Falling Stars

by Anita Mills

  She walked back to her desk and opened a drawer to find the note he’d left also. “Dearest Kate,” he’d written, “I’m afraid I’ve been given the heave-ho, possibly because of your husband’s fear of Sherkov. At any rate, I hope you will wear the scarf in health, knowing I chose the brightest thing I could find in this dreary place. Think of the other as a kiss between friends. Your servant, Townsend.”

  Icy branches rattled against her windows, making her shiver more from the sound than the cold. Reluctantly, she laid the scarf aside and lay down upon her bed. Pulling her covers up, she turned over to hug her pillow.

  Something crackled beneath it, and when she slid her hand there, she felt a folded paper. Mystified, she pulled it out and sat up, opening it to the snow-bright light, and as she read it, her blood went cold inside.

  In Tati’s feathery hand, it said: “If you would know why he does not share your bed, you will have to go to his after midnight.”

  It was the girl’s final attempt at spite. Balling up the paper, Katherine threw it across the room before lying down again. What was she supposed to find—that he had taken one of the maids to his bed? Yet even as she thought it, every fiber of her being denied it. He loved her. He’d married her and brought her to Russia as his countess. If he neglected her, it was because he believed she needed to rest. He wanted to take care of her. Yes, that was it—he did not come to her because he feared for her health. Because she was being sent back to school early, Tati had acted out of revenge.

  She could not sleep. Somewhere in the distance, the faint sound of church bells vied with the cries of the wolves. She rolled over and tried to see the clock, but it was in shadows. Clutching her heavy nightgown close, she rose from the bed. Despite the glowing coals in the fireplace, the room was cold. For a moment, she warmed her body over them, then she lit a candle and sought the clock. She needn’t have bothered—somewhere within the cavernous house, a bigger one struck thrice. It was three o’clock in the morning.

  She listened, but there was no sound after the chimes, indicating everyone else slept. Moving to the desk, she saw where Maria had picked up the crumpled paper and laid it there. Part of her denied the implication, and part of her wished to know the truth of it. She’d had to force herself to lie through the twelve bells of midnight, then one bell, then two … and now three.

  Unable to stand it any longer, she got her wrapper and pulled it on, tying the sash around it, and then she found her fur-lined slippers. She would say she was cold, and he would not turn her away. She would say she could not sleep without him.

  It was dark in the hallway, so dark that she could not even see the pattern of the carpet beneath her feet. She was dizzy, light-headed, and shivering as she kept close to the wall, moving noiselessly. She stopped outside his door, thinking perhaps she ought to turn back, that she ought not let Tati poison her mind. But something deep within her demanded to know. She turned his doorknob, almost hoping it was locked, then held her breath as the door opened inward.

  She waited, taking stock of nearly everything before she dared to move. Stubby candles still burned in their holders, and long wax icicles hung downward from the iron stand, indicating that Alexei had retired quite late. The room was unfamiliar, the furniture heavy, baroque. Near the bed, a fire still crackled and spit, and the heavy, carved bed cast strange, distorted shadows that bent at the ceiling.

  It was a big bed, medieval almost, swathed in red hangings so dark they appeared black. The curtains were pulled closed to shut out drafts from the tall, multi-paned windows. Resolutely, Katherine crossed the floor to it, her footsteps hidden in the depths of the thick carpet. Once there, she put her candle in a guttered sconce, then shed her slippers and wrapper and parted the bed hangings to slip inside.

  In the darkness, her hand caught in silky hair, and a woman turned over, murmuring sleepily, “Lexy?”

  It was as though Katherine’s heart stopped and her stomach knotted. Tati had known Alexei would not be alone. She shook, this time not from the cold, as she backed out of the bed. As though she were in a trance, she moved to pick up a brace of dying candles, then reached to pull the heavy curtains with unsteady hands.

  The flickering orange and yellow light fell on Galena’s red hair as it spilled in a tangled mass across a satin-covered pillow. Alexei’s sister sat up, and the heavy coverlet fell from her bare shoulders. She blinked, then stared, her expression stunned.

