A/N: So (unless I'm forgetting one), this is only the second chapter in this entire story thus far to consist of a single, uninterrupted scene. The other one, The Last Inspection In Tobolsk didn't seem to bother readers, so I'm assuming this one being a single, long-running scene (hopefully) won't be an annoyance to anybody, either. Sorry if it is.

An Unfortunate Agreement

After dressing properly and returning to the parlor, where Xenia waited impatiently, Dimitri still didn't find out what she wanted straightaway, as she insisted he fix some tea for her visit, since Mariette was not there to do it.

When he hesitated, having fallen slightly out of his former practice of springing into action every time a Romanov wanted something in the nine years he spent without any of them in proximity, she remarked, "I trust you haven't forgotten how?"

"No," he said, unable to stop his eyes from narrowing. "I haven't forgotten anything."

"Good," she simpered condescendingly, tucking one of her ankles behind the other and draping her elbow over the sofa's armrest. "That will make what I have to say much easier, I hope."

If this woman were anyone but Anastasia's aunt and Nicholas' sister, talking to him like this, Dimitri would have made the tea and then promptly dumped it into her lap.

But he couldn't disrespect his wife or the memory of the tsar in that way, so he had no choice but to grin like an ax-murderer and bear it.

He brought out the tea service and placed it on the small coffee table in front of her.

"Only one spoonful of sugar, if you please," Xenia said. "And pray don't pour too much milk in – I hate it when servants overfill and I can't even lift the teacup to my lips without spilling scalding tea all over my hands."

"Of course," he said through his teeth, finally getting it – at least marginally – to her satisfaction and given leave to sit down and pour tea for himself. "Now, what did you need to speak to me about?"

"I feel, Dimitri, you and I need to reach an understanding." She took an aggravatingly long sip of her tea. "Things cannot just go on as they have been, not if you want my niece to take her place among her family. You understand what I mean, yes?"

"I'm not sure I do," he admitted, too puzzled to be cross at her continued condescension.

"Really..." Xenia rolled her eyes. "Nicky always made it seem like you were clever – perhaps he overestimated your mental abilities, or else you've gotten lax since those days."

Couldn't she just say what she meant already? Did she think Dimitri had all the time in the world, or – more likely – that she did and his time didn't matter?

"It's come to my attention – and was confirmed to me by my sister – that you and my niece are living as a married couple."

"We are a married couple."

"Do you have any proof of this alleged marriage?"

Dimitri held up his right hand, showing her his wedding ring.

"Well, that's very nice, but I meant papers, or pictures," she explained, getting, as she plainly expected, a shake of his head. "No? Not one single photograph? Ah, well, I thought as much."

"We were properly married," Dimitri insisted, "by a Russian Orthodox priest. You'll have to forgive me for being more concerned about not letting the Bolsheviks plug your niece full of bullets again than paperwork."

"Truly noble of you, and we are grateful you managed to bring her here in one piece," Xenia said, raising her brow. "But the point remains: you have no proof. The only person, besides the two of you, who could ever claim such a wedding took place would be the priest himself? If he is still alive?"

Dimitri felt his blood run cold; this conversation was taking an uncomfortable turn, and he wasn't liking where it was headed. He hadn't known any of the witnesses to their marriage, or whether or not the Bolsheviks had let them go free. "I suppose."

"I am prepared," Xenia said next, "to offer you the sum of ten million rubles."

"As a wedding present?" He had finally worked out what she was getting at, and he refused to make it easy. "How generous. But, you know, you could have just gotten us a toaster."

"As payment for finding my niece – a kind of reward." Her eyes darkened, and he suspected she knew he was playing stupid on purpose. "Provided, of course, that you leave Paris before my niece is officially introduced back into society as Anastasia Romanov." She took out a cigarette, struck a match, and lit it, bringing it to her lips and inhaling deeply. "Olga is giving her a coming out ball of sorts next week – she wanted it to be a surprise, but here we are." She untucked and re-tucked her ankle, taking another long drag on her cigarette. "If you take the money, I expect you not to escort Anastasia to this ball and to be headed out of Paris by the end of that night."

