Falling Stars

by Anita Mills

  “Can I not come in?” she dared to ask.

  He didn’t answer.

  It was Claire who came out first. “You!” she cried with loathing. “I shall despise you forever! And Mama will not let you in this house either! You miserable, wretched creature, you have quite cut up all my hopes!”

  Behind her Lady Winstead appeared. “Mama—?” Kate said tentatively.

  “You are a viper in my bosom!” her mother declared. “A viper, Katherine.”

  “Mama, may I please come inside?”

  “I don’t think so. As it is, you have cost Clarissa the match of the Season,” the woman said coldly. “I know not how we are to hold our heads up, I am sure.”

  “Mama, you have not even heard what happened!”

  “We have heard enough,” Claire sniffed spitefully. “The notice is all over the papers—Count Volsky has charged you with adultery. There is to be a hearing at the bishop’s on the matter.”

  “What? Alexei is here?” Kate asked incredulously. “He cannot be! I have traveled more than three months to get here! And the port at St. Petersburg was frozen!”

  “Under the circumstances, Katherine, I cannot welcome you into this house.”

  “Did he name—that is, who does he accuse with me?” Kate managed to ask.

  “Nearly everyone, I collect.”

  “But it is not true!”

  “The damage is done, Katherine. I’m afraid it cannot be repaired.”

  “I see.” Gathering up what little dignity was left to her, Kate’s chin came up. “Then I shall just have to go to Harry.”

  “If he will have you.”

  The door closed on her. Deep, bitter anger welled like bile inside her, but like everything else, she was impotent to stop it. She turned back to the hackney that had brought her, and remounting the step into it, she ordered the driver to her brother’s address.

  He was not at home, and his man refused to admit any unattended female, even one who styled herself as a countess, he said. So she sat on the narrow stoop of his lodgings and waited, with her bag and box on the ground at her feet.

  “Kate!”

  “Oh, Harry—I pray you will not turn me away! I have been forever getting home!”

  “No, of course not.” But he made no move to put his arm around her. Instead, he looked up and down the street. “Your things, Kate?” he asked, indicating the bags.

  “Yes.”

  He shouldered the box and carried the case up the steep stairs. As the door opened to his voice, he unloaded everything on his man. “My sister is coming to stay,” he said merely.

  “Mama would not let me into the house.”

  “I know. It’s a devil of a mess, I can tell you. Not that she ought to have done it—my house, after all. But she’s mad as fire.”

  “So I have noted.”

  “Cannot blame her entirely. Hargrove finally came up to scratch just before the scandal broke. It was hell after that—he and his mother called on Claire and told her they had no wish to ally themselves with such a family.”

  “I’m sorry. But when did this come out?”

  “About two weeks ago.”

  “And Alexei is here?”

  He shook his head. “Apparently Volsky has engaged an English solicitor, and he only means to send depositions himself.”

  “Harry, for whatever it means to you, I did not commit adultery at Domnya.”

  “I didn’t think you had. At least not with your groom, nor with a footman. It wouldn’t be like you.”

  “Mama said Alexei is claiming I have fornicated with nearly everybody.”

  “Yes. He’s got affidavits from four or five of them.”

  “Harry, none of the grooms or footmen can read or write! They are serfs, and he owns all of them!”

  “And he also accused Bell.”

  She knew he wanted her to deny that also, and she could not. “He brought me out of Russia.”

  “The devil of it is that they are demanding Volsky’s child by you. Given the circumstances, you will have to give it up, I expect.”

  “God defeated him in that, at least.” She sat down, not knowing where to begin, nor what to tell him. “It was February, Harry, and the roads were so bad that we had to stop. I could not have gone on, anyway, for I was too sick.” The telling was so painful still that she had to keep her eyes on her folded hands in her lap. “There was no doctor, and something went so very, very wrong.” Hot tears stung her eyes, and she had to stop to swallow the lump that rose in her throat. “He was born dead, Harry,” she whispered. “He is buried at St. Basil’s monastery, somewhere between Moscow and Tula.” She felt his hand on her shoulder, and she turned against his body to cry. “Please, Harry—I do not want Lexy or Lena to ever have him! I don’t want them to have my son’s body!”

