She picked up her paint brush and stabbed it into the yellow ocher. Dimitri gripped her arm just above the elbow to keep her from ruining the picture in her sudden pique.
“How much?” he demanded.
“You can’t buy it, Mitya.” She took pleasure in denying him. “It’s not for sale. And besides, I was going to give it to Katherine. I have enjoyed her company during this tedious voyage and—”
“Then what will you take for it?”
“Noth—” She paused with a jolt. He was serious. And if he wanted the picture that badly, she could probably ask him for anything and get it. “Why do you want it?”
“It is the best you have ever done,” he said simply.
She frowned. “That’s not the impression you gave when Katherine was here. ‘Is it so awful?’ ‘No, not at all,’” she mimicked, still annoyed by his bland answer.
“Name your price, Nastya.”
“I want to return to England.”
“Not at this time.”
“Then I want to choose my own husband.”
“You are too young to make such a decision. But I will allow you the right to refuse my choice, if your refusal is reasonable, which is more than Misha would have allowed you were he still alive.”
That was so true. Their older half-brother had hardly concerned himself with her and would have simply arranged her marriage, probably to someone she didn’t even know, one of his army cronies, no doubt. And what Dimitri was offering was more than she could have hoped for, even if they hadn’t been at odds over her indiscretions.
“But what if your idea of what is reasonable differs from mine?”
“Such as?”
“Too old or ugly or obnoxious.”
Dimitri smiled at her, for the first time in a long while with the old warmth he reserved just for her. “All reasonable objections.”
“Do you promise, Mitya?”
“I promise you will have a husband who will be acceptable to you.”
Anastasia smiled now, half in apology for her recent behavior, and half in delight. “The portrait is yours.”
“Good, but she’s not to see it, Nastya, not now and not when it’s finished.”
“But she’s expecting—”
“Tell her it was knocked over, the paint smeared, that it was ruined.”
“But why?”
“You have portrayed her not as she is but as she would like us to believe she is. And I don’t want her to know how superb her performance actually is.”
“Performance?”
“She’s no lady, Nastya.”
“Nonsense,” Anastasia protested with a short laugh. “I have spent time with her, Mitya. Are you suggesting I can’t tell the difference between a lady and a common peasant? Her father is an English earl. She is highly educated, more than any woman I know.”
“Nikolai and Konstantin are also well educated, as well as—”
“You think she’s a bastard like them?” Anastasia gasped in surprise.
