COUNT ANTONOV’S HEIR
A Romantic Novel of Long Ago
Christina Laffeaty
No! cried Caroline’s anguished heart
Princess Vezenski had asked Caroline to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. But how could Caroline go through with it? For the princess was marrying Count Antonov, the man Caroline loved deeply and passionately.
Princess Vezenski had said it was permissible in the rigid Russian aristocracy to shed tears at a wedding. But Caroline feared she would spill something far more shattering than tears-for when her heart broke, it might release its terrible secret...
... a secret that would surely plunge her beloved Count Antonov into poverty and humiliation.
CHAPTER
ONE
Although it was high summer, the weather was unseasonably cold that year, and London lay enveloped in a shroud of misty drizzle. Outside, the air was alive with the street cries of merchants and vendors, with the sound of urchins quarrelling and women exchanging shrill ribaldry. All of them the sounds of an area growing more down-at-heel by the day.
Caroline wrapped an old shawl of her mother’s around her shoulders, for the room had a dank chilliness about it, and it was unthinkable that she should light a fire at that time of the year.
Compulsively, she began to go through her accounts again, even though she knew her financial circumstances by heart. By practising strict economy she should be able to pay the month’s rent for her two rooms—always providing, of course, that she lost no more of her few remaining pupils. The kind of well-to-do tradesmen willing to pay for private lessons in French and Italian for their children were fast deserting the declining neighbourhood, and she could not afford to follow them to better-class suburbs where she might have attracted fresh pupils. It was a vicious circle.
Caroline sighed. If the worst came to the worst she could always try for a post at one of the Academies for Young Ladies. She would be shamelessly exploited, of course, for she had no paper qualifications which fitted her for a post as language mistress. Her mother had supported the two of them by giving private tuition in French and Italian; Caroline had picked up the languages quite easily, but even though she was fluent in both, it counted for little without those vital diplomas bearing witness to her skills.
The rapping of the door-knocker roused her from her dismal reverie. She was expecting no pupils that day so her visitor could only, praise heaven, be a parent to whom she had been recommended as a tutor. She stopped before the looking glass before she hurried to open the door.
Her black gown of mourning crape accentuated the transparent pallor of her skin, and subdued the redness of her hair. A tendril of it had escaped rebelliously from the severe bun in the nape of her neck, and she tucked it behind an ear. For the hundredth time in her life, she wished that her eyes were any colour other than light brown, for that unusual combination always led people to suspect that she dyed her hair. And parents prized dowdy respectability above all else in a girl to whom they entrusted the tuition of their young—
Well, she could help neither the colour of her eyes nor that of her hair, and the rapping at the door had grown insistent. She hurried to open it.
The man who stood in the doorway looked to be in his early thirties, and Caroline was immediately conscious of his powerful physical presence. He was tall and lithe, with high cheekbones which gave his face an austere look, and his hair was black save for a small, inverted triangle of pure white which grew from the centre of his forehead. His eyes were a compelling clear green shot with yellow, set between black lashes, and she had the swift impression that they could, at times, appear very frosty indeed.
But at the moment they were merely appraising. ‘Miss Kearley?’ he enquired, clicking his heels together. It seemed a strange and foreign gesture to her, but his English was without any particular inflection. ‘Am I right in assuming that you are Miss Caroline Kearley?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
He sketched a slight bow. ‘My name is Antonov. Count Alexander Nikolaievich Antonov.’
Caroline stiffened with shock. For years he had been only a name to her, someone for whom she felt a distant compassion, and whom she had never expected to meet face to face. And she never thought of him as a grown man bearing the title of Count Antonov, but as a small boy known by the affectionate diminutive of Sacha.
Sacha, the Antonov changeling, the peasant woman’s son who must never find out that not a drop of the noble Antonov blood coursed through his veins.
‘The past is dead,’ her mother had often told her. ‘Let it rest in peace.’
But she hadn’t. On impulse, she had raked over the dead ashes and produced an unexpected and unwelcome spark.
‘You wrote to me,’ Sacha continued, ‘informing me of the death of my mother.’
‘Yes,’ Caroline muttered, wishing that she had resisted the impulse to write that brief note. But it seemed to her that it was no more than Sacha was entitled to.
‘May I come inside for a moment, Miss Kearley?’ he asked, and belatedly she remembered her manners.
He seemed to dwarf her small parlour. When they were both seated he fixed her with an intense, analytical expression in those gold-flecked eyes of his, and she found herself wishing involuntarily that she was wearing something more flattering than her drab mourning crape.
But then he spoke, and his words were probing, even suspicious. ‘May I ask what your relationship was to my mother?’
Caroline thought swiftly and desperately. When she had written to Sacha she had merely said that his mother had died peacefully in her arms, and had left him to assume that she had been the other woman’s friend or companion. She had expected no more than a polite acknowledgement, and perhaps an enquiry as to whether his mother had left any unpaid debts. Certainly she had never envisaged that he would pay her a personal call, and ask awkward questions.
