Royal Renegade (28 page)

Glad of the diversion, Tatiana asked, "Well, surely you can find some place for her on your estate? She's very sweet, and so lonely for home I think she would work hard just out of gratitude. And she'll need some money to buy passage to her home. I have funds in the Bank of England, but I haven't the slightest clue how to get at them."

"I suppose I could spot you the fiver or so. And I could get her a ticket on the stage. You'd have no clue how to do that either, would you? Any other goodwill missions for me, Your Highness?"

Tentatively she held out the letter written on the heavy sketching paper. "Could you post Betsy's letter for me?"

He hefted it and finally, with a great show of reluctance, agreed. "You princesses have no notion of economy, do you? There is thinner paper for correspondences, you know. This could be framed and hung in a portrait gallery."

"It was all I had," Tatiana replied with dignity. "And I can't ask Wellesley to frank another letter for me. He was so queer about the one I sent to Captain Dryden."

"The one that's caused such a stir in my village? Apothecaries don't usually get letters franked by cabinet members, you know."

The laughter in his cloudy eyes told her that just for the moment he had decided to forget all that stood between them. Just for the moment they were friends again, as they had been on their voyage. She smiled up at him, confiding, "You know, I've never taught the Roman alphabet before, only the Cyrillic. They are very similar, you know."

"Show me." He moved very close to her, one arm behind her shoulders on the back of the bench, as she drew the Russian alphabet on the sketch pad.

"We Russians are so isolated, you see, that we made our own alphabet and even our own calendar. We've never accepted the Gregorian calendar, you see, so we are ten days behind the rest of the world." She looked up from the alphabet to find him studying her rather than her writing. Suddenly shy—she who had never known shyness before—she transferred her gaze back to her sketch pad. Gratefully she recalled that she was angry with him and was able then to regard him coldly. "I was surprised to see you at the ball last night. Did you enjoy yourself?" she asked with a hint of hauteur, recalling that he had spent all his time with a woman who could only be Lady Harburton.

As if in response to her provocative tone, Devlyn leaned back, his body still close to hers but not making contact. "I saw a few old friends. Otherwise, you were the only interesting feature." He took her sketchbook and idly flipped to the next page. "London is a trifle dull, especially after my adventures on the high seas. I've been thinking of joining the navy, or at least the free traders. Of course, I probably wouldn't have any adventures if you were not on board. So I suppose I'll rejoin the General in Portugal after all."

Tatiana's hands had begun to tremble, so she gripped her pencil until it snapped under her fingers. She stared dumbly at the fragments and the powder left on her fingers. Wordlessly, Michael produced a snowy handkerchief and, taking the pencil pieces from her, dusted her hands.

Now she rubbed the handkerchief between her fingers, feeling the gentle roughness of the linen against her skin. Finally she found her voice. "Must you go back?"

He shrugged, as if it were of no consequence, and dropped the broken pencil behind the bench. "I am a soldier, have you forgotten?"

"Almost," she whispered. Then she managed a crooked smile. "I do notice how devastating you are in your uniform. But there are so many men in uniform here, and none of them are fighting. It's easy to forget about the war."

"So the Hyde Park Hussars have found. But I can't forget, you know. It's been my life for six years now."

Impulsively she took his hand, cold now, for he had removed his fine leather glove. "Why must you go back? You could work here—for Wellesley or Liverpool or even the Regent. He likes you so well, if only," she essayed with a laugh, "because you wear a uniform so dashingly. But I—I could get you a position." Blushing now, she explained, "I am a princess, you know, and a connection of the prince, and I think I need only drop a word."

"Don't." His voice was harsh, and he paused until he could speak more calmly. "Why do you think I would want a useless position at Horse Guards or Whitehall?"

Because I am here, she cried silently, but she could not say it aloud. "I suppose you'd find it rather flat."

"I joined to drive Napoleon back into France, and I will see it through, even if it takes years. But I think," he added carefully, "that the beginning of the end is here."

"But if you are hurt—"

Devlyn absently touched the emerald ring she wore on her right hand. "I won't be." He tilted his head to look at her, his expression grave. There was a promise in that gaze, and a question, but she could not quite read them. "I think I lead a charmed life, for I've been fighting all these years, under General Stuart and Sir John Moore and General Wellington, and I've never been so much as scratched. Most of my comrades have not been so fortunate."

