The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “Oh? And now I am a shrew, to boot. And you will tame me, Petruchio?”

  “Why not? Better me than some other poor unsuspecting fellow. At least I already know the feel of your sting.”

  “And you like it?”

  “I love it!”

  Sighing, she said, “What will I do with you, Yuri Sergeiovich?”

  “Marry me.”

  “I can’t.” The words were direct, but her tone lacked finality.

  “Will you at least think about it?”

  “You make this very hard, Yuri. I’ve tried to put you off with kindness but that hasn’t helped. Perhaps I was justified in my previous cruelty. Yet I know I can’t be cruel to you again.”

  “Do you love me, Katya?”

  “Another question without a simple answer . . .”

  “Then spend eternity giving me a complex answer! Tell me why you love me; tell me why you don’t. Tell me why you are confused.” He sat back and folded his arms before him. “I have all the time in the world.”

  “I will think about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Marrying you.”

  His mouth went slack.

  She giggled. Then, more earnestly, “Don’t take me wrong, Yuri. I won’t be able to keep from thinking about it. But I can make no promises. You understand?” He nodded, still mute. “Now, no more talk of serious things. Let’s enjoy the evening and have fun. Stop the carriage. I want to walk across Red Square with you.”

  Yuri was content. He didn’t know what would become of him and Katya after this night, and he almost did not care. Let worlds collide, as he was certain they eventually must—it would not change the beautiful fact that Katya cared for him and would actually consider marrying him. He could live a long time on the ecstasy of that reality. He made a concerted effort not to think of Talia. Somehow he would make her understand.

  Yuri did have a way of complicating Katya’s life. But she couldn’t blame him entirely. After encountering him at the nightclub, she had hoped he would come to see her. She had even considered ways of seeking him out in Moscow. Yet she hadn’t. Her rational self reasoned that nothing could, or should, come of such impulsiveness.

  Now she didn’t know what to think or do. Had she really promised him she would consider marriage? What a foolish thing to do! But his dear presence had made her forget reality. She desperately wanted to believe that he would indeed be able to accept her completely. But even Yuri would be repulsed by the tainted woman that she was. How could he not be? Even she, with her modern ways, could barely accept it, and she had kept it a closely guarded secret.

  Still, she wasn’t certain she would have done so if her father hadn’t insisted on it. Insisted? The man had practically threatened her with her life.

  Yuri was a godly man, a man to whom spiritual things mattered. But it was too much to hope that he was saint enough to look upon her sin and still love her. Father Grigori, of course, had done so, but he was a starets, a man of whom such a virtue was expected.

  She had decided long ago to bear her secret alone. But she had not reckoned on a man like Yuri entering her life.

  Katya slowly climbed the stairs of her house. It was late. The lights were dim and the normal bustling presence of servants was absent. The corridors were chilly.

  Her father, a great admirer of Alexander the Third, believed in an austere lifestyle and had fashioned his household after that of the tsar—a man so frugal that his children, little grand dukes and duchesses, often went hungry. Katya had been raised in the same way. Only when her maternal grandfather died and left her an income of her own did she begin to live a more extravagant lifestyle.

  On the third floor, Katya paused at the nursery door. She had been reared in this nursery, but she had no memory of those toddler days when her mother was still at home and she had known some happiness. She had been abandoned by her mother long before she had been old enough to vacate this nursery, and, unfortunately, it was those lonely memories of abandonment that would always remain with her.

  She opened the door. All the lamps were turned out, but the room was bathed in silvery moonlight shining through a crack in the partially open drapes. She crept in quietly and moved soundlessly across the room to the crib, which stood against a wall, right in the path of the moonlight.

  “Hello, dear one,” Katya murmured.

  She reached into the crib and gently pulled up the satin coverlet over the sleeping form. The child stirred and blew a puff of air through her sweet little rosebud lips. Her eyes remained closed, but the long brown lashes fluttered once against her chubby cheeks. How dear and innocent she was, sleeping so soundly, so peacefully, with no bitter realities to disturb her dreams.

