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Ana Kuya had the children bathed and lined up for Lady Morozova’s visit at butter week. For trying to escape, Malyen Oretsev would have to help cook dinner for their esteemed guests that night. For masterminding the escape Alina Starkov would have to muck the stables.
It was bad enough when the Duke of Keramzin came for his visits. Lady Morozova’s were much worse because she liked to spend the evening there as well, asking the children questions and looking into their lessons.
Ana Kuya was still tutting at her and trying to rub a smudge from Alina’s cheek when the sleek black carriage pulled up and Lady Morozova’s fine figure was led down to the waiting waifs.
She usually came up to shake each person’s hand but this time closed her eyes and made an exasperated sound before hissing into the open carriage, “Aleksander, come out this instant.”
They watched bemused as a pair of smaller black riding boots and matching coat sullenly followed her down the steps of the coach.
A collective sigh goes up from the female percentage of orphans. Even Alina stopped discreetly rubbing at her cheek to look. At twelve she had begun to notice that there was something strangely appealing about Mal, even about the older boys.
But Aleksander is beautiful .
Boys weren’t supposed to be beautiful.
One by one the pair greeted the residents of Keramzin. Beginning with Ana Kuya they shook hands with everyone, Aleksander even politely asking for names with barely restrained annoyance.
He gave a little start when he finally reached her. Alina could barely meet his eyes. Saints, but he was tall although he couldn’t be all that much older than her.
She saw his brow furrow and when he extended a back gloved hand for her to shake, greeted her in a tongue she found familiar but was completely lost on her. The rest of the little crowd laughed none too discreetly and Alina felt her cheeks heat.
“I’m Ravkan,” she found herself blurting and then as an afterthought. “Sir.”
“Aleksander!” his mother hisses warningly again and Alina watched his facial expression move to something resembling contrition.
“My apologies,” he murmurs immediately, taking the hand he was in the process of letting go of and turning it over in his own. Alina watches, hardly breathing as he lowers his mouth to her knuckles and places a swift kiss that feels like fire on them. “I did not mean to offend.”
His voice is like the cold air just before a bout of heavy rain and Alina cannot pull her hand out of his fast enough.
“It’s quite alright.”
It’s not. But Alina has had enough moments like this.
But the hand she has fisted against her back is tingling not unpleasantly and the other children are now staring, not even pretending to be looking away while Ana Kuya starts to lead Lady Morozova into the orphanage.
He’s still looking at her though not unlike the way she’s looked at insects under a magnifying glass.
“Truly?” There's amusement in his voice and beautiful Aleksander’s mouth twitches at the corners with the ghost of a smile.
Alina squirms, tries to contain her sigh. “I suppose.”
He moves on ahead and Alina doesn’t notice that he glances back at her while she falls into step with Mal and the children go back to the place they have no choice but to call home.
Tea time at the orphanage is without the usual chatter because of their esteemed guests. And after while the other children play, Mal is sent off to the kitchens and Alina to the stables for her punishment.
She’s just filled the old wooden bucket when she feels an ominous presence.
“Oh,” she says, spotting him in the doorway. “It’s you.”
Lady Morozova’s son is not wearing the travelling coat and gloves from earlier and Alina can see that his hands are large and finely boned.
“You did not tell me your name,” he says as Alina places the bucket on a stool. His eyes are very dark and his hair looks soft.
Alina narrows her eyes at him, “How did you find me here?”
“Your friends have been gossiping,” he says, sauntering a little closer. “This is your second punishment this week?”
He’s as suspicious a character as he is attractive. Like the patterned asps found in the nearby fields.
Alina wants to roll her eyes, “I have work to do, Sir. Is there something you wanted?”
“A name,” he says smiling now. “Yours.”
“No.” Alina says haughtily.
“No?” his mouth tightens but his eyes have not lost their mirth. Like she’s something new. A rarity. A girl who has refused to simper and flutter her eyelashes at him.
Ana Kuya has warned the girls at the orphanage about the sons of local noblemen. Even at this young age. Their careless impulses to tumble any lowly young girl in Keramzin with no thought to the consequences.
