Falling Stars

by Anita Mills

  “I have heard gout is very painful,” Bell murmured sympathetically.

  “It is not the gout, sir,” Sherkov retorted. “I was wounded—I took a ball in the thigh. It did not heal properly and has pained me for years. Gout,” he pronounced definitely, “is for weak old men.” Looking from beneath brushy brows, he met Bell’s eyes. “I am still vigorous,” he boasted, “if you know my meaning.”

  Bell unfolded his napkin and waited as a footman set a plate of smoked fish and poached eggs in front of him. When the fellow withdrew, he answered smoothly, “I did not doubt it. Madame Sherkov does not seem deprived.”

  “Deprived? Of course she is not! If there are no children, it is that she is barren! Is that what you are thinking?”

  “Not at all. I had not even considered the matter.”

  “See that you do not.” The old man leaned across the table. “What do you hear from the Malenkova? I understand from Sofia that she writes to you.”

  Not knowing what she might have said to her husband, Bell guessed. “She invites me to Domnya for Christmas.”

  “Da. She has asked us also, and Sofia does not wish to go. She says with my leg, she does not think it wise.” He peered closely at Bell. “What do you think, Townsend?”

  “I should think the decision yours,” Bell said politely, wondering where the marshal intended to lead him. “The winters here are quite harsh.”

  “Harsh? Bah. You English do not know what harsh is, Townsend. Ask Napoleon, and he will tell you.” He laughed loudly. “Our winters swallow armies and starve them. In the winter, we crush fools who come here.” For emphasis, he pounded the table. “We crush them.”

  Bell swallowed a bite of smoked fish, then washed it down with the dark, smoky tea. “Napoleon was a fool to try invading in the fall.”

  “Mother Russia guards her own, Townsend! It takes a Russian to live here.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You go to Domnya, eh? But I warn you—do not think you can seduce Galena Petrovna because she is a lonely widow.” Again he leaned across the table, but this time he lowered his voice. “Alexei Petrovich will not like it.”

  “It surprises me she does not remarry.”

  “If you would have my opinion of it, I think she poisoned Malenkov.” As Bell’s eyebrows went up, Sherkov nodded. “She does not wed again, my friend. She would never leave Domnya. And why should she?”

  “One would think a woman of her beauty—”

  The old man interrupted him, indicating his question was rhetorical. “She has everything there.” He paused for emphasis, then repeated, “Everything.”

  “I heard that Malenkov died in the war.”

  “Yes. Yes. Cyril was wounded, of course, but it was not until he went home that he died. So convenient.”

  “Sir, what you are suggesting is repugnant.”

  Sherkov shrugged. “Well, she is back at her beloved Domnya—with Alexei Petrovich.” He stabbed at a sausage on his plate and lifted it, gesturing. “I would not advise an interest in the Malenkova, my friend. The Volskys are powerfully connected—their grandmother was a cousin of the Narrashykins, and their mother came to Russia with the Czarina Maria Feodorovna. No, my friend—” He stopped to savagely tear off a piece of the sausage with his teeth. “—A seduction there, and you will not leave Russia alive. Nothing will come between Volsky and his sister.”

  “They warned me about you.”

  “Did they?” The old man smiled broadly. “Then you must heed them. We are all very dangerous, Bellamy Townsend.”

  “What of the countess—what of Lady Volsky!”

  “What of her?”

  “Galena seems quite taken with her.”

  “Galena Petrovna would be taken with anyone who could keep Paul from having Domnya.” Sherkov leaned across the table yet again, but this time he lowered his voice. “It is Olga Vladimovna who tells tales on her.”

  “I was so famished I could not sleep.” Sofia swept into the room, stopping only to brush a kiss on the old man’s brow before turning to Bellamy. “So, Lord Townsend—did you rest well?”

  “Quite.”

  “I am glad.” Without waiting for a hovering footman to seat her, she drew up a chair.

  “We were discussing the invitation to Domnya, my dear.”

  “Ah, yes—dear Lena.”

  “Townsend intends to go, he tells me.”

