Royal Renegade (20 page)

His hand moved up her arm and came to rest on her shoulder. With an attempt at a laugh, Tatiana replied, "Louise will be so disappointed."

"My resistance to abusing my authority is tenuous of a sudden. But Louise has nothing to do with it." Now both hands were on her shoulders, sliding down her back, drawing her against him. She closed her eyes to his silver gaze and rested her cheek against the fine linen covering his hard chest, sliding her hands under his coat to touch his sinewy back. She could hear the steady beat of his heart, feel the comforting rhythm of his breathing. But that rhythm accelerated and then halted, and his arms tightened about her until she was as breathless as he. With a curious hand, he caressed the back of her neck, the roughness of his fingertips sending tantalizing pulses through her. Then he tilted her face up and, when she finally opened her eyes, kissed her. Gently at first, his mouth teased hers, his tongue lightly tracing the boundaries of her lips. All the while he studied her, his enigmatic eyes searching hers for some answer. But the teasing kiss turned intense, and she never could seem to breathe again, and how could she give him an answer when she didn't even know the question? She had to close her eyes, for it was all so overwhelming: his hands, so rough and gentle; the barely sheathed power of his kiss; his searching, demanding gaze; her langorous, treacherous response.

And then his mouth left hers bereft, and he whispered warm against her ear, "Think of something happy, Tatiana." Puzzled but obedient, she thought of their evening in France, of the warmth of the fire and Michael's easy confidences, and her mouth curved unconsciously into a smile. She felt him sigh, his chest pressing against her, then he kissed the dimple in her cheek almost reverently. "I've been wanting to do that—oh, all my life, I think."

But as he touched her cheek where the dimple had been, his calloused hand reminded her that he was a soldier as well as a lord, and she was a princess, not a maid, and that their nations were making tentative steps toward peace ... It was all quite an impossible coil, and she couldn't bear it any longer. "I wish—"

As her voice trailed off yearningly, he dropped a light kiss on the side of her mouth. "I know," he said, letting her go, and she sensed that he did know, and she wished he would tell her, for she didn't know herself.

He tucked away a red curl which had worked its way loose from the neat chignon Louise had fashioned, and straightened her no longer so stiff apron. "You need only to brandish a feather duster, and no one will ever guess you were born a princess." His firm mouth quirked into an almost-smile, an unfamiliarly cynical sort of look at odds with his roughly gentle touch. "I shall never forget, however, that you are the granddaughter of a king, and a great-grandniece of Empress Maria Theresa, and a descendant of Peter the Great, and a connection of the Tudors, not just those upstart Stuarts and Hanovers."

"Don't," she whispered, turning blindly away from him, her fists clenching at her side, anguish building in her chest at his taunting.

Then she felt his hand slide down her arm and heard his longing words, "Don't forget me, Tatiana."

Chapter Twelve

London

Three days later Tatiana found herself installed in a luxurious suite in the London home of the Countess of Sherbourne. After the long journey from Southampton, this was her first moment truly alone, and she savored it. She would have little enough solitude in the future, if Lady Sherbourne had her way. But that's what you wanted, she reminded herself, parties and society and lots of charming people. You had enough of solitude in the Winter Palace.

The princess sat cross-legged, almost sinking into a soft feather bedspread with a coverlet of shell-pink satin. Her capacious bedchamber was opulent in a frankly feminine way, as if Lady Sherbourne's decorator had decided to fulfill the secret desires of every romantic novel-reading fourteen-year-old girl. And as Tatiana had not so long ago been exactly such a girl, she admired the trailing pink gossamer of canopy over her head, the delicate white filigree bedstead, the rose-patterned carpet plush enough to sleep on, the rose velvet draperies trimmed with gold braid, the creamy marble hearth with its dancing flames, the white and gold armoire, and the fragile vanity table covered with lovely crystal bottles and jars. The entire effect was exactly like the picture of the princess's chamber in Buntin's favorite romance,
The Royalist's Revenge
: a lush display of wealth and whimsy and womanhood.

