The Ice King (14 page)

“No need," replied Vladimir. "While you've been standing here steaming, Nikolai's gone to the rescue. Leave it to him— Sergei's frightened of him, and there can't possibly be a duel because of the Emperor's decree. It still stands, and Sergei won't risk exile. Besides, it'll give Nikolai a chance to cut you out by playing St. George. Just the thing!" And the Colonel grinned.

Boris looked at him, aghast. "Nikolai!" he exclaimed incredulously. "You mean .. . Nikolai? Heavens, I'd no idea! I thought he had no interest in women!"

“He wasn't always the Ice King, you know," Vladimir replied tartly. "And there've been signs that the thaw's setting in ever since Tanya Ivanovna came here. You must be either blind or short in the wits!”

Boris accepted this stricture as he always took the Colonel's remarks, with unperturbed good humour. "A little of both, no doubt. What on earth shall I do?"

“It depends," Vladimir grunted. "If you're committed you'll have to stand your ground, but if you're only staging a diversion, you'd better disengage and concentrate on your main objective, or you may lose it. You're getting in the way, you know, and wasting time. If you've really transferred your affections to Tanya Ivanovna, I don't know what to suggest.”

Boris gave him a curious glance, wondering what his friend's own feelings were towards Tanya. "I wish you wouldn't put everything in military terms," he said. "You make it all sound like a major war. You know very well where my affections lie, and so does Tanya, I think." A momentary doubt seized him. "In any case, I'll take the first convenient opportunity to disengage, as you put it. But
Nikolai!
Are you sure?”

The Colonel gave him a very expressive look, and Boris subsided into a reflective silence, rehearsing various graceful little speeches in his head, while Vladimir chewed the corner of his moustache and watched the door.

*

Prince Sergei took Tanya along the gallery, pointing out one or two very fine pictures as they passed, and then down a flight of wide stairs and through a pair of glass doors into the winter garden.

It was a very large one, with masses of flowers and greenery arranged in beds and arbours, with pathways winding between, and the faint tinkling of a fountain. The air was warm and moist, and heavy with the scent of tuberose. The only light came from a large wrought-iron stand supporting a dozen lighted candles, which stood a little way in from the door, behind a marble seat.

Tanya stopped, alarmed and uncertain, but Prince Sergei shut the door behind them and slid his arm round her waist as he murmured, "Now we can get to know one another better," and kissed her neck.

“Please don't do that!" Tanya said sharply. "And kindly take me back to the ballroom!”

Prince Sergei sniggered. "Oh, don't play coy!" he said. "Come here!”

He pulled her away from the door, caught her into his arms and tried to kiss her mouth. She twisted her face away so that the kiss landed on her ear, and tried to push him away, but he was too strong for her.

She stood still and said coldly, "Let me go at once, or I shall scream!"

“You won't!" he said, laughing, "Think of the scandal!" and tried again to kiss her, but she put her head down and butted him in the mouth, and kicked his shin as hard as her velvet slippers allowed.

“You damned little vixen!" Prince Sergei yelped. "You'll pay for that!”

At that moment Prince Nikolai entered, closing the door quietly, and stood looking at them. Sergei glared at him and exclaimed, "What do you want, brother-in-law? Can't you see you're not welcome here?"

“Let her go," Prince Nikolai said quietly.

“No, why should I? Don't tell me she's
your
interest, eunuch!" Prince Sergei said defiantly, but with a distinctly nervous undertone.

Tanya suddenly twisted free and backed away from him. He started after her, but Prince Nikolai caught him by the shoulder and threw him down on the marble seat, where he sprawled in a most ungainly fashion.

“Get up!" Prince Nikolai said in a cold, contemptuous voice. "Down there, go on!" gesturing towards the dark recesses of the winter garden.

Prince Sergei got up slowly and slunk off down one of the green alleyways, glowering. Prince Nikolai calmly stripped off his white gloves and dropped them on the marble seat, saying to Tanya, "Stay here, if you will, and keep the door. If you hear anyone coming, give a cough to warn me." Tanya nodded, avoiding his gaze, and watched him as he followed Prince Sergei into the darkness.

