The Ice Swan

by J'nell Ciesielski

  When she twirled to a stop and dipped into a deep curtsy on a cloud of feathers, applause exploded around him. The spell broke and suddenly he was surrounded by people once more.

  Her movements stilled, he saw her face. A black lace mask hid most of it, but not enough to obscure the whiteness of her lips and clenching of her jaw. Not a look he expected after hearing her describe what dance did to her. Then again, she carried the weight of a thousand worries on her slim shoulders. If he could help relieve merely one of them, he would.

  She disappeared behind the stage, and Wynn edged his way through the throng of patrons clamoring to the dance floor as the band swung into a more lively tune. Several of the familiars spotted him and waved to get his attention. Wynn ignored them. He was in no mood for goiters or suspicious bunions tonight.

  “Mac!” Leonid’s voice cut through the cigarette haze.

  Wynn followed the sound and spotted his friend standing at the far side of the room next to an empty booth. He weaved his way over.

  “Good to see you, but I can’t stop. I came to see Svetlana.”

  “She changing. We wait here.” Leonid slid into the red cushioned booth and gestured for Wynn to do the same. “Her I walk home. She find me.”

  Eyes anxiously glancing to the curtain, Wynn took a seat. It wouldn’t do to barge in on her in the dressing room. She’d avoided him for days, refusing his money and claiming she had her situation in hand. The lie had danced between them long enough.

  “You and Angel speak again, da? Khorosho. I no like friends argue. I no choose sides.”

  “I’m glad. I feared you’d choose her over me, and I’d be out a chess partner.”

  “She prettier you.”

  “Can’t argue that.”

  Leonid leaned forward, all traces of humor gone. “Must take care. She not do well.”

  Wynn’s gaze darted to the curtain as a tightness constricted his chest. “I know. Her sister has been in hospital for over a week, and tensions are strained in that infectious hovel they’re staying in. I want to get her and her family out.” He didn’t mention the stolen property. If he hadn’t been standing there to overhear it, he doubted she would have told him.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Leonid leaned forward until his chest nearly touched the tabletop.

  “Greater danger.” His eyes darted over Wynn’s shoulder, then back. “Happenings . . . around.”

  Wynn tensed on immediate alert. “What danger?”

  “Hear things. See things. Russian things.”

  “Are the Bolsheviks in Paris?”

  “Papochka no involve politics, but turn blind eye to all with money. Angel need get out.” He stared pointedly at Wynn, pinning him with the answer. Svetlana’s living nightmare. That which had destroyed her world and sought her death had followed her.

  The curtain rustled and applause exploded over the dancing music. Svetlana bobbed through the crowd as adoring fans rushed around her. She broke free and tore to the exit.

  Leonid fumbled from the table. “Angel! Wait! I walk you.”

  “I got her.” Wynn shoved through the crowd, not caring how many he knocked down in his haste. They were too drunk to protest.

  Outside, he scanned up and down the footpath. Where could she have gotten to so quickly? Heel clicks sounded on the pavement. He took off running left. Her hair made a bright spot against the inkiness of midnight and shadowy buildings. In a matter of seconds, he closed in on her and reached for her hand. With a wrangled sob, she yanked away from him and shouted in French.

  “Calm down. It’s me.”

  Her face was bleached in terror and tears ran down her cheeks. With another strangled sob, she covered her face with her hands. Tiny cries shook her body. Moving on instinct, Wynn wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He could feel the delicate bones beneath her thin coat and the flutter of her lashes as her face pressed into his neck.

  Did she know about the Bolsheviks? If so, why appear so publicly? Why would Sheremetev plaster a poster outside the White Bear advertising the Ice Swan, a beacon to her enemies? Wynn could kill the man with his bare hands. That is, if he could get his hands around that fat neck.

  Svetlana pulled away abruptly. Blinking rapidly, her gaze darted up and down the dark street shooting through the heart of Little Neva.

  “I must go. I must leave.”

  “Where? That’s the wrong direction for hospital and the church.”

  “I must go. I must leave here.”