"Have I done something to offend you?" Dimitri demanded, his voice dangerously low, no longer playing around or able to hide the hurt he was feeling because of this all-too-obvious bribe. "Is that why you're being so cruel?"

"Am I being cruel?" Xenia replied coyly. "I hadn't realized. I thought I had just offered you a lavish amount of money."

Snorting in disgust, Dimitri snapped, "And you thought I'd take it?"

"Won't you?"

"Never!" he all but spat.

"And why not?"

"How can you ask me that?" he exclaimed, incredulous. "You want me to leave my wife – for money." Exactly what kind of lowlife did she take him for?

"Honestly, Dimitri, think," Xenia urged him, keeping her voice as dispassionate as possible to counter his vehement fury. "You had no rights to her in the first place – she is a grand duchess, you were a servant, now just a glorified peasant; just Comrade Dimitri."

"That doesn't matter anymore."

"Doesn't it?" she asked pointedly. "Perhaps not in Russia, but here, among her royal family, it certainly should matter to you." She flicked dripping ash from her cigarette into a crystal ashtray. "Are you aware that Anastasia herself was well-received at dinner two days ago, that it was you the family took issue with?"

Dimitri was flabbergasted. "Me?"

"Well, naturally. You must have realized they disapproved of a servant acting so high above his station. Many of them had met you in your former position at least once, visiting my brother. They knew who you were.

"Vouching for her, that helped her case – lingering with her, attempting to pass for a prince, does not."

He in no way had pretended to be anything he wasn't – this wasn't like his cons with Irina in Russia; this had been honest, for Anya's sake. And somehow he'd still messed it up. How bloody like him.

But surely Xenia was merely being a snob? Exaggerating? He knew for a fact that at least two people present at that dinner had not minded him.

Maybe even four.

Xenia's own sons had seemed unaffected by the knowledge he'd been a servant, save for Vasili's skepticism planted in his empty head by Leopold regarding what useful tidbits Dimitri might have told Anya to make her seem more like Anastasia. Then again, he wasn't sure if Xenia's sons would be affected by a full-on earth quake in the middle of dinner; if such would even induce them to put down their forks for a moment. They were hardly the pair to make his case with.

Olga and Yusupov, then.

"Your sister didn't seem offended by my presence."

Xenia made a tisking sound. "Again, I expected more from you, Dimitri. Use that mind of yours, if you've still got one." She put out the stub of her cigarette; it made a light sizzle. "Olga is a romantic-minded woman who has always had a soft spot for her favorite niece's wants. She felt from the start Alexandra did not give enough to her youngest child, especially, and would – to make up for it – let her godchild have anything she wanted, if it was in her power. And if what Anastasia wants now is you, well, certainly Olga means to give her her own way."

And what was so wrong with that? Dimitri wondered. Didn't Anastasia deserve to be happy after losing everything? Why did her family need to harp so on the source of that happiness? Couldn't they just be glad to have her back and simply do their best to put up with him in exchange for that miracle? For Anastasia, he would have put up with anything. Why wouldn't they?

"But Olga," Xenia went on, "has only the standing in the family – not the finances. She is poorer than she lets on, and it's her paintings – which are actually remarkably good, you may recall she used to teach all of her nieces to paint, including my own daughter, though she never showed much talent for it; Felix certainly didn't marry her for her artistic abilities – that keep her and her husband in their lavish hotels. And only just barely.

"She can put Anastasia forward, she can have the family throw her a ball, but she cannot support her beyond that.

"That task falls upon me, and that is little obstacle for Anastasia, as I will gladly support my own blood." She stared at him long and hard. "That does not include you."

"Yet," Dimitri argued, "you're offering me ten million rubles."

"Only to be rid of you, and to thank you for your years of service to my brother, and for bringing my niece home." She spoke now as if she was speaking to an imbecile. "That is not an annual income, and I will hear no more about it following payment – part of our agreement will be that you never attempt to contact us again."

