“Spasibo.”
“Spasibo, babushka.”
Mrs. Varjensky grinned, revealing a gold tooth in place of her left canine. “Pozhaluysta.”
Steering back to safer waters, Wynn emptied out his pockets. “I’ve brought medicine and extra bandages, as my true purpose is to check on both of you.” Taking the ladle from Mrs. Varjensky before she had a chance to wield it further, Wynn directed her to the cushion.
Svetlana put out a graceful hand as if to stop him. “Doctor MacCallan. Your dedication is appreciated, but we can no longer indebt ourselves to your courtesy.”
“If that’s a polite way to say ‘get lost,’ I respectfully decline. At least until I’ve examined you both. If you get an infection, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me whether you want to or not.” He unwrapped the older woman’s hand and slanted it toward the tiny window for better light. A touch of red, but not like before. Reaching into the muslin bag he’d brought, he took out a swab and dipped it in the small bottle of iodine, then blotted it across the wound. She winced but let him finish without complaint.
“Did you manage with a pain relief of tea last night?” he asked as he bandaged the hand with fresh linen.
“Yes. We found the ingredients in the church’s garden. Mrs. Varjensky is very good at determining plants.”
“I suspect a healer would be. You are done, my lady.” Wynn patted the older woman’s wrist and helped her stand before turning to Svetlana. “Your turn.”
Sitting straight-backed on an overturned bucket, her head erect as if wearing a crown, Svetlana lifted her skirt as high as modesty would allow. Wynn knelt in front of her and pondered the best way to go about the examination. There was nothing for it now. Taking her foot, he propped it on his knee so that her leg was straight. She inhaled sharply but said nothing.
As a first-year medical student he couldn’t cease blushing when examining a female patient, but he’d quickly grown accustomed to the professional intimacy afforded between a physician and his patient. The human body was a wondrous creation of bone, sinew, muscle, and blood that moved in a rhythm designed to perfection. A miraculous universe contained within a single entity that he gave his life to study and heal. He’d examined limbs, arteries, and tissues in all manner of construction, but never had he seen one so lovely formed as the woman sitting before him now, inducing the tiniest bit of nerves to shoot through him.
Doing his best to ignore the slender ankle and well-defined calf muscle that was anything but a professional examination, he unwrapped the bandage. A bit more red than he would’ve liked, but it wasn’t spreading. No purulent discharge. Guilt stabbed him anew. If he hadn’t called out and frightened her, she never would have been hurt. Then again, he may never have met her either.
Cleansing the area and dabbing it with iodine, he placed fresh gauze over the wound and bandaged it. “A few more days and you should be able to leave the wrap off. It’s important for wounds to have fresh air, otherwise they don’t heal properly.” He lowered her foot to the floor.
She gracefully smoothed her skirts back into place. “How long before it is healed?”
“You’ll have a scar there for the rest of your life, but I should say by the end of next week you’ll be able to waltz up and down the stairs without much issue.”
“That long?”
“It’s not really that long. Unless you have some place to be.”
“I— No.”
“Chay.” Mrs. Varjensky announced, breaking the disgruntled spell. She traded in her ladle and held up a cracked teapot.
Shaking her head, Svetlana replied before translating to Wynn. “Tea, but we won’t inconvenience you any longer. Thank you for coming.”
He had been as pleasant as possible thinking her standoffishness was a cultural difference he’d yet to navigate, but mayhap her constant dismissal had more to do with him and not interpersonal courtesies.
“Is it me or visitors in general you try to kick out at the earliest opportunity?”
Her eyes widened a fraction. A sliver enough for him to see embarrassment. “You misunderstand.”
It summed up the whole of their short interactions so far, but he was more than willing to get them on the right foot. Even for one simple conversation.
“Chay.” Mrs. Varjensky rattled an empty tin and showed him the remnants of dried leaves at the bottom. She shoved the tin into Wynn’s hands before pushing him and Svetlana out of her chamber. He caught the twinkle in the old woman’s eyes before she closed the blanket partition on their protests. Well, Svetlana’s protests. He was doing no such thing; he was grateful to have a bit more time with her.
