Falling Stars

by Anita Mills

  “I thought the Volskys merely sent someone, according to Madame Malenkov.”

  “These are not ordinary circumstances, Townsend. Her condition has made Ekaterina volatile, and she does not know what she does. We believe she is ill.”

  “And I’d always thought her a sensible girl,” Bell murmured.

  “Not any more. She has become more and more irrational as her time nears, and we are afraid she may hurt herself. For her safety and the safety of my child, I must find her.”

  “Odd—that’s what Bashykin said Prince Narransky wished—her safety, I mean.”

  “He will have no use for her after the child is born,” Alexei snapped. “I must find her first.” He caught himself. “You have not seen her—you swear it?”

  “I have not seen Kate since Domnya,” Bell lied.

  “She has not been the same since that unfortunate incident. And now Galena is beside herself with worry. Poor Lena—she loves Ekaterina so very much.”

  “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “Viktor took her to Olga after the quarrel, but as soon as Olga wrote Galena of it, Ekaterina disappeared.”

  “Perhaps Olga lied—whoever Olga is.”

  “No, of course you do not know of them.” Alexei met Bell’s gaze for a moment, then he looked away. “If you hear of Ekaterina—if she comes to you—”

  “I am to contact this Bashykin,” Bell finished for him.

  “Not at all—no, you must not!”

  “All right. Then I will send to you. But I am returning to England after the spring thaw, you know. Have you considered that she may already be attempting to go home?”

  “We have considered everything! Everything! And she cannot travel very far in this. I cannot think she could even get to Moscow, but Lena—”

  “I own it would surprise me.” Bell went to the window, where he observed the colonel in a carriage, conferring with a soldier. “But perhaps you would wish to inquire of Bashykin yourself. Kind of him to wipe his coach windows, don’t you think?”

  Alexei looked for himself, and his complexion darkened. Without so much as a word of farewell, he stormed from the room, and Bell could hear him running down the stairs. In those moments, he made up his mind.

  He waited only long enough to see the confrontation begin, then he threw a change of clothes and the stuff of his toilette into his bag. While they were going at it, he was going for Kate. He only hoped she’d kept both papers that Paul Volsky had given her.

  It did not take him long to get down the back of the hotel, where a dilapidated town carriage waited around the corner for custom. Out of sight from the street, he negotiated rapidly, digging into his purse, waving a lifetime of money before the driver. Gesturing that he should go around the block the other way, turn at the next corner, and wait in the alley, Bell held his breath as they made their way down the snow-packed street.

  Before the elderly coach rolled to a full halt, he was already out of it, half running, half walking as he crossed the marble-floored lobby. At the stairs, he gave up all pretense of leisure and ran outright.

  She heard him rap on her door, and she held her breath. “Kate,” Bell Townsend said as softly as he could, “for God’s sake, let me in.”

  Still in her nightshift, she hurried to the door. As soon as she threw the bolt back, he pushed inside. “Come on—there’s no time. We’ve got to leave now.”

  “What—?”

  “Not what, Kate—who! Not half an hour ago, a Colonel Bashykin called on me, saying the Prince Narransky looked for you. And now Alexei is here.”

  Her eyes widened. “In Moscow? But how—?”

  “I don’t know.” His gray eyes met hers soberly. “All I know is that we don’t have any time.” He drew her to the window and pointed down the street. “Alexei and Bashykin are having a devil of an argument down there just now.”

  “But—”

  “Come on,” he urged her impatiently. “We can speak in the coach. Just bring the papers.”

  “But how could Alexei find me?”

  “Does it matter? I’m telling you to come on!” Even as he spoke, he went to the wardrobe and took out her small traveling bag and stuffed her clothes into it. Carrying it to the dressing table, he scooped the contents into it. When she did not move, he flung her cloak at her. “Put this on—we’ve got to go now, Kate! I don’t mean to take a ball in my chest for you.”

  “I cannot go in my nightgown, Bell!”

  “The devil you can’t!” Dropping the bag at her feet, he picked up the cloak and pulled it around her. “Get your slippers. Hopefully, when they are done, we will be already on the road.”

