Considering the luggage, he was surprised when the carriage pulled into the drive of the Fedorcenko estate. He stopped, tied his horse a hundred meters from the entrance, and hurriedly followed on foot. He saw the bags being unloaded and carried inside. Was Katrina in the process of moving back into her old home? With a child nearly due, was she running away from her husband? The very thought was too delicious to be true!
No, it must be something else. He had picked up other vague rumors since Princess Natalia’s death. Her husband, Katrina’s father, had been unwell, said some. Others hinted at darker troubles afflicting the house and mind of the prince. No one had been specific, but speculations and hints gave rise to the intimation that he had taken leave of his senses. Perhaps his daughter had returned home to tend him.
It made sense, thought Basil. And perhaps this sudden change could work to his advantage after all.
One thing that had greatly hampered his plans was an unfamiliarity with Katrina’s new home. He had never been inside it, and his so-called spies were not in point of fact wholly his. He had befriended a coachman and a gardener, who worked by day in the Remizov home, and had been able to wheedle bits and pieces of information from them. But when once he had attempted to approach the topic of the lay of the house, he had met with dangerous questioning.
Thus he had abandoned that pathway for the time being, hoping a more trustworthy source would come along.
So this move to the old house was propitious, indeed. He knew the place well—not only from courting Katrina two years ago, but from his visits as a child. His father’s traitorous selling out to society would at last serve some noble purpose!
He wondered how long this move, or visit, or whatever it was, might last. Was it merely for the night? That was unlikely, judging from the quantity of luggage.
But did it really matter? He had already waited as long as was tolerable for his revenge—months . . . years! And people said he was out of his mind. Ha! Only a deadly sane man could exercise such patience, such single-minded devotion to a noble purpose.
But his equanimity was wearing thin. The recent setbacks and delays had eroded it almost to oblivion. He had to get the thing done! He could not run the risk of being arrested again. It had been pure luck that he had survived this long as a fugitive in this city. He was tired of living in dark, scummy holes, coming out only at night for fear of being recognized. He was tired of living like a rat, grateful for the sympathy of a filthy street woman.
“Another debt to reconcile with that Fedorcenko hussy!” he hissed to himself. He pressed back into the shadows out of sight across from the Fedorcenko home.
Except for Katrina’s cruel rejection, he’d still be a man of worth, a barrister defending a cause that had all but faded from his vision in the overwhelming glare of his hatred. Except for her, he would not have had to endure prison and that nightmarish asylum.
It was her fault—she was entirely to blame.
And now he would exact his revenge. She would pay . . . she and all those she cared for!
Her husband—oh, how he would relish that task!—and that brat she was expecting. Why should he leave out any of them? As she had snatched life’s happiness from him, he would take life itself from them. It was perfectly fitting and just.
He would not wait another day. He would strike this very night!
Somehow he’d gain entrance to the house. A little reconnoitering ought to suffice his purpose. Of course half the servants would recognize him. He’d have to sneak his way, but that shouldn’t be too difficult in a house where the order seemed slipping into chaos. He no longer cared about a finely honed plan, not even the possibility of capture. After the deed . . . well, he’d make a run for it as best he could. If he was apprehended, he doubted he’d hang for the offense. At worst he’d be sentenced to hard labor, a horrendous prospect, but one from which escape was always possible for a resourceful man.
To survive, however, and later look the count in the eye, knowing that he knew, and then to end his life as he had his young wife’s—that would bring the crowning sweetness to the taste of his revenge!
Carefully Basil stepped from his hiding place. The evening was gradually drawing to a close, and even with the summer twilight, a semblance of the dark clouds overhead would bring night on even sooner than usual. He should have no trouble with his evil work. The moon was thin. It should be dark enough.
He inched back to the street; then, hugging the wall encircling the estate, he made his way south around toward that flank of the huge house. Katrina had mentioned once that her rooms faced the Neva, and that on clear days she could see the green-blue water, and make out ships and pleasure craft sailing on the river.