  She looked at Bell and pouted. “So you prefer the English stick? Should I tell Lena, do you think?” Turning to her husband, she asked, “Do we let him go, Gregori?”

  “I have already warned him about Lena.”

  “It will be such a house party this year,” Sofia sighed. “They invite everyone to celebrate that the stick gives Lena the child she has always wanted.”

  “Katherine Volsky is not a stick, Madame Sherkov,” Bell muttered. “She is a lady of principle.”

  “She is too skinny!” she retorted. Then she smiled slyly, “Well, perhaps not now. Now I expect she is fat.” She reached to clasp her husband’s hand. “You know, Gregori, I think we should go, after all. It might be most amusing.”

  Bell polished off his eggs and rose apologetically. “If I may be excused, I should like to take a walk. I need to clear last night’s vodka from my head.”

  Both of them looked at him as though he’d lost his mind, “In this? Townsend, you will freeze.”

  “I am trying to get used to the cold before it gets worse. Madame. Sherkov.”

  “You had best take a footman,” the marshal advised.

  He escaped into the hall, where one of the maids mopped wet footprints from the marble floor. Seeing him, she smiled invitingly, and he obliged her with a quick pat on the rump.

  Women. They were nearly always the instruments of his downfall. He exhaled fully, then went to get his own fur hat and coat. It was too much trouble trying to make himself understood, and even when they nodded, they often brought him something else. As he mounted the stairs, the maid giggled and went back to work.

  Once suitably swathed in thick Siberian sable, he braved the Moscow street. The wind that hit his face nearly knocked him over—he had to lean into it to walk. But walk he did—all the way to the Moscow River, where he stood watching the great floating islands of ice move slowly past. It was December, and had he been in England, everything would be different. He could have breathed deeply without freezing his lungs. He could have smelled a roasting goose. He almost ached with homesickness.

  But Harry Winstead had written him that Fanny’s husband had threatened her with divorce, that it was on the betting books at both White’s and Boodle’s that he would call Bellamy out, so it had not mattered that there was no child. No, he could not go home—not yet. Maybe not for a long time.

  He turned and started back down the street toward the Arbat. The cold was so bitter, so biting, that his face felt numb, and his breath crystallized in front of his eyes. As he passed a row of shops, he stopped to look in the steamed windows. One was a silk merchant, and the brightly colored scarves and shawls drew him. They at least reminded him of home.

  It was nearly Christmas, and he was going to Domnya. He was going to hear another English voice. He thought of Kate Winstead and wondered if she were as homesick as he was. She would have everything now, everything that Alexei Volsky’s money could buy her, everything except England. Harry had written that he thought her letters sounded as though she were a trifle out of sorts, saying it was probably her condition.

  Bell hesitated, then ducked inside the shop to buy her the brightest shawl in the window. Then, afraid Volsky might take exception to Kate’s gift, he bought another for Galena.

  Domnya: December 29, 1814

  The snow was deep, and huge drifts clung to the sides of the grand house, but two hundred serfs armed with naught but shovels and a draft plow managed to keep the road open for several miles. It was so cold that the river was covered with a thick layer of ice, and heavy, horse-drawn drays traversed it, carrying provisions
from Moscow. Katherine watched from a window, feeling sorry for everyone outside in such miserable weather.

  But her spirits were better than they had been in two months, and there was a festive air about Domnya that had nearly as much to do with her pregnancy as with the holidays. The sickness seemed to have passed, and she was feeling well enough to anticipate the coming company. Even Bell Townsend. She was going to hear English spoken again without a Russian accent.

  She sat down at her gilded writing desk and wrote her brother, penning swiftly at first:

  Dearest Harry,

  In answer to your letter of 18 November, I am well, much fatter and healthier, I assure you, than when you wrote. Indeed, but the mails arrive indifferently here, so I was overjoyed when I received your news of home yesterday. I have read every page three times already, most particularly the part where you said Hargrove had invited all of you to a winter house party.

