Chapter Eighteen
Henry came to an abrupt halt. Irina’s voice had traveled through the darkened lawn, from the other side of the rose trellis. Beside him, Rose also pulled to a stop, a small gasp escaping her lips.
“I do,” Irina repeated.
Henry had heard Lord Remi’s words seconds before. I thought you wanted me this way. You care for me, don’t you?
Irina could not possibly be accepting him. Had Remi lured her out here to propose? Or perhaps he wasn’t proposing at all. Perhaps his aim had been to win the latest wager, one that would put Irina at risk. Thank God Henry had decided to quit Essex and return to London. He could not leave her alone for a minute without her walking straight into disaster.
“I know that it would be wonderful between us.” This from Lord Remi. The bastard. “We’re perfect for each other, and you know that. Let me show you.”
Rose squeezed Henry’s arm. “We must do something,” she whispered. “The princess will ruin herself.”
It was in the back of Henry’s mind the moment he’d seen Irina and Lord Remi darting onto the terrace. Why in hell did these bloody ballrooms have to have so many balconies and terraces anyway? They should be chained off during balls. Better yet, blown to rubble entirely.
He’d taken Rose’s arm and asked her to go with him to the terrace once Irina had disappeared through the French doors. The press of the crowd was unsettling, yes, but more disturbing was Lord Remi’s grip on her arm. Henry could not have left Rose standing there in the ballroom, either. She knew barely a soul. So, he’d led her outdoors and then, when the terrace had been empty, down the stairs to the lawns. Rose had said nothing all the while.
Except now.
“Henry,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he replied. Of course, he knew he must do something. What he wanted was to put his fist through Remi’s teeth. He wanted to pick him up and hurl him as far from Irina as he could and then stand guard over her to prevent his returning. However, he knew both of those options were out of the realm of possibility. So instead, Henry stepped under the rose trellis and cleared his throat.
Irina whirled around, her figure a dark stamp against the night shadows in the garden’s entrance. Lord Remi remained steady, not reacting visibly to the interruption at all.
“Hen—Lord Langlevit,” Irina said, slipping up and nearly addressing him by his first name. She then saw Rose. “And Lady Carmichael.”
“Your Highness,” he said, attempting to keep his voice under control. It still sounded like grinding rocks. He clenched his fists. “I believe Lady Dinsmore is searching for you.”
It was much more civil than the string of curses he wanted to sling at both Irina and Lord Remi. What the devil had she been thinking, accepting Remi’s invitation to the gardens? Knowing the manner of wagers that were now on every bachelor’s mind, how could she risk it?
“Yes, I am sure she is,” Irina said, beginning to detach herself from Remi’s side.
Lord Remi, however, was not so avid to leave the garden entrance. He stepped in front of Irina, blocking her from reaching Henry’s side. “Lord Langlevit, I am afraid you have rather rudely interrupted what was going to be an important moment.”
“Max, don’t,” Irina said sharply.
“You were saying quite the opposite a moment ago, my dear,” he murmured.
A ferocious pulse quickened through Henry, the need to destroy coming back, untempered.
“Careful, Remisov,” he growled.
There was a beat of silence, and then Lord Remi chuckled. “A name I’ve not heard in quite some time. You have been poking around, my lord. Turn up anything interesting yet?”
Henry took a step closer, his footfalls churning up the earthy scent of grass and night dew. “I’ll show my cards in due time. Until then, I believe I will deliver Princess Irina to her chaperone.”
“I told you, Langlevit—we were in the middle of something.”
His control snapped and Henry strode forward, coming toe to toe with the young, arrogant lord. “And I am telling you that whatever it was, is over. Stand aside or, God help you, I will move you myself.”
The poor lighting made it impossible to see into Lord Remi’s eyes, but Henry held the man’s pitch-black stare for a handful of moments, neither of them breathing as the air turned thick with threat.
“That is enough,” Irina finally said, pushing past Remi and then farther, past Henry. At some point, Henry had released Rose’s arm, and a back segment of his mind tickled and stung with the recollection that she was here, in the garden entrance with them. It was the only thing that kept him remotely tethered to rationality.
“I will see myself inside,” Irina announced, and with a muttered apology to Rose, disappeared under the trellis and back toward the terrace steps.
Henry followed, wanting only to be certain she did in fact make it back inside the ballroom safely. He stood on the other side of the trellis, watching as she did.
“You have an appalling sense of timing,” Lord Remi said lazily, and when Henry turned back to him, caught the tail end of an equally lazy—and sarcastic—bow. “Good evening,” he said as he stood tall again, turned on one heel, and walked deeper into the garden.
