“I’m sorry, your Highness,” Serge told her with touching sincerity.
The man was apologizing for the wrong thing as far as she was concerned. But she would just get angry if she tried pointing that out to him.
“Don’t be absurd,” she said instead. “Stefan doesn’t strike me as a man who feels very privileged right now, so what do I have to be envious about? The fact that he isn’t allowed to choose his own wife?”
“There is no one else he wants to marry,” Serge assured her, then added, “Not anymore.”
“Serge!” Lazar admonished incredulously.
Tanya was amused by his objection. “What, am I supposed to be shocked that he wanted to marry someone else? He’s thirty years old or thereabouts, isn’t he? I’d be amazed if he hadn’t wanted to get married at least once by now.”
“I’m no older than he is, and I’ve never wanted to get married,” Lazar said.
“Nor have I,” Serge put in.
“But he did, and my oh my, that must have really set a fire under the royal temper when he was reminded he already had a betrothed. Is that about the way it went?”
Lazar nodded reluctantly. “But he found out he was better off without her. She was nothing but a…”
The fact that his face suffused with color told Tanya she didn’t have to ask what the woman was. “I see. Another whore,” she said evenly as she stood up, then with more heat, “Get out, both of you.”
“Now, Princess, I wasn’t comparing—”
“Like hell you weren’t, or you wouldn’t have stopped and turned ten shades of red! And to think I thought you two, at least, could contain your contempt. “
“If the word is so objectionable to you, Princess Tatiana,” Vasili said from the open doorway, his voice expressly dispassionate, “then you should have found some means of preserving your virtue.”
She stared at him furiously for a moment until she realized he was actually scolding her for becoming upset over what they all considered a fact set in gold and minted. And he was right, of course. Until she denied the charges, she had no business getting angry over their allusions to them. Sasha had told her the same thing. And if she looked at it from their point of view, her offended sensibilities must seem very hypocritical.
The trouble was, it was hard to make her feelings be logical or tolerant. She supposed she was hoping the men would judge her by her behavior since they’d known her, not by their assumptions, but she was forgetting Vasili’s first encounter with her, when he’d found her sitting on Stefan’s lap. And she doubted Stefan had ever bothered to tell him that he had put her there. She was also forgetting the things she had said in her anger, lies to get back at them, but which they took as the literal truth.
But even knowing all that, accepting it, being ashamed for her part in it, she still couldn’t exonerate them, not all of them. Lazar had blundered into offending her. Vasili did it deliberately every time.
So she sat back down and said curtly, “You’re not welcome in here. They are, but you aren’t. “
Typically, he completely ignored her statement and sauntered further into the room. “We have been ordered to keep you company, occupied, and amused. I see we are doing splendidly well in the matter of amusement, but I doubt Stefan will appreciate the topic under discussion.”
“She asked about Stefan’s scars,” Lazar explained, his voice uneasy. “Were we supposed to let her broach the subject with him?”
“Morbid curiosity doesn’t deserve to be appeased,” Vasili replied, and for once, he got angry. His amber eyes were glowing nearly as bright as Stefan’s could when they came back to light on Tanya. “Was it too much to hope you might overlook a few minor flaws? You women are all alike, concerned only with appearance. You never look beneath the surface to what is inside a man, do you?”
She stared at him incredulously, unable to believe she was actually being accused of this, too. “Now there you happen to be very wrong. With you, Vasili, all I see is what’s beneath the surface.” She didn’t elaborate. She just gave him a look so full of disgust, he couldn’t help but understand her meaning perfectly.
His smile was so brittle, it should have cracked. “So you want to cross swords with me, Princess? I’d have you in tears in a matter of minutes.”
“I don’t doubt it. That is your specialty, isn’t it, belittling anything you deem unworthy? And, of course, I am beneath your contempt, a whore who must be constantly reminded that she is a whore, because I’m so dense I somehow keep forgetting it. But tell me something, Vasili, just out of morbid curiosity. What would you do if you found out you had misjudged me, that I’d learned at a young age how despicable men could be, and so I wanted no part of them, not even to better my life with a few extra coins?”
“Is this merely a supposition, Princess, or are you saying you had no choice in the matter, that you were forced to lead such a life?”
She wasn’t sure what had prompted that question from Lazar, curiosity or indignation on her behalf, but she wished he could have contained it a little longer, until she’d had her answer from Vasili. The peacock was merely looking scornfully dubious. And how the devil had they drawn this new conclusion from what she’d said?
“Forced? I didn’t wear that knife on my hip for decoration, Lazar,” she reminded him. “Any man who tried to force himself on me ended up losing a lot of blood for his trouble.” Except for Stefan, but since he’d never managed to finish what he started, he didn’t count. “Now how about an answer, Vasili? Just use your imagination and picture me as chaste as the day I was born. What would you do?”
Vasili refused to cooperate. “I’m afraid my imagination is not that—”
“Never mind,” she interrupted, losing her patience and temper. “I know what you would do. Nothing—except maybe find something else to condemn me for.”
“Your opinion of me has sunk rather low, Princess,” he said with some surprise.
