Read To Wed a Wicked Prince for Free Online

question. “Tell me, Lady Devries, why you haven’t been seen about town for so long. Devries shouldn’t keep you all to himself…the dog. And I shall tell him so.”
    Lilly laughed and entered the light bantering flirtation with practiced skill, saying over her shoulder, “Lord Talgarth, there’s room for three on the path. I’m sure the prince wishes to further his acquaintance with Lady Livia.” She gave Livia an archly conspiratorial smile as she said this.
    Livia did her best to ignore the smile, but she couldn’t ignore the prince, who had turned his horse to ride beside her. “What a magnificent animal,” she said involuntarily as the black tossed his head and set the reins jingling.
    “A Cossack horse,” he told her. “I brought him with me.” He cast a somewhat disparaging eye over her own mount. “Forgive me, but I don’t think much of that beast.”
    Livia gave a rueful shrug. “A livery stable animal…what can you expect?”
    “Ah…indeed.” He nodded his comprehension and seemed to dismiss the subject. “How delightfully serendipitous that we should meet in this way. I was intending to call upon you later this morning.”
    “And now you’ve been saved the trouble?” Livia questioned with a quirk of her eyebrows.
    “I would never consider it a trouble, ma’am,” he responded. “A delight, certainly.”
    “You flatter me, sir.” Livia couldn’t think of a more original response.
    “Never,” he said. He lowered his voice and murmured, “I think you must know that I will go to any lengths to spend time in your company.” His eyes were full of laughter, his soft voice a throb of invitation.
    “With or without the assistance of a well-placed fountain,” she said, trying to ignore the invitation but failing lamentably.
    “That’s better,” he said as softly as before. “You are quite beautiful when your eyes laugh.”
    Livia lost all desire to laugh. She stared at him and then stated, “I have no interest in meaningless and extravagant compliments, Prince Prokov. They may do very well in Russia, but I for one equate restraint with sincerity.”
    “And why should you imagine I am not sincere?” he asked, apparently unsnubbed.
    “You don’t know me at all,” she said. “And in this country we don’t go around making intimate declarations to strangers.”
    “Well, you’ll become accustomed to my ways,” he returned with a cheerful smile. “And you may even come to like them. Shall we canter, if that beast of yours can be encouraged to do so?”
    He leaned sideways and gave her horse a smart cut on the flank with his whip. The animal jumped as if it had been stung and lumbered off down the tan in an ungainly resemblance to a canter. Livia was too occupied trying to adapt her seat to the rollicking gait to give vent to her outrage as the prince cantered elegantly beside her. They soon outstripped their companions and once they were out of sight, Alex drew rein and his horse slowed to a walk. Livia’s mount, however, continued at the same pace and it took her several tries before she could convince him to slow down.
    “How dare you do that?” she demanded furiously, once she had the animal in hand again. “You took me totally by surprise.”
    “I wished to be private with you,” he said, as if it were the most ordinary and reasonable excuse for striking her mount. “And you were in no danger, surprised or not, my dear girl. You can handle a much livelier animal than that plodder.”
    “That may be true, but you still had no right to do that,” she insisted, even as her anger melted away. There was something irresistible about this man’s personality. He swept all objections and obstacles before him. If she’d felt bullied in any way, it would have been different, but somehow she didn’t.
    “Then forgive me?” he asked, reaching out to touch her gloved hand. “Come, don’t be angry with me, Livia.” He gave her a cajoling smile. “Besides, you know that