Within seconds, he was out of sight.
The muscles along Henry’s shoulders, bunched and tense for the last several minutes, did not relax at his departure, setting off a painful ache near his old wounds. Every inch of him remained on edge, ready for attack, and it was only the soft touch of Rose’s fingers on his elbow that made him gather himself.
“Henry?”
“I’m fine,” he said eventually, concentrating on the contours of her face and the shape of the arbor around them. Henry’s breath calmed little by little as he forced his rigid muscles to loosen. Focusing on minute details helped, though bloodlust still simmered like molten lead in his veins. It would not have taken much provocation to rip the man limb from limb. In fact, it was surprising that Remisov had made it out of the arbor unharmed, but if he had laid one finger on Irina, the outcome would have been much different.
Henry frowned as if doubting his own view of Irina’s reentry into the ballroom. “Did you see the princess go back inside?”
Rose nodded. “Yes, she entered the ballroom just before.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“And Remisov?”
“Not that I saw. He stalked off in the opposite direction. Perhaps he’ll cool his heels a bit,” Rose said, her brow creasing in worry as Henry rubbed his aching temples with the heels of his palms. “Perhaps we should also tarry a moment,” she said, pointing to a nearby stone bench that offered an ample view of the terrace and the entire wing of the residence.
Henry drew a pained breath and nodded. Not that it would stop the reckless hellion from escaping via another exit, but it would set his mind at ease for the moment. At least while he composed himself enough to return to the ballroom.
“Good.” She smiled and took the seat beside him. “You’d terrify the guests with that ferocious expression in your eyes alone.”
Henry cringed. Rose was never one to mince words. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Please,” she said gently, laying her fingers on his sleeve. “I’ve seen far worse, remember?”
Henry swallowed. It was true that both Rose and John had seen him at his very worst in the first few weeks after his return from France. They were the sole reason he’d managed to survive…and had been able to come back from the brink of what he’d endured. Henry had moved out of Hartstone for fear of unknowingly harming anyone and had stayed with them for some months until he’d started to feel less like an animal and more like a man. Until he was sure that his own mother would be safe in his presence. The obstacle course had been John’s idea to keep the devils at bay. Holding his head in between his palms, Henry groaned. He could use a round or three on the course right about now.
“I wanted to kill him,” he heard himself say after a while.
“You would not have.”
Henry lifted a tortured gaze to hers. “I could have. Easily. It was only by a miracle that I did not.” He sighed, returning his face to his hands. “I am a killer, after all.”
“You’re not that man anymore, Henry,” Rose said. “And men are forced to become killers in times of war. You stopped now because it was the right thing to do.”
He admired her unswerving loyalty, but no, Rose was wrong. It had nothing to do with doing the right thing or not. He had stopped because he had not wanted Irina to see the beast that lived deep inside of him, the one that had so nearly reared its vicious head. Deep down, it was the true reason he had asked Rose to marry him. She’d seen him. She knew him. If Irina ever caught a glimpse of the monster he worked so hard to keep buried, she would never be able to look at him the same way. That man had come dangerously close to making an appearance tonight.
Henry had never known anyone who could drag him to such uncontrolled extremes. One minute he wanted to kiss her, and the next he wanted to throttle her. The exacting self-control he held over himself seemed to fly out the window when she was near.
“She is a danger to herself,” he growled.
Rose took a deep breath and squeezed his forearm where her fingers still rested. “I haven’t seen you this angry over anything in a long while.”
“If we hadn’t come upon them, who knows what would have happened.” He raked a furious hand through his hair. “She is my ward.”
“She is far more than that,” Rose replied quietly.
Henry’s eyes met hers in the filtered moonlight as a host of emotions barreled into him. “She is a friend to my family.”
“You’re lying to yourself, Henry, and you know it.” She looked him directly in the eye. “You are in love with her. And if John were here, he’d tell you the same.”
Pain stabbed his heart. “If John were here, you’d be happily married while I would—”
“Have to find some other poor excuse for a wife,” Rose finished with a bright smile. “And heaven knows if I would have been able to stand by and watch you marry Lady La Valse. Even if John were here, you’d still have to deal with the stipulation on your title, or give it up entirely.”
“Sometimes I think that would be the better course,” he said softly. “To walk away and disappear. I deserve to be alone.”
“Stop being silly. That would destroy Lady Langlevit.” Rose twisted on the bench, her hand angling toward his jaw. “I’ll tell you what you deserve—you deserve to forgive yourself and allow yourself the chance to be loved.” She cupped his chin, forcing him to face her. “That young lady loves you. And you are too intelligent not to recognize your own feelings when it comes to her, otherwise you would not have reacted as you have. You would not have dragged me out here the minute you saw her leave the ballroom on the arm of that young man.”
