Her brows twitched into a frown and a wave of panic swept through him. Every other time he’d given a woman a piece of jewelry, it had been as a parting gift, a “thank you” for a few weeks of mutual pleasure. Would she think of it as adouceur? They’d only shared one night, but he prayed she wouldn’t interpret it as a crude attempt at payment. There weren’t enough jewels in the world for that.
But her fingers skimmed over the sapphires and diamonds like a lover’s caress, and he found he could be envious of inanimate objects too. Then her glistening eyes lifted to his and the rest of the world fell away.
“Thank you,” she managed huskily. “This means… so much to me. You have no idea.”
He had a fair idea. The yearning and rapture on her face was reward enough for the foolish, quixotic gesture, even if it revealed the depths of his regard for her to anyone with a pair of eyes. He wasn’t wearing his heart upon his sleeve—he’d put in it a bloody jeweler’s box and handed it to her with a roomful of witnesses.
Shit. He should have bought her a fan or a silver card case—some meaningless, less sentimental trinket that would have left him less emotionally naked. Less exposed. But he’d wanted to see that smile of hers, and restoring some small part of her family heritage had seemed like a good way to do it.
“It’s almost exactly as I remember it,” she breathed softly. “Except for the setting. The original was gold. I like this better.”
He managed a careless shrug, as if it weren’t the most expensive gift he’d ever given. As if he hadn’t paid a king’s ransom for it and bullied and threatened Rundell for the past week to have it ready by tonight.
She pressed her lips together. “It must have cost a fortune. How can I ever rep—”
“There’s no need for repayment,” he growled, and she flinched at his unintentionally gruff tone. “It’s a gift, freely given. Take it.”
Her eyes searched his, looking for God knew what, but then she inclined her head. “Then, thank you, Lord Mowbray. You’re very kind.”
His lips twitched. “That’s not my reputation.”
“Oh, my!” Dorothea sighed, craning her neck to peer at the tiara on its bed of crushed black velvet. She glanced approvingly at him. “I must say, Sebastien, whatever your faults—and they are legion—you do have the most exquisite taste.”
“Why thank you,” he said dryly. “But I can’t claim credit for this particular design. Rundell merely recreated what the princess had already drawn.”
“Come, let me help you put it on.” Dorothea dragged Anya toward a pier mirror. She stood motionless as the tiara was placed on her hair, then turned her head this way and that to inspect it from different angles. The diamonds flashed tiny rainbows across the room, and the dark sapphires threatened to suck all the available light into their cobalt depths. Fathomless darkness and eternal light, the entire universe in one glittering headpiece.
Seb exhaled softly and quelled the urge to applaud.Bravo, Princess.He’d never been much for poetry, but the fragment of a verse came to him, something he’d read a few years ago by one of those opium-addled fools like Byron or Coleridge.
She walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies,
and all that’s best of dark and bright,
meet in her aspect and her eyes.
It seemed entirely apropos. She was an ice princess brought to glittering life. Her upswept hair revealed the elegant nape of her neck. The delicate bumps of her spine looked like a row of natural pearls. He wanted to trace them, to undo the tiny buttons at the back of her dress and peel back the silk until he found the sweetly rounded curve of her—
No. No no no.
Business, not pleasure.
Princess. Out of bounds.
He cleared his throat, pasted a polite smile on his face, and gestured to the open doorway. “Our guests await. After you, Princess.”
He caught Geoffrey’s amused look, one that simultaneously appreciated and mocked the extravagance of his gift. It was a look that clearly said:Oh, you’ve done it now, little brother. And I will tease you mercilessly as soon as we’re alone…
Seb sent him an answering scowl, just daring him to comment. Anya and Dorothea filed out of the room. He quashed the impulse to catch Anya’s wrist and prevent her from entering the ballroom, to carry her up to the nearest bedroom instead. Nobody could hurt her if she were locked away with him. He could keep her safe forever in his arms.
He shook his head. What utter bollocks.
Mellors’s dulcet tones echoed through the hall as the doors to the ballroom were thrown open, and Seb glimpsed a sea of expectant faces all turned toward them.
“The Dowager Duchess of Winwick and Her Highness the Princess Anastasia Denisova.”
Seb blinked. Anastasia. He’d never even given her full name a thought. She was simply Anya. The girl who made him imagine ridiculous, impossible futures. The girl who drove him mad.
