Family Dinner

As Anya, her arm linked with Dimitri's, made her way down the stairs into the dining room, wearing the red gown displaying the image of the imperial eagle over her chest and torso, all eyes were on her.

All eyes were on her, and there was a good deal of whispering and murmuring, but the first persons with the gall to boisterously approach her were her cousins Prince Rostislav and Prince Vasili.

Spotting them when they were still a couple feet off, Dimitri quickly whispered, "Incoming: reason first cousins probably shouldn't marry so much in one family," into Anya's ear. "Not enough branches on this end of your family tree – just straight on up."

She wasn't in the least offended – Dimitri was right. And goodness did it show in this case! Anya had always thought Rostislav and Vasili reminded her a bit of Tweedledee and Tweedledum as children: Always together, always fighting and comically bopping one another over the head, usually because of a stupid disagreement. Even prim and proper Tatiana had agreed with Anastasia's assessment of the boys, these rough cousins of theirs, and had done as much to coin these Wonderland characters as their nicknames privately between OTMA as her youngest sister did.

If she weren't seeing it now with her own eyes, Anya would hardly have believed it was possible, but they reminded her even more of Lewis Carroll's creations as adults. They'd lost some of their roundness, to be sure, but that dull gleam in their eyes, the way they shared every thought – if you could call what went through their minds that – remained dead ringers.

Like a pair of schoolyard bullies, they blocked her way, declaring they knew Anastasia and she wasn't her.

"We were such good friends," Vasili said, his tone flat. "Playing together in the Crimea."

"Such good friends," echoed Rostislav, nodding repeatedly, as if he had a tick. "She did bite me once, though."

"I did not!" Anya burst out, all but stamping her foot, she was so indignant. "You little lying snipes – you only told Papa I did to get me in trouble, and he believed you."

The princes' mouths dropped open simultaneously and they stared at her, shell-shocked, for a second before throwing their arms around her in a gigantic clumsy hug that did little besides halt her breathing and wrinkle her dress.

"Anastasia," they cried together; "it really is you!"

In spite of herself, Anya felt tears flooding her eyes. She had never liked these boys, the worst two out of Aunt Xenia's six idiot sons, whom she and Maria used to actively hide from when they were visiting Livadia at the same time as them, but their reaction – their unrestrained joy at having her back – was moving all the same.

They were her family, and she had never thought to see them again, much less be embraced by them.

"You numskulls," growled the voice of a short, portly man appearing behind them, glaring at Anya. "Can't you see she's played you for a fool – look who she's with: the old kitchen boy they plucked from dish-duty to play with Alexei! He could have told her anything she needed to know about your shared childhood. And you two saps have fallen for it already."

The boys let go of Anya and examined her face more carefully, at one point so uncomfortably close their noses almost touched hers as they squinted.

Finally pulling away, Rostislav remained convinced she was their long-lost cousin. He said she resembled Anastasia exactly and they'd only been teasing – testing her, really – to be sure, and the fact that some old servant was escorting her didn't change that.

Taking an opposite view to his brother for the first time Anya had ever heard of, Vasili wasn't so convinced anymore. There was doubt flickering like a dying light-bulb in those usually blank eyes of his.

Dimitri opened his mouth to say something, probably to tell them off, but Anya decided to handle it herself. Holding up a gloved hand, she strode forward, almost giggling as she made eye-contact with the man who was chiding her cousins for welcoming her so enthusiastically.

"You're Count Leopold, aren't you?" she gasped. "I remember – you're just the same as before! Dyed hair, powdered face, and vodka breath!" Looking back at Dimitri, she added, "Don't you remember how my parents used to make fun of him behind his back?"

"Of course," laughed Dimitri, "and it's no wonder. Everybody did. Even the servants."

Going scarlet under his facial powder, Leopold retreated, muttering under his liquor-laced breath.

Aunt Olga, having heard the commotion and knowing it meant her niece had arrived, came over at last and took Anya's hand. "The worst is over, dear."

She doubted that, somewhat, as they were approaching Kulikovsky, and he didn't look any friendlier than the last time she'd seen him, back at the ballet.

Whatever Olga had said to him about Anya before tonight, however, must have pounded some grudging respect into him, even if it was only for his wife's opinion that this was in fact Anastasia Romanov standing before them. For, while he did not smile, he did nod his head slightly, almost in a sort of bow, and kiss her hand with cold politeness. The problem of how to address her he seemed to have solved for himself by simply not addressing her at all as they made their way to the long table in the center of the room.

Aunt Xenia, seated across from them at the table, flanked on either side by her sons, who'd settled down grimly, still evidently shaken from the experience of both having to use their brains maybe for the first time in their lives and from suddenly having opposite opinions rather than sharing a jolt mob mentality they'd always shared with each other and their other four brothers.

