea. She’d been brave for weeks. She’d not broken down once, but Prince Pisarev had managed to reduce her to tears in a matter of sentences over the smallest of kindnesses. She willed the tears away with a fierce determination.
‘Thank you for your hospitality, Prince Pisarev. It means more than you know.’ She rose to leave, knowing they would discuss her when she left. But it was either stay and fall apart in front of the Prince, or leave and preserve her dignity.
The Prince stood with her, capturing her hand in his. She felt the warm strength of him again flowing into her. ‘It is my pleasure. Please ask for anything you need. We will speak again later, when you’re settled.’ What a courtier he must have been. He was the sort of man who was able to arrange things for others without making them feel small or dependent. The sort of man who knew how to take charge without diminishing people. That could be dangerous. She would do well to remember how easily he wielded that power. She wanted to be under no man’s thumb. But that was a problem for later. At the moment, she could afford to bask fully in his generosity. Only a foolish woman turned down the offer of a hot bath after weeks of travel and, whoever she was, Dasha was no fool.
Chapter Two (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
‘The Princess is here. Congratulations, Captain. You’ve made it this far. Now we need to talk about why. Why me? Why London when there are places of safety far closer to Kuban?’ Ruslan put the long-forgotten glass in Captain Varvakis’s hand and picked up his own, taking charge of the conversation and its direction. Now, he really did need a drink. The Princess was a woman who could take a man by surprise and not let go. Even as bedraggled as she was from travel, there was beauty to her wildness: the ash-blonde hair, the sharp emerald depths of her eyes, the willowy strength of her body, slim and strong like Damascus steel when she’d fought him. But her most appealing attribute was her courage, her confidence. She’d not hesitated to speak for herself, or to challenge him with the truth—that she was a broken princess, a woman with no memories. It was a formidable circumstance for her to be in, and for him, given his family’s rather recent, rather tragic relationship to the throne.
‘What do you expect me to do with her?’ Ruslan mused out loud. Surely, Varvakis was not entirely oblivious to his severed connection to the royal family—a relationship his family had not chosen to sever, but one that had been deliberately cut off by the Tsar himself, disgracing the House of Pisarev. It was a disgrace Ruslan would erase if given the opportunity. Ruslan had his own plans, his mind was already whirling through options, but it would be interesting to see what Varvakis’s intentions were.
‘We keep her safe for Kuban,’ Varvakis said without hesitation, ‘until it is time to return and guide the country to peace.’ It was what one would expect from a man like Varvakis, a reliable officer with his country’s best interests at heart, a patriot to the core.
Ruslan made a mental note to confer with Nikolay, who’d been a captain in the Kubanian cavalry. Perhaps Nikolay knew of Varvakis and his reputation for the truth. ‘Well, then, it’s no wonder you came looking for me.’ Keeping a princess safe was no simple matter. ‘Safety’ could take a variety of forms.
‘As to why we’re here; you are the best. Your work in the underground is legendary among those who know.’ Captain Varvakis complimented deferentially, aware that he addressed his superior. ‘If there is anyone who can keep a fugitive alive, it’s you. Allow me to say, your reputation precedes you.’ Varvakis did not refer to his reputation as a prince, a man known for his royal arrangements, although he had a reputation for that as well. If the Tsar wanted a grand entertainment, or a hunt organised, Ruslan had seen to it. Everyone knew Ruslan was an expert organiser and an expert organiser had an exquisite network of connections.
As impressive as that accomplishment was, it was not the one Varvakis alluded to, but his other reputation as part of the Union of Salvation, the liberation underground. He helped certain people, who might otherwise find it unhealthy to stay, to leave Kuban. People like Prince Dimitri Petrovich’s sister, Anna-Maria, who needed to escape an unwanted marriage; people like his friends, Nikolay, who would have been tried for treason and found guilty, or Illarion, who’d committed lèse-majesté with a poem. He was known to those who faced danger.
And now he was to help the woman upstairs. Fugitive, future Queen, daughter of the man who’d cast his family into disgrace after generations of loyal service. Dasha Tukhachevskenova lived life in the extreme, at once both a woman with and without a country, a woman with a history and without, a woman with and without power. It was something Ruslan knew a little about. He, too, was a prince without a country. He’d chosen to vanish and, in doing so, he’d given up his claim to all he knew and, for the most part, all he had. The only difference between him and the Princess was that he remembered it.
Ruslan swirled his glass, watching a centrifuge form in the centre. ‘She remembers nothing at all?’ It was a question he’d not wanted to ask her. It seemed too intrusive. But he had to know if he was going to plot accordingly. It would be difficult to persuade others to follow a woman in her condition.
‘Nothing of merit,’ Varvakis admitted. ‘She remembers snatches of what happened. She dreams of the fire. It’s what gives her the nightmares, but she recalls nothing substantial.’
‘Except what you’ve told her?’ Ruslan asked pointedly. That was an interesting angle to consider. Her memories would come from Varvakis’s telling. He was the keeper of what she understood to be true. A Latin phrase ran through his head from John Locke: tabula rasa. A blank slate in the hands of the wrong man was a dangerous and powerful weapon. The Princess would believe what she was told. She had no alternative, no base to check the knowledge against. It was more important than ever to meet with Nikolay and determine if Varvakis could be trusted. Already Ruslan sensed the Captain had his own agenda.
‘As for protection,’ Ruslan went on, ‘I think we have two choices. First, we can assume Rebels have noticed her escape and have chosen to follow her to London for the purpose of assassinating her. That means we must keep her hidden. The other option is to assume we are beyond the Rebels’ reach. We take her out in society, such as it is in the autumn, and drum up support for her cause. We protect her by building a network abroad that will help her establish her claim to the throne when she returns.’ Such actions would make a Charles Stuart of her. Hopefully with better results.
‘Or we do both,’ Ruslan continued. Either option pointed towards Varvakis’s agenda: restore a Tukhachevsken to the throne, this time, one who favoured modernisation and reform. It hardly mattered what Dasha’s political beliefs were. She didn’t remember them. Varvakis would have the power to reshape those beliefs into a platform the country would accept. Ruslan smiled neutrally at the Captain over the rim of his glass, giving away none of his concern over such a strategy. ‘When do you intend to go back?’
‘That will depend on whatever news we receive about the revolution,’ Captain Varvakis said. ‘A queen must always be ready to serve her country.’ Or those who controlled her, Ruslan thought cynically. He pitied the woman upstairs bathing. Was she aware Varvakis viewed her as an artefact to be protected until it was time to be revealed? Did she share those views? That was what Ruslan needed to know next. He had no intention of promoting a restoration if the monarch in question was unwilling. Nor did he have any intention of promoting a monarch with a false promise simply for the expedience of putting a Tukhachevsken back in power. Kuban had risen up to claim a new life. He would not destroy that effort. It was a direction he and his family had wanted for the country, had sacrificed for.
Ruslan pushed a hand through his hair, his fingers meeting tangles. He’d done enough business in his pyjamas for one night. It was time to get dressed. If it was going to be a long day, it could at least be a productive one.
* * *
Three hours later, he was back in the drawing room, dressed and organised and waiting for the Princess. He’d sent word that she should come down at ten. The mantel clock was just striking the hour. A rustling at the entrance drew his eye and then stole his breath. The woman framed in the doorway barely resembled the ragged girl who’d gone upstairs. Her hair was done in a knot on top of her head, exposing the slender length of her neck, and a few curls had been left down to frame her face and soften the sharp heart-shaped angles of her jaw and chin. The rose gown made her skin glow and Ruslan found his eyes riveted on the simple strand of pearls that lay against the base of her throat. In a word, Dasha Tukhachevskenova was stunning.
‘Your Highness.’ Ruslan inclined his head from his position at the fireplace mantel. But Captain Varvakis went to her more formally and offered his hand.
