Tanya dismissed her women curtly. This conversation was not going to be food for the gossip mills. And once they were alone, she waited to see what face Alicia would show this time. If it was to be the friendly, helpful one again, Tanya would probably get nauseous.
But Alicia was more her true self this time, if her smug little smile and first volley were any indication. “Do you know where Stefan spent last night?”
Tanya had a moment’s doubt, which she swiftly squashed. She decided to play the game Alicia’s way and smiled back with some smugness of her own.
“Indeed I do.”
That Alicia didn’t call her a liar or come right out and state that Stefan had been with her told Tanya that her moment of doubt had been for nothing. Alicia had no idea where Stefan had spent the night, but it certainly hadn’t been with her.
“If all you wanted was to cause trouble, Alicia, you can leave right now.”
Angry now that her first tactic hadn’t worked, the redhead tried another. “That isn’t why—I had to come before it’s too late. If you cry off, refuse to marry Stefan, you’ll give him the excuse he needs to get out of this marriage without shirking his duty. He doesn’t want to marry you. Don’t you have any pride?”
“More than is good for me, I don’t doubt. But I happen to know—”
Tanya broke off when she caught sight of Alicia’s ruby necklace. It was almost like—no, it was exactly like the one Latzko had dangled from his finger to show her what had paid for her demise. And here was a copy of it, or more to the point, Latzko’s necklace had been a copy of this one.
A furious rage rose up to nearly choke Tanya, because there wasn’t the slightest doubt in her mind that the person who had tried to have her killed, not just once, but twice, was standing before her. Yet none of that rage showed. She merely reached slowly for her knife, then recalled that it wasn’t on her thigh because she hadn’t wanted to shock all those women who were dressing her from head to toe this morning. So she got up and walked casually to her bureau, opened the drawer, took out her knife, and palmed it.
She then turned toward Alicia, offered a tight little smile as she approached her, and continued where she’d left off. “I happen to know you are utterly deluding yourself if you think any of what you said is true anymore. It might have been true before Stefan left for America, but his outlook has definitely changed. He happens to love me, Alicia, just as I love him. But I’ll wager you’ve already guessed that.” Close enough now, Tanya shoved the redhead up against the wall and set the knife at her throat. “Isn’t that why you tried to have me killed?”
Alicia blanched as white as Tanya’s gown, her blue eyes circles of horror as she felt her skin break under the sharp blade. “Don’t … please!”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” Tanya hissed ominously.
“I was out of my mind with anger because he told me we were finished, completely finished. I had given him two years, waiting for him to become king, but when it happens, he discards me. Yes, I had guessed he had fallen in love with you. It was him I wanted to hurt through you. But after I had calmed down and thought about it, I was horrified at what I had done. I swear to God, I’m not a murderess. I was just so angry—Tatiana, if I had truly, seriously wanted to assure your death, I would have used the real rubies.”
That explanation was likely true, but it didn’t incline Tanya to be forgiving. “Do you think that will matter to Stefan when he hears about it?”
Whatever color had been coming back into Alicia’s cheeks because Tanya was at least listening to her, blanched right back out now. “Oh, God, please don’t tell him. Even though you still live, he’ll have me executed. He’ll have to. Any threat against the royal house is considered treasonous, and he’ll see it in no other way.”
“I wouldn’t worry about him just yet, when I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to cut your throat,” Tanya said, pressing the knife in just enough to make her point.
Alicia’s eyes flared wide again. “I swear, Tatiana, on my life, I’ll never do anything so foolish again. I’ll leave the country, I’ll—”
“I get the idea, for crying out loud!” Tanya snapped impatiently. “I’ll accept your word for now, though God knows why I should be that foolish. But I’m also going to leave a message with Maximilian Daneff—that if another attempt is made on my life, he won’t have to look any further than you for the ultimate responsibility. Now get out, Alicia. And see that you do leave the country.”
After the door closed behind Alicia, Tanya shook her head, wondering if that wasn’t the most foolish thing she’d ever done, letting that woman go with no more than a thin scratch on her neck to pay for all the trouble, fear, and worry she’d caused. And what was she going to tell Maximilian’s security people, who were even now out searching for her would-be assassin? Was she just going to let them go on wasting their—
“‘You are very good at dealing with your enemies, Janacek—except for the ones you don’t know about. Perhaps I will let you write that little message for Daneff before I kill you. It will be amusing to see someone else pay for my deeds.”
Tanya had whirled around at his first word, finding him standing in the doorway to her sitting room, where she had been having her lessons all week. And included in the lessons on her own ancestry had been miniature portraits of Janos Stamboloff and several members of his family. She knew she was looking at one of those people right now. Stefan had been so right. Swarthy-skinned, with blond hair and blue eyes, the man was a younger replica of Janos himself. And he held a gun pointing right at her chest.