On the other side of Dimitri sat Felix Yusupov, Rostislav and Vasili's brother-in-law.

Yusupov seemed to recognize Anastasia right away, though they had actually known each other very sparingly back in the day, as rumors of his unsavory lifestyle had caused Alexandra to keep him well away from her precious, chaste girls.

Still, it was not impossible that he remembered her face and manner. He had once escorted her, when there was no one else to be had and Nicholas told his wife to allow it for the look of thing, during a parade. She had been fifteen at the time, and rather curious about him because he was engaged to Aunt Xenia's daughter. So they'd talked a bit after the ceremony. Her sisters had disproved. Maria was a little afraid of Felix, because of his reputation, and Tatiana suspected, wrongly, that Anastasia had developed a crush on him and threatened to tell Mama.

The moment Anya sat down, Yusupov actually leaned forward and winked at her, offering a friendly half-smile, as if to say: We both know you're Anastasia, don't we? Isn't this all so silly?

Xenia was friendly enough to her, more than many of the others, but Anya did think she caught a look of dark disapproval from this aunt when she noticed Dimitri holding her hand above the table between one of the dinner courses.

Anya wondered if it were possible that her aunt was jealous. She had heard rumors that Xenia's own marriage, originally having started out as a love match not unlike her own parents' union, recently went sour in a blaze of adulterous backstabbing that made the events of Anna Karenina seem like child's play in comparison.

Before dessert was brought out, Rostislav declared, "Anastasia, you must come to luncheon at my Paris residence sometime while you're here – I would love to introduce you to my wife and children. Bring along anyone you'd like." He looked at Dimitri when he said the last part, much to the passing – but obvious – disapproval of his mother.

It took Anya a full three minutes to realize her cousin was serious. That he actually did have a family and was offering to introduce her as Anastasia Romanov to them.

While she wondered what kind of madwoman would marry Rostislav – irregardless of the fact that he was technically a prince, and so his bride would hold the coveted title of princess, despite that it meant nothing politically these days – she also realized he was sincerely trying to be kind with this generous invitation.

"That would be lovely," she managed, finally, willing herself not to choke.

Anya was saved from having to say any more on the subject, or set an actual date for the promised luncheon, by Yusupov's deciding to take that exact moment to regale them all with a story about his cross-dressing adolescence.

"So, there I am, wearing my poor Mama's best string of pearls – this thing costs thousands of rubles – and prancing around in Petersburg's high society in a flowing dress, when all of a sudden, snap!" He lifted his hands above his head and clapped them together for dramatic effect. "The string breaks and these priceless pearls go scattering everywhere."

Aunt Xenia looked embarrassed, as if she couldn't believe her son-in-law had enough screws missing that he thought this was a good story to share in public, forcing a smile but meeting nobody's eyes throughout its telling.

Count Leopold's face had turned a frightful shade of puce; he was plainly disgusted by this turn in the conversation, as well as Yusupov's smug pride in telling a story that, to his mind, should have been a shameful family secret, at best, never an anecdote told at parties.

Everyone else seemed amused, including Dimitri, who was chuckling.

Although, Anya suspected her husband's amusement might have had something to do with the fact that Yusupov was telling the story entirely in Russian. Which, of course, meant Dimitri could follow it easier than many of the other discussions that had transpired at the table this evening, almost all of which had been in a mixture of French and English.

The latter, Anya knew, still gave Dimitri a great deal of trouble. He could manage pretty well now in French, which was only improving during this time spent in Paris; but his English remained rather terrible and even seemed to be getting a little worse. Particularly if a conversation involved words he'd never heard pronounced before and had only struggled in vain agony to read from one of Alexei's books before the revolution. It was a true testament to the overly simplistic language used in some of Auntie Olga's English Romance novels that he had somehow been able to read and understand those during his pubescence.

"So, my friends and I," Yusupov continued, "are crawling on the floor, trying to gather up all these pearls, getting stepped on by dozens of intoxicated aristocrats."

Anya actually remembered a little of this story as told by Tatiana and her mother. Their version was less humorous and more about Yusupov acting the fool in public, showcasing his gross immaturity.

"Did you find them all?" Vasili wanted to know.

"All but a few," Yusupov admitted. "But the proprietor knew who the pearls belonged to and returned them to my family when they were found a couple of nights later. But, Jesus Christ, was my father in a rankled twist over it!"

By the time Yusupov's story was finished, with his father having conniptions, everyone was done with their dessert and most people were beginning to leave the table.

A handful of relatives came over to kiss Anya's hand before departing as a sign of respect, but the others gave her little more than a skeptical glare before turning up their noses and fast-walking out of the dining room, muttering about how all this was 'pure nonsense'.

Leopold, rather than dash off with the others of his opinion, lingered in order to keep whispering something to Xenia, who shook her head and sighed repeatedly.

