At least there had been a break in the harsh January weather, and three nights in a row where the sky was so clear that the stars sparkled like the diamonds in the lavish parure her mother wore to only the most formal occasions. Those diamonds glittered now at the Countess Anna’s throat and ears and in the careful coils of her graying fair hair, which was discreetly supplemented by a good number of switches and false braids in order to achieve the required effect.
Galina had no need of such artifice; her own luxuriant tresses reached nearly to her waist. Indeed, her hair felt quite heavy pinned up as it was now, with carefully arranged curls falling about her shoulders and a tiara of pearls and diamonds tucked into the tall braided mass at the crown of her head. She thought she looked quite grown-up now, what with the hair and the evening gown that showed off her shoulders and just the slightest curve of her breasts. Yes, she and Karel had known each other since they were children, and were so intimate that they often could finish one another’s sentences, but he had never quite seen her like this. Perhaps he would be so moved by her new elegance that he would ask for her hand in marriage right away; after all, she was eighteen now, and it was time to leave the schoolroom behind. Such an offer would be a fitting cap to the grand evening her parents had planned, and she thought they would be very glad of it.
Her mother made the minutest adjustment to Galina’s tiara, then said, “It is time. We must be ready to receive our guests, and it is almost eight.”
The countess swept Galina out of her rooms and down the wide marble staircase with its carved gilded balustrades, on past the foyer and into the grand salon. Despite the wintry weather outside, the room bloomed with more hothouse flowers — orchids and lilies and more gardenias, their perfume combining to quite make Galina’s head swim. She did shake it, just a little, to clear her thoughts. Any more than that, and she risked dislodging her tiara.
She took the designated position between her father and her mother, and waited for the first guests to arrive. With any luck, Karel would be one of the early comers. He did tend to be somewhat punctual — as long as he wasn’t delayed for some reason at his club. She often wondered what could go on in such places to make them so endlessly fascinating to men, but when she’d tried to ask her mother to enlighten her on the subject, she’d only gotten a curt reply that properly brought up young ladies shouldn’t be troubling themselves with such matters.
But here was Karel, looking very fine as he took off his evening cloak and handed it to Gregor, the butler. Blue eyes dancing — and in such striking contrast to his coal-black hair — Karel bowed to her and her parents, then said, “Everything is quite en fête, is it not? Tell me I am not the first here, though.”
“You are,” the countess told him. “But you should not trouble yourself, Karel Ivanovich. Your promptness does you credit.”
“And now you have saved everyone else from the shame of being the first to arrive,” Galina put in, “which makes you quite the hero of the evening.”
Both her mother and father shot stern looks in her direction for this piece of impertinence, but Karel only smiled and said, “Then as I am first to arrive, may I also claim the honor of the first dance?”
Of course Galina smiled and nodded, and her parents appeared relieved that he had taken no offense. Then the Count and Countess Stroganova appeared, followed by the Galitsyns, and the evening was off and running.
As it turned out, Karel claimed not only the grand march that opened the dancing, but also a waltz, and then the mazurka. Galina knew she should not monopolize her old friend for the evening, but really, he danced so beautifully, and looked so dashing in his tailcoat with the white rose fastened to his lapel, that she found it difficult to turn him down. And very likely they would be engaged by the end of the evening, or soon after, so what difference did one tiny bit of impropriety make? Certainly none of her other prospects for dance partners were half as appealing.
The mazurka had just ended, and Karel had departed to fetch her a glass of champagne, when a sudden hush fell over the company. Heads turned toward the entrance of the ballroom, and Galina peered past the assembled guests to see what could have drawn their attention so.
A woman stood in the entryway, framed by matched floral arrangements of trailing white orchids and elegant lilies. But she made the flowers appear as if wilted and yellow, so brilliant was her beauty. Her snow-fair hair was topped by an icy coronet of sparkling diamonds, and her flawless skin was equally as pale. She wore white worked in silver — something that should have been an egregious faux pas, as only the guest of honor should wear white at her début, but something in the woman’s air seemed to say that she couldn’t possibly be seen in any color but white.
With one elegant hand she reached out, and at once one of the servants hurried over to place a champagne flute in those long, kid-encased fingers. She smiled; her teeth were as white as her skin and hair.
“Who is that?” Galina whispered to her friend Ekaterina Borisovna. “Have you ever seen her before, Katya?”
“It’s the Princess Tatiana Vasilievna Zakharin,” Katya replied, looking flummoxed. “She has lived in Moscow for some time, but I heard Papa say something about her buying an estate not too far from St. Petersburg.”
Galina couldn’t quite understand why such a personage was attending her small coming-out party — but there was her father, forging forward and bowing over the unexpected arrival’s hand. And if the Count Andrei Mikhailovich Godunov appeared rather red-faced and common next to the princess’ lily-fair beauty, at least he had broken the tension somewhat by welcoming her to the party.
The crowd began to flow normally again, and Galina realized she had quite lost sight of Karel. Then she heard a throaty laugh, and looked over to see her friend amongst a crowd of other young men, all of whom had clustered around Tatiana Vasilievna like little bits of iron drawn to a magnet. Karel stared down into the strange woman’s face with an intensity Galina quite disliked.
