by Lucy Gordon
Yet the sight haunted her. This was the other side of Leonid: hard, terrifying. She’d barely glimpsed it before but it was as much his true self as the side he showed her. This was the face he turned to his enemies, to those who had harmed him, those he hated.
And it was frightening.
When he came to bed she pretended to be asleep.
*
At breakfast next morning he was his old self again, warm and smiling. The events of the previous night might never have happened.
‘Let’s go out and have some fun,’ he said.
They settled on Victory Park, where there was a funfair. She loved funfairs.
For the next few hours they enjoyed themselves like children. Perdita rejoiced in the feeling that this was a new Leonid, one who came alive only with her.
‘Let’s go and have something to eat,’ he said at last. ‘There’s a place over there.’
When they’d chosen their snack she leaned back and gave a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Oh, I’m enjoying this.’
‘Good. Later we’ll—’ He stopped, staring at some nearby trees.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘Nothing, I…I’ll be back in a moment.’
He walked hurriedly away, just as the waiter arrived, occupying Perdita’s attention for a moment. When he’d gone her eyes sought Leonid, but there was so sign of him.
Then she saw movement, half hidden by the trees. At first she couldn’t be sure it was him, but what happened next astounded her. A young woman walked out into full view, followed by a man who was speaking to her with fierce intent.
It was Leonid.
He was distraught, arguing passionately, as though his life depended on it. But the young woman was giving as good as she got. She was beautiful, with black hair and dark, dramatic eyes. Perdita could see that even at this distance, for they talked with an almost violent intensity.
He reached for her, grasping her arm. But she shook herself free, then turned and ran from him until she vanished among the trees. At once he followed her, until he too was out of sight.
Perdita sat, aghast, wondering what she could possibly do now. But she knew she didn’t have a choice. There was no way that she could sit here, waiting for him to return, tortured by suspicions of something he would never tell her. Driven by an irresistible force, she rose and followed them, making her way through the trees faster and faster until her quarry came into sight.
Leonid had taken hold of the woman again, keeping her a prisoner while he spoke to her in fury. Here the trees grew closer together and Perdita could move close enough to watch them unobserved.
She almost cried out at the intense emotion she saw in Leonid’s face. Anguish, bitterness, rage, misery. No man ever looked at a woman like that unless she was vital to him. And, incredibly, he seemed to be pleading with her.
Whatever he wanted, she was refusing him. Perdita heard her scream, ‘Niet! Niet!’ No! No!
Then came his answering cry. ‘Antonia—’
At last she managed to get free and ran away, followed by Leonid. Perdita stood frozen, trying not to believe what she had seen, but there was no escape. Leonid, that calm, assured man, who valued control above all other virtues, had been torn apart by an emotion that it was beyond his ability to rein in.
He was almost destroyed by the violence of his feelings. A woman who saw that would know she had him at her feet, that she could do as she liked with him.
Yet she didn’t want him. What had she learned about him that made her flee with such determination?
Perdita knew she must escape before he saw her. She forced her unwilling body to move and stumbled back to the café. To her relief, there was no sign of him. She fell into the chair and sat, breathing hard, until she saw him heading back to her, alone now. He mustn’t know how much she had seen. She seized the guidebook and buried herself in it, apparently so absorbed that she didn’t even look up as he approached.
‘Found something interesting?’ he asked, sitting beside her.
‘Er…what? Oh, it’s you. I wondered where you’d vanished to.’
‘Just a business contact I happened to see passing.’
But the beautiful Antonia had been no business contact. It was clear she was practically the owner of Leonid’s heart and soul.
‘Did it work out OK?’ she asked lightly. ‘A profitable meeting?’
‘Business is always profitable,’ he observed.
Both his voice and his expression were as unrevealing as stone, and her dread increased. Something terrible had happened to Leonid, and he was shutting her out. The message could not have been clearer.
‘Would you mind if I went home?’ she asked, touching her forehead. ‘I’m getting a headache.’
‘I’ll take you.’
He was solicitous as he helped her into the car and drove her home, but he didn’t offer to come up with her, and she knew in her heart that he was as anxious to get away from her as she was from him.
CHAPTER TEN
THE SILENCE IN the apartment seemed to bellow inside her head as terribly as noise. It was everywhere. There was no escape. Thoughts were helpless against it. She had seen something whose meaning was horribly plain, and no arguments could possibly help.
Why had he brought her to Russia? Whatever he felt for her was nothing beside his feelings for the woman in the park. So why should he go to the trouble of bringing her all this way?
The answer came to her in a thunderclap of horror.
He had a use for her. He believed she could bring his mother some happiness, and for that he would play whatever part was necessary, even if it meant assuming a false passion.
She thought of how they had lain in each other’s arms, the way his tenderness had moved her, as desire alone could never do. He’d made her feel that she had his heart, which she’d discovered that she wanted more than anything in the world. It was the greatest happiness she had ever known.
And all the time he was only making use of her.
