Katia did not look away. She spoke without expression. “As I have told you, I do not wish to be adored by all the men in the city. You already know what I think of St. Petersburg society.”
He waved her words away disdainfully. “But Alexei Stephanovich is not St. Petersburg society. He is a renegade, a rebel, an unscrupulous adventurer.” Oleg pinched her small chin between his fingers. “You like him, don’t you? You and my she-dog wife are like…”
“You saw us talking together. Nothing more than that.” She was grateful for the shadows that concealed the blush of her cheeks.
“Actually, Katia, I was denied that pleasure. Princess Elizabeth saw your earnest little tête-à-tête; and quite correctly, she thought the information would interest me.” Oleg reclined into the corner of the comfortably appointed coach, enjoying the effect his words were having on Katia. He admired her self-control but congratulated himself on anticipating her need for another lesson in fear.
“Is Elizabeth one of your spies now, Oleg? She had to run to you, didn’t she? She’s jealous of any woman who so much as breathes on Prince Alexei.”
'That much is true,’ thought Oleg. Elizabeth had been raging when she told him to keep Alexei and Katia apart or else. He had never seen her so upset. Oleg recalled his wife’s gleaming dark eyes and knew there was enough madness in them to make her totally irrational. ‘But if she thinks she can control me for long, she is much mistaken. Enjoy Alexei Romanov while you can, Elizabeth,’ he thought, ‘before I drive him out of Russia forever.’
In the meantime, Oleg had agreed with Elizabeth that Katia and Alexei must be kept apart from one another. This “little excursion” would accomplish just that. After tonight, Oleg was sure Katia would not dare to disobey him ever again. Moreover, the experience might help to thaw her blood a little. Challenging as he found her cold rebellious spirit, he was near the end of his patience.
When at last the carriage stopped, Katia heard the slap of the river against the bank, the sound of oars creaking in their locks. It was foggy and the chill penetrated her bones despite the ankle length white mink cloak she wore over her costume. Oleg took her arm and pulled her roughly from the coach. He forced her down to the water’s edge and into a shallow flatbottomed boat that awaited them.
She drew back. “I won’t go in that boat. Where are you taking me?” From behind, Leo grabbed her arm and twisted hard. She screamed with surprise and pain. The bodyguard forced her onto her knees on the floor of the boat before he took up the oars and began to row the three of them out into the river.
An unholy silence hung over the Neva that night, but from time to time Katia thought she heard music of a balalaika played somewhere in the distance. The sound was haunting and matched the fog-shrouded night. After a time, there seemed to be a darkening in the mist just beyond the prow; and a moment later the boat bumped the shore of one of the Neva’s many low-lying muddy islands. These islands were the home of gypsies, thieves and desperados; fear, like an iron thong, knotted Katia’s insides so she could scarcely breathe. She was half dragged, forced to walk along a narrow path. Her white kid dancing shoes sank in the riverside ooze, and the river mist touched her face like fine cobwebs. Gradually, sounds began to distinguish themselves: a dog’s bark, a cry, the music of a balalaika. The fog was thick with peat smoke now. It stung in Katia’s eyes and nose.
They were in a shanty town, a wretched community of decrepit hovels with heavy oak shutters tightly closed against the poisonous river vapors. Of the half-dozen buildings, only one, larger and obviously more prosperous than the rest, was lighted. Oleg held Katia tightly above the elbow, and Leo followed close behind. They entered the large building by a side door.
The interior was so dim and smoky that Katia could make out nothing of its features at first. The balalaika was being played near her, and she heard low conversation and occasional bursts of hearty laughter. The air smelled of wine and damp and something else, something unpleasant that she could not identify. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, she saw that the room was almost entirely bare of furnishings. Heavy straw mats had been laid across the floor and these in turn were covered with many heavy pelts of bear and caribou. The only light issued from a scattering of clouded, lanterns set into alcoves in the wall. In dim outline, she saw men and women lying together on large Turkish pillows tossed here and there on the floor.
