Page 72 of My Hellion, My Heart
She blinked long and hard. There they were: words that burned yet soothed, prickling her skin and tormenting her with what they could mean…thathecared. But she would only be deluding herself—Henry had made his position more than clear. Multiple times.
“Max does,” she said.
Henry huffed and crossed his arms. “Lord Remisov is exactly what my instincts told me he was: a fake.”
Irina spun toward him and forgetting to whisper, said, “What do you mean by that?”
The ladies in pastel dresses turned to glance at her, but only for a moment, and Irina didn’t recognize them anyway. Still, that did not mean they didn’t recognize her.
“A letter from my contact in St. Petersburg arrived this morning. It seems your dear Max stole quite a bit from his coffers of family heirlooms years back, before he was shipped off to Paris.”
Irina frowned. Max had been “shipped off” when he’d been no more than fourteen or fifteen. He’d been bitter toward his father when she’d reconnected with him in Paris, so she could only imagine he’d have been furious and hurt when he’d first been sent away.
“That was years ago,” she said. “If he did steal family heirlooms, I’m sure it was only in an attempt to strike back at his father for sending him away so heartlessly. It doesn’t make him afake.”
To which Henry replied, “It makes him a thief.”
“They would have been his items eventually,” Irina said, even though she knew it wasn’t quite true. Max had been stripped of his title. He never would have inherited the things he’d stolen. If he’d stolen anything at all! Henry’s contact could have gotten his information wrong.
“He was disowned, Irina,” he said just as the crowd in front of them drew apart and started away from the flower.
It came into full view then, a colossal flower that had emerged from a woody trunk on its side. Once the barrier the crowd had provided had disappeared, the stench seemed to reach out and curl around Irina and Henry. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand and stepped closer, her mind jumping between the oddly shaped flower and the words Henry had just said.
“What did you say?” she asked, still eyeing the five big pink petals, speckled with white, and the cavernous hole in the center. The whole thing was at least the size of a carriage wheel. And the stench…good heavens, it smelled like meat left out to fester in the sun. Carrion flies buzzed around the flower, darting into the hole and back up out of it.
“I said he was disowned,” Henry answered.
“Yes, I know. He was stripped of his title. If you think his father’s cruelty and closed-mindedness would be enough for me to judge him as a poor acquaintance, then I’m quite sure you know nothing at all about me.”
Even with her gloved hand covering her nose and mouth, the rotting flesh stink seemed to be pumping into her, coating the back of her tongue. Jane had been the wisest one of the bunch, she realized, and quickly walked away.
Henry followed her.
“Leave me be,” she hissed, walking faster toward an exit that led onto the lawns.
Henry stayed on her heels.
“Good heavens, what is it?” she asked, hurrying into the fresh air and relishing the loss of the humid stink that had been filling the greenhouse. “Is there some wager you’ve a wish to win? Perhaps some idiot has put up a thousand pounds to the man who is seen strolling with the Ice Princess near the death flower.”
“I’ve already told you, I have no desire to win any bloody wagers,” he replied, his words raspy as he kept her quick pace. The grass had been level, but had changed over to brick at the beginning of a path leading into a grove of trees, the limbs severely trimmed into near-perfect box shapes.
“Well, maybe you should, my lord. With the liberties you’ve taken, I’m certain you’d be up to your knees in winnings.”
Henry caught the tips of her fingers and pulled her to a halt. “Is that what Remisov is up to?” His chest heaved for air, and Irina realized how fast she’d been walking. “Of course. Entering wagers, cozying up to you—”
“He is my friend. There is no need to cozy up,” she said, her heart pounding as Henry closed in on the scheme she and Max had concocted. A scheme she had started to get cold feet over.
“If I were to go to White’s and look in the betting book, what would I see, Irina? Lord Remisov’s name written in for the grand prize? Has he put up his two thousand pounds yet?” He shook his head, laughing and yet not really looking amused at all. No. He looked utterly ferocious. “That is it, isn’t it? He knows he’s won you. He knows you’ll marry him, and he’ll rake in his insane amount of winnings and be able to return to St. Petersburg a wealthy man, with or without his damned title.”
“You’re wrong,” she said, moving backward off the brick path and onto the grass, closer to the boxed edge of a low-branched tree. “He is already a wealthy man. Whatever winnings there are will go to the Bradburne Trust.”
Henry followed her off the path, a growl low in his throat. “He has told you this?”
The pruned branch tugged her linen dress, and Irina wrenched her arm away, backing up some more.
“You think you know what he intends?” Henry asked. He continued to push her backward, toward another box-shaped hedge. An alcove had been cut into it, and as Irina staggered into its bracket shape, she realized the danger it posed.
“You think you know what any man intends?” he went on, stalking her backward some more until she’d hit the meticulously pruned wall of the thick hedge.