How on earth could she tell this man that she was the illegitimate daughter of the woman he believed to have been his mother? He must still have very strong and no doubt bitter feelings about her mother to have travelled all the way from Russia when he heard of her death. So how could Caroline inflict yet another shattering blow by telling him the truth?
No. It was impossible to tell him that some years after Countess Euphemia Antonov had fled back to her native England from Russia, she had met and fallen in love with a penniless artist, Tom Kearley, whom she could never marry because she was still the legal wife of Count Nikolai Antonov. So they had defied convention and lived together, and Caroline had been born out of wedlock.
She herself was not ashamed of her illegitimate status, or of her parents, but in the eyes of the world they had ‘lived in sin’. How could she add this social stigma to all the other bitter feelings Sacha must now be nursing about her mother?
But he was waiting for an answer, and desperation lent conviction to Caroline’s story as she began to embroider the truth.
‘Your—the Countess took a position as my father’s housekeeper when she returned to England. He was a—a widower, and he needed someone to look after me. He died when I was seven, and since there was no one else to take me in and he’d left no money, your mother brought me up. She taught me French and Italian, so that I now earn my living in the same way as she did.’
‘I see.’ His voice had taken on a corrosive quality. ‘She seems to have had affection for you, and you were obviously in her confidence to have known of my existence. Perhaps you could explain something to me, Miss Kearley—something which has haunted me for years. Why did my mother abandon me when I was six years old and never communicated with me for the rest of her life? What had I done?’
‘You did nothing,’ Caroline said quietly.
‘She was young, and homesick, and very unhappy with Count Nikolai. He—he was cruel to her.’
‘Yes, my father was a cruel man,’ Sacha agreed bleakly. ‘And yet, knowing that, my mother left me with him instead of taking me to England with her. Did that never trouble her conscience, Miss Kearley?’
‘It troubled her a great deal. But—well, you were your father’s heir. The Antonov estates would be yours one day, and she felt it right that you should grow up there.’
‘She never cared for me.’ His expression was stark and vulnerable. ‘She couldn’t have. If she had written to me occasionally I wonder if she ever gave one thought to that small boy who waited in vain for each post to bring some word from her.’
Unbearably moved, Caroline said, ‘She did. Oh, I know she did. But how could she have written to you without putting your father on her trail? She lived in fear that he would find her, and force her to return to Russia.’
He looked at Caroline, but she had the impression that he wasn’t really seeing her. ‘If she had cared for me at all she would have contacted me after my father died, two years ago. I made sure that she would know of his death. I had notices sent to all the British newspapers. Can you deny that she saw the notice of his death?’
‘No,’ Caroline admitted unhappily. ‘But—I believe she thought too many years had gone by, and she felt that things had best be left as they were.’
Sacha rose. ‘Miss Kearley, I don’t remember what my mother looked like. All I remember is her soft voice and the smell of her perfume. After she left Russia my father had all portraits and miniatures of her destroyed. Since you lived with her so many years, I wondered if you have, perhaps, a likeness of her which you would be prepared to sacrifice to me?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Caroline said softly. ‘My father painted many portraits of her, I know, but they all had to be sold when he died, to pay his debts. I’m afraid I can’t even help you trace any of the purchasers, for I was too young at the time to take such things in. And afterwards there was never any money left to pay for such frivolous things as portraits or even daguerreotypes.’
‘So she died in poverty,’ he observed, his voice bitter. ‘And she even denied me the chance of providing for her.’
Caroline could think of nothing to say, except, ‘She is buried in St John’s churchyard, a few blocks away, if you should wish to visit the grave—’
‘An empty, meaningless gesture,’ he interrupted, ‘considering that she had never wanted my presence when she was alive. Well, Miss Kearley, I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for seeing me.’
It had been an unpleasant shock to find him standing on her doorstep, and yet now Caroline felt a perverse reluctance to see him go.
‘Will you stay long in England?’ she asked as she accompanied him to the door.
‘For a few more days. I have some business matters to attend to, and then we return to St Petersburg. I don’t like to be separated from my small son for too long.’
‘Oh,’ she said flatly. ‘You are married...’
‘I was. My wife died in childbirth. Good day, Miss Kearley.’
We, she decided, must refer to his entourage. Of course a man in his position would not travel without servants. But on this particular personal mission he had preferred to come unaccompanied.
After he had gone Caroline took out the brass-bound diary which her mother had kept during her time in Russia, and flicked through it. The diary had been her mother’s only solace, and she had poured out all her misery and fear of her husband in its pages.
‘Friday, 18th June, 1848.’ Caroline read. ‘We have removed to the country estate for the summer. The Count shows me some consideration now, but it is only for the sake of my unborn child. He is convinced it will be a boy. Oh, how I dread the thought that it might be a girl instead! He would ill-use me and the poor infant. He despises the female sex. To him, our only value lies in begetting sons to carry on the family line.’
