Page 26 of You Belong to Me
“Now that I’ve seen to my duty, you can run along and finish your packing,” Vasili said. “I realize it is an imposition, for which I apologize, but we really must leave tomorrow. I do hope you will getsomesleep tonight, though, so do hurry with the chore.”
His apology rang as false as his hope that she would be able to get some sleep—at least to her ears. To the others, he probably sounded sincere. And she was even more furious with the man now, for his duplicity, for pretending in front of her father, when sheknew his true feelings. That she had come down here to do some pretending of her own was a moot point. She’d obviously wasted her time.
She picked up the slice of bread again simply because she was hungry, and left.
11
Vasili was up at dawn the next morning, not because he’d planned to leave at such an ungodly hour, but because he’d spent such a restless night, managing to get only a few hours of sleep off and on, and had been quite awake when the sun finally approached the horizon. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spent such a hellish night.
Alexandra’s remark that he should sleep on what she’d told him, thatit’s liable to be the last night of untroubled sleep you’ll get, was partly responsible. What the hell had she meant by that? What she’d told him was designed to make him lose sleep, yet she’d predicted he’d have worse nights.
The other reason for his sleeplessness was, surprisingly, Alexandra herself. Vasili had rarely ever been around a woman who was in such a tousled state of appearance as she’d been in, unless he’d been romping in bed with her. And that damn red sash of hers that cinched in her waist so tightly showed just how shapely she really was. And white linenhad never looked so good as it did draping and contouring those large, heavenly breasts of hers.
He’d been aroused. And despite the heated words they’d had in his room, and the exasperating subject matter, he’d still been aroused when she’d left him. Then damned if it hadn’t happened again when she’d briefly joined them in the dining room, looking just as tousled.
He should have done something about it, sought out one of those giggling maids who had kept bothering him yesterday with the pretense of asking if he needed anything. Any one of them would have been willing to accommodate him. They’d made that perfectly clear. But he had already decided to be on his best behavior for Constantin Rubliov’s benefit, and that excluded bedding one of the servants when his betrothed slept just doors away.
Fortunately, the baron wouldn’t be making the return trip with him, so Vasili’s very correct behavior would end as soon as he and his men parted from Rubliov’s company. And there had been that girl—he’d forgotten her name already—who had shared his bed at the posting inn the other night. They’d be staying there again tonight, and he’d most certainly make use of her charms again,andmake sure that Alexandra knew it. The sooner she took offense and demanded that he return her to her father, the sooner he would rid himself of the feeling of being trapped.
Since Vasili was already up and wide awake, he decided they might as well get an early start, and he left his room to rouse the others in his party. He sincerely hoped that Alexandra had been kept up all night packing as she’d predicted. Forcing a lady to rise sooner than she’d intended usually resulted in said lady’s being in a sour mood, and his own mood was sour enough to want company.
He was disappointed, however, in his hope to further inconvenience his betrothed. Finding the household already astir at that hour, he sent one of the maids to wake Alexandra, and was informed that “Alex” was already outside, most likely at her stable. He was surprised enough at hearing a servant refer to the lady of the house so informally that the maid’s calling the stablehersbarely registered with him.
As it happened, his own mood worsened because Alexandra had gotten a head start on him, and he rushed a grumbling Lazar down to breakfast with the baron, only to find that his betrothed wasn’t going to be joining them for the meal—again. Perversely, he took his time after drawing that conclusion, wasting a good hour unnecessarily, until Lazar was clearing his throat repeatedly and rolling his eyebrows toward the door, all of which Vasili ignored.
When he did finally leave the dining room, the same three maids who had been such a nuisance yesterday converged on him, one carrying his hat, one his coat, and the thirdhis gloves. His own servant, Boris, whom Vasili had brought along for himself and Lazar, stood behind the women, shrugging his shoulders as if to say he’d been helpless in the face of their combined determination.
Fortunately, it was a situation Vasili found so normal, he barely noticed, accepting the articles of clothing and the maids’ assistance in donning them, ignoring the hands that lingered. But that was how Alexandra found him when she came through the front door to discover what was keeping the Cardinians. The three women surrounding Vasili were touching him as if some shared intimacy gave them the right to do so.
Which happened to be the exact conclusion Alexandra came to, and quite possibly why she remarked with such blatant sarcasm, “I could have sworn someone told me you were in a hurry to return to Cardinia, Petroff. Of course, I should have known a man of your proclivities couldn’t get his arse out of bed at a decent hour.”
Without giving him a chance to answer, she was back out the door before he had even thought of one. The three maids had scattered at the first sound of her voice. Lazar was making noises into the palm of his hand. The baron, however, stood in the doorway to the dining room and looked truly pained in his embarrassment—but no more than he’d been last night when he had apologized for his daughter’s behavior.
“She—ah—she—”
Vasili took pity on the man. Someone ought to, considering he had a daughter like that. “No need for explanations, sir. As you said, she requires…careful handling.”
And he was looking forward to it now, damned if he wasn’t. Ridicule him, would she? He’d have that little wench in tears before the end of the day. After all, contempt was a skill, and could become a weapon in the right hands, and his was developed to perfection for use whenever he needed it.
Alexandra was mounted on her white stallion when Vasili and his men reached the stable yard, or rather, one of the stable yards. Having declined a tour of the estate yesterday, Vasili hadn’t realized that the Rubliovs maintained not one but five large stables, which were spread out from the house to the nearby village.
He still wasn’t curious about the Rubliov estate. Now he was interested only in the object of his present rancor. Again she was wearing a shirt and those unorthodox britches, albeit clean ones, and with a blue sash today, and a much finer coat, this one trimmed in black fur to match the hat that completely concealed her hair.
He was still simmering over her latest effrontery, yet he found himself annoyed about her clothing for an unexpected reason—because he’d actually been looking forward to seeing her properly gowned. Even if she had worn a riding habit, it would have been a feminine riding habit. He had anticipated seeing her dressed in feminine attire because he had been told the britches were her work clothes. And since she wouldn’t be working on the trip, she shouldn’t be wearing them. Yet there she sat in her male finery, looking impatient—and vibrantly beautiful in the early morning light.
He looked at her left hand and noticed she wasn’t wearing the ring. Why wasn’t he surprised? No doubt she’d wait for the right moment to throw it in his face.
It took him several moments to notice the wagons, but when he did, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Whatever was in them was piled high under canvas covers. They looked extremely cumbersome, and certainly too heavy for the mere four horses hitched to each of them.
He didn’t question his betrothed, who was watching him silently. He moved straight to the wagon beds to examine their contents. One was filled with at least a dozen trunks. The other held a few more trunks along with a great deal of tack, saddles and the like, and agreatmany sacks of grain. Did she think he wasn’t going to feed her?
Alexandra led her mount over to him, stopping right behind him. She was still silent, watching him closely, waiting for the exact moment when he realized what she was up to. It didn’t take all that long.
He turned, looked up at her and said simply, unequivocally, “No.”
She didn’t even try to mistake his meaning,merely lifted a slim brow as she told him, “We aren’t married yet, Petroff. You don’treallythink you can dictate to me until we are, do you?”
He didn’t lose his temper and his expression didn’t reveal how her words goaded him. Instead he raised a brow back at her—he did it so much better than she—and countered, “You don’t really think I can’t, do you?”
