Candles glowed, bathing the dull red walls with pale golden shadows. A red carpet covered the floor, dull brick red, like the walls, and there was an enormous scarlet velvet sofa, deep and plush and inviting with piles of scarlet pillows, a sofa designed not for sitting but for love. Heavy scarlet velvet drapes covered the windows, and low ebony tables held dark gold candelabra and an amazing collection of small, erotic Italian bronzes, mythological figures by Bologna, wrestling, writhing, entwining, copulating in an astonishing variety of positions. Leafy dark green plants with tight, waxy white buds grew in dark red urns, scenting the air with a strong, sweet smell.
He closed the door and chuckled and we were alone in the small red room. My limbs felt limp and the hot honey coursed slowly through my veins and my head was spinning. This was not real. This was not happening. This was a bizarre, erotic dream and I was trapped in it as though trapped in a silken web and he was the spider, a great, glorious spider, ready to claim me, and struggle was useless because the silken strands bound me securely, and though I could move I could never break free. Potemkin held my elbow in a firm grip, the rough, callused fingers squeezing skin and flesh, and without that support I would have crumpled, for my legs were no longer working. Nothing was working. Nothing was real. It was a dream … a nightmare, yes, a nightmare, and I must wake up. I must not let the spider spring.
He was not golden. He was not glorious. He was evil, evil, and I must free myself of these silken bonds. Golden shadows leaped nimbly on the dull red walls, and the walls seemed to close in on me and I had trouble breathing. I was going to suffocate. My bosom heaved. My breath caught in my throat. Panic began to set in, vibrating inside me, a wild thing beating furiously and pounding against my rib cage. I gasped, unable to breathe at all now.
“Relax,” that lovely voice crooned, sweet, soothing music that lulled gently and drove the panic away. “You are not afraid. You want this to happen as much as I do. Relax. You are not afraid.”
I took a deep breath, another, and panic was gone, and I was not afraid any longer but I was still in the middle of a dream. Golden shadows flickered over the bronzes, too, and the small, exquisite figures seemed to come to life there on the tables, performing their various acts in the wavering gold light, moving in and out and up and down and to and fro, rolling and writhing as I watched in horrified fascination. The giant in red brocade grinned and told me that this was what we would do, pointing, and this, pointing again, and this as well, and I was not afraid, no, I wanted it to happen as much as he did, yes, but it wasn’t real, it was a dream, and I would never do those things with him when I was awake because he was evil, evil, a great crimson spider ready to spring.
“No,” I said.
“Do not resist. You will not resist. You will enjoy.”
“No.”
“Look at me. Do not turn away. Look at me.”
“I must—”
“You must obey. You will obey.”
I must obey. I would obey. It was only a dream. It was not real at all. Marietta was far, far away, safe, in suspension, and this was not happening to her, it was happening to someone else. He led me over to the sofa and released his grip on my elbow and I spilled onto the sofa and sank into scarlet, nestling on soft pillows, looking up through half-lowered lids as he stood over me smiling a satisfied smile, awesome and beautiful, all powerful, savoring the ecstasy soon to be his, mine, too. There was no fear, no, I was drifting again, floating in a golden haze, warm and lethargic and wonderfully weak, waiting for this god to do with me as he would.
He leaned over me, catching my wrists in his hands, twisting them slightly as he spread my arms wide. My bosom rose and my right breast popped out of its prison of sky blue silk and stood full and firm and milky white and tipped with a tight, throbbing pink nipple that grew harder, tighter as he gazed down at it. “Ah,” he exclaimed, and he released my wrists and kneeled down and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me forward, his mouth opening, covering the nipple, sucking vigorously. I arched my back, reeling as the honey warmth exploded into flame, and fire swept through me, magic fire that brought pleasure, not pain, and it must be put out before it consumed me completely. Potemkin raised his head and looked at the swollen nipple and curled one huge hand around the breast and squeezed tightly, kneading the flesh, and I moaned, knowing I was going to die.
