Awakened By The Prince’s Passion

Chapter Five

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

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.