"You should be resting, your Highness."
"Yes, I know, but—"
"If you are looking for Stefan, he is spending the evening with his father. He has been so busy since his return, they haven't had much opportunity to talk."
Did that ever sound familiar. And she wasn't about to interrupt them. But she looked so disappointed, Maximilian asked, "Perhaps I can be of service?"
"No, I... well, actually, maybe you can."
She looked pointedly at the secretary until Max dismissed the man. Her own guards had stepped back discreetly. There weren't too many people they would do that for. Their own Prime Minister happened to be one.
"Now, what can I do for you?"
Tanya simply came right out and asked it. "Do you know why Stefan wouldn't like the look of me?"
"The look of you?"
"He liked me better when he thought I wasn't pretty. I never have understood that."
Maximilian smiled. "I would imagine it has to do with the same reason he was against bringing you home."
"Just because he didn't want to marry me?"
"Because he was certain you would not want to marry him. He left here expecting you to be a beauty. If he saw you as other than that to begin with, he was likely greatly relieved to find it so."
"I still don't understand."
Maximilian frowned. "Has no one told you how sensitive he is about his scars?"
"Those damn scars again?" she scoffed. "Yes, I suppose they have been mentioned or implied. But what do they have to do with how I look?"
"Everything. Stefan stopped pursuing beautiful women after he was scarred. He felt they could not see beyond his disfigurement. I have seen it happen myself in a crowded room, how some women turn away from him, hoping he won't give his personal attention to them. I am sure he has had worse experiences. But the truth is, he did not want to marry you because he was sure you would be as repulsed by his scars as those other vain women were."
Tanya shook her head, bemused. All that difficulty she'd had, at least half of Stefan's hostility, all because he'd thought she wouldn't like the look of him? Alicia had insinuated the same thing. His men had asked her if she minded the scars. Even Stefan had finally asked her if she was prepared to accept him as he was, scars and all. God, what it must have taken for him to ask her that. And she hadn't even answered him. Why hadn't she seen that he considered himself less than attractive? Because she didn't see him that way; in fact, she saw him as too attractive for her own good. But she still should have realized what the problem was.
"And I keep telling Stefan I'm not stupid?" she mumbled in disgust. "He knew better all along."
Maximilian merely chuckled. "I could see from the day you arrived that you were different. Stefan must have been greatly relieved to discover this."
"Stefan doesn't know it, but if you'll leave him a message to come to my rooms before he retires tonight, I'll make sure that he does."
"You mean he still thinks—"
"I don't know what he thinks. That's what I intend to find out."
It was a little after ten o'clock when Tanya heard the knock on her door, so light in sound that she knew Stefan thought she was likely asleep by now, and he wasn't going to disturb her if that was so. Throwing open her bedroom doors without knocking had been his way before, but her king was being much more considerate these days.
She smiled to herself as she called for him to enter. He closed the door behind him before he located her in the large room. When he did, he visibly tensed.
"Did you invite me here to seduce me?"
Tanya laughed, knowing exactly why he said it, and in such a suspicious tone. She sat curled up in a chair by the fire, her black hair loose and flowing about her shoulders; she was wearing the white negligee that had been made for her wedding night, having decided it could be put to better use tonight. It was cut very low, and so thin it was almost transparent. The long sleeves were transparent.
"Actually, that's not a half bad idea, but no, I felt we ought to talk."
"You still aren't sure, are you?" he demanded as he came forward and, instead of taking the chair next to hers, stood glowering in front of her.
"Sure?"
"About marrying me."
His belligerence was acting up, and she didn't quite know why. "I'm sure, but what I want to know is, if it wasn't a duty, if you weren't bound by your father's wish to see it done, would you want to marry me?"
"Yes!"
The vehemence of his response startled her. "Then what are you angry about?"
"When the bride asks to see the groom before the wedding, it is usually to cry off."
A tender warmth entered her eyes. "Couldn't she just need a little reassurance?"
"You?"
"I did happen to have some doubts today. I mean, you've never made any pretense about not wanting to marry me. You said we weren't compatible—"
"Can a man not change his mind?"
"And you hate the fact that I'm, as you say, beautiful," she went on as if he hadn't interrupted and given her a measure of the reassurance she'd asked for. "Which I never understood — until today."
He stiffened. "What do you understand?"
Again she went right on without acknowledging the question. "Are we going to have a normal marriage, where we sleep together, make babies together—?"
He jerked her up out of the chair so fast, Tanya gasped, but his intention was only to kiss her, albeit very fiercely. The subject, she supposed, had got to him, where her negligee had not. Or maybe he was only trying to shut her up long enough to get a word in edgewise, since she hadn't been acknowledging his interruptions. But it was a long time before he ended that kiss, and then he said nothing, merely held her in his arms.'
Tanya sighed into his chest and said very softly, "You don't have any idea how attractive I find you, do you, Stefan Barany? I don't even think it's just your looks, though I'm grateful you aren't ugly since I have to marry you, but more your personality — aside from your anger, that is, though even that I never really minded after I got accustomed to it. It's the way you—"
"Enough!"
She stopped him from setting her away from him by reaching up and clasping his cheeks. "You don't believe me, do you? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tried adding a bit of levity to a subject you are so touchy about. But personally, I don't understand why it's a touchy subject to begin with. When I first noticed your scars, and it took me a while to notice them because I found your eyes so fascinating, I merely felt an empathy with you, thinking here was a man who had suffered pain just as I had." She smiled then, bravely, because he was looking so stern, and gently ran her fingers over each one of his scars. "These aren't even there when I look at you, because all I see is the darkly handsome devil who first introduced me to passion. No other man has ever made me feel what you do, Stefan." And then she asked him outright, " Do you think I could want you so much if your scars bothered me?"
He didn't answer her, and she knew instinctively it was because his answer would have been insulting, something to do with her sordid past, probably that she could want any man if the price were right, and he was going to give her a whole damn kingdom, wasn't he?
She stepped back and an unbidden spark entered her eyes, but she just couldn't help it, he was being so pigheadedly stubborn. "All right, this is a night for confessions, so you might as well hear the big one. When I arrived in Danzig with you, I was still a virgin. And let's be clear about this, since you barely remember that night. You didn't take my virginity, I gave it to you. But if you think I'm going to repeat that again and again until you finally believe it, think again."
"Do you honestly believe I wouldn't know the difference?" he asked incredulously. "What you are suggesting is impossible, Tanya."