‘Have the two of you decided my fate?’ There was an edge to her coy tone as she swept forward, disregarding Varvakis’s hand. Ruslan suppressed a smile. The Princess might have forgotten precise, physical memories, but she’d not forgotten what it was to be at court, where one had to watch every word, every association. There was hope in that. The Princess might prove to be less malleable than Varvakis believed.
‘I would not be so bold as to decide anything for you, Your Highness.’ Ruslan made a small bow of respect. ‘However, I have sent for a physician who is both discreet and knowledgeable about memory loss. Would you care to take the air in the rose garden while we wait?’ He gestured towards the wide French doors that opened into his prized garden. Garden space was at a premium in the city; he’d been lucky to find a home with one.
‘I would like that very much.’ The Princess shot him a considering look that said she guessed at a larger reason behind the offer. But it was a price she was willing to pay. Ruslan wondered what she wanted in exchange. Perhaps she, too, was interested in assessing him just as he was interested in assessing her—without the screen of Varvakis’s presence.
Outside, the sky was overcast as they walked the paved pathway that wound through his collection of roses. They made small talk as he introduced her to each type. ‘This one I got from a Lady Burton, she breeds them in Richmond. I call it the Debutante for its unique shade of white. But this one, I have grafted myself.’ Ruslan stopped at an ivory rose tinted with pink edges.
‘It’s beautiful. Does it have a name?’ Dasha bent to smell the flower, her eyes closed, long lashes fanning her cheek. If he were a painter, he’d want to capture the image of serene beauty she presented in that moment. An artist like Illarion’s wife, Dove, would appreciate the rose of her gown and the pink highlights on the flower. But he was not an artist. He was a thinker, an arranger.
‘Not yet.’ He held her gaze as she straightened. ‘Perhaps I should call it the Dasha, or the Princess. Your beauties complement one another.’
Dasha laughed. ‘Very nicely done, Prince Pisarev, but I don’t think you brought me out here to flirt.’ He would have, though, if circumstances had been different, if there hadn’t been so much at stake or so much unknown, if she’d simply been another pretty London debutante. She was just the sort of woman he liked: pretty and fresh, but not vacuous. Such traits were rather rare in fashionable society, or anywhere, actually. As a prince close to the Tsar, Ruslan had spent his days at court escorting the jaded wives of ambassadors and visiting generals. He knew just how rare such a woman was.
Ruslan chuckled. ‘I don’t think you came out here for flirtation either, so why don’t we cut line. Why did you come out?’
They began to stroll again, her arm tucked through his, to create the impression to anyone who might be looking on that nothing significant was taking place. It was a tactic he had used often to woo a secret or two from those worldly wives of diplomats. At court, one could never be sure who was listening.
The Princess wasted no time getting to her point. ‘Do you know me?’
The blunt sincerity of the question caught Ruslan entirely off guard. He’d expected questions about plans and plots, perhaps even an interrogation of his credentials. He slid her a considering glance. She would not want his pity, although he was tempted to give it. She’d been tugging on his somewhat less than objective heartstrings since she’d fallen into his arms, although he’d do well to resist the sentimental urge. Still, he wasn’t so heartless as to not recognise how horrible it must be to not know oneself. He admired her confidence in the face of such uncertainty, a reminder that she did know herself in some way, innately and instinctively if not exactly.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’ Ruslan gave her the truth, although it was not the answer she hoped for. He covered her hand with his where it lay on his arm. ‘I knew your brothers: Peter, Grigori, Vasili. We grew up together.’ He paused, his earlier emotions of the morning threatening to get the better of him when he thought of their deaths. ‘I am genuinely sorry for your loss.’
‘Forgive me, but you have me at a disadvantage.’ She stopped walking and turned to face him, grief etched in her gaze, but a different grief than one might expect. This grief was twofold. ‘It seems you know more about my family than I do. I do not know if they were good or bad, kind or cruel, but I do know no one deserves to die that way. Don’t you see, Prince Pisarev? I can’t fully mourn them, not yet, not until my memories return.’ She shrugged. ‘Will you think I am cowardly, if I say it’s a blessing I can’t remember? Perhaps I am somehow spared the pain of loss.’ She looked away to a point beyond his shoulder, disappointment shadowing her green eyes. ‘I was hoping you knew me.’
‘I would have been too old to know you. You would have been only ten when I was at court with your brothers and younger still when I was running about the palace with them.’ Even at that age, he’d been arranging entertainment for the boys, always the ringleader coming up with a new adventure to fill the days. Those had been golden years, as a child growing up in the palace, his family in high favour with the Tsar. Those years had burned brighter still when he’d come of age, home from university, 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 was why he had to remain absolutely objective. He’d been right to tamp down the wash of sentiment that had swept him in the garden. It would be easy to be lured by Dasha’s beauty, her desperate strength in the face of her personal tragedies. He could not afford to give into those emotions. Restoring the Princess was another project, not unlike the ones he’d done in the past, nothing more. The game was in motion once again. He’d do best to remember that small nuance.
But snuffing out hope was easier said than done. That tiny flicker of excited hope inside him refused to be extinguished entirely. If the Princess chose to take her place on throne, if he could see her successfully restored, perhaps he could find a way back, a way to erase the stain on the family name, to prove once and for all a Pisarev was loyal to the bone. It was the one thing he’d given up trying to do.
Ruslan looked about his newly acquired town-house garden. This house was proof of that decision. Proof that he’d given up thoughts of returning. A home implied permanence. He’d been moved in for all of two weeks. Ruslan laughed to himself. Just when he thought the door was finally shut on his past, it was starting to open again. Some would say Fate was a bitch. They were wrong. Fate just might be a princess.
Chapter Three (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
Prince Pisarev called it an intimate supper. Dasha called it a council of war. She surveyed the assembled guests from her vantage point at the drawing-room fireplace with a wary eye. The day had been spent in cautious meetings such as this; first with the Prince in the garden, then with the doctor and now this gathering. It consisted of one Russian diplomat in Alexei Grigoriev, the consul from St Petersburg; one Russian officer in General Vasiliev, also of St Petersburg; and three Kubanian princes. With the exception of Klara Grigorieva Baklanova, Dasha was the only woman present, further proof this was no ordinary supper party.
She sat at the foot of the table, a prince to her left, the darkly brooding Stepan Shevchenko. To her right sat another prince, Nikolay Baklanov, and his wife beyond him. Prince Pisarev sat at the head of the table with His Excellency Alexei Grigoriev. General Vasiliev and Captain Varvakis filled out the spaces between. Dinner was a tribute to Kubanian cuisine: a borscht soup with sour cream to begin, followed by beef and baby potatoes, all accompanied by wines from Ekaterinodar, one of the few areas in Russia where vineyards could be cultivated.
At the other end, Prince Pisarev raised his glass. ‘A toast to our lovely guest, Princess Dasha Tukhachevskenova. To safe arrivals and happier days. Na zdorovie!’ The Prince toasted her as if she were an honoured guest on a state visit, instead of a fugitive gone to ground.
Around Dasha, the words became a polite chorus. She smiled at the guests, graciously accepting the toast as if she had a right to the fiction the Prince created, all the time wondering how many of them, like herself, questioned her ability to make good on the claim. How many of them were sizing up the potential benefits of believing in her versus risks? No one did anything for nothing and supporting a princess with no memory of her own identity was no small thing to ask. This was the worst part of not remembering, of not knowing. Who did she trust? Who could she turn to?
When the chorus died down, she raised her own glass. ‘To our host, Prince Pisarev, whose hospitality has been unending.’ The Prince gave a slight incline of his head, his eyes steady on her as he drank. Was he also calculating the situation? Of course he was. His questions today indicated as much and he’d be a fool if he wasn’t—something she was certain he was not. Helping her was not without danger, should she choose to return to Kuban and embrace her heritage. It would be far easier for him if she chose anonymity. Far easier for her, too.
