Melting the Snow Queen

by Mary Lancaster

  “I thought the drink didn’t touch you,” Oscar observed, lifting a bottle from the bed and sitting in its place.

  “It depends how much. Off you go, my friend. I have an appointment at midday.”

  “Who with?”

  “None of your damned business.” He reached for his sword belt and buckled it on.

  Oscar kept a wary eye on it as he asked, “How long are you in London?”

  “Don’t know,” Yuri muttered. “Not long.”

  “Come for dinner tonight at my club.”

  “Can’t, sorry. I might be gone.”

  “Well, come if you’re not.”

  Yuri nodded, just to be rid of him. But Oscar lingered. “I don’t suppose Alba ever wrote to you?”

  Yuri shook his head and glanced in the mirror before dragging a comb through his hair. “I was well dismissed.”

  “Thing is, Volkov, I’m not sure you were. I don’t mind telling you, I’m worried about her. If she was withdrawn before you came, you should see her now.”

  “With all respect to Lady Alba, I have no intention of seeing her.”

  “I think she got wind of some stupid bet Rawley forced on you before you even came to Winbourne.”

  “And then the Harley woman did her worst,” Volkov said impatiently. “I know all that.”

  “Then why are you so angry with Alba?”

  “I’m not,” Volkov said with only partial truth. “If she cannot even try for understanding, then whatever was between us was worth nothing. I’m sorry, Snowden, but she sent me away in no uncertain terms. I could not stand by her if I wanted to.”

  “And do you?” Oscar asked steadily.

  Volkov met his gaze in the glass. “Do I want to? No. It’s passed. I wish her well. I wish you and your whole family well, only I’m kicking you out now. I need to go.”

  He seized his hat and bustled Oscar out the door, locking it behind him.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Oscar offered.

  “Don’t bother, I’m in a hurry.” Volkov ran downstairs and across the hall without looking back.

  ***

  The twins were already in the schoolroom when Rose walked in frowning over a letter she was reading. Since her brief flurry into attempted adulthood in the early summer, she had relapsed back into much better nature. Her lessons with Miss Ellington now consisted only of deportment, watercolors and the pianoforte. And when they were in London, she had a dancing master. But here at Winbourne, she occasionally wandered into the schoolroom when bored.

  Miss Ellington was not in the room, having been summoned by the duchess, so Rose had no compunction about disturbing the twins’ work. She merely dragged a chair up to their desk and laid her letter in front of them.

  “What do you think of that?” she demanded.

  “It’s from Oscar,” Kai said in surprise. “He doesn’t usually write to you, does he?”

  “He doesn’t usually write to anyone,” Gerda said, frowning as she tried to decipher his scrawl. Fortunately, it was short, and one name stood out. Yuri Volkov.

  “He’s back,” Gerda exclaimed with relief. “In London.”

  “But he’s avoiding Oscar,” Kai said, reading over her arm. “And Oscar wants us to come to London so he can engineer a meeting between Yuri and Alba.”

  “Alba won’t go to London,” Rose scoffed. “She barely leaves the house. Perhaps if we tell her Yuri is there but find a different reason to go?”

  Gerda shook her head. “It will hurt her more that Yuri is in England and won’t come to see her. Don’t look at me like that, Kai, I know she sent him away and wouldn’t see him, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. She still isn’t.” She frowned. “I think we need to talk to her and see if we can find a way. And then we still have to persuade Mama to go up to London in the snow.”

  “Oscar says to hurry, too,” Rose observed. “Because he doesn’t know how long Yuri will be there.”

  “We’ll tell Alba you would like to go, Rose,” Gerda said, inspired, “and Mama will be so pleased to see any kind of motivation in Alba that she will agree.”

  “She’s probably in the garden,” Rose said briskly. “Run and find her. I’ll fend off Miss Ellington should she come back.”

  As one, Gerda and Kai slid off their seats and sped down to the side door where they grabbed their cloaks and ventured outside to the rose garden. Snow crunched under their feet. It was an effort not to grab handfuls of snow to make snowballs, but Gerda contented herself with trying to find pristine places in the snow to plant her boots.

