When Georges did not attempt to visit, nor slip a note in Liza’s hand, I gradually came to believe that either my admonitions had the desired effect or the tsar had spoken with Georges and he now understood the foolishness of the situation.
I avoided social occasions for a few weeks, but by the time the weather cooled, I grew restless and rummaged once more through the costumes I kept in an enormous closet in our hall, all lovingly catalogued and hung on hooks. I stroked the velveteen lining of a half-finished medieval cloak. I hoped to dress as Maid Marian and convince Alexander to appear as Robin Hood at a celebration to honor the tsar’s name day in early December. My old friend and enemy, Ida, had hinted she might hire me to assist with her gowns as well. I liked the idea of doing something productive to earn a bit of extra income, and with four small children in the house, I needed a respite. Yet Ida lived near the barracks of the horse guards, where Georges was stationed, and I had not forgotten her encouragement to flirt with him. I consistently found excuses not to visit.
I shut the closet door, resolved to work on Maid Marian’s costume after I put baby Natalya down for her afternoon nap. As I crossed the hall to the children’s nursery, I spotted Ekaterina in the parlor, legs tucked under her bottom, the way a little girl might sit. She held a letter in her hand and a look of sheer victory on her square face made me pause. “What’s that?”
“Oh!” Ekaterina tried to cultivate an air of mystery and failed entirely. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I actually didn’t want to know that badly. How easily Ekaterina set my nerves on edge. “If you want to keep secrets, do so. Your correspondence is none of my concern.”
Ekaterina’s lips twisted and she waved the thin vellum paper in the air triumphantly. I caught a whiff of gentlemen’s cologne, knew in an instant who had sent the letter, and instinctively clutched the cross hanging around my neck, thanking God Alexander was out of the house. He would have recognized the musky scent as well as I.
“Georges d’Anthès was your special friend.” Ekaterina pressed the letter to her chest. “Yet it seems your reign as master of his heart has come to an end.”
My heart engaged in a quick war with itself. I had Alexander. I had the world. I would do nothing further to damage that which I had earned. Marrying Ekaterina off to Georges might lay this tawdry business to rest once and for all. Even so, I worried for her. I remembered Georges twisting my wrist. For all Ekaterina and I fought like two dogs trapped in a cage, her blood was my blood. I felt compelled to say something. “Watch yourself around him. He has a temper.”
“He seems like a dream to me. Gentle as a lamb. Perhaps he only behaves abominably to women he has no intention of marrying.”
“I’m not convinced he would make a good husband.”
Ekaterina let out a loud, sputtering laugh. “You would say no less to keep him near to you. Who knows what witchcraft you cast?”
Of course Ekaterina would insist I had cast some crone’s spell on Georges. “I have no desire to keep him for myself.”
“You mean you have no desire to play fair. You only want to dangle him on a little string along with any other men who strike your fancy. To the humiliation of your own husband.”
“Take that back.” I fought the urge to hit my sister. “I would never hurt Alexander.”
She snorted. “Really? You convinced many people otherwise. Carrying on like a strumpet. And then when one of your male harem decides to focus his attentions elsewhere—well! You can’t have that. Particularly not if his attention turns to your own sister. How that would damage your ridiculous legend as the Venus of St. Petersburg.”
I was keenly aware of a shadow lurking in the doorway to the nursery and felt sure Ekaterina’s loud voice had summoned Masha’s curiosity. I took care to keep my own voice to a minimum level. “All of this sounds like some fantasy you have conjured. My concern is that Georges put his hand on me sharply and in anger.”
Ekaterina thrust her chin at me. “What did you say to make him angry?”
The woman is to blame. Always to blame. “Why do you think I said something? That is neither here nor there. His behavior was hardly chivalrous.”
“So this lecture is for my benefit? You only think of me?”
“I do not believe you should entertain this man’s attention.”
“Is that so?” To Ekaterina’s credit, she had inclined her head toward the nursery and made an effort to keep her voice down now. “You wish me to be underfoot forever so that you might feel you are queen of the palace with all your little minions in place.”
“I won’t hear another word. We’ve been nothing but generous to you.”
I heard the front door open and then the click of heels on tile in our foyer. Liza appeared in the open entranceway to the parlor, rubbing her hands briskly in her apron, her cheeks red and teeth chattering from the November chill outside. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Madame Pushkina. May I see you?”
“If you must.”
“How convenient. Walk away then.” Ekaterina returned to her seat on the divan. Our mahogany divan. All Ekaterina had in the world was due to my generosity. My sister’s pale hands trembled and she clutched her stomach. Whether she was madly in love with Georges or not, something troubled her. She was old enough now that wicked people might begin to call her a spinster behind her back. She needed a husband to have any chance at a place in the world and she knew it. My anger began to dissipate. “I don’t wish to leave when we’re still mad at one another.”
“I’m not mad. I only wanted you to know I am in love with Georges, and it is the thrill of my heart to think he might be in love with me as well.”
I doubted Georges spoke of love in his letter to my sister, but she was hopeless. I shrugged, determined to speak to her again only after her temper had calmed. I followed Liza into the foyer, out of my earshot. “What is it?” I asked, still testy.
