‘Not when you’re hurting, Praskovia…’
‘Go, Pyotr, Mrs Parry will make me feel better.’
‘I’ll see to her, Pyotr.’ Yelena wrapped her arm around her daughter. ‘Can you walk to your bedroom?’
Praskovia smiled as the pain subsided. ‘To my old bedroom next to the silver store. Glyn needs his rest.’
‘You don’t want me to fetch him?’
Praskovia shook her head. ‘Not yet.’
Road from Hughesovka to the barracks
February 1872
Misha spurred his horse on as he threw caution to the wind and galloped over the snow-plastered steppe. He heard his horse’s hooves crunch on ice, but, angered to the point of blindness, he ignored the warning sound along with the risk of his horse slipping. Indignation and fury boiled within him, even worse than when he’d first returned from Moscow and Sonya had rejected his proposal of marriage.
He knew Praskovia was right. There was a shortage of housing in Hughesovka. When he’d looked for houses in town, people had laughed at him. He’d arranged leave at the end of the month to marry Alice, but given Mrs Edwards’s suspicious attitude towards him, coupled with Alice’s revelation that most of her cash had been invested by Edward Edwards in the company bank, he’d decided not to ask her for the money he would need to buy his way out of the regiment until after the ceremony, by which time, legally, Alice’s money would be his to do with as he saw fit.
He also knew the women’s hotel bills hadn’t been paid by Glyn Edwards since the end of November, which presumably meant that both of them were dipping into their savings. Given the cost of rooms and food in the hotel, he didn’t doubt that their expenses were making serious inroads into both their nest eggs.
He’d asked his colonel for a three-hour pass so he could ride into Hughesovka that night, ostensibly to check on his pregnant sister’s health. Given the snow and risk of delay if another blizzard took hold, Colonel Zonov had been reluctant to give his consent. Misha knew he wouldn’t get leave again until the weekend he’d booked off for his wedding.
He’d hoped to secure the house and arrange to have it transported into the town before then, so he and Alice could move in there for their honeymoon. He’d even approached a couple of his late father’s friends who’d agreed to do the work for him – for a price. Given his mother’s point blank refusal to hand over the house to him, that was now out of the question. He had no choice but to ask the colonel if he and Alice could move into rooms in the barracks building that was reserved as married quarters.
All his meticulously laid plans to leave the regiment and set himself up in business were in tatters, at worse abandoned, at best mothballed, at least until the spring when building work would be resumed in Hughesovka. And then … so much depended on exactly how much money Alice had and how much he could coax out of Betty Edwards to finance his venture.
Worst of all, he had no choice but to remain in the regiment, and live in barracks until after his marriage, because thanks to his mother’s obduracy, he had nowhere else to go.
Catherine Ignatova’s house
February 1872
Usually Sonya lingered at bedtime, taking time to talk to her maid while she brushed out her hair, but, unable to stop thinking about Roman and his promise to climb up to her bedroom, she ushered her maid out early. When she closed the door of her bedroom behind her, she did something she’d never done before. She locked it.
She leaned back against it for a moment and looked around. The room had been hers since the day Olga had married Count Beletsky and vacated it. She was so accustomed to seeing it she rarely took time to admire and savour the beautiful furnishings Catherine had so generously provided. It was smaller than the state rooms and guest bedrooms in the mansion, but large enough to contain everything a young girl could possibly want.
The furniture was French Empire, enamelled white, ornamented by gilding. A four-poster bed, hung with blue and white silk curtains that matched the bedcover and pillows, dominated the centre of the wall opposite the windows that overlooked the gardens. French doors opened on to a balcony that ran around the entire first floor storey of the house. A desk and chair stood to the left of the French doors, a matching dressing table and chair to the right. A cheval mirror, two bookshelves, and bedside cabinets completed the furniture. Doors led to a small bathroom fitted with a marble washstand and slipper bath, and another door led into a walk-in clothes and linen cupboard.
