Royal Renegade (9 page)

"What happened to your parents?"

A cloud passed over the moon, dimming its radiance. "Papa was overcome by it all. He wandered around like a madman all that next week. He couldn't leave off talking about it. He kept hugging me and saying that Alexander never meant for it to happen. And then one morning my Uncle Dmitry came into our apartment and spoke sharply to Papa. I was supposed to be in the schoolroom, but I was eavesdropping again. He said Papa would have to be quiet, that the tsar had died of apoplexy and everyone knew it. And Papa said, no, they killed him, we all killed him. That evening a few of Papa's friends came, and Maman and he had to pack very quickly. I found the tiara where I had dropped it under her dressing table and brought it to her, but she said she wouldn't need her jewels in Siberia. She said they would send for me when the winter was over. But by then they were both dead."

Lord Devlyn was kind enough not to look at her, but only stared out to sea. "Were the others exiled?"

"Oh, no. Only Papa. They couldn't trust him to keep silent. I’ve always wondered if it was really lung fever that killed them."

She'd never spoken that thought aloud before, and though she didn't look at the major, she could sense his shock. So she hastened on, afraid he would withdraw from her. "So I stayed in the Winter Palace. Twenty-five hundred rooms—it's an enormous place. I never saw any of Papa's old friends. When Alexander sent me off to marry Cumberland, it was the first time I'd seen him in years. Now he will never have to see me again—and I shall be joining another happy royal family."

Lord Devlyn was about to speak, but suddenly Tatiana couldn't bear to hear his sympathy or his horror or whatever emotion he was hiding behind those cool gray eyes. With desperate gaiety, she pointed to the eastern horizon with a hand that trembled slightly. "Look, there's the dawn! I do believe we've stayed up all night. How decadent of us! That bodes well for our friendship, losing sleep so soon!"

Devlyn withdrew perceptibly, pushing away from the railing, his face set like marble. "I think it would be best if you did not come out without your companion again."

Tatiana drew back as if he had slapped her. How foolish she had been to imagine that they could be friends, to tell him all her secrets, to expect him to understand, to think him different from all the others. She crossed her arms defensively against her chest, closing her eyes against the coldness of his regard, murmuring silently to herself some soothing words—it's all right, I am here, it is all right.

Then she heard his quiet voice and opened her eyes to see his reluctant smile. "But we both know, don't we, Your Highness, that you never do as you're told."

Chapter Six

Devlyn leaned against the rail, glad for the salt chill of the night breeze. It was too close in his cabin, or perhaps he had merely, at this late date in his life, developed a dislike for enclosed spaces. No doubt it was a reaction to three months spent supervising the digging of trenches around the army camp at Torres Vedras, that duty being another one of Wellington's little tests.

Now he found himself waiting for her, the back of his neck prickling with each sound audible over the light wind. It was no use supposing that she would come to her senses and realize the impropriety of leaving her cabin at night. In fact, he suspected she knew exactly how improper their previous encounter had been, and she would make haste to repeat it. And why not, for he had as much as invited her.

Why me? The plaintive question he had addressed to Wellesley came back to him. Why do people confide in me? Of all the officers in Portugal, Major Devlyn was the one young troopers came to cry to when their girls back home jilted them or their ailing mothers sent letters begging them to come home. But he saw himself as a most unlikely confidant, for he wasn't one to give advice or even sympathy. And he had never, in his entire life, confided in anyone else. But all too often he became the unwilling recipient of confidences and confessions.

He supposed he was a good listener, for he did listen, never interpreting or interrupting with well-meant counsel. His supplicants could trust him to be discreet, too, for he'd no more talk about their troubles than his own.

Now this unwanted ability had gotten him into trouble. For the five or six weeks remaining in the voyage, he would have the little princess hanging about him, burdening him with her cheery chatter and shattering revelations. But it was his own fault. It was his own curiosity that prompted her horrifying little confidence. Even after that, he could have sent her away and kept her away with a few more harsh words. But when she flinched at his coldness, when she had to hug herself for comfort, he saw that ten-year-old orphan, abandoned and bereft and trying to be brave. And he had surrendered to sympathy.

