she is ugly. Now get out and let me rest,” Lada snapped. Nazira and Fatima hurried from the room with the baby. Lada turned in her bed, facing away from Radu.
He put one hand on her shoulder, felt Lada’s body contract with silent crying.
“Get out,” she said again.
He climbed onto the narrow bed and curled around her, holding her until she slept.
* * *
“How do you feel?” Radu asked.
“Like I will stab the next person who asks me how I feel,” Lada said through gritted teeth as she rode next to him.
It had been only a couple of weeks since the baby had arrived. Nazira and Fatima were still cocooned on Snagov, having found a wet nurse who was willing to stay with them as long as the baby needed. She was even willing to relocate to Edirne. Radu suspected some of her eagerness came from the handsome pay, and some from the fact that Nazira wanted her only to feed the baby and required no other work from her.
“So you will leave and have a happy home in the countryside?” Lada said.
“Yes. Cyprian will marry Fatima to make things easiest to explain.”
Lada made a thoughtful noise. “I suppose marriages always have been business arrangements to make life easier. Yours are simply odder than most.”
Radu laughed. “I still cannot quite believe we all found each other.”
“I can. You were always ruthless about finding people to love you.”
Radu opened his mouth to argue, hurt. But Lada was right. He had always been as focused and determined as she had. They simply had different goals.
“You could still come with us.”
“You could still stay here and help me rule.” She said it lightly, but there was a clipped quality to her voice that made Radu suspect the offer carried more weight than she wanted it to.
“No.” Radu had loved Mehmed and he had loved his sister, but he had no desire to serve them. Not anymore. He did not want to pay the cost of their ambitions, or to watch as they paid it, too.
Lada nodded curtly. “How long?”
“Three months. We want to wait until the baby is a bit older before we travel.”
“Well then, ride faster. I have a lot of work for you to do before you go.” But she did not pick up her own pace. She seemed content, for once, to take her time.
“I will send Oana with you,” she said, burrowing deeper into her fur-lined coat.
“Does she want to go?” Radu asked, knowing that only Lada’s wishes were what would count.
“It does not matter what she wants. I do not wish her to stay. She can help with the baby.”
Radu suspected Lada did, in fact, want Oana to stay. It was obvious in the deliberate and determined way Lada had been rejecting their nurse’s help since Theodora was born. If Lada did not care so much, she would never have been so mean.
“She will stay in Tirgoviste if you ask her.”
“I cannot have another death on my hands,” Lada said. The words came out so quickly, Radu wondered if she had meant to say them aloud. “Do you want the baby?” she asked in a swift change of subject.
Radu frowned. “Why would you ask that?”
“I know Nazira wants the baby. She would have crawled up into my womb to get it if necessary. But do you want it?”
“I did not think I ever wanted a child,” Radu said, searching his feelings. He had scarcely had an opportunity to see the baby, and held her only a few times. Fatima had turned out to be incredibly possessive. “If you recall, our own childhoods were less than pleasant.”
“You mean you have not already thought of all the ways you could leverage the infant for your own personal gain?”