Sonya turned up the oil lamps on the bedside cabinets and turned down the wicks on the ones on the desk and dressing table. She checked her reflection in the mirror. A white ghost stared back at her in the subdued glow. She picked up her hairbrush and pulled it through her waist-length hair one last time before plaiting it, as she did every night before bed. She reached for her perfume bottle, upended it on her finger and dabbed her favourite vanilla scent on her wrists and behind her ears.
She went to the French doors and unlocked them. On impulse she opened them and stepped out. A bitterly cold wind blew in carrying ice shards in its blast. She retreated and shut the doors hastily but did not lock them. She ran to the bed, picking up a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets from one of the bookshelves on the way.
She untied her robe, tossed it on to the bed and climbed between the sheets. She opened the book and began to read but it was hopeless. She simply couldn’t concentrate on anything or anyone except Roman. She wondered, not for the first time that evening, if his comment about climbing up the columns to the balcony outside her room had been a joke.
It wasn’t only cold outside it was icy. The snow would be frozen and slippery and it would be even more dangerous than usual to try climbing up to the first floor. She looked at the small ormolu clock that had been her sixteenth birthday present from Alexei. It was ten minutes after eleven o’clock. Long past her usual bedtime. Still holding the book, she snuggled down and listened to the small familiar sounds of the house shutting down for the night.
The footsteps of the maids and footmen, as they climbed the back staircase that was sandwiched between the two wings of the house and led from the cellars up to the attics that housed the servants’ quarters; Boris’s firm heavy tread as he walked down the corridor outside her door to wind the clocks on the gallery; male laughter echoing up from the library below her room as Mr Hughes, Mr Dmitri, and Roman shared a final nightcap with her aunt.
She tried to focus on her book again, but her eyelids grew heavy. She hadn’t meant to sleep but she woke with a start when a cold draught blew across her bed.
She opened her eyes. A shadowy male figure stood outlined in the open doorway, his silhouette thrown into relief against the moon. She sat up quickly.
‘Roman…’
‘Were you expecting someone else?’
‘I wasn’t sure if you were joking about climbing up to my room.’
‘As you see, I was serious, but I warn you I don’t have entirely altruistic intentions for being here.’ He closed the door behind him, walked to the bed, and began to undress, tossing his clothes on to one of the chairs.
‘Did you really climb up the pillars to the balcony or did you walk along from your room?’
‘I climbed rather than risk disturbing the sleepers in the rooms. I would have been here earlier but unfortunately Mr Hughes and Dmitri wanted to talk and talk – and even after they went to bed I thought it circumspect to give them, and everyone else in the house, time to fall asleep.’
He dropped the last of his clothes and climbed into bed beside her. ‘Now,’ he pulled her close, ‘I expect you to warm me up.’
‘You’re asking a great deal,’ she murmured as he pulled her gown aside and pressed his frozen limbs against hers.
He lifted his finger to his lips, leaned over her, and turned down first one lamp, then the other. ‘Now where did we leave off this afternoon?’
Chapter Twenty-nine
Glyn and Praskovia’s house
February 1872
Sar
ah knocked the door that connected the servants’ quarters with Glyn’s bedroom – a door Glyn and Praskovia had found very useful before Praskovia’s pregnancy had forced them to make their affair public.
Glyn was out of his chair in seconds. Sarah smiled when she saw Richard sitting in front of the stove nursing a glass of vodka. He’d obviously left their room to keep Glyn company after Pyotr had called her.
‘Praskovia would like to introduce you to someone, Glyn.’
Glyn ran past her down the corridor. Richard held out his arms and Sarah went to him.
‘Mother and baby?’
‘Both doing well.’
‘Boy or girl?’
‘Boy, with Praskovia’s red hair. I hope I have such an easy time of it.’
Richard laid his hand on her. ‘Not long now.’
‘Two, maybe three weeks.’ She looked at the clock on the dresser. ‘In four hours we’ll have to get up.’
‘Me not you.’
‘Come and meet Pavlo Peter Edwards,’ Glyn called from the doorway.
Richard took Sarah’s hand and they walked down a short corridor into a narrow bedroom. Praskovia was propped up on pillows, cradling a baby who was lying quietly staring up at her.
