Vasili’s mother wasn’t wearing the correct expression
Vasili’s mother wasn’t wearing the correct expression when she joined him in her parlor later that night. At least her expression wasn’t the one he’d come to associate with her lectures. In fact, her expression was so pleased and happy, he had to wonder if he’d mistaken the reason for her summons.
Long experience assured him that good news would have brought her to him, and he wouldn’t have even considered turning her away at his door as he had her messenger. After all, he did love her, and did try to please her when it was reasonably possible to do so.
It was only for the scoldings and the lectures, when she anticipated arguments from him, that she wanted him in her own territory, which was here in the house he had grown up in.
It didn’t matter that he’d moved out of the family home some twelve years ago, first into the palace to be closer at hand for Stefan’s impromptu outings, then into his own town house after he had taken the grand European tour.
His mother still felt that this house, and her own parlor in particular, somehow enhanced her authority. The hell of it was, it did.
The evening was young enough that he had caught the countess before she left for whichever party she was attending tonight.
That was exactly what he had counted on, so he could get this over with and enjoy the rest of the night himself.
He hoped her party was an important one for which she wouldn’t want to arrive late, thereby keeping this meeting short.
Her clothes were no indication, nor the amount of jewels she was wearing, for she never attended any social engagement without being decked out in grand style.
Maria Petroff was a handsome woman in her later years, perhaps more handsome now than she had been in her youth, for no one had ever considered her a beauty.
Her thrusting chin and patrician nose, which weren’t exactly feminine, endowed her with a close resemblance to her brother Sandor, the late king, and she’d never been far from robust and stocky of build, which now could kindly be termed matronly.
It had always been a source of bewilderment to her, as well as fierce pride, that she had produced a son like Vasili. But then he took after his father in his looks. All that he had from her were the Barony eyes, eyes so light a brown that strong emotion turned them golden.
On Cardinia’s young King Stefan, with his raven-black hair and dark complexion, people called them devil’s eyes. But on Vasili, with his golden hair and skin tone, they were merely beautiful, a complement to the fine bone structure that made him so very handsome.
“You look disgraceful,” was the first thing Vasili’s mother said to him.
Since he hadn’t bothered to go home and change before making his appearance, his shirt and jacket were both understandably wrinkled.
His hair was also a mess, after so many hands had tested its softness tonight, but on Vasili, anything less than impeccable only gave him a rakish look that women found incredibly sensual.
But his mother’s remark made him instantly nervous, for she’d been smiling when she’d said it. Something was definitely not right here.
His eyes narrowed suspiciously now, he demanded, “What are you gloating about, Mother?”
She actually laughed. “What a distasteful word, and something I would never do, of course.” And with another smile: “Why don’t you pour us a drink?”
He returned her smile, deciding to go along with her for the moment. “An excellent idea,” he said, but as he headed for the sideboard where a variety of spirits were kept on hand for guests, he added under his breath, “Obviously I’m going to need it.”
“I’ll have some of that fine Russian vodka I keep stocked just for you,” she said before he began to pour exactly that for himself.
The request arrested his hand and made him frown. “You don’t like vodka,” he reminded her.
“True,” she replied with a shrug. “But it seems…appropriate tonight.”
She was smiling again. He brought her a small amount of the potent liquor, but he went back to get the bottle for himself and took it with him to the chair opposite the sofa she had settled on.
He had filled his glass twice, draining it both times, before he felt fortified enough to say, “All right, Mother, let’s have it.
What are you so disgustingly thrilled about? ”
“You’re going to have to leave within the week for a trip to Russia.”
“And that delights you?”
She nodded, her smile positively glowing now. “Indeed it does, since you will be collecting your bride while you’re there.”
Vasili went very still, and the only thing he could think to say to that alarming statement was, “I’m not Stefan, Mother. He had to go and collect a bride. I don’t happen to have one, thank God.”
“You do now.”
He shot out of his chair and came to stand over her, the very image of bristling male chagrin.
He couldn’t remember when he had ever been this annoyed with his mother.
Interfering in his life was unacceptable.
She knew that and had always respected it.
Lectures and sermons she was allowed, worry and concern she was permitted, but something like this?
What the devil had made her think she could get away with it?
“Whatever you have done, Mother, you can just undo. Whatever embarrassment you’ll have to suffer for it, you’ll suffer on your own. I don’t even want to hear another word about it.”
Incredibly, she was still smiling, and she didn’t keep him in suspense as to why. “You might have to hear one or two more words about it, dearest—”
“Mother—” he tried to cut in warningly.
“—since I haven’t done anything, so I have nothing to undo.”
“That’s absurd. Of course you—”
“No, not me. The fact that you have a bride waiting for you is entirely your father’s doing.”