  “Ekaterina!”

  Alexei rolled over and reached for Galena, mumbling, “Shto?”

  “Ana zdyiss! She is here!” Clasping the covers to her bosom with one hand, she held up the other helplessly. “Oh, Ekaterina—”

  Katherine felt sick all the way to her soul. She turned and stumbled blindly from the room, ignoring Galena’s shouts of “Ekaterina! Ekaterina!”

  Katherine leaned against the wall, unable to breathe, unable to think, as the knot in her stomach tightened. Wave after wave of nausea hit her until she could swallow it back no longer. Bracing herself with one arm, she leaned forward to retch again and again, heaving despite her empty stomach.

  “Dahma!”

  Having heard Galena, Maria hurried into the hall in her nightdress. Catching Katherine from behind, she held her. “Bed—bed, dahma”

  “No—I—” Katherine strangled, unable to answer.

  “Bory! Bory!” the girl shouted. “Boreeees!” As Katherine sank to the floor, her head between her knees, Maria knelt beside her. Looking to Alexei Volsky’s open bedchamber door, she understood. “Oh, dahma,” she whispered. “I try for you not to know—I try,” she repeated over and over again.

  But Katherine leaned forward, her body hunched in a ball, her arms hugging her knees, rocking. As footsteps could be heard scrambling in the servants’ quarters overhead, Maria put her arms around her. “Dahma, no—your babe.”

  “I wish I were dead” was the muffled answer.

  “No, no—the babe—”

  “I don’t want it.” Katherine’s eyes were oddly dry when she lifted her head. “They lied to me, Maria—they lied to me!”

  Alarmed, Maria called loudly for Boris again.

  “Be still, you fool!” Galena hissed, coming out into the hall. Then, realizing she spoke to Maria, she snapped, “Zamalchee! Zamalchee!” She pulled the girl away roughly, then slapped her. “Zabood-tye! You will forget!” As the first footman raced down the stairs, she shouted him away, making a shooing motion with her hands.

  Still dressing, Alexei came up behind his sister. She nodded to Katherine and spoke in English for the younger woman’s benefit. “She will be all right, I promise you. Come, Ekaterina—we will get you to bed.”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “Daragaya—”

  “And don’t call me that!”

  He looked helplessly to Galena. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Carry her to her bed.”

  Despite the awkwardness of her body, Katherine struggled to her feet without his help. “If you touch me, Lexy, I swear I will bring the house down about your ears,” she said evenly.

  He dropped his hand. “She does not want—”

  “Fool! Doorak!” Galena rounded on him. “It does not matter what she wants! We must think of the child!”

  “But she does not want—”

  As though nothing was different, the Russian woman coaxed, “Alexei will help you, Ekaterina. Come—everything will be all right, I promise you.”

  Katherine stared at her in horror. “What kind of people are you? Lena, I saw you—I saw you—”

  “When you are in bed and Maria has brought you a soothing tisane, we will speak.”

  “I don’t want anything.” Turning away, Katherine started back to her bedchamber.

  “Ekaterina—”

  Before either of them stopped her, she got inside and closed her door, locking it. She felt empty, hollow, as though there was a great void beneath her breastbone. Sinking into a chair before her nearly dead fire, she stared,
unable to think beyond what she’d seen. She would not cry—she dared not, for fear that once she started, she could not stop. She closed her eyes and swallowed, thinking that she must surely have gone mad.

  The cold did not matter anymore. Nothing mattered. She did not even hear them pounding on her door, nor did she hear Maria begging her to open it. She was utterly, completely numb, and still she wished she were dead.

  How could she have been such a fool? How could she have believed he loved her? And Galena—there were no words for Galena. Galena had betrayed her.

  The doorjam splintered, and Boris came sprawling inside. Embarrassed, he righted himself and pointed to the few coals left. He was going to make her a fire.

  “Daragaya—Ekaterina—” Alexei came to stand over her.

  She did not answer.

  He tried again. “Ekaterina. Please.”

  “Tell Galena I do not wish to hear it,” she said finally.

