Evgeni had turned to the table, but he paused, turned back to her. “Do not begrudge him that, if he wants it. Especially today. It would have been his wedding day.”
Was that why Evgeni had looked so muted this morning? Why hadn’t he said something?
All right, she knew why. She was the one who had taken that from his brother. Why would she be the one he spoke to about it? Even so, the realization that he’d been mourning that today and kept it to himself made her go prickly.
She sneered. “I’m sure he could replace her easily enough. If the mothers are any indication, the daughters would be happy to accept the handcuffs and bow to his patriarchal authority. None of them would dream of stepping outside expectations—just like Alyona.”
His jaw ticked. She’d seen it before, but never directed at her. “You know, for someone who speaks so much about equality, you are quick to take the chance for it from those you don’t agree with. Alyona was a sweet girl who did the best she could with the life she was given. Who knows what she may have done later if her life hadn’t been sacrificed?”
Nadya leaned toward him. Tapped a finger to his chest. “You sound as though you . . . liked her. Alyona.”
He didn’t so much as flinch. “She was like a sister to me. Would have been a sister to me, as of today. And it isn’t right what was done to her. She shouldn’t have paid the price for my brother’s opinions.”
Had he been blaming her for that all this time? “Oh, don’t start with all the morality nonsense. I thought you were above such sentiments. What’s right is what works—”
“And it didn’t.” He spun away. “Her death was senseless and ineffectual. All it accomplished was driving my brother here. She should have been one of the people you fight for, Nadya. One of the women who deserves a chance at more from life. But she was denied that.”
“Sacrifices have to be made sometimes.” Nadya straightened her spine, planted her hands on her hips.
“I know. But how do we keep from becoming just like the tyrants, then? Isn’t that the same thing they always said, when we were dying on the front lines?” He stopped at the window, staring down at the street below, as if looking out where strangers walked would make clear all the mysteries of humanity.
Didn’t he remember that they’d already made sense of it? “The difference is that we’re not serving just ourselves—we’re serving everyone.”
“Everyone but those we don’t like or agree with, you mean.” He leaned his shoulder against the peeling wallpaper by the window frame.
She eased up behind him, the question scorching her tongue. Fear of the answer scorching her heart. “Are you doubting the party, Evgeni? Doubting all we stand for, all we’ve been working for?”
“No.” He turned enough to look at her. And somehow, his eyes were clear. Easy. “But Batya used to say that the difference between a wise man and a fool was not that the wise man was right and the fool wrong—but that the fool always assumed himself right, and the wise man would wonder if he could be wrong. We cannot learn from our mistakes and grow wiser if we never admit to the times we’ve chosen the wrong path.”
Chosen it. She frowned, the grocer’s daughter’s outrage over the tin kingdom sneaking back into her mind. He’d argued against Claire’s objections, but here he was, condemning those in command for taking Alyona’s choices from her. But it was different, wasn’t it, when you tried to protect, rather than destroy?
“Sometimes you confuse me.” She tilted her head, studying him. “I think I know you, know your views, and then you defend someone whose beliefs are vastly opposed to yours.”
He studied her right back. “We are more than just our views, Nadya. At least, I certainly hope so. Otherwise, if we are ever convinced of a new thing, it means our entire person changes.” And maybe that was why he still loved his brother so fiercely, even knowing they’d never see eye to eye. “Disagreeing with someone shouldn’t mean I think they have no right to live, to work, to be given a chance for happiness.”
She lifted her chin. “Even when they would take that chance from you?”
His grin battered down a few of her blocks of anger. “Especially then. We cannot prove ourselves better than our enemies by denying them what they denied us, but only by giving them what they denied us.”
For a long moment, she simply stared at him. These certainly weren’t ideas he’d picked up in Russia. They weren’t ideas she’d ever really heard offered as a reasonable way to live. They were ideas she should have scoffed at as being utterly impossible.
And yet, as she saw the light smoldering in his eyes, they didn’t seem so impossible at all. “I think . . .” She leaned against the wall on the other side of the window, her gaze never leaving his. “I think I like your version of equality. It’s dangerous. But then, the best things usually are.”
He reached out and trailed his fingers down her arm. “Very true. And in the spirit of that, here’s another truth you may find dangerous. I love you.”
She jerked. She couldn’t help it. But she didn’t bolt for the door as she probably would have done a few months ago. “Are you trying to shackle me?”
He breathed a laugh, shook his head. “Who said love had to be shackles? I’m not trying to hold you anywhere, force you to do anything. This is a gift to you, Nadya. I give it freely. I demand nothing in return. You can love me or you can not. You can stay with me or you can go. Either way, I will love you. I will love the very spirit that may insist you run far and fast.” He caressed her fingers but didn’t grip them. Instead, he held his hand beside hers, palm up. “But I hope, of course. I hope you’ll stay. I hope you’ll accept my love—not as a prison trying to make you be something you don’t want to be. But as . . . wings. To help you reach whatever heights you strive for.”
She could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t sure she believed him. Or trusted him enough to take that kind of gamble. Because whatever words he might say, the fact was still that love—committing to love, anyway—did put demands on a person. It demanded one think of the other, not just oneself. It demanded one think of the other above oneself. It demanded one work through the problems instead of choosing the easy way out and leaving when life got difficult.
And life would always get difficult. Every Russian knew that.
Did she dare take that kind of gamble on anyone?
She didn’t know. So, instead of answering with words, she eased closer, stretched up, kissed him. It would have to be enough for now that she wanted to be with him. That she wanted to live at his side when they got home. That was all she could offer.
Perhaps he read her mind. When finally she pulled away, his gaze went to the table, his hand reaching out a moment later. “Where was the passport?”
“Under a floorboard. Clearly he wanted no one to find it.”
Evgeni’s brows pinched together as he opened it. “The photograph is missing.”
She waved a hand. “That hardly matters, does it? You don’t need to use this as identification anymore.”
“No, not the one of me. The photo of the officers that the Prussian gave me. Zivon must have taken it out.” His eyes darkened. “Would he have given it to them, do you think? The British?”