A tinkle of broken glass, as Princess Tatiana’s glass of champagne slipped from her gloved fingers and crashed to the marble floor. She cried, “Oh, how clumsy of me!”
Karel winced, and blinked, and Galina watched as he raised one white-gloved hand to touch the corner of his left eye, as if something there had pained him. But then he smiled and extended the glass of champagne he held — the champagne which was supposed to have been Galina’s — and said, “Accept this, Princess. And do not call yourself clumsy, for of course that is an impossibility.”
Princess Tatiana smiled and accepted the glass, and Galina bit her lip and forced herself to look away. If Karel wanted to make a fool of himself over the woman, there was very little she could do about it. And really, the Princess must be quite a bit older than he, for all her beauty, and so he would look doubly a fool after she passed him by and bestowed her attentions on someone more equal in age and rank.
Still, seeing him smiling foolishly at the other woman made the blood in Galina’s veins run just a little hotter, and she murmured an excuse to Katya and went over to Karel, who hovered a few inches from Tatiana Vasilievna’s elbow.
“Karel, hadn’t you promised me the next waltz?” she inquired, in tones she hoped were sweetly beseeching. It wouldn’t do to look desperate, of course, even though she wished she could take him by the elbow and haul him away from the icy beauty’s orbit.
He turned and stared down at her blankly, as if he had never seen her before. Then his eyes narrowed a bit, and he replied, “I think you have danced enough, Galya. Your forehead is shiny, and your nose quite red.”
Galina raised a hand to her brow before she could stop herself. True, she had been dancing a good deal, and perhaps she had acquired a bit of a “glow,” as her mother would have put it. But it was quite unacceptable for Karel to be mentioning such things. A gentleman never brought up a lady’s shortcomings, whether real or imagined. As for her nose —
“And if we dance some more, I suppose I will get shinier and redder,
” she retorted. “I never noticed that such things bothered you before, Karel Ivanovich.”
“Well, they do now,” he said carelessly, and turned half away from her, his gaze resting on the Princess, perfect and pale between the men who were clustered around her. “I don’t wish to dance.”
The words “with you” remained unsaid, but they hung in the air between them. Hot tears started to Galina’s eyes, but she blinked them away and raised her chin. She would not let him see how much he had upset her.
“Very well,” she replied. “Anatoly Andreovich has been pestering me all night for a dance. I shall give him yours.” And with that she flounced off in search of a surprised but very gratified Anatoly. That individual, although never someone Galina could take seriously as a suitor due to a deficiency in height and an even more deficient fortune, rose higher in her esteem because he at least seemed to have escaped the spell of Princess Tatiana. Or perhaps he had simply decided that if he could have no success with someone such as Galina Andreevna Godunov, then the Princess was as far out of his reach as the stars in the sky.
Whatever the case, Galina did not lack for partners for the rest of the night, although she did not have the only one she wanted. From the corner of her eye, she watched him dance with the Princess, or bring her champagne and caviar, or stand in a corner and chat with her much more intimately than their short acquaintance should have allowed, and through it all Galya felt a tightening in her stomach that had very little to do with the close-fitting rows of whalebone which encircled her slender waist. When the soirée finally ended in the small hours of the morning, she could only think of how differently she had thought the evening would turn out. She had thought Karel would finally speak, that she would have ascended these stairs with the touch of his first kiss thrilling her lips. Instead, she sat mute as her maid Oksana undid the laces on her gown and then on her corset, and helped her into her nightdress and brushed out the heavy masses of her hair before braiding it for the night.
Galina said nothing through all these ministrations; she feared that if she opened her mouth to speak, a sob would escape instead. So she sat, tight-lipped, and avoided Oksana’s questioning eyes, until she could finally go to bed and put the dreadful day behind her.
The next morning — or rather, the next afternoon, as Galina did not rise from her bed until the morning was quite spent — Oksana was unable to hold her tongue any longer, and informed Galina that apparently Karel Ivanovich had had the most dreadful quarrel with his mother, and had gone riding off late that morning to goodness knows where and hadn’t come back. The Dowager Baroness had not attended Galina’s coming-out party, as the older woman suffered from a degenerative condition that had left her quite unable to walk, but her condition apparently had not prevented her from learning everything there was to be learned, including how dreadfully he had treated Galina Andreevna and how he had fawned over Princess Tatiana, who was a horrid woman who’d broken hearts right and left in Moscow and had apparently only moved on to St. Petersburg because she desired fresh sport.
Even the news that Baroness Natasha Alexandrovna Saburov supported Galina and not her son did little to lift Galya’s spirits, as, after all, it mattered very little what the Baroness said or thought; it was not she who would ask for Galina’s hand, but her son. And with the Princess now on the scene, it seemed as if that day would never come.
“What’s more,” Oksana said in confiding tones, as she cleared away Galina’s supper tray, “I’ve heard it said that the Princess is not a real woman at all, but a sorceress who’s sold her soul for beauty and wealth. So no wonder she bewitched all those poor young men.”
