The Sparrow in Hiding

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  It wasn’t bandaged as she’d assumed when she’d spied on him bathing in the lake.

  It was covered with feathers.

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  IRINA STARED DOWN at Evgeny’s bared shoulder. Or not quite bare shoulder. White feathers formed a neat vee, coming to a point almost at his neck. Down softened the edges of the stump of his arm. The white feather she’d found on his bed hadn’t come from one of the birds. It had come from him.

  Irina leaned down and brushed the feathers lightly, just to be certain. Impossible, but it was true.

  Evgeny’s eyes opened wide. He jerked away, his right hand reaching up to cover that left shoulder, as if he could hide it from her view. “What are you doing here?”

  Irina didn’t know how to answer. Or rather, she did, but it would be unladylike to admit she’d come here to convince him to be her lover. Very unladylike. And she hated that he seemed so mortified to be caught thus.

  His eyes lowered and he shifted into a sitting position, drawing the blanket over his lap while she stared at him. His right hand lifted to hide his shoulder again, but he dropped it to his lap instead to hold the blanket in place. “Does it repulse you?”

  That question eased her tension. This must be why he’d been reluctant to tell her what manner his curse had taken, something that had been troubling her for days now. She sat down at his left side and touched his feathered shoulder lightly. “No. Is this why your father had your arm cut off? Because you had feathers. . . ?”

  She realized what she’d said then. He’d had feathers, like a bird. And he could understand birds. It hadn’t only been feathers along his arm. “Were you actually transformed into a bird? Was that your curse?”

  “Yes.” His attention had drifted to the buttons at the neck of her wrapper, though, as if he’d just noticed her state of undress. “I . . .”

  “You. . . ?” Irina prompted.

  His dark eyes lifted to hers again. “Are you reconsidering?”

  It surprised her, his uncertainty. He was a gloriously handsome man, but perhaps the loss of his arm and the remnant of his curse had shaken his self-assurance. “Would I be here late at night, dressed as I am, if I were?”

  “Well, you might have come here merely to take advantage of me.” His tone had gone sly, hinting that he felt surer of himself now.

  “I have,” she admitted. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to marry you as well.”

  His eyes met hers. “Are you sure of this?”

  She kissed him. His arm wrapped about her firmly, but his lips were gentle on hers as if mindful of the way Sergei had always treated her. Her hands rested against his warm skin, slid about his back to press closer. She sighed when his lips moved to her neck. When his fingers touched the neck of her wrapper and began unbuttoning it, she was startled by his dexterity. “You’re good at that.”

  He laughed. “Unbuttoning things is easy. But it would take me hours to refasten them, and they’d probably end up mismatched.”

  It was her turn to laugh. She unfastened the hooks at the waist and once he’d unbuttoned enough buttons she pulled away to push her wrapper over her hips and let it fall to the floor. That left her in the short linen chemise that served as her nightdress in the summers. He drew her back to him, lifting the chemise as he did. She helped him tug it off and then lay against him, skin to skin. The bed was narrow, but somehow they managed to lie together there.

  Evgeny smiled ruefully. “I’m not certain how to do this,” he whispered. “Without two arms, I mean.”

  Irina had, for a moment, forgotten that difficulty. “I’m sure we can work it out.”

  

  Evgeny lay next to Irina’s warm body, his back against the wall since the bed was so small. In the stray moonlight coming through his open door, he watched her sleeping face.

  He would never have believed she would marry a man who hid his name and family from her. She’d taken on faith that he was worthy of her. That showed a great deal of trust, both in him and in her brother’s estimation of him.

  And she hadn’t flinched away from his missing arm. She’d known his arm was gone, of course, but that wasn’t the same as seeing a stump. Nor was it the same as finding that stump covered in feathers. That was the one thing he’d feared above all others.

  She’d guessed that he’d become a bird, but hadn’t made the connection to his identity—not yet. He could tell that. Given how she spoke of herself, she would probably react badly when she did figure it out. Better to tell her now, while he had her here.

