She raised an eyebrow. “Cede no territory.”
Sándor nodded slightly. “Exactly.”
Movingfrom Sándor’s steady arm to the dance floor with Ivan Sokholov felt like stepping off of firm ground and into a minefield.
He bowed.
She inclined her head.
He took her hand and gripped the small of her back.
“I understand you are an excellent dancer.” Tatyana started out with a small compliment as the music began. “Do you enjoy it?”
“I always enjoy dancing with a beautiful woman.”
“Then you are in luck,” Tatyana said with a polite smile. “The room is full of them tonight.”
Luckily, their dance was a mazurka, a lively and fast-moving dance that didn’t require as much face time as a waltz.
“You cannot be ignorant of my intentions in asking for a dance,” Ivan said.
“I endeavor to never be ignorant in anything,” Tatyana said quickly. “Ignorance would not serve my people, though it might let me conduct my immortal life with more peace.”
Ivan chuckled. “Your wit has not been overstated, Tatyana le Tala.”
Tatyana said nothing to that since it was a part of the dance that had the dancers side by side—a slight reprieve before Ivan was in her face again.
“I believe there has been an unfortunate misunderstanding between our people,” Ivan said. “The Kievan Rus has long had good relations with the Poshani.”
The flattery portion of the dance was over, it seemed. “The Poshani remain in a good relationship with the Kievan Rus, Ivan Sokholov, but we will not be changing our position on distribution activities within your territory.”
“So you will ship within Oleg’s territory but not in mine?”
A trap. “Is your territory not under the aegis of Lord Oleg Sokolov? Has there been some shift in power that has not been made public? If that is the case, Lord Oleg did not mention it during our earlier dance.”
There was a flash of anger in Ivan’s eyes. “So you will ship to any part of Oleg’s territory then?”
“We will ship to previously-agreed-upon routes within the Kievan Rus,” Tatyana countered. “Those that my brother, my sister, and I have come to a consensus on.”
“And may I ask why you offer my people what can only be considered an insult?” Ivan had lost his patience and was trying to get a reaction now.
Direct and businesslike.Sándor’s words floated into her memory.
“There is no insult.” Tatyana kept her voice nearly robotic. “There is only practicality. This is a joint decision based on the current security circumstances within your state.”
She had nearly said “small state” but decided that “direct and businesslike” did not include needless provocation.
“I see.” Ivan was clearly displeased, but since Tatyana had not reacted emotionally to his accusation of insult, he was stymied.
She caught Oleg looking at them from across the ballroom, and she wanted to reprimand him for not presenting indifference. Hopefully the rest of the ball—if they noticed his stare—only assumed that Oleg was watching his recalcitrant brother.
They were coming to a portion of the dance where she needed to put her hand on Ivan’s shoulder as he held her around the waist, so Tatyana forced her skin to remain as cold as possible no matter how her emotions stirred.
He would call her an icy, robotic vampire, and she was fine with that.
The tempo shifted, and so did the dancers.
As she turned to face him from the side, her hand on his shoulder and his on her waist, she saw his eyes fall to the brooch barely hidden by the drape of her silk headpiece.