“Where are you going?” Her Serenity the Princess Ana stood alone in the same spot as before clutching a velvet bag to her chest. She eyed Wynn with suspicion.
“To the garden. Mrs. Varjensky wishes tea,” Svetlana said.
Placated but not pleased, Ana nodded. “Tarry not. This southern sun will melt your complexion.”
“Yes, Mama.”
The blanket behind Ana pulled back to reveal a man with dated side chops and a pinched-face woman who stared at the bag in Ana’s hands. They gestured her into the chamber and pulled taut the blanket.
“Voleurs,” Svetlana hissed.
Not one for languages outside of the medical Latin and the passing French he’d acquired since being in country, Wynn knew that word from traveling the overcrowded and starving streets of Paris. Thieves.
On edge, he stepped closer to her. “Is there something else I can be of assistance with?”
“Most of the émigrés want to find peace while others seek only advantage. Come.”
Outside, a sunny haze enveloped the walled courtyard, blurring the harsh lines of stone and slate roof and filling the elm trees with golden light. They turned away from the boiling pots of laundry and soup and walked to the small garden in the far back corner hidden behind a crumbling wall. Much of the dirt patch was overgrown with tangled vines and leaves, but several rows appeared to be somewhat maintained with individual plants poking through the earth.
“The Father Superior gave us permission to use what we needed. He doubted anything of use still grew here, but Mrs. Varjensky has coaxed a few herbs from hiding in their forgotten state.” Svetlana ran a hand across her puckered brow. “We picked much of the comfrey yesterday. I do not understand how we ran out.”
“Mayhap she boiled a secret batch and drank it all while you slept. Ladies and their tea.”
Svetlana took the few steps forward while heavily favoring her good leg. Her lips pursed into a thin line with the effort. Wynn took her hand and looped it under his arm, forcing her to lean against him as he led her to a crooked bench perched under a tree.
“Here, let me get it. You rest.”
“Thank you.” Smoothing her cotton skirt, she flexed and straightened her foot as a dancer might to ascertain pliability. If she was a dancer, that would explain her movements. Like water they were. “Do you know where the plant is?”
Wynn stood in the middle of the overgrown garden and did his best to tell the plants apart. He could discern the flexor carpi radialis, flexor carpi ulnaris, and palmaris longus with his eyes closed, yet the growing green stalks defied him. “Not a clue.”
“I thought doctors knew all their medicines.”
“From a textbook, certainly. Or ground up in tubes from the lab. It’s another beast all together when foraging in the wild.”
Svetlana shifted on the bench and pointed to the middle of the plot. “It is the long leaf pointed at the end. There are dead purple flowers beneath it. Do you see? Mrs. Varjensky was adamant it is this and not the plant next to it that she claimed to produce blood from the ear.”
Wynn grimaced. Not a prognosis he wished to get involved with. “Stay away from that one.” Picking his way to the center, he squatted next to the desirable plant and eyed the indicated fallen purple flowers. “Do you know those people your mother was speaking with?”
“
Not in particular.”
“Are they causing problems for your family?”
“It is of no consequence. We will not be here for long.”
Two reactions pinned him simultaneously. The first, a physician’s concern. “I hope you’re not thinking of traveling anytime soon. Not with your injury.” The other, something far more human responding to the guarded measures of her tone. “You’re safe here.”
“There is no place safe. Not anymore.” She stiffened and looked away. Wynn had the feeling she was looking far beyond the back wall. To a place only seen in memory.
He picked a handful of comfrey sprigs as he weighed his words. “It’s true the war makes such reliability obsolete, but the Germans are far from here. They’ll never breach Paris.”
“Who are you to guarantee such a thing?”
“I’m offering you a chance to hope. You don’t seem to have much of it lately.”