  “I want it always to be that way for you, Irina. I want to make your life happier than mine ever was. My motives aren’t completely selfish. I want to protect you, too. I don’t want you haunted by scandal—”

  Katya shook her head and shrugged. It was probably too late for that. How much longer could she keep Irina a secret? Even if the gossips never learned the truth, before too long Irina herself would be old enough to ask questions. Could Katya then continue with the lie her father had forced upon her—that Irina was the daughter of a relative and, left orphaned, had been taken in by the Zhenechka family?

  Could Katya actually deny her own motherhood?

  She ran a finger gently along the baby’s smooth cheek. “You are part of me, little one, and I am part of you. I am your mama. Oh, I know I haven’t been a very good mother. I leave you alone far too much. But . . .”

  She couldn’t admit her selfishness even to her sleeping daughter. But there were times when Katya wanted to forget that she was a mother burdened with responsibility. In those times it was not difficult at all to live her father’s lie. She wanted to play and enjoy life as any nineteen-year-old girl would.

  She must have a lot of her mother’s blood in her, Katya mused. How easy it would be to run away and live in a Cossack village with those wild, uninhibited people. But, from the beginning, Katya had been determined not to leave her child to the fate she herself had known—growing up without a mother’s love, hearing almost every day how her selfish mother had run away because she hated her child. Now, as an adult, the rational part of Katya knew her father had told her such things because he had been hurt and shamed by her mother and wanted Katya to hate the woman as much as he did. But part of her would always believe it and weep at the very thought of her rejection.

  “I will try to do better, dear,” Katya said. “Maybe I am wrong to deny you the chance to have a father—oh, and, Irina, Yuri would be such a wonderful father! But could he accept another man’s child as his own? I don’t know. I am afraid to take the risk. . . .”

  Again the child stirred, but this time her eyes fluttered and then opened. The large brown eyes gazed up at Katya, and she couldn’t resist the urge to lift the baby from her crib. Irina smiled and cooed, seeming to know she was in her mother’s arms. Katya smoothed away a wisp of fine yellow hair and kissed the child’s forehead.

  “I do love you so. No matter what happens, we will survive together. I will never leave you alone—”

  She stopped suddenly as she heard the nursery door open.

  “I thought I heard you come in, miss,” said the nurse.

  “I’m sorry I woke her, Teddie.”

  “You don’t look very sorry.” The woman grinned.

  Teddie was an American, more formally named Theodora Smithers. But she had been called “Teddie” for so long, her true name was all but forgotten. She was forty-five years old and not very attractive—in fact, with her broad, homely face, huge, bulbous nose, and disproportionately recessive chin, some probably would consider her downright ugly. But she had a heart as beautiful as a society diva and a huge capacity to love. She had come to Russia twenty years ago to marry a distant cousin, an arranged marriage to a man she’d never met. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a rather shallow fellow, took one look
at his homely bride-to-be, and backed out of the arrangement. Not ready to go home to parents who wanted to control her life, she sought a “position” among the Russian upper classes and thus came to be employed by the Zhenechkas, who at that time were looking for a nurse for Katya. She had remained a loyal servant to the family all those years, even after her services as a nursemaid to Katya had no longer been needed and she had been shunted to other duties. Despite the shame surrounding Irina’s birth, Teddie had been thrilled that her services as a nurse were called upon once more. And as she had loved Katya, she loved Katya’s child. Too bad neither had been lucky enough to have Teddie as their mother.

  “I need to spend more time with her,” Katya said guiltily.

  “You do the best you can, dearie. You’re but a child yourself.”

  “Why must life be so complicated, Teddie?”

  “Who can say? I think God intended it to be simpler. I suppose we are our own worst enemies.” The woman sighed and put an arm around Katya with great affection. “And speaking of complications . . . your father spoke to me an hour ago and told me that when you came home, if it was a decent hour, he wanted to see you.”