She wondered if, despite his vow to support her decision regardless of her choice, he would try to influence the situation towards a certain outcome? Would she ever truly be sure of his neutrality? Or truly sure that any decision she made was entirely hers alone? It occurred to her that Prince Pisarev was the man at this table she needed to be able to trust the most and the one she should probably trust the least, simply because he wielded the most power. She was in his house, under his protection, under his direction. Everything that had happened today was because of him—from her bath, to her clothes, to the excellent doctor and the dinner tonight. All of it was because of him. Thankfully, she didn’t have to decide anything tonight. But she’d have to decide soon, judging from the tenor of the conversation.
‘Are you saying the military is split on the rebellion?’ General Vasiliev questioned Captain Varvakis with a sharp eye. ‘If so, it is no wonder the Loyalists didn’t stand a chance, no ruler does without a unified show of military force.’
Captain Varvakis nodded in agreement and explained. ‘The Tsar’s restrictive marriage and career policies affected noble families perhaps the most. The younger generation of nobles felt increasingly alienated by the Tsar. He cut his support out from under himself, losing the allegiance of young nobility who were officers in his army.’ Along the table heads nodded. She did not know these men, Prince Nikolay Baklanov and Prince Stepan Shevchenko, but perhaps they had fled Kuban for precisely the same reason those left behind had rebelled. Her gaze rested on Prince Pisarev. Why had he left?
The consul, Alexei Grigoriev, looked contemplatively at his wine glass. ‘That being understood, the people in power would not be eager to welcome back a member of the Tsar’s family. The last thing they’d want would be a return to the past.’ He gave her a small, apologetic nod. ‘I speak frankly, Your Highness, that is all. I do not mean to slander you.’
Dasha smiled her own understanding. ‘Of course, no insult taken, Your Excellency.’ He’d done her a favour with his reference to her title, a subtle assumption of her authority. If he accepted her legitimacy, perhaps the others would, too.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Your Excellency,’ Captain Varvakis broke in quickly. ‘Princess Dasha represents the middle ground. She is of the royal bloodline, a natural ascendant to the throne as far as the hierarchy is concerned. But she is also young, and she has resisted her father’s policies as assuredly as the other young nobles of the kingdom have. The Loyalists will like and accept her as a ruler based on her lineage. The Rebels will accept her politics.’
Dasha tensed. Were those her politics? She didn’t know, quite honestly. As much as she didn’t like Varvakis or anyone else speaking for her, there was much she couldn’t speak for herself on. Who was she to say what she did or didn’t believe? It was a dangerous position for a future leader to be in. She was a blind woman, entirely reliant on Varvakis as her guide. She did not like feeling so exposed.
Prince Pisarev’s eyes were on her again, a small smile twitching at his lips. Perhaps he guessed her quandary, but his question was for Varvakis. ‘What rebellion is this? How has the Princess resisted?’ Yes, how? It was what she was wondering, too. What had she done? She was thirsty for knowledge as much as she loathed the need for that knowledge. She should know what she’d done. Dasha fought back the frustration that welled whenever the emptiness threatened. She would not let herself feel helpless. She would face the emptiness and she would fill it.
Captain Varvakis met the question squarely. ‘A year ago there was a marriage arranged for her with an important Turkish ally that would help secure trade routes along the Dardanelles. The Princess refused, vehemently. The Tsar feared the refusal would spark trouble beyond the palace walls coming so close as it did on the heels of General Ustinov’s young wife’s suicide, so he dropped the matter, but not before key nobles learned of it. They will remember the Princess stands with them, that she would be unlikely to continue her father’s practices.’
‘You remember none of this, Princess?’ Prince Shevchenko fixed her with dark eyes.
‘None.’ She paused, gathering their attention. Honesty would be her best way forward and theirs. ‘I might not ever remember any of it.’ That was the reality she needed to prepare herself for. The doctor today had said as much. Memory loss was supposed to be short-term, but hers showed no sign of abating. Prince Shevchenko shot a knowing glance around the table with a dark eye brow arched at the improbability of their quest. They were supposed to return a princess with no memories to Kuban and place her in power. They were gathered together tonight to discuss the risk analysis behind such an action. One by one, each of the men assembled looked away, gathering his own thoughts about the revelation and what it meant. All except Prince Pisarev. He smiled, unconcerned.
‘It’s far too early to decide either way and far too much is unknown. Anything could happen. The Princess may not want to go back. Her memories may yet return. The doctor suggested some memory aids. We are not without tools and resources.’ There was comfort in the Prince’s words, reminding her of his words earlier, that she was not alone no matter what she decided.
Men shifted uneasily in their chairs, restless with her presence. It was her cue to leave. They needed to talk amongst themselves. Dasha rose. ‘Princess Baklanova, if you would care to join me in the drawing room, we can let these gentlemen get on with their port.’ And their gossip. She was well aware she’d be the main topic of conversation with only Varvakis and Prince Pisarev to defend her. The others were likely to be merciless.
* * *
Sleep was mercilessly elusive. Long after the guests were gone, murmuring polite goodbyes while scepticism lurked in their eyes, Dasha was wide awake. At least awake, she wouldn’t dream. That was something to be thankful for. Lamp in hand, she made her way to the library. She didn’t dare indulge in any more brandy-laced milk. Maybe a book would help take her mind off the events of the day, which had not gone as well as hoped.
Perhaps she’d been overly optimistic. She’d hoped Prince Pisarev would recognise her. She’d hoped the doctor would give her a magical cure. Those things had not happened.
Dasha ran her hand over the spines of books. They were new, their spines stiff. Everything in this home was new. She’d noticed that today: the carpets, their bright hues not yet dulled from generations of boots; the curtains with their rich colours. It was all tastefully understated, but it was still new. Everything lacked the truly aristocratic patina of age and successions.
She selected a book of Russian fairy tales and took it to the sofa by the fire. The pages had been cut, but the book still gave a crackle of newness when she opened it. She ran a finger down the table of contents: Ivan and the Firebird, Father Winter, Ruslan andLudmila... Her finger stopped on that one. Ruslan the Knight. She’d forgotten. It had been a long time since she’d read fairy tales. Pushkin had published a poem by that name as well a couple of years ago. She turned to the page, letting the story come back to her in pieces—the beautiful Ludmila stolen from home on her wedding day, the gallant Ruslan riding to her rescue and facing down a series of foes while Ludmila lay unconscious and unknowing. Dasha looked into the fire. She might enjoy the tale more tonight if the parallels weren’t so obvious, right down to the very name of her own gallant knight.
‘Ah, so you’ve discovered the library. Have you found anything good to read? I haven’t had time to explore the offerings yet.’
Dasha jumped, casting about for a weapon. Her eyes lit on the poker. Could she reach it? How could she have been so careless to sit down defenceless?
‘I don’t think you’d reach the poker in time.’ Prince Pisarev stepped forward, dressed only in a shirt and waistcoat. His jacket and cravat had been discarded. Without the jacket, his lean body was on full display, elegant and urbane even in moderate dishabille. ‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ He took the chair on her left, a glass in his hand. She felt silly and self-conscious. Who had she thought it would be? Who could it be but Prince Pisarev or Captain Varvakis?
‘Old habits, I suppose.’ Maybe. Who knew if she made a practice of beating people over the head with pokers, or even if she had need for such a skill? She tugged at the light blanket she’d thrown around her shoulders before coming down, reminded suddenly of how underdressed she was for meeting a man at midnight, even if that hadn’t been her intention when she’d left her room.
‘Nothing wrong with old habits.’ Ruslan smiled and took a swallow. ‘Can’t sleep? Would you like something?’
‘No.’ Dasha played with the folds of her nightrail, pleating them between her fingers.
‘I confess I’m glad you’re still awake. I’d like to discuss a few things, if you’re up to it.’
