Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right

be a cold. And not another annoying habit she’d never noticed in St. Petersburg.

She shifted in her seat and touched her hair, hoping no one thought she was sniffing so loudly and often. And then she felt terribly guilty. She should be thinking about making the prince a special punch to help him recover from his cold rather than be embarrassed about his sniffing.

What kind of true love took exception to a cold?

Because surely, that’s what it was.

He sniffed again.

She almost giggled—a trifle hysterically. Natasha directed another scowl her way, but Poppy ignored her. The housemaid had pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and was handing it to Lady Gastly.

“ ’Ere’s Mr. Keats’s poem,” the housemaid said. “I dare you to read it.”

“I suppose I will.” Lady Gastly winced and held the paper by one corner. She cleared her throat and looked over her captive audience.

“ ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,’ ” she intoned. “ ‘Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold. And many goodly states and kingdoms seen…”

While her hostess ploddingly read the poem, Poppy sat up straighter. Miraculously, her annoyingly persistent thoughts of St. Paul’s and Nicholas’s kisses and Sergei’s sniffing faded. The poem simply took over.

She was shocked.

And stunned.

Keats’s poem was magnificent. It spoke of amazing discoveries and how life-changing they are. It affected her the same way her experience at the Golden Gallery had. Like the explorers in the poem who’d overlooked the Pacific, she’d overlooked London last night with the same “wild surmise,” seeing possibilities she hadn’t known existed.

Lady Gastly folded up the paper and handed it back to the housemaid. “Who here has a comment to make?”

Sergei sat stone-faced. Poppy wondered if he’d even understood the words in the poem, so she asked the prince in quiet Russian.

He yawned. “Yes, I like to ice-skate. Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” Poppy replied, blushing. “I’m so sorry. I thought I asked if you understood the poem.”

He gave a careless shrug. “It was boring.”

Boring?

Poppy heartily disagreed, but perhaps because Lady Gastly hadn’t read in the prince’s native tongue, he couldn’t appreciate it.

Natasha elbowed her hard. “Why don’t they read a Russian poet?” she asked. “Someone should tell them so.”

“I shall.” Sergei stood, looking regal and commanding. His brow was firm, his chin was noble, and he wore many medals on his chest. “I would prefer to discuss a Russian work,” he announced loudly. “Something by Aleksandr Pushkin will suit.”

Poppy gulped and slid just a tad lower in her seat. She loved him, but she’d really have to talk to him about becoming “one of the people” when he was out socializing.

Lady Gastly laid her hand on her cheek. “Oh, dear. Perhaps we should forget about Keats, Your Highness. He is a shocking fellow.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

But then a familiar voice spoke.

“I completely disagree.” Poppy swung around and saw Nicholas standing. His voice was low but fervent. “Mr. Keats’s poem is well worth discussing. He taps into man’s intrinsic desire for adventure, something for which every soul yearns.”

He made eye contact with Poppy, and she felt a rush of connection. He could tell she craved adventure, too, couldn’t he?

“All of us can be grateful to have heard it,” he concluded, and sat down.

One could have heard a pin drop.

Natasha drew herself up and sucked in her cheeks. Sergei directed a long, cold stare Nicholas’s way. Even Lady Gastly appeared stunned into silence by the duke’s outburst.

Poppy didn’t know what to think. The Nicholas who’d just stood and spoken on behalf of Keats wasn’t the callous rake she knew but someone entirely different. Someone who’d been moved by a poem.

His reaction shook her. Was he—could he possibly be … sensitive?

She dared to glance at him, and he winked.

The scoundrel.

He was as sensitive as a log. She should have known he was merely amusing himself. What did he know of poets and poetry? And what was he doing alienating Sergei and Natasha that way? Wasn’t he supposed to make the Russian twins happy?

Poppy was so annoyed at his unapologetic air, she moved closer to the prince, who had resumed his seat. “Don’t worry,” she told him, “I shall discuss Pushkin with you.”

Was he to be blamed for caring so very deeply about his country’s poets?

“We have much to discuss,” Sergei said, his eyes smoldering with something.

“We do?”

He leaned closer to her. “Be ready, Lady Poppy,” he whispered in her ear. “Like the big Russian bear, soon I will roar at you with passion. The passion of Pushkin. And more. Much more.”

He pulled back and smiled slowly.

“Oh,” she said, and waited for that melty, shivery feeling to take over and for her heart to thump with wild abandon, but nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

CHAPTER 16

It was one of those moments when Nicholas wasn’t sure his Service duty was worth it. The day after the literary salon, while Prince Sergei attended to business in Whitehall, Nicholas found himself walking down an expansive wing at the British Museum with Poppy, Natasha, and her dogs. The princess had received special permission to bring the hairy yappers on their tour—in a pram, of all things.

Now Natasha came to a halt in front of a statue of a Greek goddess. “I must ask you to push the corgis now, Nicky,” she told him with a lazy yawn. “Only very dear friends are allowed to do so.” She cast a sly glance at Poppy, who fortunately was too busy examining the Greek goddess’s garments to notice the slight.

Already he’d lifted the pram up a massive set of stairs, which was no small feat with five dogs inside. And now he was to … push the pram?

Over his dead body.

A quick glance at Poppy showed she’d apparently heard every word, after all. Her eyes twinkled in amusement.

He gave Natasha a tight smile. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

She pulled in her chin. “Whyever not?”

It was too late for regrets, but for the umpteenth time, he wished he’d never gotten intimately involved with the princess.

“I can’t push dogs”—he felt as if he had a pair of stockings stuffed down his throat—“in a pram.” There was a slight snicker from Poppy. “I never have,” he went on, his voice rising, “and I never will!”

Damned dogs in prams.

What was the world coming to?

He refused to be chagrined at his lack of manners—a man could take only so much nonsense—and strode ahead of the two ladies, ignoring Poppy’s polite insistence to the princess that she push the pram while Natasha