What Happens in London (Bevelstoke #2)(57)

“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?





Chapter Fourteen




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.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, before he could get word in. “Where have you—what happened to you?”

In the compendium of stupid questions, he decided, that would rank high. But his lips were probably still blue with cold, and there was no way he could say all that. “It rained,” he bit off.

“And you decided to go for a walk in it?”

He wondered if, with superhuman effort, he might be able to strangle her from here.

“I need to speak with you,” she said.

He realized he could not feel his toes. “Does it have to be right now?”

She drew back, looking terribly offended.

Which did little to improve his disposition. But still, gentlemanly behavior must have been beaten into him as a child, because even though he should have slammed the window shut, he instead explained himself, biting off, “I’m cold. I’m wet. And I’m in a very bad mood.”

“Well, so am I!”

“Very well,” he ground out. “What has you in a tizzy?”

“A tizzy?” she repeated derisively.

He held up a hand. If she was going to argue over his word choices, he was through with her.

She must have decided to choose a different battle, because she planted her hands on her hips, and said, “All right then, since you asked, you are the cause of my tizzy.”

This had better be good. He waited for a moment, and then said, dripping with equal parts sarcasm and rainwater, “And…?”

“And your behavior this afternoon. What were you thinking?”

“What was I—”

She actually leaned out of her window and shook a finger at him. “You were deliberately provoking Prince Alexei. Do you have any idea what a difficult situation that put me in?”

He stared at her for a moment, then said simply, “He’s an idiot.”

“He’s not an idiot,” she said testily.