  I do think he and Claire are quite suited, you know, and it sounds as though he may finally be brought up to scratch. Though I cannot imagine Claire and Lady Hargrove could possibly be content to share him or the house. But as the Hargroves are so very rich, perhaps the dowager will move to another property.

  I myself have been quite fortunate to have Galena with me, else I should not know how to go on. The Russian language is a difficult one to master, and full half the time I try to use it to get anything, I receive something else entirely! But Lena has promised me a tutor after I am delivered, saying I will have a great deal of time then to learn. As though I have none now.

  Life here is more indolent than you could possibly imagine—there are servants for everything. In addition to Maria, I have three other personal maids! Whether I wish it or not, I am washed, dressed, and buttoned into my gowns—as though I am utterly helpless. If I would let it happen, I am sure someone would cut my meat for me at the table.

  So I read a great deal, and Galena has been so very kind to order me English novels, which are unfortunately the same ones I read at home. Please, dearest Harry, when you write again, I pray you will send me something newer.

  She stopped, thinking that it sounded as though she complained, but in truth she had nothing to do. And she blamed that on her inability to speak Russian. If she could communicate more, she could direct the servants better and take pride in running at least part of the house. As it was, she felt more the pampered guest than the mistress of Domnya.

  Not that she faulted Galena, for Alexei’s sister was exceedingly patient with her poor attempts at the language, always carefully correcting words and grammar. Still, it seemed as though she knew little more than when she’d arrived two and one-half months earlier. It would come with time, Galena insisted, but far too much escaped her, and anything said quickly was utterly unintelligible. Because of her difficulties with Russian, none of the servants sought her out willingly, preferring always to go to Galena. But it didn’t matter—everything at Domnya always ran smoothly without her help.

  But she carried Alexei’s child, a child would tie him to her forever. She touched her swelling stomach, recalling how it had felt a scant four weeks before when she’d actually felt the babe move within her. When the birth was over, when she could hold this child they had made, she knew everything would be different. As it was now, whenever Galena was present, Lexy treated Katherine as though she were breakable. And even in the privacy of the bedchamber, he now behaved as though he believed it.

  Galena and Lexy had already quarreled over baptismal names, one choosing Mikhail, the other Alexander in honor of the czar. In the end, Katherine had had to intervene, saying she much preferred to name her first son John for her father. They had acquiesced, but he would be Ivan in Russian, which somehow did not seem quite the same. Ivan Alexeievitch Volsky. If the babe should be a girl, everyone agreed she would be Alexandra. Alexandra Ekaterina Alexeievna Volskyaya.

  Even Domnya’s priest was pleased, going so far as to ask the prayers be said as far away as Moscow for this heir to Domnya. Katherine’s pregnancy was, he insisted, a sign that God approved the marriage and would have her hasten her conversion to Orthodoxy. A mother, he had pronounced solemnly, must guide her child to right in matters of religion.

  She sighed and dipped her pen again, continuing the letter.

  Everything is so very different here, dearest brother. It is as though I have stepped back in time to another age, for people are owned here, and even the Orthodox Church condones it. Indeed, the church itself is quite medieval, choosing to follow the czar and the nobility rather than to lead it. And everyone clings to the old ways of doing things. For all that Catherine the Great encouraged Russia to modernize, I think she did not truly want it to do so. Here there are no machines for anything. Sometimes I marvel that I have a water closet.

  How homesick I must sound to you. And in some ways I am, I suppose, for I find myself actually looking forward to seeing Townsend again, simply because he is English. But you must not worry for me, as I have Alexei and Galena.

  She started to reach for another page of vellum, then heard the bells ring out a greeting. Hastily, she wrote in smaller script at the bottom and up one side:

  I must leave you for now, best of all brothers, for the company arrives. But I do promise you I shall write what Townsend will not, telling you all the latest crim-cons I shall hear about him, and I expect they will be many. Why, oh why, are females so foolish?

  I pray you will write again soon. Your best sister, Kate.

