Seduced By The Prince’s Kiss

Chapter Two

He should leave. It was the one thought Stepan returned to time and again over the excellent roast beef supper that night. He could rent a house of his own—perhaps he could even contact Preston Worth about renting his house with the caves beneath it in Shoreham. Wouldn’t that be convenient, to smuggle vodka from a prevention officer’s own home? The risk-taker in him rather liked the idea. But then, he’d be dining alone and these suppers at Dimitri’s would disappear.

Stepan took another swallow of the wine, an exquisite, full-bodied burgundy, and surveyed the table. These were occasions he loved to hate or was it hated to love? Each night Dimitri and his wife, Evie, served a piece of paradise; warmth and security presented in a delicious, hot meal and comfortable conversation with local guests. Every aspect of the meal was a reminder of what his life would lack without Dimitri. This was not a scene he could replicate on his own. He had no family other than the one Dimitri had adopted him into two decades and one year ago. Ever since he was ten, he’d basked in the borrowed light of Dimitri’s familial glow. To walk away from that was no small thing, but neither was his sanity.

Tonight, dining with the Squire’s family was no exception. Perhaps he even felt that glow more keenly given the direction of his thoughts. While there was a price for leaving, there was also a price for staying: watching Anna-Maria dazzle the table every night, constantly bracing himself for her sudden appearances like the one in the entrance hall today, a feminine ambush of smiles and silk coming down the stairs or popping into a room at any time, conjuring up reasons to spend hours a day away from the house, knowing that Anna-Maria was oblivious to all of it.

Stepan filled his glass again. Why shouldn’t she be oblivious? He was twelve years her senior. He’d known her since she was born. He’d seen her skin her knees. He’d seen her cry when her ‘pet’ frog of one day escaped from his jar. He’d even seen her as a stubborn six-year-old stamp her foot in a temper when Dimitri had refused to spoil her with a porcelain doll. He was privy to the best and the worst of her. He was like a brother to her, or perhaps an uncle just as Nikolay and the others were. Why should she even be aware of how he looked at her now?

Across the table, Anna-Maria was teasing the Squire’s son. Tonight, she shone in a gown of cerulean blue, a simple crystal heart about her neck and her dark hair piled up high—something Evie was letting her practise this winter before going to London. The poor boy smiled and blushed, unable to take his eyes from the radiant creature talking to him and yet not knowing what to do with her.

Oh, mal’chik, Stepan thought, you are in over your head. I have been with the most sophisticated women of the Kubanian court and I am barely afloat. She is captivating, vivacious, passionate in her tempers... She is dangerous and she doesn’t even know it.

As she had been today on the steps, her hands twisted into the lapels of his jacket, her body so close to his that he could feel the heat of her, the light brush of her breasts against him.

Anna-Maria might look upon him as an uncle or brother, but no uncle or brother would ever entertain such thoughts. Stepan took a long swallow of wine, which was getting better with each glass. His awareness of her shamed him. It made a hypocrite of him. He’d always thought of himself as forward-thinking. He’d been one of the first to protest the repressive and archaic laws in Kuban that compelled girls into arranged marriages at young ages without providing them a voice or a choice in the matter. He’d seen girls as young as fifteen wed to men in their fifties. He did reason with himself that this was hardly the same. At thirty-one, he was in his prime like many well-born Englishmen who waited until their thirties to marry and took brides ten to twelve years their junior. But that didn’t make the situation more palatable to Stepan. He knew the general reasoning behind it: the younger the better when it came to producing the next heir and moulding an unformed mind. He refused to assess a woman’s value in the same way he would a brood mare.

Even with these arguments, he hated himself for the attraction. He could not say when his feelings had changed, when he’d become aware of her in the way a man is aware of a woman he desires. He was doubly careful with her now, with Evie and Dimitri, too. What would they think if they knew? Dimitri wanted more for Anna-Maria than an exiled prince.

The Squire reached for the carafe at Dimitri’s informal table—no hovering footmen here. Everyone served themselves. ‘The wine is excellent, Petrovich. Wherever do you get it?’

Dimitri smiled and nodded towards Stepan. ‘Stepan has a connection, a French vintner by the name of Archambeault who ships to him.’

Monsieur Archambeault was otherwise known as Ruslan Pisarev, former Kubanian revolutionary, now a happily married, soon-to-be owner of a small but profitable winery in Burgundy. Dimitri’s eyes met his at the mention of their friend. Ruslan did not want to be found by the world, at least not by his real name. It was one of their secrets, one of the many things that had bound them together over the years. Stepan loved Dimitri as a brother. Dimitri had given him a family when he’d had none, sharing his own father with him, and hope when he’d had even less. Dimitri had given him a reason to seek out the freedom he claimed to want. Without Dimitri, all those things might have remained dreams only.