"There will be no agreement," Dimitri insisted.

"Oh, I think there will be," she said. "You haven't any supporters in this matter you can count on. You shall have to see it my way in the end."

"Felix," he tried next. "He didn't take issue with me."

"My son-in-law is an attention seeker – he would vouch for Lenin himself if the man laughed at his jokes and smiled charmingly at him at dinner." She shrugged. "So what if Felix likes you? He could shout your praises from the top of the Eiffel Tower and it wouldn't change a thing. He is also frivolous; he will forget you quickly."

"Anastasia is my wife – I could never abandon her."

"If only you'd had common sense, poor boy," Xenia remarked. "Marrying her to get her out of the country wasn't your mistake, acting on that marriage was. You should have understood any such union would need to be annulled eventually – that the woman you married as a commoner in Russia wasn't yours to keep after you brought her forward as a princess."

"And, by this, you're saying...?"

"I'm saying it's plain to everyone who looks at you together for longer than five seconds that you've been intimate. The union was consummated, do you deny that?"

In other circumstances, he might have blushed, or fumbled with his words, but he was so damned angry that he simply didn't bother being embarrassed. He'd been with his wife; there was no sin in that.

"Nyet," he confirmed, looking her right in the eyes when he said it. "I don't deny it." Not that it was any of her business.

"All the more reason to get you out of the picture – the fewer people who can work that out, the better." Xenia grimaced. "Leopold is already telling people you were taking improper liberties with her in the coatroom and she was wantonly allowing it." Her hands suddenly shook rather violently, the first sign of genuine emotion she'd shown since arriving. "The fat, power-faced, gossiping boar! Can't keep his ever-running mouth shut to save his life, let alone the family reputation."

"You're wasting your time." Exhaling heavily, Dimitri added, more vulnerably than he meant to, "Why are you so convinced I'm bad for Anastasia?"

Without a word, Xenia leaned forward and dropped her teacup on the floor, spilling the remaining liquid and severing the handle from the rest of the cup.

Thoughtlessly, Dimitri swooped down to clean up the mess. When he glanced back up at her, one eyebrow was arched and her hands were suddenly still again, no longer shaking.

"That's why," she said quietly, staring down at him huddled on the floor picking up the broken china pieces and wiping at the carpet.

"She needs me." He stood up, straightening himself. "She has...after what happened..." How to explain her nightmares, how they needed each other for comfort because of their shared loss? It was so vexing, this effort; the words wouldn't finish forming.

"And have her problems gotten better or worse since coming here?"

"Better," he admitted, grudgingly.

"And yours?"

His lips sealed themselves tight. He wouldn't tell this woman, so obviously trying to trap him, that his own nightmares had only increased, probably from stress, as of late. Only Anya, who could console him without a word, simply by rolling over in bed and touching him, reminding him she was there, needed to know about that. They'd never even told Vlad and Sophie.

But it was as if Xenia could read his mind. "I thought so." Pursing her own lips, she added, "Seems to me, you need her more than she needs you."

"You have no right," he began.

"Listen, young man, I didn't want it to come to this," Xenia warned him, "but when the carrot is ineffective, one must resort to the stick. I have other means of changing your mind."

"Do you now?" Dimitri wandered over to the unlit fireplace and rested his elbows on the mantelpiece. His head was throbbing, reaching up, he dug the center of his thumb into his left temple, rubbing hard.

"Tell me," she said slowly, "if I were to make some inquires, about your former life in Russia, would I by any chance find written or public record of your marriage, not to my niece, but rather to one Irina Alexandrovna – a harlot turned innkeeper?"

Blanching, he looked up, mouth agape.

Despite the fact that his marriage to Irina had been a farce, there were papers, namely his own forgeries. The very ones Irina had shown Anya. He'd made them convincing, and in so doing might have just damned himself.

