Forever in Your Embrace

  At the bride’s entrance, a sudden hush fell over the guests as they stared in awe of her beauty. Just as quickly, there arose a low drone of murmuring comments attesting to their admiration. Tyrone had been conversing with Grigori and had his back to the door, but even he could not resist a surreptitious perusal over his shoulder. After all the ire he had been contending with since his whipping, he hadn’t expected his heart to lurch within his chest or the slow, sinking feeling in the pit of his belly as his eyes fed upon her beauty. Truly, if men had the ability to sense defeat prior to its occurrence, then Tyrone Rycroft had his first inkling of it as he stared at his bride-to-be. He didn’t know the day or the hour that it would come upon him, but he’d face it fairly soon, definitely well before the time he was due to leave Russia.

  Both Grigori and Nikolai became immediately mindful of Tyrone’s close inspection, which was far more exacting than the colonel’s mood of angry reticence seemed to support. Their reactions, however, contrasted. Though a smile traced across Grigori’s lips, a sharp frown creased the major’s brows.

  Natasha had bade Synnovea to halt soon after her entrance, and at the time of her bridegroom’s inspection, she was standing obediently still as the older countess and Ali straightened her gown and smoothed down the hem, which had been turned up by her departure from the coach. When the women stepped back to search for other flaws, Synnovea found a chance to glance around the room and readily smiled at friends and acquaintances who beckoned to her, but her heart began to thump with a swifter rhythm when her gaze paused on the one whose attention seemed riveted on her. The blue orbs were moving with slow, meticulous deliberation over the length of her, but the flaming heat, which had briefly warmed them, vanished abruptly when their gazes finally met. Of a sudden, Synnovea found herself staring into cool shards of blue. With no more than a brief nod, Tyrone turned aside as if to deny his close perusal. His readily assumed guise of coldly forbidding detachment was enough to drain the rosy hue from Synnovea’s cheeks, and though she stood helplessly admiring his handsome profile, she was left with the realization that his anger had abated no tiny degree.

  “Your bride is beautiful beyond words, my friend,” Grigori observed, feeling a strong sense of loyalty and compassion for his commander but also some empathy for the girl, who had been caught between two men who desired her. He had seen the colonel’s lacerated back for himself and knew more than most what the man had suffered at the command of Prince Aleksei, who, Tyrone had grudgingly admitted, had ordered the punishment done because of his own jealous rage. “After your diligent pleas to the tsar, are you not happy to win the countess for yourself?”

  “She is indeed beautiful,” Tyrone acknowledged distantly, refusing to comment on his emotions. It was true that his pride had been stung by the fiery nettles of her deceit, but when she hadn’t felt enough regard for him to care what he might have suffered because of her gambit, then he had forseen no hope of her ever yielding him anything that remotely resembled love.

  “ ’Tis obvious poor Nikolai is lamenting the tsar’s decision,” Grigori prodded gently. “You could have been standing in his stead right now if His Majesty had favored his own countryman’s request above yours.”

  Tyrone cast a glance askance toward the major. The Russian stared at Synnovea longingly, his distress clearly evident, his pain acute. But then, it was no less than his own, Tyrone concluded. “Aye, and if not for me, he could have been suffering in my stead.”

  Grigori looked at his superior sharply. “Do you speak of your wounds, Colonel?”

  Tyrone’s eyebrows twitched upward briefly in mute response. Even as close a friend as Grigori wouldn’t understand his plight if he voiced his complaints about being forced to marry such a beautiful woman.

  Princess Zelda Pavlovna made her way hurriedly through the cluster of people and, with a buoyant smile, embraced Synnovea before stepping back and clasping the girl’s slender hands within her own. “Oh, I’m so happy for you, my dear. I never dreamed Colonel Rycroft would be successful in winning you for his bride.”

  “I’m relieved to see you here, Zelda,” Synnovea assured her friend, avoiding any comment on the victory which the colonel could supposedly claim. “I was afraid with the suddenness of the affair, that you and your husband wouldn’t be able to attend.”

  “Vassili will join us later, my dear, and begs your forgiveness for not being able to attend the wedding. He had to meet with the field marshal again, but if I may be so bold as to repeat his comments on His Majesty’s haste to see you and the colonel wed, Vassili said no other foreigner has endeared himself to the tsar as much as your groom. Tsar Mikhail has definitely bestowed a great honor upon the colonel by giving you to him.”

  “Vassili is most kind,” Synnovea replied graciously, though she seriously doubted that Tyrone would view their marriage as anything but a harsh reprimand for having foolishly become her dupe. She just hoped the Pavlovs wouldn’t be too shocked or repulsed by her actions if they ever learned the truth.

  As Zelda moved away to talk with other friends, a directive came for the wedding party and its guests to join Tsar Mikhail and the priest in the chapel. In compliance with the summons, Tyrone approached his bride and stiltedly presented his arm.

  The weight on Synnovea’s heart seemed to drag her spirits down into a darker gloom as she considered her bridegroom’s aloofness. Her delay in accepting his offer caused him to lift a challenging brow as he peered at her askance.

