The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “Such friendship I don’t need! Do you see me trying to spoil your happiness with Alice Nabatov?”

  A confused expression crossed Dmitri’s face. His simple words reflected it. “How could you?” he said.

  The words hit Katrina like a blow. How indeed? Once again she suddenly realized she had been duped into all kinds of foolish and childish notions—thinking Dmitri was harboring doubts about his marriage, thinking that he had wanted her free of Basil and thus available for him.

  How could she have been such a fool? Why had she done this to herself—again? Why couldn’t she simply wash her hands of this man and forget he existed?

  When she spoke again, she did not even make any attempt to conceal her bitterness.

  “Spoil your happiness, Dmitri? That is the last thing I would want to do! I wish you every happiness in your marriage to Alice Nabatov—as I hope you wish me in mine to Basil!”

  “You cannot intend to marry him, Katrina. You can’t!”

  “Who are you to tell me what I can’t do? I will do what I please!”

  “Katrina, please listen to reason.”

  “Reason? You are not my brother, nor my father, and I most certainly do not have to listen to you!” She jumped off the bench with a haughty flip of her silken black hair.

  As she walked defiantly back toward the ballroom, he laid a restraining hand on her arm. She twisted and tried to turn away. “Sergei always said you were stubborn,” he said, “but I never imagined just how bad it was. Katrina, do not ruin your life like this!”

  “You have no part in my life, Dmitri Gregorovich!” she replied coldly. “Go to your fiancee—that’s where you belong—and keep your advice and opinions to yourself!”

  He took in a sharp breath, his emotion—whether it was anger or merely frustration—barely under control. “Have it your way, Katrina,” he said, releasing his hand from her arm. “I have done my duty.”

  “Your duty . . . your duty!” she blustered, unable to utter anything further in the fury of her indignation. It took her several more moments to get out the next words, but when she did they were hardly ones to be misunderstood. “Leave me alone, Dmitri! I never want to see you again!”

  Dmitri swallowed any further response, then turned on his heels to go back inside the house. He had not taken a full stride, however, when he unexpectedly found himself face-to-face with none other than the object of their altercation, Basil Anickin. Still Dmitri remained silent, then stepped aside and continued on, glaring at the doctor’s son as he strode past him.

  Basil rushed immediately to Katrina.

  “What is wrong?” he asked. “Is there some problem with Count Remizov?”

  “I never want to hear that name again!” she cried.

  “Did he wrong you in some way?” The question was accompanied by a dark flash of his eyes. When Katrina did not reply, the look became darker still. “He shall pay.” He turned and would have gone after Dmitri that instant had Katrina not clutched at his arm.

  “No, wait . . . ,” she said. In spite of herself, Katrina would have then believed Dmitri’s slanderous words if she had allowed herself to. She shook the notion from her mind, yet still did not want to see Dmitri exposed to any danger.

  “Forget about him, Basil,” she added. “He’s not worth the bother. Come, sit down beside me. I need company just now.”

  The muscles in his face and neck remained taut. Almost reluctantly, it seemed, he retreated to the bench and took a seat beside her. He glanced toward the French doors, where he could still see Dmitri on the other side of the glass shouldering his way back through the crowd of guests.

  “Tell me what happened out here, Katrina,” he said sharply. “What is Dmitri Remizov to you?”

  If Katrina caught the note of jealousy in Basil’s voice, she was more flattered by it than wary.

  “Oh, he only thinks that with Sergei gone, he must take my brother’s place. You know, bossing me around, giving me advice, telling me what to do . . . I hate it!”

  “That is all?”

  “Basil, you don’t think . . . ?” she completed the unfinished sentence with a coy giggle instead of words. Having another man who loved her quickly restored the emotional balance of her girlish pride.

  “What was he telling you?”

  “Nothing. He just . . .”

  He read more than was pleasant in her hesitation.

  “Tell me, Katrina,” he said, almost sternly.

  “He was only repeating idiotic, vicious gossip. It’s nothing really. I refuse to listen to it.”

  Basil reflected a moment.

  “He was speaking of me, wasn’t he?”

  “Rumors . . . silly gossip. I tell you, I did not listen to a word of it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Honestly, Basil, it is not worth repeating.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “Well, I—”

  He did not give her the chance to finish.

  “They will say anything about a man,” he broke in. “They will never give him peace. One man might err and they forget, but let another whom they have labeled with their malicious lies, and they continually throw it back in his face!”

  “I did not listen to a word of it, Basil,” she repeated, trying to calm him.

  “I only want peace,” he went on, still heatedly, “and the freedom to be myself and pursue my ideals. But they hound me until I become what they say I am. Is this fair? Is this right?”

  As he spoke, his eyes were wide with a strange mingling of pleading and accusation. His voice trembled over the words.

  “Katrina, I am a man of peace. Yet I must survive in a world that hates me, a world that would squash the very life from my soul if it could. It is important to me that you understand, Katrina. Do you?”

