Count Antonov's Heir

by Christina Laffeaty

  The dinner was as formal as the clothes which the family wore. Men servants in plush breeches carried in various courses and then discreetly withdrew. When the meal came to an end, Sacha said, looking at Caroline,

  ‘We’ll spend the rest of the evening playing cards. Normally we would entertain guests, but I wouldn’t invite anyone to meet you tonight, Caroline, because—well, to be honest, because I was afraid you might have changed your mind about coming to Russia, and if that had happened I wanted to lick my wounds in private, and not under the pitying gaze of my friends.’ So that comment of Uncle Viktor’s had been a cruel barb. But he was an Antonov, and hadn’t Aunt Maria herself said that both her brothers had always been cruel by nature?

  As everyone repaired to another room to play cards, Caroline found herself next to Grigori. He said softly, ‘You look very beautiful, Miss Kearley, in that gown. You make everyone else look overdressed.’

  She smiled at him. This Antonov had not inherited the family cruelty. ‘Thank you. But must you go on calling me Miss Kearley? Can’t it be Caroline?’

  He glanced in Sacha’s direction. ‘Until you are married, no. Alexander would not allow the slightest liberty with his fiancée. Come, the others are waiting for us to take our places at the card-table.’

  As the evening wore on Caroline wondered, a little desperately, if she would ever be able to adapt to evenings spent in this way, in this formal atmosphere. But of course, she reminded herself, the atmosphere would not remain so formal once she and Sacha were married.

  The rather tedious card-game was interrupted by the arrival of a servant carrying a message on a silver salver, which he presented to Sacha. The latter took it, frowning, and when he had broken the seal and read it Caroline saw that his eyes were bright with pleasure and excitement.

  ‘His Imperial Majesty the Czar commands me to bring Miss Caroline Kearley to a ball at the Winter Palace tomorrow night,’ he announced. ‘He wishes her to be presented to him!’

  The atmosphere changed dramatically. Aunt Maria, who had been dozing over her hand of cards, jerked upright and exclaimed, ‘The Imperial patronage! No one will be brave enough to mention the dear child’s lack of a dowry or her humble origins after that!’ Caroline flushed. So there had been family opposition to Sacha’s choice of bride, and predictions that she would not be accepted by their friends. But he had brushed them all aside, and that knowledge meant more to Caroline at the moment than the Czar’s invitation.

  Aunt Natalia was wringing her hands. ‘She has no suitable gown...’

  ‘A seamstress will take care of that,’ Sacha dismissed the matter.

  ‘You don’t understand!’ Aunt Natalia cried in agitation. ‘It would be impossible to make such a gown in one day!’

  ‘Then send for half a dozen seamstresses,’ Uncle Viktor recommended. Even he was looking at Caroline with approval now.

  Aunt Natalia turned to her husband, that secretive expression of hers more pronounced than ever. Why, Caroline thought, it’s a disguise—not only for shyness, but also for fear!

  ‘My love,’ Aunt Natalia told him diffidently, ‘you are a man, and you don’t realise how impracticable that suggestion is. The thing is impossible.’

  ‘It would be even more impossible to snub the Czar by declining the invitation,’ Sacha pointed out. ‘A gown must be found for Caroline in time.’

  ‘Why don’t you,’ Grigori suggested, ‘ask Katya to lend her one, Alexander? They are of similar build.’

  An odd little silence fell over the room. Sacha broke it stiffly. ‘I do not wish to have my fiancée presented to the Czar wearing borrowed clothes.’

  ‘But it’s the ideal solution!’ Aunt Natalia said with relief. ‘It’s the only solution. I shall call on her tomorrow.’

  ‘Who is Katya?’ Caroline asked curiously.

  Again that odd silence reigned for a moment. An equally odd little smile played about Uncle Viktor’s mouth. ‘A friend of the family,’ he said. ‘She lives in this street.’

  ‘If she is to be asked to lend me a gown,’ Caroline suggested, ‘then it would be only civil for me to meet her first—’

  ‘There won’t be time, child!’ Aunt Natalia interrupted. ‘Katya won’t rise from her bed until two in the afternoon. I shall call on her as soon as I decently can after that, but you will have to spend the afternoon closeted with my maid Lydia. It would take her at least three hours to dress your hair in an appropriate manner.’