  “Afraid, Countess?”

  “Of you, yes,” she admitted in a wavering whisper.

  His smile was terse at best. “You needn’t be, my dear. At least you can be assured that I intend no similar punishment for what I’ve had to endure because of you.”

  His statement was hardly encouraging, and in undiminished dismay Synnovea laid a trembling hand upon the sleeve of his dark blue doublet and moved along beside him as their guests fell in behind them.

  Synnovea felt strangely detached from the ceremony, as if she wandered aimlessly through a shadowy fog somewhere beyond the room into which she had been led. She was distantly aware of her groom sometimes standing or at other times kneeling beside her, of his brown hand taking her thin fingers within his grasp and sliding a large signet ring upon her first, of his lips lowering dutifully upon her own as a token of his affection. Feeling rather overwhelmed by his tall, manly presence and then, just as certainly, by his abrupt withdrawal, Synnovea closed her mouth, realizing that it had opened shakily beneath his. Her cheeks flamed at what seemed a blunt rejection of her unconscious response, and as Tyrone stepped back, she cast her eyes away, afraid that she’d see some evidence of ridicule or repugnance in his gaze.

  Mikhail came forward with a smile and bestowed his good wishes upon the couple before he looked pointedly at the colonel. “Your bride’s beauty is beyond the measure of most women, Colonel Rycroft. You should be grateful for such a one. Your offspring will naturally be handsome. They cannot help but be. I hope you give careful consideration to that possibility before you commit yourself to the folly of your proposal. In light of your anger, I shan’t hold you to anything, except to say that my promise has been solemnly vowed, and I will not retract it. In other words, Colonel, you have my leave to enjoy yourself completely if you so choose. You need no further audience with me to be assured of that.”

  Tyrone’s face took on a ruddy hue, the only hint of the carefully masked emotions roiling within him. He was aware that his bride had become genuinely perplexed by the tsar’s comments, but he had no wish to relieve her confusion. He could only utter a muted answer to the monarch. “You are as gracious as always, Your Majesty.”

  Mikhail turned to face his guests. “Please join us as we toast the joining of this couple with wine and food.”

  The tsar took the honored seat at the head of the table and, as he bade the bride and groom to take their places, swept his hand to indicate the chairs on either side of him. After their marriage and several tributes to the pa
ir were sanctioned by the lifting of goblets and a hearty chorus of agreements, servants began to offer lavish platters of meats and accompanying dishes to their sovereign lord and his guests. Synnovea found her own appetite sorely lacking and picked at her food while Mikhail questioned Tyrone about his intentions to go after Ladislaus once his back had properly healed. Giving the excuse that the foray was still in the planning stage, the colonel refrained from laying out definite details about his intended raid, but assured his host that whenever he set himself to the mission, he’d bring the thief back or die trying.

  It was some time before Mikhail glanced around and noticed the absence of Tyrone’s immediate superior. Turning back to the officer with a curious smile, he queried, “But where is General Vanderhout and his wife?”

  Tyrone’s gaze lowered to his plate as if he contemplated what succulent morsel to sample next. “It didn’t seem suitable to invite them, Your Majesty, considering the fact that I am but a lowly colonel and he a general.”

  “A lowly colonel?” For a moment Mikhail chortled and seemed highly amused by the lame excuse the Englishman had offered him. Then he grew progressively suspicious, until he was motivated to ask, “Is that what General Vanderhout called you?”

  “If you don’t mind, Your Majesty, I’d rather not say,” Tyrone answered with careful diplomacy.

  The tsar wouldn’t let him off so easily. “When did the general call you that?”

  Tyrone was growing immensely sorry he had repeated the derogatory slur. “I’m afraid it was when I refused to accept the duties that General Vanderhout tried to assign to me.”

  “But why did you refuse?”

  Tyrone chafed uncomfortably. “Because I wanted to attend Countess Andreyevna’s soiree.”

  “And that soiree was where you visited Synnovea before your confrontation with Prince Taraslov?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Tyrone rejoined, casting a glance across the table at his bride, who had stopped eating altogether. Her cheeks flamed beneath his brief regard, but the color in his own came close to matching hers when the tsar offered a supposition.

  “Considering your years as a dedicated soldier, you must have been anxious to see Synnovea if you refused a direct order from your superior.”

  The colonel was aware of the monarch’s close scrutiny, and though he felt compelled to answer, he did so in a hushed tone. “I was, Your Majesty.”

  “Adamant to meet Synnovea, you mean?” Mikhail prodded.

  “Yes,” Tyrone reluctantly acknowledged.

  The tsar smiled in pleasure. “You have good taste, Colonel, and in the weeks and years to come, I hope you don’t lose sight of what you were willing to sacrifice just to be with Synnovea.”

  The gentle chiding brought Tyrone the curious regard of his bride, but as yet, he could offer nothing more than a brief glance in response. Meeting those wide green-brown eyes had suddenly become a labor he wished to avoid.

