You Belong to Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tanya to make it a royal command that my bed is off limits to any woman but my countess.”
    Serge and Lazar were laughing before he had finished speaking. Stefan wasn’t quite amused and asked his cousin, “Has Tanya said something to you?”
    “Merely that I ought to devote as much time to finding the right woman as I do topursuing all the wrong ones. For some reason, she’s got it into her head that I’m not happy. Can you imagine that? When I couldn’t be happier.”
    “But she’s a woman in love,” Lazar remarked. “Women in love like to see everyone in love.”
    “Either that, or my mother’s been complaining to her about me, as she does to anyone who’ll listen,” Vasili said. “It’s a damn curse, being an only child, and having a mother worried about the continuation of the line.”
    “Try having a royal father worried about it,” Stefan said dryly.
    They all laughed, but it had been no laughing matter last year when Stefan had been sent to America to collect his princess bride. He’d been furious about it and had dreaded his marriage. But fortunately, he’d been smitten by the royal heiress, and even more fortunate, she had come to love him as well.
    “I have the answer,” Vasili said suddenly. “Why don’t you order my mother to remarry, Stefan? That ought to give her something else to think about besides grandchildren.”
    Stefan shook his head, though he was grinning. “I’m too fond of my aunt to order her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, and well you know it. Now, what are you doing here by yourself? You usually drag Lazar and Serge along with you—for this sort of entertainment.”
    Vasili finally smiled. “Actually, I hadn’t planned on this sort of entertainment. I camehere to purchase a new horse. Dinicu had sent his boy to tell me he had a fine stallion to sell.”
    Lazar perked up at that, for his passion for fancy horseflesh was as keen as Vasili’s. “Did you buy it?”
    “It wasn’t so fine after all.”
    “Ah.” Lazar nodded. “So you are compensating yourself for a wasted trip?”
    “Certainly. You are welcome, of course, to join me, and Serge as well—but not you, Stefan.”
    “As if I would accept.” Stefan grinned.
    “I’m not taking any chances,” Vasili assured him. “I’m staying on the queen’s good side these days, now that she’s deigned to forgive me.”
    Stefan quirked a brow and teased, “Are you sure she has? She still calls you a peacock, you know.”
    “Yes,” Vasili replied rather smugly. “But she says it fondly now, and leaves off the ‘jack-assed’ that use to go with it.”
    Stefan chuckled. His wife had never been one to mince words, and being the Queen of Cardinia and under almost constant attendance certainly didn’t help to curb her tongue. But his court was becoming used to her Americanized ways, and her utter lack of diplomacy.
    Thinking about his wife reminded him that she was waiting for him—and what she had seemed to promise. “We are forgetting about your mother.”
    “I was trying to,” Vasili grumbled, and ashis arms slipped around the two closest Gypsy wenches, he added, “Have a heart, cousin. Tell her you couldn’t find me.”
    “I won’t go that far, but I’ll give you two hours to present yourself at your old home. Lazar and Serge will make sure that you’re not one minute late. In the meantime, enjoy, my friends.”
    Lazar and Serge were already dismounting with eager anticipation. But as Stefan left them to ride out of camp alone, Vasili leapt up and shouted for him to wait. When he yanked his shirt out from under a nicely shaped hip, the women started protesting, loudly, and Lazar, realizing that Vasili was letting duty come before pleasure, as always, did some protesting of his own.
    “Don’t be ridiculous, Vasili. He’s got twenty men waiting for him.”
    “Not good enough,” was all Vasili said as he found his coat and tossed it over his shoulders.
    Serge rolled his eyes. It