  “Surely, it’s too late now,” Katya said hopefully.

  “I’ve just come from the kitchen, and the light was still burning beneath his study door.”

  “Couldn’t I just tell him I got home too late? He’d never know.”

  “When will you learn, dearie, that your father knows everything? A mouse can’t sneeze in this house without him knowing.”

  “What was his mood like?”

  Teddie rolled her eyes upward and shook her head. “Be brave, Katichka!”

  “Oh, dear, this isn’t going to be good.”

  Katya felt like a prisoner going off to her execution. Giving the baby a final kiss, she handed the child over to Teddie and exited the nursery. No meeting with her father boded well, but at this hour, and with him in a sour mood . . . it was, indeed, like walking to the gallows.

  32

  Count Lavrenti Zhenechka was a big man, six and a half feet tall and over two hundred and fifty pounds. Like most good Russian nobles, he had been reared to a military career. He had been decorated in the Balkan War of 1877, then gone on to win laurels in the Far Eastern conflicts. But when the family vodka business passed to him upon his father’s death, he gave up his shining military career to enter the world of commerce. Under his stringent control—some called it tight-fisted—Zhenechka Vodka doubled its profits. He made more money than any Zhenechka could have dreamed possible, but he made no friends in doing so. He was feared and hated by many, and a good number of those adversaries were members of his own family.

  He married at age thirty-six to a mere child of sixteen. Zinaida was a beauty, and her youth was appealing to a man like Zhenechka because she would be easy to control—or so he thought. But she proved to be too much of a free spirit for him. He worked hard to crush her will, and she fought back tenaciously. There was never any love in the marriage, and for most of its six-year span, contempt and hatred were the most prevalent emotions between the couple. Zhenechka wasn’t entirely at fault, either. Zinaida engaged in several romantic affairs, which she publicly flaunted in her husband’s face. To his knowledge, the affairs began after Katya was conceived, but he could never be completely certain the girl was really his daughter. He probably claimed her only because it would have been too humiliating to admit anything else. But on Katya’s fourth birthday, Zinaida ran away with a Cossack to live as a barefoot peasant.

  Sometimes Katya wondered if the worst thing her mother did was not merely running away, but doing so and leaving Katya behind to live her life under the same domineering rule that had caused Zinaida so much misery. Ironically, Katya had responded to her father’s heavy hand in much the same way as her mother had—by constant rebellion.

  In the spirit of that rebellious nature, when Katya reached her father’s study door, she didn’t bother to knock before entering. If he was going to insist upon spoiling her night, she would do what she could to defy him—short of refusing his summons altogether.

  He growled at her brazen entry. “You are as ill-mannered as a peasant.”

  “How would you know, Father?” she retorted. “When was the last time you’ve had personal contact with a peasant?”

  “I forgot you are an expert—from your relationship with that filthy peasant Rasputin.”

  “Careful what you say, Father. Rasputin has the respect of the Crown itself.”

  “Never mind that. It’s late and, having waited up this late to see you, I am in no mood to spar with you. But it seems if I am to see you at all, it must be at this ungodly hour. Now, sit down and listen, for a change.”

  Katya toyed with the idea of remaining on her feet, in further defiance. But she was wearing tight shoes and her feet were sore. Standing would accomplish nothing and just make her miserable. With a careless shrug she flopped in a chair and kicked off her shoes. She knew such unladylike behavior would irritate him.

  He lifted a paper from his desktop. “I have here a marriage contract—”

  “Oh, Father,” she groaned in disgust.

  “Listen to me, young lady, you will marry, and you will do so soon. And since most decent families have tended to shun you because of your scandalous behavior, not to mention the stigma of your mother’s wantonness, you should be thankful I have done as well with a match as I have. The Prokunins are a good family—not rich, but at least they are titled nobility. I have managed to convince the elder Prokunin that three-fourths of the rumors about you are not true and the rest is but youthful zest. The young Count Pytor is actually enamored with your, as he calls it, ‘flamboyant behavior,’ and thus is also pressing his parents for a match. I have committed a large dowry to the count and the promise of a share in the vodka business.”

