Forever in Your Embrace (64 page)

Struggling to hold back an eruption of tears, Synnovea stiltedly faced the window. She had no idea what Tyrone meant to do now that their marriage had been solidified by their intimacy. That uncertainty evoked visions of her being left behind on the docks as he boarded a ship bound for England. Would she be carelessly discarded as a wife? Would he, after he reached his homeland, replace her with another light-o’-love and, in time, forget her?

Casting a glance over her shoulder, she questioned in a voice fraught with emotion, “How long does my husband plan to remain here?”

“A little over three years—until his tour of duty is fulfilled.”

“Three years?” she repeated in a tiny voice.

“And some months, my lady,” Nikolai added.

“So much time betwixt now and then,” she murmured reflectively.

“The colonel was adamant that the tsar grant his petition at that time,” the major insisted.

“When was this?”

“When you came to see His Majesty shortly after the colonel’s whipping, and it was announced that you and the Englishman would be wed.”

“Colonel Rycroft was very angry, as I remember,” she rejoined in muted tones.

A brief, scoffing laugh evidenced Nikolai’s ridicule. “
Enraged
would better describe the colonel’s emotional state that day, my lady.”

“You’re saying that he was deeply outraged by the tsar’s decree that we wed?”

“Exactly.”

“That was to be expected, considering what I did to him,” Synnovea stated quietly. “I used him to escape marriage to Prince Vladimir, and he was brutally whipped for it. Wouldn’t you be irate if you were treated in such a fashion?”

Nikolai preferred not to excuse the colonel for his offenses and gave no answer.

Synnovea faced him with sorely strained pride. “T
hank
you for your warning, Nikolai,” she murmured graciously, “but I’m afraid I cannot promise my hand to you when no one can predict what three years and some months may bear. Perhaps you’ll fall in love with another and regret any troth you pledge to me now.”

“Never!” the major cried emphatically.

“Nevertheless, ’tis best to bide our time till that day Colonel Rycroft leaves for England. I wouldn’t have him think me unfaithful to the vows we exchanged until they are truly severed.”

“You’d hold true to such oaths when you know they mean nothing to him?” Nikolai inquired in amazement.

Synnovea met his incredulous stare with all the dignity she could muster. “There is still a lot of time for my husband to change his mind. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize that possibility.”

“But why?” Nikolai insisted, unable to understand. “Surely any other maid, upon hearing what I’ve just revealed, would be sorely offended by her husband’s plans to annul their marriage.”

A restrained shrug preceded Synnovea’s rejoinder. “I believe the colonel spoke in the heat of anger when he begged leave to dismiss me from his life. The hurt that I had caused him wounded him more deeply than the whipping he had received.” A sad smile curved her lips as she added, “But then, I love him too much to give up the battle ere it has barely begun, Major.”

Nikolai’s shoulders slumped suddenly in defeat. Unable to find an effective argument against her declaration, he sadly took his leave.

He was in the process of gathering his horse’s reins from the iron hitching post when he espied the lady’s husband riding down the lane toward the manse. Though he hurried to mount and be on his way before the man reached him, his haste lent incentive to the colonel, who nudged his heels into the flanks of his own steed, sending the animal racing forward.

“Major Nekrasov!” Tyrone nearly gnashed his teeth as he forced a smile. “What brings you here? Should I assume that you’ve come on some errand from the tsar, or have you taken leave to visit my wife in my absence? I saw you earlier in the square, and it comes to me now that you did pause and watch me pass. What should I think? Have you come on my heels again to claim a chance to have my wife for yourself?”

Nikolai’s face reddened with ill-suppressed ire. After his disappointing meeting with Synnovea, he was in no mood to give banal excuses. “I did indeed come here to see your wife, Colonel, but what does it matter to you? Wouldn’t you be relieved to have some other man take her off your hands?”

Tyrone snarled and, jumping off his horse, flung himself toward the other’s mount. Catching the major’s coat, he dragged him from the saddle and gave him a harsh shake. “If it’s your intent to try and take her from me, Major, then we’d better settle it right here and now. I’m tired of you going behind my back in your efforts to steal her from me.”

Angrily Nikolai thrust the colonel away from him. “The matter has already been settled,” he stated sharply. “The lady obviously wants to believe that you won’t leave her behind when you return to England.”

Tyrone’s brows shot up in surprise. Then he abruptly recalled that the major had been in attendance when he had finagled his foolish commitment from the tsar. He sneered at the man. “Now I understand why you came slinking here behind my back like some defeated cur. You hoped, by telling Synnovea about the commitment that I had gained from the tsar, that you could advance your own cause and console her like some infatuated swain in my absence. You didn’t care how you’d hurt her with your revelation. All you wanted was to have her for yourself. Well, Major, let me be the first to tell you that I’ve already retracted my petition from His Majesty. I’ve consummated our marriage vows, and the only way you’ll ever have her is if I’m struck down and she is widowed. In other words, I don’t have any intention of leaving my wife behind for you or any other swain when I return to England. I intend to make love to her every chance I get and keep her belly so fat with growing babes that you’ll have no chance to interfere again. Now be gone from here before I thrash you to a bloody pulp.”

