Ukraine Province, Russia, 1836 #2
Anna felt the change in his big body, which was no longer relaxed against hers, saw the flush climbing his cheeks, and noted how his deep midnight-blue eyes refused to meet hers.
Anna knew him extremely well. Their spouses had died within a year of each other.
The four of them had been close friends before that.
She and Constantin had continued that friendship, and eight years ago, they had become even closer.
She loved him dearly, though she refused to give up her widowed independence to marry him.
Nor was it necessary to wed him when she lived in his home as his housekeeper and hostess, and as companion-chaperone to his youngest daughter whenever that duty was required, which was rarely these days.
Right now shame was fairly oozing from him, and she demanded as baldly as Alexandra would have, “Constantin Rubliov, what have you done?”
He moved out of her embrace without answering, walking straight to the mahogany cabinet where numerous crystal decanters were always kept full of his favorite spirits. Anna came up beside him while he filled one of the larger glasses to the brim with vodka. Immediately he lifted it to his lips.
“It’s that bad?” she asked gently. At his barely perceptible nod, she said, “Maybe you should pour me one of those.”
“No,” he replied, setting the glass down, but keeping his hand around it. Half the contents was gone. “You’ll likely throw it in my face, then the glass at my head, then come after me with the decanter.”
His family might be prone to that sort of tempestuous reaction, but she wasn’t. But she was definitely getting worried now. “Tell me.”
He still wouldn’t look at her. “I have found Alexandra a husband.”
That gave her pause, because it was nothing she hadn’t heard before. He had been trying to do just that for the past seven years. So wherein lay the shame he was presently exhibiting?
“A husband?” she said carefully. “But Alex will only refuse him, as she has all your other suggestions.” He was slowly shaking his head.
“She can’t refuse him? How is that—?” She didn’t finish, and laughed instead.
“Don’t tell me you think you can insist at this late date.
Come now, darling, you know that does no good with this particular daughter of yours.
She’s more stubborn than you are, if you haven’t noticed.
You would end up raising the roof with your shouts, then give in to her as you always do. ”
Again he was shaking his head, and looking even more unhappy about it. And he still wouldn’t meet her eyes. His color was also still high. He was a man genuinely wallowing in guilt.
Fearful new, she repeated her question. “What have you done?”
His head dropped so low on his chest, she could barely hear the words: “Given my daughter no choice.”
She waved her hand dismissively at that answer. “There are always choices—”
“Not when I have involved family honor, which is the one thing she won’t ignore—at least she’s going to think it is involved.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I sacrificed my own honor, my integrity, my principles, ethics, honesty—”
“What have you done?”
Anna never raised her voice. She was the epitome of all that was gracious and demure.
Even when she was angry she would make her point quietly, and cause her antagonist to feel like an ogre in the process.
That she was shouting now brought Constantin’s eyes to her, not in surprise but in dread.
He could well lose her when she learned how low he had sunk in his desire to give his youngest daughter the same happiness and fulfillment her sisters had found.
He looked so miserable, so utterly guilt-ridden and despondent, that Anna gave a little cry and threw her arms around his neck. “It can’t be as terrible as you’re letting on,” she whispered by his ear, which was no easy feat since he towered over her by a foot. “Tell me.”
“I have arranged for a betrothal.”
“A betrothal?”
His response was anticlimactic, to say the least. She relaxed against him, leaning back just enough so she could see his face.
“Thank God,” she said with feeling, “I was beginning to think you had killed someone.”
His expression didn’t change; he looked just as miserable, although he was finally looking at her. “I believe I would feel the same if I had killed someone,” he admitted.
Anna’s eyes flared. She could have hit him at that moment, something she would never in her life have considered doing—until now. “Dammit, Constantin, get to the heart of it before you drive me mad!”
He flinched because she was yelling again. Yelling from Alexandra he could take; he even expected it, and could give it back with equal fervor every time, but he couldn’t bear it from his little Anna. Yet he deserved it, and her scorn as well.
He finally said, “I sent a letter to Countess Maria Petroff.”
The name brought a thoughtful frown to Anna’s face. “Why does that name sound familiar to me?”
