Read To Wed a Wicked Prince for Free Online Page B

somewhat plaintively. “Do you think your butler could furnish me with a glass of water? I hate to impose, but…” He touched his throat with an expressive fingertip.
    “If you go down to the kitchen door, down the area steps, I’m sure one of the servants will supply your needs,” Livia declared. His expression was for once so utterly disconcerted and crestfallen that she couldn’t resist a mischievous grin.
    “If I’d known how delicious it would be to discompose you, Prince Prokov, I would have tried harder before,” she said, setting her foot on the first step to the front door. “Pray come in. I’m sure I can find you something a little more refreshing than plain water.”
    “You are too kind, ma’am,” Alex said dryly. He followed her, reflecting that when it came to Livia Lacey he would do well not to rely absolutely on his customary tactics when turning situations to his advantage. She was adapting to his methods rather more quickly than he was accustomed to. For some reason the reflection didn’t annoy him as it might have done; in fact, it brought an inner smile. She would prove a worthy quarry.
    Livia banged on the brass knocker with a degree of vigor that surprised her companion. The sound reverberated on the quiet square. “My butler is hard of hearing,” she offered in explanation. “And somewhat slow of foot.” She banged again.
    The door creaked open and Morecombe peered around. “Oh, ’tis you,” he said as usual.
    “Who else were you expecting, Morecombe?” Livia pushed the door wider to encourage the elderly retainer to step back a little. “Please take Prince Prokov’s whip, gloves, hat…whatever else he’d like to discard.” She stepped past him into the hall and Alex, sensing that he needed to take advantage of the door while it remained open, stepped in smartly behind her.
    The old man in a rusty baize apron, most unusual attire for a butler, looked him over. Wordlessly he held out a gnarled hand for the visitor’s whip and high-crowned beaver hat, and waited while Alex drew off his fine leather gloves.
    “Is Lady Farnham in the parlor, Morecombe?” Livia inquired.
    “Not as I know,” the retainer said, his gaze flickering once more to the prince.
    “Well, maybe you could ask someone to find her and tell her that we have a visitor,” Livia suggested. “And perhaps you could bring sherry to the salon?” The questioning inflection was apparent. It was clearly not an instruction.
    Morecombe merely grunted and shuffled off towards the kitchen regions, and Alex followed Livia into a large, handsome salon. There was a touch of well-worn shabbiness to the furniture and upholstery, and the colors in the Turkey carpet and the velvet curtains had faded somewhat, but he thought it merely added to the charm of the apartment.
    “What an extraordinary servant,” he observed. “If that’s what he is.”
    “In a manner of speaking,” Livia returned. “He and his wife and her sister, they’re twins, were in my relative’s service. I call her Aunt Sophia, but I think she was more of a distant cousin…anyway, she left me the house, as I explained, but with the proviso that Morecombe and the twins should stay on for as long as they wished.” She laughed a little. “They have their eccentricities, certainly, but also their charms. One gets used to them.”
    “I see.” Alex turned as the door opened behind him. A woman entered carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses. She looked to be a little older than Livia, her pale blonde hair plaited in a coronet around a well-shaped head, her brown eyes soft and warm.
    “Morecombe said we had a visitor,” she said in a pleasantly modulated voice. “I thought it would be quicker to bring the sherry myself.” She set the tray on a sideboard.
    “Ellie, may I present Prince Prokov,” Livia said. “Prince Prokov, this is Lady Farnham, my friend and…uh…chaperone.” She winked at Aurelia, who laughed.
    “Purely nominal,”