Pleasuring the Prince (23 page)
Read Pleasuring the Prince Online
Authors: Patricia Grasso
Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #England, #Princes, #Historical Fiction, #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #Love Stories
Fancy ignored her. “Raven, unfasten my husband.”
Stepan was smiling. He stood, rubbing his wrists, and started toward her.
“Stay where you are.” Fancy pointed the gun at him, making her sisters gasp. “Hold your hands high, too.”
Losing his smile, Stepan raised his hands into the air. “Sweetheart, pointing pistols is dangerous.”
“Darling…” Fancy gave him her most adoring smile, her fingers still on the trigger. “Where did you sleep the night before last?”
“He was with me.”
Alexander Blake walked into the room with Constable Black. Behind them came the other three Kazanov princes.
“You slept with Alex?”
All the men laughed at that.
Stepan lifted the pistol out of his wife’s hand. “Blake and I drank ourselves into a stupor at your house in Soho.” He passed the constable the pistol and warned, “Don’t drink the poisoned wine.”
Raven stood at the end of the dining table. “Patrice and Sebastian are the rose-petal murderer.”
“I wish you had not endangered yourselves by rushing to the rescue,” Constable Black said, looking at each of the sisters. “Your folly could have cost your lives.”
“You need not worry about the Flambeau sisters.” Stepan drew Fancy into his arms. “My wife is deadly with her slingshot.”
Alexander Blake turned to the prima donna, his expression murderous. “My deepest regret is we can hang you only once.”
“I won’t hang!” Patrice shrieked with hysterical laughter. “I’m crazy! They don’t hang crazy people.”
Sebastian Tanner bobbed his head up and down. “She is crazy.”
“Crazy people go to Bedlam, not the hangman,” Patrice taunted.
Fancy heard Raven gasp and shifted her gaze to her youngest sister. Raven was staring hard at the discarded paring knife on the table in front of her.
The knife shook and then slid slowly. Picking up speed, it became airborne.
The paring knife flew toward the prima donna’s throat and caught it dead center. Patrice gurgled sickeningly, clutching at the knife, and then slumped facedown on the table.
“Ooops,” Raven whispered.
All gazes swiveled to her. No one spoke, merely stared in surprise at the youngest Flambeau.
“Come, Miss Giggles.” Unaffected by the execution, Blaze turned to leave the room, the monkey cuddling in her arms. “Mama Blaze will take you home to play with the duchess. Won’t that be fun?” She disappeared out the door.
“I’ll walk with her,” Raven said.
“Do not move,” Alexander ordered. “I want to speak with you.”
Raven paled. “Am I arrested?”
“If you leave, I will take you into custody.”
Fancy leaned against her husband. “Why did you come here?”
Stepan pulled the note out of his pocket, showed it to her, and passed it to the constable. “I thought you wanted to speak to me.”
“That isn’t my handwriting.”
Stepan steered her toward the door. “I have never seen your handwriting.”
“You would never forget it if you had.”
“Chicken scratch?”
“Worse.”
Stepan and Fancy walked out the front door and down the steps. “Where are your shoes?” he asked.
“I took them off when I sneaked into the house.”
Stepan scooped her into his arms and carried her to his brother’s coach. He helped her up and climbed inside. “Grosvenor Square,” he called to the driver.
“How will your brothers get home?”
“Let them walk.” Stepan yanked her into his arms. “I love you, princess.”
Fancy looped her arms around his neck. “I love you more.”
“I love you as much as the biggest number in God’s universe,” Stepan said.
Fancy kissed his throat, whispering, “I love you the same…plus one.”
“Plus two…”
Eight months later
The girls made their debut on the first day of spring, the same evening their Aunt Serena made her operatic debut in
The Maid of Milan
. Princesses Gabrielle and Genevieve captivated their parents from the first moment of their arrival.
On the second day of spring, Fancy and Stepan were closeted with the girls in their bedchamber. Cradling Gabrielle in her arms, Fancy sat in bed and leaned against the headboard. Stepan sat beside her and cradled Genevieve in his arms.
“It’s raining,” Fancy said.
Stepan could not drag his gaze from the daughter in his arms. “Sometimes good things
do
happen in the rain.”
“Let me hold Genevieve now.” Fancy passed him Gabrielle and took Genevieve into her arms. “What happened to your face?”
Stepan moved Gabrielle to his left arm. “You slugged me last night.”