“Remisov is a snake.”
“This is not about him. It’s about her.”
Pushing her hands down, Henry stood and paced to the start of the arbor. “Of course I care for Irina. I always have. I probably always will. But she is a child who is infatuated.”
“You keep saying that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She is nineteen and of marriageable age,” Rose said calmly, flicking an eyebrow upward at his tone. “She is a woman, even if you choose to convince yourself otherwise.”
Visions of Irina clamped up against him: her lips glued to his, the soft feel of her warm, willing body in his arms as she’d been at the waterfall. They tortured him. He swallowed thickly, driving the stirring, all-too-seductive image from his brain.
“I want nothing more than for her to marry,” he ground out.
“If she has to choose a husband, why should it not be you?”
He strode back toward her, his voice cool though his pulse leaped frantically at her suggestion. Because he could not be a proper husband. Because he could hurt her with his bare hands. Rose did not know the vile truth of what he was capable of—how close he had come to unknowingly harming the courtesan who had warmed his bed. If he hurt Irina while caught unawares in the savage throes of a nightmare, he would never forgive himself. Rose’s condition of separate residences had been a godsend…for him and for her.
“Because I am engaged to you, Rose.”
“A farce.”
“What’s to say that love won’t come in time?” Henry asked, resuming his seat beside her. “Or passion.”
“I do love you.” She laughed at him. “But you’re like a brother to me.”
“And?”
“You know I don’t fancy you that way,” she said, traces of amusement still in her eyes. “Very well, I shall prove it to you. Kiss me.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “Kiss you now?”
She nodded. He wasn’t sure what her endgame was, but he leaned in all the same, and brushed his lips across hers. Henry lingered, counting the seconds in his head. “There,” he murmured after five very appropriate seconds and pulled away. “Perfectly pleasant.”
“Perfectly perfunctory, you mean,” Rose said, laughing again. “That was appallingly similar to the one you gave me when we were twelve at the country fair. And honestly, I have no wish to ever repeat that again.” She eyed him, tipping her head to the side. “Tell me the truth—did you feel anything?”
Henry wanted to be offended—his kisses had never been called appalling before—but he only laughed. “No,” he admitted.
“Neither did I. Honestly, it was like kissing a stone statue.” Henry gave a short bark of laughter at the revolted look of mock distaste on her face. “As the alchemists say, we have no chemistry, Lord Langlevit,” Rose continued, “and though I will love you as a friend until the end of time, I have had my grand amour, and I am content to be a happy widow for the rest of my days and live contentedly with my son.”
“What are you saying?”
She nodded firmly to herself. “I cannot in good conscience stand by and watch you throw away a chance at love because you’re too blind and stubborn to see it. I refuse to let you use me as some kind of excuse. I cannot do this, Henry. I will not marry you.”
Oddly, Henry did not feel anything at Rose’s words. He felt no disappointment, only a strange sense of relief. He did not stop to analyze the odd response, however. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“It was too much to ask of you.”
“I agreed because you are my friend, and I wanted to help you.” Rose leaned in. “But you and I both know that I would make you a terrible wife. You need someone who can keep pace with you. I cannot climb a tree without getting stuck and needing to be rescued. I abhor sweat and dirt in any measure. I’d rather be indoors perfecting my cross-stitch than riding outdoors, or playing bridge instead of fencing. I would bore you to tears in a matter of months.”
“You would not,” he said loyally.
Frowning at him in silence, Rose pursed her lips. “What are you so afraid of, Henry?”
He did not reply for a long time, but when he did, his voice was quiet. Henry couldn’t tell her the real truth, so he told a partial one. “That my heart is damaged beyond repair.”
“We’re all flawed in some way or another, you know. No one is perfect, and no one expects perfection, least of all, I suspect, Princess Irina.” She stood and reached a hand out to him. “Promise me you’ll at least try.”
“I am not the man for her, Rose.”
“I think you’re wrong about that.” She glared fiercely at him. “And if I see a betrothal announcement to Lady La Valse in the Times, it will be closely followed by an obituary because I will personally murder you.”
Henry shook his head and bit back laughter. She was a good friend. Honest and blunt, and she was right: they would make a perfectly boring couple. Tepid at best.
“You’re not to worry,” he said, standing from the bench and extending his arm to her. “Lady La Valse has an aversion to marriage and monogamy—otherwise I would have asked her first off.”
“Are you saying I’m second fiddle?” Rose swatted his arm, pretending to storm away. He caught her elbow, and she turned back to him, smiling.