Anya suspected this aunt truly believed, as at least one of her sons still did, that she was Anastasia, regardless of how eager Leopold was to sway her opinion, yet was disapproving of her on some level.

The dark look on Xenia's face when she'd seen Dimitri holding her niece's hand came back to Anya's mind. She wondered if Dimitri had noticed that. In a way, she hoped he hadn't, not wanting him to be discouraged when all he'd done was be strong for her tonight.

At least Dimitri was getting along with Yusupov. The few times they'd met before the revolution, the pair hadn't liked each other much, having run in very different circles, but things were doubtless different now. Especially as they were both married to exiled Russian princesses descended from Alexander the third. They had at least that much in common in this new order of things. And Felix did have the added bonus of at least possessing enough brains for an intelligent conversation, unlike his brothers-in-law, God bless them.

All the same, Anya wanted to leave. She whispered this to Aunt Olga, who nodded, agreeing she had endured quite enough for one night.

"It was a success, though," she reassured her. "I know it mightn't seem like it now, but it was – even my husband was softening towards you by the second course, and I alone know how stubborn the man can be."

Anya laughed. "He can't possibly be as stubborn as Dimitri."

"You would be surprised, darling." Olga slipped her arm around her niece's shoulders, laughing along with her. "We Romanov women seem to have a taste for remarkably stubborn men. It can be a ghastly affliction, as well as delightful fun."

"Can you believe Rostislav invited me to luncheon?" Anya asked, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, Rostislav is a sweet young man these days, nothing like the devil of a child he once was, even if he doesn't have the brains the good Lord gave a wheel of cheese.

"And his children are lovely – you'd like them. Oh, how poor Mashka would have..." Here she let go of Anya's shoulders and turned away.

Anya had to blink back tears of her own at the thought of what Maria's reaction to Rostislav's children would have been. Her favorite sister would have loved any children, no matter who their father was. She'd always so badly longed for some of her own. A fervent wish that would never be fulfilled.

To distract herself, Anya declared that she and Dimitri would go and fetch their coats from the upstairs coatroom, snagging his arm and taking a step towards the stairs.

"Don't be silly, Anastasia," Yusupov – who had remained behind, perhaps hoping to persuade Anya and Dimitri to remain for dancing and vodka upstairs after the stuffy older generation had made their exits – cut in. "Neither of you need worry a thing about that; the ushers can get–" But something in her face must have told him that she wanted to fetch it herself, as a kind of break in the evening, even as it was ending. "Forgive me, I've misspoken. Of course you want to gather your belongings yourselves." He nodded over at Dimitri. "Have a good evening, my friend."


"That was excruciating," Anya whispered as they slid into the coatroom. "God, my heart feels like a humming bird's." She pressed her gloved hand to her chest, breathing shakily.

Dimitri nodded in agreement. His own head was spinning like a top, and he was fairly certain it wasn't because of the wine served with dessert.

Finding her fur-lined, brown-velvet coat, Anya tugged it off the high coat-hanger (she was a little short to reach it properly, to the point where Dimitri almost had to intervene and get it down for her, but she managed it in the end).

Getting his own coat, with little difficultly, Dimitri did his best to sum up the night in his woozy head. Most of the relatives were standoffish and not very friendly, apart from those poor, demented boneheaded boys of her Aunt Xenia's. Felix Yusupov was too friendly; yet Dimitri still felt somewhat endeared to the man despite this fact, and thus the obvious need for caution around him, largely because of how well he had treated Anya and how instantly he'd accepted her.

Her Aunt Olga's husband might be all right, after all; he hadn't been as insufferable tonight.

Leopold was a nightmare, but he was also a pompous fool. What could he do to them? Nothing except blither and glare judgmentally. No one cared anything for the fusty count.

Really, Leopold was a little bitty fish in a big pond playing at being massive enough to swallow Jonah whole after he ditched his mission to Nineveh. So, nyet, he was not the problem.

If anyone had particularly unnerved Dimitri tonight, it was probably Anastasia's Aunt Xenia herself. Something about the way she had looked at him when he squeezed her niece's hand was more than merely unfriendly. Beyond its clear anger, however, he could read little of it – that was what worried him the most, not knowing what she wanted of him or what he'd done to offend her.

"Come on," Anya sighed, snapping him out of his whirling thoughts. "I just want to go home and get into bed."

"When you say 'get into bed'," he teased, widening his eyes for dramatic effect, "do you mean sleep?" In his head, he added, Or...?

Giggling, Anya leaned forward and murmured, "Not right away. I might want to enjoy a bit of your company beforehand."

"Then what in blazes are we still doing here?" He motioned at the coatroom door excitedly. "Let's get moving."

"I thought you might see that way." She managed, despite her high heels teetering under her during the attempt, to stand on her toes and initiate a kiss.