She nodded her permission. Did this man never sleep? It was after midnight, approaching twenty-four hours since her ignominious arrival on his doorstep, and he was still working.
‘Thank you. The doctor suggested it may help prompt some memories if you surrounded yourself with reminders of your old life, if you lived and acted as if you knew yourself to be a princess. To that end, I’ve engaged a few individuals who can help with that: a dancing master, a dressmaker, a French tutor since everyone at the Kubanian court speaks French, an etiquette coach. At the very least, the skills will help you feel more at home among the English aristocracy.’
‘And at the best?’ Dasha asked sharply, not entirely liking where this proposal was headed and what it might signify.
‘It may prompt your memories. You might discover you are already fluent in French, or that you can already dance. It might be all you need to break through your mental block.’
‘Or perhaps it is all you need to convince people I am truly capable.’ Did he think she was naïve enough to not see what this was? She was to be trained. If she could not remember being the Princess, she could be transformed into one effectively enough to convince anyone who needed convincing. It made the option of becoming an anonymous émigrée moot. London society would not let a Kubanian princess with a right to the throne fade into anonymity. Anonymity required a new name, a new history.
Dasha rose and paced before the fire, her mind racing. ‘So it’s already been decided, has it? I left the room and your war counsel decided I am to go back, as if I am a pawn without any say in the matter.’ She speared him with a hard stare. ‘I hoped for more from you, Prince Pisarev. Your promise to me was merely hours old before you broke it.’
* * *
Broke his word? How dare she imply such a thing, especially to a man who had nothing but his word? The Princess went too far when she impugned his honour after all he’d done for her today, without question, and there were plenty of far less pleasant questions he could have asked. Ruslan narrowed his eyes, letting his gaze suggest his displeasure, his tone cool. ‘Nothing has been decided. I meant every word. I will not force you to go back. But should you decide to return, you will need certain skills, certain pieces of knowledge. What you can’t remember can be taught, but it will take time and we don’t know how much of that we have. We have to start now. We have to be prepared.’
‘We?’ Dasha snapped. ‘The last time I checked, there was just me. Just one Princess.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. The moment you entered my house you made this my concern. I thought I had made that clear.’ If anyone needed safeguarding, it was she. Dasha was brave, but she was entirely vulnerable even among those who meant to help her. He’d seen just how vulnerable at dinner, listening to Varvakis discuss her political views because she couldn’t, and later, listening to the men take her apart in her absence, bandying about words like ‘puppet princess’—a clear indication that she would be the front for those who would run the government on her behalf. Such an assumption would have led to a duel had she been a man. Despite the practical objectivity required of such analysis, something fierce and protective had risen in him in the dining room on her behalf as General Vasiliev had bluntly outlined the risks of helping her and the potential rewards of controlling the provincial kingdom in exchange for the effort. Ruslan would have gladly taken his dinner knife and gutted the man if it would have served any purpose, but despite his anger he had an aversion to killing people for telling the truth.
‘If we’re in it “together”, as you suggest, you have the unenviable job of being my advisor of sorts.’ Her tone suggested she was not satisfied with his answer. Her eyes sparked as she crossed her arms over her breasts. The fire caught her slim silhouette beneath her nightrail, illuminating long legs that disappeared up beneath the opaqueness of the blanket she wrapped around herself, but not before the sight of those legs reminded Ruslan she was naked beneath the cotton. Being her self-appointed advisor would be a far easier job if she was a tad less attractive and a tad more clothed.
Ruslan crossed his leg over a knee, trying to dispel the beginnings of arousal. Politics aside, Dasha was a beautiful woman and he was naught but a man. Circumstances being different, he might have acted on the burgeoning attraction, but politics and opportunity could not be put aside or compromised. She was a princess in exile with a decision to make that would decide the fate of a nation. That was complication enough.
Dasha hugged herself, some of the anger leaving her body—anger she had every right to claim, Ruslan reminded himself. She was no fool. She knew what had happened in the dining room after she’d left. ‘I don’t know who I am supposed to be. A princess? An exile? Someone else entirely?’ The desperation in her eyes drew him.
Against his better judgement, he set aside his glass and went to her at the fire, his hands firm at her forearms, his body close, his voice husky from the lateness of the hour. ‘Think of your situation as a blessing. Many people would envy you that choice. You have a chance to remake your life, to remake yourself. You can be whoever you want to be, no history, no backstory, no chains to your past. That can be a gift, Dasha. I will help you find a new name, a new life if you want.’ Being this close to her was wreaking all kinds of sensual havoc on his body. He was doing this for encouragement’s sake, or so he told himself. But his body had other ideas—all of them bad.
Ruslan licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry, his mind aware of the details of her. She smelled of sweet summer roses, she was warm and naked beneath the nightclothes. All the ingredients for a disaster were there: the late night, the long day, a beautiful woman in distress looking at him with emerald eyes that begged for resolution and relief, comfort and companionship. She must have sensed it, too. He felt her body move into his. It was the smallest of movements, but it was enough to warn him, her lips parted in slight but unmistakable invitation.
His reflexes were faster. He placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. ‘You’ve had a trying day, Your Highness.’ He was giving her absolution, an excuse to fall back on when she awoke in the morning and realised what she’d done, what she’d asked for. Given the circumstances, it was entirely understandable. She was confused and alone. She would seek comfort where she could. He had no such convenient excuses. He had to resist the temptation on behalf of them both. Ruslan stepped away from her. ‘Best get some sleep, Princess, lessons start tomorrow.’
Chapter Four (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
She’d nearly kissed him! That one thought kept running through her mind as Dasha pored over pattern books in the morning room. The dressmaker, Madame Delphine, had been there since ten o’clock, trying patiently to tempt her with fabrics and designs. But her attention was having difficulty focusing on anything except that moment last night: his hands on her arms, their heads close together in front of the fire, his voice low and private, their bodies so near. It had only been a matter of inches, the tilt of her head, such small, insignificant gestures to manoeuvre for a kiss.
Dasha understood why she’d done it. It was only because of circumstances, because she was desperate. She couldn’t connect to herself so she wanted to connect to someone else, with someone else, and Ruslan had been there, full of command and control, a tangible human bulwark against the abstract form of her despair. Understanding her rather immediate attraction was theoretically simple. The Prince was empathetic, shrewd and yet kind, and he was easy on the eyes—a handsome prince in all sense of the word. He was the Ruslan of fairy tales come to life. He would fight for her, whatever she chose. Did she dare believe he meant it? The offer was too good to be true. Inherently, such conditions made the offer suspect. The monster of distrust reared its ugly head. Could she trust Prince Ruslan Pisarev? Could she trust Captain Varvakis, a man who, according to his own account, the only account, had saved her from certain death?
Her conclusion was that trust came with a price. She could trust these men if she gave them what they wanted. She knew what Varvakis wanted: a princess of his choosing on the throne. What did Prince Pisarev want? If she hadn’t been foolish last night, she might have known. There’d been more he’d wanted to discuss, but they’d never got to it.
Dasha turned a page in the pattern book absently. Madame Delphine would be disappointed in her progress. She wondered what Captain Varvakis would do if she chose not to return? Would he be as generous as the Prince? All his plans would be in ruins without her. He would have risked himself for nothing. It was easier for the Prince; he had less to lose if she chose to stay. Perhaps he’d even prefer that. It would be less effort on his part and less risk. And yet, what did the Prince gain if she did go back? Surely there must be some benefit for him, otherwise why go to all the work to hire tutors, to house her, to dress her? How would he feel about that level of investment if he knew her real fear?
Dasha turned more pages in the pattern book, marking a few items that caught her eye to appease the dressmaker, her guilt growing. She’d not been entirely truthful with the Prince in the garden. She did remember nothing; she did doubt her capabilities to rule without those memories. That was all true. But she’d held back her third fear: that the reason she doubted her ability to rule, the reason she hadn’t remembered being the Princess, was because she simply wasn’t the Princess. Surely a real princess would not question the decision to return to her country. And yet she did.