  “She said you would not know. I did not want to hurt you, little one.” She was too cold, too controlled. Mistaking that for reason, he plunged ahead with the speech Galena had given him. “Nothing has to change, Ekaterina. You are still my countess, and—”

  “Please don’t.”

  “But you must listen to me,” he pleaded. “I am telling you that it will be all right.”

  “All right?” Her voice rose in disbelief as something seemed to shatter within her. “All right? Alexei, everything is very wrong! I loved you, Lexy—I loved you! And you—you—” Words failed her for a moment.

  “I said I did not want to hurt you.”

  “You lied to me! You came to London, and you courted me, and you made me believe I was loved with the flowers, with the sweet notes—with this ring even! It was cruel—the cruelest hoax I have ever believed!” When he did not respond, she forced herself to look at him. “Everything you said was nothing but a lure! You made me love you so she could have a child!”

  “I will honor you, Ekaterina, I swear it. As the mother of my children, I will honor you.”

  “Did she tell you to say that also?” she demanded. “Were any of the words spoken between us yours? Or were you merely Galena’s puppet on strings?”

  “I will still be your husband. We do not have to change anything,” he said evasively. “The other has nothing to do with you.”

  “Nothing to do with me?” Her voice rose hysterically. “Lexy, are you mad? You—you come to me telling me that everything is the same! Well, it isn’t! There is a word for what is between you and Galena, Alexei—it is incest!”

  “I cannot help it, Ekaterina.”

  Angry, bitter tears burned her eyes. “Was I ever anything to you, Lexy? Did you ever feel anything for me?” Once again, her voice was shrill. “Answer me—for God’s sake, answer me! Did you ever love me?”

  He looked away. “You are my wife.”

  “Your wife! No, I only thought I was your wife! You married me for this, didn’t you, Lexy?” She rested her hand on her rounded stomach. “Galena could not give you an heir, so she chose a plain girl to do it for her!”

  “Ekaterina, I am sorry. What can I say to you? I have loved Lena all of my life.”

  “Not like that surely!”

  “At first it just happened—I was sick, and there was no one to care for me. My father did nothing, for he had other sons—and my mother was too busy to come home from Moscow for me. I was fourteen, Ekaterina, and I still remember the feel of Galena’s breasts as she held me.”

  “And that is supposed to make it right? It is a sin!”

  “I told you—I cannot help it. When my father forced Lena to marry—the night she went to Cyril—I nearly lost my mind. I wanted to kill Papa and Cyril both.”

  “Were you going to wish me dead also?” she cried. “After this child was born, were you going to get rid of me? Was Galena going to brew something for me?”

  “No, no, of course not. You read too many of those English gothic romances.” He ran his hand across his face. “I would have returned to your bed and got another. I wanted us to be a family, Ekaterina—you, me, and Lena. I wanted there to be children at Domnya.”

  It was too much for her to comprehend. She buried her head in her hands and began to sob uncontrollably. He started to touch her, then drew away. “You do not understand, Ekaterina.”

  “You fool! You were supposed to console her!” Galena told him furiously from the door.

  “Lena, I cannot—she will not be consoled,” he retorted defensively.

  “Then leave us.” As he brushed past her, she muttered, “I must do everything for you.” Crossing the room to where Katherine sat, she dropped to her knees and smoothed the younger woman’s hair. “Ekaterina, I am so sorry you had to discover Alexei’s secret. Poor Ekaterina,” she murmured. “My poor little Ekaterina.” Katherine’s shoulders shook beneath her touch. “It will be all right.”

  “Never!”

  “But you still have everything he gives you. You are Countess Volsky. You live at Domnya. You will rear your children here.” Galena put her arms around Katherine. “Ekaterina, I have seen that you have everything you could wish for—a handsome husband, a title, wealth, children. You would have had none of that in England.” Her hand stroked the younger woman’s tangled hair. “Lexy needs me, but only you can give him an heir, so he needs you also. No one else has to know. You will fill Domnya’s nursery, and you will be honored for that. You can give Lexy something I cannot, so between us, we make a family.”