Another entry read.—‘The poor serfs, how they suffer under my husband. He regards them as little more than animals, and valuable only in terms of the price they would command in the market. How monstrous that people can still be bought and sold in this modern age! At least my present condition makes it possible for me to show the serfs some kindness, without inviting reprisals from the Count. Before, he thought it a fine joke to beat one of the poor wretches to within an inch of his life, just for the joy of seeing my shocked reaction. I grow to loathe and fear the man I married more each day. If I had known the full extent of his cruelty I would have run away from home rather than have Cousin Harriet push me into making what she termed an excellent match.’
The last entry in the diary was brief and joyful. ‘The Count has left home for a full two weeks to join a shooting party! He has ordered me to take to my bed, for nothing must risk the healthy delivery of what he has convinced himself will be his son and heir. I must obey him, of course, but even the boredom of being confined to bed is as nothing compared to the joy of two whole weeks without his hateful presence.’ Caroline closed the diary and stared pensively in front of her. There were no further entries, for what happened next had been far too dangerous to commit to writing. Caroline could almost hear her mother’s voice again as she recalled the story which Euphemia had confided to her.
‘The Count was still away, Caroline, when a disaster struck the village where his peasants lived. A nearby river had burst its banks and flooded the village. Many people lost their lives or their homes and I couldn’t—not even for fear of the Count—remain in my bed. I had to go with medicines and blankets, to give such comfort and help as I could.
‘The devastation was terrible. It shocked me so profoundly that I entered prematurely into labour. There was no time to summon a doctor, and a peasant woman attended me in one of the huts. The baby was a boy, as the Count had so confidently expected, but it was stillborn.
‘I was half crazy with grief and terror. I knew that the Count would blame me for his son’s death. If I had cause to fear him before, it became magnified a thousand times, and the old peasant woman shared my fear. She knew that there would be reprisals against the serfs for what had happened. In his cruel, warped way my husband would have punished the whole village for having been the indirect cause of his son’s death.
‘Then, Caroline, the peasant woman thought of a solution. “Anna Barovska’s man,” she told me, “perished in the flood, and so did her parents, leaving her to care for her young brothers and sisters—not to mention her infant boy born two days ago. I believe she would agree to an exchange being made for all our sakes.” ’
‘And that is precisely what we did. Only we three women knew the truth, and we swore a solemn oath that the Count would never learn of the substitution.’
Caroline rose and put away the diary. Sacha, the changeling, had grown into a healthy, sturdy boy, and the Count had been well pleased with him. But when his wife failed to give him more children he had vented his cruelty on her more and more, until she had been able to bear it no longer.
Caroline sighed. How could she have told Sacha the real reason why her mother had apparently abandoned him so heartlessly? It wasn’t that Euphemia hadn’t loved the boy, but there had been someone else who loved him even more, and who would have been devastated if he had been taken from Russia. His true mother, Anna Barovska, who had been taken on as his wet-nurse and had remained in the household afterwards.
No, there had been no way of comforting Sacha without telling him the truth. And that would have to remain a secret for ever.
Since the rest of the day stretched emptily before her, and her mind was still preoccupied with her mother and the past, Caroline slipped on her cloak and walked through the drizzling rain to St John’s churchyard. She often wondered what the verger made of the shabbily-dressed young woman who arrived regularly to visit the grave with its simple headstone which seemed to belie the inscription—‘Sacred to the Memory of Euphemia, Countess Antonov.’
As she approached the grave she halted in her tracks. Sacha had changed his mind, for he was kneeling beside the grave, his hands covering his face. A large spray of roses lay at the foot of the grave.
Caroline’s first instinct was to leave him in privacy, knowing that he would hate to have his vulnerability exposed. But then it was too late, for he had risen and seen her. She came to join him and, to give him an opportunity to compose himself, she bent down to admire the roses. They had hidden a card, and automatically she read its inscription.
‘I loved you, Mamasha,’ was all it said, and Caroline was so moved that she rose and turned instinctively to him in a comforting gesture, placing her hands on his shoulders.
She saw his eyes darken with emotion. His hands came up, closing around her wrists, drawing her towards him so that their bodies touched. It had begun as no more than a blind, human need for the giving and receiving of comfort, but suddenly its quality changed. A violent current of physical attraction crackled between them, so intense that it left Caroline shaken. She pulled away from him and he released her, staring at her.
‘Dine with me tonight,’ he said abruptly.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because—because I don’t possess a suitable gown.’
‘I shall buy one for you.’
She looked at him in desperation. ‘Certainly not!’
‘In that case, wear what you’re wearing now.’
‘Sacha, you’re crazy!’ Caroline cried.
‘Sacha,’ he echoed softly. ‘No one has called me that for a long, long while.’
‘I’m sorry—I should have said Count Antonov.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘I shall send a carriage for you at seven this evening.’
He was crazy, and so was she, for even contemplating dining with him. And yet she knew as she made her way home after they had parted that she would be ready and waiting at seven.
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