Dasha stared at the pattern book, unseeing. Questioning her identity was not a conclusion she’d been drawn to out of mere whimsy. That damnable dream had pushed her there, night after night, leaving her awake and screaming. In the dream, she felt someone was with her on that flame-engulfed landing, behind her as if she was protecting them. But who? She always woke up before she was even sure there was someone. She woke when the flames killed her. She’d heard it suggested people only woke up when they ‘died’ in their dreams.
The incompleteness of the horror left her with a final question. If she was not Dasha, who was she? In the absence of an alternative, the question was answered by default. She was Dasha Tukhachevskenova because Captain Varvakis rescued her and he said so. She was Dasha Tukhachevskenova because Captain Varvakis, and the Moderates who kept Kuban from outright civil war, needed her to be, because Dasha Tukhachevskenova was more useful to powerful men like Ruslan Pisarev than a woman with no name and no lineage.
‘Your Highness, have you decided?’ Madame Delphine stood at her shoulder expectantly. Dasha scanned the page and pointed at random to a gown. Madame Delphine nodded appreciatively. ‘An excellent choice. The gown is simply cut but, with the right fabrics, simplicity can be its own elegance. You have a good eye.’ She gestured towards the fabrics laid out across chairs and sofas. ‘Let me show you some materials, perhaps the silks. Here’s a nice aquamarine for that gown.’ Madame Delphine passed her a swatch.
Dasha ran her hand over the dressmaker’s fabric, rubbing it between her fingers. She held it to the light, checking the lustre. ‘Do you have something more delicate perhaps?’ This was not high-quality silk. There was nothing wrong with it. It was sturdy enough, pretty enough to fool the casual observer, but she knew instinctively this was not what a convincing princess would wear.
The dressmaker smiled knowingly and went to an unopened trunk. ‘I think I have something you will like. It just arrived from India.’ Inside lay bolts of fine silk in varying colours.
Yes, this was more to her taste. Dasha rubbed the first bolt. Eyes closed. Good silk sounded a certain way. It seemed ages since she’d had something fine and she relished the little luxury after weeks in coarse, often dirty clothing. But the luxury was followed by guilt. A pretty dress was a petty concern and it was charity. Her family was dead. She had no money of her own. Nothing of her own. Dasha set aside the silk to the alarm of Madame Delphine.
‘Is something wrong, Your Highness?’
Dasha gave her a soft smile of reassurance. ‘The silk is fine. It is too expensive, however. Perhaps there are some muslins that would do?’
‘The Prince has given instructions that price is no object,’ Madame Delphine scolded, sounding more imperious than a queen. ‘You are to have a full wardrobe. Undergarments, nightclothes, day dresses, walking dresses, carriage ensembles, ball gowns, pelisses and all the necessary accessories: bonnets, gloves, shoes, stockings.’ She tutted, taking in Dasha’s outfit, another dress borrowed from Nikolay Baklanov’s wife. ‘No woman is herself when she’s walking around in another woman’s clothes.’ Madame Delphine pulled out a tape measure as if all was settled. ‘Now, let’s get your dimensions so my girls can start on your new wardrobe.’
* * *
The wardrobe took the better part of the day. Building one from the basics up was ridiculously exhausting. Dasha had just closed the last pattern book with relief when Ruslan appeared at the door, dressed for going out in buff breeches and a jacket of dark blue superfine, his unruly waves combed into something close to submission. He looked immaculate and fresh despite the day being nearly gone, the exact opposite of how she felt and probably how she looked. Feeling self-conscious, Dasha tucked an errant curl behind her ear.
‘My morning room has been overrun, I see,’ Ruslan said expansively, clearly in good humour. ‘I stopped by to see how things were getting on and to see if I might persuade you, Your Highness, to come for a walk. It’s a lovely day out.’
A walk sounded lovely after being cooped up. Dasha smiled at the offer. ‘Let me just tidy my hair.’ Then she paused, smoothing the lavender skirts of her borrowed dress. ‘Is my gown smart enough?’
Madame Delphine was all brisk efficiency. ‘We have a ready-made walking dress that should do from an order a woman didn’t pick up.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Suzette, help Her Highness change, quickly now, while monsieur and I step into the hallway.’ No doubt, Dasha thought, to inform the Prince of the atrocious bill that awaited him and perhaps even to tell the Prince how she’d performed today. Suzette came forward to strip off her gown and Dasha sighed. A princess had no privacy. Her body, her actions, her every movement was up for public dissection, it seemed.
Suzette had her transformed in record time with a saucy hat perched on her head to match the blue walking ensemble and soft ivory-coloured half-boots and gloves. Ruslan was waiting for her in the hall, while Madame looked smugly pleased with herself. ‘Definitely worth waiting for, you look lovely.’ Ruslan offered her his arm and the awkward moment last night loomed large between them in her mind, although not his. Dasha wished she could be as assured as he, able to act as if her misstep last night had not happened. But she couldn’t forget she’d tried to tempt him to kiss her and that he’d rejected the overture. Well, technically he’d only averted the overture. She wasn’t sure if that was because he simply didn’t want to or because he was being a gentleman.
The air outside was crisp and fresh. Autumn hung in the balance as the seasons transitioned. The trees bore hints of yellow in their leaves. ‘There’s a garden at the centre of the square, it should be private this time of day.’ Ruslan led her across the street, helping her avoid the carriage traffic, and opened the gate with a small key from his pocket. He held up crossed fingers and gave her a friendly smile as he ushered her forward.
‘London is a busy city,’ Dasha said, slightly breathless after the adventure of crossing the street. The garden was quiet and empty in contrast.
‘It takes some getting used to.’ Ruslan shut the gate and the busyness behind them. ‘It’s an exciting city, though, full of modern advancements. I am eager to show it to you, as soon as you feel able. There’s an international district in Soho with a Russian neighbourhood. Prince Baklanov has his riding academy there.’ The hints were subtly layered as they walked and Dasha did not miss a single one. To go out into London required making a decision. How was Prince Pisarev to introduce her? How was she to see London? As the Princess Dasha, frequenting embassy balls and state events? Or as a woman who had yet to be named, an émigrée who would take up residence somewhere in Soho with others looking for new lives far from home? No one in the Prince’s lofty circles would maintain a long acquaintance with that woman.
‘How much time do you suppose I have?’ Dasha asked bluntly.
The Prince did not pretend ignorance. ‘I would not wait long. Word could come from Kuban at any time, although I would not expect it for another month. Still, by the time news comes, it will be too late to start preparing. We’ll have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’
He allowed her to walk in silence beside him. She appreciated the conversational reprieve. He was giving her time to ponder that news, but there must be more. He was patiently holding back, perhaps recognising either decision was daunting. To reinvent herself meant to give herself up entirely, to stop seeking answers, to stop hoping she’d wake up one morning and remember. Instead, she would have to hope she would never remember. Remembering risked discovering she was wrong. What if she woke up one day and knew with a certainty she was Princess Dasha? She’d have thrown away a chance to lead her people when they’d needed her most. That guilt would haunt her the rest of her life. ‘It is an impossible decision,’ Dasha said. They’d reached the far corner of the park where a bench waited under a tree.
The Prince sat, dusting leaves off the seat beside him for her. ‘Not impossible, just difficult. Would you like to talk about it?’
Why not talk with him? Hadn’t he, too, decided to reinvent himself? ‘How did you decide?’ Dasha sat, arranging her skirts. There were some similarities between them. He was a prince, a man of status and wealth and family in Kuban. He’d known her brothers. He’d been close to the royal family. Of the two of them sitting on the bench, he knew her life better than she did herself. He knew precisely what reinvention would cost her.
