Page 31 of My Hellion, My Heart
The humiliation of his cruel rejection still made her ill to her stomach. Irina placed a hand to her waist and closed her eyes, shutting out her reflection in the vanity mirror. She was seated before it, her maid, Jane, putting the finishing touches on her hair.
“Your Highness?” the young girl squeaked, her voice so like a small mouse’s it made the hairs on the back of Irina’s neck stand on end. “Are you not well?”
She shook her head and opened her eyes again, the surge of unpleasantness receding. Though not very far.
“It’s just a spell,” she replied, forcing her voice to push through the lump in her throat. The one that had been sitting there ever since that afternoon at Hartstone, growing larger by the day.
“The traveling must have made me ill,” she added, deciding to blame her weakness on the six-hour journey she and Lady Langlevit had taken that very morning. They had left before dawn in order to arrive back at Devon Place before the ball that evening.
The invitation to the Earl of Langlevit and Lady Carmichael’s engagement gala had arrived at Hartstone less than a week ago, and from that moment forward, Lady Langlevit had been planning their return to London…and Irina had been vacillating between desolation and fury.
She hadn’t wanted to return to London at all, and she certainly did not want to go to the ball at Leicester Square in less than an hour. But with Lady Langlevit as her chaperone, there was no choice in the matter. She would go. She would congratulate the earl and his chosen bride, and she would hopefully get through it all without a single tear. Without a single bitter word spoken from her tongue.
He did not want her. He could never love her. He’d made that blisteringly clear, and Irina would not disgrace herself any further.
“You look beautiful, Your Highness,” Jane said as Irina got to her feet. The dress was a heavy affair, with layers of dark purple satin and lace designed to bring out the violet in Irina’s eyes. The bodice was not as low or revealing as the others in her wardrobe, and the waistline was also obscured by a scalloped, beaded sash.
“I look like I am attending a funeral service,” Irina murmured in response. Jane twittered uncomfortably, as if she didn’t know how to respond without agreeing and insulting her.
Indeed, she felt like she was going to a funeral. In a way, she supposed she was.
A knock landed upon her door, and Jane went to open it. Irina expected it to be Lady Langlevit, come to fetch her, but instead, it was a footman. Andrews had sent him. There was a visitor here for Irina.
“Lord Remi,” Jane said in a conspiratorial whisper as she quickly straightened the beaded sash. Dots of color on the maid’s cheeks spoke to her admiration for Max.
Irina smiled. “He is a scoundrel, you know,” she told her, taking up her gloves and moving for the door.
“Oh yes, I know,” she replied softly, the shine of excitement in her eyes surprising Irina immensely. Perhaps this mousy maid was not as meek as her voice led her to appear.
With a laugh, and a most welcome bob of her spirits, Irina descended into the foyer. Max waited in front of the enormous gilt mirror hanging upon one of the walls, reflecting the stairwell and Max’s impeccably dashing evening clothes. Irina shook her head.
“No wonder all the maids are mad about you,” she said as she took the last step. Andrews rushed forward with her cape and helped settle it around her shoulders. Then with a bow, left them.
Max had his hands in his trouser pockets, his cravat in a loose knot that suggested a lady—or lord—had recently been playing with it in an attempt to reach his skin.
“What about the footmen?” he asked, and Irina shushed him with a wave of her hand.
“They are as well, I’m sure,” she whispered. “What are you doing here? I don’t recall asking you to escort Lady Langlevit and me to the ball.”
They had exchanged at least a half dozen letters over the two weeks she’d been in Essex, and she’d told him everything about the disastrous afternoon in Henry’s woods. She’d held nothing back, either. With Max, Irina knew she could be honest with all her flaws and mistakes and injury, and he would not judge her.
“I invited myself. After your last letters, I decided you might have a need for me tonight.”
“Oh, Max,” she said, crossing to him. He took his hands from his pockets and wrapped her into an embrace. “It’s going to be awful.” Her words were muffled by his crisp and spotless jacket.
“Come now, you are going to be far too busy to be mulling over that idiot.”
“He is not an idiot,” she said, pulling away from Max before her hair was ruined. She didn’t know why she defended Henry. It was instinctual, perhaps.
“Whether he is or isn’t, you’re going to be the object of attention tonight, not him and his nobody bride-to-be.”
She rearranged her cape and looked away from him. “Oh, don’t be cruel. She might be perfectly nice.”
Irina didn’t want her to be, though. She wanted this Lady Carmichael to be perfectly terrible so that she could properly hate her.
Max frowned. “I have no idea who she is.”
“Why should you? She’s from Essex, Lady Langlevit says.”
