Secret Fire (26 page)

“Lady Katherine?”

She almost didn’t turn around, it had been so long since she had been addressed so. But she did, recognizing the voice. She groaned inwardly, and then saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Dimitri had returned. But he halted in midstride only a few feet away, his face gone
deathly pale on hearing the man address her. She couldn’t worry about him now. She had the Ambassador to deal with first, her father’s dear friend—good Lord, how could she have forgotten the possibility that she might meet up with him here?

“What a surprise, Lord—”

“You’re
surprised! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you dancing past a while ago. I said no, that can’t be little Katherine, but it is you, by God. What the devil are you doing in Russia?”

“It’s a long story,” she replied evasively, immediately changing the subject. “I don’t suppose you have heard from my father recently?”

“Indeed I have, and I don’t mind telling you—”

“Did he mention anything about my sister—a marriage perhaps?”

This time Katherine managed to distract him. “As a matter of fact, Lady Elisabeth has eloped with Lord Seymour. Remember him? Nice enough chap. But the Earl was furious, of course, until he found out that some information he had on young Seymour was all wrong.”

“What!” Katherine fairly shrieked in her surprise. “You mean it was all for nothing?”

“What was? Don’t know anything about that,” he said gruffly. “Your father only mentioned your sister’s marriage in telling of your own disappearance, because you both vanished the same day. George was expecting an elopement, you see, so for a while he simply thought you had gone with them as chaperon, you know. It wasn’t until the newlyweds returned home some two weeks later that he learned otherwise. They think you’re dead, my lady.”

Katherine groaned miserably. “My—ah, my letter explaining everything must have been misplaced somehow. Oh, this is terrible!”

“Perhaps you should write your father another letter,” Dimitri said tightly, coming forward at last.

Katherine turned to see that he had recovered completely from his shock. In fact, if his current expression was any indication, it looked as if his famous temper was about to explode. Now what the devil did
he
have to be angry about?

“Dimitri, my boy. That’s right, you know Lady Katherine St. John, don’t you? Saw you two dancing earlier.”

“Yes, Lady Katherine and I have met, and if you will excuse us, Ambassador, I would like a few words with her.”

He didn’t give anyone time to protest, least of all Katherine, as he literally dragged her out of the ballroom, and out of the house. On the stairs outside she caught her breath, but as she was about to upbraid him, she was pushed into a carriage, and Dimitri got the first word in.

“So it is all true! Every bit of it true! Do you know what you have done,
Lady
Katherine? Do you have any idea of the repercussions, the—”

“What
I
have done?” she gasped incredulously. “What the devil are you raving about? I told you who I was. You are the blasted know-it-all who wouldn’t believe me.”

“You could have convinced me! You could have told me what an earl’s daughter was doing on the street, dressed in rags, alone.”

“But I did tell you. And those were not rags I was wearing, but my maid’s uniform. I told you!”

“You did not!”

“Of course I did. I told you I was in disguise so that I could follow my sister, because I thought she was eloping. And you see! Elisabeth did elope. And I could have prevented that if not for you!”

“Katya, you told me none of that.”

“I tell you I did. I must have.” At his continued glower, she snapped uneasily, “Well, what’s the difference? I gave you my name, my status. I even gave you a list of my accomplishments, some of which I have since proved nicely. But to this day, you were still too pigheaded to accept the obvious. Good Lord, Marusia was right. You Russians take top honors for inflexibility of first impressions.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes, I believe I am,” she replied tightly.

“Very well. Tomorrow we will be married.”

“No.”

“No?” he shouted again. “Just yesterday you wanted to marry me. You were even furious when I explained that it wasn’t possible.”

“Exactly,” she retorted, her eyes glittering suspiciously with moisture. “Yesterday I wasn’t good enough for you. Today suddenly I am? Well, no thank you. I won’t marry you under any circumstances.”

He turned away, glaring murderously out the carriage window. Katherine did likewise. If she had known Dimitri better, even just a little bit, she would have realized that his anger wasn’t so much for her as for himself. But she didn’t know that. And she took his castigation to heart. How dare he blame her for this? How dare he offer to many her
now
, when he didn’t love her, when it
was only to satisfy some misplaced sense of atonement? She wouldn’t have it. She didn’t need his pity. She didn’t need a husband to marry her because he felt he
had
to. She had more pride than that, by God.

T
he smooth blanket of snow, unmarked as far as the eye could see, gave an impression of a land untouched by man, empty of life, desolate, or reborn, washed clean of all the ravages of civilization. It was so blindingly beautiful, this scene—bushes turned into little hills with heavy white coats, naked birches thrusting dark fingers into the overcast sky—so silent, so peaceful to a troubled mind.

Dimitri stopped on the road, or what he assumed to be the road, for the snowstorm that had blown through this area had obliterated it as well as any landmarks that might tell him he was still on the right track. He had been warned by his host, Count Berdyaev, not to venture out this soon, that he should stay over another night just to be certain the storm had really passed. Dimitri had refused.