He himself had never been close to her rooms. But he had once observed Katrina’s shadowed form through a window he was certain was her bedroom. He had made sufficient mental calculations about its position relative to the rest of the place, and its direction from the various possible entrances, to be confident that he could locate that very room once inside the familiar corridors. With the brother gone, and the father daft, what danger could there be? The place was probably like a tomb inside, and nobody would pay the least attention to him.
It would not be difficult. This was a St. Petersburg town estate, after all, not a fortress. And the family—what was left of them—were so wrapped up in their own troubles, they would never expect a visitor from out of the past.
60
As evening shadows enshrouded Katrina’s room, wakefulness began to creep upon her.
How long had it been since Dmitri had left? She had dozed off the minute he was gone and had no idea of the time. Only a little light from a sliver of a moon showing between the clouds filtered through a crack in the closed drapes. The only movement she detected as she turned her awkward body on the bed was a slight billowing in the drapery in front of the open window.
Katrina stretched out her arms to their full extent. She kept her eyes closed a moment or two longer. She still wasn’t entirely ready to give herself over to wakefulness yet. The rest had been good, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to face the new crisis of her father’s state just yet.
Her thoughts turned to her husband. Might she have overslept his return? Perhaps he was out in her sitting room dozing on the settee, reluctant to wake her. A smile flickered across her lips as she recalled the pleasant interlude that had passed between them only a short while before.
A sound came to her ears.
“Dmitri?” she murmured, opening her eyes, and lifting her head slightly to scan the room. Nobody was there. When the sound repeated itself, she realized it was only a breeze rustling the tree branches outside the window.
She lifted the little silver bell at her bedside and gave it a quick shake. A moment later Anna knocked and opened the door.
“Anna, has Count Remizov returned?”
“No, Princess.”
“Hmm . . . I thought he might have,” replied Katrina, with a long, disappointed sigh.
“Did you have a good rest, Your Highness?”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
“Might I get you something? Some tea, perhaps?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe I shall rest a bit longer. But come tell me the moment Dmitri comes back. Even if I’m sleeping.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“That’s all, Anna. Thank you.”
Anna left the room, and Katrina turned over on her side and tried to sleep again. But her waking had apparently awakened the baby as well. The unborn child kicked and squirmed in her womb, and Katrina smiled.
She wasn’t really sleepy now anyway. But the bed felt cozy, and she didn’t want to get up, not until Dmitri was with her again. She continued to lie in the darkness, gradually dozing off again.
Suddenly she was startled awake by a sharp sound. Before she could open her eyes, a hot, sweaty hand closed tightly over her mouth. A scream shuddered mutely through her body. She could not see the form lurking in the
shadows at her back, but the flash of cold steel was unmistakable as his free hand jerked a long dagger up toward her throat.
“My patience is finally rewarded!” rasped a voice as hard and cold as the weapon it held.
Basil! Katrina’s heart leaped into her throat. But only muffled grunts could escape the vise grip hand on her mouth.
“I am fortunate indeed to find you in bed . . . and alone.” The ominous emphasis on the final word only deepened Katrina’s dismay. “Do you not agree, Princess? Am I not immensely lucky?”
Katrina struggled all the harder against his hold. “You want to speak, Your Highness?” he mocked. “How rude of me. I do not know my manners. I am, you know, merely the lowly son of an ex-serf.”
All the rumors she had heard about Basil Anickin rushed in upon Katrina. Most of them she hadn’t believed. But suddenly the truth was all too clear, and fear overwhelmed her.
He sensed her terror. “Yes, Katrina! I am going to kill you. I am going to kill you this very night!”
He let out a deep, horrifying, sickening laugh. “But I am in a quandary, my love,” he went on after a moment. “You see, I have spent months dreaming of nothing but this moment. Yet now that it is here, I cannot decide if I will slit your throat or rend your heart in two as you did mine. Do you not see my perplexity? And . . . should it be a quick death, or shall I watch you suffer as I have suffered these many months?”