She looked at him fully for the first time, unashamedly in her direct perusal. He returned the directness. Hair of palest blond it was nearly white; unblemished skin kept from a lifetime of sun; and eyes the color of a wintry sea. So pale blue in the center one might lose himself in the vastness until drifting to the rim of arctic blue around the outside. Beautiful was not enough. Words such as elegant and exquisite were used to describe women like her, and while he felt himself affected by such attributes, it was not what held his attention.
Intelligence was not a calling card for most women he knew as society highly disapproved of such liberal notions. Her Serenity the Princess Svetlana—and all those other names he couldn’t remember—displayed hers without reserve. She didn’t defer or feign false modesty. She held herself with quiet pride, and nothing could kindle his admiration more.
“I had hope once.” Her soft admission was snatched on a breeze of sorrow. “Such notions belong to ruins of the past.”
“Back when you were a princess?” She startled and he immediately regretted his bluntness, though it was hardly a secret after her mother’s brazen introduction. Surely they were far enough from Russia and its troubles to no longer remain fearful of their identities, but one look at the panic in her eyes told him the fear was rooted in death. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret safe—as long as you don’t let on that I’m a marquis.”
As before, it took a moment for her panic to recede. When it did a new confusion took its place. “What is this marquis?”
“I’m the second son of a duke. Upon my father’s death, my brother, Hugh, became Duke of Kilbride and I the humble Marquis of Tarltan.”
She shrugged, unimpressed. “There are many dukes in Russia.”
“Which makes me the only marquis of your acquaintance.” Wynn stood with the picked comfrey and brushed dirt from his trousers. “Well, that’s something anyway. What is that plant there?”
“A lily. Mrs. Varjensky says the boiled roots can be used in ointments for burns and rashes.” A smile crossed her face. “I used to arrange them in vases once belonging to Empress Ekaterina. They filled our music room in white, pink, and yellow blooms.”
“That sounds calming.”
“Arranging is one of the few activities deemed appropriate for a lady to learn. Not growing them or clipping them, mind you, that was too strenuous. Placing them in decorative vases was the extent of our labor.”
“Would you have liked to grow them yourself?”
Wistfulness whispered across her face, then faded like the petals of a bloom past its day in the sun. “What I would have liked is of no consequence. It was not to be for a princess then, nor for a refugee now.”
A breeze ruffled the nearby elms, filling the air with scents of sweet grass and thick herbs. A pleasant departure from the cloying hospital smell of sterilization. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was home in Scotland enjoying the lazy days of summer and not existing on the brink of trenches and barbed wire. What those frontline lads wouldn’t give for a whiff of a single blade of grass.
“My brother and I got in trouble once for whacking off rose tops with sticks in the Luxembourg Gardens when we were younger. Our parents were asked not to bring us back.”
“The carefree mischief of youth,” she said. “You are close with this brother, Hugh.”
Wynn nodded. “Best of friends growing up, but Hugh’s always had to hold himself apart as the next duke. Me? I’m the second son and can get away with murder. Though I won’t because it would be breaking my Hippocratic oath. Hugh knows all the rules and lives to keep them.”
“My brother, Nikolai, is the same.”
“Is he here in France?”
“He stayed with Papa to defend our homeland.” Her face shuttered, depriving him of her thoughts once more. “I should not be outside.” She stood, favoring her unhurt leg.
Wynn strode through the weeds and captured her hand before she had the chance to take a limping step. “I don’t know what you’re running from in Russia, though I can venture a guess, but you don’t have to be frightened any longer.”
“You do not know. You do not understand what fear is.”
Living the past four years in a war zone gave him every right to understand the meaning of fear, but the look blazing in her eyes spoke of something more, a crippling terror he’d not seen before. Not knowing how to root out the pain, he nodded and looped her arm around his. “I’ll take you inside.”
Her hand was cool against his forearm. Slight callouses rested at the base of her long fingers. Signs of refined hands adjusting to recent hardships. Likely she had never had to pick up an item a day in her life. Until now, when she was clothed in ripped skirts scrounging in a weedy garden. Yet not one ounce of dirt could diminish the regal way with which she held herself.
