Compromised By The Prince’s Touch

‘You are the master here, Miss Calhoun.’ Nikolay clung to the shreds of his patience. Surely their requisite hour was nearly up? Then just one more lesson for the day. Who would ever have imagined teaching four girls to ride was more difficult than marshalling an entire regiment?

‘But...’ Miss Calhoun began to whine. His temper flared.

But? She dared to argue with him? He, who was a Prince of Kuban? He, who had led and trained the Kubanian cavalry? A man who excelled on horseback? Nikolay raised his voice, overriding her excuses. ‘No buts, Miss Calhoun. Set your horse in motion or I will do it for you!’ The last was met with a significant amount of shocked rustling in the spectators’ gallery where the girls’ mothers and maids sat in vigilant attendance. He knew what they were debating in their heated whispers—the merits of questioning him for his harsh tone. Was it worth the risk of alienating him? Or did they allow him to scold Miss Calhoun in the hopes of securing his attentions?

He did not fool himself. That’s what they were here for: attentions, affections. It was what all his female pupils were here for, well-bred daughters of the British peerage, angling to snare a foreign prince, even one in exile from a place most had never heard of seemed to suffice, never mind that he wouldn’t be accepting any of those offers. He’d been in London for two months, since the Christmas holidays, and business at Fozard’s had increased exponentially—quite a feat considering much of London society was still in the country. The rustling ceased. The jury of mamas had decided to let his tone pass.

‘All right, ladies, that’s enough for today. Walk your mounts and then hand them off to the grooms.’ He strode towards the door, his words as rapid as his pace. If he exited fast enough, he could escape making polite small talk with the mothers before his next lesson. He headed for the private instructors’ lounge and slipped inside, breathing a bit easier. It was his first piece of luck all day.

‘Hoy, Nik. I see you survived the Misses Four.’ Peter Crenshaw, one of the other instructors, looked up from cleaning tack.

‘Barely. I’ve got one more and then I’m done.’ Done with this day that had started badly and gone downhill from there. The morning had begun with Lady Marwood slipping a key into his pocket with a note, making it explicitly clear she was more interested in riding him than the lovely bay mare her besotted older husband had purchased for her last week at Tattersall’s. That was how the day started and the Four Horsewomen of his personal Apocalypse had ended it. What he wouldn’t give for a strapping lad who could jump something.

Peter gave him a wry look. ‘You can always quit. You don’t have to put up with the girls or any of it.’ Nikolay didn’t miss the edge of envy beneath Peter’s words. Peter needed to work. Peter depended on the income. He was a half-pay officer in an army going nowhere.

Nikolay shrugged. ‘What would I do with my days if I didn’t come here?’ He needed to work, too, but perhaps for a different reason than Peter. The income wasn’t the issue. The scheduling of his days was. A year ago, he’d been a high-ranking officer in the Kubanian military. He’d spent his days out of doors on the parade grounds schooling cavalry units, leading manoeuvres. He’d spent his nights at palace revels, consorting with the loveliest women Kuban had to offer; waltzing, flirting, engaging in an affaire or two when the whimsy took him. Political calamity had changed that, or at least part of that. True, he still revelled at night. London, even out of the Season, wasn’t much different from Kuban’s glittering court and there were still women aplenty available for pleasure of the physical kind, just the way he liked it, with no strings attached. But his days had suffered. Oh, how they’d suffered.

He’d kept with his old military habit of rising early, only to discover London gentlemen rarely rose before eleven. He’d taken to walking the streets and parks, watching the town rise. He’d spent his ‘mornings’—a term he used loosely since they seemed to occur briefly between eleven and two—conducting the business of resettlement: establishing accounts, garnering memberships to clubs, settling his horses. All of which was handled efficiently and quickly with little effort from him. He’d spent his afternoons sightseeing with his comrades from Kuban, the friends who had fled with him. But when that was done? When all the pieces were in place to ‘begin’ living the London life? How did he spend his time then?

He’d found himself at a constant loose end. No wonder English gentlemen rose so late in the day. There was nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. So, he’d come here to Fozard’s, a place with horses, a place where he knew how to live—to some degree. He was painfully aware the parallel was not exact. He was a trainer of disciplined men, not spoiled girls. But it would do until he figured out who he was in this new life and what he wanted to be. It was a question which haunted him not a little these days. He’d been in England nearly a year and he still had no answer. His hopes of starting his own riding academy were still just hopes.