  A great shudder passed through Katherine as she sought calm. “I-I would you did not touch me, Galena. I cannot bear it.”

  Alexei’s sister reluctantly drew away. “What an innocent you are, Ekaterina Ivanova. You think husbands are faithful to their wives? Look at your own country, where ladies have children by different lovers and the husband does not complain. And the women—” She paused scornfully. “The women, they pretend they do not know about the other women their husbands keep.”

  “In my country, a man does not sleep with his sister.”

  “No? I am a stranger there, and I hear about your poet Byron.”

  “I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to live at Domnya.” Twisting the folds of her wrapper, Katherine declared, “I won’t live like that.”

  “I can give you another house, or jewels, or fine furs, Ekaterina. I have made you Countess Volsky, and I am willing to share Alexei with you.” Galena looked meaningfully at Katherine’s swollen belly. “You carry that child for me as well as for Domnya. Now, as we are understood, you will drink whatever I make for you, and you will know that it will not harm you. There is nothing I would do to injure you or the child.” She struggled to rise. “Alexei is a weak man, Ekaterina, and I am sorry for it. But together we hold him, and together we watch his children grow. And no one has to know anything about how it is between us.”

  Feeling utterly beaten, Katherine said nothing. If Alexei was mad, so was Galena. And there were no words to make anything different. She had been cheated of her dreams, and they seemed to think she should be grateful.

  “Ekaterina, we love you,” Galena coaxed. “Come, let us not quarrel over this. I make everything right for you. When the snow is gone, we go to Moscow and buy you dresses for after the babe comes, eh? And Czar Alexander will be godfather to him. You will be the envy of all Russia, I tell you.” Leaning to kiss Katherine’s cheek, she murmured, “You will feel better after you sleep.”

  “I cannot sleep forever, Lena.”

  “It will not come to that, ma petite.”

  After Galena left, Katherine walked to the window and stared out into the darkness. For a moment, she considered hurling herself down into the dead garden below. But the child within her stirred, changing positions, hitting her ribs with an arm or foot, and she knew she could not. Neither could she stay at Domnya.

  She hurt—as surely as if someone had driven a knife between her breasts, she hurt. And no matter how far she went away from Alexei and his sister,
she knew she would always feel the pain. She had been such a fool, she thought bitterly, and despite what Galena said, nearly everyone knew. Sofia. Olga. Tati. And Viktor. How they must have laughed at her naïveté.

  “Dahma?” Maria asked tentatively. “Better? You better?”

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Da.”

  “And you did not tell me.”

  “Nyet.”

  “I suppose it was fear.”

  “Shto?”

  “I do not blame you, Maria, but I will never forgive them.” Perceiving that the girl sympathized but did not understand all her words, Katherine sighed. “Nothing,” she said finally. “Neechevo.” Seeing the cup the girl carried, she shook her head. “Nyet—ye nye pyoo—I don’t want to drink anything.” There was no mistaking the apprehension in the maid’s eyes. “Here—” Taking the cup, Katherine carried it into the water closet and poured the contents out. “Go back to bed.”

  Long after Maria left, Katherine stood at the window, her arms crossed like a shield before her. Forcing her thoughts away from Alexei’s betrayal, she let her mind return to England. Just now she missed her papa terribly, perhaps more than any time since his death. When he was alive, she was held, comforted, shielded against unhappiness. But John Winstead was dead, leaving only Harry who loved her. And somehow she could not write Harry about what was happening to her. It was simply too humiliating to put into words.

  There was a faint, stealthy knock at her door, and for a moment, she suspected her mind tricked her. But as she listened, she heard it again. And again. She held her breath, hoping whoever it was would think her asleep, but the sound became more insistent. It would not be Alexei or Galena, she was certain, for they believed she’d drunk the laudanum-laced tisane. But she did not want to face anyone—the pain was too deep, too raw for any to see.

  The door opened a crack, just enough for a tentative, whispered, “Ekaterina?” It was Viktor.

  “If you have come to console me, I am beyond reason, I think,” she said.