“No, Rose, you are my rock,” he said quietly. “And I am deeply grateful for your friendship.”
Rose’s eyes glinted with the sheen of tears. “As I am yours.”
“Thank you,” he said, all honesty now. “I’ll take care of everything, Rose. The announcement, the gossip—”
“Oh, I’m not certain people care enough about me to gossip for more than one or two days. I’ll return to Breckenham on the morrow, and all will be forgotten.”
Henry suspected she was right about that, as well, but made no reply as they walked up the terrace steps and back into the ballroom.
They stood along the periphery of the dance floor, Henry’s eyes in a frantic search for Irina. For a split second, his heart and stomach swapped places with the fear that she’d slipped out another exit and had returned to Remisov’s side. She was undoubtedly irate that he’d followed her and challenged her friend yet again. Friend. Maxim Remisov was no such thing, and once more, Henry felt the pressure to prove it to her, and fast.
Her whimsical dress swirled into view, and he relaxed at the sight of her dancing with Lord Thorndale. Her gown was far less revealing than any other dress he’d seen her wear, but something about the sight of her in it made him think of a spring goddess. The only things missing were flower wreaths in her hair and bare feet. He could almost picture her racing across a meadow filled with spring flowers atop a wild horse with blooms bursting in her wake.
Hell, he was in danger of turning into a poet.
Rose was wrong. He wasn’t in love with Irina, though he did feel something beyond friendship. It wasn’t simply lust, and it wasn’t love, but something indefinable caught in between. The problem was he didn’t know if it would be enough. Women wanted love, and Henry didn’t know if his damaged heart would ever be capable of that. Or his damaged mind. He still couldn’t trust himself…not with her. If he did take her to wife and she fell asleep in his arms, she would not be safe.
“I’m going to see myself home,” Rose said, beginning to pull away.
Henry did not allow her, however. “I will take you.”
“No, you should stay,” she said and lowered her voice. “At least until Lady Irina retires for the evening. I wouldn’t put it past Lord Remi to return to finish what he started.”
“Are you certain?”
“Of course.”
After he’d made sure that Rose was tucked safely into his carriage and on her way home, Henry headed back into the ballroom. Nursing a glass of fine whiskey, he scanned the space, searching for Remisov’s blond locks, but the man was nowhere to be seen. If he hadn’t already left, he was likely cooling his heels in the arms of one of Dinsmore’s servants.
Henry didn’t tend to judge other men and their appetites, but something about Remisov’s utter dissoluteness got under his skin. He was a man who used and discarded people as one would a soiled napkin. The thought of such a man kissing Irina, touching her, made Henry feel physically ill. He frowned. On the surface, Remisov was a handsome and charming young lord, but there was something that did not feel right. He was too smooth, too slick. And Henry trusted his instinct, even though it had grown rusty with disuse.
“I see you are holding up your usual pillar, Lord Langlevit.”
The lilting voice made a jolt spark up his spine. He turned in slow motion to see Irina standing there, nursing a glass of champagne. She was unaccompanied by anyone, though he saw Lady Dinsmore hovering nearby. Henry almost rolled his eyes. North had once called her a marriage juggernaut, and it wasn’t far from the truth. Celebrated for pulling off two brilliant matches for her children, Irina was obviously her next protégée. The thought brought an instant rush of irritation that he quickly stifled.
“I fear the entire room may collapse if I shirk my responsibilities,” he said with a smile.
Irina’s eyes brightened with humor at his quip. “Like Atlas, then? Holding up the sky?”
“You flatter me.”
Irina hesitated for a moment before placing her full glass on a nearby stand and smiling dazzlingly at him. “Will you risk the fate of the ballroom for one dance, my lord?”
When put like that, Henry had little choice. He could for her. A hazy recollection of a doe-eyed young Irina arguing the merits of dancing decorum with her sister at Lord and Lady Bradburne’s wedding ball flicked through his brain: what if the gentleman I wish to dance with doesn’t ask? Laughingly, he’d replied then that it was a risk.
No more so than the one he was taking now.
Pushing off the pillar, he extended his arm. “It would be my pleasure.”
Most things never fit together exactly in life, but Henry was astounded once more at how perfect Irina felt in his arms. Her height and lithe slenderness complemented his. She was strong, but still feminine.
Henry slid his palm across the ruched ivory chiffon along her back and felt her swift intake of breath. Every touch felt amplified, underscored by a subtle awareness that left his skin inflamed and tingling. Irina’s muscles leaped beneath his fingertips as his palm shifted to the curve of her waist, his little finger flirting with the rise of her hip. He suppressed the instant urge to slide his hand downward to curve over her bottom and crush her hips to his.
