Forever in Your Embrace (16 page)

“Why, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” Synnovea tossed a chiding chuckle over her shoulder as she went to the door. “Really, Ivan,” she said, deliberately using the familiarity to impart her own lack of veneration for him, “there’s no need for you to sulk or fret yourself about my intentions. I’m only taking your advice.”

The winds of glee, which had momentarily filled Ivan’s sails, collapsed into dully hanging shrouds of disappointment. The very least he had been expecting was the angry outburst of a thoroughly irate female.

Synnovea returned to her chambers and doffed her attire. In its stead she donned the peasant garb she normally wore when she lent herself to household duties. Her abrupt return had ignited Ali’s suspicions, but the change of garments solidified them. Synnovea soon found herself confronted by the servant, and though she carefully explained that her assignment now included a short stint in the kitchen and that it was a more enjoyable task than suffering through Ivan’s lectures, Ali was simply outraged at the audacity of the cleric.

“What! Does that toad take it upon himself ta order ye ’bout as if’n ye be some common drudge? Well, I say a pox on the man!”

“I’ll be doing nothing more than what I did at home,” Synnovea reasoned, trying to calm the maid, who, despite her bantam size, was given to exhibitions of temper and temerity befitting a mother bear whose cub had just been set upon. “It won’t hurt me in the least, I assure you.”

“Aye, me dearie, but ’twas yerself decidin’ the chores ye’d be doin’, not another givin’ ye commands like some high-an’-mighty lordlin’.” Ali flounced about the chambers in a high dander. “That toad’ll rue the day he set his mind ta doin’ ye ill, that he will!”

“Ali McCabe! I forbid you to give Ivan or Princess Anna the satisfaction of seeing us put out by his peevish bent! We’ll abide by Ivan’s dictate as graciously as we can, do you understand?” Receiving no response, Synnovea stamped her foot, demanding to be answered by the cantankerous little woman. “Ali! Do you understand?”

Petulantly the maid folded her arms across her flat chest and pouted, not in total agreement with her mistress. “He’s a beggarly scamp, that he is.”

Synnovea had difficulty maintaining a disapproving frown when the temptation to laugh was all but overwhelming, but she raised a warning finger in front of the woman’s nose. “I want you to promise me, Ali McCabe, that you’ll do all that you can to keep the peace while we’re here.”

Ali glared at the threatening digit and assumed her best martyred demeanor. Briefly she cast her eyes heavenward as if appealing to the saints and sucked air through her teeth to indicate her deep distress. Finally, with a wry shake of her head, she grudgingly relented. “Aye, I’ll be doin’ it ’cause ye told me ta, but ’twill not sit well, ye know that!”

Synnovea chuckled softly as she laid a comforting arm about the woman’s narrow shoulders and copied her brogue. “Aye, I know that, Ali, me dearest, but ’twill be better this way. Mayhap by a bit o’ kindness, we’ll be turnin’ aside their resentment.”

“That’ll be the day, for sure! Aye! Though the priests assured me miracles have a way o’ happenin’ e’en today, I still have me doubts that ye can gather wool searchin’ through a wolf’s lair.”

Her eyes sparkling with amusement, Synnovea dared to point out the error in the tiny woman’s thinking. “Perhaps you might if that’s all that’s left of the carcass the wolf has dragged in.”

Ali paused with mouth aslack, considering the truth of her mistress’s reasoning. Finally she heaved a sigh of lament. “But that bodes ill for ye, me lamb.”

“Help me finish dressing,” Synnovea sweetly urged. “Then you can put away my clothes while I go downstairs and confront the cook.” She paused to consider the wisdom of Ivan’s decree. “Poor Elisaveta, she may be in for a bit of a shock. She’ll be so nervous with a
boyarina
working in the kitchen, she might well burn the food.”

“ ’Twouldn’t hurt none if she did,” Ali rejoined tartly. “The way that crow Ivan’s been fillin’ his craw since he come ta Nizhni Novgorod, it’ll serve him right ta have ta choke down burnt vittles for a while.”

