Page 46 of You Belong to Me
Vasili wasn’t surprised. Pavel’s attitude hadn’t changed.
“Perhaps,” was all he would commit to. “But first I’d like to take advantage of your famous hospitality. I trust your village isn’t far?”
“Not far at all, or we wouldn’t have heard those shots and come to investigate.”
And Vasili could blame Alexandra for that. If she had stopped, they would have seen where her horses were being taken, he would have recognized the village, and they could have returned with the others in their party, in a position of power rather than as prisoners.
At least Latzko, the leader of these hill bandits, was an easy man to deal with. Greed was his guiding principle, and everything had a price.
“Would you mind getting that knife out of my back, Pavel? Latzko won’t appreciate damaged goods.”
“Latzko is not your worry. He’s gone to Austria to the bitch’s wedding. I am your worry, aristo. I rule in Latzko’s absence.”
Just what Vasili needed to hear. He had a madman to deal with instead of the reasonable Latzko. The “bitch” he assumed was Latzko’s daughter, Arina. Pavel had loved her and lost her to Stefan a number of years ago, which was one reason Pavel hated Stefan so much. The other reason was because Stefan had fought him and beat him, twice. And that was why Pavel hated all aristocrats.
“Congratulations on the promotion, Pavel, but can we continue this discussion in your village, preferably before a warm fire? I happen to be freezing.”
Pavel laughed. At least half of his men joined in. But the knife was finally removed from Vasili’s back. A few orders were given and Vasili’s sword was taken. Then Pavel noticed Alexandra.
“Another woman?” Pavel came around and approached Alexandra until he was standing in front of her. But after one quick look, he glanced back at Vasili for a little gloating. “This day’s work has turned out much better than I expected. Will she be worth as much as the other one?”
He was referring to Tanya, who had been captured last year and whose retrieval had cost Stefan five hundred rubles. Vasili was already going to have to pay a fortune to get Alexandra’s horses back. Their value was obvious. Hers wasn’t, and he needed to establish her worthlessness then and there, not only to keep her cost down, but because Pavel was a vengeful bastard. But he wouldn’t have done it the way he did if she hadn’t been glaring at him at that exact moment. He was already angry with her, and that only inflamed him.
With just enough annoyance in his voice to sound sincere, he said, “Keep her. You’d be doing me a favor.”
Even with several feet separating them, Vasili heard Alexandra draw in a sharp breath. Pavel couldn’t help but hear the indignant sound himself. It was obvious he’d had no real interest in her. Bundled up in her Cossack garb, she hardly presented an alluring package. But the sound drew his attention back to her, and he lifted her chin for a better look at her.
Nothing should have happened. Her hands were tied behind her back. She was surrounded by bandits.
But she kicked him, hard.
Pavel howled. Some of his men laughed, adding insult to injury. When he got done hopping around on one leg while he massaged his aching shin—it was incredible how he did it without slipping—he looked positively murderous, and Alexandra was going to catch the brunt of his fury.
Vasili had begun stepping closer, but not soon enough. He wasn’t close enough to stop Pavel’s raised fist from connecting with Alexandra’s face. He had to tackle him to manage it, which was what he did.
When they stopped sliding in the snow, Pavel was looking up at him incredulously. Vasili felt exactly the same. The cold had obviously numbed his mind as well as his extremities. There was no other excuse for doing something so stupid. The only reason he hadn’t been shot already was because Pavel’s men couldn’t believe he was that stupid either, and were immobilized by surprise.
That gave him time to help Pavel to his feet, dust him off a bit, and say, “Sorry, but no one hits her except me. An idiosyncrasy of mine.”
He should have switched to Cardinian, which Pavel understood well enough, because Alexandra chose that moment to prove she hadn’t lost her voice. “You’re going to regret that, Petroff.”
He didn’t glance her way when he replied, “You’ve been silent until now, wench. Keep it that way.”
Pavel was glaring between the two of them, but suddenly his humor took an upward swing and he was almost smiling when he told Vasili, “That—whatever you called it—is going to cost you, Cardinian.”
Vasili sighed. “I figured as much.”
22
The food was hearty, but Vasili was only interested in its warmth. He was still chilled to the bone, despite the clay-mounded oven in the center of the room that seemed to be keeping everyone else warm. Latzko’s house was a large, one-room building that served as a sort of meeting hall for the village and a barracks for the single men in the village.
Vasili’s hands were no longer numb, but snow had seeped into his boots to soak his feet, which were still freezing. He wasn’t going to feel truly warm until he could get out of his damp clothes, and he doubted Alexandra was, either.
Not that she’d made any comment about it. She was ignoring everyone, including him, especially him. She was sitting cross-legged on one of the many cots in the room. She was holding her plate on her lap, picking at the food on it with her fingers. The spoon that had been supplied for her lay on the blanketby her knee. Heaven forbid she should actually know what to do with it.
Vasili was almost accustomed to her eating habits by now, but she had surprised their hosts. Even hill bandits had better table manners than his betrothed. But for once he was glad it was so, because they took her for a peasant and dismissed her as unimportant. He would have wrung her neck if she had suddenly developed proper manners.
She was still wearing her thick woolen coat fastened up to her neck. With ample light in the room, he could see that the front of it was soaked from when she’d been shoved facedown in the snow. Her lovely breasts had to be icy cold beneath that dampness, the nipples hard little nubs just waiting for him to…