“I assure you it didn’t have far to sink.”
He looked mildly annoyed. “Very well, we will play your silly game. If you are found to be virginal, Stefan will be furious because you never once proclaimed your innocence. I would have apologized profusely, probably on my knees, but Stefan will insist on a grander gesture to atone for us all, myself being the likely offering.”
He wasn’t being the least bit serious, so neither was she. “Your head?”
“My tongue, delivered personally. “
“And of course you do everything he asks?”
“Certainly.”
“Then start hoping he doesn’t ask, Vasili. For that alone I’d be willing to give up my virginity.”
“You better hope you don’t have any to give up, Princess, because when I said Stefan will be furious, I meant with you. If you’re going to turn into a virgin on your wedding night, miraculously, you damn well better make sure Stefan isn’t surprised by it.”
That had come out so seriously, it sent a chill up Tanya’s spine. But all she replied was, “I see you have a splendid imagination after all, Vasili.”
Chapter 32
It wasn’t until nearly the end of that long voyage that Tanya remembered to ask again about Stefan’s scars. She was on the deck with Vasili and Serge this time, and the men were explaining that there was no easy way to reach Cardinia from the sea. It was situated at more or less an equal distance from the Adriatic Sea in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Baltic Sea in the north. The only reason they had sailed north was the possibility of being delayed by pirates in the Mediterranean or by the capricious Ottomans, who controlled the entrance to the Black Sea.
It made no difference to Tanya, who didn’t know enough about Europe, anyway, to care which route they took. She had already been told that once they docked in Danzig harbor on the Prussian coast, it would still take another two or three weeks, depending on the weather, to reach Cardinia by land. The only thing she might have preferred was the warmer climate of the southe
rn seas, for the end of October in the North Sea, particularly when they rounded Denmark, was colder than anything she was used to. Seeing the coasts of France and the Netherlands had been interesting, though, especially when the ship stopped to take on supplies and she got a much closer look at the foreign ports. The smooth, sandy beaches along the Prussian coastline were almost boring in comparison. But the conversation wasn’t. Of course, it never was with these companions of hers. She was either learning something about where she was going, being taught, clumsily at best, court etiquette by two counts and a baron who didn’t give a damn about court etiquette themselves, or putting up with Vasili’s diabolical wit—or steering the topic to Stefan, which she did more often than she realized.
When she broached the subject of Stefan’s scars now, Vasili didn’t object. He merely watched Tanya carefully, which should have warned her she wouldn’t like what she was going to hear. And Serge didn’t elaborate this time either.
Briefly, he recounted, “The royal family was traveling to their hunting lodge in the north woods, where they spent several weeks every year—Sandor, Stefan, his younger brother, Peter, and only about fifteen attendants. It was spring, the winter had been especially harsh that year, and there were reports of villagers being attacked by wolves in the area they were passing. Peter was warned not to venture from the camp alone, but at ten years of age, he rarely did as he was told. Stefan heard his screams and reached him first.”
“That’s enough,” Tanya whispered, but with the wind on the deck, Serge didn’t hear her.
“I was there. So were Vasili and several of the guards. But we were all too far behind Stefan to stop him from charging into that pack of wolves to save his brother. He kicked, he slashed, he threw them off Peter, but they kept coming back. By the time we were close enough to shoot, Stefan had already killed four of the beasts. One had gone for his face. There was another still clamped to his leg that he was stabbing, and stabbing … and stabbing.”
“For God’s sake, Serge!” Vasili snapped, startling Tanya. “You’re not entertaining a roomful of drunken louts who would appreciate all that blood and gore. A few simple words would have sufficed.”
Serge glanced at Tanya’s white face and his own pinkened. “I’m sorry, Princess. I am afraid I was seeing it all happen again… “
“You have nothing to apologize for,” she assured him, while she tried to remind herself that it had happened so long ago, she had no business feeling sick to her stomach. “I asked to hear it, didn’t I?”
“But can you now see beyond the scars?” Vasili wanted to know.
Tanya sighed. “If anyone has a problem with Stefan’s scars, it’s you. When I first saw him, those glowing eyes of his had me so fanciful, I thought I was meeting the very devil. It took me a while to even notice the devil was scarred, and when I did, I felt—”
“Revulsion?”
That he was back in form assuming the worst from her made her realize that a moment ago he’d actually got huffy with Serge on her behalf. And that so surprised her, she couldn’t manage to get angry with Vasili right now.
“I was going to say I felt empathy for the pain he must have suffered, because I understand pain.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Princess, we all saw you reject his touch.”
“The devil you did. When?”
“In the common room of your tavern, when he was questioning you about the mark Sandor gave you. He was merely reaching for your face to regain your attention, but you jerked away from him. What was that if not revulsion?”
“That was protection, you idiot!” So much for not getting angry at him. “He would have smeared the powder on my face if he’d touched it. No one was ever allowed to touch my face. And just for the record, the only time Stefan disgusts me is when he acts like you.”