  Caroline’s head spun under the combined implications of being presented to the Czar of the Russian Empire, of spending three hours or more having her hair arranged, and of having a gown borrowed on her behalf from someone called Katya whose name produced that disquieting silence over the company.

  She could express none of this, so she found herself asking faintly, ‘Why won’t this Katya have risen from her bed before two o’clock tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Because that is the normal hour for ladies,’ Aunt Natalia said absently, her mind obviously busy with plans. ‘We shall have to, however. Rise earlier, I mean.’

  ‘The emeralds!’ Aunt Maria suddenly contributed to the conversation. ‘She must wear the Antonov emeralds!’

  ‘Of course.’ Sacha laughed softly, his eyes resting on Caroline with warmth and love. ‘The Antonov emeralds might have been designed expressly for her.’

  ‘You must go to bed now, child,’ Aunt Natalia told Caroline. ‘You will have to be fresh tomorrow. Oh, why couldn’t the Czar have given us more time!’

  With very mixed feelings, Caroline allowed herself to be ushered from the room, and climbed the stairs. But it was a long time before she fell asleep. Her thoughts were hopelessly intermingled, dwelling first on the peasant woman who had thrown herself on the railway fine, and then with the contrasting world in which one received peremptory commands to attend an Imperial ball, wearing the Antonov emeralds...

  In the morning, she was briefly introduced to Sacha’s son, Michael, an enchanting but shy four-year-old who whispered—‘Are you really to be my new Mamasha?’

  ‘Yes, my love.’

  There was scarcely time for more than that before his formidable nurse whisked him back upstairs.

  Caroline saw nothing at all of Sacha. He had gone, among other things, to arrange for the Antonov emeralds to be cleaned in time for the ball. Aunt Maria reminisced sporadically about her own appearances at the Imperial Court, while Aunt Natalia waited with nervous anticipation for the proper time to arrive when she could reasonably call on the mysterious Katya to borrow a ball gown for Caroline. Apparently it was not done for calls to be made on ladies before four in the afternoon.

  Aunt Natalia departed at last on her mission, having instructed Caroline to place herself entirely in the hands of Lydia. The latter proved to be a plain, efficient but kind woman in her forties.

  ‘Now, mademoiselle,’ she told Caroline, ‘it’s no use fidgeting and sighing. What has to be done, has to be done.’

  Caroline was first ordered to bath in perfumed water, and afterwards massaged with scented lotions. The maid powdered her shoulders, and she had just finished applying rouge very discreetly to Caroline’s cheeks and mouth when Aunt Natalia entered, carrying a bail gown of white silk trimmed with gold lace. Caroline had never seen anything so exquisite before in her life.

  ‘But white!’ she protested faintly. ‘What if I should spill something? It would have been better to choose a coloured gown—’

  ‘My dear child, at Court balls the ladies wear only white. No colours are permitted. Come, let Lydia and me help you into it, so that we may see if it needs alteration.’

  But the gown fitted with uncanny precision, the bodice moulding itself to Caroline’s figure, the skirt billowing out like a white cloud.

  ‘Now for the hair,’ Lydia said. ‘Mademoiselle, sit before the dressing table, if you please.’

  ‘Don’t forget the headdress,’ Aunt Natalia warned the maid. ‘The coiffure must be arranged to accommodate the headdres
s.’

  ‘But of course, madame,’ Lydia said stiffly, and began to work on Caroline’s hair.

  Perhaps it was as well that Caroline had to endure so many hours under Lydia’s skilful but painstaking hands, for otherwise she would have become neurotically anxious about the coming ordeal of being presented to the Czar. As it was she felt mainly bored, and stiff from sitting in the same position for so long.

  When the last curl had been tucked into place one of the other maids entered, carrying a large jewel-case. With reverent hands Lydia opened it, and Caroline drew a sharp breath as she caught her first glimpse of the Antonov emeralds.

