Page 34 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

CHAPTER TEN

White’s was crowded for this time of day. Everyone, apparently, had got wind that there’d be vodka tasting this afternoon. For many, the certainty of drink among manly company had trumped the idea of tea and cakes under the watchful eyes of the ton’s matchmaking mamas.

Men pressed around Illarion as he held up a glass of clear liquid and called for attention with a provocative line. ‘Vodka is like a good woman, pure to the eye and soft when it goes down.’ Men chuckled, adding a few bawdy comments of their own before Stepan called them to order for a more academic explanation.

Illarion sat back and watched his friend work. He’d done his job by getting the group started; now Stepan could do his magic. He was hoping to convince White’s victualler to import vodka, along with several other gentlemen present today as well. Stepan, it seemed, had decided if he couldn’t be in Kuban, he was going to bring Kuban to London.

Well, to each their own, Illarion silently toasted his friend. They all had to make peace with leaving. Prince Nikolay Baklanov sat across from him, making a rare appearance in order to support Stepan’s venture. These days, Nikolay was busy with his new wife and new riding academy. Nikolay was happy. He had found his peace. Illarion envied him. The rest of them were still looking for it. Illarion wondered if he would ever find it. After a year, perhaps he’d been wrong in thinking a change of scenery would help him exorcise the past. Perhaps nothing would. After last night in the Hampton gardens he was more aware than ever how closely Dove’s situation paralleled Katya’s. What had started as the seeking of a muse to help with the exorcism of past demons had stirred the demons to life instead of squashing them to death.

Of course, not everything was parallel. He’d not kissed Katya, had not written an erotic poem about her. Katya had been his muse, but never his lover. That was where the two situations diverged. With Dove, he wanted more than a muse, more than a friendship. He’d never deliberately attempted to lead Katya away from her decision. Perhaps that had been his mistake. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps he should not have stood by as an empathetic shoulder to cry on, but nothing more. He was attempting to atone for that with Dove. He was showing her what she was sacrificing. That, too, was a dangerous choice. He would have to assume responsibility for the consequences should she decide to refuse Percivale.

Illarion held his glass to the light, playing along with the others, testing the vodka’s luminescence while his thoughts ran elsewhere, another sensual poem taking shape in his mind: vodka like a woman, pure in the light, soft in the night…a creamy swallow of sweet on the tongue. It was a bit too superficial for his taste, proof that his writer’s block still persisted. But it was the sort of poem the Countess of Somersby would appreciate. The Countess made no demure about what she wanted from him—the novelty of a Russian lover in her bed. He could be her consort for the Season.

It was precisely the sort of liaison society expected him to make, the dashing, rakish Prince with the licentious widow. It would allow society to continue to romanticise him, to tolerate him without having to truly accept him. He could be a Russian Byron and bed all the merry widows he liked, just as long as he stayed away from their pure-bred English virgins.

It was also the sort of liaison he’d been looking for when the Season had begun, something physically consuming. He had no doubt the Countess was a liberated bed partner who could keep his body and mind busy until August. She was well read, intelligent and not without her own brand of power. But the Countess did not inspire him. She was too cynical, too worldly. She did not need him. While she might appreciate the sensual vodka poem forming in his head, it was not the Countess who inspired it, or anything else he’d written lately. Vodka, clear and pure, quicksilver like her eyes. No, the Countess could be his lover, but not his muse, even if he were interested. There was a difference between the two.

In Kuban, he’d often had both at the same time in two different women. A lover who took care of his body and a muse who took care of his soul, the caretaker of his spirit’s flame, the thing that lived at the core of himself. His body merely housed that flame. Never had he found women who could combine both roles. Which was not to say he had not found passion with a muse, or two, or three. He had indeed taken several to bed over the years, but those had been spontaneous occasions with no expectation of a long-term attachment.

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