  She only nodded, unable to form any appropriate response to his speech. In her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t understand everything he was talking about . . . and wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  He turned toward her, laid his hands on her shoulders and drew her forcefully toward him. “Katrina, dear,” he said. “There was a time when I believed that the love of a woman could never be for me. I thought I was called to a higher plane of existence, although there were times when I yearned for the touch of a woman, for a soft feminine voice to entreat me. But now everything has changed. When I looked at you the night of your birthday, I felt a deep yearning. And when you returned my gaze, I thought perhaps I could have both worlds after all.”

  He paused, still gazing intently into her eyes, though Katrina could not keep from looking slightly to one side. Sometimes his gaze was too powerful.

  “I need you, Katrina!” he went on.

  As he spoke, his hands gripped her shoulders harder and harder until she felt as if a lead weight were pressing upon her. The very air from her lungs seemed forced from her, and she could hardly breathe. She felt as if she had to say something, that to remain silent might even be dangerous. Basil, however, continued to pour himself out.

  “I love you as I never thought I could love another human being,” he said. “Tell me you feel the same.”

  Katrina had never before felt the force of a man’s passion. She had no inner measuring rod to help her discern the levels and types of passion. She had never experienced, for example, the kind of tender passion her brother felt for Anna. To Katrina’s limited view, passion and force and love must all be somehow interrelated. She had heard one or two things that kept her from total ignorance in the matter of love. Her natural instincts cautioned restraint. She chose, however, to ignore them.

  She ignored, too, the pain caused by the pressure of Basil’s hands. She was being held by a man—held as Dmitri had never held her, as he had never touched her. Their only kiss was one she had stolen from him! His arms and kisses were only for Alice Nabatov now! So why shouldn’t she have a man who felt for her as she had only foolishly dreamed Dmitri would feel? Basil was real. His love was real. His passion was
real! Her feelings for Dmitri were nothing but a childish fantasy.

  Her hesitation lasted only a second or two, then she turned and fixed her gaze directly on him and melted into his embrace. As she did so, the powerful grip of his hands eased.

  “Oh, Basil,” she murmured, “how I have longed to hear those words.”

  “Then you do love me!”

  “I want you, Basil, that is all I know. I want you always.”

  14

  As the fine summer evening deepened into night, a fog drifted in upon the city from the Neva. Wraithlike, it clung to the cobbled streets and sidewalks and wove through the alleys, so that a man venturing out at that late hour appeared like some grotesque caricature from a dream, his hands and feet shrouded in the mist.

  Basil Anickin, leaving the Fedorcenko’s family at their home after the party, had availed himself of the offer of their coach and had the driver take him to a tea shop on Nevsky Prospect. There he thanked the driver, entered the building, waited until the coach had driven from sight, and then exited again. He walked the remainder of the distance to his true destination.

  He stood in the shadows across the street from the barracks of the Royal Guard. Ignoring the mist and the cold, he waited.

  He should have felt ecstatic over Katrina’s declaration. And to be sure, he did feel a certain euphoria that the beautiful daughter of the powerful Fedorcenko clan should want him.

  The moment he had laid eyes on her he realized he wanted her more than his very soul. In fact, some of his acquaintances would accuse him of selling his soul for the sake of this aristocratic woman. And he could not help despising himself for it. But the passion, the love he felt could not be denied or ignored. He would have Katrina Fedorcenko, and he would not sacrifice his only other passion—the destruction of the hated Romanov regime and the government it fostered.

  But whatever elation Basil Anickin might have felt at Katrina’s avowal of love was dulled by the nagging interference of one man.

  Scant though his experience may have been in matters of the heart, Basil was nobody’s fool. He had seen Katrina’s eyes stray to Count Remizov whenever he was present. The night of her coming out, he had noticed her eyes scanning the crowd, and he had seen the light in them when they fell on the count!

  A more secure man might not have given such trivialities a second thought. Her attentiveness should have been satisfying enough.

  But Basil was no such man. Katrina’s hidden glances in the count’s direction had disturbed and nagged at him. And the scene he had witnessed in the garden tonight added fuel to the fires of his passion. True, he had caught only the tail end of their conversation. But if it was not a lover’s quarrel, it was something very close. When he had come upon Dmitri unexpectedly, he saw the unguarded look in the count’s eyes—the look of pain that comes only from love. Basil had worn such a look himself a time or two.

  Whether Katrina denied it or not, Count Remizov stood in the way of whatever Basil and Katrina might have together. And thus, Remizov must be dealt with.

  Basil knew Dmitri by reputation only, for the count traveled in different circles and lived a different lifestyle than the intense young lawyer. In many ways Dmitri represented most of what Basil hated in life. His aristocracy, his social connections, his military commitment tying him to the crown . . . and that was just on a political level.

  On a more personal level, Count Remizov’s winning, charismatic personality was in every way the antithesis of Basil’s. His reputation with women ignited Basil’s ire. Although the prestige of his family name, along with the family fortune, had waned considerably since his father’s death several years ago, Dmitri had been counted as one of the most eligible and sought-after bachelors in St. Petersburg—that is, until his recent engagement. Basil knew Dmitri’s type; his amorous ways would not be restrained by marriage.

