On the other side of the forest a white man emerged, a rifle in his hand. He aimed it at the doe. She took flight as shot after shot whizzed past her, and still she ran. Several bullets grazed her back. She bled. The doe was determined not to go down, survival foremost in the animal's thoughts. She ran until she reached cover and hid herself beneath wild berry bushes. The skin upon her back burned, was on fire from the wounds inflicted upon her.
Determined to live, she held still. She became one with the earth.
When the first shots were fired, the wolf let out a tremendous howl of outrage. He charged toward the huntsman, ignoring the bullets and the danger. They fought to the death. The huntsman lay on the ground, dying. The wolf stood over the man for a few minutes, then searched the meadow.
Again he sat and let out an eerie wail that spoke of fear and loneliness--a sound that spoke of betrayal. With the mournful wail, the doe's heart broke.
The door of the shed swung open, and light blinded Angela.
Her dreams had been put to an end. Angela knew the doe was supposed to be her, the wolf Alexi, and the huntsman Feodora. Feodora was a deadly enemy. Angela should take grave care.
Feodora stepped inside. For the first time in Angela's life, she understood hate and knew her life was in danger. If she chose to stay, she would have to watch everything she said and did. One misstep could well mean her life.
The doe had chosen to run, and Angela knew, deep in her heart, she would eventually be forced to run as well, to break her sacred promise to Alexi.
Feodora stood in the open door, the sun at her back. Her gaze went to the leather straps on Angela's side. "Take the knife, Yuri, and search her. Make sure she doesn't have any more hidden surprises then take her to the kitchen. She has a floor to scrub."
For a second Yuri's eyes flashed vindictively at Feodora then he shuttered his expression. He looked at Angela and nodded toward the house. Angela followed.
Inside the kitchen the smell of freshly baked bread headed straight to Angela's stomach. Her gut clenched, and her stomach growled its hunger. Five loaves of bread sat on the counter cooling--two days had passed since she'd eaten.
"When you finish with the floors, you can have a slice of bread." Feodora swept from the room, her skirts knocking over a pail of milk.
Chapter Sixteen
Waves of apprehension swept through Alexi. Shivers whipped down his spine even while the sun blistered the sand beneath his feet. Throughout the morning the strange, ominous sensations that plagued him would not leave. Even under the hot desert sun, chills of disquiet brought goose bumps to his arms and cold sweat trickling down his chest.
He looked to the north, visions of Angela clouding his mind and pulling on his heartstrings. Suddenly he wished she were by his side. An urgent need to talk to her, to see her and hear her laughter, pushed out all other thoughts.
He wanted to touch her face, her hands, to know that no harm had come to her, that she was protected. Instead he touched the diamond in his ear and felt a bone-deep cold he could not chase from his heart.
The days had moved by swiftly, but not productively. All the clues they sifted through took circuitous routes or became dead ends. Not one moment passed when he didn't think of Angela or the wide-open spaces that could be found in the West. When his mind shifted to her, the strange feeling that something was seriously wrong pulsed stronger and stronger.
"I fear for your lady.'' Ivan stood beside Alexi, a faint smile on his broad, handsome face. "You've been gone too long. If anything were to happen to Misha, Feodora would sink her deadly claws into Angela. She would take a pound of flesh--and perhaps more--from your mistress. She will be truly jealous of your lady, and Feo is filled with spite and hatred."
"Angela can take care of herself," Alexi murmured, praying she would be able to withstand whatever trials awaited her. "What is it you fear from Feodora?"
"Everything." Ivan shrugged. "Nothing. With Feo you wouldn't know until she had you bound and gagged. I would like to bring her back here as soon as possible. Put her in Najjar's hands, where she can no longer make any trouble."
"Najjar's bed, you mean." Alexi laughed, but he didn't feel the laughter in his heart. Angela needed him. His premonitions--the chills and the horrid dreams he had every night--cried out to him.
"Since the marriage to you will never take place, her father has disowned her. She has nowhere to turn. That fact coupled with Angela's sudden appearance will make her deadly. I told Natasha not to worry, but now that I think on it, I pray Misha can hold his own against the woman."
"Feodora is pregnant with your child?"
Ivan nodded. "She is, and I've stopped her more than once from aborting the babe."
Alexi swallowed hard, his thoughts in turmoil.' 'Could Feodora's father have been responsible for this carnage?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered.
Go home, Alexi. Go home.
He prayed daily his dreams were unfounded.