What had begun as the simple need to get off by himself for a while so he could think without Katherine’s distracting presence nearby, had turned into nearly a week’s absence from St. Petersburg. He had been on his way back from an aimless three-day ride when the storm arrived so unexpectedly, forcing him to spend several more days as the Count’s guest. Now he was in a welter of impatience to be home. Katherine had been left alone too long as it was, and his running off the very night of their argument didn’t help.

There was another incentive for his leaving Berdyaev’s as soon as the storm let up. Tatiana Ivanova had shown up there in a party of ten, which included Lysenko, needing shelter from the storm just as Dimitri had. The situation in the house was intolerable, made worse when he had the misfortune to witness Tatiana breaking her engagement to Lysenko. If looks could talk, the fellow obviously blamed Dimitri for this turn in events.

In the stillness, the report of a gun was deafening. Caught off guard, Dimitri tumbled backward as his horse reared. His landing was cushioned by a half-foot of snow, but the wind was knocked out of him for a moment. When he glanced up, it was to see his frightened horse disappearing into the distance, but that wasn’t what concerned him.

He rolled over into a crouch and scanned the forest behind him. He saw Lysenko immediately, for the man made no effort to hide himself. Dimitri’s heart stilled. He was in the process of raising his rifle for another shot—yet he hesitated. Their eyes met across the distance, and the anguish Dimitri saw gave him pause. Then Lysenko lowered the weapon and jerked his horse around, riding hellbent back the way he had come.

What devils could drive a man to do something like this? Dimitri was afraid he knew. Tatiana. Lysenko obviously thought Dimitri was responsible for his losing her.

“What’s wrong with you, Mitya? The man just tried to kill you, and you’re standing here making excuses for him.” He sighed disgustedly.
“Sweet Christ, now I’m talking to myself like she does.”

He turned to see if his horse had stopped down the road, but it hadn’t. It was nowhere in sight, though easy enough to follow. Dimitri sighed again. Just what he needed: a long walk through the snowdrifts. But at least he was able. That idiot had had a clear shot, but hadn’t taken it. He supposed Lysenko had a conscience after all.

Dimitri changed that opinion when he found his horse an hour later with a broken leg and had to dispatch it. He was left with the annoying suspicion that Count Lysenko had known exactly what he was doing. Unfamiliar with the area, hours away from Berdyaev’s, with no houses or villages in sight, and the sky looking uglier by the minute, Dimitri had the feeling that he wasn’t only stranded but also in danger of being caught in another storm without shelter. His chances in that case were none.

He set off immediately in the direction he had been heading. He had come too far from Berdyaev’s to try and make it back there, so his only hope of finding shelter before nightfall was to continue on.

It wasn’t long before the cold seeped through the leather of his gloves and boots, and his extremities grew numb. His fur-lined coat was some help, but not when the temperature dropped as evening approached. But at least the snow had held off. And just before the last of the daylight dimmed completely, he found a little shed, an indication that he had drifted onto someone’s property. As much as he would have liked to find the owners of the property, with no
house in sight he didn’t dare. His strength was too depleted from trudging through the snow all day, and the light was gone.

It was apparently an abandoned shed, perhaps used for storage at one time, but empty now, too completely empty. There wasn’t a single item that Dimitri could use to start a fire, unless he wanted to tear down boards from the walls and lose what little insulation from the cold they offered. It wasn’t much. The cold still managed to slip in through cracks in the walls, though most of the wind was kept out. Still, it was better than nothing, and once morning came, he would be able to find the house that had to be near.

Dimitri curled up on the cold dirt floor in a corner, wrapped tightly in his coat, and went to sleep, wishing he had Katherine’s warm body beside him—no, he had better reserve his wishes for simply being able to awake come morning, for that was one of the bitter results of being exposed to Russia’s icy weather: falling asleep in it and never waking up.

K
atherine came to him out of the fog, warm and sultry, and she wasn’t angry with him anymore. She didn’t blame him for the ruin he had made of her life. She loved him, only him. But the snow fell again and she began to fade. He couldn’t see her through the snow, couldn’t find her, no matter how far he ran, no matter how loudly he called for her. She was gone.

When Dimitri opened his eyes, the sight that greeted him made him so certain he was dead that he might have had a heart attack if he didn’t as quickly see Anastasia and Nikolai too. His eyes came back to the apparition.

“Misha?”

“You see, Nastya.” Mikhail chuckled. “I told you there was no need to wait until he recovered more.”

“You didn’t know that for certain,” Anastasia protested. “He could have had a relapse. I know I would have, confronted with a ghost.”

“Ghost, am I? I’ll have you know—”

“Sweet Christ!” Dimitri exhaled sharply. “Is it really you, Misha?”

“In the flesh.”

“How?”

“How?” Mikhail grinned. “Well, I could tell you how my cowardly comrades left me with three saber wounds to let my blood nourish the earth. Or I could tell you how the Armenians dragged me back to their camp to make sport of
me before I died.” He paused here for effect, his blue eyes crinkling. “Or I could tell you how the chief’s daughter took one look at this notorious Alexandrov face of mine and badgered her father into giving me to her.”

“So which will you tell me?”

