The Frost And The Flame

by Drusilla Campbell

  “Damn!” snarled Oleg. He turned away from his friend without another word. It was as he had suspected. Katia was planning something. She dared to think she could escape his power so easily. Oleg ground his nails into his palm and strode along the path, ignoring the calls of friends on either side to join their pleasant pastimes. His mind was thoroughly involved as he tried to imagine where Katia might have gone. He glanced at the dancers on the green, knowing she would not be among that number. But Proskoi had said that he saw her cross the bridge. Where was she? With Alexei Romanov, that much seemed certain.

  In some small part of him, Oleg enjoyed the chase. He had long wished for an occasion to outsmart, to best, his troublemaking cousin; and if he could surprise the lovers—better yet, spy upon them—he would receive great satisfaction for his efforts. Now as he walked, he repeated the same question to friends he met along the way. Had his cousin, Alexei Stephanovich, passed by? He sought Katia and her lover in the gazebos and summerhouses that dotted the grounds of Tsarskoe Selo, making it a haven for clandestine lovers.

  He reasoned that they would not have gone far to be alone; they could not count on much time. ‘But where would they go if privacy were essential?’

  As chance would have it, he was atop a gentle rise, slightly higher than the surrounding landscape. Below him, and apart from the harvest celebration, lay a pond of good size with a small willow-groved island in the middle. A delicately wrought marble bridge led from the shore to the island. Oleg was laughing to himself as he made his way down the hill. Instincts that had once brought him success as a diplomat now assured him he was on the right track and that he would meet his quarry just ahead, hidden in the shelter of dense foliage.

  ‘And what hides the lovers from prying eyes will also hide me,’ he thought. He was smiling confidently as he made his way onto the island.

  The lovers were seated on a low stone bench hidden among the shrubs and pendulous willows. It was cool so Alexei removed his royal blue cloak and positioned it across Katia’s shoulders. She was dressed for the afternoon in a dark green velvet suit accented by tufts of saffron lace at the throat and wrists and wore a wide, tricornered hat with a broad yellow feather. When Alexei removed the hat, she felt strangely naked before him. She was terribly nervous. The escape from the crowds in the gardens, from Oleg in particular, had been much easier than she had expected. The very ease of it made her apprehensive, for she knew Oleg and his skilled hunting instincts. She looked around her, but the shadows revealed nothing.

  She stared at her hands, waiting for Alexei to speak, unable to think of words that would not say either too much or far too little. But for a time he only stared at her as if he hoped to read her mind with his loving yet accusing eyes.

  “Forgive me for what I am about to say, Katia, dushenka he said finally and in the gentlest manner.

  “I assure you that no matter how you answer me, my deep affection, my love for you, will not be changed from what it is today. I love you now and I will love you always. But I have had word of a terrible thing, and I must know…” A look of deep pain hardened his expression. “I must know if it is true that you and Oleg Ivanovich are lovers.” He spoke quickly, as if this were the only way he could force himself to ask the question at all.

  Katia went cold when she heard him and pulled herself up stiffly. For one second, she thought of denying everything; but she knew better than to complicate her life with yet another deception. She must tell him the truth no matter what the heartbreaking results might be. But how could he love her if he knew everything? It was impossible, yet she must be honest with him.

  “No, we are not lovers, Alexei. Your cousin…” She tried not to let her voice break, but it did in spite of her efforts “…your cousin takes me when and how he wishes regardless of my feelings. I am fed and clothed by him in return. He provides for the child, Mary, and for Aunt Nikki as well.” She looked at him through the dark fringe of her lashes. Her almond-shaped eyes were bluer than the bright autumn sky. “But never say that we are lovers.”

  He took her hands in his. “Forgive my clumsiness, Katia. I had to know.”

  She pulled her hands away. “And now you do, I suppose you feel you too may use me and leave me as if I were some girl off the streets who belongs to any man with money to buy her?” She sat erect and proud. “If you believe that, you are mistaken, for no matter what has happened to me, I am no…”

  “Beloved! Do not doubt my affection when I love you truly. My beautiful Katia.” He held her close and whispered against her hair. “I should never have left you alone with him, dushenka, not for a single day. Whatever has happened to you, I assume the blame myself. When I think of how you must have suffered. You are stiff and cold in my arms, Katia. Has he done this to you?”