She nearly screamed aloud in agony. She wanted to cry that it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. The man who had given her such joy, such a feeling of belonging, of having come home to the right place—that man could not have been deceiving her all the time.
She began to shake her head, the movements growing more violent every second.
‘No, no, no!’
She flung herself down on the bed, but stayed there only a moment. This was the bed where they had lain together, and now she couldn’t bear it.
She must get out of here, flee this place before he even returned. She pulled out her suitcase and began to hurl things into it. But after a while she stopped, realising that it couldn’t be done this way. They must have one last talk in which the truth was brought out between them. Then she would go and never see him again.
And never think of him again, she vowed. But she knew that was a hollow thought. He would be with her, in her mind and heart, to the end of her days.
She lay down, staring, blank-eyed, at the ceiling. There was no hope of sleep, but perhaps she could deaden thoughts and feelings, at least for a while.
Yet even that was denied her. Every nerve remained sharply alive. She sensed the moment when he arrived home, heard his footsteps pause, and guessed that he’d seen the packed suitcase she’d left out there. The moment had come. There was no way to avoid it any longer. Slowly she struggled to her feet.
‘What’s this?’ he asked as soon as she appeared. ‘Why are you packing?’
‘I’m leaving. I only stayed to tell you.’
‘But why?’
‘How can you ask me that? Because of Antonia.’
His sharp intake of breath was like a confirmation of all her worst fears.
‘You know nothing about Antonia,’ he said with deathly quiet.
‘I know you’re in love with her. After what I saw today I know all I need to. Yes, I saw you. I followed and saw you together. It was there in your face.’
/> ‘And you think you can read my face?’
‘You were pleading with her, and she was saying no. You’re the last man in the world to plead unless you’re driven by a force greater than you are. She has something that you want with all your heart and soul. Can you deny it?’
He was deathly pale. ‘No, I can’t deny it. But it’s not what you believe.’ He stared at her, his eyes full of bitterness. ‘You imagine you know everything. You think you have the right to judge me and walk out without a word.’
‘It’s better for both of us if I go.’
‘You’re not going to go, because I won’t let you.’
‘Leonid, you can’t stop me.’
He didn’t answer in words, but he went to the door and turned the key in the lock, then stood there, barring her way.
‘You think I can’t stop you?’ he asked quietly.
‘I don’t believe you’d keep me a prisoner against my will.’
But he would. She knew that even as she said it. He would impose his will no matter what he had to do.
‘You’ll stay until you’ve heard me out,’ he said. ‘If, when you know the truth, you still want to leave, I won’t stop you. I thought you were different from other women, more generous, more understanding, more willing to help a man who needed you. But perhaps I was wrong. If that’s how it turns out, we’ll part and never think of each other again.’
The desolation in his voice as he said the last words was like a blow over Perdita’s heart. The anger that had possessed her only a moment earlier began to fall apart.
‘All right,’ she said, struggling with herself. ‘I’ll hear whatever you want me to, but I don’t see…I just can’t feel we still belong together. Don’t forget I saw you with her, I saw the passion in your face. You’re in love with her.’
‘No!’ he said violently. ‘Not now, not ever.’
‘You’re not—in love with her?’
‘No. And I never was. If I had been, it might have been better, but I avoided love and, like the fool I am, I made the mistake of being glad of it.’
‘Avoided love?’
‘Yes. Right from the moment I began to grow up I thought love was dangerous, that a wise man stayed clear of it, because sooner or later it became rejection.’
‘Not always.’
‘No, not always. Some are lucky, but some of us come to accept rejection as normal. And then we keep our distance, because it’s better to hold back than reach out and risk seeing others turning away.’
‘But if you hold back—’ she struggled to find the right words ‘—doesn’t that make it more likely—?’
‘That they will turn away from you? Yes. You’re right. Why do you think I’m still so alone in my life? Because of my own actions.’
He strode away to the window and stood with his back to her, staring out into the night. The sight of that darkness made Perdita’s heart ache. She could sense how it confronted him, surrounded him, stifled him, poisoned whatever might bring him comfort. She longed to reach out to him, but instinct told her that the moment had to be right.
The man she knew was warm, generous, reaching out to the world and herself. Superficially, he seemed to have gone, but deep in her heart she knew better. That man was still there, fighting to survive the disasters that would crush him, waiting for her to come to his rescue.
She went to stand behind him, putting her arms about him and leaning her head against him.
‘You’re wrong about that,’ she said. ‘What’s happened to you isn’t your fault, and I’m going to make you understand that. We’re all helpless against events that happen without warning, but you don’t realise that because you’re so powerful in other ways. It’s a kind of armour but it can’t always work.’
He turned, frowning as he considered her words. ‘Shouldn’t a man be armoured?’
‘Not always. I think perhaps you wear too much armour. Strength that is too great can be a weakness.’
‘And you think I’m like that?’
‘Do you know, before we ever met, someone warned me to steer clear of you because you were scary.’
‘Advice you were too foolish to take,’ he said wryly.
‘I’ve dealt with worse than you.’
‘Why do I find that so easy to believe?’
