That hadn’t happened before. The women he’d had in the past were as inured to him as he was to them.
Not Seraphina. They were both afflicted with a deep connection that would deliver a mortal wound if left unattended.
“You loved me at Christmas,” he reminded her.
“Everyone catches a cold from time to time, I got over it.”
He kissed her hair.
“You know what happened, why I had to do what I did and why I couldn’t tell you. I tried to give you clues, little breadcrumbs.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” Again, she moved her head away from him. And yet she still didn’t step away or out from under his hands as they rested on her.
“My family were relying on me…” He murmured, “The Salons, the social flirtations, it was all meaningless, all games for show, nothing real….”
She shrugged.
“It was important to them and important to me that I didn’t let them down. That I showed them I could be relied on.”
She huffed. “Just leave it Ilya. We were lovers. I am over it.” She was far from over it. Neither of them were.
“Hey, hey. That’s not how it goes.” His hand stroked her. Moved over small fragile shoulders that had borne the brunt of things these last five and a half months. “Lovers are light all the way through. We were never light,” he whispered to her. “We had something more. Far more.”
“Did we? I don’t recall.” His little bird was hurting. He’d done that, made her bury everything so deep she couldn’t move forward. It burned through him that he had caused this. And yet. That she felt so deeply about him. That she was running for her very life to protect herself told him how much she’d felt when they were together. He was the one who had to guide them out of this.
“That morning in Bath...at the house party when you came back and went to my room.” He took a chance, homed in on the topic neither of them had spoken about.
She twisted away from him. Forcefully pulled her arm from his hand.
“I said leave it, Ilya!”
Ahh, that was the wound, that was the cut that festered.
Her back was to him, her chest rapidly rising and falling.
Ilya turned her, pulled her tight to him even as she pushed at him and then hit his chest.
He murmured nonsense, soothing nonsense, encouraged her to let it out as those breaths became sobs.
He held her tighter, her pain becoming his as a knot twisted in his chest, his throat thickened. Ilya pressed her head against him, held her so soft and warm; kissed her head and crooned. “You are so precious to me,” he murmured. “You are the balm to all of my pains.”
He kissed her hair. “The source of all joy.” He kissed her head again, held her tighter. “My heart’s very reason to beat.”
“I let you in. Really let you in.” Her voice burned with pain, muffled against his chest as his heart twisted like it was bitten by the fangs of an adder.
“That night, as bad as it looked, I did nothing other than let them sleep in my bed. Made sure that Prince Vladimir’s exploits continued to reach the paper and gossip columns. I slept quite uncomfortably on one of the chairs in the library. Prince Ulyanov is still in London. He can support that.”
“Ridiculous. I don’t believe you.” Seraphina pushed away from him, her hands smoothing her hair. She was going to leave.
Ilya reached out. Her gaze turned back to his.
“My body has not tasted a woman’s since our night together. Since we met it has only ever been you.”
She wriggled out of his hold. “How gullible you must think me. Be brave enough to tell the truth.”
“What?” He let go of her, her words burning in his chest. “That libertine Ilya has no control, lazy Ilya only knows pleasure, Ilya only knows fun, Ilya has no responsibility, no morals and no values.” He waved his arm around. “Go ahead, join the rest, join them all.”
“Don’t make this about you. You are not the aggrieved party. You did the damage; you wrought the deceit. Don’t you dare act the hurt innocent.”
He leaned down to her. “How many letters did I send you Seraphina? How many did you send back? All of them!”
“I have to go.” She lifted her skirts to leave.
“I followed you to Paris. Tried to find you after Bath, before I had to leave for St Petersburg.”
She looked at him perplexed. “I was never in Paris.”
Ilya swore. Damned gossip columns. The frustration of months twisting through him.
“Where were you?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She turned, looked back along the path toward the exit, her eyes way to sad in a face so young and beautiful. “St Alban is no doubt wondering where I am.”
The name burned through him. The idea that Seraphina kissed him, that she’d held him twisted through Ilya.
“You are cruel to toy with him.” Ilya moved closer, his body towering over her.
“I am not toying with him.” But her beautiful eyes darted away. And a wave of satisfaction rolled through him, she’d used the man to hide from him.
“I ask that you check.” Ilya reached out and took her dance card and wrote down the names of the two women he allowed in his room and Prince Ulyanov. “Ask them what happened that night. Tell them Ilya needs you to know.” He moved to leave and then turned back and took up the dance card again. “And here, ask my brother what I have been doing since our return, ask him about Ilya’s whoring in Russia this year. And when you do Seraphina, I expect you to be smart enough to know that it was you who changed me. And that although I know what we did hurt you, it was for you and for a chance that we might become something special that I have become the man I am now. Then decide if we are over and if you are over your…cold.”
Chapter 24
Seraphina watched Ilya leave, nerves charged with emotion as he turned a bend in the conservatory path and the luscious tropical foliage obscured him. All that running, she finally understood what it was. It wasn’t the pain, she felt that already. It was for this moment right now when she shamelessly wanted to run after him. To overlook it all and be wrapped up in his arms. She wanted to be his. Ached to be his. Wounded pride, the principle of being kept in the dark, the questionable nature of the charade itself. It all threatened to crumble away if she could trust him. But …could she?
If what he said was true, he had done everything he could to ensure fidelity to her, ensured she was his only amorous relationship in a charade that demanded he have many. The image of him sleeping in a library chair, the two women in his room an odd beacon of hope, though hard to understand. Why would they sleep in his room and him somewhere else?
Seph looked down at the masculine script scrawled across her dance card.
Lady Harrow. Lady Meriton.
The image of them naked and entwined in the sheet still devastatingly clear in her mind. She was not going to track them down and ask them if Ilya has slept with them, the thought was humiliating. But Marsden could find out.
Georgie was in London with Demetri, Seph could call on her, could ask after Ilya in St Petersburg, have a chance to apologize for her role in the charade last Christmas. Prince Ulyanov she would have to make enquiries about.