Choose Me
Having tasted such dizzying heights, everything about her was in disarray—her hair, her clothes, even her reason itself. Anastasia’s body swayed as if she were drunk. Mikhail laughed and drew her waist into his arms. He took her hand and guided it.
“……!”
Anastasia’s eyes, wide with shock, flew to his face.
“Anastasia, do you remember well the things I taught you?”
“…….”
“I showed you so many ways that you and I can enjoy together, didn’t I?”
“…….”
Anastasia could not answer him. She had not forgotten. Not one of the things he had taught her had been cast aside. His words, his voice, his touch, his breath—Anastasia remembered every last one of them.
“Come now. Please.”
Please. At that single word the final wall that had held Anastasia back crumbled to dust. Pleading had always been her part to play. She had always felt guilty toward the Mikhail who listened to those pleas… and now he was the one asking her. Had anyone in her entire life ever treated her as someone so precious? A joy beyond measure flooded through her.
He needed her. She could be of use to him….
The light of the stained glass glittered beside her, as if warning her not to forget the teachings of God she had learned until now. Sensing that she still hesitated at the final line, Mikhail offered his hand.
“Anastasia, are you afraid?”
“…Yes.”
An honest answer. Even that brief reply was lovely to him. His lips twisted with the rough emotion he could not quite suppress.
God must be pleased. To have held such a faithful, innocent little lamb in His arms all this time.
Thorns of feeling pricked him, as though something that had always been his had been stolen. Mikhail’s eyes met the light of the stained glass. What had God ever done for Anastasia’s life? It had been a life of nothing but taking, never giving. He could give her everything she wanted. Not God—him. Therefore….
“Choose me.”
Not God. Him.
At Mikhail’s words Anastasia closed her eyes. Had she ever known a moment of such aching tension in her life? Even when she had gone to end Alexei’s life she had not felt this taut. No—no one had ever been able to make him tense.
His impoverished past, Alexei, the Dowager Empress—all of them had been nothing more than matters he would deal with someday. And yet… this powerless, small woman had his heart clenched in her fist.
It lasted only an instant, yet it felt as though an eternity had passed before Anastasia opened her eyes again. Now only he filled her gaze. The will of the God who had been at her side her whole life no longer reflected in her eyes.
At last Anastasia freed the man who had suffered these past few days and drew him into her arms.
“Hh—…”
A heavy, labored breath rang in Mikhail’s ear. He remembered a verse from the scriptures he had once read. When one entered the heaven God had made, the angels blew trumpets and rang bells to welcome the newcomer. Was that sound not the same as the moan now filling his ears? It was something so terribly, so exquisitely ecstatic.
It was her first time, so Anastasia was clumsy. At the same time she struggled with a pain she had never known. Even so she moved with earnest effort.
Thud.
The arms locked around his neck trembled violently.
“Mikhail, Mikhail…”
Like a child left alone in the dark, Anastasia called his name again and again. Sweat of endured pain beaded on her white, rounded forehead. Instead of answering, Mikhail pulled her waist closer. The small mouth facing him fell open. A ragged breath that could not even become a moan spilled across his shoulder.
Everything was intense and vivid.
And when at last Anastasia took him completely, Mikhail felt a satisfaction beyond measure and pressed his mouth to hers.
At last God’s little lamb was in his arms.
Chirp-chirp-chirrrr.
In the forest where darkness had begun to settle, the summer insects cried out in search of mates. Amid the lonely chorus raised high, Mikhail held the woman in his arms more firmly. Her exposed rounded shoulder caught his eye. Every mark etched into the white skin was one he had left. As if writing his name upon what was his, he had left his traces on his woman’s body.
Those marks would not fade now. And if they did, he would simply leave new ones.
“Mikhail…”
When he moved, Anastasia’s thin voice seeking him even in sleep slipped free. Though he had heard his own name countless times over the past few hours, Mikhail felt satisfaction all over again.
He looked at Anastasia, deeply asleep and covered by his clothes. Somewhere along the way the garment that had hung below her waist had torn; he could not remember why. Well—it must have torn because it was ready to be torn.
That thin cloth had served many purposes. It had covered Anastasia’s eyes; it had bound her hands. It had even been used to wipe their thoroughly ruined bodies clean.
If Natasha had dressed her in it intending exactly this, Mikhail thought, he would have to give that maid a truly generous reward.
I should head back.
In his heart he wanted to stay longer—no, forever. The time had been that fantastical. Mikhail finally understood why people fell so helplessly into the pleasures of the flesh and never climbed out. The ecstasy of the illegal drugs he had once tried as an experiment could not begin to compare with what he had just experienced.
It was only himself and one other person, yet somehow every possible sensation could be tasted. Once again Mikhail concluded that God did not exist. If He had wanted to create something perfect, He should have made it so a man could enjoy all of this alone. Then Mikhail’s gaze fell upon Anastasia’s face, dyed in the colors of the sunset.