Praskovia held the baby out to Glyn who took him gently in his arms.
‘We’ve named him after Praskovia’s father and,’ Glyn glanced at Sarah, ‘my brother. We hoped you wouldn’t mind, Sarah.’
Richard and Sarah pretended they hadn’t heard Yelena snort in the corner where she was making up a wooden cot with sheets and bedding she’d warmed on the stove. She hadn’t had many good things to say about her husband when he was alive, and even fewer since his death in one of the Cossack pits – a death she attributed more to his consumption of vodka than a lack of safe working practices.
‘I’m proud that you’ve given your son your brother’s name, Glyn. Thank you.’ Sarah knew that her voice sounded strained. She brushed a tear from her eye as she looked from Richard to Glyn.
‘If you intended to call your baby Peter…’
‘A girl might object to that name,’ Sarah smiled. ‘Now, you men get out of here while I make Praskovia comfortable and Pavlo’s grandmother nurses him to sleep. I’ll let you know when you can come back in, Glyn.’
‘You mean I have to go?’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Praskovia looked at Glyn cradling his son. ‘Sit in the corner until my mother has prepared the cot. You’ll be out of the way there.’
Glyn sat on the chair in the corner, and Praskovia and Sarah both laughed as he tried to make his massive body shrink.
‘You out,’ Sarah shooed Richard through the door. ‘Keep our bed warm for me.’
‘I’ll go across the road and tell Anna the good news first.’
‘She’ll be annoyed that she wasn’t here to deliver Pavlo.’ Sarah followed Richard to Glyn’s bedroom door.
He fell serious. ‘Do you think our child will be a girl?’
‘I have no idea,’ Sarah confessed.
‘You told Glyn that we hadn’t thought of a name for our son…’
‘Or daughter,’ Sarah cut in.
‘You don’t have any family names?’ he asked.
‘I only wish I had. The only family names I have were Peter’s.’
‘If he’s a boy we could call him Edward, for every Mr Edwards who has done so much for me and my family.
‘That’s a wonderful idea, Richard.’
‘And David Victor for the two brothers I lost to the cholera.’
‘And if it’s a girl?’ Sarah asked.
‘My mother’s name was Mary.’
‘How about Maryanna, and we’ll ask Anna to be godmother if it’s a boy or girl.’
He kissed her. She gripped his hand, caressed his fingers, and watched him walk through the door.
Hotel Hughesovka
April 1872
The porter opened the door of the hotel and bowed as Misha escorted Alice and Betty Edwards inside.
‘Congratulations on your marriage, Captain Razin. The table you ordered in the restaurant is ready for your party, sir.’
‘You sent food up for my daughter and her nursemaid?’ Betty snapped in English. As she’d warned Glyn, she’d categorically refused to learn the ‘heathen language’, and although Misha suspected Betty Edwards understood a great deal more than she would admit to, she still refused to say a single word in Russian
Misha repeated her question to the doorman. The man was careful to look Betty in the eye when he replied. ‘I saw the waiter go up a few minutes ago, Mrs Edwards.’
‘As you ordered, their meals have been taken upstairs,’ Misha translated.
They entered the restaurant. The waiters had set a table for three with a white cloth, polished silverware, and candles but no flowers
The only place in Hughesovka flowers could be obtained at that time of year was Catherine Ignatova’s hothouse. Given the strained relationship between him and Alexei, and the fact that Alexei was close to Praskovia and Glyn, Misha hadn’t even approached Mrs Ignatova. In fact, he’d told no one other than his colonel that he was getting married that day, and he’d only informed Colonel Zonov because he’d needed his permission.
‘The table looks lovely.’ Alice smiled as the waiter first pulled a chair out for her and then Betty. She’d bought a white silk gown in Cardiff before leaving Wales and packed it in the hope of marrying Richard, but it was summer weight, too thin for the time of year, and she was shivering. Misha saw her tremble and solicitously draped her shawl higher around her shoulders.
‘Champagne, Captain Razin, Mrs Razina, Mrs Edwards?’ The waiter prised the cork from the bottle.