  Finally the couple were being escorted to her coach, and with stilted decorum Tyrone handed his bride into the interior and took his place beside her. Natasha had instructed Stenka to take the long way around so the guests could arrive before the bride and groom, and it proved a lengthy ordeal indeed for the two ensconced in the coach. The groom sat on the far side of the seat from his bride, as if she were something tainted he wished to avoid. His eyes were partially masked by heavy lids as he braced his chin on a lean knuckle and glowered out the window. After the need for proper decorum had been dispensed with, his brows gathered and his crisply chiseled jaw flexed with angry tension. Synnovea’s tentative glances lent no hope that her husband’s mood would improve once they reached their destination. Indeed, his angry reticence allowed her no small glimmer of optimism for their life together.

  Carriages were still being unloaded in front of the house when Stenka pulled the team to a halt near the approach to the drive and waited for a chance to deliver his mistress and her new husband directly before the stoop. After a pelting rain during the night and the passage of so many conveyances, the lane had become a veritable avenue of endless muck. It didn’t take long for the rear wheels of the coach to become firmly mired in the stiff sludge. Despite Stenka’s best attempts to rally the horses to such a strenuous feat, the conveyance refused to budge.

  Tyrone was hardly in a mood to wait until another team could be brought around to lend their strength to the four-in-hand. Stepping down into the well-churned road, he gestured for Synnovea to move near the door and, when she cautiously complied, lifted her within his arms. Considering the aversion he was wont to display toward her, she was painfully flustered by his assistance and had no idea where to put her arms. A brief moment later she felt his booted feet slip in the sludge, and with a sudden gasp of alarm, she flung them about his neck, fearing he’d drop her into the filth just to vent his rage upon her.

  Tyrone read her trepidation only too well and deigned to meet her worried gaze with a sardonic quirk slanting his brow. “Truly tempting, my dear, but hardly chivalrous of a groom, do you not agree?”

  “Just put me down,” she urged testily, well aware of the distance between herself and safety. “I can make my own way to the house.”

  “What? In the mud?” he scoffed with a humorless laugh. “Now that would be something for our guests to see, truly a fine demonstration of the groom’s affection.”

  “What do you care about them?”

  “Unfortunately, I’ve been ordered to maintain a festive mood,” he retorted. “Otherwise I’d dump you here and be done with you.”

  Synnovea struggled briefly in his arms, but he tightened his grip until she was forced to relent. When his long, steely fingers continued to dig into her ribs, causing her to squirm uncomfortably beneath the pressure, she was forced to complain. “You’re hurting me.”

  “Am I?” Tyrone smiled blandly and loosened his grasp. “You must excuse me, madam. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”

  “I think it was deliberate,” she accused. “Perhaps part of the retribution you said you wouldn’t seek.”

  His harsh smile clearly conveyed the fact that he didn’t give a damn what she thought. “To a tiny degree, perhaps, but certainly nothing to equal what I’m really feeling toward you.”

  “Why don’t you just have me flogged and be done with it!” Synnovea challenged acidly. “Perhaps that would assuage your anger some small whit.”

  “I’d never tarnish a form as fair and alluring as yours, madam. As your husband, ’twould be the same as spiting myself.”

  Natasha was awaiting them near the front portal, and as she escorted Synnovea into the great room to join their guests, Tyrone doffed his muddy boots and made his way in stocking feet to the kitchen, where a manservant took the boots away to clean them. While Tyrone waited for their return, a young girl of no more than three peeked at him from behind the cook’s apron, gaining his attention. Her wide, beautiful green eyes and softly curling dark hair were very much like Synnovea’s, but it was her faltering timidity that clearly reminded him of what he had recently perceived in his bride’s manner. In the past few hours he had seen little evidence of that haughty maid whom he had confronted in the bathhouse, and he could believe that Synnovea was now as much afraid of him as this tiny elfin creature who presently shied away.

  Tyrone went down on a knee near a spot where wooden blocks had been left scattered over a small area of the floor. The child watched him with growing interest as he began to construct a tiny edifice. Degree by small, cautious degree, she approached to admire his handiwork and, in sudden glee, chortled with him when a more difficult addition collapsed his creation into a disorganized heap.

  The cook, Danika, observed the making of their friendship with a warm smile, but when the man began to speak to her daughter in a foreign language, she, too, was completely lost in confusion and unable to ease the girl’s perplexed frown. When he sought to translate, Danika’s confusion only deepened and she shrugged and spread her hands, conveying the fact
that she didn’t understand.

  Synnovea was sent to fetch her bridegroom for the wedding guests, who were awaiting his presence in the great room. Having been informed of his whereabouts, she approached the open door of the kitchen, but when she espied him chatting with the child, she paused outside the portal, not wishing to intrude. Though the child was unable to catch the drift of his words, she seemed captivated nonetheless, as evidenced by the slowly widening grin that curved her small, angelic mouth. Synnovea found her own heart strangely warmed by his gentle manner with the girl. She could not help but think of those moments when he had carefully nurtured her passion even at the sacrifice of his own pleasure. Were it not for his animosity toward her now, she’d have been content to have such a man as her husband. There was no doubt in her mind that he was far and away more honorable and handsome than either Aleksei or Vladimir.