As predicted, Elisaveta, the sad-eyed cook, gawked in open astonishment when Synnovea entered her domain dressed not entirely like a servant, but not quite like a noble lady either. Her apparel might have put even Ivan’s morose convictions on servitude to rout, for her white, lace-trimmed blouse, bodice of forest green, and wide white apron decorated with variegated rows of trim and worn over a dark skirt lavishly embroidered with a colorful profusion of flowers, created a very fetching costume. Layers of lacy petticoats gave the skirt volume. Beneath the ankle-length hem could be spied slender, slippered feet and darkly stockinged ankles as trim and shapely as a man could hope to view. A large, lace-edged kerchief covered her dark head, and the single braid was left to hang unadorned to her hips.

“Countess!” Elisaveta cried, clearly flustered. “What be ye doin’ here?”

“I’ve come to help, Elisaveta,” Synnovea announced cheerily. “Is there something I can do?”

“
Nyet! Nyet, spaseeba!
” the plump woman squawked and waved her hands wildly above her head, as if sorely beset by worry. She had never heard of anything so preposterous! “The princess will never allow such a thing! You’re a guest!”

“But I would very much like to learn how to create those wonderful dishes you’re so gifted at making, Elisaveta, so I might instruct my own servants once I return home.” Giving the woman a pleading look, she coaxed, “Will you not teach me?”

The cook waggled her graying head as a tentative smile touched her lips. It finally deepened into a grin that dimpled her round cheeks. Tucking her massive arms under the folds of her apron, Elisaveta snuggled them up close beneath her large bosom, pleased with the lady’s compliments. “I can show ye what little I know, Countess.”

“Then I’ll surely learn all there is to be taught about cooking,” Synnovea smilingly surmised. “What will you show me first?”

“Well, this be what I’m doin’ now,” Elisaveta announced as she waddled over to a long wooden table where she had been cleaning and heaping up separate mounds of carrots, onions, truffles, and wild mushrooms. “When I finish chopping these, I’ll be making
pirozhki.
The master likes the little stuffed patties very much.”

Synnovea glanced up at the woman. “Will Prince Aleksei be here this evening?”

“Oh, he’s usually not gone more’n a day or two.” Elisaveta sighed heavily. “If not for him, there’d be no need for me to cook. The mistress eats less than a sparrow when the master’s here and almost nothing at all when he’s gone. It’s a pity to see all this food go to waste.”

“Surely there are enough servants in the household to eat whatever isn’t served at your master’s table,” Synnovea ventured as she perused the various boiling pots and the large bowl of dough that waited to be rolled out.

The gray head moved sorrowfully. “
Nyet,
it’s forbidden.”

“Forbidden? How so?”

“The mistress won’t allow the servants to eat what’s been prepared for her and those what sit at her table,” Elisaveta explained. “It would spoil their taste for simple food, she says. There’re so many others who could benefit, if only….”

The jade-brown eyes chased to the glum-faced woman. Elisaveta hastily brushed a hand across her cheek, wiping away a tear that trickled slowly downward.

Synnovea felt her own heart wrenched by the sadness of so much food going to waste when, without extra cost to the Taraslovs, a goodly number could be helped by it. Sharing in the woman’s misery, she laid a gentle hand upon the stout arm. “Do you know of someone in particular who’s in need, Elisaveta?”

The cook’s chin trembled despite her efforts to keep it firm. “It’s my sister, Countess. Her husband died this past winter, and she’s poor in health. She has a young daughter of three at her side, but she cannot work to make ends meet. They’re wasting away to nothing, and here I be, in this fine house, cooking all this fine food, but I’m forbidden to take anything to her. I cannot even leave to help her.”

“Well!” Synnovea settled her hands on a waist that was narrow enough to be envied. If this was the state of affairs in the Taraslov manse, then she wouldn’t sit quietly by and do nothing. “I have a maid I can send to buy food and whatever else is needed, and a coachman to take her to your sister. Though I may not be allowed to leave without special permission”—Synnovea gave a small shrug as Elisaveta glanced up in surprise—“they won’t trouble themselves overmuch about the absence of my maid.”

“You mean you can’t leave here without me mistress giving you the say?” the cook questioned in amazement.

“I’m sure ’tis only for my protection,” Synnovea responded with a comforting pat on the servant’s arm.