  She was in shock. He grasped her face, forcing her to focus on him, then lowered his hands to rest on her shoulders, grounding her. If the Bolsheviks were sniffing around as Leonid claimed, they might go straight to those places in search of her.

  “Where would you feel most safe?”

  Her eyes came into focus as a single tear slid down her cheek. She swiped it away. “I . . . the stage, but that’s not . . .” She looked back to the White Bear, then quickly away. “The gardens of the Blue Palace. There were roses in summer.”

  Anchoring his arm around her, he led her across the deserted street with its shuttered cafés and butcher shops long since deprived of meat and headed west toward Parc Monceau. It wasn’t a palace, but it was the best he could manage in the circumstances. Curfew was still in effect, but the city had grown eerily quiet as half its citizens were struck down by influenza. The other half were left to care for them and the incoming wounded soldiers.

  With the Germans losing ground on the frontlines, they had little ability or strength left to summon for night raids. A fact Wynn didn’t take for granted as the full moon and shower of stars offered a brilliant amount of light by which to guide bombers to unsuspecting targets. Instead, he used it to navigate the formal pathways with overgrown shrubberies and lonely statues of writers and musicians toward the pond, half flanked by a classical colonnade. He guided Svetlana to a wrought iron bench nestled between the columns and pulled off his wool coat, wrapping it around her. Having grown up in Scotland, the early November air did little more than brisk his skin.

  They sat quietly staring at the dance of moonlight off the pond’s still surface.

  “Do you feel safe now?” He kept his voice low and even, careful not to rattle her. An effective bedside method.

  She reached for his hand. “Yes.”

  Wynn didn’t move lest he disturb the fragile touch. Her hand was cold in his, as if her long fingers were carved of ice. “Where is the Blue Palace?”

  “My family’s home in Petrograd. So called for the way the winter light turns the walls to pale blue. We had the most dazzling blooms in all the city, and I could sit there for hours in the quiet.”

  The musty scent of dry leaves clinging to dead branches and scraggly plants left unattended in the years of war were a far cry from palace roses, but the area was peaceful as the earth slowly reclaimed man’s version of nature. In all the years his family had holidayed in Paris, they’d never visited this park, preferring the Jardin des Tuileries and Jardin du Luxembourg or Mother’s favorite stretching from that Eiffel Tower tangle of metal. Bit of a marvel he was only stepping foot here now, but the occasion was gratifying. It was a place where he held a memory of no other but of her and him.

  “Why did you run out of the club?”

  Her hand slipped from his and she tugged up the collar of his coat. He didn’t take it as a rejection, merely a move to settle into a defensive position like a soldier adjusting his armor.

  “Sheremetev offered to cancel my family’s debt and provide security by offer of marriage.”

  “No.” His harsh answer tore out in a contorted growl of disbelief and anger. He didn’t care how fat the man’s neck was, Wynn would strangle him if he ever laid eyes on the dog again. To blazes with his oath to do no harm.

  “He spins a compassionate tale of rescuing the maiden in distress, but it’s the title and money he’s after. A princess of the proud Dalsky line would provide prestige that his own name, powerful as it is, cannot acquire. As
his wife I would be forced to continue dancing to bring in waves of rich patrons. He has taken the thing I love and turned it against me.” Her voice was flat. Emotional detachment. A common response to shock and one she handled with practiced skill. “Tonight I watched him sanction the beating of a man begging for his life by thugs wearing red armbands. Do you know what red represents in Russia?”

  Wynn clenched his hands as rage poured into his veins, hot and vindictive. “I can guess.”

  “Then you know what I failed to see before. They were there all the time. They are here. No matter how far I ran or what I’ve done, they have found me.”

  “I won’t let them hurt you. Do you understand? I will keep you safe.”

  “Safe?” She laughed bitterly and swiped at an errant tear. “No one is safe from a man like Sheremetev. He may not be political enough for a Bolshevik, but I believe he’s part of the criminal sect Black Claw. Importing and exporting opioids, weapons, prostitution rings, laundering of money, and other illegal activities. His connections are like poisonous vines crawling beneath the surface on which we walk. At his will the vines shoot through the dirt and twist at our ankles, dragging us into his lair. No one can stop him.”