He paused and, without loosening his hold over her mouth, wrenched Katrina’s body up into a sitting position. A slight wincing scream escaped her lips.
“Silence, you hussy!” he cried in a demonic whisper, “or I will end it immediately!”
He slid in behind her on the bed, holding her trembling frame in his wiry, muscular arms.
“I had hoped,” he went on, calming again, “that the passion of the moment would dictate my method. But all at once I feel no passion. My loathing has somehow surpassed such emotion. In a way, I regret that, for it dulls some of the enjoyment.”
He sighed. “But,” he continued, as if debating within his twisted self, “perhaps the relish I had anticipated will return as I watch you suffer—there! My decision has been made. A long, painful death for you, Princess!”
Katrina attempted to squirm, ignoring the sharp stab of pain in her abdomen. But Basil was too strong for her.
“It is useless to struggle, Princess. Now, do you have some final words?” he asked maliciously. “I will remove my hand. But speak only in a whisper, or I will have to kill you quickly.”
“Why . . . ?” she said.
“That you would even ask such a thing is reason enough!” he cried, his own vexed voice rising dangerously above a whisper.
“You will never get away with it. There are servants . . . my hus—”
His grip tightened about her again with a harsh jerk, almost choking the air from her lungs.
“Don’t talk to me about him!” he said with icy command. “Only be comforted to know that he will die also, after he suffers enough from your loss—just as I did!”
“Basil, please . . . this is insane—”
His laughter, a mirthless, cold, hollow sound interrupted her. “Don’t you know that I am insane, Katrina? That is what this is all about, isn’t it? The lovely princess could not taint herself with the doctor’s lunatic son. It was fine to use me to achieve your ends. He’s so crazy, it won’t matter to him . . . and then to get him arrested . . . very convenient for your purposes, I must say.”
As he spoke, Katrina could feel the knife trembling slightly in his hand. “Do you know what they did to me, Princess?” he went on. “Can you imagine waking every day to the screams and pathetic groans of human beasts? Breathing the fetid air, eating what was not even fit for the rats. Then having my mind insidiously robbed by numbing drugs.” Basil’s eyes flamed and glinted with hatred as he spoke. “They took from me my very humanity! All so the fair little princess could play the fickle socialite!”
“Basil . . . I’m sorry. I never meant—”
“Sorry now! Now that you are about to die! Ha! Your foolish apologies mean nothing now! How could I have ever thought I loved the likes of you!”
“Please listen, Basil . . . I beg—”
“Ah, the princess begs, does she? It is more than I could have hoped for!”
His eyes narrowed and his lips twitched into a brief smile as an evil inspiration stole over him.
“Out of the bed, Princess!” he ordered.
Katrina obeyed, moving awkwardly, both from her girth and Basil’s painful grip on her arm. At least for a moment the awful knife was lowered from her throat.
Another abdominal pain shot through her body as she moved. Again she ignored it. Even had she recognized it for what it was, she could have done nothing about it. Her life was now in the hands of a madman.
Basil maneuvered around so that he could face his victim. At last Katrina saw the face, so changed from when she had known it, and the wildly demented glow in his eyes.
“On your knees, Princess!” he rasped. His voice shook and scraped, hardly able to maintain a subdued quiet in the still house.
Katrina slid to the floor, wincing with another sudden pain and letting out an audible gasp.
“Ah, yes, your delicate condition,” he said with evil humor. He moved the knife until its lethal tip rested on Katrina’s protruding stomach. “Poetic justice, wouldn’t you say? Two for the price of one, as the saying goes.” He broke out into another low deranged chuckle.
Without thinking what she was doing, suddenly Katrina lurched backward and sideways, hoping the surprise of her movement would throw him off balance long enough for her to make it to the door. But as she tried to scramble away, another pain seized her.
