When Love Commands

by Jennifer Wilde

  A gun. I had to steal a gun. There was a whole shed full of rifles, ammunition, and powder in back, attached to the barracks, but there was no possible way I could break into it. As disorganized and undisciplined as they were, the cossacks kept a guard posted in front of the armory, and several of them were invariably underfoot. There must be a gun somewhere in the house, I reasoned, but where? Hearing footsteps on the stairs, I turned. Grushenka came down, glancing nervously toward the drawing room.

  “The—the count is in a very bad way, isn’t he?” she said.

  “I’m afraid so, Grushenka.”

  The girl crossed herself. “We are very afraid, all of us. The priest in the village says a demon has possessed Count Orlov. He says the demon is angry and may fly out and possess us too if we are not faithful. Old Mathilda hasn’t slept a wink since the demon appeared. She does not wash the linens as she is supposed to do. She spends all her time in the basement room praying in front of her painted wooden icon.”

  Vladimir came back into the hall with a new bottle of vodka. He glared at us before going back into the drawing room. Grushenka crossed herself again as he closed the door behind him.

  “That one, he has a demon inside him, too.”

  “I must talk to you, Grushenka. Come, let’s go into the back hall.”

  “Did—did you speak to Mitya?” she asked.

  I nodded. “We will be leaving tonight.”

  Grushenka wrung her hands, extremely apprehensive as we walked back to the dusty hallway with its litter. Tall and slim, with enormous gray eyes and thick wheat-colored hair worn in a long braid that fell heavily between her shoulder blades, Grushenka was seventeen years old, a shy, sweet-natured girl who could neither read nor write. I had sensed at once that she might be a possible ally, but it had taken me days to win her over. When finally I learned of her love for Mitya and their dreams of a future together, I had promised to help her make those dreams come true if she and Mitya would help me get back to St. Petersburg.

  She had been reluctant at first, but I had finally won her trust, and she had brought Mitya around.

  “I—I am so afraid,” she said now, glancing around the room.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I lied.

  “They will come after us.”

  “Undoubtedly,” I replied, “but if we leave tonight we will have at least ten hours’ head start before they discover we’ve gone. We’ll avoid all the main roads, and when we reach St. Petersburg we’ll go directly to the British embassy.”

  “St. Petersburg is so far away. I—I’ve never been farther than the village.”

  “Mitya will be with you, Grushenka. You’ll have many gold pieces. You’ll be able to begin a whole new life.”

  “This—this does not seem possible,” she said quietly. “I still cannot believe it. All my life I must work very hard for others, get up before dawn, take out the slops, take orders and abuse. It is the same for Mitya. He must bow and obey and work from dawn to dusk for others, and we are the lucky ones. At least we do not starve like many from my village who do not work at the big houses.”

  “It will be different in St. Petersburg,” I promised. “Mitya will be able to open his own livery stable and work for himself. You will be married, live in nice rooms.”

  “It is a dream,” she said.

  “And it will come true if—if we’re very careful.”

  Grushenka nodded and drew herself up. In her wooden sabots, her voluminous blue skirt and white blouse, a white apron printed with red and orange tulips tied around her waist, she looked very young and endearing, but there was determination in her manner now. Her gray eyes were resolute.

  “I—I am not afraid any longer,” she said. “I will do anything I must to see this happen. If there is danger, I will face it.”

  “There well may be danger,” I admitted, “and that’s why we must have a gun. You must help me find one.”

  “But I—”

  “You’ve worked here in the house for several years, haven’t you?”

  “Since I am seven years old,” she replied. “The house is kept open all the time the count is not in residence. I am one of the servants who keep it clean.”

  “You must have been in every room in the house at one time or another,” I said. “Think, Grushenka. Did you ever see a gun?”

  The girl frowned, concentrating, and then she looked up at me. “I remember one time, Count Alexis, he comes to his brother’s house to get some papers he needs to have. He unlocks the small office behind the library. I go into the library to dust, and I see inside.”

  “There was a gun?”

  “A whole rack of guns behind the desk,” she told me. “The Orlov brothers, they are great hunters, and this is where the count keeps his equipment. There are powder horns, too, I think, and wooden boxes with ammunition.”