  Jerking off the bench, Wynn paced as he fought to keep a string of curses silent. Every blood vessel throbbed with anger.

  “You cannot marry that monster.”

  “Do you know what he offered me? A ruby ring red as blood. It may as well have been as it was pried from the dead tsarina’s finger after she was executed along with her family in a filthy basement by a group of Red soldiers. Men of whose ilk he allows to plot in his club.” She pulled down the corner of his coat collar to reveal bruises on her jaw in a distinctive handprint. “He has fed on my fears and closed the circle around me.”

  “You cannot marry him.”

  “He will feed me to the Bolsheviks if I do not comply. It seems I have no other option.”

  He squatted before her. “There’s one. Marry me.”

  Chapter 15

  “You cannot marry him.”

  “Mama, I have no choice.” Svetlana flipped the veil over her face as the church’s organ swelled to a bridal march, jangling her nerves. “Besides, it is too late to turn back now.”

  She had been engaged to Dr. Edwynn MacCallan, Marquis of Tarltan, for a grand total of three days. That night in the garden she had been shocked into silence at his sudden proposal, but as her questions rose like a frantic tide she could keep silent no longer. For nearly an hour she had questioned his sanity, his reasoning, and his intentions. He had answered each one with calm logic.

  She and her family would have the protection of his name and wealth with no obligations on Svetlana’s part except to say I do. A marriage in name only if that was her wish. In the end, when thinking had exhausted her, she asked him why he would go to such trouble for her. He’d merely smiled in that way of his and said he could no longer stand by and watch her suffer when there was something he could do to alleviate her pain.

  Mama fussed with the veil that had been borrowed from one of their neighbors in the church basement. It was one of the few treasures the woman had escaped Russia with, and she’d only agreed to loan it when Svetlana offered her daily ration of food.

  “To think, a daughter of mine and princess of Russia married to a tradesman. In a borrowed dress with no proper tiara to signify her rank.”

  Svetlana stepped away before her mother could jab another hairpin into her scalp. If only Marina were here to bring a sense of calm, but under doctor’s orders she was to remain on bed rest at his family’s townhouse until her strength fully recovered. Wynn had extended his kindness by offering his mother’s closet for Svetlana’s perusal. She was grateful, but a wedding dress and tiara were nothing compared to the absence of her beloved sister, and more than anything Svetlana needed her soothing strength this day.

  “Wynn may be a physician, but he is also a marquis, a high noble rank in Britain.”

  “It is a sin when you are bound to another man. Sergey will be heartbroken. He’s been so good to you over the years.”

  “Sergey and I were never officially betrothed. I cannot wait for him to find us, if indeed he ever does.” Sergey had been good to her. His parting act had been to see her to safety while sacrificing himself to the enemy. She could never forget that, but the promises made in Russia were best left to the past. She had a future to secure. “Wynn is a good man. He would not take on our troubles otherwise.”

  “May the saints preserve us from those black deeds.” Mama crossed herself before one of the many gilded icons decorating the vestibule of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. A fitting place for the ceremony. Not to mention the only place to allow an Orthodox wedding. “How was our family brought to such an abyss? If only I had been stronger. If only your father were here. He would know what to do.”

  “He would put the well-being of our family above all else as I am trying to do. Is that not what marriages are for? A weeding out of sentiments for the betterment of an alliance. Wynn is a good alliance.”

  “The man is an Anglican!” Mama’s trump card. No proper Russian argued with the dictates of the Holy Church, but wartime had a way of requiring one’s head to be turned the other way as circumstances required.

  “Due to our upsetting circumstances, the priest is willing to overlook Wynn’s heresy.” A few gold coins slipped into the altar coin box might have pushed the decision to more favorable means as well.