  “I cannot wear my slippers.”

  He looked down at her feet in disbelief. “God, Kate—you should have seen the doctor.”

  “I was afraid he might give me away—and I could manage to get them on until yesterday.”

  He dropped to his knees and tried to force the slippers on. Finally, he’d gotten her toes into them. “You’ll have to walk on the back half, but there’s no help for it. Once we are down the road, we’ll find something for you.” Rising, he picked up the bag again and caught her hand. “We’ll take the back way out. I have bribed a fellow to bring the coach ‘round to the alley.”

  “But you don’t have a coach.”

  “I do now,” he answered tersely.

  He half dragged, half carried her down the service stairs, past the barrels of garbage set out for the poor, and into the run-down alley. Beggars looked up from their scavenging, then went back to digging in the foul-smelling mess. A dilapidated coach, its black paint peeling, its iron wheels reddened with rust, awaited at the end. Pulling her after him, Bell Townsend ran toward it. Opening the door, he tossed her bag inside, then heaved her in also.

  It wasn’t until she was leaning back against the worn leather seats that she dared to ask where he’d gotten it. He wiped the steam from a cracked window before answering.

  “It was waiting for street custom, so I offered the driver fifty rubles, which is more than he makes in half a lifetime. I expect he knows it is a matter of life and death for all of us, else I’d not pay so much.”

  “You are stealing it?” she asked with disbelief.

  “I didn’t take the time to discover if he owned it, Kate.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I thought we should abandon it at Kharkov and hire someone else to take us to Kiev,” he explained. “At Kiev, perhaps we can purchase something to get us the rest of the way.” He met her gaze soberly. “The devil of it is that once they realize I am gone, I expect they will have a fair notion of my direction. All we have on our side is haste.”

  As the carriage traversed the back streets, he watched nervously, seeing the possibility of being stopped at every corner. When he looked up, Katherine Winstead was regarding him oddly.

  “You changed your mind,” she said softly.

  “And I expect I am a damned fool for it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned to look out the cracked window, then he sighed. “I guess I am tired of what I am—maybe I find myself in need of redemption just now.”

  “For whatever reason, I shall forever be in your debt,” she told him quietly. “To me, today you are as Galahad.”

  “No, I am everything you have ever thought me.” As a chunk of ice flew up beneath him, he frowned. “We may wish we’d stayed in Moscow, you know. Although the roads are bad now, I expect them to get worse. And the farther one gets from the city, the less anyone maintains them. Besides, the clerk at the hotel said more snow fell south this time.”

  “It could not have,” she declared positively. “All I saw all the way from Omborosloe were deep drifts. The peasants were only able to clear a small path through them.”

  “Never in all of my thirty years have I seen anything like Russian weather,” he muttered.

  She shifted uncomfortably on the cold seat. “I hope you brought my dress.”

>   “Both of them, but they are going to be sadly creased, I’m afraid. I just stuffed them in the bag.”

  She was already cold, and they’d not even left the city. With an effort, she drew up her feet and covered them with the bottom of her cloak. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She was going home to England.

  As silence descended between them, she watched the snow-topped buildings, their blackened chimneys spitting soot onto the snow, loom ahead and then disappear behind them. As miserable as she felt, there was a certain exultation. She was going home.

  Suddenly, the coach stopped, nearly throwing her to the floor. She caught the rope and righted herself. “What—?”

  “I told him that as soon as it was safe, we’d like some food and hot bricks for the journey. And,” he added, “I told him he could buy a pint of vodka for himself.”

  “Wonderful,” she muttered. “We shall have a drunken driver in bad weather.”

  “I knew your gratitude couldn’t last. At least we are on the road, aren’t we?”

  “Yes.” She sighed heavily. “But I should still prefer a sober driver.” She peered across to his window. “Bylee Beek, “ she read aloud. “White Bull. They even name their establishments like we do at home.”

  “Clever of you to note it,” he murmured sardonically.

  “Well, when I was with Alexei, we did not stay in such places, except when we traveled between St. Petersburg and Moscow, and then I did not note any names. But I expect they had them.”