  “Marvelous!” I exclaimed.

  “The office is always kept securely locked. None of the servants are allowed to go inside. The door is very heavy. We cannot possibly—”

  “Take me there,” I said.

  The girl led me back to the front hall and into the large, musty library with its dark wooden panels, dull red carpet, and towering shelves full of dusty, mildewed volumes that had probably never been read. The big gray marble fireplace was empty. No candles were burning. The room was in shadow, but a shaft of dim sunlight slanting through the worn velvet drapes provided enough light for me to see the large oak door to the left of the fireplace. Stepping over to it, I saw that the lock was formidable indeed, a heavy iron contraption that required a heavy iron key. Could I open it?

  “You see,” Grushenka said. “It would take an axe to—”

  “Go stand watch just outside the library door,” I told her. “If anyone approaches, cough.”

  Grushenka gave me a bewildered look, but she didn’t argue. Removing a pin from my hair, I stuck it through the keyhole and saw at once that it wasn’t going to be strong enough to get the job done. Removing a second pin, I twisted the two of them together and tried again, pressing, probing, prying gently until the end of my makeshift pick made contact, met resistance. Kneeling down, I pushed carefully. The pins slipped. I muttered a curse under my breath and repeated the process. Easy now, I told myself, easy. Push hard but push gently. You can do it. Three full minutes passed before I finally heard that reassuring click. I was definitely losing my touch.

  The office was extremely small, the air so fetid and dusty I could hardly breathe. I smelled yellowing paper and rat droppings and dirt and, yes, a distinct scent of fresh oil. The office might not have been properly cleaned for years, but the rifles in the rack behind the large oak desk had been taken out and cleaned just recently. Who was responsible? Vladimir? Unlocking the rack was child’s play after the door. It took less than forty seconds for me to unfasten the padlock and remove the long steel bar that held the rifles in place. Selecting the best, I took it out, propped the butt against my shoulder, aimed it, getting the feel. Yes, this would do nicely.

  How long had it been since I had handled a rifle? Well over a year ago. We had been huddling behind a barricade of fallen tree trunks on the edge of a river on the Gulf of Texas and the Karankawa Indians were attacking and Em and Corrie and I were loading rifle after rifle as Jeremy and Chris and Randolph fired, and I had fired, too, and Em had clubbed an Indian with one of her stolen silver candlesticks and … I placed the rifle on top of the desk, deliberately banishing the memory. There was no time to think of the past now. The next few hours, the next few days were what mattered.

  Three powder horns hung from pegs on the wall. I took one down. The powder was dry. I placed it beside the rifle and opened one of the battered wooden boxes on the floor. It contained bags of shot. I removed two of them. Mitya was going to be extremely pleased. He’d be even more pleased when he discovered I was an expert marksman. If only I had a pistol as well … I don’t know what prompted me to open the desk drawer, but there it was, resting atop a stack
of ancient ledgers, a long, English-made pistol newly cleaned and oiled.

  I took it out, testing its weight in my hand. It wasn’t loaded. I remedied that with cool efficiency, then slipped the loaded pistol into the inside pocket of my cloak. The pistol was easy enough to conceal, but what was I going to do with the rifle and powder horn and bags of shot? I couldn’t blithely carry them up to my room. I would hide them, yes. I would hide them in the library, then fetch them tonight when we were slipping out of the house. Carrying them into the library, I looked around for a likely spot, finally depositing them behind a chair in a shadowy corner of the room.

  A door opened. Grushenka coughed. Footsteps crossed the hall. The office door was still standing wide open. Momentary panic gripped me. I froze as Vladimir asked Grushenka what she was doing, why she was standing there. If he came into the library now and saw the office door open he would … I flew silently across the room and closed the door and locked it, then, blindly, grabbed a book from one of the shelves.

  “—is she?” Vladimir was asking.

  “I do not know. I see her here in the hall and she asks me if I have seen the book she was reading. I go back to the pantry, then I remember I have left my dust rag—oh, here she is.”

  I strolled casually out of the library, apparently lost in thought and surprised to see them standing there. Grushenka was visibly nervous, hands twisting the skirt of her apron. Vladimir gave me a dark, suspicious look.