“That never happened.”
“I offered to redirect your pain, and you slugged me.”
“Oh, how sweet…” Fancy smiled at her daughter. “Genevieve is yawning.”
“And Gabrielle is scrunching her little button nose.”
“Let me see.” Fancy smiled and then asked, “How was Serena’s debut?”
“I do not know.”
“Didn’t we get the
Times
this morning?”
“Holding my daughters was more important than reading your sister’s review.” Hearing a tap on the door, Stepan crossed the bedchamber and opened the door.
Bones’s voice.
Stepan looked at her over his shoulder. “Several guests have arrived to meet their newest cousins.”
Fancy smiled at that. Her husband’s nieces had been sick with excitement for the past few months. She had no heart to make them wait another moment.
“Send them up.” Stepan left the door open a crack and returned to perch on the bed’s edge. Moments later, the sound of more tapping on the door. “Enter.”
Grinning with excitement, the nieces filed into the bedchamber and lined up for the viewing. Raven and Blaze followed the little girls into the room.
“Oh, Uncle and Aunt, how darling the little ones are,” Roxanne gushed.
“I cannot believe we got
two
cousins,” Natasia said.
“I found that difficult, too,” Fancy said.
Her sisters smiled. Her husband chuckled.
Sally and Elizabeth, Viktor’s and Mikhail’s daughters, held hands and stepped closer.
“I love Gabrielle and Genevieve,” Sally said.
“I love them, too,” the soft-spoken Elizabeth said.
Fancy looked at Elizabeth. “You will soon have a baby brother or sister.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Daddy said the baby is coming tomorrow because Mama Belle has pains in her belly.”
Lily peeked at Geneveive. “I love her.”
“Both Gabrielle and Genevieve will love you,” Stepan said.
“What about me?” Roxanne demanded.
“They will love you, too,” Stepan said. “And you—”
“—and you and you and you,” his nieces chimed.
Lily gazed into her favorite uncle’s dark eyes. “Uncle, how does the baby get out of the mummy’s belly?”
“I do not know precisely.” Stepan cleared his throat. “Your daddy tells me he knows everything. Ask him.”
“Rudolf will not appreciate your helpfulness,” Fancy said.
“If my brother can tell her the Earl of Rotten bought a ticket to Tyburn, he can tell her how the baby gets out of the mummy’s belly.”
“Aunt,” Lily drew her attention, “why are Gabrielle and Genevieve wrinkled?”
“All babies are wrinkled,” Fancy answered, “but the skin smoothes out as they grow.”
“Princess Sunshine had a baby, too,” Lily announced.
Sounding like the duchess, Roxanne drawled, “Darling, this is the year for babies.”
“You must return here next week for Gabrielle’s and Genevieve’s first tea party,” Stepan invited them.
“Are we invited to the tea party?” Raven asked.
“My husband is in charge of tea parties,” Fancy said, “but I know he will invite you.”
“What about me?” Blaze asked.
“You can come to our tea party tomorrow,” Lily said.
“Will you invite Miss Giggles?” Blaze asked.
“Who is she?”
“Miss Giggles is my monkey.”
“How exciting!” Lily clapped her hands together. “Can we go home with you now and meet her?”
“Yes, of course.”
The five little girls squealed with excitement. Genevieve howled her dislike of the noise, inciting her sister to howl with her.
“New babies need sleep,” Raven said, herding the girls toward the door. “We should leave now.”
Before following them out, Blaze placed a newspaper on the bed. “I brought you a copy of Serena’s review.”
Stepan moved, sitting beside his wife, and leaned against the headboard. “We will need another nanny or two or three.”
“Read my sister’s review.”
Stepan opened the
Times
to page three and read:
“Serena Flambeau delighted the opening-night crowd at the Royal Opera House. Young Serena stepped into the lead role in The Maid of Milan and proved as talented as her older sister, who retired upon her marriage. This Flambeau sings and plays the flute. Per order of her distinguished father, several enormous bodyguards kept society’s eager swains at bay.”
“
Her older sister?
That nasty reporter did not even write my name.”
Stepan slipped his free arm around her shoulder. “Does Serena’s success bother you? Bishop would love to take you back.”
Fancy looked at him. “You would approve?”
“If singing in the opera makes you happy,” Stepan answered, “I will agree, not approve.”
Fancy pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you, my love.”
“Will it make you happy?”
