Page 66 of Innocent in the Prince's Bed

He stiffened at the words, reminiscent of another proposal. She’d asked Percivale to give her time because she hadn’t been sure, because she wanted to refuse. Did she want to refuse him? The potential that she might turn him down, that she might spend her life away from him, was an appalling one. ‘Time is the one thing you haven’t much of.’ The world seemed to invade this little paradise of his. Did she understand how little of it there was? Things were rapidly coming to a head with Percivale. A duel was imminent either over Dove or over the slanderous rumours. ‘I will give you all I can.’

‘Thank you.’ She stepped away from the balustrade, lost for words. She looked at him with beseeching eyes. ‘Will you excuse me? I have to go.’

She turned and fled—that was the only word for it. She fairly ran through the house, wanting to be as far away from the big, beautiful house, from him. Illarion let her go, his own heart breaking a little. He’d finally fallen in love, finally found the woman who could break the spell and she would not have him—ironically to save him from himself. Never had he wanted someone so much. Never had something seemed so impossible to claim. Never had the stakes been so high. To lose Dove would be akin to losing a part of himself.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dove sat still so as not to disturb the mare, her body quiet, her mind a riot of unsorted thoughts, her pencil unmoving in her hand. Beyond her, in the hay, the mare whickered. She’d come to the mews to draw the horse, but she’d drawn Illarion instead. It was all she could seem to manage these days. Was this what Illarion’s writer’s block felt like? A mind too full to concentrate? Recent days had been filled with momentous events. Two men had proposed to her; demanded decisions from her that would shape the rest of her life. She’d made love with Illarion; she’d drank vodka; she’d given a man pleasure; a man had bought a house for her, for them. That man wanted to spend his life making her happy.

It should have been a joyous few days, it should have been symbolic of what else she’d done. She should have taken a first step towards her own independence. But she hadn’t. No one but Illarion knew she had done any of those things. She was no more independent now than she’d been when she’d first come to London. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. She had changed, and yet the face that stared back at her every night from her dressing table mirror hadn’t.

Shouldn’t she look different? It seemed strange that the world was the same: the same white dresses were laid out on her bed, the same pearls waiting for her neck, the same evening routine, with the same people. Alfred-Ashby would talk about his horses. Lord Fredericks would say ‘quite so’ a hundred times. Percivale would stand possessively at her right side. It was no wonder young girls were counselled against intimacy before marriage. Underneath the sameness there were complications she had not foreseen.

Lovemaking distorted one’s perspective altogether. She’d not been prepared for that, to say nothing of spoiling her for other men in ways that went beyond the loss of virginity. How could she be expected to share such an act with someone else? She could not imagine being so free, so utterly abandoned in her sensibilities with another as she had been with Illarion. To think of another doing with her what Illarion had done… Well, that was another piece of the impossible choice facing her. She shivered and drew her shawl more tightly about her. The mare lifted her head and looked at her with soulful eyes.

Dove smiled sadly at the horse. ‘What am I to do?’ She had to decide. Percivale had been more than patient. Illarion had been more than generous. Her heart wanted to run to Illarion, wanted to accept his offer. Could she live with the risk of alienating her family, alienating herself from all she knew, for a man she barely knew? Was it logical to risk eighteen years—the sum of her lifetime—on a man she’d known for such a short time? And yet, if she did not, nothing short of running away would stop a marriage to Percivale, who was growing more impatient by the day. She was running out of time as Percivale and her parents ran out of patience.

Her head argued differently. Would Percivale be such a bad choice? There was nothing wrong with him, indeed there was much right about him except that she lacked a sense of connection to him, lacked the spark that ignited whenever she was with Illarion. Percivale would make her a duchess, the rest of her life would be secure, her place in society assured as would be the places of her children. Her son would be a duke.

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