Ruslan gave her a smile. She was learning to read him. It was one of his wry smiles, the sort where only part of his mouth curved upwards. She thought far too much about his mouth. Best to look elsewhere. ‘I didn’t think about it, I just did it. When the moment came, I just kept going and never looked back. My friends needed me and, I suppose, I needed them more than I needed Kuban.’ It posed a question, perhaps as he’d known it would. What did she need more than Kuban? What was she willing to do, willing to give up?
Dasha leaned forward, the intrigue of his statement irresistible. ‘Tell me.’
Chapter Five (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
If reticence had a facial expression, Ruslan was sure his face was wearing it now. Tell her? The woman who was the daughter of the man who’d imprisoned his father and caused his friends to flee their homeland? Ruslan did not miss the irony. But, he could not bring himself to hate Dasha simply because of her relationship to the Tsar, any more than he’d been able to bring himself to despise his boyhood friends, the Tsar’s sons, for the actions of their father. Neither could he overlook the importance his story would hold for Dasha. It would influence her decision, depending on how he told it. Told one way, it would encourage her to stay; told another, it would encourage her to go back. As a man of honour, he could cross neither line. He must tell it with all neutrality possible. ‘It may be unpleasant, Your Highness,’ he warned. Unpleasant for them both.
‘Much in my recent life has been unpleasant,’ she countered. Then she went on the offensive. ‘You promised to help me, no matter what I chose to do. How can I choose wisely if I don’t have information?’ It was entirely unfair to use his own words against him. He saw the steel in her then, the strength that lay beneath her beauty and her youth. Being young did not make her naïve.
Ruslan held her gaze, letting her see his own resolve, his own warning. ‘It began as an attempt to smuggle Princess Anna-Maria Petrova out of the country. Like you, she faced an unwanted marriage, but it became so much more.’ It became the largest group of people he’d ever smuggled out of the country at one time, a group that contained everyone he cared for, everyone he loved. That alone had raised the stakes considerably. ‘The four of us, the Princes you met at dinner last night, plus Illarion Kutejnikov, who is on his honeymoon, had been friends since we met at school at the age of ten. Since then, I cannot remember a time when the four of us weren’t together. As we came of age and assumed our positions in the court, Nikolay and Illarion acquired a habit of speaking out against the Tsar’s restrictive policies regarding the ways in which the noble families may serve Kuban.’
Dasha interrupted him with a hard look. ‘You are being delicate. It is not necessary. I, apparently, know precisely what the Tsar was capable of. Even his own family was not spared the opportunity to marry well for the country. Have you forgotten Captain Varvakis’s mention of my own engagement?’
Ruslan nodded. ‘I had not forgotten.’
She gave him a sharp look. ‘Good. Then you needn’t be careful for my sake.’
Ruslan continued. ‘Illarion had written a poem called “Freedom”, and shortly afterwards, his friend, Katya, who had married General Ustinov, killed herself. The Tsar blamed Illarion. Nikolay protested quite vociferously and not for the first time. One night, the Tsar sent an assassin in the form of his cousin, Helena, Nikolay’s current mistress, to Nikolay’s bedchamber. She attacked and Nikolay killed her in self-defence, but he was severely wounded and arrested. The Tsar intended for Nikolay to stand trial for treason and he was in the process of having Illarion arrested for writing libel against the crown.’
He watched Dasha take in the news, letting her digest it before he continued. ‘It was apparent Nikolay would not get a fair trial. The Tsar meant to be done with him. Stepan arranged to have Nikolay taken home to recover from his wound, but we knew we had to leave immediately. I arranged our departure. We gathered the wealth we could carry and our fastest horses, strapped Nikolay to a saddle and left in darkness.’
Even with more than a year’s buffer between him and that fateful night, he could remember it with perfect clarity. Nikolay, burning with fever, barely able to stay upright as his father hugged him goodbye; Stepan on his huge black horse with Anna-Maria seated before him, a protective arm wrapped about her; her father, looking too frail to survive the journey, mounted on one of Nikolay’s Cossack-bred warhorses. Ruslan had ferried his friends through backroads and discreet mountain passes to the borders of Kuban, spending long nights keeping watch and nursing Nikolay. When the moment had come to go forward or go back, Ruslan had known they needed him. Stepan and Illarion could not manage caring for Nikolay, watching the company’s back and arranging the rest of the journey. Arranging was his specialty, so he’d taken that step over the border.
‘Until then, had you not known you would go?’ Dasha was studying him with her green eyes, lining his story up with hers, looking for parallels and guidance.
Ruslan shrugged, thinking of the substantial wealth he’d packed for the journey. ‘Maybe. I had brought supplies with me, like the others. Perhaps I knew in my heart there was a good chance I wouldn’t return. I was prepared for either eventuality.’ There’d been nothing to return for at that point, besides vengeance. His father was dead by his own hand in prison, his mother a few weeks later of a broken heart.
Dasha’s eyes flared and he knew she understood that parallel. ‘Then I should play the Princess a while longer, regardless of how I might choose in the end? Is that your advice?’ she divined.
‘Yes,’ Ruslan said. ‘I think that is the safest course.’
‘But a short one. It does not remove my choice.’ Those green eyes were piercing, alluring. They could look into a man’s soul.
Ruslan nodded at her astute assessment of the situation. ‘Nor does it delay it.’ He gathered his words. ‘There is something more I meant to tell you last night that might affect your decision. If you go public with your presence here, as the self-proclaimed Princess, a lone survivor of a royal massacre, the Rebels will know you’re here with a certainty they may not currently have.’ He shook his head. ‘I am not so worried about that. Kuban is far away, news takes time to travel and plans take time to make. I am more concerned about that news reaching the local émigré cells. The Union of Salvation, do you know it?’ He looked for recognition from her, but she offered no confirmation of knowledge. ‘It’s also known as the Society of True, Loyal Sons of the Fatherland,’ Ruslan explained, ‘but now it’s sometimes referred to as the Union of Prosperity. Anyhow, it’s a secret society, there’s a northern branch in St Petersburg and a southern branch headquartered in Tulchin in the Ukraine.’
Dasha laughed. ‘As secret as all that? If you know where they are, how secret can they be?’ Then she sobered as realisation hit her. ‘You know because you’re a member.’
‘No, not exactly,’ Ruslan hurried to clarify. ‘I’ve done some work for them. I’m not an official member.’ Neither were his friends, but Nikolay and Illarion were indeed closely aligned with the group. ‘I share their goals, but not their methods,’ Ruslan explained. ‘They want a constitutional monarchy. I don’t disagree with that. But they are willing to see it done at the cost of armed revolt. Violence in the name of democratic progress is acceptable to them. It is not acceptable to me.’ It was easier for Nikolay, he was a soldier. He’d been raised to violence, but Ruslan was a diplomat.
Dasha pondered the information. ‘The Rebels Captain Varvakis speaks of are members, then?’
Ruslan nodded. She was quick, intelligent. ‘Yes. They are most definitely behind the Rebel forces. They will want a monarch who will work with their new parliament, if they tolerate a monarch at all.’ He highly suspected, drunk on their own power, they’d want a monarch they could control, a person of their own choosing, or that they’d see no need for a monarch at all. While he, as a student of John Locke’s teachings, was not opposed to such models of self-government, such an arrangement did pose a danger to Dasha.
She saw that danger immediately. ‘They will not want a Tukhachevsken. They will want to start fresh. But the Loyalists will cling to the old, to the Tukhachevsken name.’ She paused, her fair brows knitting in thought. ‘Certainly, that is a danger if I return. But you said as long as I was in London that threat was negligible due to distance.’
‘It would be, if the Union was limited to Russia and Kuban. The concern is that Russian émigrés have a cell of the Union here, that they will learn of your presence if you declare yourself, and, not having the insights or guidance of the Moderates in Kuban who see you as a bridge to peace, they will act on their own and seek to eliminate you.’ And by doing so, fuel open civil war.