  “I found the book, Grushenka,” I said idly. “I left it in the library.”

  “What is this book?” Vladimir growled.

  “Essai sur l’histoire générate et sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations,” I replied. “Voltaire. Volume three. Fascinating material. I’ll let you have it when I’ve finished.”

  He scowled at my mockery. The huge old clock in the hall struck four, the gongs sounding loudly. Grushenka scurried away, disappearing down the hall. I gave Vladimir a cool, haughty look, sauntered past him and moved toward the staircase. I could feel him watching me as I ascended, the pistol hanging heavily in the inner pocket of my cloak. It was with relief that I turned on the landing, finally moving out of his sight. The windows were uncurtained in the hallway upstairs, silvery white sunlight filtering through the dusty panes, making shimmery pools on the worn blue rug.

  My bedroom was large and comfortable, with pale cream walls and sturdy but attractive golden oak furniture. A lavender satin counterpane covered the bed, a matching canopy with lace panels arching above, and a dark purple rug covered most of the hardwood floor. I set the book down on a table beside a collection of blue and white porcelain eggs etched with gold, removed the pistol from the pocket and tossed the cloak over a chair upholstered in dark blue brocade. A fire burned in the cream marble fireplace, but the room was still cold. A prison, however pleasant.

  Thrusting the pistol out of sight under one of the bed pillows, I stepped over to a window and, pushing aside the drape, leaned against the side of the frame, gazing pensively at snow-covered lawns and the mass of icy trees beyond. The amethyst shadows stretched across the snow were longer now, deepening to amethyst-gray, and the sky was darker, too, more pearl gray than white. The window looked west, and in the distance, on the horizon, a dark gray plume spiraled to touch the sky. Smoke? Resting my head back against the wooden frame, I thought of all that had happened these past months since the accident, and it seemed incredible that I should be here in this bleak, frozen land, the prisoner of a madman.

  I thought of the journey ahead, frankly acknowledging the hazards it entailed, and I wondered if we would make it. I wondered if it was right for me to expose Mitya and Grushenka to such danger. They would be richly rewarded, yes, and my journey to America would be well financed, but … what if we didn’t make it? The odds were not good, I realized that. Vladimir and others would be in fierce pursuit as soon as Orlov discovered I was missing, and then there were the wolves … I thought of those bloodcurdling howls I had heard night after night since we arrived, and I remembered the horror stories Lucie had told me that morning Vanya had killed the wolf.

  Frowning, I moved resolutely away from the window. I couldn’t start having reservations now. I had come too far. I had a pistol, a rifle, plenty of ammunition, and I was a crack shot. We were going to reach St. Petersburg, and Mitya and Grushenka were going to have a chance to live like human beings, and I was going to leave this wretched country at last!

  Leaving my bedroom, I found a servant and ordered more wood placed on the fire and ordered a hot bath prepared. It was an unusual request for this time of day, but it might well be the last bath I would have for some time. Thirty minutes later the fire was roaring and I was soaking in the tub before it. Grushenka came in with an extra towel, placing it on the stool beside the tub.

  “I—I slipped out to the stables to see Mitya,” she said. “I told him about the gun. He was most relieved.”

  “I imagine he was.”

  “He is still doubtful about this, but—but I told him to take heart. It is a chance we take, but if we do not take this chance we live the rest of our lives without hope. It is very sad to live without hope, this I know.”

  “We’re going to make it, Grushenka.”

  She nodded confidently. “And I, too, have made a contribution. I steal into the pantry and fill a cloth bag with food—apples, loaves of bread, a round of cheese, some dried meat. This you do not think about. I carry it out to the stables, and Mitya hides it.”

  I squeezed out my sponge. “I hadn’t thought about food,” I confessed.

  “It is taken care of now,” she said, very pleased with herself.

  “You will need a warm cloak, Grushenka. Take that one over there. Carry it to your room. If anyone asks what you’re doing with it tell them I ordered you to mend a tear in the lining.”

  Grushenka stared at the cloak I had tossed over the chair when I came into the room earlier. “But—but these are real sables,” she said in a hushed voice. “I could not possibly—”

  “The cloak belongs to you now,” I told her. “Take it and go, Grushenka. I’ll see you downstairs later.”