They had danced the waltz before, but something seemed different between them this time. The space between them was charged as if a lightning bolt was suspended in the middle of their bodies. It was to be expected, of course, after the intimacy that had occurred between them. The human body had a tendency to remember things that incited pain or pleasure. Henry ached to give her that pleasure again, to see and feel her shuddering in his arms.
After they completed the first turn, she exhaled and lifted her gaze to his. “My lord, I wish to apologize for what happened in the arbor.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Her eyes searched his. “You must have overheard…”
“That Lord Remi, or Remisov, or whatever his name is, intended to propose?” Henry said stiffly. “I’m not sure what I did hear, but surely you are not considering accepting him?”
“I’ve had no better offers.” Irina studied the knot in his cravat. “Every man here is interested in a game…the thrill of the prize. At least I know that Max cares for me.”
“Does he?”
Irina nodded. “Yes, I believe he does.”
Henry’s palm shifted at her waist, his fingers moving restlessly. He knew if he said the wrong thing that she would shut him out. Clearly, she was blind to her friend’s faults. “And what if there are others who wish to make their interest known, but may be deterred by your obvious favor of Lord Remi?”
“Are there others?” Her voice was a whisper.
Henry made a split-second decision as they spun past one of the many open balcony doors. He’d wanted to eradicate them before, but now he was grateful for the escape and the privacy they offered. He intended to say his piece.
“What are you doing?” Irina asked, gasping as he drew her in the shadow of a lush treillage.
“What I’ve wanted to do since I saw you in this dress.” Irina blinked in surprise as he plucked a fragrant purple blossom from the nearby vines and tucked it into her hair above her ear. “There, now you are truly the goddess of spring.”
“You think me a goddess?” she asked, blushing.
Henry’s fingers brushed the soft skin of her nape, his knuckles skimming across the modest bodice of her gown and down her arm. He lifted her hand to his mouth, his intended words slipping away. “I think you are more beautiful than any goddess.”
Though her violet eyes held his gaze, he saw them begin to shutter. “You should not say such things. Lady Carmichael—”
“Has left,” he said, with a rough breath. “She has broken our betrothal.”
“She has?” Henry heard the shock in her voice. “But…why?”
“Because it was a farce.”
Irina bit her lips. “What about your title?”
“I don’t give a damn about it.” Henry drew a deep breath, his eyes flicking to a tall blond gentleman who had just appeared on the far side of the ballroom, his gaze searching the throng of dancers.
“You can’t mean that. You don’t plan to marry at all?”
“No,” he said, distracted. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” she repeated very slowly and very softly.
“Yes, you know it’s complicated, Irina,” he said, scrubbing a frustrated hand through his hair. Henry knew he did not have much time before Remi discovered them on the terrace, and all he could think of was warning Irina away. Save her from making a terrible mistake. “Irina, you cannot accept Remi.”
“Why not?”
“He is not good for you,” Henry said, noting the suddenly brittle tone of her voice and the pinched slant of her features. “He is not worthy of you.”
Irina’s reply was quiet, her gaze following his through the paned glass of the French doors. Her face hardened with understanding. “You are the last person to judge who is or isn’t worthy.” Her voice broke on the last word. “It’s not that complicated, after all. You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me, is that it?”
“No, Irina—”
“Just leave me be, Henry.” She plucked the blossom from her hair and let it fall from her fingers as she pushed past him. “Forget me and go back to your life. Let me go.”
As Irina left him to enter the ballroom and meet Remi, one thing gripped him with a violent certainty: he could never let her go. He’d always thought himself incapable of love, but that did not mean he didn’t have a desire to protect…to guard…to cherish…to make Irina smile and laugh…to give her pleasure in every form. His happiness began and ended with her.
On cue, Henry’s demons churned within him, filling him with instant crippling doubt. If he laid himself bare, would Irina accept him as he was? If she truly saw him and knew everything of his deepest, darkest secrets, would she stay? Or would she flee like that courtesan had, looking at him in horror for the monster he was? His fears threatened to derail the fragile realization unfurling like a new bud finally given sunlight. Stopping to retrieve the fallen flower, Henry studied the bloom. In some unexpected way, Irina had found his cold, shriveled, broken heart and made it whole again.
Rose, it seemed, had been right after all.
Because somewhere, somehow he’d fallen in love with the stubborn, willful, outrageous little hellion. Henry laughed out loud, the knowledge knocking the wind out of him but making him feel as if he could indeed hold up the sky. It was time to do something that he hadn’t done in a long time…fight for something he desperately wanted.
Win or lose, he had to try.