“With the servants.”
Dimitri closed his eyes.Thosetactics again. Trying to make him feel guilty for all the times he had thrown her origins at her and also making a statement that was quite clear. The meanest bed was preferable to his.
“Damn her, I should have known she would pull something like that as soon as I was gone!”
Sonya blinked in surprise. He was angry with the woman, not her. This was more than she could have hoped for, considering she had realized her mistake the moment he had shouted for his whore. Perhaps she could increase that anger.
“She is the most haughty, insulting woman I have ever met, Mitya. I put her to work scrubbing floors to see if that would humble her a little, but I doubt anything will.”
“She agreed to that?” Dimitri asked incredulously.
Sonya could feel the color rising in her cheeks. Agreed? Agreed! He would have let her refuse? Didn’t he hear her? She had been insulted. What was he thinking of to spoil that creature so?
“She didn’t object, no.”
“Then it seems as if I have wasted my time in coming back,” Dimitri said with bitter asperity, not even looking at his aunt now. “So she wants to scrub floors now! Well, if she thinks that little piece of work is going to make me feel any more guilty, she’s sadly mistaken.”
He snatched up the bottle of vodka before angrily stalking out of the room. Semen and the other footman had to move quickly away from the door, where they had been eavesdropping before he burst out of the room and practically ran up the stairs.
Sonya poured herself a glass of sherry and smiled as she took a sip. She hadn’t understood Dimitri’s last comments, but that didn’t matter. He would return to Moscow now and Tatiana, and probably be gone for months, forgetting about the Englishwoman completely.
Chapter Thirty
Nadezhda Fedorovna watched the Englishwoman covertly, blue eyes narrowed with resentment and loathing. And the more she watched her pushing her brush around the kitchen floor, ignoring everyone around her as if she were too good to associate with the kitchen servants, the more Nadezhda’s resentment festered.
Who was she, anyway? Nobody. She was small, so small she could have passed for a child, while no one could mistake Nadezhda’s full figure for anything but a woman’s. Her hair was a dull, nondescript brown, while Nadezhda’s was a flaming red, glossy, thick, her best feature by far. The only thing the foreigner had to recommend her was unusual eyes. In fact, there was nothing about her that should have attracted someone like Dimitri Alexandrov. So what had the Prince seen in her that no one else saw?
Nadezhda wasn’t just prejudiced. Everyone had asked the same question. But for Nadezhda, who had had one glorious night with the Prince years ago, but had never been able to entice him again, the question was a burning one.
It was something she had never been able to get over, her failure with the Prince. She had had such wonderful plans. She would bear the Prince a son, elevating her stature enormously, assuring herself a life of ease.
She had not conceived from her one night with Dimitri. Some were beginning to think he was impotent, herself included. At the time she was wise enough to realize that she could still claim a child as his if she could get pregnant soon enough after she had been with him. With a little help from the lustier of the footmen, she had done just that, and was so happy, so proud of her accomplishment, that she had to boast of it to her sister, who betrayed her to their father, who beat her so badly for planning to deceive the Prince that she lost the baby. Nadezhda had wallowed in her bitter failure ever since.
Now here was this foreigner, this ugly interloper that the Prince had brought here and put in the White Room. The White Room! And she would have everyone believe that the Prince really cared more about her other than to bed her at his convenience.
Nadezhda had laughed when she heard that Princess Sonya had ordered her caned for her insolence. She had been delighted to see her put to work in the kitchen at the meanest tasks. She wasn’t so haughty now. And the Prince hadn’t come to remove her from her drudgery either, as half the household had anticipated, foolishly believing that he wouldn’t like the way his aunt had treated the woman. But hehadbrought her here. And hedidleave her here, instead of sending her on her way after he was done with her. And he had also looked for her last night as soon as he returned, news Nadezhda had received with rancor, until she later learned he was now furious with the woman, no doubt for showing such disrespect to his aunt.
No one had told the Englishwoman that the Prince was back. The other servants were in fact purposely keeping the news from her in a ridiculous attempt to spare her feelings. She didn’t even notice the whispering and sympathetic looks, she paid so little attention to what was going on around her. It would serve her right to find out the Prince had been here after he was gone again, but Nadezhda couldn’t wait that long. No one had told her the subject was prohibited. And the woman ought to be made to see that she had fooled no one with her delusions abouttheirPrince Dimitri.
Nadezhda was only surprised that Princess Sonya hadn’t been the one to tell her. It had been plain to see she hadn’t been pleased yesterday morning when the woman didn’t protest against her new position of floor scrubber. No doubt the Princess, like Nadezhda, had been hoping for resistance so that she could punish her again.
At least Nadezhda had been there to witness that humiliation. And she had been quick to inform the woman how lucky she was to be getting off so lightly after running away, stealing a horse, and putting the Prince’s brother to the trouble of fetching her back, that she should have been caned again instead. And what did that bitch reply to Nadezhda’s thoughtful disclosure?
“I’m not a serf, you fool, I’m a prisoner. It’s perfectly natural for a prisoner to try and escape. It’s expected.”
Such impudence. Such ingratitude. Such pretension. It was as if she thought herself so superior to them all that she was incapable of being humbled by anything they did or said to her. But Nadezhda had the means to bring her down a peg or two now, and if no one else had the gumption or desire to do it, she certainly did.
Katherine should have been warned by the malicious looks being cast at her by the flame-haired Nadezhda that she was in for more unpleasantness, but she hadn’t thought the girl would be so spiteful as to pass her and deliberately spill a full bowl of wet breakfast scraps, pretending she had tripped. If Katherine hadn’t moved quickly enough, the wastes would have landed in her lap instead of just spattering her knees and arms.
“How clumsy of me!” Nadezhda proclaimed loudly before dropping to her knees as if she meant to clean up the pile of oatmeal, rotten tomatoes, sour cream with bits of eggs, onions, mushrooms, and caviar oozing in it—Russians loved caviar with theirblini, the pancakes served every morning at Novii Domik.
Katherine sat back, waiting to see if the girl really would wipe up her mess. But all she did was shove the now-empty bowl in front of Katherine.
“It’s silly of them to make you scrub the floor over and over again, when it is already spotless,” Nadezhda murmured snidely. “I thought I would give you a little something to make your efforts worthwhile.”
So she was done pretending this was an accident. “How benignant of you,” Katherine replied without expression.
“Benignant?”