Liza’s hands had not left the apron. As I looked closer at her face, I realized her reddened cheeks were more than a flush of cold. “A gentleman arrived earlier with two letters. One was for your sister, but the other … he asked that I wait until I saw you alone to deliver it.”
My heart fell. “Georges d’Anthès.”
Liza nodded and looked at the floor.
“I’ll take it,” I said quietly and Liza slipped the note into my hands.
I reviewed the contents quickly, feeling every second I held the paper in my hands was a betrayal of my husband. Georges insisted he must speak with me. He vowed to be cordial and wrote that Ida had agreed to remain with us the entire time at her house. The gall of this man—the impudence of the scoundrel, as Alexander would have put it—thinking I would be fooled by his sugared words, after all that had happened.
And then I read the last sentence. Georges said this matter concerned my family, someone close to me, and he had to speak to me at once, for he knew my mother and eldest brother were far away and my father indisposed.
I glanced over my shoulder, toward the parlor, where my sister still sat. Perhaps Ekaterina was not as delusional as I thought. If Georges had turned his romantic attentions to her, I needed to know. I couldn’t bear the thought of Ekaterina seduced by a man who would lay a violent hand on her. I folded the note in half. My mother and brothers were in Moscow, my father was useless, and my grandfather was dead. I was the only one left to protect the Goncharov honor, even if it meant facing Georges once more.
“Please go to Ida’s house,” I told Liza. “Let her know I’ll be there in an hour.”
* * *
“The lady of the house sends her apologies,” Ida’s footman assured me as I followed him inside. “She was detained unexpectedly. One of the children is ill and she is upstairs in the nursery. She asked that you take a seat and make yourself comfortable. Would you care for tea?”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” I kept my voice steady, but shot an anxious glance about Ida’s tidy and practical little house before taking a seat on one of
the armchairs in the parlor, feeling as though ants pranced over my shoulders and upper back. “Tea sounds lovely.”
After the footman left, several minutes passed, each loudly ticked off on a Bavarian cuckoo clock with agonizing precision. I tried to make myself comfortable. I twiddled my thumbs and took in the clean scent of the dried mulberries hanging across the mantel of the hearth. I tried not to think about my fight with Ekaterina, and what promises might already have passed between my sister and Georges.
The door creaked open and I sprang up from the chair, startled. “Ida? Is everything all right? One of your children took ill?”
The tread of the footsteps was heavier than I’d anticipated. A moment later, the handsome face of Georges d’Anthès appeared before me, figure pristine in his formal white uniform. “I knew you would see me. My dream has come true.”
He spoke as though nothing had happened, as though he had not grabbed me so hard he left a bruise. As though I had not told him plainly that I took no interest in his romantic affections. My heart beat so wildly I thought I might faint. “Georges?”
“I had to see you.” Normally every one of his blond hairs was perfectly tousled just so, but today his hair was wild. Even the simple words he spoke were slurred. He must have been drinking. “I love you.”
“You said Ida would be here. You said you wished to talk about my family.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I love you.”
Georges’s features remained passive even as my head spun and my cheeks burned with humiliation. This had all been a ruse. I should have known. My gaze darted around the tasteful little parlor. Ida may have been a part of this all along, arranging a meeting as some sort of cruel prank. But even so, I prayed Ida or her footman would arrive and put a swift end to it. “Did I not make myself clear? I love my husband.”
He must have heard me, but you would never have known it from his expression. “I think you’re scared.” His tone was gentle, but condescending. “It is understandable. I should not have been so abrupt with my confession. You see, my feelings have rendered me senseless. I tried to forget you. Truly, I did. You must understand.” He began to bang his hands against his head, harder and harder, until I worried he would hurt himself. Yet I remained too frightened to stop him. “My words are truth and the truth must always be spoken, no matter the cost. Still, I should have known your gentle soul would find it difficult to comprehend.”
He reached for my hand, but I snapped it behind my back and out of his reach. “I am not simple. I understood perfectly and your words offended me. You wish me to become your lover and I made it clear that would never happen.”
“No, no, no.” Georges pressed his lips tightly together, but small bubbles of spittle still formed at the corners of his mouth. I backed away from him. “You misunderstand. Forgive me. I ask only for your assurance. And love. I expect nothing more.” He waved desperately at the cross around my neck. “You’re a virtuous woman. I only ask for one word to assure me I might hope someday to be with you. I only ask you to respond with the word ‘yes.’ A simple word. A simple favor.”
No man would be content with a mere whisper of love from a woman he desired. And even if by some stretch of the imagination Georges only wanted a word assuring him of my love, I could never say something so far from the truth. Even if his senses had taken leave of him, as though he suffered from the same mental ailment that plagued my father. Even if it might quiet him for a while, long enough for me to leave this room at least, I could not say anything so horrible.
“If truth is paramount, as you insist, how can I lie?” My shoulders heaved, as though some malevolent spirit had taken control of me. “How dare you say these things when you have sent a letter to my sister encouraging her feelings? How cruel you are.”
The muscles in his face tightened as his jaw clenched. “Your sister has been clear about her feelings and I have no wish to embarrass her. I have engaged only in a harmless flirtation.”