  As if in answer to that thought, her eyes fluttered open. For a brief moment she seemed confused, but then her eyes fixed on his. “Is it morning?”

  “No,” he said. “We have time yet.”

  She smiled languidly and her warm fingers brushed his chest, but he took her hand in his. “I need to tell you something.”

  Her brows drew together. “What is it?”

  “A story. A complicated one. Will you hear me out?”

  She nodded, brows drawn together.

  “My mother was a farm worker’s daughter named Maria Lebedeva,” he began. “She was very beautiful and sweet-tempered, and my father fell in love with her the moment he laid eyes on her. He married her despite the protests of his own father, and they were fortunate. His family had been wealthy before, but the crops were good and my father built linen mills and factories on his lands. My mother bore him seven children who all lived. We were a happy family.”

  Irina caught her lower lip between her teeth. She must realize now where he planned to go with this.

  “But my mother became ill,” he went on, “and when I was eleven, she died. My brothers were all away at school in Moscow. My father sent me there as well, although I was preparing to study science instead of war like my brothers. That’s where I met Illarion. He’d lost his mother as well, so we became friends. He trusted me, and I him. And then my father remarried.”

  “Ah, yes. The witch from France who likes jewels. Was she terribly mean?”

  “I couldn’t say. We hardly ever saw her,” Evgeny admitted. “Only at holidays. My four brothers were at the War College, and Grigori lived out at the dacha, Lizaveta with him. That Christmas when I was sixteen, we all decided to meet at the dacha instead of going home to Nizhny. Father didn’t even seem to care. But the day after Christmas, she came to the dacha in one of my father’s sleighs.”

  “That was when she cursed you, right? She changed you into a bird.”

  “Yes. It was a lovely January morning, cool and crisp and sunny. Lizaveta had gone into the woods to gather greens, but the six of us brothers were at the house preparing for dinner. We did what was polite and went down to meet with her, and the moment we gathered in the front sitting room, she cursed us. Our father didn’t know what had happened to us. We were adults, and he probably thought we’d run away, so he sold the dacha . . .”

  “Because you were birds?” Irina turned partly on her side to face him. “What of your sister? You said she was in the forest. Was Lizaveta cursed too?”

  He sighed. “No, but the curse proved harder on Lizaveta than the rest of us. The leshy in the forest was her friend and protected her from the curse itself, but she begged him to tell her how she could break the curse, how she could get us back. She took the responsibility of saving us on her own shoulders, even though she was only fifteen. And that began six years of hellish trials for her as she tried to do everything the leshy told her she must.”

  Irina licked her lips. “What did she have to do?”

  “It will sound ridiculous.” He laughed shortly. “She had to knit us shirts made from the petals of aster flowers and, while she did so, she was forbidden to speak to anyone. For six years, not a single word. At first she lived in the leshy’s forest, up in the trees, but after a year or so, a nobleman passing by saw her up there and fell in love with her—just as Father had with our mother. Mikhail badgered her until she had to come down and then he ma
rried her, all without a word from her lips.”

  Irina’s delicate brows drew together. “Did she want to marry him?”

  “She says so. He is a kind man and allowed her to continue her knitting, no matter how bizarre it seemed. But his mother hated being replaced and schemed to get rid of his new wife. When Lizaveta bore a child, the mother stole it away while she was sleeping. The woman gave the babe to a woodcutter to raise and then claimed that Lizaveta had eaten her own child.”

  Irina didn’t seem to doubt him. “And your sister could say nothing in her defense.”

  “She wrote to her husband that it wasn’t true, and he believed her, but when her second child was born and then her third, the same thing happened. The priest insisted she must be tried for killing them, but she wouldn’t speak. For our sake, she remained silent.”