“My dear friend, Oleg Romanov,” cooed a syrupy, cultivated voice. A short obese woman with masses of frizzy copper-coloured hair embraced Oleg warmly and extended her hand to Leo. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“You know I find you irresistible, Annjanette,” said Oleg, putting his arm around her and stroking her ample rump.
She laughed and snuggled nearer to him; but all the time she kept her gaze on Katia. Annjanette’s red-rimmed eyes stared from between rolls and folds of pink flesh, and Katia felt she was being examined like an animal at market.
Annjanette licked her fat lips. For an instant her eyes left Katia. She looked at Oleg and recognized the lascivious hunger in his eyes. For years, the Prince had been one of Annjanette’s most demanding customers. He and his hot-blooded wife had first visited her establishment more than a decade before and availed themselves of the various erotic pleasures for which Annjanette’s was infamous. But in recent years Oleg had come alone or in the company of Leo; and a time or two—in gratitude he always said—Oleg had brought her his young mistresses when he tired of them.
“Your friend is very beautiful,” said Annjanette. “Tell me, Oleg, is she as lovely beneath that heavy cloak?” Her hands tingled for a touch.
“Look for yourself, Annjanette,” said Oleg with a faint smile as Katia cringed against him.
As she opened Katia’s cloak and reached inside, Annjanette said, “Hands tell more than eyes. Surely you know that, Oleg.” Katia tried to pull back from the fat woman’s intimate caresses, but Oleg held her still. Her face burned with savage humiliation as Annjanette pressed down upon her pelvic bone and stroked her probingly through the clinging fabric of her masquerade costume. She forced her hand inside the bodice of the cashmere gown and grasped Katia’s warm breast. “Well,” Annjanette said finally, “she is plump and pretty where it counts, Oleg. Tell me, is she energetic as well?”
“Reasonably.” Like a protective brother, he gathered Katia’s mink cloak and fastened the pearl brooch that held it closed. “I thought a visit with you might do her good.”
“You mean she is mine?” cried Annjanette with delight. She reached out and with her sweaty palm cupped Katia’s smooth glowing cheeks.
“I am undecided at the moment.”
Before Katia could consider the significance of Oleg’s reply, her attention was diverted by laughter and ribald cries from the room. A girl no older than Katia herself had entered through a curtained doorway. She stood near the fire wearing only a flimsy shift that clung to the contours of her body revealing its every secret to the lascivious crowd that lolled on the floor around her. A mane of dark matted hair haloed her head and shoulders. Katia saw her pretty young face and read the terrified expression clearly.
A loud masculine voice cried something rude and others echoed him. There was rude laughter. The girl hesitated, looking from side to side, then began a faltering dance to the music of the balalaika.”
“This one is new,” said Annjanette to Oleg softly. "She comes from Hungary.” As she spoke, she slipped her arm inside Katia’s cloak and gripped her tightly about the waist. “When the guests are gone, the little dancer belongs to me; but for now, watch…Perhaps you will want to join our little entertainments.” She grasped Katia’s breast and patted gently.
The crowd was growing impatient with the dancer’s shyness. Finally, one man reached out and grabbed her ankle, pulling her off balance. With a terrified cry, she fell on her side; and as the audience laughed, she tried to scramble free. But the grip held fast. Katia watched in stunned horror as the girl was pulled across the floor, whimpe
ring and pleading for mercy. Her flimsy gown dragged above her hips revealing her nakedness. When she struggled to her knees, a second man pushed her down again, thrusting his hands between her legs roughly.
Half a dozen men and women drew near to watch as first one man and then another groped and mauled the girl. Katia could no longer see her, but she heard her cries of supplication and saw how the men were using her and enjoying her helplessness. Katia covered her ears, but the sounds were imprinted in her memory and repeated over and over.
She could bear it no longer. She twisted away from Annjanette and turned to confront her and Oleg. “Are you inhuman? Are you monsters who can watch this? What evil is it that makes you enjoy…?”
At a signal from Oleg, Leo covered her mouth with his hand.
“Your friend has tender sensibilities, Prince Oleg,” said Annjanette thoughtfully. “She has not known you long, eh?”
