Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right (27 page)

“Put him down
now,
” Poppy was saying in a threatening voice. “Before I shoot you in the knees.”

“See? I told you she could take care of herself,” whispered Beatrice to Nicholas.

He wouldn’t call being caught in a conflict with a large thug at night an appropriate situation for a young lady to be in, but yes, he granted that Poppy appeared to be taking care of herself.

“I’m holding on to him until you drop that pistol,” the bodyguard cried. “He’s already kicked me in the privates twice!”

The stableboy’s legs flailed and he punched the air. “Put me down, you big lout!”

“Poppy!” cried Eleanor.

She threw them a brief glance. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Looking for you,” Nicholas said mildly. “Hand me the gun.”

“No, not until he puts the boy down.” She thrust the gun barrel toward the thug.

He sighed and dropped the stableboy, who promptly turned around and kicked him in the knee.

Poppy kept the barrel trained on the bodyguard as she transferred the gun to Nicholas. “This man,” she said in furious tones, “followed us from Prince Sergei’s demanding that I return, even though I’m clearly ill”—Nicholas thought she looked healthy as a horse—“and said if I didn’t go back posthaste, he was going to carry me back. Whereupon he picked up my dear stableboy, who was only defending me with those kicks, and who thankfully had the wherewithal to toss me the pistol before the thug got it.”

Nicholas had an odd feeling. That bodyguard didn’t exude menace to him. He appeared confused. Even frightened.

Nicholas put the pistol in his breeches and looked sternly at him. “Go home and tell your master that he’d best send a note of apology to the lady for the extreme distress you’ve caused her and her servant. Kidnapping will get you both deported.”

“My master didn’t want me to kidnap Lady Poppy,” the thug said in a heavy Russian accent, “just give her a ride home in a proper carriage. The footman said she was terribly ill. Prince Sergei might be a vain oaf, but he’s not evil.”

“Then why did he have all those … those awful people at the dinner party?” Poppy asked. She looked at Nicholas and her two best friends. “They were talking about daggers and sow’s blood. And they were much too familiar with me and each other—why, one woman had hair hanging in her face, and a man said he’d be the Antony to my Cleopatra! The corridor was wickedly gloomy, hardly any candles at all, and Prince Sergei kept trodding on my toes and nudging me with his knee.”

The brute drew in his chin. “The prince is a large man and the table was small. He was worried about fitting you and the entire theater troupe around it.”

“Theater troupe?” Poppy’s brows arched high.

“Yes,” said the bodyguard, “he hired them to entertain you. They were going to do a skit for you from
Macbeth
. That was to be the surprise. He had the corridor darkened to create the appropriate atmosphere.”

“Oh, my God,” Poppy whispered. “I told Sergei
Macbeth
is my favorite Shakespearean play.”

Eleanor and Beatrice both giggled, but Nicholas restrained himself from laughing. Poppy deserved the scare, he thought, going off and frightening him like that.

“It was all a great misunderstanding,” he said to the bodyguard. “Say nothing to Sergei about Lady Poppy’s concerns, and please thank him for his hospitality. I’ll make sure she gets home.”

CHAPTER 28

Her mother was the Pink Lady.

Poppy had had only ten seconds to look at the painting, but she would have recognized her mother in one second, much less ten.

Lady Derby was front and center in Revnik’s last portrait, dancing with Poppy’s father. She recognized the back of his head. She thought she might even have recognized his cuff links.

Viewing her parents’ romantic history forever captured on canvas was astounding … and gratifying. Seeing her mother’s face again—well, that alone was quite a shock. And a lovely, lovely surprise. So sweet, in fact, that she’d felt as if she’d had another moment with her mother, a fact she would cherish forever.

But then on top of all that deep emotion, she realized the painting she already adored was somehow involved in a Service operation.

The worst of it was she couldn’t speak of any of it with Eleanor and Beatrice or her father or Aunt Charlotte. She was dying to—but Nicholas had told her at the top of St. Paul’s that she couldn’t tell her friends and family about any Service activities.

How she longed to tell them!

She so wanted them to see the painting, too, but if Nicholas retrieved it from the Lievens’ ball, when would they ever see it? And what would happen to the painting? Over whose mantel would it eventually reside?

When they returned to the rout, Poppy decided she must leave her two best friends there and go home with the stableboy. Otherwise, she would simply burst with all the emotions and thoughts jostling for space inside her, and confess all. That wouldn’t make Nicholas, Groop, or the Service happy.

“You’re not going home with the stableboy,” Nicholas told her. “Your
fiancé
”—he emphasized the word—“shall escort you both in my carriage. The boy can ride with the coachman, and you’ll tell me about your evening—an evening, by the way, which you saw fit
not
to inform me about.”

She was so agitated, she allowed his censure to flow right by without becoming embarrassed at being caught out. “True,” she said, “but that was for your own good.”

“Why was it for my own good?”

“Because I was involved in a Service activity. You yourself said I should tell no one.”

Nicholas helped her into the carriage and followed her inside. “I didn’t mean not tell
me
. We’re working together. What the bloody hell were you doing besides telling Sergei to forget his romantic aspirations toward you?”

Poppy thought about how much
more
she’d been doing and inhaled a deep breath. “I suppose the girls told you he invited me to a masked dinner. He even sent me this gown.”

The details seemed fairly unimportant at the moment.

“Yes, they told me,” Nicholas said, his mouth a thin, dangerous line. “Let me make one thing clear … you can’t disappear like that again. Now that you’re involved with me, you must be more careful about being alone.” He took her by the shoulders. “Groop told me someone might be trying to break us up. Who knows what lengths they’ll go to? When one is a Service employee, enemies abound, and sometimes you’re not sure who they are.”