“Ivan Stamboloff?” she guessed.
“Very clever, Princess.” He gave her a mockery of a formal bow.
“How did you survive that shipwreck?”
He smiled beautifully. He was actually a handsome man. There certainly wasn’t anything sinister-looking about him to warn that he was a cold-blooded killer. Perhaps that was why her heart hadn’t jumped into her throat yet.
“I’m a good swimmer,” was his cocky answer to her question.
“You swam across a whole sea?”
“I swam away from the wreck. Death awaited me there, not rescue. Leaving the area was my only chance.”
“But that was suicide!”
He shrugged at her amazement. “It was my salvation, as it turned out. I was found the next day—a miracle, surely, that a Turkish ship should sail so close by to see me and take me aboard. A miracle, because it was God’s will that I finish what my grandfather swore would be done.”
Did he really believe that? And even with his having stated it clearly, that he was going to kill her, his expression didn’t change. If he was harboring a deep, abiding hatred for her, it didn’t show.
“If you shoot me,” she pointed out reasonably, “my guards will be in here instantly. You wouldn’t have a chance of escaping. You’ll die, too.”
“I would prefer not to, but I am prepared to die if I must. Now come away from that door, Princess. “
She moved slowly away from it, but only because he was walking slowly toward it. She realized too late that he was probably going to lock it, bettering his own chances for escape afterward.
She tried distracting him. “How did you get in here, anyway?”
“The window in there.” He nodded toward the sitting room. “I thought dawn the perfect time, so imagine my dilemma when your damn women showed up that early. I barely had time to dash behind the drapes.”
“You climbed up two stories?”
“I came down from the roof. It was much easier. “
And he was dressed in the lightest gray, the same color as the stones of the palace. It would have been very hard for anyone to notice him outside dangling from the roof.
“So you’ve been hiding in there all morning?”
“I am nothing if not patient, Princess. Haven’t I waited twenty years for you to show yourself again?”
She wished this seemed more real to her,
that she felt even half the fear she’d felt the last time she was in danger, to keep her from saying things like, “That doesn’t sound like patience, it sounds like fanaticism.”
Her remark didn’t annoy him, however. He actually chuckled as he reached for the door.
“Touch that lock and I’ll scream,” she snapped.
He hesitated, even lowering his hand. “That wouldn’t be wise of you, Princess.”
She shrugged. “You’re going to kill me anyway. Why shouldn’t I take you with me?”
“Perhaps you would like to try talking me out of killing you first, as your little friend just did with you. I wouldn’t mind hearing you plead a little.”
“I don’t think you’ll hear that. But you have a knife,” she said, looking at the dagger stuck beneath his belt, and knowing full well that that was what he meant to kill her with if he could, to keep the noise down to a minimum. “And I have a knife. Dare you try this fairly?”
He laughed. “You want to fight with me? You think just because you surprised me with your knife once, you’re any good at wielding it?”
Her eyes flared the slightest bit as she heard what he was admitting. “So it was you that night in Danzig?”
“Of course it was. I had been waiting there for months for Barany to return with you.”
“But how did you even know to expect me?”
“Because they thought I was dead, which I knew would bring you out of hiding at last. I couldn’t have planned that shipwreck better if I had thought of it myself.”
“Well, you haven’t asked me to put down my knife, not that I would. So are you willing to break with tradition and do this fairly?”
She had finally managed to prick his calm exterior. “Are you implying my family conducted itself in an unfair manner, when your family began this vendetta?”
“Your uncle Yuri started it, by turning out to be a murderer. My father merely dispensed justice as it was deserved. But then your whole family turned out to be just like Yuri, didn’t they?”
He didn’t answer. With narrowed eyes he pulled out his dagger and stuck the gun in his belt. And Tanya finally felt her heart lodge in her throat as he started toward her. He was going to fight her fairly, she’d goaded him into that, but he was a man; and she might know how to wield a knife when it was in her hand, but she’d never had to use it on a man equally armed. Suddenly she knew how Alicia had felt just moments ago, and the feeling wasn’t pleasant. To hell with being fair about this when her life was at stake.
She opened her mouth to scream, but never got it out. The door flew open first, and Stefan stood there, again entering without knocking, obviously, and already in a rage before he even noticed Ivan. But he couldn’t help but notice him and, when Ivan whirled about, see plainly the knife in his fist.
What happened then was incredibly fast. Stefan hit Ivan in the face with what he was carrying, a pair of trousers, a trick he likely had learned from Tanya herself. The guards at his back came in next, but Stefan wasn’t waiting for them to take care of the problem. He also had recognized Ivan, and while the man was reaching up to unblock his vision, Stefan lifted the gun from Ivan’s belt and, without even hesitating, shot him.