In return, he’d given Dimitri unquestioning loyalty, ushering the Petrovich family to safety in England and leaving behind the only life he knew—a life full of privilege but lacking in affection. Dimitri had given him so much. He could not repay his friend by coveting his sister, especially when he knew how much Dimitri had given up in the raising of her.

In theory, Stepan wanted all the best for her, too. At a distance, he could embrace the knowledge she was in London having a Season without having to experience it in person. He wouldn’t have to witness her flirting with London’s young beaux the way he had to watch her charm the Squire’s son tonight. He wouldn’t have to watch her dance in the arms of gentlemen with titles more legitimate than the honorific he bore. Yes, it would be best to leave. He wondered if he’d find the discipline to do it. After all, he’d simply be exchanging one type of hell for another, the only difference being that one hell held Anna-Maria in it and the other did not. It was hard to say which one was worse. Perhaps hell didn’t have varying degrees, only varying interpretations.

* * *

There was brandy after the meal and the requisite half hour of polite conversation with the ladies after that while Anna-Maria played the pianoforte. All in all, it was a very satisfactory country evening, the sort that usually filled him with a soft contentment, a domestic denouement of sorts to the adventure of his days. But tonight, Stepan had little to contribute and he was glad to see the Squire’s family go. Anna-Maria shut the door behind them shortly after ten, with a laughing farewell to the Squire’s son and a promise to go riding as soon as the mud cleared. She turned, a beaming smile on her face, her dark eyes dancing with mirth.

‘Be careful with him,’ Stepan said sternly, too sternly. Part of him, the jealous part, wanted to wipe that smile off her face. ‘You will overwhelm him with your boldness.’

‘My boldness?’ Anna-Maria challenged, turning the force of her smile on him. ‘What are you suggesting, Stepan?’ Indeed, what was he suggesting? That she was too easy with her favours? It was hardly what he intended.

‘Nothing, only that he is young and inexperienced.’

‘And I am, too,’ Anna-Maria retorted. ‘Much to my regret.’ She shot a look at her brother. ‘I can’t even go out riding without an escort.’

‘The country is a big place, Anna,’ Dimitri answered wearily. This was an ongoing argument. Dimitri’s gaze met his sister’s in a timeless sibling staredown.

Evie intervened, linking an arm through the younger woman’s. ‘Anna, come and help me check on the baby one last time for the night.’

Stepan followed Dimitri’s gaze up the stairs, watching the two women. Despite his exasperation with his sister, a soft smile played on Dimitri’s face. How many times had that smile been followed by the words, ‘there goes everything I love’?

Not tonight, however. Dimitri sighed. ‘The sooner she gets to London, the better. Perhaps I should have sent her last year even though she’d only just arrived.’

Stepan shook his head, unwilling to let his friend second-guess himself. ‘No, she needed time to adjust, we all did.’

‘I just want her to make intelligent decisions. She’s so vivacious that I worry...’ Dimitri let another sigh communicate all the things he worried about: Anna-Maria running off with the first man who showed her any adventure, Anna-Maria falling in love with the first man to kiss her. Dimitri shrugged as if he could shake off the weight of that worry and fixed his attention on Stepan. ‘You, my friend, were distracted tonight. Is the winter getting to you, too? The walls closing in? Just two months left and it will be better. We can go up to London. The change of scenery will have us appreciating Little Westbury within weeks.’ Dimitri chuckled.

‘Actually,’ Stepan said, ‘I was thinking about not going up to town with you at all. I was thinking I’d stay here, perhaps rent out Preston Worth’s house at Shoreham for a few months.’

Dimitri looked surprised and disappointed. ‘You’d miss Anna’s debut. I am sure she’s counting on you for a few waltzes.’

‘She’ll be surrounded by so many young men, she won’t need me to dance attendance on her.’ He smiled over the pain the realisation caused him. Like the others, she would be launched into a new life. He would be left completely behind.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Dimitri argued with a laugh. He clamped a hand on Stepan’s shoulder in fraternal camaraderie. ‘She’ll be surrounded by young fools like herself, champing at the bit for a taste of freedom in the big city. I was counting on you to be the voice of wisdom, to help her keep her head and navigate society with decorum.’

He’d only thought the country was torture. London would be a whole other level of private agony. Hell was proving to be a complicated place. ‘We’ll see,’ Stepan said neutrally. He started up the stairs, but Dimitri wasn’t done talking yet.

‘How’s business? I heard the Lady Frances came in today. I hope there wasn’t trouble?’ Dimitri was still fishing for the reason behind his distraction.

