She loved him. He knew she did, of course. Evie would never give herself lightly. In spite of all he couldn’t offer her, she’d fallen anyway. He was so unworthy of her affections and yet he’d so readily craved them, needed them. Dimitri captured her hand. He did not want her to cry over him, over anything. His Evie deserved only happiness. It was time to give that to her. The thought gave him courage. ‘Evie, will you walk with me?’ He’d brought her here for a reason. There was a little valley he wanted to show her.
‘It’s pretty out here.’ Evie made small talk to fill the silence, but she was nervous too, no doubt wondering what they were doing and how it fit into the discussion they were both so desperate to have and yet had avoided.
‘I’m glad you think so.’ Dimitri drew a breath. Very soon there would be no going back. His heart was starting to pound with excitement—he’d had enough time to think about it, he didn’t want to go back, only forward into this new life he was building—but also with trepidation. What would Evie think? ‘Close your eyes, Evie.’ He covered her eyes with his hands and led her to the edge of the hill. ‘Now, look!’
He waited, seeing the valley below them through her eyes: the tall green grass, the sturdy, brick manse with its outbuildings and barn, the paddocks for the horses, the road leading to the drive. To his eye, it looked like a place that could be home, a place that would do a country gentleman of some means proud, not unlike Evie’s home. ‘The property is for sale. The couple who live there are elderly and looking to move in with their daughter.’ He’d found time to make enquiries, to make an offer.
‘It’s a nice property, too big for a couple. It’s made for children. That tree needs a swing.’ Evie smiled, but it was a questioning smile. She was unsure what to make of this.
‘I am hoping it’s made for us and our children, Evie.’ The words were out before he could take them back. This wasn’t the order of conversation he’d imagined in his mind. He’d thought to work up to that slowly, telling her first about his plan and then asking her to marry him.
Evie stared. Apparently, she hadn’t thought the conversation was supposed to head this direction either. ‘You’re leaving.’ They were both feeling their way off script now.
‘I’ve decided not to go.’ He wanted her to look at him, but she refused, keeping her gaze staunchly on the smoke curling out of the chimney in the distance.
‘You cannot decide that. Your sister needs you. Your family needs you.’ Her voice was flat, her face stoic. She said the phrases as if they’d been a silent litany she’d carried with her and repeated as needed over the past weeks.
‘I have a plan for that. I meant to start with it, but I got a little ahead of myself.’ He gave a chuckle but she didn’t smile. Oh, God, how he wanted Evie to smile. He’d give his kingdom for that smile if he hadn’t already decided to give it up for something far more worthy. ‘I’m going to renounce my title.’ She did look at him then, but not with a smile. The look on her face was one of abject horror.
* * *
Good God, he thought to renounce his title for her! Disbelief coursed through her as the world reeled. Now she knew why Cinderella had bolted; the poor girl had seen something in the Prince’s eyes that scared her—something that resembled for ever and the determination to make it happen at all costs. That was exactly what Evie had seen in Dimitri’s eyes.
Everything became surreal in those moments. She’d been wrong. Dimitri leaving wasn’t the real nightmare. This was the real nightmare, the part where romance turned into hatred. He was doing this for love, but he would come to hate her for it. Some day he’d realise how foolish he’d been. He had everything to go back for and no reason to stay except her. She did not want to be that reason. Her own mother had counselled her against such rashness, that love didn’t last. There had to be something more to base a life on together. When that love died, he would despise her and then the nightmare would begin—knowing the man she loved hated her. That would be even worse than Andrew’s rude neglect.
She found a few, simple words. ‘No. I can’t allow that.’ Her mind was racing. It was almost too much to take in and yet she had to reason with him, help him to see the error of his choice. ‘Your sister, your family, they need you to return.’ But she’d already said that. She needed something new. ‘Don’t renounce. I will go to Kuban with you. Then you can have the best of both worlds—we can be together and you don’t have to give up your country and your sister will be safe.’
It was his turn to stare. Is that what her face had looked like a few moments earlier? ‘I can’t go back, Evie. It’s more complicated than that,’ he said quietly, taking her hand and clutching it tight. ‘I should have told you earlier. I just didn’t think it would matter. If I go back, there’s a woman I am expected to marry.’
The hillside might as well have collapsed beneath her. She could hardly breathe from the shock of it. Dimitri engaged! Promised to another and he’d known the whole time, when he’d kissed her, when they’d made love. Should she be devastated or angry?
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
That made her angry. ‘How could you possibly know? I don’t even know!’ She walked away from him. Maybe distance would help her think. She should have listened to Andrew. Hadn’t he tried to warn her? Hadn’t he said there was another reason Dimitri wouldn’t marry her? In her naïvety she’d not thought it would be another woman.
Dimitri was behind her, his voice tenacious and low, and her own perverse curiosity didn’t want to miss a word. ‘Please let me explain about Ayfer.’ Oh, heavens, that made it worse. The woman had a name. He didn’t wait for an answer, perhaps he was smart enough to know she wasn’t going to give him one.
