a delicious shade of pink—“that is to say, you finished—” She trailed off again in acute embarrassment, and Seb was more than happy to let her squirm. “There’s no chance that I could fall pregnant from the encounter,” she finished stiffly.
He shrugged. “It’s the principle of it.”
“I don’t care about principles. You don’t want to marry me. And I have no desire to wed someone who’s only offering because he feels guilty or because of some misplaced sense of honor. Nobody will know what happened between us, not even the dowager, unless you tell her. Because I’m certainly not going to mention it.”
Seb raked his fingers through this hair. He didn’t want to marry the infuriating woman, of course, but her strident refusal still stung. “Tell me the truth about Petrov. Is he really your fiancé?”
“No. Never. He wants what I am, what I stand for. A title. A fortune. Generations of good breeding.” Her lips curled in disdain. “But what is a princess? Nothing! Polite conversation and perfect manners. A brood mare for little princes. I was worse than useless. At least here in London I’ve learned some practical skills. I can light a fire. Sew a seam. I’ve taught the girls at Haye’s to read.”
She tilted her chin, and Seb fought the sensation of drowning in the cornflower blue of her eyes.
“Do you know what happened when Napoleon arrived in Moscow four years ago?” she said fiercely. “The inhabitants burned their own beautiful city to the ground rather than let him take it. And I would rather kill myself than let a brutal pig like Vasili take me.”
Seb frowned. He had no answer to that.
“He wants to marry me to ensure my silence because he thinks I have evidence that he’s a spy.”
“Do you?”
“No. I told you. If my brother found anything, he never sent it to me. I assume it was on his person when he was killed at Waterloo and was buried with him.”
She shuddered, and Seb quelled the ridiculous impulse to cross the room, take her in his arms, and comfort her. He had similar haunting memories from his years in the Rifles, images of friends dead or dying that he could never erase from his brain. She looked so small, so vulnerable in those ridiculous boy’s clothes, like one of the scrappy street urchins he used to run messages and gain information for Bow Street.
“Perhaps there was some evidence, and he managed to hide it before he was killed?” he said.
“If he did, I can’t imagine where you’d look for it. If it was hidden in his belongings wherever he was staying the night before the battle, it’s been looted or destroyed by now.”
Seb pulled out the chair behind his desk and sat, striving for some semblance of normalcy. “So. Petrov knows where you are.”
She leaned back against the closed door and her slender shoulders sagged in defeat. “Yes.”
“You can’t keep on hiding forever. And I have a business to run. I can’t drop everything to be your personal bodyguard twenty-four hours a day.”
She sent him an irritated glare. “Nobody’s asking you to.”
He ignored that. “It’s time to put an end to your little farce. Princess Denisova must be resurrected. You can be introduced to the ton as the protégé of my great-aunt. Nobody will dare contradict the Dread Dowager Duchess.”
“What? No! How will that keep me safe from Vasili?”
“You’ll be more difficult to reach if you’re surrounded by members of the ton. Society will shield you, just as it shields every unmarried young woman from the unwanted attentions of men. You’ll have a chaperone. Constant companions. You’ll have to face Petrov, but it will be in full view of a hundred witnesses. You can deny you were ever betrothed.”
Her skin paled. “He’ll be furious.”
“What can he do in a room full of people? He’s too conscious of his own social standing to make an ugly scene. I know men like him. How he appears in public is very important to him.”
She shook her head. Several wisps of straw still clung to the strands, blending in with her honey-colored hair. She looked like a rumpled dairymaid. One he still wanted to tumble, damn it.
“He’s relentless,” she said wearily. “He’ll try something.”
“We’ll make it clear you’re under Bow Street’s protection.”
An odd expression flitted over her face, one Seb couldn’t identify. It almost looked like hope. Eagerness. “So I would remain here?”
“No. You’ll stay with Dorothea. Alex, Benedict, and I will take it in turns to