Huntley threw up a hand. “Your Grace, there’s really no need—”
“Huntley, please, I’m not a novice.” The duchess smiled munificently at him. “Rest assured that I shall be very subtle. Miss Gordon will never know she’s being nudged into the prince’s arms.”
Lady Charlotte nodded, her feathers flaying the air above her head. “Her grace is very delicate. Not that it matters where Miss Gordon is concerned, as she is not a youth, but a mature woman. She will be glad for some assistance in this matter, as I’m certain she doesn’t wish to die old and alone, with nothing but cats and servants surrounding her.”
Huntley must have seen that saying anything further would only worsen his case, so he subsided into an unhappy silence, one Lily sympathized with. Now the duchess will begin throwing Emma and the prince together. Added to that, the two of them seem to have already found common footing of some sort. Lovely, just lovely.
Lily folded the edge of her cape between her hands, feeling as sulky as Huntley looked. Now that Lily thought about it, Emma had been the first to note Wulf’s arrival. Had she been waiting for him?
Lily blinked. Good God, were Emma’s pleasantries just a mask of her true purpose, which was to lure Wulf into conversation?
The thought didn’t sit well with Lily. She hated to think of such a manipulator attempting to trap Wulf. But that’s the natural way of things, Lily told herself with an inward grimace. After all, Wulf must be in need of funds, and Emma is well-placed. Not only that, but judging from the way the two have been laughing together, it is obvious that they enjoy each other’s company, so . . .
There was nothing more to be said. Yet the sinking feeling in Lily’s chest could not be ignored.
Wulf had baldly stated that he wished for true love. Would he realize that what Emma offered with her smile wasn’t the deep love he claimed to be seeking, but only an answer to her own search for a husband to ease her way into old age? Someone needed to speak to the prince so that he was aware of Emma’s true purpose in welcoming his attentions. Just one word, though. After that, the decision was his.
Lily hoped that at some point during the picnic, she’d be able to speak privately with the prince and share her suspicions. While she was mulling exactly what she should say, Huntley made a polite comment about the lake as the carriage rolled past. Lily, glad for the distraction, put her thoughts away and answered him with a warm enthusiasm she was far from feeling.
She’d find time for a private word with the prince later on. It was the least she could do.
Eleven
From the Diary of the Duchess of Roxburghe Love is a funny creature. It lifts its head, peeks into one’s soul, and then more often than not, not finding what it seeks, turns and scurries away. It is my intention to capture this creature just as it lifts up its ears, marking only a vague interest, and then luring it into taking up residence where it most desires to be—in the hearts of two lovers.
I do hope Huntley and Lily are ready to fall wildly, deeply, and passionately in love, for I plan on seeing to it that they do.
Two days later, a despondent Lily watched down the long length of the dinner table as Emma Gordon flirted madly with Prince Wulfinski, a sight that was becoming all too familiar. Lily had been ready since the day of the picnic to whisper into the prince’s ear her gentle warning about Emma’s weaknesses and desperation to wed, but no opportunity had presented itself. Something had changed the day of the picnic. Before, Wulf had sought out Lily too much. Now, he rarely did more than bow in her direction before attaching himself to Emma’s side.
Fighting a very real—although childish—desire to pout, she straightened her forks. How could he forget her so quickly?
She found it all very lowering, which was silly, for she’d wished for more time with the earl, hadn’t she? Since Wulf and Emma had begun their flirtation, Lily had seen quite a bit of Huntley, although their conversation seemed to always be about the other couple. Sadly, they were both so distracted by the blatant courtship that was happening under their very noses that they weren’t making any progress in their own.
The whole thing was maddening, and Lily found herself in the oddest position, missing something—and someone—that she had wished gone only a few days hence. But it was true; she missed the prince’s unfiltered observations and bold honesty. She missed his amused glance and the way he looked at her just so, until a breathless rush settled through her. Even more odd, over the last few days, she’d thought of a hundred little things she wished to share with him, only to have no one there to listen but Huntley, whose sense of humor was decidedly less in step with her own.