  She began to cry softly against his shoulder. She dared not tell Alexei all that had been done to her because despite his reassurances, she still feared that if he knew everything, he would abandon her in revulsion.

  “Look at me, Katia.” He held her tear-stained face between his hands. “All that has happened is in the past now. You need weep no more tears of shame or fear.”

  “He has threatened me, Alexei Stephanovich,” she sobbed. “And he would kill Mary to punish me. I know he is capable of that and much more.”

  “I know all that my cousin is capable of. That is why I feel responsible for having left you in his care. But rest easy about Mary. No harm will come to her. When we leave Russia, you and I, she will come with us.”

  “But he will never permit me to leave! I am his prisoner!” She dared not see the ray of hope Alexei had cast over her sordid existence. Hope was too cruel when it faded and left only bitter reality in its place. She told herself that all she wanted was a little time, the space of an hour with her beloved Alexei. After that, she believed she could survive whatever misfortunes life held for her.

  But Alexei was confidant and had a plan. “I have been commissioned by Czar Nicholas to deliver a message to King George of England. I am to leave by coach near midnight tomorrow. You and Mary must come with me.” He bent his head to hers. They were about to kiss, but she pulled away suddenly. She had begun to shake uncontrollably as if this were the only way she could keep the hope from taking hold in her. Alexei seemed hurt, confused. “Surely you do not fear me, my angel?”

  Though she ached for him, though longing filled and warmed her every part, she feared his touch for it gave her back the dreams, the hope she had thought gone forever. Alexei reached for her hand again and drew it to his lips. He kissed each fingertip.

  “You must not be afraid. I will not hurt you, little one. I would never hurt you. Never.” He sighed softly now as his hand traced the curve of her blushing cheek. “Do not fear me, Katia. For me you are still a girl fresh from convent school, as precious and innocent as the day we first met. I promise to be gentle in my loving.”

  Like a child, she gave in to hope at last and wrapped her arms around Alexei’s neck, relaxing against his strong body. A yearning hungering warmth suffused her when his lips brushed her cheek, still wet by tears of fear and shame. He kissed her eyes and brow, the lobe of her ear, waiting until she turned her lips to his warm kiss. Her mouth opened beneath his, and she moaned in delicious helplessness as the waves of desire rose in her as they never had before. Gently, as he had promised, Alexei pulled her to the ground; and they lay together on his cloak. For a long wonderful moment they lost themselves in one another’s gaze; then, with trembling fingers, he unfastened the pearl buttons that closed the jacket of her suit. His fingers were clumsy; he cursed them softly. She laughed a little, deep in her throat, and helped him. She was swept by alternate waves of boldness and shy demureness. At one moment she felt herself about to be overcome by passion of so great an intensity that it frightened her; at the next, she blushed beneath Alexei’s amorous gaze.

  ‘What does he see when he looks at me?’ she wondered, studying his face. She had a flashing memory of the young peasant couple
outside the convent grounds so long ago. Though used and abused by Oleg and Leo, though treated like an object, a slave to their desires, Alexei’s love now made her feel young again, new and virginal. Uncertainty and doubt were extinguished by an exhilarating rush of happiness. Love was a miracle granted especially to her; and suddenly there was no more timidity, no hesitation in her lovemaking.

  She yielded to Alexei and welcomed him with her whole body and soul.

  Sensing this new trust, Alexei embraced her more passionately. With his lips he traced a line down her neck to the soft swelling of her breasts, and the fragrant space between them. A fresh urgency filled them both, and she was eager when he placed his hands on either leg and gently spread her thighs apart. His hands and then his tongue touched the vulnerable silken skin. Half-sobbing, no longer caring or thinking of anything but the thrill of Alexei’s mouth, she heard herself murmuring, again and again, “Please, please.” For what seemed like an eternity, Alexei’s tongue and lips sustained her at a rapturous plateau of passion that bordered on pain. The long nightmare of Oleg Romanov faded entirely; and there was only Alexei and his mouth on her, compelling her toward some peak of feeling that she knew awaited her.

