Hunted(73)

Yeva’s smile came out in response, and she chuckled. “You know me too well.”

“Well, you are to be my wife,” Solmir replied, the grin softening and easing away. “I should know you well.”

Yeva’s throat tightened. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”

“The baron’s told me in confidence that I will be his heir.” Solmir said it without much surprise, or pleasure, and Yeva could see the grief there. The baron was dying, and Solmir truly did care for him—far more than for the riches he would inherit. “He wants me to marry before he announces it publicly. He feels the people will be most comfortable if the new baron is taking steps to produce an heir, so that this period of uncertainty won’t repeat itself.”

Though the words were mercenary, even callous, Solmir’s hollow voice said everything Yeva needed to know in order to be finally, utterly certain that she was right.

“Solmir,” she blurted, “I know you’re in love with Asenka.”

Solmir’s face froze, then drained of color as his lips thinned. “I’m not—that isn’t what—I won’t sit here and . . .”

Yeva wouldn’t look away, though he squirmed under her gaze like a schoolboy being taken to task for misbehavior. “Solmir, I’m glad. I’m glad, you understand? I want you to marry her.”

Solmir’s face tightened further, and his voice was strained. “Yeva, I made a promise to you.”

“And I to you.” Yeva got to her feet and crossed to the mantel. “But why hold to a promise that benefits no one?”

Solmir’s expression flickered, the boyishness peeking through his newfound gravity, before he shook his head and looked down. “It doesn’t matter.”

Yeva felt a flicker of annoyance. Asenka and Solmir were both so determined to be miserable—she shouldn’t have to fight this hard to make them see she wanted no part of standing between them. “If it doesn’t matter to you, then it certainly matters to me. I have no interest in being married to a man who’s in love with my sister.”

“I love you,” Solmir said fiercely, as if he could make it so by saying the words with enough force behind them.

Yeva took his hand. “And I love you.” She leaned forward, rising on her toes enough to press her lips to his cheek. “And want nothing more than to call you brother.”

Solmir’s face crumpled, and he pulled back, striding from the fireplace and shoving both hands into his hair. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “It doesn’t matter, because she won’t have me.”

Yeva stopped short. “What?”

“I asked her.” Solmir turned, and Yeva could see guilt in every line of his face. “I asked her to marry me, months ago, when we believed—” His voice caught.

“When you believed I was dead,” Yeva whispered.

Solmir nodded wordlessly.

“And she refused?”

Solmir cleared his throat, then cleared it again when the words still wouldn’t come. “She told me she wouldn’t marry me because she knew you were alive, and that you’d come back to us, and she wouldn’t betray you.”

Yeva’s eyes closed, heart swelling. She didn’t know whether she wanted to throw her arms around her sister or pinch her for being so stubborn. “You must ask her again.”

Solmir glanced at Yeva, face agonized, so moved by feeling that Yeva almost felt music in it. “I couldn’t bear to hear her refuse me a second time.”

“Solmir,” Yeva said gently. “Ask her again.”

That night Lena threw an elaborate dinner, conspiring with the cook to create a feast far beyond anything they’d eaten before, even at the height of their father’s wealth. Though she said it was to celebrate Asenka’s engagement to Solmir, Yeva suspected it was in no small part an attempt to keep her there. She’d promised Lena she would only stay this last night, but it was obvious they would be having the exact same argument all over again in the morning.

As it turned out, Lena was not the one she’d have to fight. Asenka and Solmir barely seemed to notice the rest of the family, or indeed the food. Solmir stared at her so dreamily that at one point he put his elbow into his bowl, and only noticed when soup soaked through his coat and burned his skin. And Asenka sat still as a statue, barely eating, flushing beet red each time she glanced up to meet his dreamy stare.

It was at the end of the meal, when Yeva was offering the last of her stew to Doe-Eyes under the table, that Asenka finally drew a breath and broke away from Solmir’s gaze. “We’re to be married in a week,” she said, interrupting a conversation about the spring planting to come after winter’s end.

Yeva started. She couldn’t think when they’d had time to decide upon the date, but there they were, Solmir nodding eagerly and Asenka beaming down the length of the table at her.

“The baron wants a swift marriage,” Asenka went on hurriedly, “so he can announce Solmir as his heir. Otherwise we wouldn’t be so hasty.”

“There’s no need to explain,” said Yeva, feeling a warmth inside her that hadn’t come from the stew.

“We all know why you’re pushing for a swift wedding,” Radak added, laughing and earning an elbow in the ribs from his wife.