“Because you have heard me speak so often of Simeon Petroff.”
“Ah, your good friend who died—what was it, thirteen or fourteen years ago?”
“Fourteen.”
When he said no more, she frowned again, this time in annoyance. Obviously she was going to have to drag the facts out of him bit by bit.
“Maria would be Simeon’s wife, or rather, his widow. What has she to do with Alex’s betrothal? And when did you arrange this?”
“Last week.”
She had hoped, for the sake of her mounting exasperation, that he would have answered more than one of her direct questions. “But you were here last week,” she pointed out. “And we have had no visitors—”
“The betrothal is with Simeon’s son. I reminded Maria of it, and suggested that it was high time she send her son to collect his bride—but not in those words. I was quite diplomatic about it, though the essence was the same.”
Anna was incredulous, more than incredulous, having never heard a word of this before.
“Why did you never mention this betrothal? I assume it must be long-standing, at the very least made before Simeon’s death.
And why have we been pushing eligible men at Alex all these years, with the hope that one might interest her, when she is already bound in contract to this—he would be Cardinian, wouldn’t he? ”
Again he answered only her last question. “Yes.”
She offered a smile. “So why the long face, darling? This match must delight you.” And then she paused, drawing her own conclusion. “Don’t tell me you actually forgot about it until last week.”
“No, it wasn’t forgotten.” Constantin turned to drain his glass and then poured in more vodka before he added, “It wasn’t even conceived.”
Anna gasped. “What are you saying?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes again, and he had to take yet another swallow of his drink before he said, “What I wrote to the countess was mostly lies, with only a few truths thrown in. Simeon and I did discuss a betrothal of our children back when Alexandra was born. At least that is true. We discussed it at length. We both thought it was a splendid idea. But we never made it official. There were years to do so, after all. Alexandra was not even a year old yet; Simeon’s boy was only six. So—so now you know what I’ve done.”
Anna let out a sigh. It wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought, and could be corrected with another letter that could be dispatched immediately.
But just to be sure she understood the entire matter, she said, “You made claim to a betrothal that was never settled, and you did so because your friend is dead and can’t dispute it. Is that what you’ve taken so long to tell me?”
“I was drunk at the time I did it. It was the night you stayed in the village to help with that birthing. When it occurred to me, it seemed like the perfect solution for Alexandra. In fact, I have not the slightest doubt that had Simeon lived, our children would have wed each other seven years ago.”
“That may be so, but it didn’t happen that way, and your wishing it were otherwise is not going to make it happen now. You must write Countess Petroff immediately with the truth, before she does send her son here.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It is still a perfect solution.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed on him. “So that is why you are feeling so guilty? You have no intention of correcting what you’ve done?”
“That will be my cross to bear,” Constantin said with the stubbornness inherent in his family. “But think, Anna. What if they are ideally suited to each other? What if this one little lie—”
“Little?” she cut in.
“Harmless, then,” he insisted, continuing. “What if it brings together two people who would never have met otherwise, and they are so taken with each other that they cannot help but fall in love?”
She shook her head. “You are dreaming. Or is it merely wishful thinking to absolve your guilt?”
“It’s not impossible—”
“With our Alex?”
Her skeptical tone annoyed him. He, more than anyone, knew his daughter’s faults.
Ignoring those faults, he stressed the one thing in Alexandra’s favor. “She’s beautiful.”
“No one can deny that, darling, but has it gained her a long list of suitors? You know as well as I that she offends more than she charms, and men don’t usually make a habit of courting embarrassment.
It’s a wonder that Englishman attended her as long as he did in St. Petersburg, and continued to correspond with her all these years.
The English are sticklers for proper behavior, after all. ”
He didn’t like reminders of the foreigner who had stolen his daughter’s heart with no intention of nurturing it. Were the man still in Russia, Constantin would seriously consider shooting him. But that bounder was no longer at issue, and the saints be praised for that.
“Simeon was a tolerant man just like me. He admired frankness, scoffed at hypocrisy, and was certainly no snob. It isn’t unrealistic to think that his son will have inherited his qualities.”
“Didn’t you also once tell me that your friend was a womanizer?”