Page 55 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

Dove sat up in disappointment. ‘She dies? That’s a horrible story. What kind of moral is that? Freedom kills?’

‘It’s not so bad as all that.’ Illarion chuckled sitting up with her. ‘Snegurochka is immortal. She returns to her father’s forest and never ventures forth again.’ He tapped Dove on the nose with a finger. ‘And the lesson, my cheeky miss, as with so many Russian tales, is that one cannot escape their fate. She was made to be a child of ice and winter. Nothing more, nothing less.’

She let him draw her back down beside him. She wiggled, finding that perfect place once more against his shoulder. ‘Or perhaps the moral is that joy is not for ever, but for only the moment.’ Dove sighed. ‘I don’t think I like the tale.’ Not at all. The parallels were too obvious. What if…? A stab of fear took her and she voiced it in slow halting words before courage deserted her. ‘Illarion, is this your way of telling me to marry Percivale?’ To forget him, to not seek to be that which she was not intended to be. She was not to toy with fate.

Illarion shifted to his side to face her full on, body to body, his merry blue gaze solemn in a way she’d never seen it before. ‘Dove, you must believe above all else that I would never compel someone to marry where they did not wish.’

Dove swallowed hard. ‘Because of your politics? Because of Kuban?’ It wasn’t the answer she was looking for. She was naked with a man, she’d given him all she had to give. After what had transpired between them, she was hoping for something more personal than a political agenda.

‘No, Dove. Because of Katya. Because a woman died when I did nothing.’ Katya. The word was a blow to her stomach. A woman, perhaps a lover? Certainly a woman he’d cared about. Dove thought she might be sick. She’d misread this entire situation. She’d thought… Oh, she’d thought a million things, not the least being that Illarion felt about her the way she felt about him. Whatever he felt for her, it wasn’t the same. Dove threw her legs over the side of the bed. She just wanted to get up, get dressed, get home. This had been a terrible mistake and she had only herself to blame. This was what happened when she stepped out of the box she was meant to live in. Snegurochka indeed!

Her feet hit the floor. Illarion’s hand closed about her arm. ‘Where are you going? His grip was hard. ‘Will you get back in bed and let me explain?’

‘Please, you don’t need to. I understand.’ She would not cry. Not yet. She was just another woman in a string of women for him, someone who meant something in the moment but not beyond and she had known that. She’d just conveniently forgotten.

‘All right, then I will get out of bed and explain it to you.’ Illarion slid out beside her. He handed her his banyan. ‘Put this on and sit down,’ he ordered. She was already wounded, she might as well stay for the salt, too, especially when Illarion seemed intent on it.

She sat on the sofa where he’d first had thoughts of her. She remembered him telling her. It was indeed narrow. Dove gathered the folds of the banyan around her, feeling dwarfed inside it, the sleeves hanging well past her wrists, but she sat and waited. Illarion sat across from her, a throw across his lap for modesty’s sake. ‘Katya was my friend and when she needed me, I did not help her. She was not, as you think, my lover, or even my mistress. She was engaged to a powerful general in the military, a man known for his cruelty. She was the Tsar’s cousin and her marriage would bring peace to a situation that was on the brink of a state coup. Katya was a wild spirit, the sort men like the general take pleasure in breaking.’

The gruffness faded from his voice, replaced with tenderness as he told her about Katya. ‘She was a woman every man fell in love with at once…’ It was a heartbreaking story, this vibrant girl squashed under the tyrannical hand of her husband. Dove heard the anger overcome the tenderness. Instinctively, despite her own hurt, she reached a hand out to Illarion, hating how it pained him to tell the tale.

When he finished, she felt silly and shallow. ‘My own situation is not at all bad.’ Dove said quietly. ‘Percivale is not a bad man. He would never hurt me.’ He merely represented all that she feared: a life of bland mediocrity, a life devoid of passion in exchange for following the rules. And yet, there was a price for that, too. Katya had married to save a country. But she’d lost herself in the process. Dove didn’t want to think of the ways Katya had been hurt. Dove had far less at stake. Why couldn’t she like Percivale? Why did she have to be stubborn?

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