“I could not possibly be any happier than I am at this moment,” Fancy answered, her love shining in her eyes. “What we hold in our arms is better than a good review.”
His gaze returned her love. “A good review cannot hug you or miss you or—”
“—or keep you awake at night crying to be held,” Fancy finished.
Stepan brushed his lips across her temple. “Believe me, love. You sing like an angel, much better than your sister.”
She gave him a sidelong smile. “You still haven’t found a job?”
“Loving you is my vocation.”
“A worthy profession.” Fancy gave him a flirtatious smile and moved her hand to caress his groin.
“What are you doing, princess?”
“Pleasuring my prince.”
Please turn the page for
an exciting sneak peek of
Patricia Grasso’s next historical romance
DESIRING THE PRINCE
coming in April 2007!
London, 1821
He smelled her fear.
Shrouded in darkness and swirling fog, he watched her glancing over her shoulder when she reached the sickly yellow glow from the gaslight. She knew he was there. Somewhere. He loved the hunt, especially when his quarry knew he was lurking, watching, waiting.
Rejecting him had sealed her fate. An insulting laugh and a seductive toss of her ebony curls had answered his proposition.
When she rounded the corner, he cut through the next alley to get ahead of her and leaned against the stone wall. Footsteps approached, heightening his anticipation.
She was almost here.
She would be his.
She would regret refusing him, if only for a moment.
Leaping out as she passed, he grabbed her from behind and slashed the blade across her throat. He pushed her to the ground and stood over her. The gurgling sounds of her struggle to breathe lessened, each beat of her heart pumping the life out of her.
He dipped his finger in her blood and painted a cross on her forehead, as if she’d been anointed by the devil. Then he pressed a shiny, gold sovereign into the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around the coin.
“Thank you for an enjoyable evening, my dear.”
The unmistakable aroma of horse droppings floated into the garden on a gentle breeze.
Belle Flambeau stood in her blossoming domain and sniffed the air, a smile touching her lips. The odor of horse dung from Soho Square shouted springtime.
Wisteria trees bloomed purple against the red brick house while yellow tulips conspired with purple crocus to startle the eye with vibrant color. A fragrant lily of the valley ground cover reclined in front of the silver birch tree guarded by lilac, gardenia, rose, and pussy willow shrubs. Forsythia nodded in the breeze at their old friend, the purple pansy that lived in the shade beneath the oak tree.
The garden goddess promises minor miracles.
The clever business slogan pleased Belle. Her success in reviving plants had spread to the great mansions the previous season. Already, gardeners for those wealthy aristocrats had requested her services.
Belle narrowed her violet gaze on the pansy and walked toward the oak tree. The pansy’s failure to thrive troubled her. Each day she snatched the pansy from death’s grip but found it wilted again the next morning.
“Sister.”
Belle glanced over her shoulder and saw one of her sisters walking across the grass. Bliss looked disgruntled.
“Why does Fancy insist on keeping the duke’s identity a secret?” Bliss demanded, her voice shrill with anger.
“To which duke do you refer?”
“Our father, of course.” Bliss rolled her eyes. “Investing would be easier if I knew which companies he owns.” Her sister waved in the direction of the house. “The duke has always supported us in style. Why does our company need to pauperize him? If he retaliates, the Seven Doves will fail, and we will live in the poor house.”
Belle placed her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Calm yourself.”
Bliss took several deep breaths and then asked, “Is your touch making me feel better?”
Belle gave her an ambiguous smile. “Fancy will never forgive Father because, as the eldest, she remembers the relationship they shared.”
“You’re only a year younger,” Bliss said. “Don’t you have memories?”
“When I think of Father,” Belle answered, “I see a tall, dark-haired gentleman holding Fancy on his lap.”
“Did he never hold you?”
“At first I was too young to share his lap with Fancy.” Belle shrugged. “When you and Blaze arrived, I suppose I was too old. The man could only hold one baby in each arm.”
“Being born between the oldest and a set of twins is not the most auspicious position,” Bliss said. “Being ignored could not have been pleasant.”
“I enjoyed Nanny Smudge’s attention.” Belle lifted a rectangular gold case from the basket looped over her forearm. “Search for the duke with the initials
MC
and a boar’s head crest.”
Bliss shook her head. “Admitting ignorance of one’s father’s identity is humiliating. Does your illegitimacy bother Baron Wingate?”