“Don’t let him rib you, Mitya,” Nikolai put in. “All of it’s true, if we’re to believe him, and I suppose we must, since he brought that same Armenian princess home with him.”

“Is it too much to hope that you married her, Misha?” Dimitri ventured.

“Too much to hope?”

Nikolai laughed. “He
would
find that of particular interest, since Aunt Sonya hasn’t let up on him ever since you were reported dead, Misha. There was nothing for it but for poor Mitya to many and get himself an heir before there were no Alexandrovs left.”

Dimitri scowled at this brother. “Trust you to find humor in that. I assure you I didn’t.”

“Well, you can relax now,” Mikhail informed Dimitri proudly. “I not only married her, but she’s already given me a son, the reason why I was so long in returning. We had to wait until the boy was bom before she could travel.”

Dimitri did relax, but in simple weakness. “Since your ghostly appearance has been explained, would someone mind telling me what you three are doing surrounding my bed and how the devil I got here? Or did I only dream of being stranded—”

“It was no dream, Mitya.” Anastasia sat down on the bed to offer him some water. “You have been so sick that for a while we weren’t sure you would recover.”

“You’re ribbing me again?” But not one of the three faces was smiling. “For how long?”

“Three weeks.”

“Not possible!” Dimitri exploded.

He tried to get up, but was assailed with dizziness and sank back onto the pillow, closing his eyes. Three weeks of his life gone, not remembered? The emotions that possibility stirred overwhelmed him.

“Mitya, please, you mustn’t get upset,” Anastasia insisted with a worried frown. “The doctor said that once you regained full consciousness, you would have to remain undisturbed and progress slowly.”

“You’ve had a rough time of it,” Nikolai added. “You were burning with fever most of the time, though there were several occasions when you awoke and seemed perfectly normal, making us think it was over, but the fever came back again.”

“Yes, I’ve told you three times myself how you got here and what was wrong with you,” Anastasia said. “You were awake enough to make demands, give orders, and be a nuisance. Don’t you remember?”

“No.” Dimitri sighed. “How did I get here, if you wouldn’t mind telling it again?”

“Some soldiers found you while out searching for a runaway serf,” Anastasia explained. “They thought they had him when they saw your tracks leading to that shelter you were in. How long you had been there is anyone’s guess, for you were already delirious and couldn’t say. You couldn’t even tell them who you were.”

“They took you back to their barracks, and fortunately someone recognized you and sent
word to us,” Nikolai continued. “When Vladimir got there, you were just lucid enough to demand he take you home.”

“Which was a mistake,” Anastasia added. “You were caught in a storm that had apparently already struck in that area several days earlier, and it took days to get you here. By then you were so much worse, we feared for your life.”

“Women,” Mikhail grunted. “They don’t realize a man isn’t going to let a little thing like a cold end his days, not when there are so much more exciting ways—”

“Spare me your gory adventures for now, Misha,” Dimitri said tiredly. “When did you get here, anyway?”

“About a week ago. Here I was expecting a glorious homecoming, and everyone is sitting around here with long faces, worrying about you.”

“Everyone?” His spirits rose. “Katherine too? Was she worried?”

“Katherine? Who is Katherine?”

Nikolai chuckled. “He means the little wench—”

“Lady Katherine St. John.” Dimitri glared at him.

“Really? You mean she was telling the truth, even about Sonya?”

“Yes, and that reminds me: What happened when you found her?”

The question, put in that tone, had the power to make Nikolai step back, even though he had nothing to fear from Dimitri at the moment, as weak as he was. “Nothing. I assure you I never even got near her.”

“Will someone tell me who this Katherine is?” Mikhail asked again, and again got no answer.

“Where is she?” Dimitri demanded, first of Nikolai, whose blank look made him turn to his sister next. “Nastya? She is here, isn’t she?”

“Actually—”

She got no farther, her uneasy look warning him that she was withholding bad news. “Vladimir!” He turned to Nikolai, frantic now. “Where is he? Get him for me.” And again: “Vladimir!”

Anastasia pushed him down on the bed as Nikolai rushed out of the room. “You can’t do this, Mitya! You’re going to have a relapse—”

“Do you know where she is?”

“No, I don’t, but I’m sure your man does, so if you will just calm down and wait until he gets here—”

“My lord?” Vladimir appeared, hurrying toward the bed, already apprised of the reason for Dimitri’s distress. “She went to the British Embassy, my lord.”

“When?”

“The day after you left. She is still there.”

“I posted a man to keep watch, my lord. He has yet to see her leave.”

The tension drained out of him, leaving Dimitri so weak that he could barely keep his eyes open. As long as he knew where she was…

“Now will someone tell me who this Katherine is?” Mikhail demanded.

“She’s going to be your sister-in-law, Misha, just as soon as I am on my feet again. Good to have you back, by the way,” Dimitri added, just before sleep claimed him.

“I had the impression he wasn’t too keen on marrying.” Mikhail glanced at his siblings questioningly.

Nikolai and Anastasia were both smiling as they moved quietly out of the room, but it was Nikolai who suggested, “I guess someone changed his mind.”