"I will feel much better when I know she can cause no one trouble, except perhaps Najjar, who can handle Feodora. It is time, friend. What will it take? A week and a few days to get to your home? We will find out nothing more here. For the time being, I have given up on this."
"No more than five days," Alexi said, determined to break all records on his trek across the desert. "I, too, have had the feeling that things are not the way they should be. I will rest much easier when I see Angela with my own eyes."
"Our fates are written in the stars, but that does not mean we can leave everything to chance. You've made a wise decision. I will ride with you. Together we will move faster than the wind."
~ * ~
When Angela finished the endless list of chores that day, she was too exhausted to eat. She wrapped the piece of dry, stale bread the cook had given her in a cloth and climbed the steps to her attic chamber, each step an ordeal. Her inhaled breaths came in ragged pants and her heart beat double-time as each second passed into another. The stab's seemed to stretch upward forever, seemed to be the longest set she'd ever encountered.
Feo stood at the top, waiting for her, a malicious look etched on her pinched face. "What do you want now?" The words tumbled out before Angela could stop them.
"You will learn to speak to your betters with respect." Feodora broke the silence with a scathing tone.
There was nothing Angela wanted to do more than tell Feo what she thought of her. But she didn't have the energy to waste.
"Cat got your tongue? Speak to me," Feo taunted her.
"What do you want me to say?" Angela said, stopping a few feet from the woman and inches from the closed room she wanted to disappear into and not come out of until she'd slept for at least twelve hours.
"I want you to apologize." Feo tapped her foot on the solid rock, her shoulders shaking with the effort she made to conceal her wickedness.
When hell freezes over. "I'm sorry, Feo," Angela said through clenched teeth, choosing to be prudent instead of rash. Is that good enough, or do you want me to grovel?
"He won't ever be yours. You should know I won't give him up to the likes of an American peasant. Alexi is an aristocrat, born and bred. He can't marry anyone as baseborn as you." She seemed to puff up with hatred. Her expression and the way she looked Angela up and down said more than her words. Her eyes narrowed hatefully. She'd put herself in charge. No one on the estate would gainsay her.
As much as Angela hated to admit it, Feodora was right. Alexi would never be hers. She would never hold his heart--but neither would Feodora. If Alexi married the hateful woman, he would have to keep Feodora in his bed until she bred then he'd be done with the woman.
And if Angela stayed, Alexi would return to her, make love to her, sleep in her bed, but his heart would be somewhere else. Alexi didn't plan to give his heart to anyone.
Forced by her position on the staircase to look up at Feodora, Angela swallowed what was left of her pride. "Excuse me. I'm tired and hungry." Angela brushed past
her, trying not to touch her as she negotiated the narrow door into her room.
Feodora stood just beyond the doorway, watching. Angela could feel her eyes upon her back, could feel the hatred.
"What did you do to him?"
Angela turned then and, with one hand on the door, watched the other woman for a long time before shutting the door in her face. The action was rash, but Angela had no regrets. She heard a loud hiss from behind the wood barrier, yet Feodora didn't rise to the challenge Angela had just passed her way. Despite Angela's resolve to appear meek, her pride seemed to be her worst enemy.
Angela Chamberlain did not know how to grovel.
"Alexi, where are you?'' she whispered into the lonely night, his handsome, dark features vivid in her mind. She longed for him to hold her and to tell her he'd return soon.
Sitting down on the small bed in the corner of the drafty room, Angela pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on top of them. She rocked back and forth, memories sliding by in her mind, warming her heart.
"Alexi,'' she whispered into the hot, sultry air, "please hurry home."
It would not do to bemoan her fate. She would have to make the best of this situation. Alexi would return; she knew that. Rising from the old mattress, she washed her face in the water near the nightstand and munched on the stale bread.
The room was tucked into the eaves of the mansion, and one tiny window looked down on the garden. Despite the gloom upstairs and the pending darkness, Angela could see brilliant roses and beds of nasturtiums and pansies. There seemed to be color everywhere except in her room, which was all a dull gray. Unlike the chamber she'd slept in two nights before, the walls were not papered, with blue flowers and the bed was not grand and fluffy.
The only decoration here was a tiny spider weaving its delicate silver web from the windowpane to a spindly table.
The small bed was covered with a tattered gray quilt, and beneath that, one worn sheet was spread across a thin mattress. She shook the coverings, afraid of what she might find beneath or in the bed, but she was almost too tired to care. She'd rather sleep in the woods with the stars overhead than here. At least the insects and animals that might snuggle up to her in the woods seemed natural and clean.