‘She’s a sultan’s daughter. The marriage is meant to keep the peace on the border. If I don’t marry her, Anna-Maria will have to marry the sultan’s son. I told you most of this before.’ Except for the one thing that mattered. He didn’t just have to return to save his sister, he had to marry.
Dimitri was still talking, still explaining. ‘I’ve never met her. This was negotiated as part of a treaty put together by the sultan’s representatives and my King. I understand there’s some sort of backwards irony, that to save my sister from an arranged marriage to a stranger who will take her away from her country and her faith, I am condemning another woman to the same fate by marrying me, but the ends justify the means.’
Of course he would and that was why she couldn’t stay mad at him. She could only be hurt by the insurmountable impossibility of being with him. She had offered him all she could offer, to go with him, and it wasn’t enough. Couldn’t be enough. All that would go to Kuban with Dimitri when he left was the small tapestry she’d finished last night.
‘I told you I have a plan,’ Dimitri said with quiet fierceness. He was going to be listened to. ‘I have a cousin, Yulian, who I believe will marry the sultan’s daughter in my place. I will renounce all claims to any wealth I possess that is tied to the state and turn it over to him.’
Against her will, Evie asked, ‘And your family? What happens to them?’ She couldn’t imagine the kingdom accepting Dimitri’s resignation blithely and going on its happy way.
‘They can renounce me and affirm their loyalty to the crown and all will be well.’
‘And you will never see them again,’ Evie supplied, the last of her anger seeping away, replaced by great sadness for him, that this brave man should have to face such a decision. Even more it saddened her that he’d had to puzzle out such a decision alone, so far from home.
‘I am willing to accept it if that is what happens.’ She couldn’t imagine never seeing her mother, her father, her sisters, her baby nephew. ‘That might have been your fate had you come to Kuban,’ Dimitri argued softly. ‘It’s not fair that you should be willing to give that up, but not allow me to do the same.’
She turned then to look at hi
m finally and whispered the great fear that had burst open in her when he’d laid out his plan. ‘You will come to hate me.’ She pressed two fingers to his lips, those beautiful lips she’d kissed countless times in the last weeks. ‘I know you don’t think so now. But in time, you will. I can’t live with that.’ Then came the great truth that accompanied her great fear. ‘I am not worth it.’
‘Will it make you feel better to know this isn’t only about you? It’s about me in the same way that I hope your decision to give up Andrew wasn’t about me, but about you deciding he wasn’t the one regardless of who or what waited for you. Long before I loved you, Evie, I’d been looking for a way out, wondering if it was possible to escape my fate and live my own life. This is what I want.’ Dimitri tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. ‘As for the question, are you worth it? Yes, you are. You’ve always been worth it. London doesn’t know what they’ve been missing. But I do. I see the real you, Evie, and I love her. I love you.’
He was not making it better and he certainly wasn’t making any of this easier. ‘You weren’t supposed to.’
Dimitri smiled. ‘I know. You like people at a distance, people who are unattainable. That way you aren’t disappointed, you don’t have to risk anything. But I made you risk everything and that has had you reeling since day one.’
A smile stole across her face in spite of her best efforts. Perhaps she did do that. Distance made it easier to see the best in them. ‘I’m not sure I like having myself explained to me.’ She was seriously weakening. She was starting to believe happiness was within her reach if she would just close her fingers over it.
Dimitri held her hands against his chest, his eyes locking with hers. ‘I’ve made my choice for our future. Now, you have to make yours. I am asking you to marry me, to live with me in that house down there and raise a family with me, study history with me and make love with me every night until we’re too old, and can only make love on Sundays.’
Evie laughed. ‘Only Sundays?’ And then, because she could deny him nothing, and because it was nice to believe for a moment that it all could come true, Evie said, ‘Yes.’ But in her heart, she knew what she had to do even as he kissed her. She had to be the one to leave. Already a plan was unfolding. She’d go after the gala. She’d visit Bea and May up north. Then, Dimitri would have no reason to stay. He could return home and make good on his promises. She had two days left and then she had to let him go because he loved her and she loved him. Too much, it seemed. She kissed him hard. She’d always believed people in love belonged together, but now she saw she was wrong. Sometimes you had to love someone enough to give them up.
She loved Dimitri enough.
Chapter Twenty-Four
She said yes!
Dimitri walked to his desk in the corner of the pavilion and lit a lamp. He’d left Evie at her parents’ and headed home, prepared for a night of writing. Everything could be set in motion now. He was going to do it. He was going to renounce his title and become Mr Petrovich, the man he’d always wanted to be. He was going to need help. Titles were not renounced easily. He needed someone to watch over his father and Anna-Maria, someone to negotiate these arrangements. Quite possibly, he was going to need a great many someones. That’s what friends were for.
He pulled out several sheets of paper, his confidence building as he began to write. He wrote to his father first, the one man in the entire world he trusted to see it done, and the one man who would understand how agonising the decision was because he too had loved deeply. He wrote to Yulian next, carefully outlining the benefits and great patriotic honour of taking on this duty for Kuban.
