Seduced By The Prince’s Kiss
Evie had softened the harsh words with a smile. ‘Don’t worry about Stepan, my dear. He knows his way home and so does his horse.’
Anna didn’t bother to correct Evie’s assumption, although it did make her feel a bit guilty. Truth be told, she was not as worried over Stepan’s lateness as she was curious about the reason for it. If the others shared concern or curiosity about Stepan’s prolonged absence tonight, they didn’t show it. They gave up the vigil at half past nine, leaving Anna-Maria with her book.
* * *
It was well after eleven when Anna heard Stepan’s horse in the drive. Hurriedly, she sat and picked up the book she’d laid aside an hour ago in favour of pacing the front parlour. Pacing kept her awake. If she read, she might fall asleep and miss his return, miss her chance to badger him about his whereabouts. And he would win. She would not give him the satisfaction of outlasting her.
Anna selected a random page in the middle of the text and pretended to read. This had become a competition when he hadn’t come home for supper and Evie had held the meal for him, proof that she and Dimitri had not known he’d be so late despite their lack of concern over it. Anna gave her skirts a final fluff as footfalls sounded in the hall. She counted in her head: one, two, three steps until he’d pass the doorway to the sitting room. On cue, Anna lifted her head with slow surprise as if she was only just now aware of his presence. She managed a polite smile. ‘Oh, you’re home.’
Stepan leaned against the door frame, looking somewhat less stoic than usual. His hair was damp and tousled from night-riding, his greatcoat undone, and his eyes were...softer...instead of their usual hard granite. Tonight, they were like quicksilver moonbeams. ‘You waited up for me, Anna-Maria.’ He smiled. He never smiled unless provoked to it. And he smelled faintly of alcohol.
That’s when she knew. ‘Stepan Shevchenko, you’re foxed!’ Anna rose in chagrin. She’d waited up for him and he’d been out drinking and who knew what else!
‘I wouldn’t say “foxed” exactly, Anna-Maria. More like “a trifle disguised”, as our friends the English would say,’ He gave her a wide grin. ‘I’ve been drinking with the customs officer and his friend, Captain Denning. You should see the shape I left them in.’
‘Well, they didn’t have an hour’s ride in the dark,’ Anna chided. But she was secretly mollified. He’d spent the day at Shoreham, doing paperwork regarding his shipment of Kubanian knick-knacks and drinking with customs officers. Still, it didn’t explain where he went every day. ‘I suppose this means you’ll be at home tomorrow, then,’ Anna said with sweet nonchalance. Ships didn’t come in all the time and neither did paperwork. Surely he’d taken care of all those administrative loose ends today with the hours he’d put in.
‘Oh, no.’ Stepan pushed off the door frame. His body language said he was heading upstairs. Leaving her. ‘I’ve got to arrange for the cargo to go to the London shops and the private buyers. I’ll be busy for days yet. You’ll be lucky to see me at dinner.’
Something inside her deflated. Dinner was more exciting when Stepan was there to talk politics with her brother and father. It diverted her father’s attention away from her. ‘Men have all the fun.’ She pouted. ‘I’m bored, too, you know. I’d like to get out of the house for hours.’ An idea struck and she brightened. ‘Take me with you. I have a fair hand. I can record items for you and I love seeing all the pretty things that come in.’
Stepan shook his head. ‘The docks are no place for a young lady. Dimitri and your father would never allow it, especially with your debut coming up so soon. Besides, you can look at the pretty things right here at home.’ He reached inside his coat pocket and brought out a brown paper–wrapped package.
She took the package with delight. For a moment, she forgot to be mad at him. ‘For me?’ She unwrapped it and lifted out the small trifle box with its carefully painted lid. It was done in ice blues and lavenders, depicting a snowy Russian lake scene. She smiled. ‘It reminds me of the lake at our winter home.’ She seldom thought of Kuban fondly. Her life there had been...mixed, not all of it pleasant. There were plenty of bad memories to go with the good. But most of the good memories centred on the Petrovich winter estate. She put the box down on a side table and looked up at Stepan. He was so very tall up close. ‘Do you remember the ice-skating parties? How we would drink hot chocolate from the samovar on the lake bank? The deer that would come down to the edge of the ice?’ In her enthusiasm, she reached for Stepan’s hands and drew him out to the centre of the room with her. ‘Do you remember how you used to spin me?’
