‘I...’ She swallowed down the rest of her answer but he didn’t need it. Her hesitation, the way her eyes dodged away from his, told their own story. If he followed this path any longer he was no better—in fact, worse—than her father. He would be using her for his own ends, keeping her a prisoner when she wanted so desperately to fly free.
‘I can’t ask this of you.’
‘You didn’t ask,’ Ria flung at him. ‘You commanded.’
Was that weak, shaken voice really her own? Once again she had retreated behind false flippancy to disguise the way she was really feeling. The way that her life, the future she had thought was hers, had crumbled around her, the dreams she had just allowed herself to let into her mind evaporating in the blink of an eye. But she had let them linger for a moment and the bite of loss was all the more agonising because of that.
Reject that! Please. Argue with me, she begged him in her thoughts. But Alexei was nodding his head, taking her word as truth.
‘And you had no choice but to agree. Well, I’m giving you that choice now. I never should have asked you to marry me. I don’t need you to validate my position as king. The engagement is off—it should never have happened. You’re free to go.’
‘Free...’
The room swung round her violently, her eyes blurring, her breath escaping in a wild, shaken gasp. If this was freedom then she wanted none of it.
‘Tonight? Right here and now?’
How did he manage to make the most appalling things sound as if he was giving her exactly what she wanted? Their eyes came together, burnished black clashing with clouded jade, and the ruthless conviction in his totally defeated her. She was dismissed, discarded, just like that.
‘But what about...?’
In the hallway the gong sounded once again, summoning them. The sound made Alexei shake his head, his eyes closing briefly.
‘How could I have been so bloody stupid?’ He groaned. ‘I’m sorry, Ria. I had meant to talk to you after the ball, but...’ His eyes dropped to the photograph of Belle he still held in his hand. ‘Things knocked me off-balance. Now everyone is here.’
‘Why?’
It was the one thing she could hold on to. The one thing that had registered in the storm of misery that assailed her. Alexei had decided that he didn’t need to marry her—that he didn’t want to marry her. He didn’t want her. And there was no way she could fight back against that.
‘Sorry for what?’ Somehow she forced herself to ask it. ‘Why did you plan to tell me after the ball?’
His expression was almost gentle and if it hadn’t been for the bleakness of his eyes she might almost have believed that he was the Alexei of ten years before. The Alexei she had first fallen in love with.
‘Because it was your dream,’ he stated flatly. ‘You always wanted to attend the Black and White Ball.’ Just for a second, shockingly, the corner of his mouth quirked up into something that was almost a smile. ‘You even trained for long hours with Madam Herone just for it. I wanted this to be for you.’
‘But the engagement?’ She didn’t know how she had found the strength to speak. She wasn’t even sure how she was managing to stay upright, except that she couldn’t give in. She couldn’t just collapse into the pathetic, despondent little heap that she felt she had become since he had declared he no longer wanted to marry her.
‘After the ball, we would announce that you had changed your mind about marrying me.’
That she had changed her mind. He had thought of everything. But at least he would have left her with some pride by making it seem that she was the one who had ended their relationship. Not that she had been jilted, as she had just been. And for years he had remembered how much she had wanted to go to the ball, and had planned to give her that at least.
It wasn’t much, not compared with the lifetime, the love, she had dreamed of. But it was all she was going to get. And, weak and foolish as she was, she knew in her heart that she was going to reach for it. For one last evening with Alexei. For one last night, this Cinderella was going to the ball with the man she loved.
Drawing on every ounce of her strength, she straightened her spine.
‘You’ve obviously thought it all through. We’ll do that, then.’ She hoped she sounded calm, convincing. If he was giving her her freedom, then she could give him his. She wouldn’t beg or cling. If her father had ever taught her anything worthwhile then it was dignity, even in defeat.
Below them they heard the third and final sound of the gong that preceded their arrival in the ballroom. It was now or never.
‘Let’s go.’
The journey down the wide, sweeping stairs seemed to take a lifetime. Alexei had offered her his arm for support and she managed to force herself to take it, knowing that the stinging film of tears she would not allow herself to shed blurred her vision and made her steps uncertain without his support. And if just having this one last chance to touch him, to hold on to his strength, was a personal indulgence, then that was her private business. An indulgence that she was never going to admit to anyone but keep hidden in the secrecy of her thoughts, stored up against the time when this was no longer possible and memories of how it had felt to be so close to him, to look into his beloved face, were all she had left.
At the bottom of the staircase the Lord Chamberlain was waiting, saying nothing, but the look of carefully controlled concern on his face told them that the world of ceremony and court appearances had already been delayed for long enough.
‘Sir...’
Alexei’s hand came up, commanding silence.
‘I know. We’re coming.’
Reaching out, he took Ria’s fingers again, folding his own around them as he nodded his head in the direction of the huge doors to the ballroom. The glittering chandeliers and gold-decorated walls were hidden behind the huge double doors, but the buzz of a thousand conversations, the sound of so many feet moving on the polished floor, gave away the fact that their arrival was expected and waited for with huge anticipation.
‘Duty calls. Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ he murmured.
‘Do we have any choice? Right now Mecjoria is what matters,’ she managed to assure him, keeping her head high, her eyes now wide and dry.
‘Then let’s do this.’
They took a step forward, another. Two footmen stepped forward to take hold of the large metal handles, one on each side of the door.
And then, totally unexpectedly, Alexei stopped, looked straight into her face.
‘You really are a queen,’ he told her, low, husky and intent.
It was meant as a compliment, she knew, and her smile in reply was slow and tinged with the regret that was eating her alive.
‘Just not your queen,’ she managed, wishing that it was not the truth and knowing that all the wishing in the world would never ease away the agony of loss that was tearing her up inside.
As she spoke the big doors swung open and the buzz of talk and noise rose to a crescendo of excitement. Alexei took her hand in his as they walked forward into the ballroom, putting on the act of the fairy-tale couple for one last time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
UNDER ANY OTHER circumstances, it would have been a magical night.
Everything that Ria had ever imagined or dreamed about the Black and White Ball had come true, and most of it had been beyond her wildest imaginings. The huge ballroom was beautifully decorated, the lights from a dozen brilliant crystal chandeliers sparkling over the array of elegant men and women, all dressed, as the convention for the night demanded, in the most stylish variations on the purely monochrome theme of dress. They might be confined to black and white but the fabulous couture gowns, the brilliant jewels and, most of all, the stunningly decorated masks meant that everyone looked so different, so amazing, creating a stunning image in the room as a whole. One that was reflected over and over in the huge mirrored walls.
There was food and wine, glorious, delicious food for all she knew. But none of it passed her lips, and she barely drank a thing. She was strung tight as a wire on the atmosphere, the sensations of actually being here, like this. With Alexei. But at the same time those sensations were sharpened devastatingly by the terrible undercurrent of powerful emotion, the icy burn of pain that came from knowing that the man beside her was the love of her life, her reason for breathing, but that when this night was over he was expecting her to go, walk out of his life for ever.