Stepan shook his head. ‘Everything was fine, just a lot of paperwork. Seems like there’s more every time.’

Dimitri gave a snort. ‘In this part of the world, people ignore the paperwork and smuggle it all in.’ He grinned at Stepan. ‘Maybe you should try it some time.’

Stepan gave a non-committal laugh. ‘Maybe.’ West Sussex was a known haven for smugglers with its access to London roads. One could hardly live here and not be aware of smuggling. But Dimitri had no idea how close to home his remark had hit. ‘I’m not sure how Preston Worth would feel about a smuggler renting out his house.’

Dimitri shrugged at the supposed conflict of ethics. ‘It would make winters in the country more interesting.’

Oh, it does, Stepan thought and continued up the stairs before the conversation went any further. Did Dimitri know? Was this his way of feeling out the subject? Stepan had tried very hard to keep the smuggling operation secret. If he was discovered, he alone would bear the consequences. He wanted none of his friends incriminated or used as leverage.

In his room, Stepan undressed and stretched out on the bed, planning his day. Tomorrow, he’d leave early and spend the day overseeing the unloading of the Lady Frances’s cargo at the harbour in Shoreham. Then, on the way home, he’d stop by the caves and see how the spirit distillation was getting on. That should keep him busy and out of the house and away from Anna-Maria until well after supper.

Chapter Three

Ledgers and lading papers might keep him out of the house, but they were not the most entertaining. Stepan pushed back from his desk at the dock warehouse and strode to the window, the room’s one amenity. Below him, the pier was bustling, his men sweating in the cold air as they hauled trunks of cargo from the hold to the warehouse where it would wait for wagons to take it to London. He’d been at the ledgers for hours now. He flexed his cramped hand. His body was begging for physical activity. Perhaps he’d go down and help with the hauling. That would give his muscles something to do.

He’d just decided it when there was a soft, hesitant knock on his door. ‘Come!’ Stepan answered, watching the dark head of his clerk peer around the corner, still hesitant. Oliver Abernathy was a slim, timid young man, one of his rescued boys from London with a good head for numbers.

‘There are gentlemen to see you, milord.’

Stepan glanced at the appointment diary lying open on his desk. ‘They do not have an appointment.’ Not that they needed one with Abernathy letting everyone who stopped by interrupt his work. The boy might be good with numbers, but he was a terrible gatekeeper.

‘One is a military officer, milord,’ Abernathy offered in protest as if being an officer came with the privilege to arrive unannounced.

There seemed no getting around it. By now, the gentlemen would have concluded he was indeed in. ‘Very well, send them in.’ Stepan surveyed the austere office. ‘On second thought, I will come out.’ He took a last wistful look out of the window. He would not be hauling cargo today. He straightened his coat and went to take care of business.

‘Gentlemen! To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?’ Stepan strode out of the office, all smiles and bonhomie, taking each man’s hand in turn with a firm grip. The one man in the blue coat of his station, Stepan knew: Carlton Turner, the customs officer. The other, dressed in a red coat, he did not. ‘I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, Captain, is it?’ Stepan said, taking in the man’s uniform and noting the gorget. He noted other things, too, like the tight lines about the man’s mouth, giving it a harsh quality that matched the dark eyes. This was not a kind man. Was the harshness simply from the rigors of military life or something else, deeper? Darker?

‘Your Highness, may I introduce you to Captain Denning? Captain Denning, this is Prince Shevchenko, lately of Kuban. That’s his ship you’ve been admiring this morning.’ Turner made the necessary introductions. ‘Your Highness, the captain has been assigned to Shoreham on business and I wanted him to meet some of the key importers he’ll need to work with.’

Stepan did not miss Turner’s deft positioning of the conversation and was immediately on alert. He didn’t mind Carlton Turner. Turner was a stuffy man, always a stickler for protocol, but reasonable beneath the fussiness. Stepan knew how to deal with him. As long as things were shipshape on the surface, Turner didn’t bother to probe deeper. But the man had been around a while; he knew the limitations of his authority. Captain Denning didn’t give the first impression of sharing that understanding.

‘I find business goes well with venison pie and ale this time of day,’ Stepan offered with a gesture towards the door. ‘May I invite you both to dine with me? It’s just past noon and I’m famished. The tavern up the street isn’t fancy, but the owner’s wife is a good cook.’ If circumstances were throwing him together with this Captain Denning, he needed to know more about this newcomer and decide if the captain posed a threat.

Food meant small talk and a chance to size one another up. Stepan kept the captain talking through the flaky venison pie. The man was from Derbyshire in the East Midlands, the younger son of a baron. He’d served against Napoleon in his late teens. But those were just facts. Context was everything and Turner was providing it.