“Well, my Lady,” his voice is like a caress. “If you will not give me a name. What can you give me?”
Alina sighs, picks up the nearby pitchfork and hands it to him. She’s a little surprised when he takes it from her and starts to roll up the sleeves of his dark tunic.
They work in relative silence for nearly an hour. He’s leaner than the burly older boys of the orphanage but she watches him lift large bales of hay with almost no effort.
He also seems to know what he’s doing.
“Now,” he says when they place the buckets and other implements back in their place. “Your name,...please.”
That ‘please’ is softer almost...yearning?
She blinks at him, “Alina Starkov, Sir.”
That makes him smile, his mouth is soft but his white teeth look sharp. “Alina.” His lips shape her name like a stream slipping over rocks. “Call me Aleksander...Alina.”
She tries to hide the little twitch of her lips and fails. “Thank you for the help- Aleksander.” She tries experimentally.
He makes a pleasant hum that she feels under her ribcage, “I trust my work was satisfactory.”
“It was. For someone who hasn’t cleaned stables before.”
“How presumptuous of you Alina,” Why does he keep using her name so much? “I have my own horses and I happen to enjoy looking after them.”
“My apologies,” Alina says in a voice that isn’t apologetic at all.
“Clearly,” his dark eyes are bright. He tilts his head in the direction of the stable door. “May I walk you back to the main house, Alina?”
Alina should know better, but. “You may.”
He’s smirking when he holds the stable door open for her.
The stables are actually quite far from the orphanage and they’re the only people this far from the house. Which, Alina suspects, is exactly what her new friend wanted.
“Where did you learn to speak Shu?” Alina asks as he falls into step beside her.
“I have a good tutor,” Aleksander explains. “I know Kerch as well. My Zemeni still needs work.”
And then. “I did not intend for any awkwardness this afternoon.”
“Eh,” Alina says, smiling. “You’re forgiven.”
“Truly?”
She rolls her eyes at him, “Yes. Unless you’d like to come help me the next time I'm given stable duty.”
“It would be my honour Alina,” he says, making her stop and wrinkle her nose at him.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Saying my name so much.”
“I like your name. It’s beautiful. Like you.”
“Do you flirt this badly in Kerch as well?”
“Well tell me how I might make improvements, then?”
Alina laughs all the way back to the house with Aleksander scurrying after her.
“Alina?” he says a little desperately enough to make her look down at him from the steps she’s halfway up.
“Yes, Aleksander?”
He really is very handsome, “I’m being sent to Os Alta next week. May I write to you? So you don’t forget me.”
Alina furrows her brows and crosses her arms over her chest. “Really? And what makes you think I want to remember you ?”
That makes him frown, “Alright, hold out your hand.”
He takes a small round object in pastry paper from his pocket and places it in her upturned palm. When Alina opens the small package she finds a pastry filled with cherry jam and covered in fine sugar. A treat she might have missed at butter week.
Alina immediately pushes it back to him. “I can’t accept this.”
“Of course you can,” he frowns.
Alina frowns back, “What exactly is it that you’re after?”
“Your permission to write to you,” he says softly and Saints if the slightly breathy way he says it doesn’t make her stomach clench, not unpleasantly. “Allow me that much Alina. We might never see each other again.”
“Do you promise?”
“You wound me my Alina,” he says, reaching for the same hand he had kissed that morning.
Alina giggles, “I’m not your Alina.”
“But I may write to you, yes?”
“If you must, I suppose,” Alina’s smile is embarrassed and she tries halfheartedly to pull her hand from his grasp.
Without the gloves his hand is warm and calloused. Not the pampered little lord like she assumed then.
“And you will write me back?” his eyes glitter.
“Maybe.”
“Once a week?”
“No. A month.”
“A fortnight then,” he says hopefully, tugging her hand closer to him.
“Fine,” Alina says, and tugs her hand out of his. “Now, let go Aleksander. Before someone sees.”
“Promise me, Alina.”
“I suppose.”
He looks smug and has actually stepped closer to her. Even standing on the top step he’s still taller than her.
“I will write to you as soon as I reach the little palace. I’ll see that my mother furnishes your matron with a forwarding address.”
