The night they'd first met, in a tavern in Mississippi, she'd danced the provocative harem dance, at least her version of it, for a roomful of avid river rats. He'd thought he could buy her for a few coins and had tried to do so. He hadn't known at the time, and neither had she, that she was the missing princess he'd been sent to find and bring home, the bride he'd been betrothed to from the very day she was born.
Tanya had danced just for him once before at his request, not long after they were married. Her sensual, though not very revealing, outfit for the dance had been left behind in America, so she'd worn one of her silky negligees instead. Stefan's response had been unexpected, his desire so inflamed that their lovemaking, while incredibly satisfying, had been rather bruising as well.
But Tanya hadn't complained that time. She had actually laughed afterward, delighted that she could drive him so wild. His mistresses used to complain if he happened to leave the slightest bruise on them, but his Tanya's passion was always equal to his. And the very fact that she had created a new dancing outfit, one designed to bring out the savage in a man of Stefan's lusty proclivities, proved that she enjoyed provoking him.
The promise she had insisted on, however, had nothing to do with her own preference and everything to do with her new condition, which only recently had been confirmed. To the delight of the entire kingdom, his queen was already carrying the royal heir, and taking everything the court physicians told her as gospel. And for Stefan that meant no more losing control, instead having to make promises he could barely keep.
"You know I'm going to get even with you for this." He tried to sound casual, but there was nothing casual about what he was feeling.
Tanya raised her head and he could make out a grin beneath the sheer material of her veil, whose color nearly matched her pale green eyes. "How?"
"I know a merchant who sells fine silken cords," he told her.
"You would tie me down and do this to me?" There was some very clear interest in her tone that wouldn't be there if she didn't trust him implicitly.
"I'm thinking about it," he replied in a half growl, half groan.
Her grin was positively impish. "When you make up your mind, let me know."
Her head dipped again and she scooted back so that her tongue could trail down the center of his chest toward his navel. He sucked in a breath. His loins lifted involuntarily, nearly unseating her.
'Tanya—I can't—bear any more," he gasped out.
She took pity on him instantly. "Then you don't have to," she said sweetly.
She sat up to toss off the double veils that had concealed her lower face and long black hair. The top of her two-piece outfit defied description in its transparency and secrets. He wanted to rip it off her. He wanted to kiss her right through it. But the promise he'd made prevented him from doing either. He was completely at her mercy. Fortunately, that didn't worry him in the least.
With a smile that promised that ecstasy would soon be his, Tanya reached for the cord on his lounging pants. But her fingers stilled when she heard the commotion outside their door, first raised voices, then the sounds of scuffling, then a very clear thud.
"What the—?" Stefan began, but his unfinished question was answered by the door opening and his cousin storming into the room.
Tanya gave a strangled shriek and rolled off Stefan and the lounge, to crouch on the floor, concealing herself there while she snatched her robe from the end of the chaise where she had discarded it before the dance. She yanked it on, glaring over Stefan's belly at the intruder.
Vasili didn't notice, as he hadn't yet located them in the room. The royal bedchamber was so large, he was still crossing it and saying in no particular direction, "Stefan, I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I have a problem that has me so furious, I fear I will murder someone if I can't find a solution."
"You didn't start with my guard, did you?"
Vasili turned toward the sound of that dry voice. "What? No, of course not. I merely knocked him out. Damned fool refused to let me pass."
"Perhaps because I didn't wish to be disturbed, and for a reason."
Tanya rejoined Stefan on the chaise as he sat up, his arm immediately coming around her to pull her close. Their state of semi-undress made clear what that "reason" was.
But Vasili acknowledged it with a mere "Sorry, but this simply couldn't wait, Stefan. If s worse than a nightmare. If s so insane you won't believe it. I still can't believe it myself."
"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 tell you? 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. A betrothal contract! 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 felt before you 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 one has 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 that now?"
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 real
ly 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 handsome as 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—prowling would 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."
"What you're really like?" Tanya nearly choked on that one. "You mean, what you can be like when you don't want people to like you."
Since she spoke from experience, he had to concede her the point. "If you say so, Your Majesty."
It was Tanya's turn to give him a sour look. Stefan bit back a chuckle and said, "Go home, Vasili. A good night's sleep is bound to make your situation look less disastrous. After all, even if you have to marry the girl, you don't have to—"
"The hell he doesn't," Tanya cut in indignantly.
"I told you she'd make fidelity a royal command," Vasili growled and stomped out of the room.
Tanya barely waited for the door to close before she said, "Oh, God, I love it. The peacock is finally going to get his feathers pulled."
"I thought you had forgiven Vasili for the way he behaved toward you on your trip to Cardinia."
"I have," she assured her husband. "I understand he was only trying to keep me from falling in love with him. But he should have figured out right away that that wasn't going to happen, instead of being such an utter ass nearly the entire trip. But he's still a peacock, and I can't tell you how much I've hoped that some woman would bring him down a peg or two, though I wish it were one he was interested in. Vasili's problem is that women don't tell him no. They don't wait to get to know him, they fall instantly for that face of his, and imagine what that's done to him. Ifs no wonder he's so insufferably arrogant. He can't get through a day that some woman isn't trying to seduce him."
Stefan laughed at her look of disgust. "You would be surprised, Tanya mine, how annoying Vasili finds that circumstance."
She snorted. "Oh, sure he does, about as much as I don't like being pregnant."
Since she was absolutely thrilled about her pregnancy and everyone knew it, she'd just dismissed his remark. "But ifs true," he insisted, his sherry-gold eyes glinting with laughter. "There is, after all, only so much one man can do in one day."