She was twirling now, taking him with her in her whirlwind of a circle. ‘We’d lean outwards and throw our heads to the sky as we spun!’ Anna laughed, tossing her head back.
‘Hush, Anna! You’ll wake the house,’ Stepan scolded, tugging at his hands. She let go, her smile fading.
‘You used to be more fun, Stepan. At least slightly. I wouldn’t go as far as to say you’ve ever been a load of fun.’ She could scold, too.
‘We all used to be a lot of things.’ Stepan bent his dark head in a stern, deferential nod, part reprimand, part apology. ‘I beg your pardon. It was not my intention to ruin your fun. Goodnight, Anna-Maria.’ He squared his shoulders and walked past her, out of the room.
Anna stomped her foot on the carpet where no one could hear. She hated when she did that, when she drove him off in her stubbornness because she had to have the last word. She spied the box and snatched it up. ‘Stepan,’ she called softly, stopping him on the stairs. She waited until he turned and she had his full attention. ‘Thank you for the gift, it’s lovely. I’m sorry.’ She wanted to say more. She was sorry for running him off, for always challenging him. ‘I don’t know why I do it,’ she lied. She knew. She did it to needle him, to jar him out of his stoic reserve in hopes of seeing what lay beneath all of that, although why it should matter so much to her, she didn’t know.
Stepan nodded. ‘It’s nothing more than winter megrims, Anna-Maria. We’ve all been indoors too long.’
Not you, she wanted to argue, but she caught herself in time. Arguing would get her nothing. ‘You’re sure I can’t come with you tomorrow? Father and Dimitri won’t mind if they know you’re there to protect me.’ She didn’t think that was entirely true, but Stepan could persuade them if he wanted to.
That was the problem. He didn’t want to. He all but ignored her request, his voice quiet and strict as he continued up the stairs. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Anna-Maria.’ So much for getting him out of his stoic reserve.
Anna crossed her arms. Fine. She’d come up with a better idea, anyway. He hadn’t said she couldn’t come, just that she couldn’t go with him. He’d said nothing about following along behind. A plan took shape. It would be easy enough to do. Evie and Dimitri were taking the baby over to Claire and Jonathon Lashley’s for a day of visiting. Her father was going along, too. They would leave in the morning. She’d have the day to herself. It would be the perfect opportunity for a little unsupervised adventure.
* * *
At least it would have been, if Stepan was actually where he’d said he’d be, Anna reflected sourly late the next morning. She was damp and cold after a rather soggy ride to the Shoreham docks, only to discover Stepan was not there. No one, apparently, had seen him yet and no one was expecting to. She stood in the shipping offices, shaking droplets from her wool riding habit and feeling foolish while she gathered her thoughts. She needed a contingency. She was reluctant to simply turn around and go home. She didn’t relish the thought of another hour of riding in the drizzle, but neither could she simply go on standing in the middle of the offices while Stepan’s clerk pitied her, his thoughts written plainly on his homely face about the sort of woman who came to the docks alone. It was embarrassing, really.
Anna was regretting her inability to follow Stepan directly. She’d not been able to leave when he’d left—which had been at sun-up. But she’d thought nothing of it at the time. He was going to the docks. She could simply follow later after Evie and Dimitri had left. But now, she had no idea where he was. She looked about the little waiting room. There wasn’t much, just a stove, a chair, the counter where the clerk worked, guarding the door to Stepan’s private office, and a loudly ticking wall clock. She flashed the clerk a smile. ‘I’ll wait a bit, if you don’t mind?’ It wasn’t really a question. She pulled the chair towards the stove. She could warm up and, with luck, Stepan would come striding through the door at any moment.
The heat felt good as she ran through possible explanations as to why Stepan wasn’t here yet even though he’d had a three-hour head start. Perhaps he’d had a delivery to make? Perhaps it was nothing so benign. Perhaps his horse had thrown a shoe and he was holed up at a smithy somewhere along the road. Even worse, maybe he’d gone home and even now was sitting comfortably in front of the fire, warm and dry. There was some irony in that, while she was cold and cross and still faced an hour’s ride home. Or perhaps he’d not told her the truth last night. He’d never intended to come to the docks today. The latter was seeming more likely as the minutes ticked by.
* * *
When she’d been there the better part of an hour, she had to admit he wasn’t coming. It did pique her curiosity, though. If he wasn’t here, where had he gone and why couldn’t he tell her about it?