She bit her lip. “Oh, dear. With that in mind, then, what I have to tell you is so important and secret, we’ll have to drop the stableboy off and go back to the top of St. Paul’s.”

“Very well.” Nicholas was wearing his serious Service expression, which she found extremely attractive. “But I’ve another safe place we can go to that’s much closer and won’t involve traipsing up five hundred thirty steps.”

Which was how they wound up at a small but plain sturdy sailing craft tied to a dock on the Thames.

“It’s mine,” said Nicholas, “but I don’t get to use it often.” He helped her aboard. “This will take a few minutes. Sit tight in the cockpit and enjoy seeing London at night from the river. We’re lucky we have a light wind and a big moon tonight, perfect for a sail.”

So she sat and watched him untie the rope holding them to the dock and hoist the sail. Then in a silence broken only by the occasional luff of the sail and the sounds of London in the background, he steered the boat to the middle of the Thames and took another few minutes to anchor it.

“Let’s go below,” he said eventually.

He opened the hatch and beckoned her down. She climbed down the ladder, well aware of his warm hand at her waist. Once below, she looked around at the cozy interior of the craft and sighed. “As safe places go, this is perfect.”

“Thanks. I think so, too.” Nicholas left the hatch open so the moonlight could stream in. “Take a seat, please, and tell me what happened.”

She sat on a cushioned berth, and he joined her.

The gentle rocking of the boat was just what she needed to soothe her agitated nerves. Nicholas didn’t say a word. He waited patiently, which she appreciated.

“I saw the Pink Lady painting,” she said eventually.

“You did?” She sensed excitement in his tone, even though, as usual, he was controlled. “I thought it was at the Lievens’.”

“Not yet. Of course, it could be that Sergei brought it back to his apartments for a showing tonight. That’s why I went. He issued me a special invitation to see it.”

“Well? What did you discover?”

Poppy looked directly into his eyes, which were black pools in the darkness of night. “My mother was in the painting,” she said. “She’s the Pink Lady.”

Nicholas gave a short laugh. “You’re joking.”

“No.” She inhaled a deep breath.

“Are you sure it’s your mother in the painting?”

“Yes. I admit I thought perhaps I was seeing things. But it was Mama. And that gown she wore … it’s still in a press in a spare room at home.” She pressed a hand to her mouth for a moment and couldn’t help blinking back a tear. “I was so happy to see her again. With Papa.”

It was an image seared onto her memory forever.

Nicholas squeezed her hand. “It must have been a shock for you, as well.”

She nodded. “Yes, it was. But it was also a gift. A huge one.”

“I can see that it would be.” His voice was gentle.

She gave a little sniff. “Right now I don’t want to think about why my parents are in a painting sought after by the Service. It’s too upsetting.” She sat up, the words bursting to be said. “Right now, I want
you,
Nicholas.”

“Come here,” he said.

She flung herself into his arms and he held her tight. But the hug quickly turned into a kiss. He was warmer than toast, his masculine form more finely sculpted than any thoroughbred stallion’s. And he was handsomer than any man she’d ever known.

She had to admit that encircled in Nicholas’s arms, she didn’t feel confused and upset. She felt safe and happy.

He stopped kissing her for a moment and looked grievously worried.

“Why did you stop?” she asked him, her lower belly heavy and warm, her breasts aching to be touched.

“Because we need to be careful. This is a very tempting situation. We could do anything we want. Which means—”

“We could do
whatever
we want with
whom
we want
when
we want,” she said breathlessly. “We could … disrobe.”

“Exactly.”
He shook his head. “Wait a minute. What did you say?”

All right, she shouldn’t have said it, but it was Nicholas and he’d never tell. “We could—”

“Never mind,” he said, his mouth curved in amusement. “I heard.”

She bit her lip and stared at him.

“Poppy.” He took her by the shoulders. “We can’t do that.”

“But you must admit, we could.”

He sighed. “Don’t you understand how women become with child?”

Of course she did. She’d seen dogs mating on the street. And she’d once seen a bull and a cow.

“Yes,” she said. “But we’ve no fear of
that
happening.”

He gave a short laugh. “To the contrary. A man and a woman naked together can easily make a baby.”

“Not if we don’t get into one of those strange positions. They should be easy enough to avoid, shouldn’t they?” She laughed, thinking of that poor cow. “I’d feel awfully silly.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes at her. “Despite what we did in your father’s library, you’re still unversed in the art of lovemaking, and you’re never making it more obvious than now.”

“I only want to see you”—she smiled shyly—“in your natural form. And maybe kiss you naked, as well.” She reached out and ran her hand over his shirt. “You said no one would catch us. And I promise not to tell if you don’t.”

He groaned and captured her hand. “You’re killing me, Poppy.” He pulled her closer. “And you’re beautiful, you know. I want to take all your clothes off, too. But you’d regret this later.”

She thought of Sergei. And she thought about all her other suitors. She had no desire to see any of them naked. She would have closed her eyes (she actually did when Lord Washburn lost his breeches in that fountain during his proposal to her), but with Nicholas—

There was something about him that made a girl want to keep her eyes open.

“
Please,
Nicholas,” she begged him.

He was silent, brooding, staring into her eyes.

She could see the indecision there. “You told me nothing with you would be boring anymore. Remember?”

He gave a short laugh, and his expression relaxed. “All right, then. But we must be careful.
Very
careful.”

She couldn’t help it. She was so delighted, she kissed his chest, right over his heart. He smelled of man, a potent scent that made her heady with something—