Page 27 of You Belong to Me
She gave him a tight little smile. “I can see you’re going to try. But in this case, you’re wasting your time. This isn’t a brief visit you’re dragging me to, but a new life. I’m not about to leave my belongings behind. If you thought I would, you were deluding yourself.”
“No one is suggesting you do anything of the kind,” he replied.
“Then there is nothing more to say.”
“On the contrary. I will grant you fifteen minutes to gather whatever essentials you will need for the trip, which, by the way, doesnotinclude sacks of grain, and then—”
She interrupted him with an explanation. “The grain is top-grade and is for my babies. I don’t trust the fodder offered at posting houses.”
Since those few words made not the least bit of sense to him in relation to the subject, and actually confounded him, he was lucky to get out, “Babies?”
But she didn’t have to answer him. At that moment three pure white thoroughbreds were being led by a groom out of the stable. Behindthem came three more with another groom, and another three after that, and…When Vasili stopped counting, there were sixteen of the magnificent animals filling the stable yard.
“Yours?” he asked flatly.
“Every one of them,” she replied, unmistakable pride in her voice.
“Your father is foolishly generous,” he couldn’t resist pointing out.
“My father gifted me with Sultan’s Pride on my sixteenth birthday.” She lovingly patted the animal she sat so he’d know just who Sultan’s Pride was. “The rest of my babies I purchased myself, traded for, and bred.”
A hell of an accomplishment, if he cared to admit it. He didn’t. All he saw was that she expected to transport them over the mountains, with winter approaching, with bandits around every corner who would sell their own mothers for just one of those animals.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “Yourbabies, as well as your belongings, can follow us if you insist, but we aren’t going to be held back by them.”
She smiled, telling him she’d hoped he’d say something like that. “You’re welcome to go on without me. I certainly don’t need your escort. Of course, if I get lost along the way and end up in another country instead of Cardinia, I’m sure I won’t mind.”
Vasili couldn’t believe they were having a standoff. As much as he would like to go on without her at that point, he couldn’t convince her to end the betrothal if they weren’t traveling together, so they had to travel together. But her refusal to obey him was unacceptable. The betrothal gave him complete authority over her, which she obviously hadn’t realized yet. But until they left her father’s authority, which took precedence over his, he couldn’t enforce his will as he would like—yet. Her father…
Suddenly he smiled. “Your father won’t find that suggestion acceptable, wench, and you know it. So I believe I’ll let him explain to you the merits of following my suggestion instead.”
“How typical,” she sneered. “The little boy doesn’t get his way, so he runs to Papa, mine in this case. But by all means, waste some more of the time you’re so concerned about by enlisting his aid—or trying to. You’ll find, however, that he already knows he’s gotten all the cooperation from me that he’s going to get. Or were you under the mistaken impression that I’m an obedient daughter?”
He was angry enough to yank her off her horse and shake her. She knew it and didn’t appear the least bit concerned, probably because of the large wolfhound that was suddenly there between them. The stallion she sat didn’t move a muscle, apparently acquainted with the beast. She was obviously even better acquainted, because she ordered, “Sit, Bojik,” and the dog immediately complied.
Vasili nearly growled, “Something else you think to bring along?”
“Certainly. My pet goes wherever I go.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
He was being sarcastic, but she answered, “Just my maid and my men.”
“Your men?”
She nodded toward the stable. He looked in that direction to find the entrance now filled with three mounted Cossacks, large brutes by the look of them, craggy-faced, each heavily armed and each looking back at him with—he wasn’t quite sure. The men were so ugly, it was hard to read their expressions accurately, to discern hostility from amusement and amusement from mere curiosity.
“They will see to my safety on the journey,” Alexandra informed him.
Stiffly, he looked back at her. “I believe that is my responsibility.”
She actually laughed. “Don’t be absurd. You travel with your own guards because you obviously can’t see to your own safety, much less anyone else’s.” And then she added, with the contempt thatheshould have been utilizing, “But that’s quite understandable, Petroff. It’s been my experience that you court dandies are pretty much useless for anything other than gossip and whoring.”
He was crimson-cheeked by the time she had finished, and so furious he barely got out, “Is thatfirsthandexperience?”
Color bloomed in her cheeks now, and with a heated glare she retreated, trotting off with those three brutes flanking her, the oversized Russian wolfhound racing ahead of them, thewagons following, and five grooms leading the herd of prized stock.
Vasili stood there staring after them, seriously thinking about heading out in the opposite direction himself.