  She gathered the rich golden brown cloak into her arms with a reverent expression, her lower lip trembling. Tears sparkled in her enormous gray eyes. She stroked the fur and turned to me and started to speak, but she could not. She merely shook her head and, after a moment, silently left the room.

  After I had dried myself thoroughly and pinned my hair up, I slipped into a heavy gray silk petticoat with six full skirts, a luxurious garment certainly not designed for traveling but sturdier—and warmer—than the other gauze or lace undergarments in my wardrobe. Reaching under the bed, I pulled out the thick cloth bag I had sewn to a long sash, intending to tie the sash around my waist. The golden coins tinkled noisily as I lifted the bag, and I shoved it back under the bed, deciding it would be better to wait until later to conceal it under my clothes. I didn’t want Vladimir or anyone else to hear a mysterious tinkling noise beneath my skirts and grow suspicious.

  The safe had been frightfully easy to open, even in the dark, and I had been delighted to find the gold coins piled in a box. I had scarcely made a dent in the pile, taking only what I could carry in my pockets, but the cloth bag contained a small fortune nevertheless, more than enough to set up Mitya and Grushenka in St. Petersburg and take care of my own needs. I was becoming quite an accomplished thief, I reflected, but I felt no remorse about stealing from Count Gregory Orlov. The box had contained enough gold to feed and clothe a whole village for several years, and he would never even miss what I had taken.

  Holding back the doors of the heavy golden oak wardrobe, I examined the garments inside. Gorgeous, lavish gowns, none of them suitable for riding over a frozen wasteland in an open sleigh. After much deliberation I removed the garnet velvet from its hanger. The cloth was heavy, the thickest, finest velvet made, a rich, glowing garnet. The gown had long, tight sleeves, a modestly low square-cut neckline, and a very full skirt.
It would be warmer than any of the silks, brocades or satins, I decided, slipping it over my head and putting my arms through the sleeves. Fastening the hooks, adjusting the bodice, I smoothed the skirt over the gray silk underskirts and then turned to the mirror above the dressing table.

  I saw myself with my hair pinned up, with a faintly discolored cheekbone, but after a moment the image shimmered and changed and I saw another Marietta, hair spilling to her shoulders in coppery red profusion, standing patiently as Madame Lucille clucked and clicked her tongue and scurried about sticking pins in the hem, bright scraps of cloth and ribbon littering the floor of her fitting room in New Orleans. Lucille had made the gown for me in that sultry, indolent city I knew so well. She had assured me that the color was just right, complementing the color of my hair, the cloth too warm for New Orleans, yes, but perfect for the brisk climate of England. Earrings dangling, hair piled atop her head like an untidy gray nest, she had informed me that Derek Hawke would be dazzled, though why I should want to travel all the way to England to marry him when Jeremy Bond was madly in love with me was quite beyond her comprehension.

  The garnet velvet had crossed the Atlantic with me—and Jeremy—and it had been in the trunk on top of the carriage when I had left him in London to go to Hawkehouse and when Ogilvy and I began that return trip and I had urged him to go faster, faster, faster still … The gown had come all the way to Russia in a troika, had been transported from St. Petersburg to this brooding, somber north country. Standing in that fitting room in New Orleans while Lucille pinned up the hem, I had been absolutely confident about the future. I would go to England, I would marry Derek Hawke, and I would live happily ever after … and here I was wearing the gown, planning to escape a madman who, at any moment, might tell his henchman to murder me.

  The watery silver blur shimmered, solidified, and I was looking into the glass again, seeing the pinned hair, the drawn face, the eyes full of ruthless determination. I removed the pins from my hair and brushed the thick waves until they fell into a lustrous tumble. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I pulled on a pair of dark gray leather boots that reached to mid-calf. They had pointed toes and high heels and were lined with fur, elegant but very sturdy boots much like the ones Vanya had given to me on the road. I took down the heavy, dark silver-gray mink cloak with its generous hood and gray satin lining, draping it over the chair, placing a pair of soft gray leather gloves on top of the glossy folds.