His gaze was steady, inquiring, but she dropped her eyes in confusion. Did he want her to say that she didn't mind that he was leaving her alone? That he had her blessing in returning to the war? But she couldn't tell such a lie, even with all the lessons she had learned in prevarication. She wanted nothing so much as to beg him to stay. Even if she only glimpsed him occasionally, even if they never spoke more than formally, if he were to stay in London, she might somehow be able to bear all the rest.

But he was going to leave her here, to face her future alone. The war had been his life, that war that shaped his future and would inevitably shape hers. Hatred rose in her, for Bonaparte and Alexander and all those men who made war to fulfill some sense of destiny, only to destroy the destiny of so many others.

But she forced back that useless anger. The world was not being run for her convenience, something her life should have taught her long since. As she thought back on her life and his, self-pity succumbed to pity and finally to empathy. They were both of them true orphans, destined to be alone in life. She was isolated by the royal birth that made her a pawn in the play of two monarchs and doomed her to an empty future. He was alone by nature, having so carefully hoarded himself that no one could ever reach him—except Tatiana. She had reached him, touched that true Michael, she knew it. They might save each other, if only they could.

He was studying her again, only now his eyes were watchful. He was waiting for her to speak some fateful words, some rash declaration that would settle their fates once and for all. But she could only plead silently, Why can't we, and don't go. His eyes flared briefly with anger, and she looked away, tormented by the impossibility of it all. Suddenly she could bear it no longer; she had to break the spell.

"Have you seen my caricatures?" she asked brightly, shoving her sketch pad back into his hand. "I went to Astley's Circus and that night I had the most impressive dream that—no, don't laugh, Michael, Russians are very serious about their dreams. We are a most mystical race."

"Of course, forgive me for venturing to doubt that," Devlyn replied, and his eyes went silver with laughter. He seemed more peaceful suddenly, as if a decision had been reached. "Do go on, tell me about this impressive dream."

"Why, all the animals and all the people I have met here merged, you see—"

"I don't see, but it sounds most improper."

"That isn't what I mean! Here, see what I have drawn? In my dream, Lady Sherbourne appeared as a lion. And look!" She was very proud of this drawing, for the countess's fierce features were blended into the facial structure of a lion, and the elaborate coiffure had become the lion's ample mane.

"Very appropriate," Michael marveled, "except this seems to be a male lion, with that mane, and the countess, I have always assumed, is female. Not that I have any direct evidence for that."

"You are consumed with detail, Michael. I suppose that makes you a good staff officer, but it is not a trait that befits a patron of the arts. Now here is the Prince Regent, as the indolent sloth."

"Yes, having him hang upside down from his scepter is especially intriguing, not to say treasonous. I await your rendition of Cumberland."

They had been sitting close together, their knees touching, their shoulders in tangent, as they looked over her work. But Devlyn's casual mention of the royal duke forced a distance between them. "I—I haven't drawn him. It didn't seem precisely right, somehow. Since—"

"Yes." Devlyn carefully turned back the pages of the sketchpad, closed it, and handed it back to her. You are quite talented at caricature. I haven't seen anything as lively or amusing in the windows at Printers' Alley. If you weren't a princess, you could make a handsome living at this."

She longed to recapture the laughing mood they had shared for a moment, but it was gone, and with it their precarious intimacy. He rose, and she reached up to take his hand. "Michael," she whispered in anguish, gazing unseeing through a haze of pain, "I wish—"

"Your Highness!"

At the scandalized out-of-breath cry, Tatiana let her hand drop back into her lap. Buntin had started calling her that when they reached London, as if suddenly she was aware of the new value of Tatiana's royal birth. "You must go."

Devlyn, towering over her, leaned down to touch her. His calloused hand was oddly gentle on her cheek. "Trust me, Tatiana."

He left the way he came, scrambling up the wall like a boy and springing lithely over the top. He was gone when Buntin came stumbling into the arbor, a cloak hastily pulled over her shoulders, a hand on her frail chest. "Your Highness, how could you? The countess saw you from the upstairs window! She will ring such a peal over you!"

"I don't care," Tatiana said, rising from her seat and staring at the wall as if she could will him back. "I'm so tired of being proper."