Idiot, he told himself. Now she is yours for life.

Devlyn was surprised to find himself remembering his own benighted youth. Ordinarily he wasn't one to reminisce, especially about that bleak period. He was unused to being alone with his thoughts, that must be the problem. Here on the open sea, he had no troops to outfit, no quartermasters to extort, no maps to draw or battlefields to scout. His mind was entirely free of the thousand details that generally filled it. And into that echoing void flowed the most idiotic notions.

Perhaps it was seeing Dryden again that brought it all back to him, for John had been with his homemade sailboat an intrinsic part of Devlyn's youth. Or perhaps the little princess's intimate revelations opened up the vein of memory. For he too had been orphaned by the acts of an irresponsible father. Only he had learned from his father's mistakes, learned discretion and caution and when to cut his losses. The princess, he thought, had learned only how to smile radiantly in the darkness.

How sad she was, he thought dispassionately, gazing off into his own darkness, glad to leave his own memories behind. Here she was, so pathetically grateful for a little conversation that she was confiding desperate state secrets to him. Such generosity of affections made her so vulnerable. How would she go on in London? That bright brave spirit of hers wouldn't last a year after the royal wedding.

His job was to deliver her safe to that wedding. But last night he'd inadvertently accepted another role: the princess's friend. He'd done it by encouraging her to confide and then retreating from his rejection of those confidences.

I don't even like friendship, he thought. He only let himself become friends after years of acquaintance, so his friends were few and scattered. John he'd known all his life, Sarah too. His fellow officers had suffered beside him through years of deprivation and degradation. But the Princess Tatiana demanded friendship after an hour or so. And he had let that go unchallenged. Now she was his responsibility, for that's what friendship was.

So he waited there against the rail, knowing that she would steal up behind him, her slender body enveloped in some jewel-colored cape, a hood covering the coppery tangle of her hair, her green-gold eyes as bright as the moon glints off the sea. How quickly he had memorized her; he could call up her piquant face in his mind in an instant.

But he didn't have to, for she was there already, her laughter dancing like the snap of the sails. She joined him at the rail, using one hand to steady herself and the other to brush a silky curl from her cheek. "I thought Buntin would never leave off talking about the proper behavior at a presentation to the queen. She has gotten hold of a book of court etiquette and is determined that I should memorize it before we reach England."

"She is correct, Your Highness." Devlyn refused, after that initial glance, to look at her. You will be representing your country and I'm certain you'll want to appear to your best advantage."'

"You sound just like Buntin," she replied with an eloquent sigh, and even out of the corner of his eye he could see the teasing dimple balancing on the edge of her smile. What happened to the corresponding dent in the other cheek, he wondered irrelevantly. But then, uncomfortably, he realized she was probably right; he did sound like some pattern card of propriety like her middle-aged companion. Of course, the Princess Tatiana, he could tell already, tended to age one quickly. She had already instilled in him a longing for days of old, when maidens were kept confined in towers until their weddings.

By the time he realized that confinement in a tower had already been tried with her, and hadn't worked worth a damn, she'd raced merrily on, her head tilted to one side, her pretty mouth turned down sulkily. "Then Buntin just wouldn't fall asleep. Usually she sleeps very heavily, rather like a bear in hibernation. Do you have bears in England? They've been hunted ruthlessly in Russia, although there are some lovely white ones in Siberia. My mother wrote to me about them, but I never got to see them." Her brilliant eyes dimmed for an instant, then, with one of the mercurial diversions back to the original subject that gave him a headache, she added, "Buntin just tossed and turned for hours. But finally I was able to steal away. And don't prose on about how improper this is, for I know it is. Why do you think I do it?"

"I was just thinking the same thing," Devlyn admitted, knowing, somehow, what she would say next.

"Oh, see how our minds run in tandem! We are kindred spirits, I think!"