Turner joined the conversation, clapping Denning on the shoulder. ‘He was relentless, keeping his troops on the field and holding ground against all odds in Spain.’ Turner’s tone suggested the comment was meant as an accolade, but the sharp glint in his eye when he met Stepan’s gaze suggested the remark was meant as more. A caution, perhaps? Until he knew otherwise, Stepan would take it as one. This was a man to whom the goal was all, the price of attaining the goal negligible.

Denning was ambitious and desperately so. Military work was slow these days with no war to fight. Consequently, advancement was, too. There was little opportunity to prove oneself, yet Denning held on to his commission when others had given up and sold out. Here was a tenacious, canny man who would stop at nothing to achieve his goal.

Stepan could have dealt with that. He understood officers, his friend Nikolay having been one in Kuban. But that was not the sum of Denning. The captain was more than determined. He was also cold. His determination sprang from ruthlessness, not relentlessness as Turner had couched it. The difference was there at the corners of his eyes where faint, early lines fanned out; there were lines, too, at the grooves at the sides of his mouth. This was an exacting man who drove those around him as hard as he drove himself. Perhaps an admirable quality in an officer on the battlefield, but a dangerous quality, as well.

Another round of ale came and the plates were cleared. ‘Tell me how I can be of service to you, Captain.’ Stepan gave permission for the conversation to move towards business now that they’d eaten.

‘A complement of my men and I will be staying at the barracks on New Barn Lane in order to investigate reports of smuggling and act accordingly should anything be found.’ Denning sat back on the bench, leaning against the wall with satisfaction. ‘I hope you and the other upstanding importers in the area will join with us.’ He gave a cold smile. ‘It’s hardly fair that you pay a legitimate tax on your goods when others do not. Everyone should be accountable to the same rules and I am here to enforce that accountability.’

Except when those taxes are unnecessarily high, Stepan thought.

What wasn’t fair was the government placing high taxes on goods and making trade in them prohibitive to all but a small wealthy class who could afford the fees. That wasn’t free trade in his mind. Trade, the right to do business and make a livelihood should be open to all, not just the prosperous. Outwardly, Stepan gave a cordial smile. There would be time enough to alienate the captain, he thought wryly. ‘Enforce? That sounds like a very menacing word.’ He’d lived under a Tsar who’d also used that word, to his detriment. That Tsar was now dead, shot on the front lawn of his palace by his constituents.

‘Of course, compliance would be preferred,’ Turner broke in. ‘If you were to hear of anything, we’d want to know.’

Stepan gave a neutral smile, aware the captain was watching him. ‘I’ll help in any way I am able.’ It was not entirely untrue. He would just not be very able.

Then the captain fired his real salvo. ‘Good. If you see or hear of anything I should be aware of, send word to the barracks. I understand Shoreham is a popular landing point because of its access to the London roads. We will be redoubling land patrols, which I think is the best way to catch any activity, and we’ll continue to co-ordinate with the navy to patrol the coastline from the water. With luck, we’ll have the rotters cleared out by May.’ Enforce indeed. The captain was only a step away from martial law.

‘Best of luck with that, Captain,’ Stepan replied in all honesty. ‘Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I have ledgers calling my name.’ He made the polite noises of leaving and maintained a sense of affability until he was back in his office. Only then did he let his thoughts run over all he’d learned. The captain had an unenviable task, not only for himself, but for the town, as well. Shoreham would not respond positively to the captain’s methods.

Smuggling in Shoreham had existed for centuries. It was unlikely the captain was going to curb it in a couple months. But Derbyshire, further inland, wasn’t known for its smuggling routes. What did a land man like Denning know about the culture of smuggling? To root out the ‘rotters’, as Denning put it, would require rooting out whole villages. But that didn’t mean Denning’s efforts could be disregarded. When Stepan met with Joseph Raleigh tonight at the caves, they had some planning to do along with their distilling. If Denning was going to impart information about his troop’s movements, Stepan was certainly going to make good use of it. It was going to be a late night.

* * *

What in the world kept a man out this late when he’d already spent the entire day at the docks? The question haunted Anna-Maria with increasing intensity as the hours after supper dragged by. She’d tried to prompt some insight out of her brother as the family had relaxed by the fire, but if Dimitri knew anything, he was close-mouthed about it. Her father had merely glanced up from the newspapers after her third attempt and fixed her with a censorious stare. ‘A man’s business is his own. A woman respects his privacy,’ he said in that scolding tone Anna-Maria knew too well. The man had spent his life reprimanding her when he bothered to notice her at all.