‘You’re talking about assassination,’ Dasha replied coldly, her face pale.
‘Yes, I am. And civil war, too, if they are successful.’ If she didn’t want him to dress up the facts then he wouldn’t, although he would spare her the weight of these decisions if he could. It hardly seemed fair after all she’d been through to add to her burdens.
She rose from the bench, pacing, as she thought. ‘Is anonymity even a possibility any longer? After last night, so many people know. And now, Madame Delphine...’ Her voice trailed off, implying the rule that secrets were hard to keep among many. At least nine people knew there were aspirations of her being the Princess.
‘Those men at dinner have no desire to expose you against your will or to trigger a civil war with their carelessness. I personally assure their discretion,’ Ruslan vowed.
‘And Madame Delphine? Can you vouch for her, too? Dressmakers are notorious gossips. It’s good for their business.’
‘You have nothing to fear from Madame Delphine.’ Ruslan chuckled. ‘Do you think I would allow such a woman as you describe near you?’ Perhaps he was bragging a bit here, wanting to impress this intriguing woman who matched him thought for thought.
Dasha looked up, recognition sparking in her eyes. She smiled. ‘She is one of yours, isn’t she? An émigrée you helped reinvent herself.’ She blew out a breath. ‘What happens if I don’t go back? If I let you reinvent me?’
‘Then the various factions will have to find a new leader. Hopefully they can do it peacefully. I think there’s a better chance of that if they think there was no choice, that you died with the family, than if the Loyalists think you were deliberately gunned down in London by the opposition.’ Ruslan watched her dissect his words.
‘But the very best chance of a peaceful transition is if I go back and become the bridge between all factions,’ she surmised. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I want,’ Ruslan challenged carefully. She was watching him closely. ‘Varvakis has asked me to protect you until the situation is resolved. That is all.’
‘That is not all. It does matter. Why are you doing all of this for me if not to get something for yourself in return? Why would you simply do what Varvakis asks?’
Why indeed? He had shared uncomfortable truths with her and now it was time for him to face some of his own. His dilemma was a strong one. Who did he protect? The woman who stood before him, or the country that might be born with his help? Protecting the woman would mean hiding her away along with her true identity, to let Princess Dasha fade into history. To birth the nation his father had died for, his mother had died for, Nikolay and Illarion had suffered for, might require permitting Dasha to become a sacrifice. ‘Can’t I simply do this for you in memory of your brothers?’ He opted for an easy answer. ‘I would help you, as a way to honour them.’ He rose and brushed his hands against his breeches. It was time to head back before she could ask any more uncomfortable questions. But his efforts were too late.
‘That’s a nice sentiment,’ Dasha replied sharply, her tone implying she didn’t believe him. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t kiss me last night? Because I am the little sister of your friends? Or because I might become the future Tsarina instead of another anonymous émigrée?’ A more perceptive woman Ruslan had yet to meet. Damn that perceptiveness, though. He could do with a bit less of it.
‘Perhaps both.’ He trod carefully here. Kissing princesses came with political entanglements. He was aware of the emptiness of the park, the light breeze. No one would know what transpired here, no one would hold them accountable. But they would. Kissing her was still a bad idea.
She reached for his hand with a touch that made his blood pound even through their gloves. ‘If I was nothing but an émigrée woman like Madame Delphine, would you kiss me?’
Yes. Without hesitation. His objectivity was under siege.
She moved into him, her arms about his neck, her hands in his hair. For a young woman raised in the seclusion of the palace, Dasha was bold. ‘Then, it’s best you kiss me now, I think, while I am still in limbo, while I am still nothing.’
‘You could never be “nothing”.’ Ruslan’s response was a low rasp.
‘Then what are you afraid of, Ruslan Pisarev?’ Her hips shifted against him in subtle, perhaps accidental invitation. Lord, the woman was a temptress.
‘I’m not afraid,’ Ruslan growled. Her physicality flooded his body with abrupt desire, her convenient logic flooding his better judgement. He was going to regret mixing business with pleasure, but perhaps it would be worth it to prove to her a kiss was not worth the crown. Better she learn that lesson from a man she could trust, whether she knew it or not, than from a man who would not hesitate to manipulate those desires for his own gain, and there would be plenty of those if she went back. He would not always be there to protect her, but he was here now and perhaps this kiss was a sort of protection. Feeling justified in his rationale, he bent his head and captured her mouth, all for the purpose of instruction...
Chapter Six (#ue1d74e37-a2ec-5caa-b427-eed60f2914f8)
Dasha gave a low moan that was part-gasp, part-murmur of surprise. She had not been prepared for this, for the heat that flared low in her stomach and bled into her veins like slow, deliberate lava, for the warm strength of his body against hers. Kissing was more than mouths on mouths, more than the brief pressing of lips. It was hands and bodies, tongues and tastes. It was an offer of comfort and communion, momentary completion. How remarkable to feel such a thing, with this man she barely knew but was irrevocably drawn to, and how addictive. She wanted to fall into it, wanted to give herself over, to his hands, to his mouth. Her own hands, her own mouth, joined his in this quiet, lingering exploration. In the still of the garden, there was no rush to end it, her only compulsion was to savour it. Who knew when it could happen again, or if it would happen again? Her hands tangled in his hair, those glorious, unruly waves, as if she could hold him in this moment for ever.
He made the slightest of adjustments and deepened the kiss—they were moving from tasting and testing to something more. Seduction, and what a seduction it was; not just a seduction of the body, but of the mind, a taste of what the émigrée could have, but the Princess could not. Was that what he meant to show her? What woman would choose a throne when it meant giving this up? But that was illogical. It was one kiss and that kiss would end. There were no promises beyond it.
Somewhere in the distance of reality, the garden gate opened. Ruslan drew back, the eternity of the kiss broken. Time had lost all meaning, but now it started to run again as she stepped away. She smoothed her skirts to give her hands, her mind, something to do. What did one say after such a kiss?
‘We should return. Madame Delphine will have last-minute details to clear with you.’ The words were not what she expected. They were perfunctory, as was the way he snapped back to reality without hesitation, as if the kiss hadn’t overwhelmed him, as if it hadn’t meant as much to him as it had to her. That’s when she knew it hadn’t. While she’d been losing herself to the fantasy, he’d been...leading her on and nothing more. It was not a pleasant realisation.
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, gathering her dignity. She couldn’t retract all the emotion she’d allowed herself to display any more than she could pretend it hadn’t happened. But she could call him on it and make him accountable. She met his gaze with an even stare that she hoped was as aloof as his. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you kiss me?’
Why did you make me feel as if the whole world rested on that kiss?
‘You needed instruction.’ Ruslan dusted at his immaculate sleeve.
‘Instruction in kissing?’ That was appalling. She couldn’t help the flush that crept up her cheeks. How embarrassing to appear so desperate as to need charity kisses.
‘No, not in kissing. In guarding your emotions. Better to learn that from someone who has your best interests at heart than from a scoundrel who would willingly seduce the crown out from under your pretty head, or for any number of royal favours.’
Dasha looked away, her cheeks burning. How naïve he must think her, how stupid. She had indeed been willing to be seduced by that kiss, been willing to believe someone cared for her. She was far more lonely, far more desperate than she’d thought. She gave a curt nod. ‘Then you have my thanks, Prince Pisarev, for such a necessary and instructive lesson.’
‘Ruslan. Please. We are to be together far too much in the next weeks to stand on ceremony,’ he offered, giving no indication that he’d witnessed her embarrassment.
‘And you must call me Dasha,’ she offered in return, taking his truce. He’d kissed her to prove a point because she’d provoked him. They were square now.
Ruslan smiled and took her arm. ‘Tell me all about your new wardrobe.’ The walk back was mercifully taken up with discussion of her dress session. He had all sorts of questions. Had she ordered enough? Madame Delphine felt she should have more, perhaps she would reconsider adding two or three more dresses to the order and another ball gown?