Belle paused before answering, squelching the rush of irritation. None of her sisters could resist the opportunity to insult her future husband. “Charles understands that we cannot control our origins.”
“I worry the baron will hurt you.”
“I appreciate your concern.” Belle watched Bliss disappear into the house and turned to the ailing pansy. All thoughts of healing the flower vanished with her sister’s concern.
I refuse to become love’s victim,
Belle told herself,
like my mother.
Gabrielle Flambeau, the daughter of a French aristocrat, had escaped the Terror when the citizens slaughtered her family. A penniless countess, her mother had won a position in the opera and caught the eye of a married duke. Together, her mother and her anonymous father had produced seven daughters.
The Flambeaus had wanted for nothing, except the duke’s love and attention.
The daughter had learned hard lessons from the mother, though. She refused to die broken-hearted.
Charles Wingate loved her and accepted that she intended to go to her marriage bed a virgin. She would never consider becoming any man’s mistress.
Turning her thoughts to the pansy, Belle knelt in the dirt and set her wicker basket beside her. She reached for the white candle and its brass holder. Next came a tiny bell, followed by the
Book of Common Prayer.
Finally, she lifted the gold case engraved with the initials
MC
and a boar’s head. The case contained Lucifer matches and sandpaper to light her healing candle.
Belle traced her finger across the initials
MC
. A gentleman’s accoutrement, the case had been left behind fifteen years earlier, and her father had never returned for it. A wealthy duke could easily replace one gold case, and she had cherished this momento of her father.
Hearing the door open again, Belle saw Blaze and Puddles, the family’s mastiff, entering the garden. Blaze headed in her direction while Puddles raced around sniffing for a particular place.
“Are you practicing your hocus pocus for the season?” her sister asked.
Belle smiled at that. “The garden goddess cannot perform minor miracles without a bit of showmanship.”
“Good Lord, the stench from Soho seems stronger than usual today,” Blaze remarked, pinching her nostrils together for emphasis. “What is wrong with that sorry-looking pansy? Is it choking from dung stink?”
Belle shrugged. “I revive the pansy every afternoon and then find it wilted again by morning.”
“The garden goddess fails to save a flower’s life?” her sister teased. “This could ruin your business.”
The black-masked mastiff loped across the garden toward them. Reaching the oak tree, the dog lifted its hind leg perilously close to the pansy.
“Puddles, no.” Down came the leg, and Belle rounded on her sister. “Tell Puddles to conduct his business against the stone wall, not near my pansy.”
“Sorry.” Blaze gave her a sheepish smile and then knelt in front of the dog. She stared into the mastiff’s eyes for a long moment and then patted its head. Puddles bounded across the garden to the stone wall and conducted his business there.
“Thank you.” Belle relaxed and teased her sister, “If my pansy dies, I will consider you and Puddles its murderers.”
Blaze crouched down beside her. “Listen, Puddles dislikes Baron Wingate.”
Belle gave her a rueful smile. “Charles has disliked your dog since the day—”
“Puddles lifted his leg to the baron because he doesn’t trust the man.”
“I will not listen to another word against Charles.” Her sisters’ disapproval of the baron irritated Belle. “None of you, including Puddles, needs to like Charles since I am the one marrying him.”
“If you say so.” Blaze returned to the house, the mastiff following behind her.
Banishing all disturbing thoughts, Belle gave her attention to the pansy. She lifted her right hand to make the beginning blessing but heard the door slam behind her.
Another visitor? Her pansy would expire before she could revive it. Perhaps ignoring whoever—
“Belle.” The voice belonged to her youngest sister, who did not sound especially happy.
Raven plopped down on the grass beside her. “I need your advice.”
Belle leaned back on her haunches. “What is the problem?”
“Constable Black asked me to use my special gift to help with that slasher investigation.”
“Do you mean the one the newspapers have dubbed the Society Slasher?”
Raven nodded. “My problem is Alex,” she said, referring to their neighbor, the constable’s assistant.
Belle waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “A brick is more sensitive than Alexander Blake.”
“I want to help the constable,” Raven said, “but Alex makes me feel…
young
.”
“You
are
young.” Belle studied her sister for a long moment. “You told him you loved him, didn’t you?”
Raven nodded, her misery etched across her face. “How do I behave around Alex?”
“Men want what they cannot have.” Belle touched her sister’s hand. “Treat Alex with chilly politeness and icy disdain.”
