Chapter Twelve #2
It was strange to think that only a month and a half ago she had been boarding a beautiful yacht with every amenity she could want, and now she was in a crumbling manor without access to the internet.
Picking berries.
But without the input from the rest of the world, it was like she could finally hear herself.
“What are you doing out here?”
She turned sharply, startling for a moment, because that there would be anyone out here was a shock, and her first thought was that Onyx or Lucian had found her. But it was Andrei. Thank God.
“You scared me,” she said.
“Sorry. I didn’t expect to see you out and about.”
“I’m tired of myself,” she said.
He laughed. “It’s a common malady these days, I fear.”
“Are you tired of yourself, Andrei?”
“Yes. One thing that living for a cause gives you is the relief of the weight of your own humanity.”
She had to laugh about that, because it was true.
All she was left with now were her own petty fears and discomforts. Her desires, the things that she wanted, even if she shouldn’t or couldn’t.
It was exhausting. It was better, actually, to worry about things on a global scale, because her personal economy was far more troubling, and also, it felt even more out of her control.
“I’m picking berries for a cake, because that at least feels like something.”
“Can I join you?”
“I would like that.”
“We used to come out here all the time when I was a child. Pick berries.”
“You and who else?”
“There were often children. Of associates of my father. It was such a strange childhood. There were times when we were left to our own devices, left to run wild. And other times…”
She looked at him. “What?”
“I don’t want to spoil a beautiful day with things about my childhood.”
“Tell me.”
“My father saw it as his duty to prepare me to take over the family business. That meant that when there were people who needed to be… When violence had to be dealt out, he would ask that I watch. You get used to it. You learn to stop thinking about how much it must hurt the other person. Slowly, over time, it begins to kill your empathy. That’s the idea behind it.
He didn’t want me to have empathy. He didn’t want me to care what happened to other people.
He wanted me to care only about the mission. And so I am very good at that.”
It was such a strange thing to realize, that he had been shaped by something so dark and sinister, and yet it had turned him into a very similar person to her.
Her own parents had been sweet, lovely. Well-intentioned.
She wanted to honor them, and that was where all of her feelings came from.
His father had simply bent and twisted him into a vessel. One that could contain all the violence his family required.
And then he had transferred that, that loyalty, to her and Onyx.
“It must be really hard to be back here, actually.”
He shook his head. “I have some of the nicest times of my life here. I cared very much about all of my friends. I think that is actually the difficult part. It was not a miserable childhood entirely. I suppose children are resilient and they are determined to create fun no matter what. But there were things that… There were things that were quite miserable.”
“I wish I had known this about you.”
“Why? It wouldn’t have changed anything. You and I were always going to be bound by the rules we made for ourselves.”
He was right. Only in childhood had there ever been any lightness for either of them. When she was a little girl, she hadn’t thought about her legacy. It was only after her mother had died. Before that, she’d known what fun was. What dreams were. She had imagined a family like her own.
“If I’m honest,” she said, “I suppose I probably did romanticize the idea of marrying a stranger. Especially as I got older, because I did know that I would probably have to do a diplomatic union. Knowing that my parents had done it, it just made it seem like there was the possibility for it to be wonderful. Like there was the possibility for it to work out.”
His eyes burned into her. “And your feelings for me?”
She took a breath, looked away, tried to ignore the soreness in her chest. “I learned to ignore them. Sort of. It was a separate thing. I wanted you, but I knew that I could never have you, so it was sort of… Its own kind of beautiful tragedy, I guess. But please don’t call it lust. It isn’t. It isn’t just lust.”
He nodded slowly. “I won’t.”
“Good.”
They finished picking berries in silence, and then she was surprised when it turned out that the offer from Rebecca for cake meant that she had to bake it. She had never baked a cake in her life. “She tricked you,” Andrei said. “She’s done the same for me.”
“You will help her,” Rebecca said, which was how she found herself in the kitchen with Andrei, baking a berry cake, which was far less disastrous than it might’ve been, but perhaps a little more disastrous than it should have been.
Especially given that they were two adults with decent educations and a fair amount of competency between them in other areas.
But the cake turned out lovely, and the lemon drizzle on top only made it that much better.
They had that instead of a proper dinner, and afterward, he asked if she wanted to go for a walk in the moonlight.
Was this what being a person was? Eating and baking and laughing. Going for walks because you could.
Not sitting at a table for ages, doing multiple courses, and observing formalities. Working on royal administration at all hours of the day. Not that there was anything wrong with that. With being busy.
But this, this slow slide into humanity was lovely.
The moon was full, and cast a glow on the overgrown garden, and she followed Andrei through the maze of paths.
“I bet you had a lot of fun in here when you were a child.”
“Yes,” he said.
He didn’t elaborate. It seemed like the happy memories were almost as difficult for him as the painful ones.
But then, she could understand how that was difficult.
How it would pull you in multiple directions.
Because it wasn’t all bad. And it was so much easier when things could be absolute.
So much easier when they could be clean.
So bad that you wanted to wash your hands of them.
So good that you wanted it to go on forever.
Maybe that was part of what she was looking for, living a life of duty and destiny. A cleaner, simpler life that didn’t have all of this complexity. All of this potential for heartbreak.
