She gingerly picked up the threads of the original conversation. ‘You met in Naples, and then what?’
‘The Prince made a fortune on the mosaic, selling it to a museum in Naples,’ Andrew supplied drily. ‘He was moving on to Greece, to a temple excavation on the peninsula. I was intrigued so I tagged along. We did the temple and another small dig near Athens, then worked our way home.’ Andrew sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach with smug victory. ‘I told him about our local Roman villa, which has never quite got off the ground in terms of a full excavation, and the rest is history.’ He laughed at his joke. The tension eased and Evie was almost convinced she’d imagined it to begin with. The visit concluded amiably, the gentlemen polishing off the last cakes and the remainder of the lemonade before rising to leave.
The Prince bowed over her hand as he had at the assembly room. She was struck once more by the intensity of his gaze and the heat generated by his touch. It still didn’t mean anything, she reminded herself, but silly as it was, she liked how her stomach fluttered when he touched her. ‘I was wondering, Miss Milham, if you would consider helping on the villa excavation? You mentioned you draw your own tapestry patterns and I need someone to do a catalogue of drawings for any artefacts we might uncover.’
Her pulse sped up at the prospect, flattered that he’d acknowledged her skills. What an honour, an honour far beyond any she’d ever expected. For a moment she couldn’t find any words. She settled on ‘I would like that very much.’ When he touched her, looked at her with those dark eyes, spoke to her in that low voice with its dentalised ‘th’s and hard ‘r’s, she felt like a princess. Almost.
‘Come to the site tomorrow.’ He released her hand with a smile and the magic was gone. She was once more merely Evie Milham, plain and quiet, the sort who admired men on their pedestals, not one who was put up on a pedestal of her own. She certainly wasn’t the sort of girl those men fought over. Not the sort of girl a prince would pay serious attentions to, but for a moment she had been.
The walk back to Andrew’s was...different. For once, it was silent. Usually, most of their walks were filled with Andrew’s talk. Andrew liked to think out loud. Normally, Dimitri didn’t mind. Today, however, Andrew was silent except for the occasional swish of his walking stick cutting through the high grass in the meadow. Dimitri opted to wait. When Andrew was done processing he would talk.
‘What happened back there?’ Andrew gave the grass a hard thwack with his stick. Apparently, he was done processing. ‘For a moment, I thought we were going to quarrel over Evie Milham.’ He said the last as if the notion was insane. Dimitri didn’t think it was in the least preposterous. Didn’t Andrew see it? The beauty beneath the simple attire and the simple hair; the devotion she was waiting to lavish on him? As for himself, he was thinking far too much about that hidden beauty. When she’d spoken of tapestries and stitchery, he’d wanted to take her hair down pin by pin, pull it loose from its tight coiffure and spread it through his fingers like so much embroidery silk.
‘I was unaware there was anything to quarrel about.’ Dimitri shot Andrew a wry smile. ‘She is quite solidly yours by her own design.’ Perhaps Andrew needed a little push in Evie’s direction, something to drag him out of his oblivion. Maybe he could help with that. Maybe Evie could use some help with that. She was making it too easy for Andrew, catering to his every whim. Andrew would never respect a woman like that. He would, however, use that woman. Dimitri’s stomach gave a small twist. He hardly knew her, but it sat poorly with him to think of Evie Milham being used in that manner.
Andrew lifted a brow. ‘Do I sense a wager coming on? There was a time when you could turn a lowly country girl’s head like that!’ He snapped his fingers and tossed a smug grin at Dimitri. ‘Or, are you losing your touch? I admit I have a head start. She’s known me her entire life. But you’re a prince,’ he goaded. ‘Surely that evens the playing field.’
‘Those games are fine with ladies of the court,’ Dimitri offered warily. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of pushing Andrew towards Evie any more. Last night, it had seemed like the right thing to do, a way to help out Miss Milham. His stomach twisted again. ‘I think those games are rather cruel, however, when played with unsuspecting country ladies.’ Dimitri’s stomach twisted harder, more violently than before. This time he didn’t think it had anything to do with Evie and everything to do with seed cakes. Too many seed cakes.
All things in moderation, his old nyanya had told him more than once growing up, always after he’d over-indulged. Some day he’d learn, but apparently not today. His covert eating contest with Andrew had been petty. From the hitch in Andrew’s step, it looked like he might be feeling the effects as well. They’d behaved childishly and they’d got their just desserts in the most literal way possible. Andrew let out a burp and a sigh that set them both to laughing. ‘That’s better.’
The tension between them eased and Andrew slung an arm about his shoulders, having already forgotten Evie Milham and his silly wager. It was for the best. Dimitri knew he certainly had no business involving himself in careless games regarding a young woman’s affections. There could be no entanglements for him. He would be returning to Kuban. Taking Andrew’s wager would require deliberately breaking an unsuspecting girl’s heart. The best he could do for her would be to help her understand her own value, to see her own beauty. She didn’t need to settle for a man like Andrew.
Dimitri shot a sideways glance at Andrew, only half-listening to a story about Evie’s seed cakes. Andrew was golden and laughing in the sun. It was easy to see why Evie would be taken with him. But Andrew was also entirely self-absorbed. Even now, with just the two of them present, he was ‘performing’ the story for an audience. Usually, Dimitri was impressed with Andrew’s showmanship. On the road, Andrew’s glib tongue had talked them into a few prime situations such as the dig in Greece. But here in England, his ‘showmanship’ seemed rehearsed to the point of narcissism. It reaffirmed Dimitri’s premise: There was no doubt Miss Milham would be good for his sometimes high-handed and arrogant new friend. She would love him in spite of himself, and, given time, perhaps she would help him see what was truly important in life. But at what cost to herself? The real question to ask was: Was Andrew good for Evie?
Dimitri laughed out loud at the direction of his thoughts. Andrew would think the laughter was for the story. In reality Dimitri was laughing at himself. Who was he to decide their future, or even be interested in it? He hardly knew Evie Milham and he’d barely known Andrew for a year. He had no business interfering. Aside from his curiosity over the quiet Miss Milham with her russet hair and her hidden hobbies, he wasn’t even sure what had sparked his attentions in the first place. Maybe it was a sign after all that he was ready to return to Kuban, settle down and live the life he’d been destined for since birth, the life his family needed him to live.
Perhaps it was for the best he felt that way, since his return, even his marriage, was inevitable. Dimitri shook his head to clear his thoughts. He wouldn’t think of that, not yet. There was still some time left to him. He needed to focus on the immediate future first. What came next would take care of itself. Until then, he had one last excavation to oversee and to enjoy.
* * *
The excavation site was bustling with organised activity when Evie and her father arrived the next morning. The scale of that activity was quite impressive. Workers, hired from local labour, hauled carts of rocks and debris away, others whisked dust from slabs to see what was hidden beneath, while still others were engaged in the process of sifting rubble through sieves searching for shards of artefacts. The industry was punctuated by an occasional shout—some of them in Russian, a reminder that not all the effort on site was local.
‘The