Nikolay picked up the file with his last client’s information in it. He scanned it once and then twice, the second time more slowly, more carefully, the hairs on his neck prickling at the name: one Miss Klara Grigorieva, a diplomat’s daughter. Another ‘Miss’, of course, because that was how his luck had run today. There was the immediate concern of her riding ability, which was probably negligible. He could only imagine how ill-suited to the saddle she would be. Diplomats’ daughters knew how to host afternoon tea parties and evening dinners. They might even speak a language or two and converse on a variety of subjects. But they were not equestrians. Even so, it wasn’t only that which had his neck hair prickling. It was that she was a Russian girl; Klara Grigorieva was the Russian ambassador’s daughter, which, on the surface, made it easy to see why she’d been paired with him. What Fozard’s couldn’t know was the suspicion such a pairing provoked for him. Did this pairing have more sinister undertones? Had she been sent to smoke him out? Was Kuban hunting him at last? He snapped the folder shut. He wouldn’t have any answers standing here. It was four o’clock. Showtime.

Only he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in the waiting area. She wasn’t wandering the aisles petting the horses or any of the usual places the other girls tended to be. They were going to start late at this rate, and to top it off, someone was in the arena riding when everyone knew he had one more lesson before the arena was free for instructors’ personal work.

Nikolay strode to the gate of the arena, prepared to halt the intruder, and found himself halted instead. Whoever the intruder was, he was an excellent rider: solid seat, straight back, rolled shoulders, elbows in. The rider urged the horse into a canter with an imperceptible use of hands and knees. Nikolay followed the rider’s trajectory to the jump in the centre of the arena—a jump that had become purely decorative. His students certainly didn’t aspire to it. It was high enough to be challenging. At three feet, a rider needed to know what he was doing. The rider lifted over the horse’s neck and the pair flew over the faux wall easily. The horse could go higher. Nikolay could see it in the tuck of the animal’s knees over the wall. He could also see the horse wasn’t one of their schooling string. This was no instructor riding early. Which begged the question—who was he?

The rider doubled back, preparing to take the jump from the other side, giving Nikolay a first glimpse of the rider’s face: sharp cheekbones, the firm but fine line of jaw, almost feminine beneath the helmet, the intensity of green eyes fixed on the jump as the rider sighted the target. Nikolay couldn’t be sure if the rider saw him. The horse and rider took the jump again, coming to a stop in front of him at the gate.

The rider undid the strap of the helmet and removed it, shaking loose a stream of walnut waves. He was a she. A not entirely warm smile played on her sensual lips. ‘Nikolay Baklanov, I presume?’ She tossed those glossy waves with presumption. ‘You are late.’

‘You are riding without permission or supervision. Klara Grigorieva, I presume?’ Nikolay countered. Best to begin as he meant to go on with this supercilious miss who clearly possessed a healthy dose of arrogance, if not common sense. Nikolay placed a booted foot on the rungs of the gate and gave his newest pupil a considering gaze from head to boot. ‘You’re the Russian ambassador’s daughter?’

She swung off the horse. ‘I am, and this is Zvezda, my mare.’ She smiled broadly, eyes sparking as her boots hit the ground. ‘Surprised? Not what you expected?’

‘No, not at all.’ She was also very tall for a woman, a fact emphasised by the male attire she wore, breeches that encased long legs and emphasised the slenderness of waist. Her hair fell to that trim waist, and she had a face that rivalled Helen of Troy, a beautiful mix of eastern exoticism in the seductive slant of those eyes arched with narrow dark brows, the sharp cheekbones of her Russian ancestors and the delicate jaw of an English rose—the perfect combination of strength and femininity.

‘“No, not at all”?’ she parroted. ‘What does that mean? No, not at all surprised? Or no, not at all what you expected?’

Nikolay put a hand on the horse’s bridle. ‘You know very well you had the advantage of me.’ But he would not be cowed by that surprise. Neither would he allow her to keep that advantage. Bold women were attractive up to a point. ‘I think you like surprising people, Miss Grigorieva.’ How intriguing; the ambassador’s daughter had a rebellious streak. He petted the horse, looking for neutral ground before their first encounter became overly adversarial. ‘Zvezda, that’s Star in Russian.’ He didn’t miss the spark in her eyes. She hadn’t known. Interesting. ‘Pretty name. Pretty horse.’ The mare was an excellent specimen of English horseflesh. A Russian name for an English horse, much like the daughter, apparently. Klara was a name that could bridge both worlds, where Grigorieva could not.