Nikolai was not one to back down in the face of threats. He retorted with a warning of his own. “If I should hear one whisper of your mistreatment of the lady, Colonel, be assured of one thing. You’ll rue the day you ever came to Russia. That much I promise you. Do I make myself clear?”

“ ’Twill be a bloody cold day in hell ere you hear such rumors,” Tyrone growled.

“Good!” The major nodded crisply. “Then perhaps you’ll live long enough to return to England.”

Nikolai swung into his saddle and, reining the horse about, sent him down the road in a thunderous departure. Tyrone watched him for barely a moment. Then, with a muttered curse, he whirled and raced into the manse. Finding no evidence of his wife’s presence in the lower rooms, he leapt up the stairs to seek her out in their apartment. The door rebounded against the wall in his haste to gain the bedchamber.

Synnovea turned from the windows with a start of surprise and quickly brushed at the tears streaming down her cheeks as he came toward her.

“Major Nekrasov was here.” Tyrone spoke the obvious as he searched her face.

“He came to see how I was faring,” Synnovea replied stiltedly. Sensing his intention to discuss the details of the man’s visit, she moved past him to the open doorway. “Natasha has delayed the meal until your return and is awaiting our presence down below.”

Tyrone tried to curb his impatience, knowing the issue would have to be discussed at length in the privacy of their chambers. It couldn’t be aired before others. Lifting his arm in invitation, he watched his wife carefully as she, in turn, slipped a hand into the bend of his elbow.

“You look especially beautiful tonight, Synnovea,” he murmured in an effort to break her strained silence.

“Do I?”

“Almost as beautiful as the day you came into the palace to speak the vows with me.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had even noticed me then,” she replied distantly. “You seemed quite disturbed by the whole affair, so much so that I was expecting you to call a halt to the ceremony ere it was done.”

“I was greatly troubled.”

“I suppose any man hates to be coerced into a marriage that he abhors.”

“I don’t abhor the marriage, only the circumstances that brought it about.”

“Did you resent my encouraging your lusts, Colonel? I seem to remember they were already brewing.”

“They were,” he admitted. “I’ve desired you from the very beginning, Synnovea—from that first moment I held you naked in my arms. Since then, I could think of no other woman. You’ve been the only one I’ve dreamed of having.”

“You didn’t seem to want me at all after our marriage,” she reminded him. “If not for His Majesty, I’m sure you would have left me.”

“Aye,” he acknowledged thickly. “But I was angry. You had used me, and you didn’t seem to care what I might have suffered because of your ploy. I was very nearly gelded because of you.”

“I should have married Vladimir,” she muttered dismally, struggling to subdue her tears. “It would have been better for us both if I had.”

“No, dammit! I want you as my wife!”

Synnovea lifted her gaze to his, her lips drawn into a poignant smile. “Do you, Ty?”

“Aye! You must believe that.”

Natasha joined them at the bottom of the stairs, and her vivacious chatter allowed them to endure the meal with only a modicum of responses. She had no idea what was troubling them, only that something seemed to be terribly wrong between them. Synnovea’s aloofness toward her husband was unswerving, while Tyrone’s gaze hardly strayed from his young wife. Although he sipped from his glass far more often than was his usual habit, the couple barely touched their food. Natasha found her attempts to draw them into discussions of any sort were for naught. Long, awkward silences followed her efforts at conversation. Any questions pertaining to the tsar’s enjoyment of the parade were met by Synnovea’s forced smiles, and noncommittal shrugs or brief comments from the colonel. Frustrated by their taciturnity, Natasha finally begged escape as she clasped a trembling hand to her brow. It was now throbbing from the ordeal of watching two cherished friends punish themselves and destroy everything they had come to enjoy together.

Though other men might have shown some sign of being affected by the amount of wine he had consumed, Tyrone felt coldly sober when he finally escorted his wife upstairs. Finding Ali awaiting them, he retreated to the dressing room, where he doffed his clothes and donned the kaftan his wife had made for him. When he returned to the larger room, the Irishwoman was just brushing out her mistress’s silky tresses. He lounged in a nearby chair, deeply appreciating the opportunity to watch this ritual and the stirringly beautiful vision of his wife clothed in a softly hued dressing gown, but when Synnovea bade Ali to braid her hair, Tyrone knew her hostility hadn’t wavered in the least.

“I prefer it loose,” he announced brusquely and waved the old woman away.

Reluctantly Synnovea responded with a consenting nod when Ali turned to her with a questioning glance. Sensing that something was terribly awry, the servant took her leave and quietly closed the outer door behind her.

Having gained the privacy he had been waiting for, Tyrone went to his wife and tried to take her in his arms. “I need to talk to you, Synnovea.”

“There’s nothing to be said,” she answered coldly and slipped free of his grasp with an irritated jerk. Immediately she crossed to a small writing desk that stood near the windows and, after opening and closing all of the drawers, finally selected a leather-bound volume of sonnets from a shelf near the top. She refrained from meeting the eyes that followed her every movement as she came back to her side of the bed. She swept back the covers that Ali had turned down moments earlier, fluffed the pillows, and hurriedly shrugged out of her robe before slipping beneath the covers, giving him no opportunity to peruse her meagerly clad form. Lying back upon the pillows, she opened the book and made an earnest effort to appear interested in the contents.