She rose and the clerk eyed her from his ledgers with wary suspicion.
‘Could you possibly check his schedule diary? Perhaps I could meet him at whatever appointment he has?’ Anna asked sweetly, dazzling him with a smile that made the poor clerk blush.
He cleared his throat. ‘Mister Shevchenko is a private man, miss. I do not keep his calendar for him.’ There was a polite reprimand for her nosiness.
Would tears work? Anna wondered. They used to work a charm on Dimitri. They’d never worked on her father. ‘It’s just that I’ve ridden so far,’ she dissembled, looking down at her hands. ‘I would hate to turn back without seeing him.’
‘Oh, now, miss, don’t cry!’ The clerk sounded genuinely horrified. ‘Perhaps I could take a peep at his calendar, after all.’ He bustled away and returned shortly, wringing his hands. Bad news, then, Anna thought. ‘I am sorry, miss, there are no appointments in his diary today. As I said before, we are not expecting him.’
No appointments he wanted any record of, at any rate. Now she really did have to leave, there was no point in delaying. A glance out the window affirmed the drizzle had stopped. If she was lucky, the ride home would only be cold, but she had plenty to think about. Stepan had a secret. Was it a secret lover as she’d rashly guessed? Or something else? A little smile played on her lips as she walked back to her horse. Whatever Stepan was hiding, he didn’t want anyone knowing about it. Except that now, someone did know and that someone was her. For once, she had some leverage on him.
Chapter Four
‘You lied.’
Stepan stopped in his tired, muddy tracks, the words cutting through the preoccupation of his thoughts. A lamp flared to life in the front parlour revealing Anna-Maria bent over the flame as she replaced the glass chimney, affirmation that he had not escaped. When he’d ridden up, the house had been dark and he’d known a moment’s relief. He wouldn’t have to face her, wouldn’t have to disappoint her, wouldn’t have to be tempted by her. Last night had been rather disastrous, in that regard. On top of the ale he’d drunk at lunch with the officers there had been the vodka sampling he’d done in caves when he’d visited the boys, all of which had induced him to sentimentality. He’d given her that silly box. Her eyes had gone soft and his body had gone hard.
‘What, per se, have I lied about?’ It was late, later than it had been last night. She should be abed, yet if he was honest there’d been disappointment mixed with his relief when he’d seen the dark house. A perverse part of him liked sparring with her. It was all he could have of her, this rather odd guilty pleasure.
She came towards him. ‘You lied about where you were today.’ She paused, letting her eyes rake his appearance. ‘You were not at the shipping office. In fact, Mr Abernathy informed me you had never planned to be there today. Your appointment diary was empty.’ She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes blazing with grim satisfaction. She was waiting for his rebuttal. More than that, she was waiting for his explanation.
But she’d left herself open to a rather healthy counter-offensive. Stepan arched his eyebrow. ‘You went into Shoreham alone after I warned you about the docks last night?’ There was so much to be appalled with he wasn’t sure where to start. Did he start with the fact she’d ‘followed’ him when that could have exposed the entire operation? Or that she’d taken such a risk in travelling alone? That Abernathy had gone into his office and looked in his diary? He’d thought his young clerk was above reproach. ‘What did you bribe Abernathy with to sneak into my office?’ Stepan asked. ‘I’ll have to have words with him, perhaps dock his pay so that he learns his lesson.’
‘No!’ Anna cried. ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ she begged.
‘Oh? What exactly compelled him to look in his employer’s diary?’ Abernathy knew better. ‘You didn’t offer him money, did you?’ Stepan hoped not. If Abernathy could be bribed, it boded ill for the whole scheme. He would have to let the young man go.
A vice tightened in his chest. Please don’t let it have been for money. He didn’t want to believe he couldn’t take the street out of the boys.
‘No.’ Anna-Maria shook her head. ‘I have no money, you know that.’ He heard the resentment in her voice. Money meant freedom. He knew it better than anyone. ‘I just...’ She looked away from his stern gaze.
‘You just what?’ Stepan pressed, the vice in his chest easing a bit. He’d still have to talk to Abernathy about this breach, especially with Captain Denning in town. They couldn’t afford traitors, even small ones.