  Irina’s brow rumpled. Likely the story had begun to sound familiar to her. It had appeared in the newspapers in St. Petersburg, although most people there had dismissed it as Muscovite mysticism.

  “You and your brothers showed up at the trial,” Irina said hesitantly, “and testified that you’d seen the mother-in-law taking the children to . . . a woodcutter’s hut. The Church said it was a miracle.”

  Yes, she’s heard the story.

  “We went there to save Lizaveta by carrying her away if we must. It was the last day of our curse, though. We’d lost track of time, but she’d never once forgotten. She’d completed the shirts made of aster petals. When she threw them over us, we were transformed back into men and she could finally speak again.” Irina frowned, but Evgeny went on. “Her mother-in-law confessed and was sent to a nunnery for the remainder of her life. Lizaveta and her husband were reunited with their three sons. And we were men again . . .”

  “Except you, the youngest,” she said softly. “Your arm and your eyes . . .”

  “She hadn’t quite finished the last shirt,” he said. “Lizaveta has always felt guilty about that, leaving me partway between man and animal, but she tried to save us when no one else did.”

  “You were a swan,” she whispered, sounding horrified. She laid on hand on her belly, as if she might cast up her dinner. “You were . . . are. . . .”

  She fell silent again, and Evgeny knew she was remembering it all . . . a family near Nizhny where the boys’ stepmother had cursed them, turning them into swans. She tried to tug her hand away from his, but he kept her at his side.

  “You are Prince Dragomirov,” she said, a break in her voice. “You’re a prince. Oh, God! What have I done?” She tugged harder to get away from him, but his one arm was strong.

  “Irina. If you hear me out,” Evgeny told her, “I will let you go. That’s all I ask.”

  After a moment, Irina shuddered and nodded.

  Evgeny drew her closer and pressed a kiss to her brow. “Prince is nothing more than a word,” he told her. “No different than serf or peasant. Yes, I inherited a title to place before my name, but that doesn’t make me any less the grandson of a farm worker.”

  That stilled her attempts to jerk away. He hoped she was finally hearing what he had to say.

  His title had ceased to have any meaning that day ten years before when he went from being Prince Dragomirov to a dumb beast, living constantly in terror of being shot or netted for someone’s dinner. Even when he’d returned to being a man, his all-too-obvious wing had separated him from the rest of his father’s people and his brothers. Then, having that rather splendid wing cut away like a shattered and ruined leg had transformed him into an invalid who didn’t even have the excuse of the wars to explain it. He refused to lie and claim the veteran’s meager dole from the government, and thus starved when he’d fled his father’s house. His title meant nothing to him now.

  “You are your father’s heir,” she whispered, surprising him.

  “Yes,” he admitted, “but there won’t be much to inherit when my father passes. Sidonie will surely flee with all her jewels, and my father’s estate—what parts he hasn’t sold off—will be worthless.”

  “And what will become of what’s left? Or his people? His workers and servants?”

  Ah, it’s not the money, it’s the people who concern her. She’d raised a valid question, though. He hated the idea of abandoning them to poverty. “My cousin Ilya will inherit instead. He might not be brilliant, but he’d be easily ruled by Father’s manager, and they might be able to salvage something.”

  Irina’s leg moved against his, distracting him. “Illarion would know what to do,” she whispered.

  That was true. If anyone could save his family’s estate, it was Illarion Razumov. Evgeny took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “True. So if I do claim it, I will need you at my side as my wife.”

  Irina laughed softly. “I suppose it is too late for me to change my mind.”

  “Yes, you’re mine now, and I have no intention of letting you slip away.” He kissed her, and a moment later they were entangled again on the narrow bed.

  

  Irina’s first wedding had been a grand one in the church, everything done properly with the traditional days of festivities. She’d met Sergei the day before the wedding, and by the time the guests came to call on the morning after the wedding, she’d been afraid of him. She’d held her tongue, been a dutiful wife, and tried to please her husband. But nothing had been right.

