Pet's head was set spinning as soon as the meaning of her father's words sank in. Stepmother. How could she have a stepmother? What warning had preceded this? When was the engagement, the courtship, any sign that her father was preparing to remarry? It was only made worse by the interloper's uttering compliments about her to her father as though she wasn't even there.

Upon seeing the woman Pet had assumed she was some woman her father had decided to court at most, not some woman who had already taken his name!

Hurt eyes sought out her father's face and it was then that Pet realized that she was on the verge of tears. How could he do this? How could he do it without telling her, why would he surprise it on her like this? Most importantly, why was it even necessary? It was a betrayal to her mother's memory and she simply couldn't reconcile her father's character as she knew it with the revelation she was now faced with.

Maybe, just maybe, she'd forgotten the Russian word for 'stepmother' and mixed it up a similar word, but no that wouldn't explain Sleptova. "Stepmother?" She repeated slowly in Russian, hoping against all odds that there was an explanation for it that involved this woman not being married to her father.

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