Awakened By The Prince’s Passion. Bronwyn Scott

lightly. When one was talking of rulers and restorations, it was deadly serious business. ‘I am your ally whether you seek the throne or not. You should feel free to use the safety of this house as you desire. If your desire is to stay hidden and recover your memory, or simply to stay hidden and a build a new life, to take a new name and set all trappings of Kuban behind you, I will support that as I am able. If you wish to stage an effort to reclaim the throne on the grounds of modernising Kuban and abolishing archaic law, I will support that, too. But I will not pressure you one way or the other. No one can decide what happens next but you.’ It was the same reassurance he’d given others who had nowhere to go and nowhere to turn, although on a far less grand scale. Never before had those people been members of the royal family. ‘You are safe with me. I am here for you.’ Nothing less than honour and objectivity required that be his position.

      ‘Whoever that is?’ she questioned sharply.

      ‘Yes, whoever that is, émigrée or refugee princess.’ He dismissed her with an encouraging smile. ‘Now, go and see the doctor.’ He’d brought her the best and he was confident she’d be well taken care of. As for himself, he needed time with his thoughts before he faced Varvakis again. It was entirely possible the revolution would succeed or fall without any intervention from Princess Dasha, especially if no one suspected she was alive. He certainly wasn’t going to stake his life on forcing the issue unnecessarily and he definitely wasn’t going to force anyone else to do so, least of all a woman who might not be interested in the plots of men.

       A single word from you, a little persuasion, could change that. You could make her see the possibilities such plots presented.

      The temptation whispered itself into being and took up residence in the lodge of his conscience.

       You could do it, too, you’ve done it before, helping men and women see things the way they needed to be seen, especially the women. You remember how to seduce...

      Yes, dammit, he did remember. It had been a point of pride to know that when the Tsar needed a diplomat to change his mind on a trade agreement or an export tax, he’d sent Ruslan to ‘speak’ to their wives; ‘pillow talk,’ he’d called it. In that way, Ruslan had served Kuban and his Tsar, although it had all amounted to nothing when his father had fallen from favour. That was the way of Kuban. If one member of a family was disloyal, the entire family was blackened with the same brush.

       You would be serving Kuban by persuading her. Varvakis is right, she’s the one they need. She can heal the country’s breach.

      His conscience was relentless.

      That was the larger temptation, because the ends did quite nobly justify the means. Persuading the ambivalent Dasha to return was in the country’s best interest. Under that aegis, he could conveniently overlook the personal gain to himself. Whatever he gained could just be a beneficial happenstance. He’d told Dasha he would not make that decision for her. But he’d said nothing about attempting to influence the decision. Would she even be aware he was influencing her?

      Such things, as crass as they might be, must be contemplated when the fate of a kingdom hung in the balance. Revolutions created all nature of opportunities for those bold enough to take them—even opportunities for him. Which was why he had to remain absolutely objective. He’d been right to tamp down the wash of sentiment that had swept him in the garden. It would be easy to be lured by Dasha’s beauty, her desperate strength in the face of her personal tragedies. He could not afford to give into those emotions. Restoring the Princess was another project, not unlike the ones he’d done in the past, nothing more. The game was in motion once again. He’d do best to remember that small nuance.

      But snuffing out hope was easier said than done. That tiny flicker of excited hope inside him refused to be extinguished entirely. If the Princess chose to take her place on throne, if he could see her successfully restored, perhaps he could find a way back, a way to erase the stain on the family name, to prove once and for all a Pisarev was loyal to the bone. It was the one thing he’d given up trying to do.

      Ruslan looked about his newly acquired town-house garden. This house was proof of that decision. Proof that he’d given up thoughts of returning. A home implied permanence. He’d been moved in for all of two weeks. Ruslan laughed to himself. Just when he thought the door was finally shut on his past, it was starting to open again. Some would say Fate was a bitch. They were wrong. Fate just might be a princess.

       Chapter Three

      Prince Pisarev called it an intimate supper. Dasha called it a council of war. She surveyed the assembled guests from her vantage point at the drawing-room fireplace with a wary eye. The day had been spent in cautious meetings such as this; first with the Prince in the garden, then with the doctor and now this gathering. It consisted of one Russian diplomat in Alexei Grigoriev, the consul from St Petersburg; one Russian officer in General Vasiliev, also of St Petersburg; and three Kubanian princes. With the exception of Klara Grigorieva Baklanova, Dasha was the only woman present, further proof this was no ordinary supper party.

      She sat at the foot of the table, a prince to her left, the darkly brooding Stepan Shevchenko. To her right sat another prince, Nikolay Baklanov, and his wife beyond him. Prince Pisarev sat at the head of the table with His Excellency Alexei Grigoriev. General Vasiliev and Captain Varvakis filled out the spaces between. Dinner was a tribute to Kubanian cuisine: a borscht soup with sour cream to begin, followed by beef and baby potatoes, all accompanied by wines from Ekaterinodar, one of the few areas in Russia where vineyards could be cultivated.

      At the other end, Prince Pisarev raised his glass. ‘A toast to our lovely guest, Princess Dasha Tukhachevskenova. To safe arrivals and happier days. Na zdorovie!’ The Prince toasted her as if she were an honoured guest on a state visit, instead of a fugitive gone to ground.

      Around Dasha, the words became a polite chorus. She smiled at the guests, graciously accepting the toast as if she had a right to the fiction the Prince created, all the time wondering how many of them, like herself, questioned her ability to make good on the claim. How many of them were sizing up the potential benefits of believing in her versus risks? No one did anything for nothing and supporting a princess with no memory of her own identity was no small thing to ask. This was the worst part of not remembering, of not knowing. Who did she trust? Who could she turn to?

      When the chorus died down, she raised her own glass. ‘To our host, Prince Pisarev, whose hospitality has been unending.’ The Prince gave a slight incline of his head, his eyes steady on her as he drank. Was he also calculating the situation? Of course he was. His questions today indicated as much and he’d be a fool if he wasn’t—something she was certain he was not. Helping her was not without danger, should she choose to return to Kuban and embrace her heritage. It would be far easier for him if she chose anonymity. Far easier for her, too.

      She wondered if, despite his vow to support her decision regardless of her choice, he would try to influence the situation towards a certain outcome? Would she ever truly be sure of his neutrality? Or truly sure that any decision she made was entirely hers alone? It occurred to her that Prince Pisarev was the man at this table she needed to be able to trust the most and the one she should probably trust the least, simply because he wielded the most power. She was in his house, under his protection, under his direction. Everything that had happened today was because of him—from her bath, to her clothes, to the excellent doctor and the dinner tonight. All of it was because of him. Thankfully, she didn’t have to decide anything tonight. But she’d have to decide soon, judging from the tenor of the conversation.

      ‘Are you saying the military is split on the rebellion?’ General Vasiliev questioned Captain Varvakis with a sharp eye. ‘If so, it is no wonder the Loyalists didn’t stand a chance, no ruler does without a unified show of military force.’

      Captain Varvakis nodded in agreement and explained. ‘The Tsar’s restrictive marriage and career policies affected noble families perhaps the most. The younger generation of nobles felt increasingly alienated