That his prediction was precisely right, only confirming her silly observation, made him feel even more like a fool for listening to her. But she was now leaning over the rail, watching the wake shove away from the hull, and instinctively he reached out a hand to steady her. Her purple velvet cloak was utterly inappropriate for a sea voyage; he could feel that the soft nap was already a little matted from the salt breeze. But she was a princess, after all, and he supposed she had a dozen more just like it. Her slender arm was firm under the cloak, but his hand was firmer, and with some reluctance she let him pull her back till her body was supported by her feet and not by the rail. Then he released her arm and moved back to his usual post.

"If you insist on staying out here, you must stay on this side of the rail, Your Highness. It's too cold for me to jump in after you when you fall overboard."

Typically, she ignored his admonition, replying blithely, "Cold? Not at all. Why, in Russia, we'd consider this a pleasant summer evening. I'm sure the Palace courtyard is knee-deep in snow already. But perhaps you English feel the cold more. Buntin always does. She would beg me not to go out riding in the winters, but the winters last six months, nearly, and I would die if I could not ride so long. I am of Magyar stock, you know, and they simply lived on their horses."

Devlyn would have preferred to let this go, to let everything she said go, but he utterly loathed being confused. "Aren't the Magyars in Hungary? I thought you were Russian."

"Well, I am, partly," she conceded. "We royals are such a mix, for we only marry each other and there aren't many of us to go around, so we are a motley group. One of my great-grandmothers was from a small Hungarian state under the rule of the Hapsburgs. Buntin is making me memorize all my antecedents, just in case anyone should ask whether I am related to Marie Antoinette."

"Are you?" he had to ask for, truth to tell, he wasn't accustomed to associating with relatives of that frivolous, tragic queen, or any other queen either.

"Of course. Marie was the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austro-Hungary, who was my father's great-aunt." She flashed him another mischievous smile, and he knew she was about to say something dangerous again.

He couldn't help himself. "And?"

"Don't you think it is a travesty that nations are ruled by such mongrels? Alexander is more German than Russian, and I daresay I have more English blood than your king, who is also mostly German. At least my great-great-greatgrandfather was a Tudor connection." She took a deep breath, and in fact, he needed one too, for her train of thought, however diverting, was difficult to follow. "Even the veriest peasant has more claim on the true English throne than George III, I wager. And as for Alexander, why, everyone knows he hasn't the slightest legitimate claim on the Romanov crown."

All these revolutionary sentiments would most likely get her hanged one of these days, and Devlyn made a mental note to warn her. But first he had to slow her down and translate her disgressions into something resembling discourse. "Why? Because of the assassination?" Even out here, when they were entirely alone, he bowed his head and lowered his voice as he spoke that dreaded word. But she didn't even recoil.

"Oh, no. The old tsar was just as illegitimate. You see, Tsar Peter never acknowledged Paul as his son, because everyone knew his marriage to Catherine the Great was never consummated. So Tsar Paul and Alexander are not really of Romanov blood. Isn't it lovely tonight?" She looked over the rail and stretched out her hand as if to touch the water. "I don't think I've ever seen the reflection of a star on the sea before, have you? But look, it's streaming light just like the Star of Bethlehem that led the wise men to our Savior. Now it's leading me to freedom."

He held his breath for a moment, tasting the tang of salt on his tongue as he struggled not to laugh. When he could speak, he pointed out, "The star is behind us, Your Highness. It isn't leading you anywhere."

She studied him with palpable disappointment, her arched brows drawn down in a frown. "Looks can be deceiving, can't they? For you look like one of the Knights of the Round Table, but you haven't, as far as I see, the slightest notion of how to go about being romantical. I was speaking metaphorically, of course. If you were the least bit chivalrous, you would have understood that."

"I beg your pardon, Your Highness," he said humbly, with only the slightest edge to his words. "I would beg it from my knees, except I think it might be considered an abandonment of my watch. I have been derelict in not according you the consequence due a great-granddaughter of Empress Maria Theresa."

"Great-grandniece," she corrected. "Perhaps you should take royalty lessons from Buntin, for she has drilled me very well, although most of the interesting genealogy—about Catherine the Great, for example—she ignores."