  “No wonder he is willing to put up with my flamboyant behavior.” She rolled her eyes and slurred the final words disdainfully. “If he marries me, he won’t have to work another day in his life.”

  “Not a bad price, considering what he is getting—I doubt you will bring the poor, unsuspecting man anything but grief.”

  “And what of Irina?”

  “I have suggested that since I am getting too old to care properly for the child, you and he adopt her.”

  “They have no idea of the truth?”

  “There is no need.”

  “Sometimes, Father, I truly believe you live in a dreamworld. But regardless of that, you can just tear up that paper of yours. I have no intention of marrying the good count. I have already told you I have no interest in marriage at all.”

  “And you talk about dreamworlds?” he sneered. “I could have kicked you out on the street after what you did to me, to this family. But I protected you and that fatherless whelp of yours. I made it possible for you to maintain your place in decent society. You owe me obedience in this matter, or—”

  “Or what, Father? You don’t want the Zhenechka name smeared in the mud any more than I do. But I don’t see why I must marry for further respectability.”

  “Because that is what proper, decent people do!”

  “Well, I’ve already proven I am neither.”

  Zhenechka rose suddenly and abruptly from his chair, nearly knocking it over in the process. In three strides, he was standing over Katya menacingly. Katya’s heart skipped a beat. It wouldn’t be the first time she had felt her father’s strong fist, but she glared up at him as if she didn’t care.

  “I can destroy you—and your child,” he hissed, his tone as lethal as the hand clenched at his side. “Defy me and I will reveal to all that your precious daughter is nothing more than a misbegotten whelp of another misbegotten whelp. You will end up with not a penny to your name. Even your inheritance from your grandfather will be cut off, because I have final control over it.”

  “Maybe we’d be better off! No wonder the prospect of living among Cossacks was so appealing to my mother—”
>
  The count’s hand shot up, striking Katya’s cheek with such force it felt as if her neck had snapped. Despite her dogged determination not to reveal weakness to her father, the pain brought tears to her eyes. He stood glowering over her, his hand still raised as if he were looking for the smallest excuse to strike again. Katya bit her lip. She couldn’t give him that excuse. She had her daughter to think of.

  “All right, Father, you’ve made your point.” Her tone wasn’t exactly contrite, but at least she managed to say the words. “But perhaps you would like to make a deal?”

  “A deal?” He gave a dry, mocking laugh, but, nevertheless, nodded for her to continue. She knew he couldn’t resist a business proposition.

  “What if I made my own match?” she went on confidently. “Your main concern is to bring a titled, respectable name into the family, right?” He nodded again. “Suppose I could bring a name far more weighty than Prokunin. How does the name Fedorcenko strike you?”

  “The Fedorcenkos? I served under Prince Viktor Fedorcenko in the Balkans and fought beside his son, Prince Sergei. But they fell from Imperial favor and disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  “Well, they are back. The tsar himself reinstated the family title to Prince Sergei when he was given a full Imperial pardon. They are no longer out of Imperial favor. Sergei’s son Prince Yuri Fedorcenko is an assistant physician to the royal family. He has personally treated the tsarevich.” Katya felt a surge of triumph as she saw an amazing transformation come over her father. His interest was visible even beneath his stoic, businesslike bearing.

  “And you think you can make a match with this Prince Yuri?” He was blatantly challenging her.

  “I know I can. All you have to do is tear up that agreement with the Prokunins and promise that my inheritance—and that of my daughter—is secure. That is a promise I will want in writing and properly witnessed.”

  “At times like this I can almost believe you are my daughter.” He stepped away from Katya and leaned against his desk, folding his arms across his huge chest and gazing at her, if not exactly with pride, at least with respect.