  With great skill and precision, Lydia arranged the headdress so that it complemented the style in which she had fashioned Caroline’s hair. Then it only remained for the earrings and the necklace to be fastened in place.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ Lydia said, studying her with professional pride, ‘you are enchanting! You do the greatest credit to my skills!’

  ‘Thank you, Lydia,’ Caroline smiled shakily. ‘I suppose I had better go downstairs now.’

  She descended the stairs slowly, very conscious of the elaborate headdress of emeralds and gold, afraid that an unwise movement might bring it crashing down.

  She was so absorbed in worrying about the headdress that she didn’t realise, until the last moment, that she had an audience waiting in the hall below. They were all there—Sacha resplendent in his dress uniform, slashed with various orders; Grigori, who was shaking his head in fascinated wonder at the transformation in Caroline, and the three older people who were watching her as though mesmerised.

  Uncle Viktor was the first to break the silence. ‘My God,’ he said slowly. ‘My God...’

  ‘Yes,’ Aunt Natalia muttered, her lips bloodless.

  Caroline looked at them uncertainly. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘My love,’ Sacha answered for them, his voice unsteady, ‘we are all of us shaken by your incredible beauty—’

  Inexplicably, Aunt Maria began to cry. Uncle Viktor turned to her and said slyly, ‘It’s either a tragedy, or a comedy—depending on one’s point of view.’

  Sacha was frowning. ‘What’s wrong, Aunt Maria? What has upset you?’

  Uncle Viktor answered for her. The stunned expression had long since left his face, and there was a look of enjoyment in his small blue eyes.

  ‘She is crying, my dear Alexander, because she is remembering—all three of us are remembering—the night your mother was first presented at Court, wearing her white ball gown and the Antonov emeralds.’

  ‘What has that to do with anything—?’ Sacha began.

  Through waves of crashing, sickening shock, Caroline heard Uncle Viktor continue, with cruel enjoyment of the situation.

  ‘This lovely girl cannot possibly be anyone other than Euphemia’s base-born daughter. And that, my dear Alexander, makes her your sister!’

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  From seemingly far away, Caroline heard Grigori exclaim, ‘Look out—I think she’s going to faint!’

  Perhaps fainting had been an instinctive escape from a nightmare situation. It was certainly instinct which prompted Caroline to give no sign of the fact, later, that she had regained consciousness. She remained motionless and kept her eyes shut, aware that someone was rubbing her hands and that someone else was fanning her face. An acrid smell of burnt feathers hung in the air and she forced herself not to cough. She desperately needed time to think.

  She couldn’t possibly retract the lies she had told Sacha, for if she did she would have to explain that she had entered into their relationship in the knowledge that there was no blood tie between them. Then she would be forced to make public that he was a changeling. And how could she do that—how could she strip him of his background, his position and his very future?

  She heard his voice, harsh and abrasive. ‘Of course it occurred to me that my mother was more than Tom Kearley’s housekeeper! I’m not a fool, Uncle Viktor. But I’m convinced they became lovers only after Caroline was born. My mother brought her up, remember; Caroline was bound to have copied mannerisms of the Countess Euphemia, and that would account for the apparent resemblance between them.’

  ‘My dear Alexander,’ Uncle Viktor said drily, ‘take her to the Czar’s ball, wearing the Antonov emeralds, and I guarantee that no one of my generation would doubt her identity for a moment. And I am not speaking of mannerisms.’

  ‘Then there must be some other explanation! I will not—I cannot—accept that she is my sister!’

  Oh, my love, Caroline thought in anguish, if I could think of a single convincing lie I would use it without compunction. But there is nothing which would stand up to examination. And I can never tell the truth—

  It was impossible to go on taking refuge in feigned unconsciousness, especially as someone was burning more feathers in an effort to revive Caroline. She opened her eyes and sat up. She had been carried to a chaise-longue in the drawing-room, she discovered, and she was no longer wearing the Antonov emeralds. Momentarily this last fact gave her a bleak feeling; the feeling, she imagined, which a disgraced officer stripped of his medals must experience. Then common sense told her that the weighty emeralds would have been removed because they impeded her return to consciousness.