And after the cobbler's cottage in France, and Michael's elegantly lonely villa, her chamber seemed ostentatiously and utterly false.

At least it was gratifying to be treated royally for a change. Tatiana had been given the most ornate suite of rooms overlooking the walled garden, offered the most delicate sweetmeats and tenderest wines, bathed and powdered and cosseted like a prize Pekingese. Cluttering the gilt foyer tables downstairs was further evidence of her royal welcome: the silver engraved cards of invitation from the queen and the Prince Regent, and towering bunches of flowers from a few cabinet members and the French monarchy in exile, so far the only ones alerted to her arrival in town.

And Tatiana had been treated from the first with the utmost ingratiation, the likes of which she had never known. The countess, though she spoke with an annoyingly managing tone, said "Your Royal Highness" so often and so warmly that Tatiana thought her in love with the words. The few servants allowed into the royal presence backed out of the room bowing as if Tatiana were the pope instead of a mere princess of minor note. Tatiana chuckled, thinking that back in Russia she would still be scrubbing the grimy faces of the children of servants like these. Her laughter was arrested by a wave of longing for those simple children with their innocent acceptance of her real, not royal, self. But it was too late to turn back now: she was indisputably a royal personage with royal prerogatives and all the attendant royal persiflage.

It had all been so disorienting, this last few days. After that tantalizing moment with Michael, she had been whisked away by General Sir Robert and Lady Akers. She'd give a pony to live through that meeting again. Distracted as she was by Michael's suddenly distant manner, she hadn't fully enjoyed the astonishment of the Akers when they were introduced to a chambermaid, complete with white apron and the imposing title of "The Princess Tatiana of Saraya Kalin." Kind but uncomprehending, they took her in their carriage to their home after Michael left to track down poor Captain Dryden. The next morning, Buntin arrived, stunned by sequential losses of her charge to the sea and the air, but could do nothing but hold Tatiana's hand and weep all the way to Southampton.

There the royal escort Major Lord Devlyn successfully completed his commission, delivering his package directly to the Foreign Office representative in Southampton one week ahead of schedule. Tatiana had not spoken to Michael during that day's journey, for he had ridden alongside the carriage on his restive black stallion as she sat with Buntin and the courteous Lady Akers. And in Southampton, there was no time or privacy for a farewell. She could only hug to herself the memory of looking back at him as she was handed into yet another luxurious but uncrested carriage for the ride to the government house apartments. His gaze was curiously intent, and his lips moved silently just for a moment. Was he wishing her a final farewell as she embarked on her new life?

Angrily she punched the rotund pillow in its satin cover. Surely no one actually slept on such slippery material; last night her head kept slipping right off the pillow! She would have to ask for a good honest percale pillowslip— Would she ever see Michael again? He had spoken about going back to the war, to his position on Wellington's staff. But during their balloon ride, hadn't he said he would be in London if she needed him? Of course, he had just kissed her, or had been just about to kiss her, and she wasn't able to pay very much mind to his words. But he had whispered that she had to promise him to turn to him first when she was in need, and she had promised, and then he had kissed her— Surely that meant he planned to be in London, for she could hardly send to the Peninsula for his aid, could she? She should be insulted, that he was so sure that she would make a mull of her debut in society and require his rescue once again. But she wasn't insulted, she was only missing him and his quiet aloneness and his sweet, reluctant smile.

"You have to stop this." Her words came out harsh in the opulent room. She squeezed her hands tight together, glad of the pain for it reminded her of that painful reality. Whatever she wanted—what she couldn't even imagine having—could not be. It was no use even thinking of it. She couldn't keep going round and round thinking of him, longing for him, for that spiral of thought led inexorably inward to an agonizing realization. She had to stop before she reached that inner point of truth and its attendant despair.

Michael had already done so, she thought, flexing her aching fingers, then pressing them together against her mouth. That was what he meant when he pleaded "Don't forget me." He didn't want her to forget those days and nights of companionship, of equality, now that she had become a princess again, a royal bride, a diplomatic device. But at least they had those memories left. That was his farewell to her.

