With the door open.
Good God.
He put his hands on her shoulders, not pushing her back so much as he dragged himself away from her.
For a moment they could do nothing but stare at each other. Her hair was tumbling from her coiffure, and she looked adorably, splendidly mussed. She raised one of her hands to her mouth, her three middle fingers touching her lips in wonderment.
“You kissed me,” she whispered.
He nodded.
Her lips moved into a hint of a smile. “I think I kissed you back.”
He nodded again. “You did.”
She looked as if she might say something more, but then she turned toward the open door. And her hand, which had still been up near her face, moved to her hair.
“You’ll want to fix that,” he said, his own lips quivering toward amusement.
She nodded. And again, she looked as if she might speak, but she didn’t. She gathered all of her hair at the back of her neck, using one hand to keep it all bunched together like a pony’s tail, and then stood.
“Will you be here when I return?” she asked.
“Do you wish me to be?”
She nodded.
“I shall be here,” he said, even though he would have said the same if she had said no.
She nodded yet again, hurrying over to the door. But before she left, she turned one last time and looked at him. “I—” she started to say, but then she just gave her head a shake.
“You what?” he asked, unable to keep the warm amusement from his voice.
She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”
He laughed. And she laughed. And it was, he decided as he listened to the fading sound of her footsteps, a perfect moment.
In every possible way.
Harry was still sitting on the sofa a few minutes later when the butler stepped into the room. “Prince Alexei Gomarovsky for Lady Olivia,” he intoned. He paused, leaning forward as he glanced about the room. “Lady Olivia?”
Harry started to say that she would be back in a moment, but the prince had already stalked into the room. “She will see me,” he was saying to the butler.
But she’ll be kissing me, Harry wanted to cackle. It was quite a marvelous feeling, this. He had won. And the prince had lost. And although a gentleman did not kiss and tell, Harry was quite certain that by the time Alexei left Rudland house, he’d know who had won Olivia’s favor.
Harry stood, feeling just a little evil for how much he was looking forward to this.
He’d never claimed he was an uncompetitive man.
“You,” Prince Alexei said. Actually, it sounded a bit like an accusation.
Harry smiled blandly as he stood in greeting. “Me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Visiting Lady Olivia, of course. What are you doing here?”
The prince chose to answer this with curled lip. “Vladimir!” he barked.
Vlad the Impaler (as Harry had taken to calling him), thumped heavily into the room, sparing Harry a surly glance before turning back to his master, who was asking him (in Russian, of course) what he had discovered so far about Harry.
“Poka nitchevo.”
Nothing yet.
For which Harry was immensely grateful. It was not well known that he spoke Russian, but it was not well hidden, either. It would not require much investigation to discover that Harry’s grandmother had come from an extremely old and noble Russian family.
Which didn’t necessarily mean that he had learned the language, but Prince Alexei would have to be an idiot not to wonder. And while Alexei was rude, and lecherous, and most probably without any redeeming social qualities, he was not an idiot, regardless of what Harry might have called him in the past.
“Have you had a pleasant morning, Your Highness?” Harry asked in his friendliest voice.
Prince Alexei speared him with a stare, clearly intending that to be his reply in its entirety.
“I am having a lovely morning,” Harry continued, sitting back down.
“Where is Lady Olivia?”
“I believe she went upstairs. She had something to…ah…attend to.” Harry made a little motion near his hair, which he decided to let the prince interpret how he wished.
“I will wait for her,” Alexei said in his usual clipped tones.
“Please do,” Harry said affably, motioning toward the seat across from him. For this he received another furious stare, probably earned, since it wasn’t his place to act as host.
Still, it was immensely entertaining.
Alexei flipped his coattails and took a seat, his mouth pressed shut in a firm, unyielding line. He stared straight ahead, clearly intending to ignore Harry completely.
Which would have been just fine with Harry, since he had no great desire for interaction with the prince himself, except that he was feeling just a trifle superior, since he was the one Olivia had chosen to kiss and not the prince, despite Harry’s position outside royalty, outside the aristocracy, outside all that Prince Alexei held dear.
And when one combined this with Harry’s current directive from the War Office, which one could interpret to mean that he ought to do his best to be a thorn in the Russian prince’s side, well…
Far be it from Harry Valentine to shirk his patriotic duty.
Harry stood up just enough to reach Miss Butterworth on the table, then sat back down, humming to himself as he found the page where they’d left off two days earlier, with poor Priscilla losing her family to pox.
Hmm hmm hmmm hmmmmmm hm hm…
Alexei shot him a sharp, annoyed glance.
“‘God Save the King,’” Harry informed him. “In case you were wondering.”
“I was not.”
“God save our gracious King, Long live our noble King, God save the King.”
The prince’s lips moved, but his teeth remained clenched as he ground out, “I am familiar with the tune.”
Harry let his voice rise slightly in volume. “Send him victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us: God save the King.”
“Cease your infernal singing.”