“Long enough,” muttered Oleg between his teeth.
Annjanette laughed. “I see,” she said. “She does not like you much, I gather. She thinks she is too pure and good for you perhaps. Am I right? Of course I am. Who knows more of these matters than Annjanette, eh? Why don’t you leave her here with me? I am not so greedy I would ask for her permanently.” She laughed again and Katia saw that she had no teeth in her mouth. “Annjanette knows how to make your little friend agreeable!”
Katia did not pause to catch Oleg’s amused look. She wrenched away from Leo and fled through a door behind her. She was in a dank slippery stone courtyard. Desperate, she leaned against a shadowed bit of wall. She had run without thinking and now had no idea of where to go for safety. She crouched in the dark and heard Oleg’s voice from the doorway.
“Bring the torches, Leo. She won’t get far on this island without a light of her own.”
Annjanette’s voice broke in. “Better yet, Prince Oleg, let the silly girl catch her death of cold while we divert ourselves inside where it is warm. Leo will find her easily. She cannot escape my island.”
Oleg said something agreeable. A door slammed; then, just inches from Katia, Leo stalked across the courtyard and through the gate. When he had been gone a moment, Katia crept out behind him. The fog had thickened in the predawn, and she groped her way around behind Annjanette’s establishment unable to see more than a few feet in any direction. Following the downward slope of the ground, she made her way in the direction of the river where she guessed a boat would be moored. Katia had never used oars before, and she knew the eddys and currents of the Neva were strong enough to tax a strong man’s arm. Yet, though her hope of escape was slim, she knew she must take that chance. She could not risk being left with Annjanette.
Her foot stuck in the deep mud, and she lost a moment’s time searching for her shoe. A light appeared close, from the left and slightly higher ground. She tried to run, but all at once Leo was upon her; he held her neck in the vee of his elbow.
“Now, Angel, now is Leo’s time.” As he spoke, he dragged her away from the river muck to dry land. He pushed her down and placed his booted foot on her throat so she could not move. She watched mute as he opened the front of his trousers and held his erect shaft for her to see. Kneeling at her shoulders, he forced it against her pursed lips until she opened her mouth and took him in spite of her loathing. He was a big man and the force of his thrusting filled her mouth and gagged her throat. He did not seem to notice that she did nothing to make him welcome. Her mouth was simply an orifice; and he filled it now, his own lust-crazed fantasies providing the inspiration.
When he was finished, she turned her head— oblivious to the dirt and filth in which she lay—and spat. Leo stood over her, chortling to himself as he rearranged his clothing. He placed the toe of his boot against her hips. “Get up, whore,” he demanded. And clean your filthy face. You look like a pig in slop.”
Chapter Twenty-five
When Natasha Filippovna was seventeen and fresh as a country daisy, she had only one friend in the Romanov household. She was Sophie Fedorovna, another of Princess Anna’s ladies-in-waiting. For two years they had loved each other as sisters sometimes can and shared all the secrets of their hearts. Nikki fondly remembered back to that time. It seemed they must have drunk a thousand cups of tea as they tried to shape their futures with their words. Sharing dreams that way had made the goals more real somehow. It was always possible to hope then.
As she sat at her dressing table on the day of the masquerade ball preparing to visit her old friend, Natasha Filippovna was overcome with nostalgia for those two good years. How merry and optimistic she had been in those days when she thought she would be young forever. And Sophie! Sophie was a songbird in love with life and a handsome young Army colonel named Boris who, though married, claimed that he would love her forever.
Natasha Filippovna pulled a comb through her thinning grey hair and stopped in midstroke. She gazed, then peered, into the mirror looking for even a faded reminder of the pretty girl she had been then. To Nikki’s despairing eyes, there was not one indication that she had ever been anything other than as she was that day: a woman old at forty, with watered eyes and sparse untidy faded hair.
No wonder Baron Volkosky hadn’t recognized her!