‘Without a proper chapel to marry in, I don’t quite feel married,’ Alice giggled as the waiter filled three glasses.
‘I assure you that we are.’ Although Misha wouldn’t have admitted it, he didn’t feel married either. Of choice he would have preferred a Russian Orthodox wedding, but Alice had insisted on their civil ceremony being blessed by a chapel minister who hadn’t yet raised sufficient funds from his Welsh flock to build a Methodist chapel in Hughesovka. The only good thing about the ceremony was that it had been easy to keep all knowledge of it from his fellow officers. He knew that they would have insisted on giving him a bachelor party in the mess and a guard of honour at the church, along with a few ribald jokes about his marrying for money – jokes he didn’t doubt Alice would have picked up on. Unlike Betty Edwards, she was eager to learn Russian and took every opportunity to practise it with the waiters and chambermaids in the hotel.
Misha watched the waiter fill their glasses, then picked his up and touched it to Alice’s and Betty’s. ‘To us and our future.’
Betty echoed the toast.
Misha steeled himself for disapproval and disappointment. ‘About the house I said I’d find…’
‘We won’t be needing it, Misha,’ Betty broke in.
‘You intend to stay in the hotel?’ Misha was alarmed by the thought that Alice would expect him to pay her bill now they were married.
‘Alice and I will be moving into Jimmy Peddle’s house first thing tomorrow morning. ‘I bought it from him as a going concern and signed all the papers yesterday afternoon. It’s already mine.’
‘You’re going to run a boarding house?’ Misha was stunned. ‘What about the shop you intended to open?’
‘That may come later. Everyone says that the snow will melt in a week or two. As soon as it does, Jimmy Peddle and his wife will be off.’ Betty studied her knife and polished it in her napkin. ‘They can’t wait to return to Wales and I don’t blame them. Nasty heathen Godless place that this is.’
‘Then why stay here?’ Misha countered.
‘Because I’ve bought a ready-made business that will bring in enough to keep me and Harriet Maud in comfort and enable me to save for our future. The boarding house is full of paying guests and makes a nice tidy profit every week, unlike my p
ub in Merthyr that was dependent on the town’s workers. Whenever they were laid off by the Crawshays our takings plummeted. Jimmy Peddle and his wife have given up two of their rooms so we can move in right away. Martha and Harriet Maud will share one room, Alice and I the other, and we can run the business together.’
‘You’re going to be cooking and cleaning up after people …’ Misha began.
Once again Betty cut him short. ‘Jimmy Peddle already employs two skivvies and a cook who live in an outbuilding at the back of the house. We’ll keep them on to do the heavy work. All Alice and I will have to do is supervise them to make sure that the place is kept clean and run properly.’
The waiter arrived with the fish course of baked carp and they fell silent while plates, sauce, and salt were handed around and their glasses refilled. When they were alone again Misha looked directly at Alice.
‘I’ve arranged for you to move into married officer’s quarters in the barracks tomorrow morning.’
‘This is the first I’ve heard about you wanting me to move into the barracks,’ Alice complained.
‘I didn’t mention it until now because I was hoping to find a house that you and Mrs Edwards could buy.’
‘You didn’t find one?’ Betty asked.
‘Just as well, isn’t it?’ Misha challenged. ‘If I had, you wouldn’t have wanted it, not after buying Peddle’s boarding house.’
‘If it had been cheap enough, I might have stretched to buying the two,’ Betty said airily.
‘Houses don’t come cheap in Hughesovka, Mrs Edwards.’
‘There’s cheap and there’s cheap. You have no idea how much money I have, Misha Razin.’
‘Or don’t have, Mrs Edwards. I don’t like people who play games and go back on their word. Alice, you will pack today. I’ll hire a carriage from the stables so you can travel to the barracks with me first thing in the morning.’
‘I wouldn’t have minded if you’d warned me that was what you wanted me to do, Misha, but now Betty has bought Jimmy Peddle’s boarding house and we’re going into business together I can’t see how I can move into the barracks. You see the business is mine, too,’ Alice said proudly, looking to Misha for approval.
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