“I’m just being patriotic,” Harry said, launching right back in with, “O Lord, our God, arise, Scatter his enemies, And make them fall.”
“If we were in Russia, I would have you arrested.”
“For singing my own country’s anthem?” Harry murmured.
“I would need no reason beyond my own indulgence.”
Harry considered this, shrugged, and continued: “Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all.”
He stopped, deciding that the final verse was not needed. He rather liked ending on “knavish tricks.” “We are an extremely fair-minded people,” he said to the prince. “If you’d like to be included in the ‘all.’”
Alexei did not answer, but Harry noticed that both of his hands were balled into tight fists.
Harry turned back to Miss Butterworth, deciding that he did not mind this part of the espionage trade. He hadn’t had this much fun annoying someone since…
Ever.
He smiled to himself at that. Even his sister had not been so delightful to torture. And Sebastian never took anything seriously; it was almost impossible to annoy him.
Harry hummed the first few bars of “La Marseillaise,” just to gauge the prince’s reaction (brilliantly red-faced with fury), then settled in to read. He flipped ahead, quickly deciding that he had no interest in Priscilla Butterworth’s formative years, and finally settled on page 144, which appeared to contain madness, disfigurement, insult, and tears—all the requirements for a cracking good novel.
“What are you reading?” Prince Alexei demanded.
Harry looked up absently. “I beg your pardon?”
“What are you reading?” he snapped.
Harry glanced down at the book, and then back up at the prince. “I was under the assumption you did not wish to speak wit
h me.”
“I don’t. But I am curious. What is that book?”
Harry held the book up so that Prince Alexei could see the front cover. “Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron.”
“Is that what is popular in England?” Alexei sneered.
Harry thought about that. “I don’t know. Lady Olivia is reading it. I thought I might do so as well.”
“Is that not the book she said she would not like?”
“I believe so, yes,” Harry murmured. “Can’t say I blame her.”
“Read it to me.”
Score one to the prince. Harry would have been only slightly more surprised if the prince had come over and kissed him square on the lips.
“I don’t think you’ll enjoy it,” Harry said.
“Do you like it?”
“Not really,” Harry replied with a shake of his head. It wasn’t precisely true; he very much enjoyed listening to Olivia read it aloud. Or reading it aloud to Olivia. But somehow he doubted the words would share the same magic when shared with Prince Alexei Gomarovsky of Russia.
The prince lifted his chin, tilting his face ever so slightly to the side. It was as if he were posing for a portrait, Harry realized. The man spent his whole life holding himself as if he were posing for a portrait.
Harry might have felt sorry for him if he weren’t such an ass.
“If Lady Olivia is reading it,” the prince said, “then I want to do so, as well.”
Harry paused, digesting that. He supposed he could sacrifice Miss Butterworth for the sake of Anglo-Russian relations. He shut the book and held it out.
“No. You read it to me.”
Harry decided to obey. It was such a bizarre request he couldn’t bring himself to say no. Also, Vladimir had taken two steps in his direction and begun to growl.
“As you wish, Your Highness,” Harry said, once again settling down with the book. “I assume you would like to begin at the beginning?”
Alexei answered with a single, regal nod.
Harry turned back to the opening. “It was a dark and windy night,” he read, “and Miss Priscilla Butterworth was certain that at any moment the rain would begin, pouring down from the heavens in sheets and streams, dousing all that lay within her purview.” He looked up. “‘Purview’ is not used correctly, by the way.”
“What are these ‘sheets’?”
Harry looked back down at the words. “Er, just an expression. Rather like raining cats and dogs.”
“This I find stupid.”
Harry shrugged. He’d never been fond of the idiom himself. “Shall I continue?”
Again the nod.
“She was, of course, shielded from the weather in her tiny chamber, but the window—”
“Mr. Sebastian Grey,” came the butler’s voice.
Harry looked up from the book with some surprise. “Here to see Lady Olivia?” he asked.
“Here to see you,” the butler informed him, sounding vaguely put out by the whole thing.
“Ah. Well. Show him in, then.”
Sebastian entered a moment later, already halfway through his sentence: “—told me to find you here. I must say, it’s very convenient.” He stopped short and blinked a few times, staring at the prince with surprise. “Your Highness,” he said, bowing.
“My cousin,” Harry said.
“I recall,” Alexei said icily. “Clumsy with champagne.”
“So dreadful of me,” Sebastian said, settling into a chair. “I’m an absolute dunce, you know. Spilled wine on the Chancellor of the Exchequer just last week.”
Harry was fairly certain that Sebastian had never had cause to be in the same room as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, much less close enough to hurl wine on his boots.
But this he kept to himself.
“What are you fine gentlemen doing this afternoon?” Sebastian asked.
“Is it afternoon?” Harry inquired.
“Only just.”
“Sir Harry is reading to me,” the prince said.
Sebastian looked at Harry with unconcealed interest.
“He speaks the truth,” Harry said, holding up Miss Butterworth.
“Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron,” Sebastian said approvingly. “Excellent choice.”