“Planning on boring me with tales of your mediocre Zemeni?”
“Only if you promise to bore me with details of all the trouble you cause here.”
Alina groans and that makes Aleksander smile. “May I kiss you Alina?”
“I don’t think so,” Alina squeaks. “I’ve been in enough trouble already.”
“Encouraging,” Aleksander goes on leaning his lanky body against the entryway. “That wasn’t an outright ‘no’.”
“I strongly encourage you to think it is.”
His laugh is like a bell, “You have to give me something as a parting gift?”
Alina looks down at the cherry filled cake and breaks it clean in half.
“Well, go on,” she says pushing it at him again. “I might be certain it isn’t poisoned this way.”
“ Aleksander!” his mother and Ana Kyu are suddenly feet away.
“Where have you been, girl?!” Ana Kyu is angry. “You’ve missed tea and I find you loitering outside.”
Aleksander’s mother isn’t too pleased either. “I can’t seem to leave you alone for even a minute.”
“We were just talking.” He says casually to his mother. “Alina has agreed to let me write to her.”
Alina almost chokes on her own tongue.
“Excuse me!” his mother says at the same time Ana Kyu seems to shriek.
By this time the other children have gathered at the windows, starved little faces pressed to iron bars eager for juicy tidbits.
Aleksander’s brow furrows, “I know you’re sending me to Os Alta to look for a bride. I thought I might begin looking a little sooner.”
Now Alina is alarmed as well, she slinks back until she feels Ana Kyu behind her and lets the old matron put an arm around her. The other children have begun to whistle and woo behind them.
“Young man,” Lady Morozova is livid. “You will come with me this instant. We’re going home.”
“I want to say goodbye to Alina.”
“You may say it and then march back to the carriage.”
Aleksander sighs, he turns to Alina and both her and Ana Kyu flinch a little. “Goodbye, my Alina.”
“You’re crazy,” Alina says hysterically.
He grins at her, and then faster than his mother can grab his elbow he’s bent and kissed her cheek.
The other children are hooting like mad and Ana Kyu looks alarmed as Lady Morozova hauls him away, lecturing him all the while about being a cad.
Alina’s cheek burns even as he looks forlornly at her from the carriage window as it drives away.
“Well,” Ana Kyu says, arms still around Alina. “That was...interesting.”
Alina lifts half the cake to her lips and takes a small bite. “He was just fooling a bit.”
“Was he?”
“Yes,” Alina says, twisting her neck to look up at her. “I think he just wanted a friend. He seemed…”
Handsome? Intriguing?
“...lonely.”
Ana Kyu pinches her none too gently, “That’s the tale they all spin.”
“ They?” Alina’s eyes are bright as Ana Kyu takes her hand to lead them inside. “How do you know?”
There’s some regret.
That she hadn’t kissed him.
The other children tease her relentlessly and Mal is sullen for three days.
She’s on her second stable mucking punishment the next week when she hears Mal call for her to come to Ana Kyu’s sitting room.
She takes her time coming inside, certain yet another transgression has been unearthed. But Ana Kyu doesn’t look angry seated at her little table.
She looks embarrassed and sheepish. “Sit down, Alina.”
Alina sits and Ana Kyu produces a letter with a seal. It’s addressed to her in someone’s elegant hand.
Aleksander.
Alina flushes a deep red.
“You may write him back.” Ana Kyu coughs. “If you wish.”
“I may?” Alina stands letter in hand, somewhat hopeful.
“Yes,” but Ana Kyu is stern. “As a friend.”
“Thank you,” Alina makes to leave.
She never thought he would write to her at all. Was certain he had forgotten.
“Alina?” the matron’s voice calls for her to look back.
“Yes?”
“Be cautious.”
She nods slowly.
She takes the letter out to the only tree in the middle of the field and rips open the seal .
She never gets any mail.
My dear Alina,...
The rest of the letter are mundane ramblings but she finds herself smiling.
He’s practically a stranger but this is still a comfort. That there is someone who thinks of her fondly.
There aren’t too many people like that for her.
She reads the letter twice before deciding, Yes, she would like to write him back.