His fingers squeezed tighter and he was chuckling again, a merciless executioner deliberately toying with his victim, prolonging the torture, delaying the death. I threw my head back and stared at the dull red ceiling and saw the painting there, fleshy figures encoiled, coupling on clouds, bathed in pink-gold light, and the rough fingers continued to squeeze and the magic fire continued to course through my veins and I floated, floated on clouds like those above, and soon our figures would encoil and couple and it would be … it would be wrong. He was making me do this, making me, and I despised him, he was repulsive, I must break free before … before something terrible took place.
The Marietta who was safe and suspended far, far away stirred and struggled to reclaim herself, to break the spell that held her captive. She caught hold of his greasy hair and tugged viciously, jerking his head back, and he cried out and struck her across the face as she tried to get up from the sofa. He stood up and scowled, weaving to and fro, and then he lunged, falling atop me, pinioning me to the sofa beneath his great weight, and it was me now, free at last, free of those silken strands, that spell, furiously fighting the hideous creature whose swollen manhood poked and prodded like a stiff, steely rod through layers of cloth even as his huge hands sought to remove those silken barriers, as I heaved and pushed and tried to throw him off me. He was too strong, too large, too heavy, and I saw it was futile, but I wasn’t going to let it happen. I wasn’t. I clamped my legs together, pushing at his chest as his lips sought mine.
“That will be quite enough,” Catherine said sharply.
Potemkin froze at the sound of that cold, imperious voice, and I looked over his shoulder and saw her standing there in the doorway regal and composed and as hard as stone. He climbed off of me and smoothed his rumpled red brocade robe and looked at her with a sheepish smile. I sat up and shoved my right breast back into my bodice, filled with humiliation as the Empress of All the Russias gazed icily at the two of us.
“You win at cards?” Potemkin inquired.
“At cards, yes.”
“The game is over?”
“Would that it were.”
“This means nothing. I just amuse myself.”
“Our guests have adjourned to the drawing room for coffee and refreshments, Gregory,” she said. “I think it might be wise if you joined them.”
Still smiling that sheepish smile, he nodded and sauntered toward the door. Catherine stepped aside to let him move past. Stunned, still weak, I climbed to my feet and adjusted the bodice of my gown. I felt as though I had finally broken surface after being underwater and almost drowning. Standing in the doorway again, Catherine watched Potemkin start down the hall and then turned to look at me. Her features were beautifully composed, betraying no emotion at all.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I nodded. I could feel the spots of color burning on my cheeks. Her voice was cool. So were her eyes.
“I—I didn’t—”
“You needn’t explain, my dear.”
“He—”
“I’m fully aware of what happened. It has happened before. I know you are not to blame, Miss Danver.”
Each word was like a chip of ice. She knew I was not to blame, but she had seen her lover atop me, attempting to enter, and she had seen me struggling beneath him with my breast exposed. That sight was engraved on her mind, and she could never look at me again without seeing it reenacted. As a woman, I understood. It would have been the same with me.
“Did he hurt you?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’m just—a little weak.”
“Will you be able to join the others? For th
e sake of appearances?”
“I think so. In—in a few minutes.”
I smoothed down my skirts, shamed, striving to regain at least a modicum of composure. Catherine stood very still, cool and impervious, waiting, and after a while I was able to hold myself straight and meet her gaze with dignity. That silent rapport still existed between us, each attuned to the other’s mind, but a gulf separated us now. Intimacy was no longer possible.
“You will want to tidy up,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied.
“There is a powder room for guests beyond the main hall. I will show you the way.”
“I would appreciate it.”
Candlelight flickered over the bronzes and the red walls and the figures on the ceiling as I followed her out of the room. We moved silently down the corridor and turned and moved past the gallery with the vibrantly colored paintings hanging in their ornate gold frames, and an eternity seemed to have passed since I stood staring at the Lancret. Eventually, we reached the main hall and Catherine led me past the wide marble staircase to a gilt white door beyond.
