just as her brother had. If her brother acted more like a father to her, his friends acted more like uncles. Nikolay, Illarion and Ruslan were the friendly sort of uncles. Affection came easy to them. They’d been the ones to pull her braids, to tease her, to tickle her and make her laugh. Stepan was more reserved, hardly ever indulging in horseplay even when she was younger. When she was growing up, Dimitri had explained in terms a six-year-old could understand that Stepan didn’t know how to be part of a family. They had to teach him.
If so, Stepan still didn’t know. He’d grown more reserved the last few years, more distant, not only emotionally, but now physically. He and the others had spent most of last year in London at her brother’s town house. She’d missed all of them. Together, they’d been her family, but she’d missed Stepan most. Regardless of how stoic he was, she’d grown used to his presence. He was always there, a fixture she could count on, less mercurial than Illarion, more even-tempered than Nikolay. She’d been excited when Dimitri had told her Stepan was coming for the winter. She thought she’d have Stepan all to herself for nearly four months! But when he’d arrived, he’d been more aloof than ever and had spent many of his days like this one—gone.
The realisation steeped the sense of mystery. What or who drew the stoic Stepan out into the cold and the rain? Below her on the drive, Stepan dismounted and gave the reins to her brother’s groom. Anna smiled. That was her cue. She would greet him and ferret out his secrets; maybe she would even coax a smile from him. Out of all her brother’s friends, Stepan smiled the least and worried the most.
Stepan stood in the entrance hall, unwrapping a muffler as she sailed down the stairs, all air and light teasing. ‘Where have you been? Who have you seen?’
Stepan looked up. She’d startled him. ‘Are you my mother now?’ It was not an unkindly chiding, but it was still chiding. There was no mistaking that he was scolding her.
‘Someone needs to be if you’re going to be out all day and come home soaking wet.’ She took hold of his muffler and finished unwrapping it. ‘Shall I call for a bath?’ She shook out the wet wool, droplets splattering the hardwood floor. Stepan peeled off his greatcoat, making it clear he didn’t want any help. ‘Where’s Tate? Shouldn’t this be the butler’s job, Anna-Maria?’
‘I beat him to it, and it’s Anna, as I’ve told you before,’ she reprimanded him with a smile that she knew made the most of the dimple to the right of her mouth. The few boys in Kuban she’d been allowed to meet had thought her smile was her best quality. She hoped the young gentlemen in London would, too.
Stepan didn’t. Perhaps he didn’t even notice it. ‘Your name is Anna-Maria and has been since the day you were born.’
Anna shrugged and gave a toss of her dark curls. ‘I prefer Anna, it sounds more English.’
He noticed that. His dark eyebrows winged upward at her reasoning. ‘Why ever would you want to be more English?’
She put her hands on her hips and faced him squarely. ‘Perhaps for the same reason you cut your hair.’ In Kuban, he’d worn his hair longer like Nikolay and Illarion. They had kept theirs, but Stepan had cut his immediately upon arrival. It had now grown to the point where he could pull it back as he did today.
‘What would that reason be?’ Stepan’s grey eyes narrowed. He did not like being challenged or forced to reveal anything private.
‘To fit in, of course,’ she answered honestly. Then she grinned. ‘And because it’s more exciting. Anna-Maria is a nun’s name. Anna is more sophisticated.’ She pronounced it with a short A—Ahnnah. It sounded foreign, but not too foreign, she thought.
Stepan gave her censorious look. ‘Being more exciting is hardly what your brother wishes for you.’
She made a face. She knew that all too well. Dimitri, well meaning as he was, would keep her hidden in the country for ever if he had his way.
Stepan made to move past her to the stairs, his wet greatcoat draped over one arm. ‘If you will excuse me, I will go and clean up before supper.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ She stepped in front of him, her skirts brushing his leg. ‘You’re not going upstairs until I have a smile from you.’ Did she imagine he stepped back? She pressed forward again, her hands playfully gripping the lapels of his jacket. ‘I’ve decided, you must pay a toll,’ she teased.
Stepan’s jaw tightened. ‘What might that be?’
She tried another smile. ‘You must answer my question.’
‘And if I don’t answer?’
‘Then I get to guess.’
‘Very well, you may guess. Quickly, though, I don’t want to catch a chill. A few minutes ago you were concerned about that.’ He was impatient in his barely restrained intolerance.
Anna forged on. She wasn’t oblivious. He was dismissing her, swatting her out of the way as if she were no more than an irritating fly. The sentiment sat poorly with her. She wanted to shock him into paying attention to her, to prove she wasn’t an annoying fly. She said the most outrageous thing she could think of. ‘Were you with your mistress?’
His grey eyes went flinty, his expression stern with reprimand as he removed her hands from his lapels. ‘That is hardly a ladylike guess,’ he scolded.
‘I know you all had them in Kuban. I’m not a child,’ she protested.
‘I know,’ Stepan growled. There was something dangerous in his tone as he made to move around her, but she was entrenched now. This had become about more than goading a smile from him. She would have his acknowledgment and she would have it now. Determined, she countered his move, blocking him at the foot of the stairs.
‘You have to answer. Am I right?’ she challenged, although a piece of her didn’t want to be right.
‘Where I was is none of your business and you’re wrong. I never agreed to answering. That was your rule alone.’ He moved again. This time she let him pass. She wasn’t in a mood to play any more. Anna watched his departing back march up the stairs, shoulders as straight and as unyielding as ever. Her mind worked over its own answer. Did Stepan have a mistress? The others had taken lovers by the scores in Kuban. Their affairs had been legendary. She’d used to overhear them talking with Dimitri late at night when she was supposed to be tucked up in bed, safely out of earshot. None of them would have dared to mention anything of that nature to her directly. But Stepan? If he’d had a mistress, he’d kept it very quiet.
She preferred not having abject proof of such a liaison. Stepan was hers, had always been hers in a way the others had not. Any one of them would have fought for her, but it had been Stepan who had come for her the night they escaped. It had been Stepan who had taken her up before him on his big horse and wrapped his cloak and his arm about her and galloped off into the darkness. She had not been afraid. There was never a need to be afraid when Stepan was with her. He was her constant fixture, always there.
Anna wandered into the library. Not much had changed since Kuban in that regard. Stepan was with her still. The others had married and gone their own ways; Nikolay was in London with his riding school, Illarion and Dove still away on their never-ending honeymoon travels, and Ruslan was who-knew-where. She suspected Stepan knew, though. He was their unofficial adahop, their leader. He knew everything. She stared absently at the fire, her thoughts focused inward. It had not bothered
