Page 15 of You Belong to Me
That comment brought forth the tears that she’d been fighting to hold back. But she vowed her father wouldn’t see them. He’d betrayed her. It didn’t matter that he’d done it fifteen years ago—with the best of intentions. And what he scorned, her so-called lack of femininity, was what allowed him to win. How many women cared about honor? Butshedid, and he knew she did.
“Very well, I won’t refuse to marry your precious Cardinian.” She was halfway to the door when she added, for her benefit alone,But I promise you he will refuse to marry me.
“Then you’ll make yourself presentable? At least change your clothes.”
“Oh, no. If he wants to marry me, he can see me as I am, not as I rarely am.”
Red-faced, Constantin shouted for her to come back, but she marched out of the room and slammed out of the house. He slumped back in his chair, wondering if he’d won, and worried because she hadn’t argued as much as he’d expected. Alexandra was not to be trusted when she gave in easily.
6
Alexandra rode past the village, past the town, beyond the fields to the grazing meadows, where she finally gave Prince Mischa his lead. One of the Razin boys was behind her as always, but she hadn’t noticed which one had followed her, nor did she look back now.
It was probably Konrad, who at the age of thirty was the oldest and the most responsible of the three brothers. Timofee and Stenka, the twins, only scolded her whenever she went off on her own without telling them, but Konrad would give her hell and make her feel it.
She had grown up with the Razin boys and spent as much time in their home as she did in her own. They were like the brothers she never had, they were her friends, and sometimes they were pains in the neck. Their only sister, Nina, who was supposed to be her maid, was really her dearest friend. She was a year younger than Alexandra, but even she had married, though her husband had died two years ago.
Marriage.
The chill autumn wind had dried Alex’s tears, a foolishness she so rarely gave in to, but her urge now wasn’t to cry any more, but to keep on riding and never return home. Konrad, of course, wouldn’t let her. Even when he found out what her father had done, he wouldn’t let her take the cowardly route. He’d be angry, just as angry as she was, but Cossacks didn’t run from battles, and he’d view this betrothal as a battle. She would, too, once she stopped hurting and feeling so betrayed.
Marriage.
Damn Christopher Leighton, why had he noticed her at her first ball in St. Petersburg? Why had he courted her so diligently and claimed he loved her? He was an assistant to the English ambassador, so worldly, so sophisticated, so handsome. She’d gotten her head turned royally.
She loved him—shemustlove him to wait seven years, which even she knew was a ridiculous amount of time to remain loyal to a man who had yet to propose marriage to her, and whose image she couldn’t even recall clearly anymore, it had been so long since she’d last seen him. But his letters were always so full of passion and his depth of feeling for her, even the last one, which she had recently received.
Always he wrote of his love and how much he missed her. And since he had returned to England, he had been assuring her that he wastrying to get his diplomatic posting switched back to Russia so he could be near her again. But in all his letters, not once had he ever mentioned marriage. And for all her boldness, she had never been able to write the few words that would have elicited from him a reply that would have either strengthened her hope or ended it. She simply couldn’t bring herself to ask him outright if he intended to marry her.
She should have, she realized now. She also should have followed him to England when she’d wanted to, instead of giving in to her father’s refusal. If she could just see Christopher once more…
Alexandra made up her mind then and there. She would go to England as soon as she got rid of the Cardinian and the matter of honor was satisfied. After all, she had a sizable amount of money saved up from the sale of her horses. All she had to do was figure out a way to leave the country so that her father wouldn’t immediately try to stop her. With so many routes to England, once she was on one of them, he’d have the devil’s own time finding her.
With that decision made, some of the tightness left her chest and she pulled up on the reins, allowing Konrad to catch up to her. But it was Stenka Razin who drew up beside her and glared at her because of the mad ride he’d had trying to keep up with her.
“You were trying to kill us both, right? Or just the horses?”
“I was trying to outrun a few demons, if you must know,” she replied.
“Any I know?”
“My father, for one.”
“Ah, another fight with your papa,” he said with a knowing grin.
Of the three Razin brothers, Stenka was the one who didn’t have a serious bone in his body. He loved life and found pleasure, and more often than not humor, in just about every aspect of it. Whenever Alexandra was angry, or hurt, or just plain moody, he always managed to make her laugh. She was afraid he wasn’t going to manage it this time if he tried.
His brother Timofee was only slightly less carefree. The twins were so alike it was uncanny, and not just in their identical features. They were twenty-seven, had the black hair and blue eyes that ran in their family, and wanted the exact same things, including women, which was why they constantly competed with each other—and fought. It didn’t take much to set those two off, and it wasn’t unusual for one or the other to sport a black eye or a split lip from their tussles.
“I don’t know why you let these arguments with your papa upset you, since you always win,” Stenka remarked.
“I didn’t win,” she mumbled.
“You didn’t win?”
His deliberately incredulous look didn’t bring the grin he was looking for. “I didn’t win!”
“I suppose there is a first time for everything.” He sighed. “So what didn’t you win?”