  Kai paused, catching her arm and when they stood still, she could hear voices. Mostly Ralph Bethurst’s. Gerda wrinkled her nose. Alba was with him. They walked closer, both hoping, Gerda knew, that Alba would send her suitor about his business.

  “But why not, Alba?” Bethurst was urging. “We deal together very well. I’ll make you comfortable, at the very least.”

  “I’m comfortable where I am,” Alba said.

  “Are you?” he asked deliberately, and Kai, scowling, caught Gerda’s eye.

  “Besides,” Alba said, as if Bethurst had not spoken, “I could not leave my garden.”

  Bethurst gave a short, indulgent laugh. “But that is the beauty of marrying a neighbor. You may still visit every day, if you choose to, and give whatever instructions you wish to your gardeners here. In the meantime,” he added, “you could make another, better rose garden at Moreland Manor. You can have all the land you wish for it.”

  It was a master stroke, and both Kai and Gerda knew it. As one, they rushed into the open. Alba smiled at them as she always did, although these days Gerda almost felt she smiled at the memory of them rather than the actuality. She was too distant, much too distant. On the other hand, she looked incredibly beautiful draped in white fur, almost like an elegant, sparkling snowflake

  “Have you escaped Miss Ellington again?” Alba said, pretending to disapprove.

  “She’s with Mama.”

  “Think about it, Alba,” Bethurst urged. “If you don’t much care where you are, you might as well be with me and make me and everyone else happy.”

  Alba’s lips curved into a cynical, amused smile. “You have a point,” she allowed. “You might even be right. Have you come for a snowball fight?” she added, taking off her muff to sweep a handful of snow off the bench behind her.

  “Is that a yes?” Bethurst asked eagerly. “May I tell Her Grace? My mother?”

  Alba shrugged. “Tell whom you like.”

  It wasn’t precisely acceptance, but neither was it refusal, and Gerda was appalled. At least the ensuing short, sharp snowball fight drove Bethurst from the garden. And then, just as Gerda was about to mention London, she was distracted by a splash of red among the white.

  “Look,” she said in surprise, bending toward the red rose bud.

  Alba paused behind her, ignoring Kai’s snowball, which hit her in the shoulder. “It’s still there. How very strange nature is.”

  “So is human nature,” Kai said severely. “You’re not really going to marry Ralph Bethurst, are you? Just because he’s no worse than misery?”

  “Put like that, it doesn’t sound a very warm or kind thing to do,” she agreed. “But on the other hand, everyone tells me I must marry. And if I must marry a fortune hunter, I’d as soon get another rose garden from the arrangement.”

  “Alba!” Gerda exclaimed, genuinely shocked. “Do you hear yourself?”

  “Don’t worry,” Alba said. “He doesn’t love me either.”

  Gerda was inclined to agree with that. He certainly didn’t understand Alba. All of which made it more urgent than ever that she didn’t marry him in a fit of boredom.

  “And if I married him, I could still see you every day,” Alba added.

  “But you’d still be married to him,” Kai pointed out. “And you wouldn’t like it. He keeps a woman, Mrs. Dawlish, who’s one of his tenant’s widows, in Church Cottage and, apparently, that is a bad thing.”

&nb
sp; Alba blinked at him. “It probably would be, but I’m sure you are mistaken. Besides which, you shouldn’t know, let alone speak, about such things.”

  “We overheard Cook,” Gerda confided, “who says Mrs. Dawlish is no better than she should be and you wouldn’t tolerate her presence at Moreland.”

  “You definitely shouldn’t be speaking about such things,” Alba said severely, although, disappointingly, she didn’t seem remotely upset by the revelation.

  “Anyhow,” Kai said, “we have a better idea, in the short term. Come to London while you think about it. Rose wishes to go and buy things—Christmas gifts and so on—and Oscar will be there. I’m sure you could persuade Mama for us.”

  “But I don’t want to go to London. I’ll try and persuade Her Grace to take you, though.”

  “It would be more fun with you,” Gerda said firmly.

  Alba shrugged and they went together in search of the duchess, who had just finished her conversation with Miss Ellington and looked surprised to see the twins.

