Page 52 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

‘Choose for yourself, Dove. Don’t let a man or a title become more important.’ It killed him to say it. He wanted to shout that he would protect her. But how could he do that? He had a chamber in a house on loan from Dimitri Petrovich. It was a far cry from what he could have offered her in Kuban. Never mind that in Kuban, she would have been beneath his marital notice. How ironic that the roles were reversed here, where he was the one of questionable note?

What did he have to offer a woman like Dove? He’d never thought of it before. In Kuban he’d never had to. He had palaces and jewels and summer homes. Fine horses and carriages, clothes for every season that filled wardrobes. Here, he had only himself; a man plagued by nightmares of a dead woman, a woman he might have driven to suicide; a man who could barely write drivel, who had a spark of inspiration only because of her.

Dove was restless in her anger. She rose from the sofa and paced the room. ‘I don’t want to choose. Not yet.’ She stopped and picked up a paper with a few lines written on it. ‘This is your fault. You should not have published that poem about us. He knows it’s about him even if London doesn’t.’

‘His uncle would still be dying. His uncle was failing before the poem came out,’ he answered coolly, but it stung that she accused him.

‘You called me out, too, when you attacked him,’ Dove continued. ‘You put me in a position where I have to decide! I’m not ready.’ That was the true source of her anger. She had to decide. She wanted him to decide for her.

‘I can’t give you what you want, Dove,’ he said slowly. ‘I won’t decide for you. You would hate me for it some day.’ Especially if he chose wrong and how could he not? All three of her options might turn out disastrous in the end. ‘This has to be your responsibility. I can’t give you reassurance that it will turn out all right no matter what you choose.’ There was, in fact, damn little he could give her, his shimmering white Princess, his Snegurochka. His heart did a sad little flop at the realisation. He had never felt so helpless before, so powerless. Yet to assert his power would be to decide for her. He could, however, offer her comfort.

He went to her, taking her in his arms as he had in the Hamptons’ gardens. This was as much for him as it was for her. He needed to hold her, to touch her, to breath in the lavender scent of her hair, the light rose fragrance of her soap. ‘Whatever you choose, Dove, you will not be alone. I won’t allow it.’ Even if she chose Percivale. He would be like the French troubadours of old, following the courts of married women if it came to that. He had the power to make sure it didn’t.

You could change her mind. You could make her choose you. Temptation rode him hard. It would be so easy, and so delicious, to kiss her throat, to suck at her earlobe and hear her gasp, to feel her body start to rouse.

If you want her, will you not fight for her? Will you cede the field so easily? Time was, you never backed down. Don’t stand aside. You stood aside in Kuban. You know how that ended.

Illarion pressed his lips to the column of her neck. ‘You smell like the very best of English gardens,’ he whispered, feeling her pulse jump beneath his lips.

She turned in his arms, her voice husky, her body pressed to his. ‘Then come pluck me, Illarion, while I am in full bloom.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He kissed her hard and full, loving her with his mouth, with the press of his body, letting her know the extent of his desire, obvious beneath the thin fabric of his banyan. ‘Look at me, Dove.’ Illarion broke from her, stepping back and sliding the garment from his body. This was slow and deliberate, nothing at all like the hasty shock of catching him unawares. Now she could look on him in honest consideration and she did. He watched her eyes roam over his body. He revelled in her gasp, the appreciation in her eyes at the sight of his bare chest. This was an aphrodisiac all its own, to be worshiped by Dove. When had a woman last looked on him in such unhurried adoration? When had it meant so much?

‘I had not known a man could be so beautiful. I thought surely the Greeks were exaggerating.’ Dove’s voice was breathless. She reached out a finger and trailed it along a ridge of muscle downward to his hip. The proximity of her hand to his phallus made it restless. He guided Dove’s hand to the hardness of him, unable to wait any longer. A streak of silver curiosity gleamed in her eyes as she made contact, unafraid of his maleness. His Dove was a bold one, a woman made for passion. Her hand closed around him, sliding along his length, ascertaining his need, reconciling her awe with her curiosity.

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