  “Perhaps you were too besotted to see what was around you.”

  “Or perhaps they were a different sort of establishment. What do you suppose is keeping the fellow?” she asked anxiously. “Is he waiting for them to warm the bricks?”

  “I expect it is the food. I ordered some bread and cheese for you, because I wasn’t certain as to how queasy you might be, and something with meat for me. I didn’t expect you’d eaten, and I know I haven’t.”

  “I cannot. The thought of food sickens me.”

  “I’d heard that that eventually passes.”

  “It did, but it seems to have returned.” She forced a smile for him. “But do not worry over it. I don’t cast up my accounts any more—I just feel as though I could.”

  “You cannot live on nothing, you know. You’ll be skin and bones.”

  “Thank you,” she retorted acidly. “My feet do not seem to know it. Or my middle.”

  “Well, you had best take care of yourself,” he advised, “for I am no hand at all at playing nursemaid.”

  “I don’t expect you to be.”

  The door opened and a filthy fellow stuck his head inside. Grinning, he handed Bell a greasy, rolled paper, followed by the silver flask. As he withdrew, Katherine decided, “He is more than half-gone already.”

  Ignoring her, Bell unwrapped the paper and sniffed at the contents. “Not an English pasty,” he murmured, “but it will suffice.” He bit into it, then grimaced. “Tough mutton.”

  There was a tapping on her side, then the fellow pushed a large loaf of bread, followed by a hunk of moldy cheese at her. Her stomach revolted.

  Seeing that she put her food on the seat, Bell reached for his small penknife and began paring off the mold for her. “It’s not half-bad, if you don’t think about it.”

  For the last time, the bribed ostler returned and set a row of heated bricks in the floor. Then she heard him climb onto the box above.

  “Watch out—you’ll burn your feet.”

  “There should be a cloth over them, but I daresay he forgot that,” she said.

  “If he ever knew it.” Bell unscrewed the lid of his flask and peered inside. “More vodka,” he decided, disgusted. “I told him I should rather have wine.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t understand you.”

  “I know a few words of Russian.”

  “If you learned them from Sofia, I wouldn’t repeat them in company.”

  “Unworthy of you, Kate,” he chided. “Actually, I employed a tutor as soon as I got here. Unfortunately, I was not a particularly apt pupil. As soon as I got the merest basics, I discharged him. Everyone in the Sherkov’s circle preferred French, you see.”

  “They distance themselves from their serfs that way. I think Lena and Lexy only spoke Russian when they were afraid I might understand them—or when they conversed with the servants.”

  He began eating in earnest, stopping only to wipe his fingers on the paper or to drink from his flask. She watched, but made no move to taste her cheese and bread.

  “Go on—try it,” he urged between mouthfuls.

  “All right.”

  In truth, she still felt awful. But to satisfy him, she broke off a small piece of bread and chewed at it. As soon as she swallowed, her stomach knotted. She slipped the rest of the piece beneath her cloak, hoping he would think she’d eaten it.

  He didn’t. “You know,” he told her, “much depends on your staying well.”

  “I am well enough,” she lied. “I’m just not hungry.”

  “All right, but you’d best save it. I mean to get as far as I can before we stop for the night.” His own meal finished, he rolled up the remnants in the paper, opened the door, and tossed it. Pulling his hat forward to cover his eyes, he leaned back, his flask between his legs. “Maybe you can sleep until you feel more the thing,” he suggested.

  “Do you think we can make it?” she dared to ask him.

  “To England? I don’t know—but we can dashed well try.”

  “I know you could have left me at the hotel—or let them discover me. I am extremely grateful that you did not.” When he said nothing, she went on, “I could not go back to Domnya, Bell—I could not. I should rather die than face Alexei again.” Her gaze dropped to where her hands rested on her stomach. “I feel so terribly, utterly foolish, Bell.”

  “You could not have known.”

  “I was too plain for someone like that.”

  “You shouldn’t say that.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “You were merely green, my dear. If any is at fault, it is Harry. He should have realized something was wrong with the offer.”