‘I smiled at him a bit. When that didn’t work, I sat in the waiting room for an hour hoping you’d come in.’ Anna-Maria bit her lip and gave a relenting sigh. ‘Then I got impatient. I might have used tears,’ she admitted with a quick rejoinder, ‘but it’s your fault. I never would have needed to do it if you’d been there in the first place. You told me you were doing accounts.’ She was tenacious in her anger. Heaven help a husband if he ever ran afoul of her.
At least it had taken Abernathy an hour to succumb. That did say something about the boy’s resolution. ‘Since when do I answer to you, miss, about my whereabouts?’
She gave him a long look that swept him from head to toe and lingered on his boots. ‘Since you can’t admit where you’ve been and come home with wet sand on your boots.’ Her gaze caught his. ‘That’s not the mud of Little Westbury.’ She stepped close to him, too close. He could smell the scents of lemon and lavender on her and she could smell him. She reached up on her tiptoes and sniffed near his ear. ‘Wind and salt, Stepan? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d been to the seashore.’
She cocked her head, her sharp mind assimilating the information. ‘You were in Shoreham today, just not at the office,’ she accused with an authority that rivalled a barrister, ‘which leads me to conclude you were indeed with a woman.’ Anna-Maria gave a toss of her head. ‘You’re having an affair.’
‘It is not your business, Anna-Maria,’ Stepan warned. Did the minx not know when to stop? No gently bred young girl called out an older man on his private affairs. No gently bred girl was supposed to know about such things and, if she did, she was to pretend she did not. But Anna-Maria was all dark-haired defiance as she stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing. He’d have liked to scold her and say defiance did not become her, but it did. She was magnificent in her accusations and he was a powder keg primed to explode after three and a half months under the same roof with her. A woman could not provoke a man thusly without consequences.
He stalked her, encroaching on her space as she did his, making her aware of him with every step, of his height, of the piercing intensity of his gaze. There would be gentlemen in London who would make her aware of much more if she wasn’t careful.
Anna-Maria took a step backwards, her eyes glinting, but wary now. Good. She should be wary. A man aroused was a dangerous creature. Her back was to the wall and she could retreat no further. Stepan rested an arm above her head, his gaze intent on her face. ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To jar me out of what you call my complacency? To break my stoic reserve?’ His eyes lingered on her mouth, ‘Well, now you’ve done it, my sweet girl, and there is a price to pay for waking the sleeping dog.’ Anna-Maria’s gaze dropped. ‘Are you prepared to pay it?’ He would be toyed with no longer.
He captured her mouth in a hard kiss meant to demonstrate his point, but Anna-Maria wasn’t ready to admit defeat. Her mouth moved beneath his, opening in answer to his press. Her body moved against his. He intensified the kiss, his hand at her neck, keeping her close, as he claimed deep access to her mouth, his tongue testing and tasting her. What a heady elixir it was to drink of her naïve boldness, the innocent curiosity waking in his arms.
He had not expected it to go this far. He’d expected her to be frightened long before his body roused, but her curiosity was fast outpacing his ability to keep his body in check. Soon, the masculine hardness of his response would be in evidence. Perhaps it would be for the best that she encounter all the consequences of her behaviour. This was not a harmless game she played. She gave a sudden gasp. The moment he felt her hesitate, he stopped. He pulled back from their embrace, creating much-needed space between them.
Her eyes were wild and questioning, her hair had come down from its pins and her lips were puffy. She looked precisely like what she was: a beautiful woman halfway seduced. If Dimitri were to walk in at this moment there would be no explanation other than the truth: that he’d kissed Anna-Maria up against the sitting-room wall. Never mind he’d felt prompted to do so after months of provocation or that he’d done it out of some misguided notion of teaching her the finer points of dealing with gentlemen. Stepan didn’t think those arguments would go far with Dimitri.
Anna-Maria smoothed her hands over her skirt. He gave her time to gather her shaken composure. That was his second mistake. The first had been giving in to her game. He saw that now. Whatever advantage he might have gained in his ambush was lost when she raised her head and met his gaze. ‘Why did you do that? What did you think to prove?’
He should have pressed his advantage when he’d had the chance. ‘You’ve been flirting with me.’ He waved a hand when she tried to protest. ‘Admit it, Anna-Maria, you’ve been cutting your teeth on me all winter and why not?’ Stepan growled. ‘There’s very little appropriate male society to practise on in these parts.’ He was rewarded with a slight flush creeping up her cheeks. The little minx didn’t like being caught out. ‘Be warned, Anna-Maria, I am no green ham-handed boy like the Squire’s son, willing to be led about by the nose because a pretty girl smiled my way. Neither am I a dissipated gentleman with finer clothes than manners who would not have stopped this evening.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this your way of saying I should be thanking you for the experience?’ She was far too saucy for a girl who’d just been delivered her comeuppance.
