Mother felt like he’d just watched one of those street performers who started with a handkerchief and somehow, while the audience was distracted, turned it into a rabbit.
It was glorious.
“I—yes,” Vasily said. He let out a shaky breath. “And I can stay permanently?”
“Of course,” Alexei said, “although your mother and I would appreciate a visit now and then.”
Vasily nodded, blinking rapidly, and he looked almost as stunned as Alexei.
Mother wanted nothing more than to pull him into his arms, hold him close, and soothe him with soft kisses—but of course, he couldn’t. Vasily’s father couldn’t know that he and Mother were anything more than friends.
His heart squeezed.
Vasily must have felt the same, casting him a glance that was pure longing. Then he straightened his spine and cleared his throat, and moving slowly, lifted their hands from his knee and set them still clasped on the table, trembling slightly. “You should know,” he said, and the tremor in his voice was probably undetectable to anyone except Mother, “that if you had any future plans to marry me off to a princess, you should put them aside.”
His father stared at their hands, slowly raising his head until he was looking Vasily in the eye. “What are you saying?”
Vasily held his gaze, unflinching, and said, “I’ve found someone I love, Father. Mother Jones is the man for me.”
Mother thought his heart might burst out of his chest, a mixture of pride and affection filling him to overflowing. Bolstered by Vasily’s courage, he lifted their hands and kissed Vasily’s knuckles in the ensuing silence.
“But…you are from Koroslova,” Alexei said slowly, his brow creased. “Men do not love men in Koroslova.”
Queen Irina swept around the table and planted a kiss on Vasily’s forehead, and then, to his shock, did the same to Mother. “But we are in Lilleforth, and so Vasily may love who he pleases,” she declared, shooting Alexei a look that dared him to argue.
Alexei looked from Vasily to Mother and back at where their hands were joined. “Two men. This makes no sense to me.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Vasily said, and Mother caught a glimpse of his nobility as he looked his father in the eye, unflinching.
Mother had never been prouder.
Alexei turned his attention to Mother. “And you, Mister Jones. You return Vasily’s feelings?”
He gave a sharp nod. “Aye,” he said roughly.
Alexei regarded him for a long moment. Mother held his gaze, barely daring to breathe, but prepared to challenge the king if it meant protecting Vasily’s—their—happiness.
The king heaved a sigh and threw his hands up in the air. “We have a saying in the Koroslovan army. What happens away, happens away. It means,” he added, “that what Vasily does while he is in Lilleforth is none of my business. And since he will be staying here permanently, I suppose he may do as he pleases.”
All the breath whooshed from Mother’s lungs, and a weight that he hadn’t known he’d been carrying disappeared, just like that.
It was hardly a ringing endorsement, but judging by the way Vasily’s face lit up with a smile, it was more than enough for him—and really, that was all that mattered.
Mother found himself blinking back a wet sheen, and he could barely swallow around the lump in his throat as what had just happened hit him.
Vasily wasstaying.
* * *
“Idon’t see why we had to stay for dessert,” Mother groused as they walked back to their cottage together, but there was no heat in his complaint.
Vasily laughed. “I’m sorry, but I’m the Koroslovan ambassador now. It would have been rude to leave.”
“That, and your mum wanted to talk to you, and she doesn’t strike me as a woman who takes no for an answer.”
Vasily grinned, reaching out and taking Mother’s hand. “She’s a force of nature but a well-mannered one. She’s a…” He paused in thought. “A very heavy thing wrapped in a very soft thing?”
“A cudgel in a wool blanket?” Mother suggested.