Something she’d said had surprised Vasili too much for him to even react to her insult. Serge, however, latched onto the last thing she had said, and thought to defend his king to her.
“Stefan’s emotions were more scarred than his face by that incident with the wolves. He is still bitter that it was all for nothing. His brother died anyway. And that bitterness sometimes guides his thoughts and actions.”
That profound statement coming from Serge had both Tanya and Vasili staring at him in amazement. Tanya forgot her anger for the moment. Vasili shook his head, made a face, then pinned his gaze on Tanya. It was only half as menacing as Stefan’s, but discerning.
“Protection?” he demanded. “You were protecting that hideous disguise of yours? You really didn’t want to be bothered by men, did you?”
Lazar chuckled at Tanya’s back, having come up behind them. “Careful, Vasili, or you may have to apologize before you even see the wedding sheets.”
She turned to raise her brow at Lazar, but was caught by the sight of Stefan appearing on the quarterdeck at the other end of the ship. Her eyes followed him as he approached the captain and they began talking. She avidly took in everything, the way he bent his head to hear the other man because he was taller, the movement of his hand as he pointed toward the coast, then whipped back a lock of black hair the wind tossed in his face. His hair was longer, though not as long as that of some of the sailors, so he must have had it cut at some point during the voyage. And he was wearing the strange-looking coat edged with fur and wrapped and belted, rather than buttoned. She was just getting used to seeing that style of coat on the others, but on Stefan it no longer looked strange, it looked right.
Behind her, Vasili was demanding of Lazar, “Did you hear what she said?”
“Certainly. She was implying she managed to keep her virtue because of that ‘hideous’ disguise even we couldn’t see through.”
“They said she could be had for a few coins, Lazar,” Vasili reminded him.
That gave Tanya back the breath she had been holding, and brought her whipping around to face Vasili again. “Who said that?”
“The patrons in your common room. Two of them, as a matter of fact.”
He had to be making that up. “They said Tanya Dobbs could be had?”
“Yes—no, they said the dancer could be had, and Stefan assured us you were the dancer.”
Lord help her, all this contempt dumped on her because April had broken her foot. She ought to laugh. It was actually funny. No, it wasn’t.
“Imagine that,” she said, meeting Vasili’s eyes and holding them with the ire in hers that contradicted her sudden smile. “And they were right. The dancer could be had for a few coins. Everyone knew it, except Dobbs, of course, because he didn’t allow fornication under his roof and would have given her the boot if he found out, despite the fact that her performance was the only thing making money for The Seraglio.”
“So you don’t deny it?”
“How can I? I’d even caught her once myself out back with her skirts up.”
“Her?”
“April!” she snapped, her anger in full bloom now. “The regular dancer. The girl who carelessly broke her foot that day, leaving me high and dry with an empty common room if I didn’t perform in her place that night. I hadn’t been on that stage myself since I was thirteen—fourteen … how the hell old am I, anyway?”
“Oh, God,” Vasili groaned.
“Twenty this past June, your Highness,” Serge supplied. “June first was the day of your birth.”
“The first day of June,” she whispered, but refused to be sidetracked even by something she’d waited a lifetime to hear. “So I was fourteen the last time I’d danced. I had to stop when some of the regulars started figuring out that it was me up there on the stage instead of our original dancer, who’d run off, because Dobbs didn’t want them getting ideas that I might be talented at other things, and neither did I. So he found me girls to teach the dance to, only he was too cheap to ever have more than one on hand at a time. But that’s all I’ve done for the last six years—train the girls who come and go, and take care of every other job that needed to be
done. ” And then she couldn’t help herself from adding, “But don’t take my word for it. Whores are notorious liars, aren’t they?”
The goad didn’t work that time. Vasili looked like hell warmed over. “Tanya—”
“Don’t!” she hissed.
“Tanya, please—”
“Don’t you dare! I wouldn’t accept a saving hand from you if I was sliding into oblivion.”
“I love him!” Vasili said passionately. “I couldn’t stand that he was being forced to wed a woman who would play him false by her very nature!”
“All right. I’ll accept that. I’ll probably even understand that kind of motive after I give it some thought. But don’t ask another thing of me, not now.”
“Stefan will have to be told,” Lazar said very quietly behind her.
She turned back toward him, but it was toward the quarterdeck she looked. Only Stefan wasn’t there any longer, nor anywhere else on deck that she could see. He’d gone back to his cabin, or wherever it was he went when she was on deck. Had he even noticed her? Dammit, that glimpse of him had been too brief. But the voyage was almost over. He couldn’t hide from her much longer. Could he?
She was suddenly tired. All that expended emotion, she supposed, that had nearly choked her. God, pride was a horrible thing. And it was still sitting in her pocket, though a bit worn out, too.
She glanced at Lazar and said calmly, “If you tell him what I’ve said, I’ll deny it.”
He didn’t appear to believe her and said as much. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“But why?”
“Because he has to want me despite what he thinks.”
“He already does,” Lazar said softly.
She shook her head. “Then he wouldn’t have stayed away from me for so long.”
Johanna Lindsey, Once a princess.txt Page 21