‘It’s my way of alerting you to the lesson that desire is power—a sword to be wielded, a currency that can be bartered by any man or woman. Be careful, Anna-Maria, you are a beautiful woman and a susceptible one. You are not fully aware of the weapon you possess in your face alone.’ To say nothing of her body, of the passion that coursed through her.
Stepan’s hands fisted at his sides. He was deuced uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. This was why young girls needed their mothers. Mothers were supposed to teach those lessons, not nominal uncles. Least of all him. What did he know of family? Of mothers and daughters and preparation for marriage? He knew nothing even of fathers and sons. His own father had decided he wasn’t worth raising well before he’d reached adulthood.
Anna-Maria gave him a wry smile. ‘I think there might be a compliment in there somewhere for me. I will pretend there is. I will pretend you called me beautiful and that my beauty wasn’t an insult or a plague to be protected against as my father suggests.’ She laughed harshly. ‘Would you prefer it if I went around veiled so that I would not be a Jezebel enticing men to their doom?’
‘I was being honest.’ Which, apparently, he couldn’t be without having his words come back to haunt him. He’d not meant to imply she was to blame for a lack of male self-control. Nor had he meant to align himself with the cruel opinions of her father. He owed the old man a debt of gratitude. The man had been nothing but gracious to him, treating him as a second son, yet Stepan could not condone the way the man treated his daughter. He’d had the nagging suspicion over the years that if Anna had been born male her mother’s death would have been forgiven.
‘I thought we’d left such old-fashioned nonsense behind us in Kuban,’ Anna-Maria argued. ‘I thought you believed a woman should have the same freedoms in society a man had?’
‘I do,’ Stepan protested.
‘Unless that woman is me?’ She pierced him with a stare. He knew impending defeat when he heard it. He wasn’t going to win this.
‘You should talk to Evie about these things.’ He stepped back, looking to retreat the field.
‘Evie doesn’t know about “these things”,’ Anna-Maria snapped. ‘How could she? She has two parents who raised her. She’s lived the entirety of her life in Little Westbury surrounded by safety and love. Her parents saw to it, her friends saw to it and now my brother sees to it. Their child will grow up with the same.’
‘Lower your voice,’ Stepan cautioned. ‘You’ll wake the house.’ The warning was inadequate and frankly a non sequitur. He chose not to address the wistful envy behind her words. It was an envy he knew well. How many times had he held Dimitri’s infant son and thought the same? Dimitri’s boy would grow up never knowing a lack of affection, never doubting his worth, his acceptance.
Anna-Maria did not heed his request. She was angry now and she was exacting revenge for his madness over the kiss. ‘Evie is not like us. She knows nothing of being raised without parents, without a family, of being looked upon as an inconvenient nuisance by one’s own father.’
‘You had Dimitri,’ Stepan reminded her. He would not tolerate his friend being maligned. At twelve, Dimitri had taken on the responsibility of caring for a newborn and he’d never laid down that burden. Nor did he like the reminder of those painful similarities between them.
‘But for the single variable of my brother, both of us would have been entirely alone,’ Anna-Maria said sharply. ‘Why won’t you admit that we’re more alike than the others? That we’re both lost souls, surrounded by people who have found theirs.’
‘You are not lost, Anna-Maria,’ Stepan countered argumentatively even as the words caught him by surprise. Was that how she saw herself? He’d not once thought the vivacious Anna-Maria, the beloved centre of her brother’s life, a girl who had everything, felt lost. The very image of Anna-Maria being lost cut at him. He and the others had joined Dimitri in that fight years ago to protect Anna-Maria from the cruelties of their world, from the hurt of a father who did not acknowledge her existence because her life had stolen the life of the woman he loved. For her to feel lost implied their efforts had been for naught, that the fight had been lost along with her—a fight for which Stepan had fought harder than the others because he knew first-hand what awaited her if they were not victorious. He had a twelve-year head start on her. He already knew what it was to grow up empty, passed from nanny to nanny, tutor to tutor, valet to valet, growing up with the trappings of wealth and physical security, but not real security—the security of knowing one had love and a family and a place where one would always belong.