“Not so harmless.” I couldn’t believe I was about to defend Ekaterina. “You have played with her heart.”
“She must know the truth now. That is why I insisted you see me, for the sake of your family. Koko is a pleasant enough thing, but I belong only to you.”
“That is your cross to bear,” I told him. “It is not a mutual passion.”
“You don’t know what you want. Women are fickle. You must trust me.”
“I know exactly what I want! I want you to stay away from me.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean.” How could I have wasted even one careless thought on this man? “Don’t tell me what I want. I can think for myself and have no desire to trouble you any longer.”
“You are no trouble,” he said helplessly. “You are my love.”
“Consider your heart free to pursue another.”
“How could I even think of another woman when you exist?”
“You hope someday I might love you? I don’t love you now. I have never loved you in the past. And I foresee no circumstance in which I would love you in the future. Ever.”
“But my Natalie…” For all that Georges treated me as a decorative plaything, the crushed expression on his face still wounded me. From the look of panic in his eyes, you would have thought I had taken a pillow to his face and pressed it down to drive the last breath from his body. It made me almost feel badly about what I needed to say next, but it was his own abominable persistence, his refusal to take me at my word, which had led us to this place. He needed to hear the truth in no uncertain terms.
“I cannot stand the sight of you,” I said in a low, fierce voice I scarcely recognized as my own. “You disgust me. Stay away from me. Stay away from my family.”
“You can’t mean it. You ask the impossible.”
I did not wish to invoke the tsar’s protection once more, further indebting myself to him, but saw no choice. “If you fail to do so I will take the matter up with Tsar Nicholas.”
Without a word, Georges reached into a pocket of his uniform coat and retrieved a pistol, similar to the one Alexander kept locked in his study. The roof of my mouth parched and I made a strangled gasp. I was about to die. Georges would say something demented. If he could not have me, no man would. I prayed fervently, begging God to spare me if not for my own sake then for my children. Alexander’s intense gaze the first time he saw me flashed through my head, the feeling that anything in the world was possible. I’d held the world in my hand and let it go over a silly flirtation. I’d been a fool. And now I would die for my stupidity.
I screwed my eyes shut. If I had to die, I wouldn’t give Georges the satisfaction of knowing the fear in my heart.
Nothing happened.
My heart still raced, but I managed to crack my eyes open. Georges looked at me, the pistol turned to his own head. “If this is how it must be,” he said softly.
A wave of dizziness threatened to knock me off my feet, and yet, through some divine intervention, I stood my ground and kept my voice measured. “Georges, don’t do this.”
“What choice do I have?” His deadened eyes looked through me.
“You’re not thinking straight.”
“My thoughts have never been clearer.”
“You have family,” I said desperately. “The baron loves you. I don’t think he could bear this world were you not in it.”
Georges hesitated. From the sadness in his eyes, I knew he returned at least some degree of affection for the man. Misery keened his voice. “He has never understood me. He thinks we should be attached at the hip at all times. Perhaps some men are happy this way, but my passions are not so easily bound. No one understands.”
“God understands! God has created you for his own divine purpose!” I raised my voice, hoping someone in the household might hear. “It is a mortal sin to end your life!”
His shoulders sagged, but he did not lower the pistol. “God abandoned me long ago.”
�
�God abandons no man.”
“You are but a child. You cannot know your own mind, let alone the ways of God. What a cruel fate to be bound by passion to a mere infant. No wonder I have been driven to such desperate acts.”
He closed his eyes and I was sure he would squeeze the trigger. “No! No!” I made my way to try to free the pistol from his hands, but Georges stepped back and I tumbled over the side table. I regained my footing, but now the table stood between Georges and me. I could not hope to wrestle the pistol from him.
“You wish me to drop this weapon?”
“You’re not thinking straight. You’re not right in your own head. You need help.”
“I need only one word,” he said. “As I requested before. I need you only to admit I stand a chance of gaining your love yet. I need only to hear the word ‘yes.’”
Around me, the room seemed to take on a crimson tinge. I felt the tears swell and forced them back as best I could. This man had granted me power over his own life and still I hesitated. Surely they would all understand if I said the word now. I would run from this place and tell Alexander everything. I would warn Ekaterina not to accept any more letters from Georges. I would approach the baron and explain that this man he loved needed the care of a sanitarium. The baron would understand. They would all understand. They would know I said the word yes under extreme duress.
Except, no matter what happened, no matter the circumstances, the woman was always to blame. Aunt Katya had taught me as much and I had seen it myself many times over. Creeping doubts filled my mind. People might not believe me, not even my own family. Ida would casually mention Georges had planned a secret rendezvous with me and that I had agreed to meet him privately at her house. Georges would tell everyone I loved him, convinced in his own heart this was the truth despite everything I said to the contrary. I would have only my own reputation with which to defend myself. And how easily that had already been damaged. I was the villain once more, the vindictive Venus who could not be bothered with the care of poor little Vulcan. I thought of Alexander and his pistols, the lure of these monstrous things for men.
The Lost Season of Love and Snow Page 22