LITMIR.BIZ

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the two of you decided my fate?’ There was an edge to her coy tone as she swept forward, disregarding Varvakis’s hand. Ruslan suppressed a smile. The Princess might have forgotten precise, physical memories, but she’d not forgotten what it was to be at court, where one had to watch every word, every association. There was hope in that. The Princess might prove to be less malleable than Varvakis believed.

      ‘I would not be so bold as to decide anything for you, Your Highness.’ Ruslan made a small bow of respect. ‘However, I have sent for a physician who is both discreet and knowledgeable about memory loss. Would you care to take the air in the rose garden while we wait?’ He gestured towards the wide French doors that opened into his prized garden. Garden space was at a premium in the city; he’d been lucky to find a home with one.

      ‘I would like that very much.’ The Princess shot him a considering look that said she guessed at a larger reason behind the offer. But it was a price she was willing to pay. Ruslan wondered what she wanted in exchange. Perhaps she, too, was interested in assessing him just as he was interested in assessing her—without the screen of Varvakis’s presence.

      Outside, the sky was overcast as they walked the paved pathway that wound through his collection of roses. They made small talk as he introduced her to each type. ‘This one I got from a Lady Burton, she breeds them in Richmond. I call it the Debutante for its unique shade of white. But this one, I have grafted myself.’ Ruslan stopped at an ivory rose tinted with pink edges.

      ‘It’s beautiful. Does it have a name?’ Dasha bent to smell the flower, her eyes closed, long lashes fanning her cheek. If he were a painter, he’d want to capture the image of serene beauty she presented in that moment. An artist like Illarion’s wife, Dove, would appreciate the rose of her gown and the pink highlights on the flower. But he was not an artist. He was a thinker, an arranger.

      ‘Not yet.’ He held her gaze as she straightened. ‘Perhaps I should call it the Dasha, or the Princess. Your beauties complement one another.’

      Dasha laughed. ‘Very nicely done, Prince Pisarev, but I don’t think you brought me out here to flirt.’ He would have, though, if circumstances had been different, if there hadn’t been so much at stake or so much unknown, if she’d simply been another pretty London debutante. She was just the sort of woman he liked: pretty and fresh, but not vacuous. Such traits were rather rare in fashionable society, or anywhere, actually. As a prince close to the Tsar, Ruslan had spent his days at court escorting the jaded wives of ambassadors and visiting generals. He knew just how rare such a woman was.

      Ruslan chuckled. ‘I don’t think you came out here for flirtation either, so why don’t we cut line. Why did you come out?’

      They began to stroll again, her arm tucked through his, to create the impression to anyone who might be looking on that nothing significant was taking place. It was a tactic he had used often to woo a secret or two from those worldly wives of diplomats. At court, one could never be sure who was listening.

      The Princess wasted no time getting to her point. ‘Do you know me?’

      The blunt sincerity of the question caught Ruslan entirely off guard. He’d expected questions about plans and plots, perhaps even an interrogation of his credentials. He slid her a considering glance. She would not want his pity, although he was tempted to give it. She’d been tugging on his somewhat less than objective heartstrings since she’d fallen into his arms, although he’d do well to resist the sentimental urge. Still, he wasn’t so heartless as to not recognise how horrible it must be to not know oneself. He admired her confidence in the face of such uncertainty, a reminder that she did know herself in some way, innately and instinctively if not exactly.

      ‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’ Ruslan gave her the truth, although it was not the answer she hoped for. He covered her hand with his where it lay on his arm. ‘I knew your brothers: Peter, Grigori, Vasili. We grew up together.’ He paused, his earlier emotions of the morning threatening to get the better of him when he thought of their deaths. ‘I am genuinely sorry for your loss.’

      ‘Forgive me, but you have me at a disadvantage.’ She stopped walking and turned to face him, grief etched in her gaze, but a different grief than one might expect. This grief was twofold. ‘It seems you know more about my family than I do. I do not know if they were good or bad, kind or cruel, but I do know no one deserves to die that way. Don’t you see, Prince Pisarev? I can’t fully mourn them, not yet, not until my memories return.’ She shrugged. ‘Will you think I am cowardly, if I say it’s a blessing I can’t remember? Perhaps I am somehow spared the pain of loss.’ She looked away to a point beyond his shoulder, disappointment shadowing her green eyes. ‘I was hoping you knew me.’

      ‘I would have been too old to know you. You would have been only ten when I was at court with your brothers and younger still when I was running about the palace with them.’ Even at that age, he’d been arranging entertainment for the boys, always the ringleader coming up with a new adventure to fill the days. Those had been golden years, as a child growing up in the palace, his family in high favour with the Tsar. Those years had burned brighter still when he’d come of age, home from university, filled with ambition, before his family had fallen from grace. She would have been too young, too isolated to know of it. ‘Besides,’ Ruslan added, ‘you were raised in traditional fashion and kept out of public view.’ As were all gently bred Kubanian girls of high birth. They were sequestered away to the point of oppression. It was one of the contentions that had seen his friends, Nikolay and Illarion, exiled from Kuban, seen his father imprisoned and out of favour and now it had become one of the central issues that had sparked the revolution.

      ‘It is not surprising I don’t recognise you.’ He racked his mind for the least bit of memory and came up with one. ‘I do recall one Christmas, though. You were perhaps seven. We were home between terms from our respective universities and it had snowed. We had a snowball fight on Christmas Eve, with you, Grigori and Vasili against me and Peter. You wore your hair in braids with blue bows.’ He smiled fondly at the memory. ‘Kuban gets the best snow, not the wet stuff we have here in England.’

      ‘It sounds lovely, like something I’d want to remember.’ Dasha looked away, her gaze troubled.

      Ruslan was quick to offer her consolation. Consolation came easy to him. He’d offered reassurances to other people in seemingly hopeless situations over the years. ‘It’s only been a few weeks. These things can take time. Sometimes the best remedy is to not try too hard to remember, to just let it happen.’

      ‘You are very kind.’ She offered him a faint smile and he did not bother to correct her. He was not kind. He was merely doing his job. Pretty as she was, she was just another project like all the other people he’d ferried out of Kuban over the years. The difference was that while they had wanted to get out, she wanted to get in.

      ‘And yourself, Prince Pisarev? It’s your turn. Why did you want to get me alone?’

      ‘I wanted to know your opinions about Varvakis’s plans. He would see you restored to the throne. That is an ambitious, if not dangerous undertaking, and one I would not support without your consent. Is that a road you wish to travel?’

      They had reached the edge of the garden where a fence separated his luxurious home from the alley. She paused to fiddle with the ivy growing rampant against the wood. ‘I should wish it, shouldn’t I? A princess should want to go back, I should want to rally people to my cause, to my throne. Perhaps I should even want to avenge my family.’

      ‘But you don’t want those things?’ Now they were getting to the heart of it; not just her fear, but her doubt of her capabilities.

      ‘No, I don’t. Right now, anonymity is appealing. I would rather fade into nothingness than return to a place that might prefer to drag me out on my lawn and finish the task they started instead of negotiate with me, simply because of my father’s policies.’ She paused and gave him a reflective stare. ‘What sort of princess doesn’t want to go home or rule her people? What sort of princess chooses anonymity?’

      Ruslan studied the woman beside him with careful

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