“You’ll find everything you need inside,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“I’ll return to my other guests now.”
“I’ll join you shortly.”
Catherine hesitated, a slight frown marring that mask of composure. “I am very sorry this happened, Miss Danver.”
“I am, too.”
“Gregory is easily tempted. Ordinarily he is more discreet. I imagine you are wondering why I tolerate it.”
“You love him,” I said.
“And I cope, as any woman must. I’ve found the best way to deal with these matters is to remove the temptation.”
“I understand.”
“I thought you would. I’ll speak to Orlov before you leave tonight.”
“You won’t tell him what happened—”
“Of course not.”
She gave me a polite nod, turned and left, her head held high, her back straight, the skirt of her gray watered silk gown belling as she moved away. I felt that I had lost a friend, and somehow this was more distressing than what had happened with Potemkin. I stepped into the powder room and found a splendid array of cosmetics and perfumes, a silver brush and comb, all the accouterments a fashionable woman might need, including a silver box of patches. I stared at myself in the mirror and made the necessary repairs, calm now, almost numb, and a few minutes later I started back toward the drawing room.
None of this mattered, I told myself. Lucie was safe, on her way to England-now, and I would be leaving Russia myself in just a few days and all this would become mere memory. A year from now, in the clear, clean spaces of Texas with its grassy plains and arching blue skies, Catherine and Potemkin and Orlov would be insubstantial shades, Russia a distant land with no reality as I strolled under the cottonwood trees and smelled the sage. This perspective was an invisible shield, protecting me from emotional turmoil as I stepped into the drawing room.
Potemkin was teasing young Peter again and paid not the slightest attention when I entered the room. Madame Koshelev was counting her winnings and eating a dish of ice cream. Gregory was talking with Protasova, lording it over her now that he believed himself back in power. Protasova wore an expression of patient boredom. Catherine was chatting with the Zavadovskys. She looked up and smiled at me and motioned to a footman to attend to my needs, the perfect hostess looking out for her guests. I turned down coffee and ice cream but accepted a glass of light wine. Prince Golitsyn asked me if I had enjoyed seeing the paintings, and I managed to fake an appreciation I had been too distracted to feel.
Half an hour passed and, protected by my shield, I managed to present a polite social facade. Catherine was gracious and charming, acting her part superbly, and no one suspected the heartache she must be feeling. Potemkin roared and rollicked, transferring his attention from Peter to Anna Zavadovsky, who tittered nervously. Madame Koshelev dropped off to sleep in her chair, brown wig askew, and, after a tactful signal from Catherine, Protasova announced that it was past Peter’s bedtime. Catherine said it had been a lovely evening and thanked us all for coming.
She accompanied us to the main hall and chatted pleasantly as we were handed our wraps. Potemkin had disappeared. Protasova had already taken Peter away. Standing near the door, looking very regal, Catherine told the Zavadovskys goodbye and smiled as Prince Golitsyn led a drowsy, befuddled Madame Koshelev out to her rented carriage. Gregory helped me into my white mink cloak and whirled the sleek black sable around his shoulders, very dashing, very confident. Catherine acknowledged my curtsey with a polite nod.
“Good-bye, Miss Danver,” she said.
Her voice was cool. I returned the nod.
“I wonder if you would stay a moment longer, Gregory,” she said. “I would like a word with you.”
“Of course, my Catherine.”
“Stefan will show Miss Danver to the carriage.”
The footman took my arm and led me down the steps to the drive where another footman stood with torch held high. The Orlov carriage circled around. I was helped inside. It had started to snow lightly, large white flakes swirling lazily in the night. I settled back against the velvet upholstery and wrapped the cloak around me, prepared for a long wait, but only a few minutes passed before Gregory came down the steps. He moved slowly, haltingly, like a man in a daze, and in the pale orange glow of the torch he looked completely stunned.