Galina wished it were that easy. Better to blame Karel’s defection on diabolical intervention than on the simple sordid fact that he preferred another woman to her. She had no doubt that he had gone to the Princess, or at least somewhere near her property. Perhaps they had eloped. He had certainly seemed besotted enough to do something that foolish.
At this dreary thought, the tears finally did come, dropping down Galina’s cheeks and falling onto the patterned silk of her quilted dressing gown. She had told her parents she was over-tired and quite indisposed, using that as an excuse to stay in her rooms. No doubt they had guessed the real reason for her hiding herself away, but as they tended to be indulgent, they had not asked any questions or demanded that she join them for supper.
“Oh, my poor lamb,” said Oksana, who produced a handkerchief and proceeded to blot the tears from Galina’s cheeks. “It’s no small thing, to have a witch steal your young man away from you.”
“He’s not my young man,” Galina replied. She took the handkerchief away from Oksana and wiped her eyes, then balled up the piece of linen in her lap. “And if he thinks the Princess is so fascinating, he can have her.”
“What he thinks can’t be trusted. One only had to look at him to see that he was bewitched.”
“And how would you know that? You weren’t at the ball.”
Oksana’s full cheeks flushed a little. “As to that, I was watching from the landing upstairs. I saw him leave — with her. And shouldn’t I know that young man’s expressions almost as well as I know yours, seeing as he’s been almost a part of the family for both your lives?”
Galina, who had hidden herself away in the smaller salon with Katya and a few other sympathetic friends, had not known that Karel had escorted Tatiana Vasilievna from the party. Once again she felt her stomach clench. Perhaps Oksana was right. After all, what other explanation could there be for Karel’s odd behavior, save that a witch had somehow cast a spell over him?
“And what if he is bewitched?” she demanded. “What on earth do you propose I do about it?”
“Why, you go get him, and fetch him back. Black magic can’t prevail against true love. And he loves you. Everyone knows that.”
Everyone except Karel, apparently. But Galya had felt sure of that love up until last night, and so had her family and friends. It had to be a spell that had altered him so, some dark magic that had erased the pure love she and Karel shared. If only she could see him, be alone with him, she might be able to remind him of how their spirits had always seemed to be one, even if the connection between them had not yet been sanctified by the church.
“And how am I to go, when you know I never leave the house alone?” Even as she asked the question, some small part of her quailed. For it was one thing to be brave in her own rooms, in the company of the maid who had known her since she was an infant, and quite another to go out into the wide world and confront a witch.
“As to that, we shall go out together, saying you are calling on your friend Ekaterina Borisovna. No one will think anything odd in such a visit — indeed, your parents would think it only natural that you would seek the comfort of a friend after suffering such a shock as you did last night.”
So it was settled, and Galina allowed Oksana to help her into her best walking-out suit, the cinnamon wool one that went so well with her honey-colored hair and brown eyes. The Princess’ eyes, she recalled, had been a glinting pale gray, almost silver. Quite otherworldly, as one might expect from a witch and a consort of the Devil.
The weather still held fine, although a line of dark clouds to the northeast seemed to signal that the odd extended clear spell would soon be over. Oksana had Gregor call a hired carriage for Galina; luckily, the Countess was also visiting that afternoon, and so no one saw anything untoward in the daughter of the house and her maidservant setting forth in a hired hack.
They drove to the edge of town, for the intelligence Oksana had gleaned indicated that the Princess’ estate lay some miles to the south of the city. Where exactly, no one seemed to know, but Galina supposed it was better to have a direction than nothing at all.
The driver would take them no farther than the outskirts of the city. Oksana began to scold him, but Galina laid a hand on her arm. “We cannot ask the man to drive all over the countryside. He has shortened my journey, at least.”
“Our journey, you mean.”
Galina shook her head. A feeling had been growing all during the ride here, the knowledge that she must go to seek Karel alone. Knights errant did not set out on their quests accompanied by maidservants, after all. “No, Oksana. You must stay here, and let my parents know what I have done if — " She hesitated; while she somehow knew what she must do, still that didn’t keep her from being afraid. In all her life she had never been alone, and now she proposed to set forth by herself, into the dark and the storm. It was madness, but as surely as she had known Karel loved her, she knew she could only save him if she did so alone.
“But miss — "
“My mind is quite made up, Oksana.” Galina spoke firmly, and pressed Oksana’s hands. “Take the carriage back to the house, and try not to be seen. The longer my parents don’t know I am gone, the better. And don’t you dare let them blame you, whatever they might say. You must tell them that I ordered you back home.”
Apparently Oksana didn’t quite know what to do with such a suddenly masterful and commanding mistress, for she hesitated, and wrung her hands, then said, “If you think that is how it must be — "
“I do. Now go, for the driver is becoming impatient.”
So he was; he shifted from foot to foot and scowled at the two of them, and cast a jaundiced eye at the lowering skies overhead. Galina fished a coin from her reticule and pressed it into the driver’s hands. He pocketed it at once and climbed up onto his seat without giving either her or Oksana a second look. It seemed quite clear that he was ready to drive off without either one of them if they tarried much longer.
Once Upon A Curse: 17 Dark Faerie Tales Page 4
