You Belong to Me
Johanna Lindsey
1
Ukraine Province, Russia, 1836
Constantin Rubliov stood at the window his drawing room, his hands clasped behind his back, watching the dust cloud in the distance slowly approaching. The window, located at the front of his house, looked out on the road that wound past his country estate and led to the Dnieper River in the east. From the second floor of the house, you could just make out the river on a clear day. From his vantage point in the drawing room, the road to the west was visible as far as the eye could see, and that was where the dust cloud was approaching from.
If he hadn't known that there was going to be a horse race today, the sight of all the people crowding both sides of the road just beyond his house would have told him. His Cossacks loved a good race as much as they loved a good fight. They were a tough, volatile, high-spirited people, always laughing, singing, or fighting—and fiercely loyal.
But they weren't exactly his, although he had always thought of them that way because they had been so long associated with his family. And they, too, thought of him and his as theirs. But Cossack meant "free warrior," and these Cossacks were certainly that. Since his great-great-grandfather had given them permission to settle on his land and raise their families in peace, they had worked for the Rubliovs in whatever capacity was required. They staffed Constantin's house, they bred his horses, they guarded him and his family in their travels.
The settlement they had started all those years ago was now a thriving town less than a quarter mile to the west of his estate. The Razins, who had supplied the town with its leaders for all these years as well as populated three-fourths of the town with the many branches of their family, had grown as prosperous as the Rubliovs.
With their help, Constantin now supplied horses to the Czar's army, and thoroughbreds to aristocrats who could afford them. His sugar beet crops filled the markets of Kiev and the settlements along the Dnieper, and his wheat brought fine prices along the Black Sea coast. He was growing richer by the year since he had taken an active interest in his horses and fields. Ever since his wife had died ten years ago, he had stoppedJbging an absen-tee landlord, as most of the RussiarTnobies-were. Only his sister still made use of their town house in Moscow and the Rubliov palace in St. Petersburg.
"You aren't going to like this, darling."
Constantin didn't glance at the woman who had spoken. Anna Veriovka stood only several feet away at the next window, watching the same scene in front of the house. Anna was one of those rare women who never seemed to age. To look at her with her dark brown hair always perfectly coiffed and her even darker brown eyes, the fine bone structure that was going to make her an eternal beauty, no one could guess she had seen thirty-five years.
Right now it was her tone, rather than her words, that made Constantin brace his hands on the window ledge and stare more intently at the oncoming horses.
Deep in his gut, he knew what he would see. It wouldn't be the first time, or, he feared, the last. But for a moment all he could see was that dust cloud, nearly reaching the house now, and in its midst the vague shape of six thoroughbreds crowding one another on the narrow road. Fur hats, long coats flapping, sleek legs stretching for the finish line at the nearby village, and the large white wolfhound racing along beside the road, barking, urging the animals to a little more speed. And wherever that dog was ...
"Alex will win," Anna said in a smug voice.
"Of course Alex will win," Constantin grumbled, watching the lead rider crawl up on the saddle, squat there, slowly rise to standing, then toss off a fur cap, laughing, with the other riders following suit.
His eyes were squeezed shut as he added,
"She always wins—and I wish you wouldn't call her that. It only encourages her to act the hoyden."
His longtime mistress merely clucked her tongue, but after a few more moments he felt her breasts press against his back and her arms circle his waist. "You can look now, darling. She didn't break her neck."
"Thank God," he whispered, and then the anger came, for the scare he'd just had was no less severe than it always was. "I'm going to beat her this time, I swear I am."
Anna chuckled. "So you always say, but you never do. Besides, the Razin boys wouldn't let you."
"Then I'll get their father to do it. Ermak will do anything I ask of him."
"Except hurt a hair on that sweet child's head. He adores Alex as much as you do."
Constantin sighed as he turned around to do some hugging of his own. "Anna, my love, that 'sweet child' is twenty-five years old, too old for the foolishness we just witnessed. You know it as well as I do. She should be married and nursing babies. Her two sisters had no difficulty in that respect. Lydia has given me five granddaughters. Elizaveta had three before she was widowed. Why has it been so impossible to get my youngest daughter married?"
Anna thought it prudent not to mention Alexandra's outrageous frankness that had caused such a stir and had made Czar Nicholas unofficially ban her from St. Petersburg. If
Anna reminded Constantin of that, she was afraid she would laugh, which she did every time she recalled that scene at the Romanov-sky dinner, when Princess Olga had lamented to the twenty or so guests sitting near her that, however much she tried, she couldn't keep from gaining weight that season.
Alexandra, hearing her, had suggested quite helpfully and with complete sincerity, "Why, ma'am, if you would just stop stuffing your mouth with blinis and sour cream, you might lose a pound or two."
Since the princess had been stuffing her mouth with those very things at that very moment, it wasn't surprising that a good many of the guests had suddenly begun coughing into their napkins or looking beneath the table for something they had supposedly dropped, just to hide their snickers. Anna, who had been there as Alexandra's chaperone, had thought it hilarious herself, but Olga Roma-novsky hadn't; she'd gone straight to the royal ear the next day with her complaint, likely asking for outright execution. Anna thought it fortunate for Alexandra that the Czar hadnherely politely suggested that Constantin take his daughter back to the country, where her wayward tongue would do no more than offend the peasants.
Unfortunately, Alexandra hadn't learned from her mistake. Her outspokenness had not been curbed the next season in Moscow, or later in Kharkov, and certainly not closer to home, in Kiev. She had managed, single-handedly, to make herself a social pariah. And Anna suspected, more than once, that she had not done it all in ignorance or by accident. After all, Alexandra was a fairly intelligent girl, and she had confessed after that first disastrous season in St. Petersburg that she was in love with the Honorable Christopher Leighton, whom she had met there, and she meant to marry him and no one else. How better to wait for the lagging Englishman than to ensure that no other young man would be asking for her hand in the meantime. Which was what had happened, regardless ©f whether Alexandra had intended it. /
As for Constantin's question, Anna decided to remind him about the man whojhad stolen his daughter's heart all those years ago. "You don't think she could still be waiting for that English diplomat, do you?"
Constantin snorted. "After seven long years? Don't be absurd."
"But he left the country only three years ago," she pointed out.
"And Alexandra hasn't mentioned his name again, since I refused to let her follow him to England at the time," he replied.
"Isn't that when she told you she wasn't going to marry anyone, ever?"
Constantin flushed, recalling the argument he'd had with his. lovely daughter, which had been one of their worst. "She didn't mean it. She was just angry."
Anna lifted a brow. "Are you trying to convince me of that, o
r yourself? Or maybe it's slipped your notice that Alex ignores every young man you bring home for her to meet, and she hasn't traveled any farther than Kiev in the past three years, and she made that trip only to shop. Even then, she managed to come up with one excuse after another to remain cooped up in your hotel suite."
It was actually a relief to Constantin to hear Anna voice his own suspicions, a relief and an easing of the guilt he'd been living with this past week. True, Alexandra's excuses were always logical and sounded sincere, but they were still excuses. And when she had come up with one of them last week in order to refuse to travel with him to Vasilkov to visit her sister and nieces, he had come to the same conclusions Anna had just drawn, and got morose, thinking about his youngest daughter wasting her life pining for that damned foreigner. Unfortunately, he had also got quite drunk and done something he never would have if he had been sober.
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 dose 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 odzine from him, and she demanded as baldly as Al dra would have, "Constantin Rubliov, wha£ 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 now, 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 loy he had sunk in his desire to give his youngest daughter the same happiness and fulfilknent 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. If 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."