  However, Alba was not given the opportunity to be persuasive, for their mother refused outright to hear of any journey in this weather.

  “But the main roads to London are clear,” Kai assured her. “Everyone says so, and Oscar’s letter still only took a day.”

  “No, we are fixed here until after Christmas,” Her Grace declared. “And nothing will change my mind.”

  Alba smiled apologetically at Gerda and Kai, but they were not yet ready to give up.

  “Toothache is the perfect solution,” Gerda told her twin triumphantly, half an hour later. “I shall develop appalling toothache and insist on Dr. Hale in London, and Mama will have great sympathy for that view because she says Dr. Banks in the village is a butcher. Then Alba may take me, and we should still be in London by tomorrow morning, if we travel through the night.”

  It was an excellent plan. The twinges she apparently experienced during luncheon grew quickly worse until Miss Ellington felt obliged to take her to the duchess.

  “Oh dear,” Her Grace said. “I can see nothing wrong either. It must be under the gum. I daresay the tooth will have to come out.”

  Gerda began to cry again. “Not Dr. Banks,” Gerda pleaded. “Please no, Mama. I’m sure it will be better directly, only it hurts so!”

  From the doorway, Kai regarded her with considerable admiration. And their mother was obliging enough to say in worried tones, “No, no, I think you must go up to town to Dr. Hale.”

  “But you don’t want to travel, Mama,” Kai pointed out.

  “Alba,” Gerda moaned pitifully. “I want Alba to take me.”

  “Nonsense,” said her mother. “Nurse will take you and bring you back.”

  “But I want Alba!”

  Her mother, however, would not be moved, and within an hour she was bundled into the carriage with bandage around her face and a hot brick at her feet. Kai jumped up with her.

  “I’ll bring Yuri back instead,” she breathed, having worked out that all need not be lost.

  Kai nodded. “And I’ll stop Alba marrying Bethurst.”

  They smiled in perfect understanding, and then Kai was yanked out of the carriage as Nurse lumbered in and they set off for London.

  Chapter Ten

  Yuri was bored. Finding no answer waiting for him at Carleton House for the second morning in a row, he began to think seriously about looking up some of his old friends—even Oscar Snowden, if he refrained from talking about Alba.

  “Yuri Ivanovich!” someone called behind him just as he was being shown the way out. Yuri turned and beheld the Russian Ambassador, Count Lieven. “I did not know you were back in London. What a pleasant surprise.”

  Yuri, who had been given to understand that his commission to the Prince Regent was secret, merely smiled and greeted the ambassador in the proper manner, hoping the ambassador would not ask his reason for being here.

  “Very glad to run into you, as it happens,” Lieven said jovially. “We’re just about to leave London for the country, where we’ve invited a few friends to celebrate winter in the Russian style. A fellow Russian is just who we need! Do say you’ll come. You are a great favorite with my wife, you know.”

  Like many others, Yuri suspected Countess Lieven was the truly sharp mind behind her husband’s diplomatic success and he rather liked them both. He resented having to kick his heels in London.

  “Sadly, I have business that keeps me in the city,” he said with genuine regret.

  Count Lieven took a card from his pocket and pushed it into Yuri’s hand. “Well, if things change, find us here. In fact, you shall have a seat in our carriage if you come now.”

  Yuri smiled ruefully. “I wish I could. Give my kind respects to the countess, and my bitter regrets.”

  They parted and Yuri walked back alone to his hotel.

  “Ah, there you are, sir,” the porter greeted him. “Your niece is waiting in your rooms. I let her in.”

  Yuri paused. “My niece?” Both his nieces should be a thousand miles away from London.

  “Yes, sir. She said you were taking her to the doctor. Poor little mite.”

  “How could I have forgotten?” Yuri said, intrigued in spite of himself. He wasn’t sure what or who to expect, but he imagined some dancing girl, probably sent by Oscar or some other fun-loving acquaintance who’d got wind of his return.

  But when he opened his door and discovered Gerda Snowden with a large bandage round her face, anyone could have knocked him down with a feather.

  Seeing him, she smiled with relief and tugged the whole bandage off her head. “Thank goodness it’s you and not Nurse! I’ve escaped.”