And in a way, it kept her mother with her. But only as this simplified version of herself.
But it helped alleviate the grief that she felt over the way she hadn’t gotten to know her through the years. As an adult. As a woman.
Now she was going to be a mother herself.
She put her hand on her stomach. It still felt unbelievable.
She looked up at Andrei, the moon casting a glow on his features. Why was this so hard?
Why did neither of them know how to be together?
“This tree,” he said, gesturing to it. “We used to climb up to the top, see how far we could see. Until my father put a stop to that. He thought it would help the other kids figure out the location of the house.”
“You’re kidding me.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not. He was an extremely paranoid man. As you must be when you sow the seeds of violence.”
“You loved him, didn’t you?”
“I…think so. Though I am not certain what love meant to me then, as I’m not certain what it means now, not inside me.
I depended on them. I knew I was supposed to be like my father.
I was in awe of him. My mother was beautiful, and volatile.
I still carry grief for them, even though they were very flawed. ”
He reached up and grabbed the lowest branch on the tree. And then he hoisted himself upward.
“What are you doing?”
“Climbing. Because I can.”
“I’m going after you,” she said.
“No,” he said. “You’re pregnant.”
“I’m pregnant,” she muttered. “Not made of glass. I don’t intend to fall out of the tree. You know full well we climbed our fair share when we were kids too.”
He kept on going, and she went after him.
Until he stopped at a very wide branch that sloped out from the tree and neatly made a basket to sit in.
She joined him there, their hips touching.
It had been far too long since they had touched.
Other than her slapping him, which really didn’t count.
And hadn’t been good. What if they had met just like this?
Just as Andrei and Emerald. If he didn’t have a crime empire in his lineage and loyalty to the throne, and she weren’t a princess.
It had never even occurred to her to imagine a different life.
Her life was exceedingly privileged, and she did her best to live it with the knowledge of that.
With gratitude. But right now, she resented it.
Because what would life have been like if she could just be her?
No other baggage, no other responsibilities.
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He turned to her sharply, surprise on his handsome face.
“That was an apology for the slap,” she said.
“You already apologized for that,” he said.
“I know. But… It was more than that. I imagine being up here with you all those years ago. If we were just kids, and we met, and there was nothing else.”
“But there is something else. So many other things, and that will always be true.”
“I know, but I just…”
“I don’t want to be my father,” he said, his voice stern. “Being here, being in this house it is…haunted. By memories that are both good and bad. I find myself burdened by them.”
“Why?”
“Because I loved him. And loving him was toxic. I won’t be that for my child. We can find a way to fix this. A way to serve the greater good. We are good at that, Emerald, aren’t we?”
“You just accused me of having no idea who I am if I don’t have a cause.”
“Perhaps…perhaps that is a good thing.” He turned away from her. “Emotion in all its many forms is messy. Love is a liar. But we could unite and make this better. We could…we can fix all this. For us. For our child.”
“I agree,” she said, moving away from him, just slightly.
She did agree. But it hurt her. She’d been so happy with him a moment ago. So carefree and now she felt like she was losing her grip on that happiness. This felt more normal. More what she was used to. This distance. This need for a wall between them.
But what he said was true.
“We have known each other all our lives, and yet we don’t know each other. We need to disentangle the difficult feelings between us. My father and mother’s version of marriage was toxic. Twisted up in their lust, in all the sharp feelings. When I took you as I did in Alabria…”
“I wanted you.”
He let out a rough sigh. “That isn’t better.”
Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her desire was sick. Maybe it was as damaged as they were.
She wished she knew how her parents had come to love each other. What they’d shared. But she didn’t know because she’d been so young when they died. She had no blueprint. She had nothing.
Nothing except this ache inside her that she wanted so badly to make smaller. This ache that only ever seemed manageable when she was doing something. When she felt like she was fixing something.
These past few days here in the estate had been lovely, but she couldn’t live like this. She had to keep moving. They had to make a decision about their relationship, because they couldn’t stay here forever.
It wasn’t what she’d wanted him to say. But she’d…slapped him. It had been wrong of her. It had been because of the way things were between them—so disordered and filled with…
Emotion.
He was right. They had a common duty. One to their child. That had to be the mission.
“We must call a truce,” he said. “We are not enemies. We are to be parents.”
She nodded. “A family.”
He nodded, uneasy. “A family to me is difficult.”
“It doesn’t have to be. A family can be like mine. It can be happy. It can be…” She thought of her mother and father, laughing, reading to her and Onyx, holding them. The pain and anguish it created inside her almost took her breath away.
It didn’t have to hurt. She would learn from it. Let her change her. Let it make her a good mother. A good…
“Let’s take this time,” she said. “This time here, to decide what we want to do. Together. As parents. For our child.”
Because their child should be able to run wild and climb trees, and pick berries.
Because their child should live in a home with parents who loved them.
Who didn’t fight. A mother who didn’t lose her temper and slap their father.
A father who didn’t look at their mother with so much heat and outrage that it felt like they’d burn the whole house down.
She and Andrei knew how to resist each other. They’d done it for years.
If they could do it for the sake of the throne, surely doing it for their own child would be no more difficult.
Surely.