Her eyes adjusted to the dim light.
The curtains were drawn, and the shadows meant she saw the tumbled bodies twisted in his sheets at about the same time one of them made their reply.
“Ilya’s gone to have breakfast.” Was the grumbled female murmur.
Chapter 17
It was early when he’d gone for a run. Ilya used a downstairs bathroom to change then entered the morning room through the patio doors, not expecting to see many or any after their antics last night. A few subdued guests; who wouldn’t be, they’d drunk half the wine cellar. The bulk of the night revelers still upstairs asleep.
“Morning.” He walked toward the servery. “I vote no playing with guns today.”
Not even the usual titter of laughter.
Ilya looked up to see what was wrong. And then he saw her.
She rose from her chair, a Venus de Milo in winter pink wool gabardine cuffed and collared in matching velvet, her golden hair covered by a hat she’d not removed, and soft coral lips. Her face was white, her mouth strained as her hand fisted tight around a newspaper.
“Seraphina,” he whispered as bile suddenly bit at his throat. He shook his head in denial even as he felt the invisible noose slip around his neck.
Which of his sins she had found out about, he wasn’t sure, only that a death blow to everything he held precious, everything he’d started to dream was possible, was about to fall.
“Perhaps we can adjourn to the library?” he suggested. If he could get her alone, he might be able to navigate through this.
She walked up to him. He saw it coming as if in slow motion. Her hand did a wide arc before she slapped him hard and solid across the face as the few mesmerized guests looked on.
Seraphina held up the paper. “I guess I am not invited to the wedding.” Her voice was passionless, bored, her face shuttered. Much worse than if she were angry. “Are you betrothed?”
The question reverberated around the room.
It was as if a tight band constricted his chest.
All eyes were on him. Snowden the little snake leaning forward in his chair.
What could he say?
That he was playing at being Demetri? That Demetri was in fact betrothed and the elder Prince Petroski. That he was the younger reprobate.
His eyes pleaded for her to understand, to remember the breadcrumbs. Pleaded for her to put it together but there was no life in the look she gave him.
His silence was as good as an admission of guilt.
“I’d like a moment in private,” he asked again and indicated they should leave.
Her face looked at him as if he must be mad.
“I don’t ever want to speak with you again. It’s Georgina Franklin isn’t it?”
Again, his silence damned him.
“She is a friend and you have knowingly placed me in a position to cause her pain and hardship. How could you come to London and run around as you have? How could you have cast me in that fiendish plot?”
“I can explain.” He stepped closer. The band so tight around his chest that it felt hard to breathe.
“Explain? I was hoping for that right up until I went up to see if you were awake this morning.”
His heart now thundered in his ears and he swallowed back the bile. She had been into his room. Would have seen them there, the two women he let use his room. Another secret that was not his to tell.
“Seraphina. Please.” He reached for her and she slapped his hand away.
“The sooner you go back to Russia, and back into the hole you crawled out of, the better.”
She threw the newspaper in his face and walked out. He followed.
“Keep him away from me,” she ordered the butler.
Ilya reached for her and the butler stepped between them.
“I beg your pardon your highness.”
Seraphina didn’t even look at him as she donned her coat, opened the front door herself and ran down the stone stairs. A carriage waited.
Ilya watched her go. Hands in his pocket. Nothing less than the whole truth was going to even come close to fixing this and that was not yet his to give her.
Chapter 18
She shook. Every part of her shook and she didn’t think she would ever be able to stop. The sight of Lady Harrow and Lady Meriton, both in Ilya’s bed painted in excruciating detail behind her closed eyes. But worse still was his failure to deny any of it. That he was not able to deny that he was betrothed. What kind of a woman did he think she was? That she would enter a liaison with a man who was engaged to be married. A man who, if the papers were correct, didn’t even visit his betrothed. No instead he was running around London and the countryside with her. All her happiness gained at the expense of another woman. It churned her stomach.
Her pride smarted as she berated herself for thinking it wasn’t him. That the descriptions and the odd incongruencies pointed to something other than him being the betrothed prince. Foolish, foolish woman.
She was going to get as far away from him, from the ensuing gossip and scandal, as she could.
Chapter 19
The florist refused to deliver anymore flowers to Seraphina’s address saying they were not welcome. That their deliveries were placed out on the street.
“A Prince Vladimir Petroski.” He was announced into Lord Marsden’s drawing room.
Ilya walked through the door. Pain exploded through the back of his eyes as he received a fist to the face. Marsden swung again and Ilya ducked, jaw throbbing, dragging Marsden off balance by his green satin smoking jacket.
“You bastard. I told you not to hurt her.”
Marsden wrapped an arm around Ilya’s waist and threw a punch to Ilya’s gut. They staggered and fell, taking a small side table and lamp on their way down. Arms came around them and pulled them apart, dragging Ilya toward the door. The butler and the valet had stepped in.
“Where is she?” Ilya demanded.
“Go fuck yourself. Throw him out.” Marsden growled.
It was the little pig, Snowden’s column which conveyed that ‘the Elusive widow was heard to be refitting at a Parisian dressmaker. Well who wouldn’t want to lift their appeal, one little kitten waiting for a ring and two little kitty cats who warmed a royal comforter.’
Demetri, his betrothed Miss Georgina Franklin, and her father and business ventureist, Mr Franklin were in Paris the day after Ilya arrived in the city. A message left with the front desk and Demetri met him at Ilya’s Hotel three doors down.
“Demetri. I need to find her. I want you to come. To help me explain.”
Demetri shook his head. “Not until the betrothal is broken. Everything is still in a very delicate balance. It’s not the time to risk things getting out.”
“What does it matter? The plan didn’t work. You are still betrothed.”
“I have another plan, and I need to stay you for a while longer. Go back to St Petersburg. The family will need to be together when this unfolds. We need to stand together and clear the family honor. Then we’ll see what we can do about Seraphina. If you still want her.”
Fury rolled through him. “If I still want her?”
“Come on Ilya, you run hot you run cold where women are concerned. So now you are on the boil. Give it a month or two and you are just as likely to run cool.”