  And it infuriated Basil that this man, who could have a dozen other women, would toy with the affections of the one woman Basil loved. He had barely been able to contain his seething rage when he had seen the two of them together that evening. It did not matter that moments later Katrina had declared her love for him. It did not matter that soon enough Remizov would be safely married to another. What mattered was that Basil’s place in Katrina’s heart be ever secure. He could never be sure of it as long as a rival such as Dmitri Remizov remained in the way.

  As Basil stood within sight of the barracks, he pondered what benefit would come of a confrontation with the count. He had no solid idea, and, moreover, he had no idea what kind of confrontation this would in fact turn out to be. Would he kill Remizov? The idea was not altogether repugnant. He had killed before. But those incidents had been crimes of honor, or principle. Could he kill for passion, for jealousy? Motive hardly mattered if he became ruled by that inner demon of rage that sometimes overwhelmed him. He had also killed under the influence of that unpredictable creature.

  More than likely it would be enough simply to thrash the count about a bit—to batter those good looks, and let him know how unwise it would be for him to pursue Princess Katrina in the future.

  He rubbed his hands together, blew in them once or twice, and waited.

  Basil was fairly certain he had arrived here before the count, for the Fedorcenkos had been among the first guests to depart. As guest of honor, it was not likely that Remizov would leave until the party was over. But if for some reason he missed the count tonight, there would definitely come another time.

  The time went by slowly. Basil let his thoughts trail back to the ride home with the Fedorcenkos. He was certain Katrina had said nothing to her parents about the seriousness of their love. After their mutual pledge of this evening, marriage was the next natural step. He and Katrina would have to choose the most opportune time to make such an announcement to the prince and princess. He doubted they would greet the news with joy. Prince Fedorcenko had been obviously perturbed with his daughter during the coach ride to their home. The look in his eye said more than his few words, which he had likely restrained in deference to Basil’s presence. One reference only had he made about his daughter’s “brassy behavior.” And it was not exactly an idle observation, for Katrina had been more than demonstrative during the evening, laughing and dancing almost wildly, and clinging to Basil in a fashion that, had he not been the delighted object of her attention, would have raised even his own eyebrows.

  Basil knew Prince Fedorcenko would not be quick to give willing blessing to a proposed marriage between his daughter and Basil Anickin, regardless of his own esteem for his father the doctor. The man was an ex-serf, and that alone was far more than sufficient cause to oppose the union.

  Fedorcenko, however, may well cease to be a force to be reckoned with at all, thought Basil with a grim smile. He was too close to the crown for his own good. Sooner or later he might well fall prey to the uncontrollable political forces now flooding through St. Petersburg. With both Remizov and Fedorcenko out of the way, there would be no one to stand in opposition to his future with the princess.

  Suddenly the noise of an approaching coach echoed with a heavy dullness through the still night air. Iron wheels clattered over the cobbles accompanied by the creaking of leather and harness, an intrusion into the eerie, fog-shrouded night. As the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the barracks, Basil’s heart began to pound wildly. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, and his palms grew damp.

  His quarry had arrived . . . it was Remizov!

  Dmitri Gregorovich was a symbol of all that inspired Basil Anickin’s deepest hatred and passion. This aristocratic scion of injustice, of lust for power, of all that brought misery to Russia—such a man deserved to die! They all deserved to die!

  Slowly Basil’s lips parted in a smile. The idea brought intense pleasure—perhaps even more pleasure than the thought of resting in Katrina Fedorcenko’s arms.

  With difficulty he remained in his hiding place until the coach rattled away. He could almost feel the fool’s arrogant neck st
rangling and collapsing beneath the strength of his fingers. Basil was a strong man, although his physical power was well hidden under the scholarly facade he presented to society. He could kill a man with his bare hands, and he knew it!

  His mouth gone dry with anticipation, Basil began to step forward. But just as he did so, the door of the barracks flew open. Four soldiers, laughing and swaggering, trooped down the wooden steps with heavy feet.

  “Remizov!” bellowed one. “We thought you would never show up.”

  “And why were you malcontents not at my engagement party, I would like to know?” Dmitri shouted up to them with mock consternation.

  “We cannot stand wakes!” laughed another.

  “Why you no-good, fair-weather friends!”

  “We’ll make it up to you by allowing you to join us for an evening at Dauphin’s.”

  “Allowing me!” repeated Dmitri. “Ha, ha! The question is only if I will grant you the pleasure of my company!”

  They all laughed and went on with their inane banter. Basil grimaced, retreating back into the shadows. He was a strong man, yes, but not against five trained soldiers.

  “Come along then,” said one of the soldiers. “But you must promise that now that you are tied down to one woman you will not be a wet blanket.”

  “On my honor,” replied Dmitri.

  “We want no lethargic dullards in our company.”

  “Anyway, I am not married yet!”

  “Well said! We knew we could count on you, Remizov.”

  The banter and laughter continued as the group ambled down the street in search of a cab. Basil spat on the ground. He had been foiled, and he hated them all for it!

  They were a shallow, self-absorbed, self-seeking lot. But one day they would all be repaid for their lust and arrogance!

  In the meantime, Basil’s present intent thwarted, he fell back limply against the brick wall. His emotions were spent, although he had actually done nothing. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. He was disappointed, but not disheartened. His moment would yet come.