Which, naturally, he responded to passionately before pulling away and finding himself face-to-face with a scowling Count Leopold. He nearly yelped aloud; the man was like a pop-up book from hell.

Why the count had elected to fetch his own coat rather than send for it, Dimitri hadn't the foggiest, unless it was – and he suspected this might indeed be the case – to spy on the 'Anastasia pretender' and perhaps catch her saying something incriminating that would prove she was not who she claimed to be.

"Such disgrace," the count was muttering, shaking his bulbous head. "Such shame, from one who says she is of our family."

Anya was struggling not to laugh, and Dimitri quickly figured out why. The count, old prude that he obviously was, must have not realized their relationship to each other.

To be fair, Dimitri himself had left it rather vague, not telling anyone directly tonight that Anya was his wife, though he had not removed his wedding ring nor done anything to conceal his right hand. But, of course, the corresponding ring on Anya's finger was covered by her glove, so it was understandable if a few people missed the connection there. He wondered briefly if Xenia had been one of those, but ultimately decided she was not. Something in that woman's gaze had told him she knew exactly what they were to each other, and that it mattered very little to her if they'd been joined in holy matrimony proceeding it or not. It was still unsavory to her regardless.

"Do lighten up, Leopold," Anya said finally, straightening her coat and taking Dimitri's hand, departing with a short eye-roll. "Or your face may just freeze like that and everybody will have a whole new reason to laugh at you."

Dimitri strongly suspected a story about their alleged misconduct in the coatroom would be circulated throughout the distant Romanov family branches over the next twelve hours. Probably collecting more sordid details with each member the tale passed through. By the time it got back to them, he imagined the single, fairly chaste (if fervent) kiss would have been forgotten, replaced by a lot of groping, petting, and moaning atop a pile of coats.

Great.


A couple of days after the strenuous family dinner, Dimitri happened to be alone in Sophie's house.

It was Mariette's day off, so she was doubtless shopping or visiting nearby relatives, many of whom also worked as household servants for exiled White Russians; Anya and Sophie had gone to help with a decorating committee for something called The Neva Club which Sophie insisted was a very good place for Anya to be seen and perhaps recognized; and Vlad was walking Toby in that park nearby his favorite doughnut dispensary (he wouldn't be back for a few hours).

Dimitri had decided to spend this unexpected free time taking a nap in the guestroom, but was woken early by the uncharacteristic yowling and begging of Sophie's cat.

Kiki was meowing loudly outside the door, scratching at it, and he quickly gathered she wanted to be fed and was demanding he – as the last living being in the house – do something about it.

"All right, Kiki," he muttered, stumbling out of bed in nothing but an undershirt and loose slacks, one sock on his left foot while the right was bare. "I'm getting up."

The cat stopped making noise when she heard him stir, following him silently down the hall, yet started up again once they reached the stairs.

"Kiki," he yawned, "it's the same set of stairs you go down every single day."

The cat whined, almost growling.

"And I suppose you expect me to carry you down it anyway?" She rubbed against his legs, and he bent down to pick her up. "Very nice." He sighed, scratching her ears as he began marching down the stairs with the spoiled cat in his arms. "You're getting as bad as Toby, you know that?" Her only response was a light purr.

He had nearly reached the kitchen, setting the cat down, when there was a knock at the door.

Without thinking, he strode back into the entranceway to answer it, despite Kiki beginning to yowl again, doubtless demanding to know where he was going without feeding her first.

Afterwards, looking back on that moment, he chided himself for being such an idiotka. Why hadn't he just ignored it? It wasn't his house. If he had only... Well, he didn't. He'd answered.

And there ended up being no turning back from that, or the resulting conversation because of that foolish choice.

There he stood, inappropriately – and insufficiently – dressed to receive company, and covered in cat hair (Kiki was currently shedding rather a lot), opening the door for none other than Xenia.

"Anya isn't..." he began, then cleared his throat, deciding not to use that name. "Anastasia isn't here, your highness." What do you want?

"Yes, I'm well aware," said Xenia, in a tone he took to be cold and calculating, though he still couldn't fully work out the reason for such iciness towards him. "I wanted to speak with you." She looked him up and down, finally meeting his eyes and arching a brow questioningly while fingering a jeweled handbag she kept clutched to her person as though she expected him to try and steal it. "If I haven't caught you at a bad time, as it seems – from the look of you – I very well might have." Her nose wrinkled. "Unless, of course, you always attire yourself this way when you receive visitors; I've grown unfamiliar with what's appropriate for your class since the revolution, it changes so often nowadays."

Shaking his head – deciding it wasn't worth it to acknowledge her condescension with a rebuttal or an offended facial expression – he opened the door a little wider, letting her inside.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said through his teeth, as graciously as he could under the circumstances. "I'll only be a minute upstairs."

Once he was dressed, he'd come back down and find out what she wanted.