Which was bad enough, except that she’d spent half her life poking fun at those ladies. Oh dear oh dear. She scrambled back to her feet and poked her head out the window. “I’m fine,” she called out. “Just lost my footing.”
He nodded slowly, and she realized he wasn’t entirely with her. His thoughts were far, far away. Then, as if quietly coming back into place, he looked up and begged her pardon. “Woolgathering,” he offered as explanation. “It’s late.”
“It is,” she murmured in agreement, although she did not think it could be very much past ten. And all of a sudden she realized that she could not bear to have him say good night, that she was going to have to do it first. Because…because…Well, she didn’t know why, she only knew that it was true.
“I was just about to say that I should really be going,” she said, the words tumbling from her lips. “Well, not going, I suppose, as I don’t really have anywhere to go, since I’m already right here in my room, and I’m not going anywhere but bed, and that’s just a few feet away.”
She smiled at him, as if that could make up for the nonsense coming from her mouth. “As you said,” she continued, “it is growing late.”
He nodded again.
And she had to say something more, because he wasn’t doing so. “Good night then.”
He returned the farewell, but his voice was so soft she didn’t really hear it, rather saw the words on his lips.
And again, like his eyes, when he looked at her, she felt it. It started in her fingertips, floating up her arms until she shivered and exhaled, as if she could set the strange feeling free with her breath.
But it stayed with her, tickling her lungs, dancing across her skin.
She was going mad. That had to be it. Or she was overtired. Too tense from a day with a royal prince.
She stepped inside her room, reaching up to pull her window closed, but then—
“Oh!” She poked her head back out. “Sir Harry!”
He looked up. He hadn’t moved from his spot.
“The book,” she said. “You still have it.”
In unison they both looked out at the strip of space between their buildings.
“It’s not going to work so well tossing it up,” she said, “is it?”
He shook his head, and he smiled, just a little bit, as if he knew he should not. “I shall have to call upon you tomorrow to return it.”
And there it came again, that breathless feeling, all bubbly and strange. “I shall look forward to it,” she said, and closed the window.
And shut the curtains.
And then let out a little squeal, hugging her arms to her body.
What a perfect evening this had turned out to be.
The following afternoon, Harry tucked Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron under his arm and prepared to make the extremely short journey to Lady Olivia’s sitting room. It was, he thought as he made his way over, nearly as far in vertical distance as horizontal. Twelve steps down to his ground floor, another six to the street, eight up to her front door…
Next time he would count the horizontal paces, too. It would be interesting to see how they compared.
He’d quite got over his momentary madness of the night before. Lady Olivia Bevelstoke was astoundingly beautiful; this was not just his opinion, it was a well-accepted fact. Any man would want her, especially one who had been living as monkish an existence as he had these past few months.
The key to his sanity, he was becoming increasingly convinced, was in remembering why he was climbing the front steps to her home. The War Office. The prince. National security…She was his assignment. Winthrop had all but ordered him to insinuate himself into her life.
No, Winthrop had ordered him to insinuate himself into her life. There had been no ambiguity about it.
He was following orders, he told himself as he lifted the knocker at her door. An afternoon with Olivia. For king and country.
And really, she was a damn sight better than that Russian countess with all the vodka.
With such focus on duty, however, one would have thought he’d have been more pleased when he arrived in the sitting room and saw that Lady Olivia was not alone. His other assignment, the incredibly well-postured Prince Alexei of Russia, was right there, sitting across from her, looking smug.
It should have been convenient. Instead, it was annoying.
“Sir Harry,” Olivia said, giving him a bright smile as he entered the sitting room. “You remember Prince Alexei, do you not?”
But of course. Almost as well as he remembered his hulking giant of a bodyguard, standing with a deceptive slouch in the corner.
Harry wondered if the fellow followed the prince into his bedroom. That had to be awkward for the ladies.
“What is that in your hand?” the prince asked him.
“A book,” Harry replied, setting Miss Butterworth down on a side table. “One I promised to lend to Lady Olivia.”
“What is it?” the prince demanded.
“Just a silly novel,” Olivia put in. “I don’t think I will like it, but it was recommended by a friend.”
The prince looked unimpressed.
“What do you like to read, Your Highness?” she asked.
“You would not be familiar with it,” he said dismissively.
Harry watched Olivia closely. She was good at this, he realized, this playacting that masqueraded as polite society. There was barely a flash of irritation in her eyes before she suppressed it, with an expression so perfectly pleasant and sunny that it had to be sincere.
Except that he knew it wasn’t.
“I would still like to hear about your reading choices,” she said cordially. “I enjoy learning about other cultures.”
The prince turned to her, and in doing so, turned his back on Harry. “One of my ancestors was a great poet and philosopher. Prince Antiokh Dmitrievich Kantemir.”
Harry found this very interesting; it was well known （among those who knew of Russian culture） that Kantemir had died a bachelor.
“I also read recently all of the fables of Ivan Krylov,” Alexei continued. “Every Russian of education must do so.”
“We have writers like that, too,” Olivia commented. “Shakespeare. Everyone reads Shakespeare. I think it would be almost unpatriotic not to.”
The prince shrugged. His opinion of Shakespeare, apparently.
“Do you read Shakespeare?” Olivia asked.
“I have read some of it in French,” he said. “But I prefer to read in Russian. Our literature is far deeper than yours.”
“I’ve read Poor Liza,” Harry said, even though he knew he should have kept his mouth shut. But the prince was such a pompous ass. It was difficult not to try to prick the air from him.
Prince Alexei turned to him with unconcealed surprise. “I did not know that Bednaya Liza had been translated into English.”
Harry didn’t know, either; he’d read it in Russian, years ago. But he’d already made one rash mistake this afternoon. He wasn’t going to make another, and so he said, “I think I’m thinking of the right book. The author is…oh, I can’t think of it…begins with a K, I think. Karmazanon?”
“Karamzin,” the prince said brusquely, “Nikolai Karamzin.”