Her throat tightened and she took a sip of water as the elderly gentleman beside her began to talk to whoever would listen about the many horses he’d owned, beginning when he’d been a lad of six with a fat pony named Stepsides and continuing through the decades unabated, horse by horse. Sighing, she turned to the gentleman seated on her other side. Older than her by a score of years or more, Lord MacKeane was quite willing to engage in conversation. Though it was widely known that he had no fortune and was hoping to marry an heiress, he was more than willing to engage Lily in conversation. He was astonishingly well read, too, and was able to discuss his favorite books and authors with some interest.
Lily might have been content with that, except that Emma’s laughter kept bubbling up and distracting her, each tickle of laughter an irritant, until Lily couldn’t keep from glaring. That’s it. I’m going to speak to the prince this evening. If I wait much longer, he’ll fall under Emma’s spell and never realize that he’s been made a pawn.
She stole a glance down the table and caught Huntley also glaring at the laughing couple. I’m not the only one who is unamused by that flirtation. It was becoming plainer day by day that her own courtship with Huntley couldn’t progress until the worrisome issue of the prince and Miss Gordon was resolved. Once Wulf was made aware of how he was being manipulated and a safe distance was once again established between him and Emma, then Huntley could relax and return to the charming man that Lily had danced with that first evening.
Thus, an hour later, Lily waited until the men joined the women for port, and then she determinedly marched across the room to speak to the prince. Just as she rounded a settee, a clawlike hand grasped her elbow in a painful grasp.
“You!” hissed a heavily accented voice that dripped with ice.
Lily blinked down into the wizened face of Wulf’s grandmother. What is her title? The Grand Duchess Natasha Niko-something? Lily pulled her elbow free and curtsied. “Your grace.”
The wizened face puckered with obvious dislike. “You are the one.” The older woman’s accent put a “v” in front of “one.”
“I beg your pardon? I’m the one what?”
“You are the one trying to steal my Wulf’s heart.”
“Oh no. You have me confused with Miss Emma Gordon. And I can understand your concern, for”—Lily leaned forward and said in a low voice—“even though Miss Gordon is a lovely woman, she’s all wrong for—”
“Nyet!” A bony finger leveled at Lily’s nose. “Do not think you can trick me. I have been watching you, my little pretendsient! I see these looks you give him, fool that you are! Wulfinski is a prince of Oxenburg and you are a nothing. You can be nothing to him.”
Lily wondered if Wulf’s grandmother had partaken of too much wine at dinner. The old woman had been glaring at her for several days now, but as Lily had never seen any other expression on the woman’s face other than extreme irritation, she hadn’t considered for a moment that the grand duchess might bear her any ill will. “Your grace, I barely know your grandson. He rarely even speaks to me.” Anymore.
“That is what I tell him, too, that he barely knows you, but he will not listen. So you will listen instead, Miss Lily Balfour. And if you do not”—the grand duchess squinted, her wrinkled mouth puckered—“you will pay.”
Lily’s brows rose. “Pay?”
“Da.
I will put the curse upon you and all of your family!”
A flicker of irritation made Lily’s gaze narrow. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Ha! You will stop looking at my grandson in the way you have. You will not speak to him, nor even think his name.”
Lily’s jaw set. “I will think about him if I want.” At the duchess’s gasp of outrage, Lily continued, “Fortunately for you, I don’t wish to think about him, and so I don’t.”
“Lies!” The tiny woman leaned forward and squinted at Lily. “If you do not leave him be, I will see to it that all of your goats and cows become as barren as the rocks that dot this wasted country of yours.”
Lily’s irritation disappeared before an urge to laugh. “I see. That would be tragic, indeed, if I had any goats or cows. But I do not.”
The little woman blinked. “You have none? Not one goat? One cow?”
“No. A few horses, but that’s all the livestock we own. We don’t have much, you know.”