“Be careful with Baron Wingate,” Raven said before leaving. “I cannot trust the man.”
Belle took a deep, calming breath and hoped her other three sisters did not interrupt. Then she prepared to heal the pansy.
As Nanny Smudge had taught her, Belle began with the magic blessing. She touched her left breast, her forehead, her right breast, left and right shoulders; finally she touched her left breast again.
Removing a Lucifer match and sandpaper, Belle lit the white candle. Then she waved the tiny bell above the pansy, its tinkling sound breaking the garden’s silence.
Belle placed her fingers against the pansy. “Ailing, ailing, ailing. Pansy, my touch is sealing, and thy illness is failing. Healing, healing, healing.”
Taking the
Book of Common Prayer
, she held it over the pansy and whispered, “It is written. It is so.”
Belle extinguished the candle’s flame and made the magic blessing to complete the ritual. The pansy perked up almost immediately.
A hand touched her shoulder.
“Enough interruptions,” Belle exclaimed, whirling around. “Charles, what a surprise.”
Baron Charles Wingate stared at her, amusement lighting his brown eyes. “What are you doing?”
Belle blushed at being caught kneeling in the dirt. “My pansy needed tending.”
The baron offered his hand to help her rise. When she reached for it, he dropped it to his side. “Your hands are dirty.”
“This is dirt, not dung.”
Charles shook his head in disapproval. “Playing in the dirt is unseemly behavior for a baroness, not to mention whispering to flowers.”
“Ooops, you just mentioned it,” she teased him, rising without his assistance.
“I do not consider that amusing. Once we marry—”
“Really, Charles, you are much too particular.” Belle put her hands on her hips. “Do not forget we met when your gardener hired me to revive that rosebush.”
“Darling, I don’t mean to scold.” He smiled, suddenly amenable. “Your meeting with my fastidious mother concerns me.”
“Concerns or worries?” Belle touched his arm, trying to soothe him. “I will behave properly.”
“Promise you won’t mention working for money.”
Belle smiled. “I promise.”
“Do not mention gardening, either.”
“My lips are locked.” She pretended to button her lips together.
“Above all else, do not mention your sister singing in the opera. Mother dislikes such women.”
Belle lost her good humor. Fingers of unease curled around her spine. Was he embarrassed by her family?
“If you cannot be expensively attired,” Charles continued, “then be certain your gown is modest.”
Belle narrowed her violet gaze on him and brushed an ebony wisp off her forehead. “Are you implying—”
“I have a sterling idea,” Charles interrupted. “We could contrive to mention your father.”
Belle gave him a blank stare. Was he serious? Or had he bumped his head, rattling his brain?
“You know, sweetheart, the duke?”
“That could prove awkward,” Belle said, “since I do not know which duke sired me and my sisters.”
“Doesn’t His Grace support you and your sisters?” He sounded annoyed. “His Grace’s barrister must mention him when he delivers your monthly allowance.”
“Percy Howell calls my father
His Grace
.”
“You said your sister knows the duke’s identity.”
“Fancy refuses to name him.”
“Then we will mention your deceased mother was a countess, albeit a penniless French refugee,” Charles decided. “We can only pray that your anonymous noble bloodlines and your incredible beauty sway Mother into approving our union.”
Belle’s irritation rose, inciting her to sarcasm. “I will pass the whole evening in prayer.”
“I must leave now,” Charles said, reaching for her hands, “Mother doesn’t like waiting.” He lifted her hands to his lips but dropped them again when he saw the dirt.
“Where are you going?” Belle asked, when he walked in the direction of the alley exit.
“That disreputable dog growled at me.” And then he disappeared into the alley.
The baron’s blond good looks reminded Belle of sunshine, but his snobbishness made her uneasy. She feared his mother was worse; after all, the woman had raised him. Beneath that haughty exterior beat the heart of a decent man. If only she could snatch him away from his mother’s influence.
Belle sighed, knowing that was impossible. She only wished Charles was not so concerned with appearances.
One mile and a world away from the Flambeau residence stood the great mansions in Grosvenor Square. Offensive street odors did not dare assault aristocratic nostrils in this enclave of the wealthy. Here, fragrant gardens masked the occasional whiff from passing horses.
Prince Mikhail Kazanov sat at his thirty-foot dining table set with the finest porcelain, crystal, and silver. Perched on the chair beside him was his four-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.