  Now she stood before Father Piotr with only Illarion, Kolya, and her dazed-looking father as witnesses.

  “Promise to me that you will not reveal my name,” Evgeny told the priest. “Not to anyone.”

  The priest seemed taken aback by such a request. Irina suspected that no one had ever asked that of him before. But after a moment, Father Piotr gave his promise. His eyes widened when Evgeny gave him his name and title, perhaps questioning his decision to deny a prince permission to enter the church.

  “Do you swear by God that this is your true name?” the priest asked.

  “I do,” Evgeny said softly.

  “I assure you, Father,” Illarion added, “he is Prince Evgeny Dragomirov. I have known him since I was twelve, and will testify to his legal identity if needed.”

  Thus assured, the priest read out the betrothal ceremony, verifying their intentions and joining them with rings supplied by her father. When it came time, Kolya brought forth simple crowns for the priest to place on their heads, one made of bay leaves and the other of white feathers. Irina’s new husband smiled down at her, and for a time all was right with the world.

  

  The summer flew quickly, far faster than Irina expected. One morning at breakfast, Illarion announced that he and Father would be returning to St. Petersburg in a week. “I have investments to oversee,” Illarion said. “I cannot stay away forever.”

  Later that morning as they headed back to the Summer House where she and Evgeny were living, Kolya caught Irina’s arm and drew her aside. “You two should come with us,” he said quietly. “If you stay here, I can’t protect you if his witch comes looking for him. Your Evgeny has the leshy’s charm, but I no longer have the power to make such a protection for you.”

  She touched Kolya’s cheek. “I will not be afraid of her.”

  He frowned at her, but didn’t argue as she walked on out of the house into the sunshine.

  “What did he ask of you?” Evgeny had waited for her just beyond the doors, allowing Kolya to speak with her in semi-privacy.

  She suspected that Evgeny knew Kolya had once been her lover. If he ever asked her directly, she would tell him, not wanting there to be any more secrets between them. “He suggested that we go back to St. Petersburg with them next week.”

  “Ah.” Evgeny took her hand in his and led her along the paths toward the Summer House. “I am undecided myself. It’s not safe for you here.”

  Irina squeezed his hand. “No more dangerous than it is for you.”

  “The problem is between my father’s wife and me,” he said. “You need not involve yourself.”
>
  The woman who’d brought so much ill to Evgeny’s family wouldn’t hesitate to kill Evgeny’s wife, especially with a couple of months of marriage past now. The witch couldn’t know whether Irina carried Evgeny’s child—a child who would inherit his father’s monies.

  A rustling of wings distracted her from those thoughts. Before them, a raven landed on the flagstone in front of the aviary, hopped forward, and tapped on the stone with its beak. A moment later, a second one joined it, and then a third. Had Evgeny summoned them?

  One of the ravens came and perched on his shoulder while Evgeny made rasping sounds at another of the birds on the ground.

  “What is it?” Irina asked. “What’s wrong?”

  His dark eyes met hers. “She’s coming. These are my sentries.”

  Sentries. For the previous few days, instead of playing music, Illarion and Kolya had sat down with Evgeny and come up with a plan not only to defend him, but Irina as well. Unfortunately, they knew very little of Sidonie’s powers, and had no idea what manner of attack to expect. The only thing Evgeny knew she could do was transform young men into swans. For her part, Irina was expected to wait out any confrontation secure inside, which was irritating. But Evgeny had asked her to trust him in this matter, so she had. “How long?”

  “An hour at most,” Evgeny said. “I’ll go find your brother. Please go back to the house.”

  The birds followed him out of the aviary, leaving her alone there. He wanted her to stay in the house, but she wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  EVGENY MET MOROZOV and Illarion on the gravel pathway in front of the aviary. He had with him the talisman left behind by Lizaveta, a token from the leshy back at the dacha outside Nizhny. It wasn’t much to defend himself from Sidonie, but it was better than nothing.