“You are poorer than I thought. Not even one goat. Pah! Well, I will make you barren, then.”
“First of all, you have the wrong woman, which I’ve told you already. Second, I don’t believe in curses, so do as you will.”
The woman’s black eyes blazed. “You don’t believe! Well, I’ll show you that you must believe.” The old woman held up her hands, swaying back and forth, and began to mutter in a foreign tongue that didn’t sound anything like the prince’s language. Her jumbled words increased in speed and turned singsongy as her hands swirled in the air, tracing odd symbols before Lily.
People around Lily had stopped speaking and were now openly staring as the old woman’s movements became more and more frenzied.
Lily cleared her throat. “Your grace, people are beginning to stare. Can we discuss this curse some other—”
“Nyet!” thundered a deep voice. Wulf grasped the duchess’s hands and stopped her in midsymbol. “Tata, stop that!”
The old woman’s eyes flew open and her mouth tightened. After a hard glare, she squenched her eyes closed and began to sing the curses again, swaying as if she were in a trance.
Wulf growled. He’d been deep in conversation with Lord MacKinton about the best way to approach a deep fence while riding to the hunt when he’d chanced to look up just in time to see Tata Natasha attempt to place a curse on the womb of the woman he was determined to make his own. He’d left MacKinton in midsentence and had leapt over a low table to halt Tata. In their language, he snapped, “Open your eyes, old woman, for I know you can hear me.”
She kept them squenched closed, mumbling the rest of her curse. He released her wrists. “Fine. Make your curse. I will marry her anyway, and then where will you be?”
She scowled and opened one eye. “You would not marry a barren woman.”
“I would marry this woman if she were barren a hundred times over. She is mine, Tata. Get that into your stubborn head. Nothing and no one can change that.”
She opened both of her eyes and threw her hands into the air. “Pah! She is no good for you. She doesn’t even have any goats.”
“I don’t want a woman with goats. And whatever woman I do want is my own concern—not yours.”
“It is the concern of all of your family.” Tata Natasha pointed at Lily and said in clear English, “Just look at her! Even without my curse, she has no meat on her bones and will bear you no sons.”
Everyone’s attention turned to Lily, who was every shade of pink imaginable. Wulf wished he could sweep her away, but that would only cause more talk. Furious beyond words, he ground out, “Tata, you have said enough. We will leave now.”
“Fine. I have said what I would say, which is that this one is unfit to be your wife—”
“Unfit?” The Duchess of Roxburghe shouldered her way through the small crowd that had collected, coming to a halt before the small duchess from Oxenburg. “How dare you speak that way about my goddaughter!”
Wulf inwardly groaned.
“I may speak as I choose,” Tata said. “You are the real reason for this foolishness, you and your matchmaking meddling!”
“I never meddle.”
“Ha! I’ve seen you do so. You are like a giant puppeteer, telling this one to talk to that one, whispering to that one to dance with this one—and everyone knows it!” Tata swept a glance up and down the thin form of the Duchess of Roxburghe. “You should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging such a nobody to think she might have a chance with a prince.”
“I’ve never encouraged—”
“You have done nothing but tease Wulf with your pale Scottish redhead.”
Lily frowned. “I’m not a red—”
“Quiet!” both the duchess and Tata snapped.
Tata glared at the duchess.
The duchess glared back. “This is my castle and I say what will or will not happen within these walls.”
“This does not concern you.”
“If it concerns Miss Balfour, then it concerns me. And if I wish your grandson to court Miss Balfour, then court her he will.”
Tata crossed her arms over her sparse bosom. “So you admit that it is all your doing. That you have been throwing this woman at my grandson’s head.”
The duchess mirrored the gesture. “No, I haven’t. I’ve never tried to promote a match between your grandson and my goddaughter. She is far too good for him.”
Tata gasped, her face as crimson as the rug beneath her feet. “How dare you!”