  “Surely there must be another way. Perhaps you have not thought of them all. I’m certain if we were to ask Shereme—”

  “No!” Svetlana took a deep breath as every fiber of anger, sadness, and fear roiled within her. Mama would never learn of what happened with Sheremetev nor of the evilness he allowed to hunt them. Wynn was their only hope now. “Go and take a seat.”

  “Svetka.” Mama reached a hand toward the veil.

  Svetlana pulled away. If one more person prodded her, she would lose her last shred of control. “I’m ready. Please go.”

  Ready. A rather misleading term. Certainly she was ready to put her troubles behind her and breathe for one day without the threat of financial ruin or starvation, but was she ready to marry a man she barely knew? She’d known Sergey for years, which was an anomaly in her social circles. Marriage contracts were often drawn up based on name and wealth alone with the bride and groom having met a mere afterthought. And love, well, that was best left to the fairy tales. She was under no illusion of what this marriage to Wynn meant and her gratitude to him could never be fully expressed.

  A side door opened. Svetlana jumped.

  “Are you prepared, my child?” The priest was dressed in robes of gold and black with a bushy beard stretching down his chest.

  Heart racing, Svetlana nodded. It wasn’t Sheremetev come to drag her away to the den of the Reds.

  “I must ask you never to tell that this holy church allowed a man of non-faith to be joined to you, a true believer, in its inner sanctum. If rumors were to spread, anarchy could ensue. Papists will demand their own heretical services.”

  It could hardly be imagined that the Catholics would storm these doors when they had the magnificent Notre Dame to worship in, but Svetlana did not bother to correct him. She simply bowed her head in quiet respect as she sought to delicately defend her fiancé. “I believe Anglican is considered a righteous faith in England.”

  The priest snorted. “They would.”

  The heavy door creaked open to the inner sanctum. Hundreds of candles gleamed from their ornate brass chandeliers and altar stands, while mid-morning sun poured through the windows set high in the cupola and bounced off the golden icons painted on the panels of rich wood.

  Dressed in a black-and-gray morning suit, Wynn stood waiting for her. His hair shone like gold under the shaft of sunlight, the glowing aura of a knight to the rescue. While she the maiden led a dragon to his door. Her regret cut deeper at involving him in her woes. If he thought anything of re
gret, he didn’t show it. Together they traversed the short walk down the aisle and stopped before the iconostasis.

  He grasped her elbow and leaned close to her ear. “You’re lovely.”

  She mumbled a thank-you, or at least she thought she did. The proceedings turned to a haze as the Orthodox priest read the Epistle, repeated in English by the Anglican priest Wynn had asked to come on his behalf. Then the sacred wedding loaf, the blessing with icons, and the placing of the wedding crowns on their heads.

  The cup of warm, red wine was then offered with another blessing. Wynn took a sip and passed the cup to her. As she took the cup, her fingers brushed his. He was trembling. The haze rolled back as she realized he was as nervous as she was. Unflappable Wynn who had calmed her distress time and again. Her own nerves stilled and she smiled. He smiled back. Taking the cup, she raised it to her lips.

  The front door banged open. Svetlana jumped, sloshing tiny drops of red down the front of her blue silk dress. A shadowy figure inched along the back wall. Too small to be Sheremetev, but no. He would never come himself. He was a man who sent others to do his dirty work.

  Wynn tugged on her hand, and she allowed him to lead her around the lectern behind the priest as the final words were spoken and they were consecrated as man and wife.

  “Who is that?” Not the most romantic words a bride had first spoken to her groom, but then again most brides probably weren’t being hunted by political radicals or jilted club owners.

  Wynn peered at the shadows in which the figure hovered. “A guest?”

  “Everyone we invited is here.” Everyone being her mother and Wynn’s friend Gerard from the hospital. Even Mrs. Varjensky’s cheerful presence was missing as she had volunteered to stay with Marina.

  “An inquisitive parishioner?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Taking both of her hands, he stepped close. Behind him Mama clutched her cross at the impropriety in a church. “You’re safe. He can never harm you again. As Marchioness of Tarltan you are a British citizen now and answer only to British law.” He pressed a kiss to her fingers. “I will keep you safe.”