  “Shhhh. It’s over, Kate, and you are home.” He smoothed her hair over her ears, then his arm held her. “I wish I’d known—I’d have tried to help.”

  “All I had was Bell, Harry,” she sobbed. “All I had was Bell! And there was no doctor until long after it was over!”

  “Shhhhh. Don’t—Kate, don’t.”

  “He helped me—I think he saved my life! They—they buried my babe without me—but he was there—and—” She stopped to sniff her running nose, and she wiped her streaming eyes with the back of her hand. “Harry, I am the most miserable of females!”

  “God, Kate, you have been through hell, haven’t you?” he murmured softly. “We had no notion.”

  She sat back finally and withdrew her handkerchief from her reticule. After blowing her nose, she composed herself. “Do you want me to tell you what happened at Domnya?” she asked quietly.

  “Not if you want to wait.”

  “They made a fool of me, Harry—both of them. It was Lena’s notion that he should marry me, you see, and he did not want to.”

  “He did not appear reluctant to me.”

  “Well, he was. I think I even disgusted him, if you want the truth of it. But she wanted a child desperately, and she could not have one. As Tati so crudely put it, I was but the oven for her bun.”

  He pulled up another chair beside her, then sat forward to take her hands. “It doesn’t make any sense, Kate. Why the devil would they come to England for a wife for him?”

  “They wanted a green one, I guess—and one who could not make sense of the rumors about them.” She looked up, shaking her head. “And I was green, wasn’t I?” she recalled bitterly. “He has been sleeping with her since he was a boy. I gathered she seduced him.”

  “The bastard. The miserable bastard,” he muttered.

  “I should have known almost as soon as I got to Russia. Lena managed everything—she even sent him to my bed when he balked. Harry, she made him sleep with me! And she kept him away when she thought it might harm the babe! I thought she was my friend! Harry, I loved her for her kindness to me! But to her I was like a child she could deceive. She even treated me like one, sending me off to bed whenever I was inconvenient.”

  Still holding her hands, he looked to his manservant. “I think you’d best get her a bit of brandy.”

  “I’d rather have water, I think.”

  “Make it brandy,” he insisted. As the man went to fetch it, he turned his attention again to her. “Can you prove any of this, Kate?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose all I can do is try to convince the bishop, then hope if he believes me, the courts and Parliament will also.”

  “It’ll be fodder for the gossips for years.”

  She settled her shoulders. “You sound like Bell. He told me not to come back. He said Lexy would claim I committed adultery to cover the incest he has committed with Lena. But—” She appeared to study her slippers for a moment, then looked up again. “But it is a matter of honor to me.”

  “You know you will not be able to show your face in London, don’t you?”

  “Harry, they were going to take my child.”

  “But now that is not
relevant, is it? Kate, we’ve got to try to protect you. Do you want to tell this to everyone?”

  “If I must.”

  “They are all men,” he reminded her. “And adultery is far easier for them to believe than incest.”

  “I don’t care anymore,” she said tiredly. “They may believe what they want, but they have to listen to me. Harry, Lexy and Galena expected me to condone what they were doing—can you not see how very wrong they were? She told me I could continue to be Countess Volsky—that I could have more of his children! As though it was not wrong!”

  “You are overset, Kate. Here—here’s your brandy. After you drink it, you can lie down, then later we can think what is to be done.”

  “I don’t want to lie down! I’m sorry,” she apologized, “but I don’t. That’s all Lena ever wanted me to do. And I have sat most of the way from Moscow.” Recovering her composure again, she told him, “Harry, I have to tell you about it—there is no one else to listen just now.” Going on, she explained, “When I first ran away from Domnya, I went to Alexei’s brother at Omborosloe. But I had to flee there because Olga—Paul’s wife—wished to take my babe also. She was going to sell it back to Lena for Domnya.”

