Julia Quinn - What Happens in London

“Your days must be very busy,” Harry added, his voice just a touch impressed and fawning.

Olivia frowned. She had a feeling she knew what he was up to, and it would not end well. “You must lead a very exciting life,” she said quickly, trying to shift the conversation.

But Harry was not to be diverted. “Today, for example,” he mused. “You must have a terrific schedule. How honored Lady Olivia is that you should take time out to see her.”

“I would always make time for Lady Olivia.”

“You are ever generous with your company,” Harry said. “From what do we take you this afternoon?”

“You take me from nothing.”

Harry gave a knowing little smile, just to show that the insult, while noticed, had not stung. “Where else could you be this afternoon, Your Highness? With the ambassador? With the king?”

“I could be anywhere I wish.”

“Such is the privilege of royalty,” Harry mused.

Olivia bit her lip nervously. Vladimir had begun to inch his way over, and if there was to be violence, Harry was not going to emerge the victor.

“I am so honored by your presence,” she said-the absolute only sentence she could think of quickly.

“Why, thank you,” Harry quipped.

Stop, she mouthed at him.

Why? he mouthed back.

“I think you speak without me,” Alexei said angrily.

Vladimir moved ever closer.

“Of course not,” Olivia assured him. “I was only trying to remind Sir Harry that his cousin is…ehrm…expecting him for, er, a meeting.”

Alexei looked most dubious. “You said all this?”

Olivia could feel her skin burning. “Quite a bit of it,” she mumbled.

“I really must go,” Harry said abruptly, standing up.

Olivia stood as well. “Please allow me to escort you to the door,” she said, trying not to sound as if it were coming through clenched teeth.

“Please do not trouble yourself,” he replied. “I would not dream of asking so beautiful a lady to get up.”

Olivia blanched. Did Alexei realize that Harry was mocking him? She looked over at the prince, trying not to be obvious about it. He did not seem to have taken offense; in fact, he looked quite pleased. That is, he looked quite pleased in a rather stiff and reserved sort of way. Perhaps satisfied was a better description.

Harry saw himself out, depriving Olivia of the chance to tell him exactly what she thought of his childish behavior. She gripped the edge of the sofa cushion beneath her, seething. He would not escape so easily. He had no idea what it meant to allow a woman’s ire to fester. Whatever she had to say to him, it would be far less pretty tonight than it would have been this afternoon.

In the meantime, however, there was still the prince to attend to. He sat across from her, his expression somewhere between satisfied and smug. He was pleased that Harry had gone, and probably even more pleased that she was now alone with him.

And Vladimir. One really could not forget about Vladimir.

“I wonder where my mother is,” Olivia said, because, really, it was odd that she had not made an appearance. The door to the sitting room had been left quite properly open the entire time, so her presence was not needed as a chaperone, but Olivia would have thought that she’d have wanted to greet the prince.

“Is it necessary for her to be here?”

“Well, not really.” Olivia glanced over at the open door. “Huntley is right there in hall…”

“I am glad we are alone.”

Olivia swallowed, not sure what to say to this.

He smiled a little, but his eyes grew heavy. “Are you nervous to be alone with me?”

I wasn’t until now.

“Of course not,” she said. “I know that you are a gentleman. And besides that, we are not alone.”

He blinked several times and then laughed abruptly. “You do not mean Vladimir?”

Olivia felt her eyes dart back and forth across the room, from the prince to his attendant, and then back again, several times. “Well, yes,” she said haltingly. “He’s right…there. And-”

Alexei waved away her concern. “Vladimir is invisible.”

Her uneasiness grew. “I don’t understand.”

“It is like he is not here.” He smiled at her, and not in a way that made her comfortable. “If that is how I wish it.”

Olivia’s lips parted, but she had absolutely nothing to say.

“For example,” Alexei continued, “if I were to kiss you-”

Olivia gasped.

“-it would be the same as if we were alone. He would not tell anyone, and you would not feel any more…how do you say it…uncomfortable.”

“I think you should go, Your Highness.”

“I should like to kiss you first.”

Olivia stood, knocking the table with her shins. “That won’t be necessary.”

