To Wed a Wicked Prince Read Free

inconveniently intransigent about a perfectly civil request, you understand.”
    Livia didn’t know whether to give way to the gales of hilarity threatening to overcome her, or deliver an icy snub for his impossible arrogance and stalk off. The problem was that he spoke only the truth. And while she knew she should feel sorry for Lord Bellingham, she’d often enough been tempted to douse his pomposity herself with a jug of very cold water.
    She laughed, and he stood leaning against the railing, watching her and smiling until she had herself in hand again. He took her fan from her slack grasp and flipped it open, fanning her until the flush on her cheeks had faded somewhat and she’d dabbed at her eyes with a flimsy lace handkerchief.
    “Oh, dear,” she said. “That’s so unkind of me to laugh…poor Bellingham.” She shook her head as if to dispel the last threads of amusement and looked at him. “I have to tell you, Prince Prokov, that that’s a very un-English way of handling an inconvenience.”
    “But of course I’m not English,” he pointed out, giving her back her fan. “The Slav temperament tends to the impulsive. We choose the quickest and most efficacious solution to our…our inconveniences.”
    She looked at him more closely now, noticing the high, broad cheekbones, the long, thin nose, the finely drawn mouth, and the luxuriant head of wheat-colored hair brushed back from a broad, intelligent forehead. It was a refined face dominated by those amazing blue eyes.
    And there was that slight, attractive accent. Slav? Strangely, she’d always thought of dark complexions and black hair in such a context. But there were exceptions and she made a guess. “Are you Russian…or perhaps Polish?”
    “Mostly Russian,” he told her. He took her glass and set it on the balcony rail. “Shall we dance again?”
    “I’m afraid I can’t,” Livia said, glancing at her dance card, suspended from her wrist on a silken ribbon. “Unless you think you could arrange for the next six gentlemen on my card to have a contretemps with the fountain.”
    “Whom should it be next?” he asked promptly, and she went into another peal of laughter. But she turned from him and resolutely went back into the ballroom, where her next partner was looking rather disconsolately around the floor.
    Alexander Prokov remained on the balcony gazing down into the garden, a fairy-tale garden on such a beautiful late summer evening, lit by pitch torches and myriad little lamps suspended from the trees. He had no interest in dancing with anyone else tonight.
     
    Livia found it difficult to pay attention to her partner and was glad that her feet at least performed the steps without too much mental guidance.
    “So, I was thinking that Gretna Green would be best…we could elope the day after tomorrow. How would that be, Livia?”
    Her gaze focused abruptly and she blinked at her partner, Lord David Foster. “What, David? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
    “Gretna Green,” he said gravely. “I was suggesting we elope the day after tomorrow and drive straight to Gretna Green.”
    She stared at him. “What?”
    “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said for the last twenty minutes, Liv,” he declared. “I’m beginning to feel like a wooden doll with moveable feet.”
    “Oh, David, I’m sorry.” She was instantly remorseful. “I admit it, I was miles away. But I’m listening now. Do you really want to go to Gretna Green? This is all very sudden…but I’ve always wanted to elope, climb down from my chamber on a rope made out of sheets. And you could wait in an unmarked carriage in the alley…”
    “Enough,” he said, laughing with her. “Not that I wouldn’t marry you in a heartbeat if you’d have me.”
    “That’s very gallant of you, David, but you couldn’t possibly afford to marry me. I don’t have nearly enough of a fortune,” she said with blithe candor.
    “Alas, I fear you’re right,” he said,