Page 16 of You Belong to Me
“He has betrothed me to a Cardinian.”
There was nothing feigned about his new incredulous look. “He wouldn’t do that to you.”
“He did it fifteen years ago.”
“Ah, when you were still a baby,” he said, as if that explained it.
“A ten-year-old baby?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “So what are you going to do?”
“Honesty would be the best strategy, I think,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll simply tell this Cardinian count that I don’t want to marry him.”
Stenka gave her an assessing look that ran from her fur-topped head to her booted feet and, in his opinion, passed over a great many assets in between. “He could be as homely as hell, take one look at you, and think he’s died and gone to heaven. Your honesty won’t matter in that case.”
Alexandra groaned over that possibility. “You aren’t helping, Stenka.”
“Was I supposed to?”
“It would be appreciated.”
“Well, then,” he said cheerfully, “Timofee and I could ambush him, beat him up, and warn him off.”
“Except he’s probably arriving even as we speak,” she predicted, then added, just in casehe’d mistaken her response to his suggestion as permission, “and we’re not going to beat up a king’s cousin—except as a last resort.”
He whistled softly. “Aking’s cousin? So why don’t you marry him?”
Her midnight-blue eyes took on a deep purple hue when she glared, which she was doing now. “Because I happen to love Christopher.”
“Him!” Stenka said with such derision that she nearly winced. They all knew about her Englishman and they’d been happy for her—until the years had started to pass with no ring forthcoming for her finger. “That no-good laggard!”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“But it would do me a world of good to get it off my chest.”
His expression was so earnest, she couldn’t help chuckling. He grinned, having finally gotten the result he was after.
“So let’s go and meet your betrothed,” he suggested. “You never know, you might like him.” When she just snorted, he added, “It’s not impossible.”
“But it wouldn’t matter.”
He didn’t have to ask why, and that was the hell of it, Stenka thought, feeling disgust now. Their Alex was too damn loyal, even when her loyalty was misplaced. And her papa had the right idea. Stenka’s own father, Ermak,had heard the baron repeat it more than once, and every one of the Razins seconded the opinion. Someone should have shot that Englishman a long time ago.
7
Alexandra had taken a leisurely ride home, so by the time she and Stenka approached the house, it was long past the “less than two hours” that her father had predicted for her betrothed’s arrival. Count Vasili Petroff should have been settled in her home, either in his room or already in conference with her father. In either case, she wouldn’t be likely to bump into him if she entered from the back of the house as she had planned. She had decided to let her father assess him first, then demand from him anhonestopinion before she met the man herself.
That had been her plan, and a good one, she had thought—there was always the possibility that her father wouldn’t be able to tolerate the man and would send him packing, so she wouldn’t have to deal with him at all—but it didn’t take into account that her betrothed might not be in any hurry to arrive. Seeing the eight men who were now dismounting in front of her house proved that.
Alex wasn’t thrown off kilter, however, byhaving to abandon one plan for another. After all, there was a lot to be said for confrontations, and interesting things could be learned when you took someone by surprise. All in all, it might be better if she did meet him first, before her father had a chance to warn him about some of her more “outrageous” habits, as he termed them. Seeing was believing, and she was never at her best in her work clothes. Whom, after all, did she have to impress in the stables?
She hadn’t expected the Cardinian to arrive with a full entourage, though. There were eight men, but a dozen horses, the riderless ones bogged down with baggage. Obviously her betrothed didn’t travel lightly, which told her right there that he was probably one of those spoiled and pampered aristocrats, the kind who would be appalled at the idea of sleeping outdoors and always had to have servants on hand to see to his simplest needs.
Alexandra had never in her life asked someone to do something for her that she wasn’t able and willing to do herself, and, in fact, she preferred doing for herself. Nina might make sure her clothes were always neat and clean, but that was about the extent of the maid’s duties that Alexandra allowed her friend to perform.