  “Gerda, you can’t be here,” he said urgently. “You can’t run loose all over London. It isn’t Winbourne and it definitely isn’t safe.”

  “I know, but I had to see you.”

  “Come on, I’m taking you back to…wherever you’ve come from. Grosvenor Square?”

  “Yes, but I need to talk to you first.”

  “We can talk on the way,” Yuri said shortly.

  She sighed. “I’ve just taken the horrid bandage off.”

  “What’s it for?” he asked. “Do you really need the doctor?”

  “Oh no. But I had to pretend to have the toothache in order to come to London, because we couldn’t persuade my mother to bring us.”

  “I know I’ll regret asking, but why did you have to come to London? Are you all here?”

  “Oh, no. Only me and Nurse. Papa is never in the house and if he is, then he’s busy on political matters. Even Kai had to stay in Winbourne to stop Alba marrying Ralph Bethurst.”

  Yuri froze in shock. Something clawed at his heart, fierce and wounding. “You shouldn’t worry about that,” he managed. “She won’t go through with it.”

  Gerda cast him a look. “You haven’t seen her recently. She doesn’t care.”

  “She never cared,” he said before he could bite back the words.

  “But she did,” Gerda said earnestly. “You saw how she was, how you made her laugh and joke again. Ralph doesn’t. Her only reason for marrying him is that it’s no worse a condition than the one she’s in. She doesn’t even care about Mrs. Dawlish in Church Cottage —she’s been his mistress for years, you know, and he has just sent her away, according to Cook. But he told Alba she could make a new rose garden in his grounds and now she’s seriously considering it. In fact, he’s probably telling people they’re engaged!”

  “Then he’s a fool,” Yuri said cynically. He suspected Bethurst was a trifle optimistic in sending his mistress away. “And you shouldn’t know, let alone speak of, men’s mistresses.”

  “That’s what Alba said.”

  Yuri scowled at her. “Do you need help putting that bandage back on?”

  “No.” Gerda pulled it back over her head quite easily. “But I could probably discard it and say my toothache is better so that I don’t really have to have a tooth pulled. And you could come with us back to W
inbourne.”

  Having opened the door, he paused, frowning back at her. “Did you really arrange all this just to get me to Winbourne?”

  The child nodded.

  Yuri dragged one hand through his hair. “Look, I couldn’t come if I wanted to. I have duties that require me to be in London. And in truth, Gerda, I don’t want to. I like your family very much, but Alba and I…” He struggled with how to finish that.

  “It’s too painful to see her?” Gerda suggested.

  His lips twisted. “Something like that. Also…” He drew in his breath. “I would not give her the pain of seeing me.”

  “You’re her only hope,” Gerda said seriously. “Yuri, she needs pain, if only to be reminded what happiness is. Nothing touches her. She’s dying inside.”

  “You are fanciful,” he said, taking her hand and dragging her out of the door. Her words shook him, but he couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by a child’s fantasies.

  “I know you still care,” Gerda said as he made her trot along the hallway to the stairs. From her little bag, she took out a pressed flower. Its red was still oddly vibrant. “I found it in the book on your desk.”

  He paused, frowning down at her. She held it out to him, and even though he knew it was an admission that he still cared, he took it from her because he could not bring himself to lose that, too.

  “Yuri, she loved you,” the child whispered. “She truly did. Does. Only you got through to her after Harry. She is given to wallowing, of course, but I would like that to be in happiness for once.”

  “It is not up to me, Gerda,” he said with difficulty. “I am not speaking from pride.”

  “You are a little,” she said shrewdly. “But I understand you cannot be a gentleman and still press her.”

  He gave her a look. “I think you have had a previous life on earth. Or you just pretend to be ten years old and you’re really ninety.”

  Gerda grinned at him, stretching the ridiculous bandage. “Then you’ll come?”

  “I’ll come to Grosvenor Square,” he said firmly. “And no farther.”

  ***

  It was unusual for Kai to cling quite so closely to Alba. It struck her that he was not used to being parted from Gerda and was finding it difficult. However, separation was something he was going to have to get used to—he would be sent away to school soon enough—so she didn’t pay too much attention to him.