With that piece of the puzzle supplied, Vasili began to relax. It wasn’t like his mother to indulge in a practical joke, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.
“And how was he supposed to have arranged this marriage? From the grave?”
She drew in her breath sharply. “That was uncalled-for, Vasili.”
“So is this joke of yours,” he retorted.
“A joke? You insult me even to think that I would joke about something like this.”
“But it’s been fourteen years—”
“I know exactly how long it’s been since your father died.” Her tone was clipped, her displeasure with him still strong. “But according to the letter I received, your betrothal was made fifteen years ago. That would have been the last time your father was in Russia.”
“You expect me to believe he did something like this without telling you about it—or me?”
“I don’t know why he never mentioned it, but he most definitely did arrange it. I can only assume he felt there was ample time to apprise us of it. After all, you were so young back then—”
“I would have been sixteen, hardly in the cradle,” he snapped.
As if he hadn’t interrupted, she continued. “But he died the next year.”
Vasili’s eyes were glowing by now. This was sounding too serious by half for him to merely feel annoyed. “It’s a lie,” he stated emphatically. “There is no conceivable reason why he would do such a thing.”
Her smile was back, giving him clear warning that he wasn’t going to like her answer.
“There is one. Your betrothed is the daughter of your father’s very dear friend, Baron Rubliov.
Even you can remember how often Simeon spoke of the baron, how highly he thought of him.
Several months out of every year your father went to Russia to visit him. ”
Vasili did remember, and remembered resenting the time his father had spent away from home.
Of course, when he and his friends had had their grand tour, it had included Russia and the Imperial Court, and he had learned firsthand what his father would have found so appealing about Russia.
The ladies there, at least the aristocrats, were incredibly bold in their promiscuity.
They didn’t even wait for marriage to take lovers, virginity apparently not being as highly prized there as it was in the rest of the world.
“I, for one, can imagine your father signing this betrothal contract,” the countess went on. “After all, there was no one here in Cardinia whom he liked half as much as he did Constantin Rubliov. He would have been delighted to have his family joined to Rubliov’s.”
That word “betrothal” was making Vasili see red, and starting to make him panic. “But Rubliov waits fifteen years to bring it to our attention?”
Maria shrugged. “From the tone of his letter, I would say he didn’t think he was telling us anything we didn’t already know.”
“But why wait fifteen years, or—what is the girl, just barely out of the schoolroom? Was he just waiting until she grew up?”
“He doesn’t mention her age, but it doesn’t sound as if she’s that young, for he does mention that she was in no hurry to marry, which is why he hadn’t written about the betrothal before now. He also says that he was waiting for you to write, but since you haven’t…”
“Let me see that damn letter.”
She didn’t have to leave the room to retrieve it.
Obviously she had expected the demand, and now pulled the letter out of a pocket in her skirt.
Vasili tore it open to peruse the fine French scrawl.
He had been hoping it had been written in Russian.
His mother could have misinterpreted Russian, because even though they both spoke it fluently, neither of them could read or write it very well.
But just about everyone in the Cardinian court could read and write French, and the letter left nothing for misinterpretation.
For all its diplomacy, it was a demand for him to honor a betrothal contract that had promised he would marry one Alexandra Rubliov.
Vasili crumpled the letter in his fist and threw it across the room.
It bounced off a vase of flowers and rolled to the floor.
He felt an urge to grind it into the carpeting with the heel of his boot.
Instead he went to the bottle of vodka he’d left by his chair and tilted it to his lips, uncaring that his mother would find such swilling the height of crudeness.
Her tsking proved it, but that didn’t stop him from draining half the bottle before he turned to acknowledge her disapproval with a mocking bow.
Casually now, as if he weren’t seething inside, he said, “Answer his letter, Mother. You can tell him that I’ve already married. Or tell him I’ve died. I don’t care what you tell him, as long as you make sure he understands I can’t marry his daughter.”
Her back straightened. Her lips pursed for battle. “You most certainly can.”
“But I won’t.”
Before the bottle could reach his lips again, she said, “But you will.”
“No!”
He shouted it, surprising them both. He never raised his voice to her, no matter how irritated he was; at least he never had before. But now he was feeling anger, gut-churning fury, and it stemmed from the sensation of having a trapdoor slam shut on him.
Softer, though no less emphatically, he added, “When I am ready to marry, I will, but it will be my decision, and my choice.”
He would have liked that to be the end of it. It should have been the end of it. He even started to leave the room, taking the bottle of vodka with him. He didn’t get very far before his mother’s words struck his back like shards of glass, lacerating, drawing blood.
“Even you, disreputable scamp that you are, won’t dishonor your father’s name.”