“Hmph!” Elisaveta drew her own conclusions as she cast a glare toward the kitchen door, intending it for the woman who roamed well beyond it. She had once been employed by the family who had given birth to the Princess Anna and long ago had formed definite opinions about the woman who had sent her own aging parents to live in a monastery because she preferred to live alone with her husband in the house in which she had grown up. Even when the princess had moved to Moscow, she had not allowed her parents to return home lest they disturb the order of the home place.

By late afternoon Synnovea had finished her chores in the kitchen, whereupon Ivan, eager to demonstrate his authority over her, gave her a weighty tome to read. The garden behind the house offered a seat in the dappled shade of a tree, from which she could watch the return of Ali and Stenka, who had left some time ago on their mission of goodwill. Elisaveta came to the back door often to peer out, but Synnovea could only shake her head, having viewed nothing more than a few small carriages and a handful of mounted riders passing in front of the manse. Dismissing these, she returned her attention begrudgingly to the boring passages Ivan had lauded. The work seemed so full of absurdities she had trouble believing the cleric had actually been serious about his praise.

Dusk had tainted the sky with gloom before Synnovea finally espied the familiar coach. When she rushed into the kitchen to tell Elisaveta that Ali was returning, the cook chafed in frustration, unable to leave her duties. Hardly pausing, Synnovea swept through the dining hall and was hurrying across the hall when Anna turned from the front portal with a harsh frown gathering her thinly drawn brows.

“You should’ve discouraged that pompous Englishman from coming here when you first met him,” the princess rebuked, incensed that she had been called to the door again to answer his inquiries. The man apparently lacked the sense to know when he wasn’t welcome or was just too pigheaded to accept that fact. “Colonel Rycroft was quite adamant about seeing you this time and had the audacity to inform me that he’ll return on the morrow, as if another visit will do him any good!”

Synnovea’s eyes flew to the portal. Earlier that morning, her spirits had been strangely buoyed by the fact that Colonel Rycroft had expressed his intentions to call upon her during the day. In setting her servants upon her benevolent quest to help Elisaveta’s sister and young niece, however, she had allowed his planned visit to slip from the forefront of her mind. Regrettably Anna’s haughty outrage left no doubt that he had been treated rudely. Almost cautiously Synnovea asked, “Is Colonel Rycroft still here?”

“He was a moment ago, but he has gone now,” Anna informed her caustically. She flung up a hand in the same angry manner with which she had banished the officer from her stoop. “I informed him that you didn’t wish to be disturbed ever again by him! I gave him some coins for a reward to carry back to his man when he tried to use that again as an excuse for his return. Personally, I have grave doubts he’ll be giving them to another. A simple trick for gain, if you ask me.”

Synnovea struggled to curb her irritation, resenting the fact that the woman had taken it upon herself to dismiss the man without first informing her. Even if Colonel Rycroft was an Englishman bent on courting her, Synnovea considered it entirely her prerogative to grant him permission to see her or send him on his way. Taking into account that the man had risked his life to save her from ravishment or worse, he certainly deserved better treatment than Anna had obviously given him. “You say Colonel Rycroft will be returning on the morrow?”

“He may if he dares to ignore what I said, but ’twill do him little good,” Anna declared emphatically. “I won’t let you see him!”

“I can’t imagine the harm in showing Colonel Rycroft a few common courtesies,” Synnovea replied frostily, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t yet forgiven the man for not informing her of his presence prior to her bath. Even so, she reserved the right to berate him for those offenses in a manner she deemed appropriate. “I owe the colonel a debt of gratitude.”

“That doesn’t mean he’ll be accepted in this house,” the princess snapped. “I detest the man, and you’d better honor my wishes or, by heaven, you’ll wish you had.”

“And so I shall,” Synnovea assured her with a tight smile. The subject of Colonel Rycroft’s visitations was hardly worth getting into a fracas over. Still, she resented the woman making dire threats to ensure that her dictates were carried out to the letter.

Anna reclaimed her imperious demeanor. “I shall expect to be paid back for the coins I gave the man on your behalf…which brings us to another matter. You have enough wealth to compensate us for the cost of your existence here, as well as for the servants whom you’ve brought with you. It’s only fair that you pay accordingly. I’ll attach to your debt the rents I feel are due me and write you out a notice of your weekly obligation. You’ll be expected to pay such funds at the beginning of each week.”