LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Five

      Anna-Maria poked at her peas, pushing them around the plate. The first day after Stepan left had been bad. Things had gone downhill since then. The house was too quiet. There were no sudden openings of the front door due to an unannounced return from parts unknown, no chance of catching sight of him riding down the drive, so straight, so irritatingly perfect, no energising spats to look forward to. Worst of all, there were no bone-jarring kisses. She’d done nothing but think about that kiss since he’d ridden out. It had been wild and arousing in ways unlooked for and it had been her first. Did he realise that? Had that played a part in how quickly he’d departed? Had his leaving been her fault? Had she pushed him to it as certainly as she was pushing her peas now?

      A fork clattered against china from across the table. ‘Damn it, girl, will you stop sulking and eat your dinner?’ Her father glowered. Anna-Maria gave her peas another shove just to be perverse.

      ‘You’ll hardly catch a husband with manners like that.’ Her father huffed. ‘You’ll shame us all in London.’

      ‘I don’t want to catch a husband, not right away at any rate.’ Anna-Maria tossed her head and slid a defiant glance in Dimitri’s direction. ‘I want to dance until dawn and drink champagne. I want to live a little bit. Besides, who cares if I push my peas around tonight, there’s no one to see, there’s no entertainment for miles. I’ve been stuck out in the middle of nowhere...’ She bit her lip as Evie looked down at her plate. She’d gone too far with her remark. Little Westbury was Evie’s home, her parents were here, her friends and her husband’s work. Evie had never made her feel anything but welcome.

      Her father pointed his spoon at her. ‘You are an ungrateful wretch,’ he said, ‘all the sacrifices that have been made for you—’

      ‘Father, that’s enough,’ Dimitri broke in, soft-voiced but stern with the authority of the head of the household. Always, he had been the peacemaker. No wonder he and Evie were so well suited. Evie was a peacemaker, too. Not like her. Sometimes, Anna-Maria thought she required drama to make life interesting. Not for the first time, she wished she were a little more like her brother who thrived in the seclusion of country life.

      ‘I am sorry, Evie. I didn’t mean...’ Anna-Maria apologised.

      Evie dismissed her efforts with a polite shake of her head. ‘No offence taken. You are young and vivacious, it’s only natural you’d want to surround yourself with activity.’ Evie glanced at Dimitri. ‘We could all use an outing. Why don’t we plan something? Maybe a day with Liam and May before they go back to town?’

      Anna-Maria liked May, she was one of Evie’s more scandalous friends, having had a mad affair with her husband before they married. May had, in fact, been younger than Anna was now when it had occurred. But, a day spent talking about babies wasn’t exactly the sort of outing Anna had in mind. She wet her lips, a plan forming. ‘Why don’t we go to Shoreham and see how Stepan is settling in?’ Anna looked over at Evie. ‘We could take him some of Cook’s bread and the lemon biscuits he likes so much and we could advise him on the house. He doesn’t have anyone to help him run such a large place. The servants will run roughshod over him,’ she argued shamelessly. There was nothing Evie liked as much as rectifying a domestic crisis.

      ‘I don’t know.’ Dimitri seemed dubious. ‘It’s a long way for the baby,’

      ‘It’s only an hour, maybe two, by carriage, but your carriage is equipped with every luxury,’ Anna argued. ‘We’ll all take turns holding the baby and he’ll sleep most of the way.’

      ‘That settles it.’ Evie decided the issue with a smile at Dimitri. ‘We’ll go and see how Stepan is getting on.’ She rose. ‘Anna and I will go and talk about what to take with us, while you two enjoy your after-dinner port.’ She beamed at her father-in-law as if he hadn’t tried to disrupt her dinner with a fight.

      ‘You are too generous with him,’ Anna chided once they were alone in the sitting room. Evie had the baby at her feet and her ever-present needlework in her hands—the perfect picture of domestic bliss.

      ‘Nonsense. He is a broken man. He has suffered much in his lifetime and he deserves our consolation.’ Evie flashed her a brief smile as she threaded her needle. ‘As do you, my dear. He has suffered, but how he treats you is inexcusable. Dimitri and I are both aware of it.’

      ‘I killed the woman he loved.’ Anna-Maria shrugged as if the fact meant nothing to her. She should be immune to it by now. After nineteen years of hearing the story, of being reminded her mother died giving birth to her, it shouldn’t affect her.

      ‘You were a baby. You had no control over that.’ Evie bit off the thread and gave her a considering glance. ‘You’re missing Stepan.’

      ‘As we all are.’ Anna fussed with her own stitching, a simple handkerchief. The house seemed empty without him. Even being absent so much, he’d managed to stamp the house with his presence. His coat was gone from where it usually hung on the hooks by the front door. Dimitri’s boots looked forlorn where they stood alone without Stepan’s beside them. Anna had slipped into his room, thinking it would help her loneliness. It hadn’t. The room he’d occupied looked positively sterile now that he’d gone, the bedcovers pristine and unwrinkled, the bureau uncluttered by personal effects. It was as if he’d never been there at all.

      Evie gave her a sharp look when she was too silent too long. ‘Are you certain this trip to Shoreham is only about helping him set up house?’

      Anna’s hand stilled. Evie went on. ‘I watched you waltzing with him the other day.’ Anna froze completely. The other day. The day after the kiss. What had Evie divined? What was there to see? That somehow, at some time, her relationship to Stepan had taken on an edge that she could hardly define? ‘Are you sure your request doesn’t have anything to do with the New Barn barracks being full again?’ She gave Anna a conspiratorial wink. ‘Dimitri tells me a Captain Denning has come to Shoreham with a company of men to catch smugglers. There will be assemblies and plenty of men to dance with while the countryside waits for spring.’ Evie cocked her head. ‘Perhaps they would be more interesting to practise on than the Squire’s son before London? Consider it a trial run.’

      Anna smiled in relief and grabbed at Evie’s line of reasoning. ‘The garrison does have its own appeal.’ It wasn’t the only appeal, however, but she could hardly give voice to those other reasons. She could hardly explain them to herself, not when so much suddenly lay unresolved between her and Stepan. With a single kiss, the world had upended itself. She only knew that she wanted to be near Stepan, whether he needed her or not. Where that need had sprung from she wasn’t sure. The kiss had done more than jar him out of his complacency. It had somehow jarred her out of hers—a complacency that had been content to study him through windowpanes and at the distance of a dinner

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