Wulf slanted a glance at Lily, who was watching the two women as one might watch a pair of cobras preparing to strike. He rubbed his neck, feeling as helpless as a newborn foal. For the last two days he’d tried to stir Lily’s interest by flirting with Miss Emma, but to no avail. Though he’d caught Lily’s gaze upon him, not once had she said a word to him about it. Why is this courtship so blasted hard?
Tata leaned forward and poked the duchess’s arm with a bony, gnarled finger. “Listen to me, you old harridan. My grandson is better than your goddaughter, and you’re a—”
“Tata!” Wulf slipped an arm about Tata’s waist and drew her to his side. “You’ve had too much wine.”
“I’ve only had—”
“It is late and time we returned home. Your grace, I apologize for my grandmother’s ill temper.”
Tata opened her mouth, so he held her a bit tighter. That worked, for she gasped but could say nothing.
“That’s quite all right,” the duchess said in a frosty tone. “Some people can’t handle their wine.”
He increased the pressure on Tata’s waist to keep her from answering, and with a quick bow to the duchess, he turned to Lily. He met her gaze, a million words flooding his mind, all of them hot and passionate and not a one that he could say in front of a crowd.
He hoped she could read in his eyes what he couldn’t say. He managed a quick incline of his head and then, holding Tata Natasha firmly by his side, he left.
Twelve
From the Diary of the Duchess of Roxburghe I was never more insulted in all of my life. To come into my house and tell me what to do! I was ready to strangle that woman. Sadly, the prince bustled her away before I could have her thrown out as she deserved. He, at least, was contrite for her behavior. But she— Oh! The nerve!
It would serve her right if I decided to match her precious grandson with Lily. It’s a pity the man has no funds, for I’d like nothing more than to show that old hag who knows how to control whom!
Inside the cottage, Vladimir Arsov stirred the fire and then returned the poker to the rack. Turning to the prince, he said with notable satisfaction, “The fire is stoked. The chimney draws very well.”
Wulf sat at the table, sharpening a large knife on a leather strop tied to the back of a chair. “You sound surprised that my chimney functions at all. You’ve been listening too much to my Tata Natasha.”
Arsov grinned. “I don’t listen to old witches.” A square man, he had a shock of thick brown hair and a horrible scar
across his left cheek and shoulder from a threshing-machine accident at age sixteen that had left him near death. Though he’d recovered, he was no longer able to work in the mill as his arm could hold no weight.
Fortunately, an uncle who was a groom in the palace had brought Arsov to the stables to see if the boy could be of use there. Though young, Arsov had a commanding presence, one made more so by the scar on his face. Before long he had organized the younger grooms and stable hands into an efficient, well-oiled machine. The horses were never better taken care of; the five stables had never been so clean. The head groom was ecstatic and Arsov was given a permanent place.
Over time, Wulf heard of Arsov’s efforts. When Wulf stopped by to congratulate the new groom on his accomplishments, he’d been surprised to find Arsov reading a book of Greek translations. A short conversation had revealed that Arsov’s father had been a tutor to a wealthy family and had given his own sons a love of reading and a wide knowledge of the ancient languages.
Wulf had just turned fourteen, but something about this quiet, older lad had appealed to him, and on the spot he’d made Arsov his personal servant and captain of his guards. That had been almost twenty years ago, and Wulf had never regretted it.
“Old witches are stubborn.” Wulf continued sharpening the knife. After a moment he said, “She tried to put a curse on Miss Balfour tonight.”
“She always resorts to the old ways when she is frustrated.”
“She must get used to being frustrated, for I am a grown man and will decide my own way.”
Arsov grunted his agreement. “Perhaps you should have a talk with her.”
“Another one? It will do no good.” Wulf smoothed the blade over the leather strop. “I have asked her to come here and talk, but she will not. Perhaps that is good.”
Arsov shot him a curious look. “You are angry with her.”
“Angry” wasn’t a strong enough word. “She interfered where she had no right.”
“She often does.” Arsov looked about the small cottage. “This house is well crafted.”