“You have read this?” Alexei asked.
“It’s not as good as Miss Davenport and the Dark Marquis, of course, but worlds better than Miss Sainsbury and the Mysterious Colonel.”
Harry found himself rendered speechless.
“I’m reading Miss Truesdale and the Silent Gentleman right now.”
“Silent?” Harry echoed.
“There is a noticeable lack of dialogue,” Sebastian confirmed.
“Why are you here?” the prince asked bluntly.
Sebastian turned to him with a sunny expression, as if he did not notice that the prince quite palpably detested him. “Needed to speak with my cousin, of course.” He settled into his seat, looking for all the world as if he expected to be there all day. “But it can wait.”
Harry had no ready response to that. Neither, apparently, did the prince.
“Go on,” Sebastian urged.
Harry had no idea what he was talking about.
“With the book. I thought I might give it a listen. I haven’t read it in ages.”
“You’re going to sit here while I read aloud to you?” Harry asked dubiously.
“And to Prince Alexei,” Sebastian reminded him. He closed his eyes. “Don’t mind me. It helps to picture the scene.”
Harry had not thought that anything could bring about a sense of kinship with the prince, but as they exchanged glances it was clear that both of them thought Sebastian was insane.
Harry cleared his throat, backed up to the beginning of the sentence, and read: “She was, of course, shielded from the weather in her tiny chamber, but the window casings rattled with such noise that there would be no way she would find slumber this evening.”
Harry looked up. The prince was listening intently, despite the bored expression on his face. Sebastian was completely enrapt.
Either that or asleep.
“Huddled on her thin, cold bed, she could not help but recall all of the events that had led her to this bleak spot, on this bleak night. But this, dear reader, is not where our story begins.”
Sebastian’s eyes popped open. “You’re only on the first page?”
Harry quirked a brow. “Did you expect that His Highness and I had been meeting each evening, conducting secret reading sessions?”
“Give me the book,” Sebastian said, reaching out and snatching it from Harry’s hands. “You recite dreadfully.”
Harry turned to the prince. “I have little training.”
“It was a dark and windy night,” Sebastian began, and Harry had to admit he did bring a great deal of drama to it. Even Vladimir was leaning forward to listen, and he didn’t speak English.
“—Miss Priscilla Butterworth was certain that at any moment the rain would begin, pouring down from the heavens in sheets and streams, dousing all that lay within her purview.”
Dear God, it almost sounded like a sermon. Sebastian had clearly missed his calling.
“‘Purview’ is not used correctly,” Prince Alexei said.
Sebastian looked up, his eyes flashing with irritation. “Of course it is.”
Alexei jabbed a finger in Harry’s direction. “He said it is not.”
“It’s not,” Harry said with a shrug.
“What’s wrong with it?” Sebastian demanded.
“It implies that what she sees is under her power or control.”
“How do you know it’s not?”
“I don’t,” Harry admitted, “but she doesn’t seem in control of anything else.” He looked over at the prince. “Her mother was pecked to death by pigeons.”
“That happens,” Alexei said with a nod.
Both Harry and Sebastian looked over at him in shock.
“It is not accidental,” Alex
ei demurred.
“I may need to revisit my desire to see Russia,” Sebastian said.
“Swift justice,” Alexei stated. “It is the only way.”
Harry couldn’t believe he was asking, but it had to be said. “Pigeons are swift?”
Alexei shrugged, quite possibly the least clipped and precise gesture Harry had seen him make. “Justice is swift. The punishment, not so much.”
This was met with silence and a stare, then Sebastian turned back to Harry and said, “How did you know about the pigeons?”
“Olivia told me. She read ahead.”
Sebastian’s lips pressed together disapprovingly. Harry felt his own part in surprise. It was a singularly odd expression to see on his cousin’s face. Harry couldn’t recall the last time Sebastian had disapproved of anything.
“May I continue?” Sebastian asked, voice dripping with solicitousness.
The prince gave his nod, and Harry murmured, “Please do,” and they all settled in for a listen.
Even Vladimir.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia’s second coiffure of the day took considerably more time to arrange than the first. Sally, still irritated at having been cut off mid-braid, took one look at Olivia’s hair and had not gone lightly with the “I told you so’s.”
And although it went against Olivia’s nature to sit meekly and take such abuse, sit meekly she did, since she couldn’t very well tell Sally that the only reason her hair was falling from its bun in huge messy chunks was because Sir Harry Valentine had had his hands in it.
“There,” Sally declared, inserting the final pin with what Olivia deemed unnecessary force. “This will stay in all week if you’re so inclined.”
Olivia would not have been surprised had Sally painted her with glue, just to keep every hair in place.
“Don’t go out in the rain,” Sally warned.
Olivia stood and headed toward the door. “It’s not raining.”
“It could.”
“But it’s—” Olivia cut herself off. Good heavens, what was she doing, standing there arguing with her maid? Sir Harry was still downstairs, waiting for her.
Just the thought of him made her giddy.