“I’m thinking we had better move away from the door unless you want your future wife to overhear everything you’re about to say.” Alexei stalked down the hallway toward his study.
“I can’t marry her.” Yuri stormed into the study and slammed the door shut behind him. “Why would you suggest such a thing?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because she needs legal protection from her father before he gets out of jail and tries to kill her again or forces her to marry a monster. I don’t understand why you’re upset. You’re clearly in love with her.”
“That’s not the point.” Yuri shoved his hand into his hair and fisted it at the roots. “You never should have suggested I marry her, and in front of her no less. Why didn’t you talk to me first?”
Alexei crossed to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel. “I thought you would jump at the opportunity. In fact, I don’t understand why you’re not. You just admitted that you love her.”
Yuri paced from one side of the office to the other, then whirled and paced back the other direction. “She’s had every choice in her life taken away from her, and you want me to take away yet another choice? I don’t care if it’s under the guise of trying to help her. I won’t do it, not for something that will affect the rest of her life. She deserves to have a say in who she marries.”
A muscle pulsed on the side of Alexei’s jaw. “Marrying her is the best way to protect her from her family and her fiancé. Keep in mind we don’t know what her uncle is doing right now.”
“I still refuse to force her into marriage!”
“I don’t see what choice you have.” Alexei crossed one of his legs at the ankle, still leaning against that dratted mantle, every inch of him controlled.
It was almost enough to make Yuri scream. He balled his hands into fists and turned away, lest he end up hurling something across the room.
How could his brother be so calm right now? He might have feelings for Rosalind. He might even love her. But this was not the time to ask her to make such a weighty, long-lasting decision.
And yet Alexei had a point. Marriage was a good way to keep Rosalind safe. It would legally remove her from anything having to do with her father or uncle or Leeland Vandermeer, and it would put her under his protection.
Oh, why did all this have to be so complicated? “If we marry, what would the plan be after we go to Washington, DC?” He turned to face his brother. “Is Rosalind supposed to come to San Francisco with me? Do we live together as husband and wife there? Her father will find out where she is after a few weeks, and so will Vandermeer. It’s not like my presence is going to be a secret, and ships sail from San Francisco to Seattle and Juneau and here all the time.”
Alexei sighed and pressed his fingers to his temple. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“You want her to bind herself to me for the rest of her life, and you don’t even know how to keep her safe a month from now?” He was shouting again. Maybe they should go back to the beginning of this conversation, and he should start it by knocking some sense into his brother.
“Don’t look at me as though you want to kill me,” Alexei muttered. “She’ll be safer married to you than not.”
“She’ll be safest down in Texas at the Woman’s Commonwealth, like we talked about.”
Alexei pushed himself off the mantle. “Likely so, but I can’t send you across the country and have you tend her medical needs unless the two of you are married. Before she was hurt, you wouldn’t have needed to share a cabin aboard a ship or a private train car, but now you will. There’s no way for her to travel otherwise.”
His brother was right. This marriage was a good idea in so many ways—but not in the way that mattered most. “What if we get an annulment?”
Alexei quirked an eyebrow. “What?”
“An annulment. What if I don’t touch Rosalind other than to wrap her ribs or tend to her medical needs? What if I act as though we’re not married and do my best to keep my distance, and then once we get to Texas, we petition the judge for an annulment?”
“I suppose that could work, though I think the annulment will need to be filed here, where the marriage takes place. You can check with Evelina on the particulars.”
“Fine. I’ll check with her, but if an annulment is the way to make this work, I want the papers drawn up before we leave. That way I can send you a telegram as soon as I get to San Francisco. You can file the papers immediately, and Rosalind will be both safe and free to finally live her own life down in Texas.”
Alexei studied him for a moment, shadows smudging the skin beneath his eyes. “Are you sure about the annulment? I understand why you’re doing this, but are you certain it’s what you want?”
No, he wasn’t. He really just wanted to scoop Rosalind up, marry her, and take her somewhere far away, where the two of them could be together and wouldn’t need to worry about anyone or anything.
But that would involve taking choices away from her, which had the odd effect of making it one of the last things he wanted to do, along with being one of the things he wanted most in the world. “I have to let her make these decisions for herself. If she still chooses me after I take her to Texas, and she sees what it would be like to live among other women who have experienced abuse similar to hers, then...” He shook his head and swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in his throat.
“I want you to know I’m proud of what you’re doing. I know I told you I was proud of you when we got the first ledger, but I wanted to tell you again.” Alexei looked down and shook his head. “I spent years telling you to stay away from Rosalind Caldwell, but only because I didn’t know what her father was putting her through. Had I realized it?—”
Yuri reached out and patted his shoulder. “Don’t feel guilty over it. I didn’t realize it either. I mean, I saw more of it than you did. There was always something about her that nagged me, that made me want to slow down and take extra time to be kind to her. But even after I started helping with the letters, I still didn’t realize her father was hurting her. Bryony was the one who figured it out, and only because she stayed with the Caldwells for a few days last fall.”
“You still did the right thing by helping her, even though I didn’t see it. And I want to...” Alexei’s shoulders rose and fell on a shrug. “I want to apologize for not seeing it sooner.”
Were they really having this conversation? Him and Alexei? Usually their conversations were filled with Alexei griping because he was too friendly or having too much fun or had messed up some paperwork, and then he’d turn around and tease Alexei for being too serious and never smiling.