She was trembling, and felt very much inclined to weep with mortification at getting herself into such a ridiculous predicament. No, it was more than that! It was being found in that predicament by Prince Nikolai— that was the trouble! Presumably he had considered rescuing her to be part of his responsibilities as the friend of the family who had under. taken to sponsor her, but he must think her a fool, at least, or . . . or worse .. .

She gave a stifled little sob and sought in her reticule for the scrap of lawn and lace which passed for her handkerchief, found it, and gave her eyes a vicious scrub, and tried to pull herself together.

There was silence for a second, and she heard the distant music from the ballroom, then there was
a
scuffling sound, followed by something like a sharp slap, then a crash, and Prince Nikolai said "Get up!" again. There followed a few more unidentifiable sounds, a sob, and "No, Nikolai! I'm sorry!" from Prince Sergei, another slap, and then feet running away, the slam of a door, and then silence.

Prince Nikolai came back slowly into the pool of light by the candlestand, sucking his knuckles, and stood still, breathing rather hard. Tanya looked at him and he returned her gaze, his face inscrutable. She took a step towards him.

“I — I'm sorry," she faltered, "so stupid of me not to have guessed it was a trick. He said there was another Rubens I should see, and set off before I could think of an excuse, and I didn't know how to refuse . . . You must think me a fool!"

“I doubt if you've ever met his sort before," Prince Nikolai replied calmly. "I should have warned you about him. Did he hurt you?”

Tanya shook her head. The Prince looked very pale, she thought, and he moved his right shoulder uneasily, as if he was trying to shift the pain in his side. "He's hurt you," she said.

“I jarred my side a little when
I hit him," Prince Nikolai said dismissively. He took a few steps forward, apparently without noticing that he was doing so. "He won't worry you again."

“What did you do?" Tanya asked, alarmed by the grim note in his voice.

“Blacked his eye and made his nose bleed," the Prince said in an undoubtedly satisfied tone. "He fell on a flowerpot and broke it, which probably injured his dignity as well as tearing his breeches. He wouldn't have done anything very desperate to you — only stolen a kiss or two."

“I wasn't really frightened," Tanya assured him, unconsciously taking two more steps towards him, which brought her very close, "but I've never been, kissed, you see, and I didn't want him to be the first.”

She looked up at Prince Nikolai, her eyes very wide and serious. He stared at her for a moment, then took the last step forward, gathered her into his arms, and kissed her very thoroughly indeed.

Tanya had never imagined that being kissed would be anything like this. He wasn't just pressing his lips to hers, but somehow his tongue was probing and caressing inside her mouth, his hands were stroking her back and shoulders, and some enormous, powerful feeling was growing in him and flowing into every part of her body through every point of contact between them. It burned into her through his lips and his hands, and she was pressed so tightly against him that her body seemed to be melding with his into one entity. She thought vaguely that it must be like being slowly struck by lightning, but there was not the slightest feeling of fear, or any impulse to break away from him . . . on the contrary, she was unconsciously pressing even closer to him and losing herself in this strange, timeless tide of emotion. Another vague thought wandered through her mind — drowning was said to be quite pleasant if one didn't fight against it .. .

When Prince Nikolai stopped kissing her and abruptly broke away, she said "Oh!" in a small, surprised voice and stood still, her eyes larger than ever, looking utterly astonished, for a shock of Signor Galvani's animal electricity still seemed to be coursing through her veins.

“I'm no better than Sergei Mikhailovich!" Prince Nikolai said bitterly, letting her go and moving away a few steps. "I apologise."

“You're not at all like him!" Tanya said breathlessly. He had half turned away, but he stopped and gave her a sidelong, uncertain look.

“I didn't plan it, but it happened all the same," he said. "I'm sorry."

“Are you?"

“No.”

Tanya caught up her fan, which she had dropped on the floor, then gave him a quick, nervous smile, wishing she dare say "Neither am I.”

There was an awkward silence while he continued to look at her in that uncertain, almost shamefaced manner, and she stood staring at him, her lips parted, breathing in a quick, tremulous manner. Her eyes were still enormous, and looked darkly reproachful and frightened to him, for the single stand of candles cast a shadow across them which concealed the fact that they were actually shining with a warm golden glow.

“We'd better go back," he said, picking up his gloves and pulling them on so viciously that one of them split a little along the side-seam. He offered her his arm, and they returned up the steps to the gallery. As they walked along it, he paused by an alcove and said, "I'd like to show you something.”