Nikolay watched her carefully, this Anglo-Russian creation standing before him. ‘What is it that you’ve come to me for, Miss Grigorieva?’ His eyes drifted, letting his gaze convey explicitly what his words implied. If she wanted to play with fire, he’d light the match.

‘Riding lessons, of course. This is a riding school.’ She didn’t flinch.

‘You already ride exceedingly well, as I am sure you know.’

‘I am told you’re the best. Isn’t that reason enough?’

‘The best at what?’ It was a provocative question, hardly the sort of thing one said to an unmarried young woman. But she was not the ‘usual’. One had only to note her breeches, as opposed to a riding habit, to know that much. The mischief in him wanted to knock Miss Grigorieva from her high horse. The officer in him wanted to control her, wanted to rein in the danger she might pose.

‘Riding,’ she answered with a cool arch of her brow that implied an innuendo of her own. She turned towards Zvezda, reaching up to grip the saddle and a bit of mane. ‘A leg up, if you please?’

Touché. All the better to see her with, Nikolay thought wryly. He cupped his hands to take her boot, keenly aware of the curve of her hip and buttock, so near to his face that he could kiss that derrière as he tossed her up. He opted for professional detachment. ‘Let’s try the jump again. This time, I want you to count your strides. Anyone can jump if they’re brave enough,’ he challenged. ‘Not everyone can do it on a pace count. That’s true art. Take it in five strides.’ Nikolay drew a line in the dirt with his boot. ‘From here.’

‘I’ll take it in four.’ She fastened her helmet.

‘I asked you to take it in five,’ Nikolay responded sternly. If this had been his cavalry, he would have had a soldier whipped for such insubordination. ‘If you study with me, I expect you to take direction as well as your horse, Miss Grigorieva. Can you do that?’

She wheeled the white mare around in a flashy circle but not before Nikolay caught the hint of a flush on her cheeks. Ah, so Miss Grigorieva was not used to being disciplined. He imagined not, with that haughty demeanour of hers. She was used to people doing her bidding, not the other way around. She took the fence in five strides, but it was a fight for the fifth before the mare lifted. She’d started too fast and the mare had eaten up too much ground. ‘Again, Miss Grigorieva! This time with five even strides so it looks like you planned it that way.’

She shot him a hard look and Nikolay chuckled. The wilder the filly, the better the ride. Part of him was going to enjoy taming the diplomat’s daughter and part of him was going to regret it. He just wasn’t yet sure which part was going to be larger. ‘Heels down, Miss Grigorieva. Let’s try again.’ London had just got more interesting, if not more dangerous.

Chapter Two (#u7405a933-5e61-5f68-8002-ed28beb8567b)

Heels down? Was he joking? No one had told her that for years. She was no amateur and yet she begrudgingly discovered there was a bit of room in the stirrups still for the slightest of adjustments. She turned Zvezda around and pointed her towards the jump. Five even strides. She’d show that arrogant Russian prince perfection in motion. Heels down. Hah. That would be the last time she gave him reason to find any fault with her.

They worked on counting strides for the better part of the hour until the mare was tired, but not too tired, not too sweaty. Sweaty horses chilled easily in the winter. Nikolay Baklanov had a good eye, not just for the horse, but for the rider, too. His arrogance was well earned. His reputation did not disappoint. Even with her experience, she’d picked up a tip or two during their session which was something of a surprise in part because she’d not expected to and in part because learning something had only been a portion of the reason she was here. The other part was that she’d been sent on a mission of sorts to vet the young Kubanian royal. The Prince had been in London for two months; long enough to have called on the ambassador himself. Since he hadn’t, her father had decided to send her to call on him. She was to meet Prince Baklanov and establish his ‘quality’.

Klara dismounted to walk her horse while the mare cooled. The Prince fell into step beside her, debriefing the lesson with instructions on what to practise throughout the week. She could easily imagine him giving the same terse litany of instructions to his troops. He would be a commanding leader. Up close, he was tall, a novelty for her. She could look most men in the eye, but she reached only his shoulder, a very broad shoulder. There was no doubting he was a rider of superb calibre. He was built for it with long legs, muscled thighs evident even through the fabric of his trousers and lean through the hips. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, only muscle: well-trained, well-hewn muscle.