“Before you say ‘don’t come back,’ know that I will come back. Tomorrow or the next time I’m off shift,” Wynn said.
“You are a difficult man to say no to.”
“Another trait of my profession. We’re hard to refuse when a gangrenous limb hangs in the balance.”
Her brow puckered in confusion, then suddenly smoothed. “Ah. Another joke.”
“Medical humor. If we can’t heal you, we’ll kill you with terrible comedy.”
“Maybe it is better you continue with medicine instead.” A light sparked in her eyes. Was that the verge of a smile?
Wynn’s heart rate bumped up. “Maybe you’re right.”
Across the courtyard, Mrs. Varjensky had pushed aside one of the other women to stir a boiling pot of soup herself. At the sight of them, she bustled over and handed him a jar filled with vegetable broth. “Do svidaniya, golubchik.”
Wynn glanced at her other hand that held the cracked teapot. Familiar green leaves poked out of the spout. Biting back a laugh, he stuffed the newly picked but unneeded comfrey into the teapot.
“Spasibo, babushka.” He grinned at Svetlana. “Getting rather good at this Russian.”
“It is better you continue with medicine.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” He pulled out the lily he had clipped secretly from the garden and handed it to her. “Until next time.”
The corners of her mouth flitted up as she took the flower. It wasn’t quite the smile he’d hoped for, but it wasn’t a frown.
He would take it as a victory.
* * *
“He has made you smile.” Mama’s thin eyebrows raised in accusation as soon as Svetlana, holding the lily, stepped into their shared blanket quadrant.
Svetlana pulled the makeshift curtain tight, cutting off the smell of boiled cabbage that permeated the cellar. The elusive emotion of enjoyment and the sweet scent of the lily that had floated around her a moment earlier deflated.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You are engaged to Sergey.”
“I am not. An informal, unspoken understanding at the most.”
“You are as good as engaged. Sergey is one of our kind—the only kind—and a dear friend to our family for years. Do not forget this.”
How could she, when not for one moment did Mama allow it? Man after man had been paraded before her at every ball and concert, the most successful venues for finding acceptable husbands. Men with all the right titles, family wealth, and political ties, but without a bone of enticement to hold them upright. Perhaps one day a man would fit her credentials.
“I have no intention of falling in love right now. If such a thing is even possible.”
Mama scoffed and batted her small hand in the air as if to chase off Svetlana’s ludicrous notion. “Love has nothing to do with a successful marriage. It is a sentiment best reserved for the nishchebrod. This man, this doctor, is no one, otherwise he would not have a menial job as a physician. Bah. Working class.”
It was doubtful the poor had more claim on matters of the heart than the nobility, but speaking of peasants would only fall on Mama’s deaf ear. A mar on the otherwise glittering world she hoped to return to.
“He’s—” Svetlana cut short her defense of Wynn as she reached for an empty milk jar. He’d asked her not to reveal him as Marquis of Tarltan. While she had no intention of surrendering her trust to him, she still respected a promise when given. Pouring a bit of precious water into the jar, she gently slipped the flower into the glass. How beautiful these would be planted in a garden next to roses, freesia, buttercups, and peonies. Trouble could not touch them in such a peaceful place. “He is dedicated to his profession.”
“As if that concerns us. You are a princess. A blood relation to Tsar Nicholas himself.”
“A third cousin twice removed, I believe.”
“Still blood. We are set apart by God Himself.” Mama spit over her left shoulder so as not to tempt Fate.
That inalienable truth had been infused into the very air Svetlana breathed since the first day she drew breath. The nobles and titled of the land had been chosen by God, were touched by His divine hand, and sat upon pedestals to be worshipped by the poorer masses. It had been a life of comfort, ease, and adoration. But the revolution had destroyed it all, leaving bitter ashes of all that once sparkled as diamonds. Princesses could spill blood as easily as peasants when bullets fired without prejudice on the burning streets of Petrograd.
The Ice Swan Page 5