  She looked at the faces which surrounded her, but her mind took in only one of them—Sacha’s. His cheeks looked gaunt, his eyes shadowed, and the involuntary movement of a small muscle at one corner of his mouth betrayed his tension.

  ‘Caroline,’ he said urgently, ‘I want you to think back to when you were a little girl. You must have some memory of your mother. You must know what her maiden name was, so that the records may be checked. Perhaps it’s not impossible, even, that she was distantly connected to the Countess Euphemia, so that that would account for a family resemblance?’

  It was very tempting to grab at the desperate straws which he was offering her, but it would only lead to her eventual ensnarement in a tortuous web of deceit. Uncle Viktor, for one, would insist on checks being made in England, no matter how convincingly Caroline might lie. And it would not need a great deal of detective work to discover that she had been born out of wedlock to the Countess Antonov and Tom Kearley.

  So, slowly and reluctantly, she answered Sacha, embroidering her now useless lies. ‘I have no memory of my mother. I was told that—that she had died when I was born. If—if the Countess hadn’t always been there, caring for me, perhaps I would have been more curious about my mother. But—but as it was—she seemed almost unreal.’

  ‘I see,’ Sacha said tonelessly.

  Uncle Viktor’s small blue eyes were twinkling with enjoyment. ‘It is quite obvious what happened. Euphemia and her lover tried to shield their daughter from the stigma of illegitimacy, and fabricated a story about a nonexistent mother who had died in childbirth.’ Sacha, his expression stark and haunted, could merely nod.

  Aunt Natalia was wringing her hands. ‘What on earth is to be done now?’

  ‘The most immediate consideration,’ Grigori suggested, ‘is that the Czar is expecting Caroline to be presented to him tonight.’

  It was significant that Grigori was now using her Christian name. Of course, Caroline thought with a feeling of excruciating loss, her status had changed. She was no longer Sacha’s betrothed, with whom he allowed no liberties to be taken—

  ‘The Czar—’ Uncle Viktor was musing. ‘Would he appreciate, do you think, having Euphemia’s bastard presented to him?’

  Caroline winced at the ugly word, which had been used deliberately and with hurtful intention. Sacha spun on his heel, facing his uncle, his expression savage.

  ‘If you wish to continue living under my patronage and under my roof,’ he snarled, ‘then neither you nor anyone else will use that word in connection with Caroline again! Is that understood?’

  ‘Perfectly, dear boy,’ Uncle Viktor shrugged. ‘I was merely summing matters up as the world will see them.’

/>   It was probably fear of her husband that made Aunt Natalia defend him. ‘Viktor is right, Alexander. Would it be diplomatic to take Caroline to the Winter Palace under the circumstances?’

  ‘The Czar,’ Sacha said with a harsh little laugh, ‘is hardly in a position to strike moral attitudes. He and Catherine Dolgorousky have produced a large enough brood of illegitimate children of their own over the years. In any case, he did not qualify his command that Caroline should be presented to him. He has heard of her arrival in St Petersburg and wishes to meet her, and that is that. We shall have to go, whether we wish to or not.’

  ‘But my dear, he is expecting to meet your betrothed—’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ Sacha interrupted his aunt bleakly. ‘Fortunately no official announcement has ever been made, and I shall just have to persuade him—and everyone else—-that the gossips in St Petersburg made a wild and inaccurate guess at my relationship with the girl I was expecting from England.’

  Grigori cleared his throat. ‘I have a suggestion, Alexander. Under the circumstances, it would be helpful if Katya were to join you at the Palace tonight. I could go now to see her, and ask her to allow me to escort her to the ball—’

  He left the suggestion in the air. Caroline sensed that Sacha’s stillness hid a complex reaction, but she felt too battered and stunned by the turn of events to give it more than a passing thought.

  At last he spoke. ‘As you say, it would be helpful. Yes, go and ask her by all means.’

  Grigori nodded and left the room, and Aunt Natalia said hopefully, ‘If you travelled to the Palace together, Katya could act as chaperon and then there would be no need for me to accompany you, Alexander—’