Dasha laughed. ‘You make it sound as if spending more of your money is a favour. I assure you, I’ve spent plenty.’ Especially if she decided to fade away. A penniless émigrée would not have a finer wardrobe than she already had, if that was what she chose. Ruslan stopped them before the gate and covered her hand with his where it lay on her sleeve, his gaze serious. ‘Money is no object. Think of spending it as a favour to me, to see you gowned as you ought to be.’ As a princess ought to be. Was he so sure she’d choose that path even after that kiss? Although after his disclosures, that option seemed more likely than it had this morning. In fact, it hardly seemed that she had options at all.
‘You’ve been generous.’ She was hesitant to accept too much. No one did anything without getting paid and her debt to Ruslan was mounting. ‘I have no money and no promise of money in the future to repay you with.’ Especially if she decided to fade into anonymity. He must be very certain of her indeed.
Ruslan narrowed his gaze. ‘Do not insult me, Dasha. I am not doing this for money. This is a matter of honour.’
‘Do not insult me,’Dasha cut in. ‘A man is not the only person with a sense of honour. A woman has pride, too, and there are other forms of payment besides money.’
Sexual, political, promises of power.
Ruslan’s jaw tightened, his mouth set in a grim line, but he did not dismiss her concern. ‘I do not think you are the sort of woman who can be bought for a few dresses and pretty baubles. I would hope you’d believe I wasn’t the sort of man who would think so little of you.’ He opened the gate with a curt nod and motioned for her to pass through. No, she didn’t think that of him, yet how else was she to explain the grand kindnesses he’d shown to her?
He gave her a small smile. ‘I know, you can’t help it. It’s a consequence of court, of royalty, always thinking of motives. Take it as a good sign, though. You are thinking like a princess.’ It was ruefully said. ‘It is how a prince thinks, too, always wondering why people have done something for you, what they might want. What do they expect you to give them?’ His hand was at her back, ushering her across the street, and she was reminded once more of the commonalities between them, or at least the commonalities that should be between them, assuming she was who the Captain claimed she was. What would Ruslan say to her doubts? She felt a pang of guilt. He was investing in the woman he thought she was, not just with his money, but with his reputation and credibility when he represented her to others. Was it right to mislead him? To not make him privy to her doubts? Would he take her doubts seriously or pawn them off as Varvakis had done?
Once inside the house, Ruslan bid her farewell. ‘I will not be home for dinner. I have instructed Cook to prepare whatever you wish, and my staff has been apprised that you should make free with my home. Please, Dasha, entertain yourself. There is a pianoforte in the conservatory, books in the library, as you know...’ He paused here and smiled at the mention of the library. ‘I hope you will not be bored.’
How could she possibly be bored? She had too much to think about, a kiss and a handsome prince not the least of those things. And she had a decision to make. But she would miss him. Perhaps he knew his absence was for the best. Perhaps he’d even planned it, to give her space in which to think without being unduly influenced by his presence.
* * *
Dasha dressed slowly for dinner, savouring the luxury of sliding into a clean gown, one of the ready-mades Madame Delphine had left. Even though she dined alone, it felt good to wear well-made clothes and to take time with her appearance. This particular gown was an eggplant silk. Except for the aquamarine, she’d chosen subdued colours out of respect for mourning her family, but she hadn’t chosen all black with an eye towards the other reality—that if she wasn’t the Princess she needn’t wear it at all. Everything, it seemed, hinged on that decision, even something as trivial as her wardrobe. Did she embrace being the Princess or did she create a new identity?
Dasha studied her reflection in the mirror while the maid put up her hair. Who did this face with its serious green eyes belong to? Was it enough to assume that because she thought like a princess she was the Princess? Why was it so hard for her to accept Captain Varvakis’s rescue story? Why did the idea of being the Princess sit so awkwardly on her shoulders?
The maid put in a final pin and offered her the small jewel case. ‘Might I suggest the jet earrings?’ Ruslan had not only thought of everything, he’d found everything. Where he had found these exquisite earrings was beyond her. Dasha fastened them, appreciating their subdued elegance. They were appropriate for this half-mourning she’d fashioned for herself, for a family she couldn’t remember but would honour anyway. Maybe some day she’d remember them and be able truly to mourn them.
She could throw it all off and begin again if she chose. But how would she do that? Beyond the theoretical guilt she might feel, there were practical issues. How would she support herself? How would she live? Where would she live? Would she become another face in this Soho district Ruslan talked about? Ruslan would certainly give her an allowance to start out on should she ask and she had no doubt he’d see to the arrangements, but what then?
She could not lean on him, could not live off his largesse for ever, which begged the next question. Could she choose to live in restrained circumstances? A woman with a name that had no history except that which she acquired? She would be a fraud of sorts the rest of her days. Silk dresses and maids proffering jewels would be a thing of the past. It might be worth it, though. There was a certain appeal in anonymity. In time, she could become the wife of another émigré, perhaps a nice man who taught music or dancing to wealthy gentlemen’s daughters. They would live in shabby gentility and no one would ever importune them for favours. She would never need to worry about being used or manipulated. She might make real friends.
But she would never know the truth of her identity. Or if she did, she’d never be able to acknowledge it, not even to her husband. However, the chances of that seemed slim. Ruslan’s doctor had said the more familiarity she surrounded herself with, the better her chances of recovering her memories. Her ‘familiarity’ was a thousand miles away. The best chance for her to know who she was lay in going back. The best chance for peace lay in going back; the best chance to help her country lay in going back. The reasons were mounting, tipping the scale against the one niggling ‘what if’ that remained.
What if she wasn’t who Varvakis thought she was? Was it enough doubt to risk the fate of a nation?
It would be so much easier if she could simply believe the Captain.
* * *
‘You believe the Captain. You’re going to help them,’ Stepan said with characteristic boldness and no small hint of accusation as they sat over early evening drinks at White’s. The table between them was cluttered with bottles in varying degrees of emptiness. It was always drinks, plural, with Stepan. A little vodka, a little samogon, a little whisky on occasion. Stepan thought Englishmen were too boring, too predictable with their predilection for a constant brandy.
Ruslan sat back in his chair. The emptiness of the bottles was making them both bold. ‘Is there a reason I shouldn’t? Perhaps it’s my patriotic duty. A soldier travels across a continent and an angry sea with the only surviving member of the ruling family, shows up on my doorstep and asks for help in the name of a peaceful transition, a transition you and I were exiled for, if I might remind you. That seems like a good reason to help.’
Stepan took a long swallow from his glass. ‘For a man who considers all angles, you’re taking a lot on face value, including the most basic question: Is Varvakis telling the truth? It’s rather convenient for him and for the Moderates to be in possession of such a valuable commodity as Dasha Tukhachevskenova and have her remember nothing, not even who she is. That doesn’t even begin to explore the profit in being able to produce this valuable commodity at the right time. Need I point out how this will position Varvakis and his friends for the future? Right behind the throne?’
Something clenched inside Ruslan. He didn’t like Stepan discussing Dasha as a commodity, yet that’s what she was, what she had to be if he were to keep his detachment. Objectivity was crucial to an organiser, especially one who specialised in organising escapes. Risk analysis, he liked to call it. Without it, bad decisions were made. Dasha was merely another cargo to transport from one destination to another. ‘Are you suggesting she’s not who she says she is?’ Ruslan swirled his drink, not wanting to admit Stepan might
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Bronwyn Scott
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A lost princess…And the prince who will protect her!In this Russian Royals of Kuban story, Crown Princess Dasha is plucked from the flames of rebellion and sent to London with no memory of her past—everyone says she’s heiress to Kuban’s throne. Yet she trusts Ruslan Pisarev on first sight—he becomes her protector, her confidante, even her lover… But can Ruslan claim her for ever when she is awakened to the truth of her identity?