Page 70 of My Hellion, My Heart
“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 mego.”
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.
Chapter Nineteen
Lady Dinsmore had wanted Irina to remain at home the next morning, at least until after luncheon, in order to receive any callers, flowers, or notes from possible suitors. The ball had lasted until the small hours of the morning, though Irina had taken her leave close to midnight, after Max had left and then Henry immediately after. She’d danced with a handful of gentlemen, though when she’d settled into bed, her feet sore and her cheeks stiff from holding a false smile all evening, she hadn’t been able to recall specifically whom.
By morning, she could barely remember anything from the evening before that did not consist of Henry or Max. Irina would never have been able to concentrate on politely receiving visitors, not when her mind and body felt torn in as many directions as it did. So, she had called for her maid earlier than expected, dressed, had breakfast sent up, and then departed before noon, before Lady Dinsmore had even emerged from her own bedroom.
Most of society would be out strolling in Hyde Park, Irina figured, so she had instructed her driver in another direction. Yardley Botanical Gardens was in southwest London, along the banks of the Thames, and was a collection of glass greenhouses, a bowling green, and topiary gardens. As the driver set out for the gardens, Irina’s maid squirmed on the backward facing bench, across from Irina.
“Oh, Your Highness,” Jane said in her squeaky voice. “You don’t really want to see the death flower, do you?”
She wore a serviceable black dress and bonnet, making her sudden look of pure revulsion even more pointed.
“Of course I do. I hear it is enormous and strange—did you know it doesn’t have roots? It’s aparasite, Jane.”
“A what?”
“A living organism that survives on another organism. In this case, I’ve heard therafflesia patmahas bloomed out of a spongy old tree trunk.”
Jane grimaced as the carriage rocked over the streets toward the southern edge of the city.
“I’ve heard it smells like a rotting corpse,” Jane said. Her coloring, usually flush and healthy, had gone a bit yellow.
“I doubt it is as offensive as that,” Irina replied, though she secretly hoped it was. In fact, she was counting on it being too odious for most ladies and gentlemen to visit. She knew there would be people there, coming only to view the rare flower and to be seen doing so, but she also knew there would have been far more people clucking and crooning around Hyde Park and Rotten Row.
When they arrived, however, Irina took one look into the lake of carriages, curricles, and broughams parked outside the botanical gardens and decided she might have been wrong. She considered leaving, but then thought of therafflesia patmaand realized she was actually excited to see it. Even smell it, oddly enough.
She and Jane got out of the carriage and, almost immediately, Irina was spotted.
“Princess!” cried a voice from near a long, sleek topless carriage. Lady Lyon hopped and waved to gain her attention, and Irina started for her. Gwen had a man with her, and by his paunch and glowering expression, Irina figured he was Lord Lyon. He looked just as pleased as Jane to be there.
The countess kissed Irina on both cheeks before glancing back at her husband.
“Darling, this is Princess Irina Volkonsky,” Gwen said, to which Lord Lyon clicked his heels and bowed in a surprisingly fashionable manner. She’d expected a grumbled hello from his sour expression.
“Are you on your way in?” Irina asked.
“Oh yes! This is our second time coming. We were here last week. I cannot describe just howawfulthe stench was!”
“I could think of a few words to describe it,” Lord Lyon said, his nostrils flaring.
From behind Irina, Jane made a soft mewling sound. She turned and saw her maid’s coloring had drained some more.
“I’m afraid my companion rather fears the odor the flower is said to put off,” she explained when Lady and Lord Lyon eyed Jane with concern.
“Oh, well she isn’t the first one, I’m sure. Why, last week when we were here, Lady Rochester fainted! Keeled right over and bumped her head on the trunk the flower sprouted from!”
At this, Jane’s eyes went wide with alarm. Irina had never seen a person’s skin go green until that moment.