This woman sleeping with such an innocent, peaceful face had swallowed whole the man that even the most dangerous women of Novgord had never been able to claim. Cleverly, thoroughly, to the very end.
Truthfully he had thought he would grow bored after holding her once. Perhaps even before he held her. A dry laugh escaped him. Maybe that day would come someday. But not now. No—even if he held her every day until winter arrived, he did not think he would tire of her easily. Until then, he would treasure her. Anastasia would have to give him as much pleasure as the count’s title he had given up for her.
Feeling a chill mingle with the breeze that brushed his cheek, Mikhail rose with Anastasia still in his arms. It was fortunate his shirt was large. Thanks to that he could wrap her body tightly so nothing showed.
Worn out through the entire day, Anastasia did not open her eyes even when Mikhail lifted her and stood. Instead she burrowed deeper into his warmth. Mikhail adjusted his hold more securely and began to walk. The shoes he had bought for her for the first time dangled from her feet. About to step over a heap of fallen stones, he noticed the wild rose vines that wound around the rubble.
Red roses with buds far smaller than the ones blooming in the garden crowded thickly along the stems. Deep-green leaves against crimson petals. The moment he saw the roses, Mikhail realized what he had always thought Anastasia resembled.
She once said she was like a snake.
Somewhere in casual conversation the subject of snakes had come up. Anastasia had looked at her own hair with something like horror and said in a weak voice that people had hated her because she had the color of a snake. Even when he wound that hair around his fingers and kissed it again and again, calling the color beautiful, the words she had heard since childhood seemed lodged deep in her chest; her expression had remained dark.
Mikhail looked at the roses trembling in the evening wind. And at Anastasia’s hair stirring the same way. They were the same beautiful color.
He hurried out of the forest. Since he was the one who had soiled her, he intended to wash her thoroughly himself. Every corner, carefully. Even the deepest places.
Click.
Igor’s hand moved a chess piece. Yury, propping his chin with a bored expression, shifted one of his own. The game that had begun at dawn still showed no sign of ending. They were of roughly equal skill, and because they played each other so often they knew each other’s moves too well; the contest stretched into a stubborn stalemate.
Even when it became his turn after Yury’s, Igor did not look at the board. He muttered in a heavy voice,
“What are we going to do.”
“…How should I know?”
Yury answered in an equally heavy tone.
Last night the two of them had met Mikhail returning from the forest. As if he had never once bothered with such things, Mikhail had come back carrying Anastasia tightly wrapped in his own clothes, making no attempt to hide her. One of Edenhurst’s old maids standing in the entrance hall had gone pale at the sight and rushed inside. No doubt the news had reached the Lauderdale mother and daughters at once.
Their minds raced in different directions. Igor considered how Mikhail might quickly obtain a noble title other than the Lauderdale one, while Yury fretted over what to do with Elizabeth’s clothes and belongings that had already been prepared at the Sokolov mansion.
Only the two men’s sighs were piling up in the drawing room when firm footsteps sounded and Mikhail walked in. A long red mark was visible inside the open collar of his shirt—clearly, to anyone’s eye, a scratch from nails. Igor and Yury pretended not to notice and turned their heads away.
Looking thoroughly pleased, Mikhail strode over, glanced at the chessboard they had been using, and asked,
“What did you bet?”
“Igor put up a gold coin from the fiftieth anniversary of Novgord’s founding, and I bet a porcelain doll that will be arriving on next week’s ship from Ils.”
“Is that so?”
Mikhail picked up one of Igor’s pieces and moved it. Yury moved; Mikhail moved again. When Yury reached to take his next turn he stopped short.
“Haaah…”
Every move he could make was blocked. In the end he chose the least bad option, and the next instant Mikhail flicked his king over and said,
“Checkmate. Your porcelain doll is mine.”
“Aww…”
Yury scratched his head as though the loss were unfair, but he knew better than to argue; it would only cost him more.
Igor, who had been staring silently at the board, looked up at Mikhail.
“What will you do about the Lauderdale family?”
“What is there to do? They sold me Edenhurst at a fine price, didn’t they? So pay them that price. Every last thing they so happily bought back as well. Send them off to Ils if they want.”
In truth Mikhail felt no particular emotion toward the woman he had not chosen. But their pointless thrashing about would be a nuisance, and they would try to drag Anastasia into it, so that needed to be cut off.
“In any case… give Elizabeth Lauderdale everything she wants.”
The next day, Elizabeth Lauderdale made a request.
“I would like one of my relatives to stay at Edenhurst.”
In her hand was a letter announcing a visit—a letter with a splendid envelope and fine paper, the sort of luxurious stationery one might expect to see only at the imperial palace.