The carriage door was opened for him and Gregory climbed inside and sat down across from me, silent, hardly aware of where he was. He looked at me as though he had never seen me before in his life, then turned to stare out at the night as the carriage began to move. He sat very still, one large hand gripping the edge of the seat so tightly the velvet upholstery ripped. Horse hooves tapped on the pavement with a steady clop clop. The carriage rocked gently. Moonlight wavered through the windows, and in the misty silver haze the man sitting across from me looked ten years older. His face seemed to sag. His eyes were dark with dismay. The dream he had cherished for such a long time had been utterly, irrevocably destroyed.
“I do not understand,” he said after a while. His voice was hoarse. “I do not understand.”
I made no reply. He was not speaking to me.
“‘I think St. Petersburg is beginning to tire you,’ she tells me. ‘I think you will be happier in the country. I expect you to leave tomorrow.’ She tells me this. She gives me no explanation.”
“I’m sorry, Gregory.”
“‘You will be happier in the country,’ she tells me. This is a direct order. I am banished to my country estate in the north until she lifts the ban. I do not understand.”
There was nothing I could say, and he would not have heard anyway. He kept repeating himself in a hoarse, hollow voice, and when we finally reached the Marble Palace and the carriage stopped he raised his head and looked at me as though to inquire where we were.
I climbed out. Gregory followed me. We went inside and a servant took our cloaks and carried them away and Gregory looked around at the elegant foyer, seeing only his own despair. In the bright glow of candlelight his face looked even worse, the color of damp putty, the full mouth twitching at one corner. His hair looked a duller gold. All energy and vitality seemed to have been drained out of him, and that powerful magnetism that gave him such a radiant glow was completely missing now.
“I think I will go on upstairs,” I said.
He turned, really looking at me for the first time.
“No,” he said.
“I’m very tired, Gregory, and—”
“You will stay with me. We will have a drink.”
He might have been speaking in his sleep, yet his voice was firm. I knew it would be a mistake to agitate him in any way, and I meekly followed him into the drawing room, watching as he poured peppered vodka into a glass.
“Will you have one?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
He swallo
wed the vodka and stared across the room, and color began to return to his face. His mouth tightened. I could sense the fury slowly mounting inside him, and I felt a vague tremor of alarm. I knew full well that Gregory Orlov was unbalanced, and at this point anything might push him over the edge. He had sustained a great shock, and when he found out that Lucie was gone … I felt suddenly chilled.
“She refused to give me an explanation. ‘Why do you do this, my Catherine?’ I ask her, and she looks at me with eyes like blue ice and tells me that the Empress of Russia does not have to explain herself. She tells this to me!”
He scowled, splashing more vodka into his glass. The shock had worn off now, and bright spots of color burned hotly on cheeks that had been ashen only minutes ago. I must leave tonight. I realized that now. I mustn’t be here when he discovered Lucie was gone. I would slip back downstairs after he went to sleep and I would open the safe and take the money he owed me and … and, yes, I would go to the British embassy. Bryan’s father didn’t like me, didn’t approve of me, but he wouldn’t deny me sanctuary for … for a day or so. Orlov had to leave St. Petersburg, and when he was gone I could book passage and …
“What do you know about this?” he asked.
I looked up. He was studying me with hard, shrewd eyes.
“I—I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
His glass was empty again. He refilled it a second time and gulped the vodka with a jerking motion of head and hand.
“You know something. I can tell this. It is written on your face.”
“That—that’s ridiculous, Gregory.”
“You go to see her at the Hermitage. The two of you talk, conspire against me. You laugh at me.”
“You’re imagining things—”
“All this time you know she is not going to take me back. She tells you to humor me.”
There was a strange tremor in his voice, and his eyes, now, seemed to burn with maniacal light. The mighty Count Orlov couldn’t accept blame for his failure, his ego wouldn’t permit that. He had to blame someone else, and in casting about he had accidentally stumbled upon some truths, and … and I had to remain very, very calm. He set his empty glass aside, rage simmering, smoldering, threatening to erupt.
When Love Commands Page 43