  She sanded her letter, then folded and sealed it. Rising, she went to the window and lifted the dark, heavy damask curtains. As she watched, she could see Popov sending one of Domnya’s huge sleighs to rescue someone. She watched eagerly now, knowing it would be some of the guests, hoping that it might be Bellamy Townsend.

  “Dahma—dahma!” There was even excitement in Maria’s voice as she rapped on the door. “Anee edoot!” The girl entered the room and stopped to catch her breath. “Zhay do come,” she repeated.

  For Katherine, Maria would do anything, including struggling to learn as many words in English as her mistress learned in Russian. The girl hovered her, eager to please the “nyemnoguh dahma, “saying nearly every day how grateful she was to have been saved from Boganin. She grinned at Katherine now.

  “Ah, dahma—happy—nyet?”

  “Yes-yes, I am.”

  “Kharasho.”

  Kharasho. Good. Yes, it was good.

  “Ah, cherie, but you do not need to go down if you do not feel well,” Galena murmured from the door. “I will make the excuses for you.”

  “No—no, not at all. As it is the first time we have had any guests of note, I am sure Alexei would wish me to greet them.”

  “Well, it is your decision, of course, but if it is only for Lexy—” Galena shrugged, then smiled. “Well, I can persuade him for you.”

  “Lena, I am fine—I have not been at all ill lately.”

  Alexei’s sister turned to Maria. “Yay nyi-zdarovitsa?”

  The girl shook her head. “No sickness, dahma.”

  “Vee gavaryoo parooskee!” Galena snapped.

  “I am afraid the fault is mine,” Katherine said hastily. “She learns English for me.”

  “Yes, yes, but she does not need to speak it to me.” For a moment, the Russian woman’s impatience showed, then she recovered. Smiling again, she reached to touch Katherine’s arm. “Then it is settled. We go down together—yes? And everyone will say how your condition makes you beautiful.”

  Katherine looked down at the visible roundness beneath her gown. “Well, I don’t expect everyone to think it. For me, it is enough if only Lexy is blind.”

  “Bah. He is besotted,” Galena assured her. “Come—I can hear them already.”

  Below, in the marble-floored foyer, footmen took coats while Bell Townsend stamped the snow from his feet onto an already soaked grass mat. Beside him, Sofia Sherkova complained bitterly of the delays they had endured, and behind him, her husband grumbled about the e
ffect of such cold on his war wounds.

  “Ah, mes cher amies! Welcome to Domnya!” Galena Malenkova called down to them. “You are the first to arrive.”

  Bell looked up, saw Katherine Volskaya, and grinned. For all that he himself hated it, Russian life appeared to agree with her. Her face was fuller, making her nose seem shorter, her face somehow less plain, and even her obvious pregnancy was not unpleasing. And her welcoming smile made her actually attractive.

  “You look well, Countess Volsky,” he said.

  The smile broadened at the sound of his voice. “As do you, my lord,” she murmured, coming down.

  “Truth to tell, I feel dashed cold—and they dare to tell me Siberia is worse.”

  “Much worse,” Galena declared, holding out her hand to him. “Only wolves and criminals can live there. And sometimes not even the criminals,” she added candidly. “But we are warm enough here, and there is a punch prepared, so perhaps you will like our Domnya.”

  “I am sure I will.” He lifted her fingers to his cold lips, brushing them lightly. “Ah, Madame Malenkov, but you are more beautiful every time I see you.”

  Her laugh tinkled lightly. “Such address, cher Bellamy. If I thought you believed it, I could listen to you all the day.” She turned to Sofia. “He is so charming, do you not think?”

  “Da,” the other woman agreed, her face suddenly grim. “But you must not think too much of what he says, for he flirts where he does not play.”

  “Galena! A word with you, please.” Alexei stood in one of the doors that opened off the foyer. Nodding curtly, he acknowledged his guests. “Madame Sherkov. Gregori. Townsend.”

  Sofia Sherkova rolled her eyes, whispering loudly to Bell, “I hope he does not mean to be uncivil. When he wishes, he can be quite uncomfortable.”

  “No, no, of course he does not. Lexy, you must smile for Sofia,” Galena coaxed him.