  “Oh, yes, Alexei! Yes!” she cried, her hands twisting in his thick dark hair, her body rising gently toward him, helping him to satisfy her sudden, surprising desire for more and more and more. Then, all at once, she was crying out and trembling like a leaf floating down from a high place. Somewhere beyond reality she was curling and turning and quivering with pleasure, rising again, falling again, rising, falling again and again and again until, at last, she lay still and all the world was silent with her.

  Late that night, Oleg crept into Katia’s bedroom and observed her sleeping peacefully as a child with nothing and no one to fear. In sleep, her expression was angelic and gave no indication of her passionate spirit. He knew he hated her as he had no other woman or girl, and that to place his fingers on her throat or a knife to her throbbing heart would give him inestimable pleasure. She had shamed and humiliated him, forced him to neglect his work and endanger his political and social position in his preoccupation with her. She had bewitched him somehow with her frigid beauty. He thought of what he had witnessed that afternoon at Tzarskoe Selo, and the pulse above his eye drummed painfully. The bitch had been so eager she had helped Alexei to remove his clothing; she had pleasured him with all the guile and skill and eagerness of a courtesan. Now, as Oleg watched her sleep, his eyeballs burned hot in their sockets; and his hands and face went slick with sweat.

  He wanted Katia dead, and Alexei too, but he knew he must restrain this desire. Vengeance must come in another way for Elizabeth and Myshkin would be quick to discover his guilt if murder were involved, and even Leo could not be trusted to keep silent. Oleg would punish Katia—no doubt of that—and he would drive Alexei from Russia once and for all.

  She sighed in her sleep and turned onto her back. Her lips moved in silent dreamer’s conversation, and it seemed he knew to whom she spoke. Alexei Romanov, with all his high sounding assurances of love, would find it impossible to forgive Katia if she were not the betrayed innocent she had led him to believe. Oleg wanted to laugh aloud, imagining his cousin’s bitter disillusionment! He had a plan that would finish l’affaire de Katia once and for all.

  ‘After tomorrow night,’ he thought, ‘I will no longer want her.’

  And neither would Alexei Romanov.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  When Katia awoke the next morning in her familiar room in the Romanov palace, she did not immediately remember that she had been with Alexei in the willow grove less than twenty-four hours before. The morning was clear and cold, but the broad beam of sunlight that slanted across her bed warmed and reminded her of early spring, the season of fragile beginnings. She awoke happy, and this in itself was so remarkable that she had to wonder why.

  Then she remembered Alexei.

  She didn’t stop to think of what would happen if Alexei’s plan failed and she were caught trying to escape the palace. She didn’t want to think about that. Nevertheless, she recognized that some process had been begun that neither she nor Alexei nor even Oleg could stop now no matter what the cost in pain or fear or even death. As Oleg’s mistress, she had learned to be as ruthlessly vengeful as her master. He had made her as capable of murder as he. If she had to do it, she knew she could murder Oleg for the love of a man like Alexei.

  ‘So this is love.’ She sighed and stretched languidly. She remembered the way Alexei had looked at her when they were at last exhausted from loving one another. It had seemed for one glorious moment as she lay in his arms that everything awful in her life was over a thousand yesterdays ago. She was reborn in Alexei’s eyes; and it seemed wrong that while she was so changed simply by loving and being loved, the rest of her world was unaltered. Was it possible that in less than a year she had come through so much? From a simple convent child to a woman known by many men and fully capable of both love and murder?

  Leaping from bed, she danced to the long oval mirror near her dressing table. She stepped out of her nightdress and searched for something changed in her reflection that might give away her new happiness. It was true—she realized for the first time—she was beautiful. For months, Oleg had been telling her this, but she had been blinded by self-loathing. Until Alexei loved her, she hated the way she looked even when she knew others felt differently. But Alexei’s love had opened her eyes to the truth. She was beautiful. Slowly, shyly at first, she caressed her waist and then her ribs and hips. It was as if she had never touched herself before, never enjoyed the satin of her own skin. Her fingertips grazed the shield of soft hair at the base of her abdomen, and she remembered Alexei’s hands. There was no part of her he had not touched, nor she of him. When she closed her eyes before the mirror, she could imagine he was caressing her once more. His fingers parted the shell of flesh to find and thrill her at the center.

