Page 58 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

‘What are they saying?’ Illarion took his seat, but it was hard to sit with so much emotion roiling through him.

‘That you’ve got nothing to offer a bride. No family, no property. That your title means nothing, quite possibly you don’t even possess it any more and, even if you did, it’s empty since there’s nothing to go with it.’

Ruslan was right. It wasn’t untrue. It was just presented in a way that looked very unattractive. But Ruslan wasn’t done. ‘They’re saying you’re a fortune hunter, that your interest in Lady Dove is for her money and land. She can provide everything you lack.’ The very things Dove had decried in the gentlemen who populated her court. He hoped Dove didn’t hear those rumours. If she did, he hoped she didn’t believe them.

‘Then I’ve got to be respectable,’ Illarion answered. Respectable wasn’t something he knew much about. ‘How do I start?’

Stepan glowered. But Ruslan smiled and took something from his pocket. ‘You can start with this.’

‘A key?’ Illarion took it and turned it over in his hand. ‘What is this to?’

Ruslan laughed. ‘To your future, should you want it. I’ve been investing in prime real estate while you’ve been out wooing the ladies. Number Two Portland Square—you won’t find a better address in Mayfair.’

Illarion nodded. ‘I don’t suppose you might also have a small manor in Cornwall in your pocket?’ Dove would like that—a place to draw, a place to be near her family.

‘Not today, but I could find something.’ Ruslan rose from the table, leaving Stepan and Illarion alone.

‘Do you really want to marry her?’ Stepan asked, his temper quieting. ‘I thought you were rankly against marriage. Or did you say that because I made you angry?’

Stepan was giving him a chance to retract his statement, but Illarion would not back down. The more he thought about the idea, the more he liked it. ‘I want to marry her, but I want it to be her choice. She needs to understand what it means to be with me. There are things I cannot give her, that money will never buy her.’ Social status, the idea that she might no longer be accepted, incurring the disappointment of her family. His money could not change those things. Dove had no idea what it meant to lose them. He had to make her understand what exile looked like because that’s what she’d experience if she chose him, or even if she didn’t. Striking out for herself would have the same social consequences.

Stepan nodded solemnly. ‘Nikolay is holding a riding demonstration tonight. Perhaps you should bring her and she can see what it means to live between worlds.’ It was the perfect place to start. She could see the ‘bad news’ of life with him up close. He pocketed Ruslan’s key. He would save that for later—the house would be the good news to the bad news, as it were.

* * *

The riding school was located on Leicester Square in Soho, a square that had seen better days, as evidenced by the big houses and large lots—something that didn’t exist in cramped London any more. At one time, Leicester Square had been a popular neighbourhood for the well-to-do, but as the caprices of landownership and city planning had them move west to Mayfair, the large mansions had been broken down into multiple residences, many becoming boarding houses until years of decline had created a neighbourhood of immigrants. French aristocracy who had fled with nothing more than their titles, their pride and their heads intact, Polish inventors, German composers, men with ideas if not money, men and families who hoped Leicester Square was a temporary resting place as their fortunes climbed. But until then, this was home. Small businesses had sprung up; bistros that cooked food from homelands across Europe; bookstores selling texts in the languages from home, a world within a world, a world Dove had not known existed.

Dove found Soho intoxicating: the smells of cooking food, the sounds of different tongues and the sights of different clothing. It was as if she’d left London behind her. Here, Illarion’s tunic, the one he’d worn to the ball, would not be out of place. Here, she was the one out of place. Illarion had said to wear something plain. She’d chosen a round gown of celestial blue with only a bit of lace trimming the bodice and a cashmere shawl of blue flowers on a white field. The gown was simple, not plain. She saw the difference now as they passed crowds of the working and middle class on their way home from the day. The women wore plain wool dresses in dark colours, making her blue appear all the brighter. She was, without doubt, conspicuous. On her own, she might have been frightened as opposed to intoxicated by the newness of her surroundings, but with Illarion beside her, it did not cross her mind to be afraid.

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