‘What?’ Daniil growled, glad he had asked his father about the letter now, rather than earlier in the evening. If they’d had this exchange then, the only speech he would have been capable of delivering would have been his statement to the police when they arrested him, such was the temptation to lash out.
Instead, he contained it.
He still had questions.
‘Why didn’t you give me this at the time?’ Daniil asked.
‘We didn’t want you raking up the past.’
‘It’s my past,’ he said. ‘You can’t take that from me. God knows, you’ve tried, though.’ A little of his temper unleashed. ‘Why did you give it to me now?’
‘I told Lindsey it might persuade you to come.’
Did Libby know?
It was irrelevant, Daniil knew. This letter had lain hidden in a desk for years. A few weeks made no difference; he just wasn’t thinking logically now.
He wanted out.
‘Will you answer one question?’ Daniil asked, and Richard gave a nod. ‘The letters I gave you to post to my brother—were they ever sent? I’d really appreciate the truth.’
Perhaps Richard knew it might well be the last time they came face-to-face, perhaps he accepted this man would never be his son because he tapped in the final nail.
‘They weren’t sent.’
‘Can I ask why?’
‘All the advice we got was that if you were to successfully integrate...’
‘No,’ Daniil said. ‘You disposed of the advice you were given and sought puppets who would tell you what you wanted to hear.’
‘You’d be on the streets without us, Daniel, or locked up. The temper you had—’
‘Richard,’ Daniil interrupted. He would never go through the farce of calling him Father again. ‘Otyebis ot menya.’
He told his father to get the hell away from him, though rather less politely than that, and then he told him, in Russian, to stay the hell away.
He could not stand to be in a room with him a moment longer. He wanted the door between himself and his family that Libby had alluded to, their privacy, but as he walked to the stairs, unable to resist, he tore open the letter. All he could see was that it wasn’t from Roman but Sev.
It said that he was in London for one day and could they meet?
The letter had been sent five years ago!
He saw the portrait of his so-called family on the turn of the stairs and felt like ripping the picture off the wall and putting his foot through it, or calling his pilot and leaving now, but then he remembered he’d told Libby to get some sleep and tearing her from her bed in some angry display didn’t appeal.
Instead, he walked out onto a balcony and watched the partygoers leave, staring out into the black countryside as he had done so many times growing up, and finally he took out the letter and read it properly.
Hey, shishka!
Daniil’s jaw still clenched when he read that name but there was a smile, too, at the memory and he read on painfully.
I met a woman who wanted me because I was Russian; she was hung up on a guy she once slept with—Daniel Thomas.
That didn’t sound very Russian to me and so I looked him up.
You’ve done well.
I am going to be in America for a month making some rich man richer but I will be in London on the twelfth of November. I don’t know where to suggest we meet, all I know there is a palace? Midday?
I hope my writing to you doesn’t cause you embarrassment.
Sev
There was nothing about Roman, or Nikolai, no hint about their lives, and he ached to know something, anything about the past he had been forced to leave behind.
He was, though, five years too late to find out.
He looked out at the sky that was black to match his mood.
There were no stars.
Despite the warmth of the day it was now one of those crisp nights that heralded the end of summer.
The end of them?
In the same selfish way that Daniil had wanted Libby here tonight he wanted to head back to his bedroom. He wanted it to be just the two of them and the uncomplicated world that was there, but he was more than aware of his own dark mood.
George’s comment was like a worm in his ear. He tried to shrug off his cousin’s words—he knew just how poisonous he could be—and yet, as always, there was an element of truth.
How long would Libby be happy for?
How much would he put her through before that perpetual smile disappeared from her face for good?
He had no experience with relationships, no hook to hang hope on, nothing to recall. There were vivid memories of yesteryear, and look how that had worked out.