This was no dandified cavalry officer whose position had been purchased by his parents and good fortune of birth. This man was a warrior, a point accentuated by the dark hair worn long at his shoulders; the firm cut of his jaw and severe, chiselled lines of his face. A woman could look at that face for hours, could lose herself in the dark depths of his eyes—eyes full of secrets. He was a man who knew how to be dangerous to both men and women—a warrior to one, a lover to the other. He did not strike her as a man who’d appreciate being manipulated.

‘Do you keep a horse here?’ she asked when his debrief finished. Men loved to talk about themselves, it was always safe—and useful—conversation and that’s what she was here for: useful conversation with Prince Baklanov. Men gave hints away all the time, in their words if she was lucky, but in other subtle ways, too: the tone of their voices, the gestures they made, the way they held their bodies.

‘I keep three, actually.’ He smiled at the mention of his horses and the result changed his face entirely, translating the strong, stoic planes of his warrior’s face into breath-taking handsomeness. Zvezda was cool and they led her out into the aisle towards a stall. ‘We’re passing them now.’ He nodded to the left, a hand going to the pocket of his coat to retrieve a treat as they came up on the first stall. ‘This is Cossack. He’s a Russian Don by breed.’

‘He must be your cavalry horse.’ Klara ran her eyes over the muscled chestnut, taking in the horse’s shiny coat. ‘He’s magnificent,’ she complimented, but she could tell her comment, her knowledge, had surprised him.

‘Yes. I brought him with me when I left Kuban.’ She heard the wistfulness as his voice caressed the words. Perhaps he would rather not have left? The Prince moved on to the stall beside it. ‘This is Balkan, my stallion.’ He ran a hand affectionately down the long neck of a horse so dark, he was nearly black.

‘Let me guess.’ Klara took in the short back, the height of the withers. ‘He’s Kabardin, perhaps Karachay.’

‘Very good!’ He flashed her another handsome smile. ‘You do know something of the Motherland then.’

It was her turn to be uncomfortable with his display of insight. ‘I know something of horses and their breeds,’ Klara replied, leading Zvezda to her stall. She grabbed the blanket hanging beside the stall and stepped inside. ‘How did you know?’

The Prince lounged outside the stall door, arms crossed, eyes studying her as she tossed the blanket over Zvezda’s back. ‘You didn’t know what Zvezda meant when I told you. You don’t speak Russian and I would guess that your mother is English.’ He pushed off the wall and stepped inside to work the chest fastenings of the blanket. ‘I would go so far as to say you’ve never lived in Russia.’

‘You’re almost right.’ Her hands stilled on the blanket straps. What would this prince think of such a woman who had no knowledge of her heritage? ‘I haven’t lived there since I was a little girl. It’s true, I don’t remember much of it. We lived in St Petersburg for three years when I was four. We spent the summers in the countryside at an estate near Peterhof. That’s what I am told. What I remember are the grasses around the estate, how they were as tall as I was and I could hear the wind pass through them.’ She loved those memories. She’d lain for hours in those grasses looking up at the sky, happy and unaware how sadly the sojourn in St Petersburg would end.

No one paid much attention to her in those days—she would only understand why much later. In the moment, she’d been pleased. She could go where she willed, do what she wanted. She’d had grand adventures. Returning to England had been the end of those adventures, except for her horses. She might have gone crazy if it hadn’t been for them. England had been the start of special tutors, then special schools, the very best for a girl who was expected to grow up to marry a duke, to become a complete Englishwoman, her Russian heritage nothing more than a novel characteristic to be put on display the way one displays a parlour trick. Something interesting and entertaining, but not to be taken seriously, not even by her, although this was ground on which she and her father disagreed. She wanted to know about her Russian heritage, hungered for it, even against her father’s promises to her dying mother to raise an English rose.

‘St Petersburg is a long way from the Kuban Steppes,’ the Prince said neutrally and she had the sense that she was the one being vetted, quite the reverse of her intentions for this meeting. It made her nervous. What had she given away? What secrets had she inadvertently revealed?

She tried for a smile and a bit of humour. ‘We can’t all be patriotic cavalry officers.’

The effort failed. Her remark had been meant as a compliment, but it evoked something darker. The openness of his expression shuttered. ‘Who said anything about being patriotic? Come, you haven’t seen my other horse, she’s a Cleveland Bay. I acquired her when I arrived. I have hopes of breeding her with my Kabardin stallion.’ Any chance to follow up on his comment was lost in his rambling talk of a breeding opportunity. Klara was certain it was quite purposely done. The comment about patriotism had made him edgy. She had skated close to something with that remark.