The Beloved Scoundrel

“More than you know.” He smiled crookedly. “The first months I was here, I hated it. The people of Kazan didn’t realize what an honor it was to have me in their midst. They cared not a whit for my title or my money. I was not a savant, nor had I proved myself in battle. Therefore I was nothing. It was a very chastening experience for the spoiled hellion I was at the time.”

“Why did you stay?”

“There were reasons.” He grimaced. “One of which was anger. I would not be considered of unimportance. So when Tartar raiders descended on Kazan, I went with Gregor and his men to the steppes.”

“War?”

He nodded. “Kazan is nearly always at war with someone. Our land is rich only in minerals, but we have a valuable sea link to the Mediterranean.”

“Our land?”

“It became mine on the steppes. I bought it with blood.”

She shivered at the simple words that revealed so much. Those wars had changed him, hardened him, burned away the softness, and left him one with these strange, brutish people.

He was looking at the fluted towers of the distant palace, and she again became aware of some indefinable emotion seething just below the surface.

“Are you apprehensive about meeting with the ravin?”

“Not apprehensive.” His tore his gaze away. “Let us say, a trifle disturbed.” He spurred forward. “Come. At the speed Gregor is traveling, he’ll be sitting in the audience chamber before we even reach the palace gates.”

Gregor was not sitting in the audience chamber; he was pacing impatiently as Marianna and Jordan walked into the room. “I’ve sent a message that we are here. It should not be long.”

“Not unless it’s deemed wiser to keep us waiting,” Jordan said. “One never knows.”

“You are being unfair,” Gregor told him. “She will come.”

Marianna felt a ripple of shock. She?

“Jordan seldom feels it necessary to be fair to me. You should know that by now, Gregor.”

Marianna turned toward the doorway and the woman who had spoken.

Another shock, this one of stunning proportions. She knew this woman. She had spent hours studying that strong, beautiful face. It was older now, with tiny crow’s-feet at the corners of the slanted green eyes, but it was still beautiful and even stronger.

“I’m always fair to you. I’m merely cautious. You know how I hate to be disappointed.” Jordan came forward and lifted the woman’s hand to his lips. “You look lovely as always and perhaps even a little younger.”

Jordan’s mother. Marianna continued to stare in astonishment. Jordan’s mother had died when he was only a baby, and yet, looking at the two standing side by side, Marianna had no doubt they were mother and son.

“Of course I look younger,” the woman said. “I’ve decided I shall never grow old. Next year I intend to order all the clocks in Kazan stopped.”

“And all the calendars burned,” Gregor added. He lumbered toward her. “I shall see to it personally.”

A brilliant smile lit her face as she turned to him. “Gregor. Have you been well?”

He nodded. “Well enough.”

“With the tiny exception of a knife wound in his chest,” Jordan remarked.

The smile faded from her face. “Who?”

“Nebrov’s man, Costain.”

Her expression hardened. “Did you kill him, Jordan?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not? Do it yourself, or I will see that it’s done.”

“I believe the matter concerns me, Ana,” Gregor said mildly.

“Be quiet, Gregor. I’m not too pleased with you either. You must be getting feebleminded to let yourself be wounded by that vermin.”

She was the one who was being unfair, Marianna thought with irritation. “He was not feebleminded. There were seven men,” Marianna interjected. “And he walked six miles in the snow after they wounded him.”

The woman turned her head. “Ah, you have a champion. You must be Marianna Sanders.” Her keen glance raked Marianna from head to toe. “Gregor wrote me a good deal about you. I would like to see the window you did of me.” She grimaced. “Though that’s the only part of Cambaron I shall ever want to see again.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I would have been dead, if I’d stayed there.” She turned and stared challengingly at Jordan. “It was strangling me.”

Jordan ignored the provocation. “Marianna, I’m honored to present Her Majesty, Ana Dvorak, Ravin of Kazan.” He smiled. “And you’ll be delighted to know you don’t have to curtsy. It’s not the custom in Kazan. A mere inclination of the head to show respect is all that’s required.”

“Providing that one feels such respect,” Ana Dvorak said with irony. “I suppose that Gregor’s wound is connected to the message I received from Janus three days ago?”

“You’ve had word?”

She nodded. “Come with me and we’ll talk.” She turned to Gregor. “Find her suitable quarters. Sandor is somewhere about. I will see you at supper.” She impulsively reached out and touched his arm. “I’m not entirely unpleased to see you, mado.”

“You are very pleased to see me,” Gregor corrected.

She chuckled. “Perhaps.”

Marianna turned to Gregor as soon as they departed. “Why does everyone at Cambaron think she’s dead?”

“Because she wished them to think it. We planned it very carefully so that everyone would believe she drowned in a boating accident. That way there would not have to be a body.”

“We?”

“She needed me. I helped her.”

The sentences were spoken with utter simplicity as if his helping Ana Dvorak could be the only course of action whenever her need for him arose.

Gregor led her from the chamber. “Ah, Sandor.” He hailed a bearded young man hurrying down the corridor. “The ravin wishes quarters for the belka. Near the garden, I think.”

“Certainly.” Sandor inclined his head respectfully to Gregor. “If you will follow me?”

“What is a belka?”

“It is an outsider, anyone who does not belong to us.”

The term was certainly fitting. She had never felt more the outsider than in this strange land. She returned to the subject Sandor had interrupted. “Why did she wish them to think her dead?” she asked Gregor as they followed the young man down a labyrinth of corridors.

“She told you. She could not bear it.” He shook his head. “She should never have gone to Cambaron, but she was young and willful and would not listen. Her blood was hot, and when she met Jordan’s father, she thought only of-” He stopped and nodded his head at Sandor a few yards ahead. “I should not say more now. The ravin should be spoken of with respect before her subjects.”

The ravin, Jordan’s mother, the woman who had come back to life. Marianna’s mind was whirling as she murmured, “Jordan said his mother departed this life when he was two.”

He chuckled. “Did he indeed? Jordan never likes to lie.”

“She left him. She left her child.” She shook her head. “How could she do that? If she wasn’t happy, why didn’t she take him when she left Cambaron?”

His smile faded. “He was the future Duke of Cambaron. She would never have been permitted to take him with her. She was not even allowed to take him for a walk without a maid in attendance. She would not have been permitted to leave herself, so the deceit was necessary. She knew Jordan would be well cared for and never want for anything.”

Except a mother.

Everyone walks away eventually.

When Jordan had said those cynical words, she had never dreamed he had also included his mother.