  From the sitting room, she heard a door opening softly. Her body tensed. She shook away her luxurious reverie, and put Alexei out of her mind. Oleg might be spying on her. Or Leo. Quickly, she went to her wardrobe and grabbed the first wrapper her shaking fingers touched, a flowing cashmere robe the shade of pine forests and collared in lynx. She slipped it on and went to the door of her room. Brushing her hair aside, she pressed her ear to the door and listened for bootsteps. The palace was silent now, almost eerily so. Then—click—another door opened nearby. She heard the light sound of feminine steps.

  “Aunt Nikki!” cried Katia, throwing open her door.

  She ran across the sitting room to Nikki’s bedroom and discovered her aunt sitting on the bed, clutching an armful of flimsy undergarments. An open travel box on the chaise nearby was half full of clothing. Katia took in the scene in an instant; and when she spoke, she could not keep the bitter accusation from her voice.

  “Don’t let me stop you, Aunt. Obviously, you are as eager to be gone from here as I am. But were you going to disappear without a word to me? Were you going to desert me? Is this the way you keep your bargain with my mother?”

  “In the name of God, why must you always think the worst, child?” cried Nikki, pretending more outrage than she truly felt. “Anyway, I left a note. I put it on the mantel in the sitting room.”

  “I know. Prince Oleg read it to me.”

  “Well, then, have you forgotten that I told you I would be staying in Kominski Park with the Little Father for a time? Until I’m feeling better? I don’t deserve to be railed at! You knew where I was, and I only came back this morning for fresh clothing. You don’t begrudge me clean linen do you, Katia? I was planning to look in on you when I had finished packing. I didn’t want to disturb your sleep so early in the morning. You ought to thank me, but instead you accuse me as if I’m guilty of something.” Nikki was furious. Never had she felt less able to deal with this high-strung, she-cub of a girl. Her relationship with Katia had brought her nothing but pain. She hated Katia for that,
and the feeling made her ashamed of herself. “A girl your age needs plenty of rest. Particularly a girl who has been ill…”

  “Your concern touches me deeply, Aunt.”

  The ice in Katia’s voice was like a dagger. Nikki felt wounded. How could Katia be so cruel? All Nikki was asking was a few more days—less than a week, after all. The Little Father was her only and last chance. If he could not make her well, then…Her sinfulness was like a vulture riding on her shoulders, piercing her with its talons. She didn’t want to think of what it would be like to die in such a state of sin. She had to make Katia understand!

  “There is to be a Gathering of Souls tonight and the Little Father says I may participate. This is a very great honor, Katia. The man has wondrous powers of healing. And you know how sorely I have suffered these last months.” She had to stop a moment to catch her breath. Then, “Don’t you want me to feel well again? Do you hate me that much, Katia?”

  “I don’t hate you, Aunt.” Katia said sadly.

  “The Little Father says I will be cleansed and healed at the Gathering.” Natasha Filippovna’s naive faith was pitiful to Katia.

  “And you believe him.”

  Nikki nodded and took Katia’s hands in her own. “Forgive me, child. I know how you have suffered in this place; but believe me, it will soon be over. We must both put ourselves in the hands of God and the Little Father who speaks for Him on earth. Trust me a little longer, Katia; and I swear before Almighty God, I will not fail you.”

  Katia’s feelings for her aunt were in confusion. Pity and doubt and angry resentment vied with one another for ascendency. Another day, before Alexei and the hope he had given her, Katia might have let anger dominate her attitude toward Natasha Filippovna. Didn’t she have the right to despise an aunt who had ignored her needs and willfully blinded herself to the evil that was Oleg Romanov? Surely no one would blame her for hating Nikki. Nevertheless, she could not hate her. There was something too pitiful about the woman. She was so terribly sick and unable to help herself. She could only cast all her hopes away to a charlatan healing priest.