#but i'm a heaux for alliterations

[fiinalgiirls-aa]

@fiinalgiirls, vasiliy & rhiannon. — rebecca au, 1932.

irene burlakov is dead. it’s a simple fact, the truth of the world. vasiliy’s first wife died, albeit under somewhat mysterious circumstances, but the grieving widower has to move on with their life. a man of his age, under thirty, can’t grieve forever, and really, a year and a half later, he’s sure irene would want him to find love again.

love comes in ahna nankova.

the red hair in ringlets caught vasiliy’s attention the moment he saw her in the hotel restaurant. that split second and he decided he was ready to be married again. it wasn’t a difficult seduction, nor courtship; ahna seemed just as charmed as vasiliy did, if not more. two weeks on the baltic sea, the girl vacationing with her family, himself on a business trip—though of course his original trip didn’t last all that long, he extended it for her—and vasiliy proposed like a lover that had been waiting for her since forever. maybe he had. ahna accepted like a girl deeply in love, even with the rumors and murmurs of irene still haunting his every movement.

they were wedded shortly thereafter, as if they could escape the controversy if they moved quickly. ahna nankova, the new mrs. burlakov. his redhaired wife, beautiful and kind, a proper society girl. vasiliy does not possess the self-awareness to realize he’s married someone much like his first wife, but the dissimilarities were enough that even the gossipers wouldn’t catch on for quite some time. they have much in common, mrs. burlakov first and second, but they have a very large difference that is vital: ahna does not hate him as much as irene had come to. no, his ahna is much too sweet, much too placid to work herself up into a rage like her predecessor had. ahna is now his wife, and he is the better for it.

the car stops in front of his estate, a long drive from the station; vasiliy’s legs are screaming to get out of the damn thing. “stop here.” he barks to the driver, though they’re still a few hundred feet away from the front door and he’ll rue it once he has to make the walk to it—the servants will deal with their luggage, he pays no mind to it. inhaling the fresh air, vasiliy has almost a cheery demeanor as the servants spill out through the door to greet him. “mrs. danvers,” he calls to his housekeeper, ushering her over with a becoming wave of his long arm, “come meet my new girl.”

ahna was beyond delighted when agatha bardot invited her on holiday with her. the plan was to travel western europe as her companion and then to meet up with her family in bulgaria. traveling with a sophisticated and wealthy benefactor had not been unpleasant, but ahna had tired of the crone’s company. the stories the aristocrat shared had not, as she’d imagined, been great tales of romance and adventure as she had been led to believe, but rather idle gossip between aged widows, their children, and grandchildren. by the time she reached bulgaria, she was eager for any fresh company and, even more than ever, to fall in love.

that love had found its way to her--a maiden who’d left a crone to become a bride. there was something so romantic about a widower finding love again after such a terrible tragedy. it seemed it had been so terrible, he could not yet speak of it and so she did not press the issue. though her parents had been skeptical of the whirlwind romance--ivan nankov especially, as pamela had always been a romantic, their own courtship a short one in its own right. the wedding happens quickly, its memory the sweet blur of a dessert eaten too quickly. she can hardly recall which guests she greeted or what she ate, but she remembers the flecks of gold in vasiliy’s lovely brown hair.

the romance had continued on their journey to the sprawling manse known as manderly, and ahna is certain that this is every bit the story she’d hoped to hear from mrs. bardot. in the light of present circumstances, the woman’s failure to deliver made her laugh. she’d come to europe in the hopes of great stories and, instead, found herself the very subject of the love story she’d yearned for. a girl raised on love, ahna had never had the misfortune of being misliked. her smile was contagious and she was well-mannered and sincere--traits which naturally endeared to her even the coldest of hearts. it doesn’t even occur to her that her new husband’s staff might not love her as easily as they surely had loved the first mrs. burlakov.

as mrs. danvers approaches, ahna puts on her best smile, rolling her shoulders back and smoothing her skirt so that she looks like the very picture of the perfect newlywed. the staff would grow to love her for her kindness, she was sure of it. “mrs. danvers, i cannot tell you how pleased i am to meet you.” her smile grew with every word coated in saccharine sincerity. brows softening sadly, her tone matching their regret. “i’m so sorry for your loss. i could never hope to replace the first mrs. burlakov, but i can only hope that we can find our own connection if you’ll have me.”