She waited a moment while he picked up a candelabrum and held it so that the light fell on a picture hanging in the alcove, and she felt that this had happened before, and then remembered his aunt showing her his mother's portrait.

This too was a portrait. It showed a young woman seated on a gilt chair and dressed in the simple Grecian drapery of the early years of the century. She had very dark, glossy hair, which fell in long ringlets from her chignon over the magnolia-petal perfection of her shoulders and bosom. Her face was a smooth oval of classically pure beauty, with lips parted to show a glimpse of pearly teeth, and black eyes which looked at the beholder with a smouldering animal Attraction, even in the painted likeness.

Tanya stared at the portrait in silence. It filled her with an odd sensation of dismay and uneasiness, and she was not surprised when Prince Nikolai said in a flat, expressionless voice, "My wife."

“He called you 'brother-in-law'!" Tanya exclaimed. "I didn't realise . . ."

“Didn't Maria tell you?"

“No."

“Sergei is Anna's brother. You must pity their father. He's a fine man, but he was away with the Army for too long, and left the children's upbringing to his wife, and she nurtured a pair of vipers." His hand shook, setting the candle-flames guttering and the shadows moving across the painted face, which seemed to Tanya to sneer in a vindictive, cruel way.

Prince Nikolai turned away abruptly and put the candelabrum back in its place, and the portrait vanished into the shadows. Tanya looked up at his face, her own troubled.

“I don't feel anything at all about her now," he replied to her unspoken question. "It's over and done with." But he sounded hesitant, uncertain.

They went on towards the ballroom, but just before they reached the door Prince Nikolai stopped again and caught his breath, putting out a hand as if to steady himself. Tanya caught hold of it, for there was nothing else within his reach, and he gripped her hand painfully tightly for a moment, then suddenly let it go.

“I'm sorry," he said, his face drawn with pain.

“You're not well," Tanya said anxiously. "What can I do?"

“It's nothing," he replied. "Tanya, I think we'd best not return together – someone is bound to notice. Just slip into the room by yourself, as if nothing's happened. I'll stay out here for a while.”

Tanya looked at him uncertainly. He was very white, and the muscles about his mouth were taut, but something in his face compelled her to agree. She left him unwillingly and walked into the ballroom.

A polonaise was just ending, and the dancers were moving in different directions as it broke up. Tanya edged in and began to walk along the edge of the floor, and suddenly Vladimir was beside her, as if he had been dancing with her. She looked up at him, startled.

“All right?" he asked quietly.

“N – no," Tanya replied. "Nikolai Ilyich is in the gallery, and I think he's ill, but he told me to come back in here.”

Vladimir gave a quick nod, looked across at Boris, who was nearby watching them unobtrusively, quirked his eyebrows and jerked his head towards the gallery door. Boris at once began to move unhurriedly in that direction, disappearing into the gallery as Vladimir gave Tanya his arm and invited her to go out for supper.

It was served in another very handsome room, but Tanya hardly spared it as much as a glance, being in a turmoil of mixed feelings. She was painfully aware of a few curious glances and whispers, anxious about Prince Nikolai, and in a very confused state of mind about what had happened in the winter garden. Vladimir found a table in a quiet corner, summoned a footman with an imperious gesture as Tanya sat down rather suddenly, as if her knees had given way, and then seated himself very squarely between her and the rest of the world. The footman spread several dishes with a variety of light refreshments on the table, fetched a well-chilled bottle of wine and some glasses, and bowed himself away to some other guests.

“What did he do to Sergei Mikhailovich?" Vladimir enquired conversationally, serving Tanya with a little chicken and some salad, and himself with a great deal more.

Tanya shivered and said unhappily, "He took him away out of sight and hit him, but he hurt himself doing it, and it's all my fault for being stupid. Now I expect there'll be a lot of gossip . . . Oh, Vladimir! What shall I do?"

“Drink this and stop worrying," Vladimir replied, pouring her a glass of wine. "Nikolai Ilyich was badly injured in the war, and he's often in pain. It's a great pity, but there's nothing anyone can do about it, and he hates a fuss. He's not in any danger – it just hurts, but his man will give him something to dull the pain and help him sleep, and he'll be well again by morning.”