"But you haven't been proper at all. And today—meeting the viscount in the garden—the countess—"

The countess waited rigidly at the French doors of the gallery, her face awful with outrage. Medea herself could not have appeared so coldly furious, Tatiana thought, envisioning another creature. "In the drawing room. Now."

Tatiana merely tilted up her chin and returned the chill gaze, until the countess added grudgingly, "If you please, Your Highness."

In the drawing room the princess sat in the middle of the red silk love seat, her hands folded in her lap. Lady Sherbourne required proximity for the proper sort of intimidation, and so was forced to perch carefully on an adjacent bamboo chair designed for a much frailer oriental lady. They remained in hostile silence until the footman brought tea, then the countess, with false solicitousness, begged the princess to join her in a light snack. Tatiana warmed her hands around the wafer-thin porcelain cup, wondering if Michael had left his gloves where he had dropped them on the bench.

When they were alone again, with brutal suddenness, Lady Sherbourne unsheathed her claws. "Do you think you are some kitchen maid, meeting a man surreptitiously in my garden?"

Tatiana's head snapped up and her lethargy fell away at this insult. "Do you think you are my jailer, turning my friend away from seeing me? I think you forget yourself, my lady, or you forget who I am."

The countess's leonine head reared back, and the fragile chair squeaked alarmingly. "No, it is you who forget who you are! You are a Romanov, a princess of the blood royal! You aren't some ordinary girl to be swept off her feet by the attentions of some handsome soldier! Your nation has sent you on this essential mission. Like Major Devlyn, you are a soldier fighting Napoleon! And you cannot desert the cause!"

"I am not deserting the cause." Tatiana refused to be cowed by the countess's bullying tactics. Deliberately she leaned closer and plucked a ladyfinger from the tray of biscuits that still sat on the countess's lap. "I was merely meeting a friend, the man who saved my life. And when you instruct your butler to turn my friends away, you are insulting us both."

"Insulting you?" Impatiently, the countess set the biscuit tray on a lacquer table between their seats, then clasped her hands sincerely against her impressive bosom. "My dear, I am trying to save you! Don't you understand that your friendship will be misinterpreted?" She inclined her head to one side and regarded her charge sapiently. Or perhaps it won't be such a misinterpretation after all. Are you in love with Devlyn?"

"No," Tatiana said in a clear voice. Her hand trembled, sloshing tea out of the cup into her lap. Carefully she set the saucer and cup down on the table next to the biscuits.

"And is he in love with you?"

"No." She found Michael's handkerchief in her pocket and used it to dab at the tea stain on her beige wool skirt.

The countess's austere features softened a bit. "Of course he is. Enough to ruin his life? Perhaps. He's a young fool, despite his cool head."

"You needn't worry. He's going back to the war soon." Tatiana's voice faded as she recalled his last words to her. Trust me, he had said. What did he mean? Trust him not to die? Trust him to come back someday?

"Good for him. He's a patriot, you know. Oh, he's not one for the blazing speeches and calls of glory. But his love for Britain is heartfelt, isn't it? It must be, for he's fought for us since he was little more than a boy. He takes the long view, doesn't he? He must, if he works for Wellington! Bit by bit, they drive the French back. Bit by bit, they each do their part." The countess yanked impatiently at her mauve bombazine skirt, caught under her ample thighs and impeding her impressive gesturing. "And you must do your little part, too, for your country and for his."

Tatiana shook her head blindly, for the countess's words were so persuasive, so compelling, so true. So hurtful. "How long have you been rehearsing this speech?"

The countess ignored this and pressed on, her hands making gentle waves in the air. "Devlyn could be promoted to colonel, I hear. Over several more senior officers. Oh, yes, Your Highness, I keep my ear to the ground. I keep track of our men in uniform. And I knew Devlyn's father, years ago. Nick Dane was a worthless wastrel, to be sure. He did have a way with the ladies, of course, but he never did a day's good for anyone. Devlyn is so much more of a man than his father ever was. And his worth is recognized. You know yourself how impressive he is in his quiet way. It's not just the uniform, although he is a handsome fellow—nearly as handsome as his father. But calm, intelligent—even brilliant. Wellington thinks so. At Horse Guards they say Wellington is grooming Devlyn for a top position—general before he is three-and-thirty. What do you think of that?"