  “I cannot follow you,” he admitted.

  “All right.” She took the brandy and sipped it, then drew in her breath. Letting it out, she tried again. “Alexei and his sister sleep together, Harry.”

  “That much I got.”

  “And when I discovered it, they tried to persuade me that it didn’t matter to me—that I would still have everything. But they only wanted an heir for Domnya. I don’t know what they would have done if I’d stayed.”

  “I understand that also. After that, I cannot make sense of the rest.”

  “But I ran to Olga and Paul Volsky—only she was nearly as evil as Galena. She wanted to trade my babe to Galena for Domnya.”

  “But she was giving them what they wanted,” he pointed out.

  “Galena wanted a child even more than she wanted Domnya. She would have forced Alexei to exchange Domnya for Omborosloe if she could have a child.”

  “Ah. All right—now I understand that also. So you had to run away from this Olga?”

  “Paul asked if I had anywhere else to turn, and there was no one—so I told him I would ask Bellamy Townsend, who was in Moscow then. He very eagerly took me there, hoping Bell would help me escape from Russia.”

  “That must have been amusing. Bell’s not over-given to helping anyone, not even his friends.”

  “He didn’t want to—in fact, he turned me away. He said I should be ruined to come home in his company. But I would not go back—I took a hotel room and hoped the weather would improve enough that I could engage someone to take me out of the country.”

  “At least he was truthful.”

  “I know. But then he discovered that both Alexei and the Narranskys—Olga is Prince Narransky’s daughter—looked for me. And Alexei wished to have me committed to an asylum, while the Narranskys wished to have me arrested—or some such thing. Only then did Bell help me.” She sipped the brandy and tried to decide what he thought. “You believe in me, don’t you, Harry?”

  “Yes. But as much as I love you, I cannot quite think the tale ought to be repeated. It will be said you have read too many gothic romances, you know.”

  “Well, I haven’t. And I cannot think this can go to criminal court as there is no one to charge here. Somehow it does not seem possible that Alexei will send servants over to testify.”

  “There is Bell. It would not be the first time he was named as correspondent, you know. There is a precedent in the Longford affair,” he reminded her.

  A harsh little laugh escaped her. “Bell has gone to Italy, I’m afraid. He’s gone—bolted.”

  “You sound bitter over it.”

  “No. I owe him too much to be bitter. He saved my life, you know. I think I could have bled to death when my son was born.”

  He stood and walked about the room, pacing as she watched him. “I don’t think I’d say much about Bell, Kate. I’m not even sure I would mention him. You could just say you hired someone to bring you out.”

  “If I lie in that and am discovered, then no one would believe the other,” she pointed out calmly. “I shall have to tell everything.” But even as she said it, she knew she did not wish to admit what she’d done with Townsend. “I think,” she said finally, “that I will lie down, after all.”

  “Yes.” He seemed to seize on the notion. “We can talk about this more later. Though I don’t know what the devil to do—other than hire you a solicitor, of course.”

  “I know. But if you will but speak with me, if you will but stand with me, nothing else matters.”

  “You know I will.” He handed her her glass of brandy. “Here—you’d better take this with you. While you are resting, I mean to call on Mama.”

  “She won’t listen.”

  “Then she can go to Monk’s End—or lease herself another place. The properties are mine, Kate, and we are going to live in the town house. I’ll be damned if I expect you to stay in bachelor’s lodgings.”

  His guest bedchamber was small, owing possibly to the fact that it was part of a bachelor’s establishment. She sank tiredly onto the bed, wondering if she’d been wrong to come home after all, wondering if she should have reached for at least some happiness with Bellamy Townsend.