She sat on the edge of the bed and slipped her shoes off; then, wriggling her bare toes, she leaned back against the headboard. Every muscle in her body ached from the backbreaking work. She stretched, searching her soul and her heart for the courage to endure anything Miss Feodora might throw her way. It was a challenge of sorts, Feodora against her. She would win; she was determined.
Angela Chamberlain would win. A Chamberlain did not back down or run from an adversary. And she could work as hard as anyone.
Lying on the bed, her hands tucked beneath her cheeks, she watched the moonlight brighten the dark sky and the twinkling stars begin their march toward a new day.
"Alexi, where are you?" She whispered the words into the stillness.
Angela drifted off to sleep, the slice of bread uneaten, what was left of the tepid water still in the pitcher near the window. In a world somewhere between sleep and awareness, she pushed the covers away, sweat drenching her nightclothes.
~ * ~
Pounding on the door a few hours later woke her. The room was still bathed in darkness, and a hoarse whisper came through the solid oak. "Miss Angela, you've got to get up."
"Why?'' She moaned, aware that her body still felt flushed with heat and her head ached. "It's still dark outside."
"The servants all get up earlier than the rest of the household. You're an hour late already. Some of the staff have seen to a few of your chores, but they won't be able to keep up the pretense much longer. You've got to rise before Miss Feodora finds out you've been slacking off. She'll have you flogged, and that's a fact."
Flogged? ' 'Flogged?'' Angela sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "She doesn't have the right."
"True enough, but she's taken the right. With the Popovs all gone and no one to gainsay her, she's become a tyrant. No one is safe, particularly not you. She has taken an extreme dislike to you. You must be very careful not to make her mad."
With good reason, Angela supposed. Feodora thought she'd stolen her man. She stifled the yawn and the urge to tell the lady on the opposite side of the door she was going back to sleep and to forget the extra chores, that she'd take responsibility for her own actions. Instead she called out, "I'll be right down."
Through the closed door, Angela added, "By the way, what are my chores this morning?"
"The kitchen floor has to be scrubbed every day. Miss Feodora insisted that was your job. And the coal bin needs to be filled.'' The woman's voice on the other side of the door paused ominously. "It will take hours to fill it. She won't let you eat until the job is done. I've an apple here for you."
After fastening the buttons on her dress, Angela slipped on her worn shoes. She tied her hair back into a tight knot at the base of her neck. Dressed and ready to go, Angela opened the door. A young lady no older than fourteen or fifteen stood there. She put out her hand, offering the fruit. "Do you have bread?"
Angela nodded yes. "Some. It's left over from yesterday. What's your name?"
"Sveta. Yuri is my brother. He asked that I keep an eye on you, seeing that you're Alexi's favorite. Eat the apple here. You won't have time once you've started to work."
Favorite? So they all knew what she was to Alexi. If it kept her safe, who was she to protest? "All right." Angela bit into the apple. Eating and walking at the same time, she moved down the long servants' staircase to the kitchen below, Sveta beside her.
Caution and survival were foremost in her mind. Feodora's punishments were nothing more than a little hard work. She would see this through. And as for a flogging, Angela didn't plan on aggravating Miss Feodora enough to merit a punishment that severe.
~ * ~
Yet as the sun climbed higher in the sky and her hands bled from the handle of the coal bucket biting into them, Angela was no longer sure she would see this through. Sweat soaked her blouse, and the hard edges of the house in front of her blurred. There was no respite, no rest and no food until all her chores were finished. Feodora had singled her out, and it seemed the woman might indeed seek her death.
Angela was strong as a horse, but she did fear for the child in her womb. The time drew near when she would have to make a decision. Angela knew in her heart she would have to consider her unborn child beyond any promises she'd made or any feelings she harbored for Alexi.
One day ran into the next, an endless stream of chores mounting to a level Angela was hard-pressed to finish each night. Her buckskins, which had once fit like a second skin, now hung on her. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes dark with fatigue and worry.
She would not be Feodora's victim.
At the end of each day she was weary beyond belief, and still she clung to the stubborn notion she would outlast the horrid woman who made her life a living hell. She prayed daily Alexi would be back soon, setting everything in its proper order and place.
She told herself that even if he meant to marry Feodora, he would not allow the woman to abuse her.
Alex had other plans for her.
She hadn't thought about those plans for days now, nor had she tormented herself with the anguish the position of paramour would cause her. As Angela lay back on her thin pallet that night, she renewed her determination to settle for nothing less than Alexi's name. Alexi's fondness for her, his gentle caresses and words of love, had turned her soft.
My Angel Page 27