  “I daresay we were all overwhelmed at my good fortune,” she recalled ruefully. “From disgraced baron’s daughter to Russian countess—it was quite a climb for me.” A small, harsh laugh escaped her. “In truth, I was a caged sparrow set among peacocks. Now I know that Galena chose me because I had no hope of outshining her.”

  “You cannot look back, Kate.”

  “And I cannot look forward, either,” she retorted bitterly. “I left England in triumph, and I shall return in disgrace.”

  “You are being incredibly unforgiving of yourself, don’t you think?”

  “How can I be anything else? It is all my fault—I could have told Harry I didn’t want Alexei.” It was as though all the hurt of the past three months spilled over. “Everyone knew it but me, Bell—from the moment I arrived at Domnya, everyone knew. I was a meesch, Bell! A mouse—an English stick—and finally a stick with a beehive in the middle! But I didn’t care as long as I believed Lexy loved me. How they must have laughed behind my back—Madame Popov and the others. They knew he only loved Galena.”

  When she looked over at him, it appeared Bell Townsend slept. His eyes were closed beneath the shade of his hat, and his flask remained between his knees. In repose, he looked like the Adonis Brummell called him.

  She felt even more foolish for speaking the pain in her heart to him. A man like Bellamy Townsend could not possibly understand the betrayal she felt. She swallowed hard, trying to stifle her self-pity, then closed her eyes and tried to think of something else, of England, of Monk’s End, and of Harry.

  “We’ll make it to England, Kate—I promise you I’ll get you there somehow,” he said quietly.

  He hadn’t been asleep at all. He’d merely been silent, letting her rattle on, because he had no glib words of comfort, no patently easy way to ease the grief and bitterness she felt. All of
his charm, all of his vaunted wit were useless just now. As he’d listened to her, he felt an intense pity for her, a sadness that whispered words, a few caresses, and stolen kisses could not heal what Alexei Volsky and his sister had done to her. If they could, he might have tried.

  It was so cold they had to stop. The driver had come down from the box to tell them he could no longer feel his hands or his feet. And while it did not snow, the wind swirled and drifted what was already on the ground across the road, making progress slow and tedious. Wiping his cracked window with his sleeve, Bell peered out into the dusk and saw a cluster of lights perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead.

  Telling the frozen driver to get inside with Kate, he climbed out and sank to the top of his boots in the snow. Muttering curses, he took the lead horse’s bridle and started walking toward the lights. The wind flapped his cloak about him and bit into his face. Afraid of damaging his lungs, he took quick, shallow breaths, and as he exhaled, it seemed that the steam froze on his lips.

  He plodded blindly, making slow work of the short distance, until he thought he could go no farther. But when he raised his head, he was less than one hundred feet from an old rock house. It was perhaps the most welcome sight in his life. He picked up his pace, striking for it. When he reached it, he pounded loudly on a crude door, shouting in Russian for help.

  A sturdy woman opened it, then motioned to her husband, who helped Bell inside. When a youth pulled at Kate’s carriage door, she leaned gratefully into his arms. The driver had to be lifted out and carried.

  It was a crude place—a single room with a large fireplace at one end, a table and benches in the middle, and one bed, surrounded by pallets at the end farthest from the fire. Battered tin dishes were laid out on the table, and some sort of stew simmered in a hook-hung kettle. The odor of onions lay heavy on the steamy air.

  Children, ranging from a babe in cradle to the youth who’d aided Kate, watched silently as the woman brought out a bucket of water for frostbitten feet. The thought crossed Katherine’s mind that they were all serfs; that if any knew they’d helped her, they’d be severely punished.

  They didn’t understand French, and Bell’s Russian was inadequate, but somehow the driver managed to convey that they were traveling to Kharkov. The word elicited a look of disbelief from the husband, but apparently the driver finally convinced him they were not entirely insane. Katherine heard him say something sympathetic to her, then realized that he thought someone had died. She nodded. The woman patted her stomach and smiled, revealing a mouth without teeth. She nodded to that also.