“No,” he said, rising to his feet as well. “I think it is necessary. To show you.”

“To show me what?” she said, unable to believe she was asking the question.

He gestured to Vladimir. “That it is as if he is not here. I must have protection at all times. He is with me always. Even when-I should not say it in front of a lady.”

There was quite a bit already he should not have said in front of a lady. Olivia scooted along the edge of the sofa, trying to make her way out of the seating area and over to the door, but he was blocking her way.

“I will kiss your hand,” he said.

“Wh-what?”

“To prove to you that I am a gentleman. You think I will do something else, but I will kiss your hand.”

It felt as if her throat were closing up. Her mouth was open, but she didn’t seem to be breathing. He had unnerved her completely.

He took her hand. Olivia was still too shocked to pull it back. He kissed it, his fingers stroking hers as he released her.

“Next time,” he said, “I will kiss your mouth.”

Oh, dear God.

“Vladimir!” Alexei let out a short stream of Russian, and his servant came immediately to his side. Olivia was horrified to realize that she had forgotten that he was there, although she was quite certain this was only because she had been so surprised by the prince’s outrageous conversation.

“I will see you tonight,” Alexei said to her.

“Tonight?” she echoed.

“You attend the opera, yes? The Magic Flute. It is the first performance of the season.”

“I-I-” Was she attending the opera? She couldn’t think straight. A royal prince had attempted to seduce her in her own sitting room. Or at least had sort of attempted to do so. In the presence of his hulking manservant.

Surely she had earned a bit of befuddlement.

“Until then, Lady Olivia.” Prince Alexei swept from the room, Vladimir in his wake. And all Olivia could think was, I need to tell Sir Harry about this.

Except that she was furious with him.

Wasn’t she?

Harry was in a bad mood. The day had started out perfectly fine, and indeed had promised all sorts of good cheer, until he’d ambled over to Rudland House’s sitting room and come across Prince Alexei Gomarovsky, apparent descendant of Russia’s most famous bachelor poet.

Or if not most famous, then famous enough.

Then he’d had to watch Olivia fawning over the churl.

Then he’d had to sit there and pretend he didn’t understand when the bastard said he wanted to rape her. And then tried to pass the bloody thing off as some nonsense about sky and fog.

Then-as he was sitting at home, trying to figure out what to do about the prince’s second statement in Russian, which had been an order to the ever-charming Vladimir to investigate him-he’d received written orders from the War Office to attend that evening’s opening of The Magic Flute, which would have been marvelous, had he been able to watch the stage instead of his new least favorite person, the aforementioned Alexei of Russia.

Then the bloody prince had left the opera early. Left, just as the Queen of the Night was beginning her aria. It was “Hell’s Vengeance Boileth in Mine Heart,” for heaven’s sake. Who left at the beginning of “Hell’s Vengeance Boileth in Mine Heart”?

Hell’s vengeance, Harry decided, was boilething in his heart as well.

He’d followed the prince (and the ever-present and increasingly menacing Vladimir) all the way to Madame LaRoux’s, where Prince Alexei presumably partook of the favors of a lady or three.

At that point, Harry had decided he was well within his rights to go home.

Which he did, but not before getting soaked in a freakishly short but violent rainstorm.

Which was why, when he arrived home and shrugged off his sodden coat and gloves, his only thoughts were of a hot bath. He could see it in his mind, steam rising from the surface. His skin would prickle at the heat, almost painfully, until his body adjusted to the temperature.

It would be heaven. Heaven boilething in a tub.

But sure enough, heaven was not to be his, at least not this night. His coat was still hanging limply off one arm when his butler entered the front hall and informed him that a letter had come for him by special messenger and was waiting on his desk.

And so off to his office he went, his feet splishing and sploshing in his boots, only to find that the message contained absolutely nothing of immediate importance, only a few bits and pieces of trivia to fill gaps in the prince’s history. Harry groaned and shuddered, wishing there was a fire in which to toss the offending missive. Then he could stand in front of it, too. He was so cold and so wet and so bloody annoyed with everything.

And then he looked up.

Olivia. In her window, staring down at him.

Really, this was all her fault. Or at least half of it.

He marched over to his window and wrenched it up. She did the same.