Before she was two feet away, she heard the zing of the dagger flying toward her. It struck the carpeted floor only a centimeter or two from where her hand braced the floor for support. In an instant Basil was at her side. He grabbed up the weapon, flung his free arm around her, and pressed the blade once more to her throat.
“You foolish girl!” he seethed. “You cannot escape from me! Do you still not realize that you are as good as dead? Even if you were to escape, I would find you. There is no place you can hide from me. You are a dead woman. Your filthy husband is a dead man. Your unborn brat will never live to draw a single breath of this world’s air!”
“Please!” Katrina screamed, her fright overcoming her silence. But the sharp edge of wicked steel stopped her from saying more.
“Silence! I do not plan to go to prison, or to see the inside of that asylum again because of you!”
“Then kill me quickly!” she cried, though more softly.
Basil began to chuckle again, but his laugh was cut short by a sound at the door. He tensed suddenly. Katrina felt the tip of the blade break skin. Curiously she felt no pain, only the warm wetness of her own blood.
“Tell whoever it—” he whispered into her ear, but stopped again. The door opened.
“Your Highness . . . did you call?” came a welcome, familiar voice.
61
Anna rarely entered her mistress’s room unbidden. But as she returned from the kitchen with tea, she had heard a voice from the bedroom.
It might have been the princess calling her, though it sounded too sharp and unnatural for that. Thinking immediately of the princess’s condition, she went straight to the door.
She pushed it open with one hand, still holding the tray balanced in the other.
No lamps had been lit in the room, and she could not immediately make sense of the perilous situation. She glanced first toward the bed. Finding it empty, she stepped farther inside. As her eyes began to adjust to the dim light, she discerned two figures, one standing, one kneeling on the floor midway between the bed and dressing table.
“Princess!” she exclaimed.
“Anna, get out of here this instant—” shouted Katrina, her momentary relief at hearing Anna’s voice overcome with dread for the d
anger to her maid. But it was too late.
“Shut up!” Basil yelled. “You . . . shut the door—quickly!” he barked at Anna, “or your princess will die this second!”
Anna obeyed, taking in the whole scene in one awful moment of realization. She remembered her brother’s warning, but hardly paused to wonder why Paul had failed to deliver his promised message.
“Oh, Princess!” exclaimed Anna.
“Anna, why did you have to come now—I am so sorry!”
“Quiet, both of you!” cried Basil, his mind spinning rapidly. This did complicate his plan. Now he would have to resort to the pistol he had tucked in his belt to get rid of the two of them at once.
A moment of tense silence ensued. At last Katrina’s voice broke it. “I . . . I think I am about to faint . . . Anna,” she said in a weak, breathless tone.
Without even considering what she was doing, Anna found herself moving toward them across the room.
“Stop where you are!” ordered Basil.
But Anna ignored him. She moved to Katrina’s side, knelt down, and set the tray on the floor.
“Get back on your feet, I tell you!” Basil shrieked.
“Can’t you see the princess is ill?” said Anna boldly, clutching the teapot and pouring out a cupful of the steaming liquid. “I’m only going to give her some tea to revive her.”
Suddenly finding himself on the defensive, Basil hesitated in the face of the lowly maid’s brash fearlessness. Within seconds Katrina was sipping from the steaming cup, and Anna was rising to her feet and backing away.
“Don’t move!” Basil yelled.
Anna stopped. But she had already taken several steps backward through the dim light toward the door. As she stopped, her hands behind her felt a cold, thin object leaning against the wall. Her fingers closed around it.
“Get on your feet!” Basil ordered Katrina. He clutched at her arm and yanked her upward. “Get over there with your fool of a maid while I decide how to kill the both of you!” He had been prepared to slit Katrina’s throat and be gone. But now he had two of them to contend with. Not that he harbored the slightest qualms about killing them both with either knife or gun. But doing so, and then effecting a successful escape, had suddenly become more complicated.
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