Page 11 of You Belong to Me
“Is he drunk, do you think?” Tanya whispered in Stefan’s ear.
“Shh,” he told her. To Vasili, he said, “I assume you’ve seen your mother?”
“Oh, yes, but had I even the slightest warning about what she was going to reveal to me—with absolute relish, I might add—I would be halfway to the border by now, vanished, never to be seen again. Did she tellyou?So help me, Stefan, if you knew and didn’t warn me—”
“You know better than that.”
Vasili did, and for the third time he said, “I’m sorry. My reasoning has gone to hell, which is where my life will be going if something drastic doesn’t happen to change what has befallen me.”
“It would be nice if you would tell me what we’re talking about.”
Vasili was momentarily startled. “Didn’t I?” Before Stefan could answer, he continued. “I have just learned that my father signed a betrothal contract fifteen years ago with my name on it. Abetrothalcontract! My mother didn’t even know. Only the girl and her father have known all these years, and only now,when she is apparently ready to get married, do they bother to write and tell us.”
“Who is she?”
“Is that all you have to say?” Vasili fairly shouted in his agitation. “Who the hell cares who she is, when I have no wish to marry her!”
“You knew you would have to get married eventually,” Stefan said reasonably.
“Not for another ten years at least, and that is hardly the point. Suddenly I have a betrothed I’ve never laid eyes on, and don’t remind me that you faced the same appalling circumstance, because you grew up knowing about your betrothal, whereas I grew up assuming the decision would be mine.”
“Considering how splendidly my own betrothal has worked out, you can’t expect me to dredge up much sympathy for you, cousin.”
“The hell I can’t,” Vasili snapped. “Kindly remember how you feltbeforeyou met your lovely wife.”
With a squeeze for said wife to assure her that that had been then and not now, Stefan said, “Point taken.”
“And heirs to the crown rarely have a choice about who they marry,” Vasili continued heatedly, “but I’m merely a king’s cousin. No one besides me has the slightest interest in who I marry, and I know damn well I would never have chosen a Russian.”
“She’s Russian?” Stefan said in surprise.
“A Russian baroness, and you know how damn promiscuous those ladies are. This onehas probably already had a dozen lovers, and I wouldn’t be the least surprised if I’m suddenly being summoned to marry her because she’s found herself with child.”
“Then hope that is the case, and wait to marry her until you bring her here,” Stefan suggested. “By then you will know if she is pregnant, which will give you legitimate grounds to break the betrothal.”
Vasili’s relief didn’t last long enough for him to complete the smile he had started. “I can’t depend on that and end up committed if it isn’t so. I would prefer not to go to Russia at all, which is why I’m here. You have been faced with this dilemma yourself, Stefan. What ideas did you come up with to get out of your betrothal?”
“You expect me to answer thatnow?”
Vasili looked at Tanya for the first time. “Would you mind—?”
“Not on your life.”
He gave her a sour look, which she ignored. She wondered what he would do if she laughed, which was what she felt like doing: she was not the least bit sympathetic to his problem. But Stefan wouldn’t appreciate her amusement at his cousin’s expense, so she just listened to them discuss a few options that they both concluded weren’t really options. And she watched Vasili become more and more upset.
She thought her husband was exceptionally handsome, but not like Vasili. No one was as mesmerizingly handsomeas Vasili. But she’d never seen him looking so harried, or so angry. And she’d never seen his eyes glow just as brightly as Stefan’s could, as they were now. He was pacing—prowlingwould be a better way to describe how he was moving—like a trapped tawny lion, golden and furious.
It was fascinating to watch six feet of masculine grace suddenly reveal this volatile, nearly savage side of his otherwise stoical nature. Of the four men who had grown up together and were such close friends, Vasili was the one who attacked verbally and with deadly accuracy, rather than with brute strength. But obviously he was as capable of violence as the rest of them.
Tanya had once been told that he was the man she would have to marry, because Stefan had wanted her to come along with them to Cardinia without any fuss, and he’d thought she, like every other woman, would prefer Vasili. But Vasili had insulted her from the first, thinking her a tavern whore, and she had despised him for that, and for his utter contempt. Besides, even with his scars and his “devil’s eyes,” Stefan had been the one she had been attracted to from the first night they had met, not the too handsome, golden Adonis.
“What are you going to do?” Stefan finally asked his cousin.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” Stefan said quietly.
“Yes, I do.” Vasili sighed. “But there won’t be a wedding, not if I can help it. One of them, either the girl or her father, will call this ridiculous thing off, even if I have to show them what I’m really like.”