Then came the letters to Stepan and Ruslan. He would entrust them to help his father with the negotiations. To Nikolay he entrusted the duty of protecting the family quite literally. Nikolay’s firebrand temper didn’t make him an ideal political ally, but his sword arm was never in doubt. Nikolay would defend the house, would defend Anna-Maria to his last breath.
To Illarion fell the job of keeping up the spirits, a shoulder to cry on. Anna-Maria would be devastated when it came to renouncing him. Her letter had been the hardest of all to write. He’d begged her to understand that she had to do this for her own future and safety, that he wanted a secure future for her above all else where she had choices.
When the sun came up, his hand was cramped and a stack of letters sealed with the great bear, the mark of the house of Petrovich, lay piled on his desk. He counted the days in his head. One day to the embassy in London. The diplomatic pouch would take three days to reach Ostend across the Channel and then a week of hard riding to make Kuban. Ten days at best until his father opened that letter. One of the benefits of being a prince: one’s mail went fast. Dimitri twisted the ring on his finger. He’d enjoy the privilege while it lasted. He didn’t fool himself that this transition would be easy. Doubtless there would be some adjusting to going from a prince to ordinary man, but there would be benefits too. For one, he could go to the privy without being tracked down by voracious females.
It would take ten days for a response to arrive plus whatever time lay in between to settle negotiations. He hoped they would be quick. But he knew better than to hope for too much. There would be protocol and ceremony to follow and if the sultan’s representative wasn’t lounging around court, he’d have to be summoned. Dimitri pushed a hand through his hair. All of this would take time. He was taking an enormous leap of faith that his friends and his family wouldn’t fail him. He could not wait for permission to move forward. He had to assume it would all happen according to his plan. He had one more letter to write, to the couple in the valley. It was time to enquire about the house. Mr Petrovich and his wife were going to need somewhere to live.
Dimitri stretched and smiled. A great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Almost. There were still a few things that needed wrapping up. There was still a thief on the loose who had managed to steal a few more items. Whoever the thief was, he wasn’t a very good one. He had no idea the items he’d taken were merely replicas.
There was also the gala to get through, one more night of people staring in awe at the Prince of Kuban and treating him like some precious artefact himself that might break if they didn’t fawn over him enough. If they weren’t busy kowtowing, they were busy speculating how they could best use their association with him. That would soon be over. People wouldn’t care so much when he was regular Mr Petrovich, the foreign chap who’d married Evie Milham.
But after the gala, real life could begin with Evie beside him. He would dance with Evie, keep Evie by his side all night because he wanted to and because he wanted no one in Little Westbury to be surprised when he called on Sir Hollis Milham the next day and asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Instead, they would say, ‘It all makes sense. Didn’t you see them together at the gala? A perfect pair.’ It could all begin tomorrow. He just had to get through the gala. He could hardly wait for it to begin and he could hardly wait for it to be over.
* * *
‘Careful with that!’
‘It has to be carried flat or it will crack.’
‘You would crack too if you were a thousand years old.’
‘Yes, over here with that crate. No, put the other box over there.’ Evie ran a hand through her hair, trying hard not to bark orders, trying hard not to be overwhelmed as she managed three tasks at once. The whole morning had been like this, everyone relying on her for instruction and for direction. Evie looked down at the tablet in her hand, covered in lists and ticks, the ticks a testament to the progress she was making and to the amount of work that still remained to be done. Thank goodness for all the work. It was supposed to keep her mind off what was to come.
It would all be over tonight. The gala was a culminating event in more ways than one, a thought that Evie was struggling to push away no matter how hard she worked. She and her mother had been up early, at th
e site overseeing preparations for the evening’s party. Everything had to happen in a specific order.
First, the ‘set designers’, as her mother liked to call them, had to assemble the curtains that would cordon off unfinished areas of the site and guide guests through the rooms Dimitri wanted to display tonight towards the pièce de résistance, the dining room with its terracotta-rose design carved into the floor. Setting up the curtains would take most of the morning. After that, the flowers could be arranged in tall urns replicating Roman style, the long table brought in for dining could be laid and Evie could work on getting the displays of artefacts ready for public viewing. There would be a separate pavilion set up for dancing that would have to be supervised as well. Then and only then could she think about dressing and getting herself ready. Her gown for the evening was already at Dimitri’s pavilion. There would be no time to go home and change.
But that was hours away, nearly an entire day. The gown was beautiful, one she’d made herself and just finished last night out of the silk from London, and yet she didn’t want to think about putting it on and what that would symbolise, taking her one step closer to leaving Dimitri. No, she couldn’t think of it like that. She was one step closer to setting him free, not giving him up.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Dimitri working hard to help assemble the curtains. He flashed her a smile, looking entirely too handsome in rolled-up shirtsleeves, looking entirely too much in his element. He looked like he belonged here with these people. No. She could not second-guess her decision. She had to be firm. He would thank her for it later when he realised a man didn’t simply give up a kingdom for a girl like her. She was making the right decision in leaving. She knew it was the right decision because it was hard. Every time she thought about it she wanted to cry. Right decisions were hard decisions, the ones it cost you something to make. This was costing her plenty.
AWAKENING THE SHY MISS Page 19