Xenia did not have those documents and pictures, but given a few weeks and finding a way to contact Irina, Dimitri had no doubts that the woman he'd lived with for seven years would unhesitatingly sell them to this Romanov and even offer to testify that she had been his lawful wife. She'd do anything to get money in her pockets; or, better still, out of Russia. Of this, he had no doubt. In some ways he knew Irina as well as if he had been her husband.

Worse, Irina's father was still alive. If Xenia got in touch with him...

He shuddered to think of the smear campaign that would follow. It would be directed at himself at first, then spill over to Anya.

Anya might, when the debacle was finally over, have lost everything. Her Aunt Olga might stand by her, no matter what, but what of the other members of her family? Even Yusupov might see it as too big a scandal to attach himself to: a woman claiming to be Anastasia Romanov, the cousin of his wife, living in sin with a married man who'd left a jilted wife languishing in a hostel in communist Russia?

Anya would never give him up, even in the face of the vilest attack, no matter how much it could hurt her claim. Dimitri knew this, also.

And so did Xenia.

"You're blackmailing me," he said flatly.

"That'll be the stick."

"And if I say it's not enough?"

"You worked at a brothel for a short time, did you not?"

"As a cook's assistant."

"And I take it your Irina was employed there as well?"

"She's not 'my Irina'," he hissed.

"Do you think, provided I find this Irina woman, she would paint an upstanding image of your time there? Who knows? She might even say you were dismissed from employment there after being caught in a compromising position with yet another prostitute."

"I was dismissed because it was a temporary job and my time was up, no other reason."

"Perhaps that is true," she agreed. "I believe you, actually, for the little it will matter. But the question you must ask yourself, Dimitri, is this: Will it matter very much, if I have witnesses who are prepared to say otherwise? Who will the other Romanovs – let alone the public masses – believe? I got this information, this surface knowledge that's making you look so very pale as we speak, after only two days. How much more do you think I can dig up if you don't cooperate with me?"

He slumped back against the mantelpiece. Now what? "You win," he murmured, after a long, dark pause. "I'll leave her."

"I'll still give you the ten million, of course," Xenia reminded him. "You'll have lost nothing."

Nothing except Anya. "I don't want your money."

"What do you want, then?"

"Unfortunately, nothing you can give."

Xenia became sympathetic again. "You still believe I'm being cruel, but I'm not – I'm encouraging you to do what's best for Anastasia."

So blackmailing had turned into 'encouraging', had it? Full of contempt, his bloodshot brown eyes met her cold blue ones. Was she seriously trying to alleviate her conscience now?

"Nicky was cruel," she sighed. "He never should have taken you from the kitchens in the Catherine Palace – think of all you'd have been spared if he'd simply left you in your rightful place."

Gritting his teeth, Dimitri growled, "I have two conditions."

"Oh?"

"Firstly, Anastasia will be taken care of," he insisted, no-nonsense. "I promised Alexei, a long time ago, that I'd take care of her – if you break that promise for me, I will come back and find you."

"Done." She didn't even blink. "She is my niece; I never intended not to provide for her. But, remember, Dimitri, you will have no further contact with any living Romanov, so long as she is adequately looked after by us."

He felt as if he'd just taken a bayonet to the stomach. Closing his eyes, he whispered, "Agreed."

"You said two conditions."

He opened his eyes. "You will never tell her I didn't take the money you offered."

This plainly puzzled her. "Why on earth not?"

"Because," he said distantly, already lost. Xenia had just done what even nearly a decade in Soviet Russia, living an absurd charade day in and day out, hadn't succeed in; she'd finally broken him. "Just because."

"You seem in an unfit state to see me to the door," Xenia declared, gathering up her purse and clutching it to herself again as she rose from the sofa. "I'll show myself out, shall I?"

Dimitri didn't answer, leaving the manner of Xenia's exit entirely up to her.

He was too busy thinking of the other answer, the one he also had not given when she asked.

Because, if Anya knows I didn't accept your bribe, that I do this unwillingly, she'll come looking for me.