Free You Belong to Me by Johanna Lindsey Page B

missed his father, too, and until now he hadn’t realized how much. Once his anger over his father’s untimely death had passed, he’d felt a good deal of regret, in particular that he’d never had the opportunity to be friends with Simeon, the way Stefan had become friends with his own father, Sandor, after he’d reached his manhood.
    This was certainly not the way Vasili had anticipated his interview with the baron to go. Of course, nothing was going the way he had anticipated, especially his first encounter with his betrothed.
    Her remark that she wasn’t what he had expected was an understatement. He had pictured a pampered and frivolous aristocratic woman whom he could easily intimidate. But he couldn’t imagine intimidating the audacious wench he’d just met. She spoke hermind with brazen disregard for decorum. She dressed like a peasant, a male peasant at that. And she rode a horse astride, as if she had been born in a saddle. There didn’t seem to be a shy bone in her body. And why the hell didn’t she want to marry him?
    Vasili wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he wasn’t relieved, as Lazar thought he’d be. He had been rejected. Rejected . It was a unique experience for him—well, not quite.
    Tanya had also rejected him out of hand when she’d been told he was the king she would have to marry. “I wouldn’t marry your king if you paid me,” was the way she had put it. Of course, she hadn’t believed that she was Princess Tatiana Janacek, or that she had been betrothed at birth to the present King of Cardinia. It wouldn’t have made a difference if she had believed it, though, since she had scorned Vasili at the time, just as he had scorned her.
    But even then he hadn’t felt rejected. Nor had he felt whatever it was that had him so irritated now. And his inability to identify exactly what was bothering him only added to his irritation. He was careful, however, to conceal his feelings from the baron.
    Originally he had intended to present himself to Constantin Rubliov as a completely undesirable son-in-law. He had assumed, based on his experience with women, that his betrothed would be pleased to have him, and so would be the more difficult of the two Rubliovs to dissuade from this marriage, whereas her father could be easily outraged. But afterlistening to the baron speak so highly and with genuine affection about his father, he knew he couldn’t do it—at least not in the more obvious ways he had planned.
    He’d already lied about why he had been delayed in arriving, blaming it on an illness in his party, when in fact he had deliberately wasted time, staying over in each town for days, once for a full week—because of a pretty little redhead—instead of just for the night. The delay was to allow the cold of the approaching winter to hinder travel. If for some reason he had to take Alexandra Rubliov back to Cardinia with him, he wanted the weather to give her an added incentive to turn back. He was, of course, going to give her a great many reasons to end this ridiculous betrothal, but he would utilize anything extra that might aid his cause, including the weather.
    But now the rest of his campaign, at least where the baron was concerned, had to be set aside. He wasn’t going to disgrace his father in this man’s eyes by behaving like an utterly detestable son.
    But he didn’t have to be perfect either. Perhaps he could disappoint him by not having—or pretending not to have—certain qualities or attitudes the man was hoping to find in him. He just had to figure out what they might be.
    “About your daughter, sir?”
    “Yes, I was watching from the drawing room when you met her.”
    And Constantin couldn’t have been morepleased when he’d witnessed firsthand Alexandra’s reaction to the young count. It was all he could do to contain his relief now, it was so great. Somehow he managed.
    “I regret that she wasn’t at her best,” he continued. “But you see, she spends