It had happened two months earlier when Nikki amended a theatre party as Katia’s chaperone. While she sipped champagne alone for a moment during the interval, a fat middle-aged gentleman backed into her. She stumbled slightly, spilling champagne down the front of her new velvet spencer. The man had been terribly apologetic, but very drunk as well; and though he fussed about her for a little while, there was really nothing he could do and finally wandered off. Natasha Filippovna had watched after him incredulously.
It was Baron Volkosky! Her Baron Volkosky.
He hadn’t even recognized her.
As she gazed at her unrecognizable self in the glass, Nikki remembered that Baron Volkosky had been her dream among men when she was seventeen and Sophie was her best friend. She could still remember how her heart hammered when his step was on the stair and the way she trembled when he took her face in both his big hands and held her while he kissed her. They had planned to marry, or at least she had thought so then. They talked about their future together and made promises to love eternally.
“But I meant it. I really meant it,” she whispered aloud to herself in the mirror.
And he didn’t. When she was almost twenty, he suddenly married someone else and went to live in Poland. She never saw him again. It was almost as though he had disappeared from the face of the earth. No explanations. No goodbys. It was partly grief over this that had led Nikki, finally, to accept the bargain offered by Princess Anna. She had thought—at scarcely twenty—that her life was over; she might as well sequester herself in a country backwater.
By that time she and Sophie had drifted apart, Sophie’s young soldier was posted to Paris and though he left his ailing wife in St. Petersburg in the care of several nurses, he had not traveled alone. After almost twenty years, Natasha Filippovna wondered if he had kept his promise to care for Sophie always. Probably not, she decided. Men were a faithless lot! Baron Volkosky hadn’t even recognized her in the foyer of the theatre, and after all that they had meant to each other this had hurt Nikki cruelly at first. After a little grief, however, she came to see the humor in the situation.
“I was right to accept the Princess’ bargain,” she told herself firmly. “Better to be rich and alone than married to a drunkard. And a fat one at that!”
She fastened her hairpiece with pearl combs and applied a little extra rouge to her cheeks. She knew that vanity made her pat on darker powder and rub cream into her neck and hands. The Little Father had been warning her of the dangers of pride. But what would Sophie think if she came to visit looking like a withered peasant woman! All the while chiding herself for doing so, Nikki took special pains to choose the right dress for that afternoon. She found a winey voile that was a bit too tight, but it cast a warm light on her complexion so she called
the maid to help her put it on. She chose not to wear a hat—only a swirl of rose veiling—because according to the engraved card she had enclosed with her note of invitation, Sophie was a milliner now. Nikki thought she might buy one of her friend’s creations.
‘It would cheer me up,’ she thought. Despite the excitement of visiting an old friend after twenty years separation, Nikki could not put Katia out of her mind. There was an ominous sense of time having stopped in the Romanov palace; everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Katia was wound tight and paced like an edgy cat. Even Mary was charged and jumpy. Nikki herself was stopped, immobilized by terror: at one hand she was frightened by a vision of hell and damnation, at the other by the all too real prospect of what Oleg Romanov would do if he found out the truth about Katia. Natasha Filippovna’s pretense of good humor that afternoon was as much artifice as the color in her cheeks.
At four Sophia Federovna’s carriage called for her at the Romanov palace. It was a dainty brougham pulled by two milky white horses with blue feathered plumes on their harnesses. Nikki began to feel nervous when she saw the pretty carriage of finished wood and lacquer and the yantchik uniformed in sky blue. Whatever had happened in the twenty years since their last meeting, fate had apparently been generous to Sophie. All the way across St. Petersburg, Nikki worried that she would make a bad impression on her old friend. She imagined that, when the afternoon was over, Sophie—always a gossip—would gloat over her successes compared to those of her old friend. By the time the brougham halted before the row of classically simple four-storied homes facing a quiet canal, Natasha Filippovna was wishing she had not come. Her head had begun to ache, and the wine-colored afternoon dress pinched at the waist and under the arms. When she breathed deeply she felt her stays jabbing her midriff. She almost told the yantchik to take her back to the Romanov palace.
The Frost And The Flame Page 23