There was no way she could restrain her sarcasm now. "Well, that explains it. He gets annoyed when he can't accommodate every woman who asks. I can't tell you how sorry I feel for him. I'm probably the only woman he's ever met who actually, seriously, disliked him, but that doesn't count, since that's just what he was striving for in my case. But I honestly think it would do him a world of good to meet a woman who ignores him. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever see it happen."
"And you say you've forgiven him?"
She sighed. "I'm sorry, Stefan. I suppose I do still have trouble separating the Vasili I met from the Vasili I know now. I know he's usually charming. I know he can be terribly sweet at times. And, of course, I know how fiercely loyal he is to you, and I love him for that. But the arrogance and condescension, the derision and scorn—that didn't come from nowhere. He has all those traits, though I will allow, not in the abundance I first thought."
"I'll go along with the arrogance, but that's all," he replied loyally.
She started to argue, but his raised brow stopped her. Vasili was, after all, not just his only cousin, but as close to him as any dearly loved brother could be.
"Oh, very well," she conceded. "But he's dreaming if he thinks he can get this Russian girl to cry off from marrying him, and you know it. She's going to fall instantly in love with him, and no matter how nasty he tries to be, it won't make any difference in the end. He'll break her heart, but she'll still want him for her own." And then Tanya sighed. "I pity that poor girl, I really do."
5
Two months later, the girl Tanya had pitied was still blissfully unaware that she had a betrothed, or that his arrival was imminent.
Anna was with Constantin when Bohdan brought the news that the Cardinian was only a few hours away. The baron had stationed a number of men along the roads leading to his estate for just that purpose, so he wouldn't be caught unawares, and because, despite Anna's pleading to do otherwise, he was waiting until nearly the last minute to apprise his daughter of the upcoming nuptials.
"He has certainly dragged his feet about getting here," Constantin felt compelled to grumble. "The countess's letter informing me that he was coming arrived more than a month ago. He should have been right behind it."
"And what does that tell you?" Anna asked, receiving no more than a scowl for an answer. "Exactly. It says he doesn't want to get married."
Constantin was nervous, extremely nervous, not only because Count Petroff was finally about to arrive, but because he had yet to inform Alexandra that she had a betrothed.
Anna read his thoughts correctly. "When are you going to tell her, after he's arrived here?"
"You don't think that might help, letting her meet him without knowing who he is?"
"Are you mad? He'll mention the betrothal and she'll laugh in his face, and that will start things off wonderfully, won't it?"
His scowl grew darker. Anna had done nothing but nag him about his decision since he'd first told her about it. Perversely, the more she inflamed his guilt on the subject, the more stubborn he turned.
Now, when he made no move to summon Alexandra to finally break the news to her, Anna sighed in exasperation. "At least give her time to change, or do you want him to meet her when she's in her britches?"
She was right, that wouldn't do at all, and he hadn't even thought of it. Alexandra would need at least an hour to wash the stink of the stable off her and to make herself pretty, and there was no telling how long their argument was going to last before then. Not once did he consider the possibility that there wouldn't be an argument. He knew his daughter too well.
Immediately he left the dining room, where he and Anna had been sharing a late breakfast. He sent a servant straight out to the stable, then retreated to his study to wait.
Anna poked her head around the door, and despite the odds they had been at over this subject, she gave him a fond smile and said, "Good luck, darling."
Some of the tension eased out of him. He was a very fortunate man when it came right down to it. He had three healthy children, a brood of grandchildren—and Anna.
"Now that we may have this house to ourselves," he said, "will you marry me?"
Her smile widened just a bit. "No."
He chuckled as she went off to another part of the house. One of these days she was going to surprise him and give him the answer he wanted. In the meantim
e, it was certainly no hardship being a lover rather than a husband.
A few minutes later, Alexandra marched into the study with her usual brisk energy. 'This isn't going to take long, is it? I have to exercise Prince Micha." She was referring to one of her own stallions, one of her "babies," as she called all the offspring from her own personal stock.
"You might want to let one of the Razins exercise him today."
She lifted a finely arched brow. "It's going to take that long?"
"Quite possibly."
She removed her hat, sticking it in the pocket of her coat, and plopped into the chair across from his desk with a sigh. "All right, what have I done now?"
"What you could do is show me that you know how to sit like a lady rather than a—"
"It's so bad you're going to prevaricate?"
Her feigned look of surprise brought his brows together. Whenever Alexandra would rather be doing something else, she made sure people knew they were wasting her time. He decided to take a leaf from her book and get to the heart of the matter.
"You haven't done anything, Alexandra, but what you will be doing is getting married, possibly in the next few days. Your betrothed will be here in less than two hours, and I would appreciate it if you would be on your best—"
"You can stop right there, Papa. Whatever you have promised this man to marry me, you can go ahead and give it to him before you send him back where he came from. My mind hasn't changed since the last time we had this discussion."
She hadn't raised her voice and didn't even look the least bit annoyed with him. Of course, she hadn't yet grasped the full meaning of what he'd said.
He did not make a habit of lying to his daughter. He couldn't remember the last time he had done so. That he was going to now made the color rise in his cheeks. Fortunately, she mistook it for his usual high temper.
"This has nothing to do with our last discussion on the subject of marriage," he told her. "This has to do with a betrothal contract that Simeon Petroff and I signed fifteen years ago, before he died. And it is a binding contract, Alexandra. It promises that you will wed Simeon's son, Count Vasili Petroff."