  But reason told her that there would have been too much guilt—and God knew she had enough of that now—that she would have only gotten herself hurt further. In the carriage with the diplomatic courier, she’d had a great deal of time to think, and she’d come to realize that she could not change Bell. He might profess to love her, and he might even persuade himself to believe it, but he lacked stability—he lacked commitment to any ideal, to anyone.

  Still, she missed him so intensely that there were times she thought her heart was breaking. He’d been there for her too long, she’d clung to him too much, for her to ever forget what he’d done for her. And once they’d parted, she’d almost tried to write him, to say anything to make him come back for her. But less than a week after she moved into the embassy, her monthly course had come. So she had not the excuse.

  She had ceased to exist. She still ate, breathed, and tried to survive, but she had ceased to exist. Bell and Harry had tried to warn her how it would be, but nothing could have prepared her for the price of leaving Alexei. Even if somehow she were exonerated, she would still be utterly invisible to nearly everyone. She could have done almost anything else. She could have even openly flaunted a dozen lovers. And it would have been forgiven her. But she could not divorce Alexei, nor could he divorce her. And the scandal of either thing alone had put her quite beyond the pale.

  When she went to Hookham’s to borrow a book, the clerks stared at her, and if she went into the reading room, it suddenly emptied. If she shopped, those she knew pretended she was not there. If she went to the theater with Harry, her former acquaintances would speak to him, all the while looking straight through her as though she were not present. On the street, even when accompanied by a maid, she rarely encountered anyone she knew directly. Most would cross the street to avoid her.

  Since her return to London, she had been given the cut direct, the cut indirect, and nearly every other slight imaginable. Invitations to Harry often carried small, handwritten notes in them, advising him to come alone. And the number of those invitations themselves had declined drastically.

  Her mother and Claire had gone home to Monk’s End, where the same vicar who had known Kate most of her life—had married her to Alexei even—now denounced her from the pulpit. Mama’s letters to Harry did not refer to her by name, only as “that miserable creature who has wreaked such misfortune on all of us.”

  But Mama and Claire’s removal from London had meant she was at least at home in her room. But even that had caused a considerable row, for Dawes and Mrs. Simpkins, the housekeeper, had at first gone about with their n
oses far too high, until Harry confronted them with being turned off. Now they were icily civil to her. But she again had Peg. Upon hearing that Harry might be returning home, the maid had simply allowed herself to be discharged so that she could stay.

  The solicitor Harry had hired for her had managed to get the ecclesiastical hearing postponed, saying that his client was exhausted from her journey and from the terrible loss of her child. The meeting with the bishop was now set for the following week.

  She was in the book room, reading everything she had missed while in Russia, when a footman entered, then stood there, clearing his throat apologetically.

  “Someone to see you, my lady.”

  My lady. Despite the ignominy of everything else, she was still Countess Volsky. She looked up from her book. “You must be mistaken. I am not at home.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He’d already turned to leave, but she could not help her curiosity, for who would be foolish enough to risk seeing her? “Who is it?” she dared to ask.

  “He says he is Lord Leighton.”

  George Maxwell. Here? “There must be some mistake, Jem. I daresay he has come to see Harry.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  He withdrew, leaving the door half-open. She could hear him tell Leighton that she had gone out. Settling back in her chair, she turned the page of her book.

  “I usually know a whisker when I am told one, my dear.” The Scottish viscount stood in the doorway, smiling at her.

  “Are you not afraid you will be named as my paramour?” she asked bitterly. “I should not be seen speaking with me, were I you.”

  “No.” The grin turned into a smile. “Rich men are generally forgiven almost anything. And so far my perceived character has remained unblemished.” Without waiting to be invited in, he crossed the room to her and chose a chair close by. Dropping into it, he reached into his coat for a moment, then brought out what looked to be an envelope. “Had business in London, actually.” He leaned forward to hand her the envelope. “Bell Townsend asked me to deliver this to you.”