Tanya merely watched as the guards toted Ivan out of there, but then she began to tremble, not because she had just witnessed the death of a man she had been having a conversation with—there had been at least seven deaths in The Seraglio that she had witnessed—but because the worry was over, and she had been much more frightened than she had realized.
“Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
She looked up at Stefan, surprised to find him holding her. “I’m fine—really.” But a shudder passed through her, making him tighten his arms around her.
“How the devil did he get in here?” he wanted to know.
“The window.”
“Tanya, it’s over. You have no more enemies, and if you did have, I would kill them for you. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”
“I know that.” She started to relax the tiniest bit, but she badly needed a distraction. “Why did you come in here?”
She felt him stiffen. She was going to get a distraction in a big way, she was afraid. And in fact, he let go of her to fetch the trousers he had hit Ivan with. She couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were glowing when he came back with them.
“I go to dress for my wedding, and what does Sasha lay out for me to wear? These!”
“The wrong color, perhaps?” she asked, bemused.
“They are stained, Tanya.”
“Oh, well, I can see why that might displease you, but—”
The trousers almost got shoved in her face as he growled, “With blood!”
She make a tsking sound with her tongue. “Sasha must be slipping. How could he have missed that?”
“He didn’t miss it. He was making sure I didn’t miss it.” And then he said pointedly, and much more quietly, which should have given her clear warning, “You haven’t asked whose blood it is, Tanya.”
“Yours?”
“No.”
“When you fought with Pavel—?”
“No. I haven’t worn these trousers since we arrived in Danzig.”
“Oh.” And then her eyes rounded in perfect understanding, and she said, “Oh—well, what are you so upset about? You said it didn’t matter anymore.”
“It didn’t matter that you were not a virgin when I met you, but it damn well does matter that you were!”
Since his voice was going up again, Tanya thought it prudent to take a step back. “Now, you’ll really have to explain that one to me, Stefan. I was under the impression, back then, that you objected to my not being a virtuous woman.”
“You know exactly what I thought! And you never once tried to correct that mistake!”
“I beg to differ. I believe I told you, the morning we arrived in New Orleans, that I hadn’t had any experience of men other than with you.”
“And you laced that statement with enough sarcasm that I couldn’t possibly believe it!”
She frowned then. This was their wedding day. Were they going to march down the aisle snapping at each other?
“Stefan, what are you really angry about? That I was a virgin, or that you didn’t know it?”
“Neither … both…” He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, and continued in a low grumble. “I am furious with myself.”
She grinned. “Will wonders never cease.”
“And you.”
“I’d already guessed that.”
“Every time you responded to me, Tanya, I thought it was because you were a whore and a long time without a man. And every single time it infuriated me, because I was so damn jealous of all those men you had known before me. But you let me, let me, slander you with the vilest of accusations, and you never said a word to defend yourself—that is, not one word that I could believe. Instead you admitted that what I thought was true. This you did at every opportunity—”
“No, only when you were particularly insulting.” She shook her head at him. “You recognized the sarcasm when I said I was innocent. Couldn’t you recognize it when I said I was not?”
“I was always angry enough to believe you at those times. But when I think of how easily you could have put my mind at ease—”
“How is that? How was I supposed to prove my innocence, except by giving myself to you? And when I did, it didn’t prove anything, did it?”
He flushed at the reminder. “I have to ask your forgiveness for that, and for doubting you even last night, when you were finally sincere.”
“No, you don’t,” she said gently and felt it was safe now to approach him. This she did, laying a hand on his scarred cheek. “What you said last night made up for everything, Stefan. You said my past no longer mattered, and that told me that you love me. You do love me, don’t you?”
“More than I thought it possible to love anyone,” he said with feeling. But there was still the s
lightest uncertainty lurking in his sherry-gold eyes, and she knew why when he added, “My scars really don’t bother you?”
“Of course they do,” she said flippantly just before she leaned upward and kissed each one of them. “They are so grossly grotesque, after all.”
He grinned and wrapped his arms around her. “I suppose I will get used to that sarcastic wit of yours. “
“You’d better. It will probably be around as long as I am, and you’re stuck with me.”
“If you can bear my ugly face, do you think you could also love me, even with my horrid temper and—”
“I just happen to like your horrid temper. It lands me in the nicest places. ” He laughed, but she wasn’t through. “Stefan, I swore I would never marry any man, that I would never put myself willingly in a position where a man could have so much control of my life. That I am very willing to marry you ought to tell you something.”
“That you already love me?”
“Yes, you foolish man.”
The joy in the smile that came to his lips made him so handsome just then, it nearly dazzled her. “I think we should get married, Tanya mine—if you are over your upset.”
“What upset? You just try and keep me away from that church today, my Majesty.”
“That’s your Majesty,” he corrected her.
Tanya just grinned. “I know. From now on, you’re all mine.”
The End
Johanna Lindsey, Once a princess.txt Page 31