Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right

handsome, and that childish air of mischief about him had been replaced by a sense that he could be dangerous if provoked.

“Yes,” he said. “That is I. My godmother insisted on having me sit for a portrait when I was here one summer.”

“The summer you picked all the roses off her prize bush.”

“That’s right. You heard that story already?”

Poppy chuckled. “She told all of us when we first arrived and you were out seeing to Boris’s business.”

“Which came up short, not that I’m surprised this early in the watch.” He held out his arm. “May I continue the tour with you? We’re supposed to appear a happily betrothed couple, after all. And not simply happy—in love. A couple united after three, angst-filled years of being apart.”

He sighed, a most over-the-top sigh.

Damn the man. There went her Spinster freedom. And he was rude to keep bringing up the lavish tale of love she used to tell her suitors.

“Very well,” she bit out, more than a little dismayed that her plans for wandering about unencumbered had changed. “I’ve been directed to the east wing, primarily to the second floor to a room where Queen Elizabeth once stayed.”

He wrapped her hand in the crook of his arm. “Yes, we’ll stop and see that first.”

The Queen Room was vast and opulent, not a thing out of place and everything well dusted.

“The room hasn’t been used since,” said Drummond. “It’s rather a shrine. See over there?” He pointed to a beautiful dressing table. “There’s a comb on top. The queen either forgot it or left it as a memento of her visit.”

Poppy went over and stared at the comb. “That can’t be her hair.”

“It is,” said Drummond. “Can you believe it’s still there? Although for all we know, it could be the maid’s hair and they keep replacing it.”

Poppy laughed and looked about the room. “I must admit, it’s the perfect place for a queen to sleep.”

“And the perfect place for a man to steal a kiss,” Drummond said. “Especially on the queen’s bed.”

“No,” she said firmly, although her heart picked up its pace. “We can’t.”

But he pulled her down to the bed anyway, the rogue. She was pinned beneath him, and as indignant as she felt, she couldn’t help laughing with him.

Just as suddenly, they stopped.

She felt a sudden rush when she looked into his compelling gray eyes.

He bent low and teased her lips with his own. She let out a sigh and wrapped her arms around his neck. And then he kissed her, slow and sweet, his tongue playing with hers, his mouth hot on her own.

His jaw was pleasingly rough, and she could feel the restraint emanating from his body as he ignited something hot and fierce within her. She arched her back, pressing upward—

And then she remembered. He wasn’t kissing her just for the sweet pleasure of it, was he? This was a game to him. This was his way of trying to persuade her to be a docile fiancée, a female madly in love with the Duke of Drummond, and ultimately, a strategy designed to make her give up her Spinsterhood for a man she didn’t love. The man had her stocking in his pocket, the better to coerce her into his plans. And his plans were entirely self-serving.

Well, this was one woman who wasn’t so easily manipulated.

She pushed him away.

His eyes, which had been smoldering with an appealing heat, became inscrutable gray pools.

“Well,” he said dryly, standing up. “That certainly ended that.”

She stood up herself and smoothed her skirts. “It did, indeed.” Her heart was pounding, but she strove for the calm dignity of Queen Elizabeth. “Now, if you would be so good as to show me the rest of the east wing.”

Which he did. She saw gorgeous rooms, priceless paintings, statues that could have been in museums, and lovely views of the countryside from massive windows framed in rich velvets and damasks.

But she hardly noticed. She couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss on the queen’s bed.

Blast Drummond for getting under her skin.

When they walked back, he stopped and showed her a portrait of his parents as a newly married couple.

“Did your parents love each other?” Poppy dared to ask him, even though it was none of her business, she knew.

He nodded. “Very much. After my mother died—I was thirteen—my father was completely lost. But he remarried less than a year later.” He paused, his mouth thinning. “To a neighbor who took advantage of his vulnerability. She was a profligate spender and unfaithful, to boot. She also hated me and my brother. Probably because we made it very clear we hated her.”

His profile was beautiful, she thought. But there was an air of sadness about him that made her heart ache for him.

“How awful,” was all she knew to say.

He turned to face her. “What about your parents?”

She sighed, just thinking of the old days. “We were a happy family. Mama and Papa were very much in love. And then she died on my sixteenth birthday—of smallpox. We think she got it in our last days in Russia.”

He lifted up her chin. “Are you all right? It hasn’t been nearly as long for you as it has been for me.”

She nodded, even though she felt shaky. “I’m all right. But not Papa. It’s as if he died, too. That’s why I’m”— she hesitated—“not happy.”

Oh, God. She still wasn’t, was she?

Being away from her house and her daily life, it was so much easier to see things clearly. How could she be happy when her father was so grief-stricken that he no longer had dinners with her and hardly ever laughed?

Drummond’s gaze was concerned. “I’m sorry. And to have that happen on your birthday, of all days.”

Poppy swallowed hard. Her heart’s steady rhythm increased, became irregular. “Me, too,” she whispered.

He pulled her forward. “Time to go,” he said, and led her back to the middle wing of the house.

She wouldn’t tell him, of course, that today was her birthday.

She was twenty-one.

CHAPTER 19

Duty over love. It was as simple as that. Nicholas drank his wine and ate his dinner at Lord and Lady Caldwell’s with that simple fact uppermost in his thoughts. It helped assuage the guilt he felt at marrying Poppy for convenience’s sake.

Lord and Lady Caldwell had married for love. So had his parents.

But they hadn’t been in the Service. He was. He’d chosen a different life, and with it came different choices.

Still … he couldn’t deny the sick feeling he had every time he saw Lady Caldwell observe Poppy at the table with that look—the assessing look families typically give newcomers. Lady Caldwell was imagining Poppy as his future bride, as his beloved mate, and she appeared pleased at the idea.

Nicholas knew he shouldn’t feel guilty. But it was difficult to believe he’d made the right choice when he was in the presence of so much love and warmth, which was made most evident when Lord and Lady Caldwell told everyone proudly about their three children and their numerous grandchildren.

Even though he knew he was related to them, he was envious—their original little family was whole and happy and getting bigger every year.

He thought of Frank, his only close relative. And then told himself not to think of him. It was too depressing.

So was the situation with the Russian princess. At the beginning of the meal, Natasha had given Nicholas a meaningful look. “I switched your place card so you’d be seated next to me,” she’d whispered in his ear.

“Did you?” He’d tried to keep his tone neutral and his face impassive. Now that he was working on Operation