Read Online The Prince Who Loved Me (The Oxenburg Princes) by Karen Hawkins - Free Book Online Page A

parading by, and you’re making no effort to speak to a one. Are you ill, brother?”
    Alexsey gladly accepted the proffered glass from his friend. Small and quick like a sparrow, Strath made up for his lack of height with his humorous outlook and generous spirit. Alexsey took a sip of the drink he’d been handed. “What ambrosia is this?”
    “Good Scottish whiskey—a rich peaty one that you’ll like. It’s better than the sweet stuff my uncle favors.” Strath shuddered. “Pale and weak. I’d rather drink water.”
    Alexsey took another drink. “Excellent.” Strath was a fine fellow. They had come to know one another when the viscount had visited the Italian court during his Grand Tour while Alexsey was the emissary from Oxenburg. The position was a lightweight training mission, and with no real duties he’d been bored out of his mind until Strath, with his ready laugh and his thirst for adventure, had arrived.
    Strath and Alexsey had spent three glorious months drinking and carousing, enjoying the lazy Italian sun and beautiful women. Since then, they’d maintained a sporadic correspondence and visited one another every year or so.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” Alexsey said, taking an appreciative sip.
    “You should be. I came only because my uncle mentioned a few weeks ago that you and your grandmother were joining him here. The second I found out, I closed up my town house, packed my bags, and voilà, here I am.”
    “I assume you were alone in that town house, or nothing could have pried you away.”
    Strath sighed woefully. “It’s true I am between mistresses.”
    “As am I.” Alexsey swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “This whiskey is excellent; I need some of this for my private stock. Is that possible?”
    “Of course. Tell me how much you want, and I’ll have it delivered before you leave.”
    “You are a good friend.”
    Strath lifted his glass. “As are you. I hope you didn’t mind my assumption that you needed a drink, but I saw you talking to your grandmother, and you looked as if you’d like to throttle her.”
    “Indeed. She is determined that I wed—and soon.”
    “But now you have escaped and you are here, a drink in your hand, surrounded by a bevy of lovelies and no wedding in sight. I call that perfection.”
    Alexsey shrugged.
    Strath sighed. “Let me guess: you are still pining for your forest maiden.”
    “I’m not pining, but I’ve yet to see any woman who would match her.” He sent a sour look at Strath. “I’d hoped you might know some of the local households who might possess such a maid, but you were next to useless.”
    “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been this far north. We should have asked my uncle for his help in identifying your mysterious beauty. Uncle Henry was quite the rakehell in his day and I’m sure he would have understood your impatience to find her.”
    “Of course he was a rakehell; he wouldn’t know my grandmother, otherwise.” Alexsey looked over his glass to where Sir Henry was now talking to Tata Natasha. Plotting, more like. Sir Henry was tall, with broad shoulders and a head of distinguished white hair. He carried a bit of a paunch from years of good living, but it was easy to see that at one time, he must have been an impressive specimen.
    There was something about the way the man looked at Tata Natasha, almost as if . . . Hmmm. “I believe there’s a history between my grandmother and your uncle.”
    Strath’s gaze followed Alexsey’s. “It’s possible; they are close in age.”
    “I doubt Tata Natasha cares for age. Over the years, she’s become far more concerned with pedigree.”
    “Yet she was once a Gypsy, true?”
    “She still is. And, as she’s quick to point out, she is the queen of the Gypsies. If you ever wish to see Tata Natasha angry—and you don’t—then suggest otherwise.”
    A lady danced by, peeking over her partner’s shoulder at them. Strath wagged his eyebrows at her.