Tatiana closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly in a long sigh. Think of something else, she commanded her disordered brain. And, obligingly, an image of John Dryden appeared in the darkness. Until the squire had mistaken them, she'd never noticed how he resembled Michael. But they were both tall and gray-eyed, with sharply planed faces and dark curly hair. Captain Dryden's face was more mysterious, with winged brows over hooded eyes, exactly what she expected on an outlaw. But Michael was handsomer, his features still and arrogant

Captain Dryden. She wrenched her thoughts back in line. She'd never seen him to say goodbye and apologize for falling out of his sloop and then preferring the balloon as a channel transport, after he had gone to so much trouble to find them in Cotentin. She would write him a note of gratitude, she determined. She opened her eyes, sighing again, glad of a distracting task.

A young maid with the wary eyes and tense stance of a deer about to take flight appeared almost immediately after Tatiana pulled the bell rope. It was disconcerting to be the object of such attention, for she was never so well served in the Winter Palace. "I'd like to write a note, please. May I have a sheet of paper and a cover and pen and ink?"

The maid reappeared in a moment with the requested material. "You did say a sheet of paper, Your Royal Highness. I would have brought more, but I didn't want to give offense." She looked so terrified there, wringing her hands over the awful dilemma between doing the sensible thing and following a princess's orders to the letter, that Tatiana smiled and insisted that truly she wanted only one sheet of paper, only one indeed. The maid curtseyed three times as she backed out of the suite, leaving the princess longing for a maid with Louise's unservile confidence.

Tatiana went into the adjoining sitting room, glad that she was not writing a scorching letter of reprimand, as the dainty cherry desk under the window would surely collapse beneath the slightest untoward emotion. Fortunately, her feelings toward Captain Dryden were warm and uncomplicated. But she was unused to writing letters in English and uncertain of the forms and standards of this sort of correspondence. So she wrote her thanks carefully, mindful that she had only the one sheet of paper. Unfortunately, after she penned, "I have never been so happy as on your lovely boat," she recalled that Captain Dryden had always been very particular that the Coronale was a sloop, not a boat. Sailors took great stock in such semantical distinctions, she suspected, and she wondered if she should cross the offending word out. But that would look botched, and he might be able to read through the crosshatches and see that incriminating noun. So very carefully she wrote over it, squeezed an
s
in front and turned the
b
into an
1
, changed the a into an
o
, and lengthened the
t
so that it could be taken for a
p
. Then, wary of making more mistakes, she closed the letter, "Remaining always your friend, The Princess Tatiana."

After a moment's thought, she added a postscript. "Please forgive my odd handwriting, for I am used to writing in Russian and am not accustomed to English letters." That wasn't precisely true, for most of her correspondence, like most of her conversations, had been conducted in French, which shared an alphabet with English. But perhaps that would persuade Captain Dryden not to look any closer at that strangely inscribed
sloop
.

She addressed the cover to the apothecary shop in Devlyn, figuring that the captain would receive it eventually. And if his censorious father should happen to open the letter, all the better. If Mr. Dryden—Mr. Manning, she reminded herself—thought his son's profession brought him into contact with princesses, perhaps he would be more accepting of John's lapses from lawfulness.

She was just folding away the letter when the countess knocked and entered. "Oh, no, Princess Tatiana, do not rise on my account," she declared as Tatiana stood up, the better to hide her stockinged feet under her skirt. Lady Sherbourne waved a stately arm, taking in the entire four rooms that made up Tatiana's apartment. "I hope you find your suite to your liking, Your Royal Highness," she said, the pronouncement rolling out from the majestic bosom covered in the royalest of purples.

"It's very impressive," Tatiana replied, trying out a similarly sweeping gesture with her less substantial arm. She thought she had done a good job embracing the sitting room's rose and gold flecked wallpaper, the doughy ivory satin loveseats, and the cushiony nude reclining on the west wall. "Romantic. Almost a dream come true."