“Not in particular.”
“Are they causing problems for your family?”
“It is of no consequence. We will not be here for long.”
Two reactions pinned him simultaneously. The first, a physician’s concern. “I hope you’re not thinking of traveling anytime soon. Not with your injury.” The other, something far more human responding to the guarded measures of her tone. “You’re safe here.”
“There is no place safe. Not anymore.” She stiffened and looked away. Wynn had the feeling she was looking far beyond the back wall. To a place only seen in memory.
He picked a handful of comfrey sprigs as he weighed his words. “It’s true the war makes such reliability obsolete, but the Germans are far from here. They’ll never breach Paris.”
“Who are you to guarantee such a thing?”
“I’m offering you a chance to hope. You don’t seem to have much of it lately.”
She looked at him fully for the first time, unashamedly in her direct perusal. He returned the directness. Hair of palest
blond it was nearly white; unblemished skin kept from a lifetime of sun; and eyes the color of a wintry sea. So pale blue
in the center one might lose himself in the vastness until drifting to the rim of arctic blue around the outside.
Intelligence was not a calling card for most women he knew as society highly disapproved of such liberal notions. Her Serenity the Princess Svetlana—and all those other names he couldn’t remember—displayed hers without reserve. She didn’t defer or feign false modesty. She held herself with quiet pride, and nothing could kindle his admiration more.
“I had hope once.” Her soft admission was snatched on a breeze of sorrow. “Such notions belong to ruins of the past.”
“Back when you were a princess?” She startled and he immediately regretted his bluntness, though it was hardly a secret after her mother’s brazen introduction. Surely they were far enough from Russia and its troubles to no longer remain fearful of their identities, but one look at the panic in her eyes told him the fear was rooted in death. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret safe—as long as you don’t let on that I’m a marquis.”
As before, it took a moment for her panic to recede. When it did a new confusion took its place. “What is this marquis?”
“I’m the second son of a duke. Upon my father’s death, my brother, Hugh, became Duke of Kilbride and I the humble Marquis of Tarltan.”
She shrugged, unimpressed. “There are many dukes in Russia.”
“Which makes me the only marquis of your acquaintance.” Wynn stood with the picked comfrey and brushed dirt from his trousers. “Well, that’s something anyway. What is that plant there?”
“A lily. Mrs. Varjensky says the boiled roots can be used in ointments for burns and rashes.” A smile crossed her face. “I used to arrange them in vases once belonging to Empress Ekaterina. They filled our music room in white, pink, and yellow blooms.”
“That sounds calming.”
“Arranging is one of the few activities deemed appropriate for a lady to learn. Not growing them or clipping them, mind you, that was too strenuous. Placing them in decorative vases was the extent of our labor.”
“Would you have liked to grow them yourself?”
Wistfulness whispered across her face, then faded like the petals of a bloom past its day in the sun. “What I would have liked is of no consequence. It was not to be for a princess then, nor for a refugee now.”
A breeze ruffled the nearby elms, filling the air with scents of sweet grass and thick herbs. A pleasant departure from the cloying hospital smell of sterilization. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was home in Scotland enjoying the lazy days of summer and not existing on the brink of trenches and barbed wire. What those frontline lads wouldn’t give for a whiff of a single blade of grass.
“My brother and I got in trouble once for whacking off rose tops with sticks in the Luxembourg Gardens when we were younger. Our parents were asked not to bring us back.”
“The carefree mischief of youth,” she said. “You are close with this brother, Hugh.”
Wynn nodded. “Best of friends growing up, but Hugh’s always had to hold himself apart as the next duke. Me? I’m the second son and can get away with murder. Though I won’t because it would be breaking my Hippocratic oath. Hugh knows all the rules and lives to keep them.”
“My brother, Nikolai, is the same.”
“Is he here in France?”
“He stayed with Papa to defend our homeland.” Her face shuttered, depriving him of her thoughts once more. “I should not be outside.” She stood, favoring her unhurt leg.