‘Perhaps because you’re beginning to know me. And I’m beginning to know you. You’re so powerful that you think you can control everything, and that’s sad because it makes you feel to blame for everything. But you’re not.’
‘He told me I was,’ he murmured, seeming to look into the distance at something visible only to him.
‘He? You mean Amos?’
‘No, I mean Dmitri Tsarev, the man I thought of as my father until I was ten. I adored him, and he loved me.’
‘I know. I saw you together in those pictures.’
‘My mother didn’t want to keep the pictures because he was in them, but I made her. Once I caught her trying to cut him out, so that there was only me. I begged her not to, but even so I don’t think she’s ever really understood what he meant to me.’
‘Yes, it was there in his face,’ she remembered. ‘And in yours.’
‘He used to say no man had ever been so proud of his son. And then Amos returned to Russia. Dmitri learned the truth and he turned on us with hate.’
‘He blamed you?’ she asked incredulously. ‘But how could he?’
‘Because he’d given me his heart, and when he found I wasn’t really his son I think he went mad. I pleaded with him to tell me what I’d done, but he screamed at me that I was a bastard, evil and a curse on his house. When I tried to put my arms around him he shoved me away.’
Perdita uttered a violent word, making him stare at her.
‘I hope he rots in hell,’ she said. ‘To take it out on a child, the one person who was completely innocent. Damn him!’
‘He died two years ago. I hadn’t seen him for a long time by then. He’d thrown us out of his house and wiped us from his life. I used to write to him, hoping he’d write back.’
‘Did he ever?’
‘The only time I ever got a response was when he sent my letter back, torn into little pieces. With it was a note saying, “You are not my son”.’
‘Bastard,’ Perdita muttered. ‘I mean him, not you. What happened after that?’
‘Amos gave my mother money, but that was all. He clearly thought money was enough. She tried to make me understand that he was my real father, but everything was at a distance. Anyway, I didn’t care. I wanted Dmitri but he rejected me completely.’
‘He indulged his own feelings at your expense. You were a child. Did he ever think what he was doing to you?’
‘No, because he didn’t care.’
‘But you said he loved you.’
‘Only because he thought I was his son. When he knew I wasn’t I stopped existing as far as he was concerned.’
‘So he assumed you felt nothing because that was convenient to him. And then you decided it was better to feel nothing.’
‘That was when it first occurred to me,’ he agreed.
‘What about Antonia? Weren’t you in love with her?’
‘I was attracted to her, we were together for a while, but for some reason I couldn’t make the final commitment. I felt there was something missing, and a voice inside my head kept whispering, There must be more than this.
‘Things came to a head one evening when she kept pestering me to declare more than I felt. I’m not proud of myself. I behaved badly. It turned into a quarrel, and we parted in anger. The next day I tried to contact her to say I was sorry, but her phone was dead. I went to her house but she wasn’t there. She’d just vanished.
‘A few weeks later I came across her by accident. She was about to marry another man. She was pregnant.’
‘Pregnant? You mean—?’
‘Yes, with my child.’
‘And she hadn’t told you?’
‘No. I asked her why. I s
aid I’d have married her if I’d known. But she said it wasn’t good enough for me to marry her because of the baby. She wanted me to love her, and when she realised that I didn’t, she walked out. She said she’d found a man who did love her.
‘I begged her to call the wedding off, to marry me instead. I couldn’t believe the feelings that shook me at the thought of being a father. I said she had no right to separate me from my child, but she screamed that she wouldn’t settle for second best with a man with no heart.
‘I was at their wedding. I slipped in at the back and watched them, knowing I was losing something that would have given my life a new purpose. And yet I couldn’t blame her. I’d failed her.’
‘You’re doing it again,’ she protested. ‘Taking all the blame on yourself.’
‘Isn’t that where it belongs?’
‘Maybe some of it, but not all. You were clumsy, floundering, but that’s not a crime. And you paid a heavy price for your mistake. Much heavier than most people pay.’
‘Perhaps my mistakes were worse than most people’s.’
‘Don’t say that. You’re not to say that or even think it.’
He managed a wry smile. ‘It seems I’m not the only one who gives orders.’
‘Was that the first time you’d seen Antonia since it happened?’
‘No, I was slightly acquainted with Fyodor, her husband. I’ve managed to put some business his way, and find reasons to drop in on them from time to time.’
‘Does he know that you’re the father?’
‘No, which is ironic really. I’m acting much as Amos did about me, except that I wanted to marry Antonia. I wasn’t in love, but I wanted the family I’d never really had. As it is, I have to watch Oleg being reared by another man.
‘I remember once I met them in the park, her and Oleg. We were chatting pleasantly. Oleg and I were swapping jokes. It was wonderful. Then suddenly Fyodor appeared. Oleg saw him and yelled “Papa!” He ran and threw himself into his arms and they hugged each other, just as father and son should.’
‘That must have been terrible for you.’
‘Yes. I suppose I should have known what was bound to happen. Antonia wants me to stop visiting them completely. She says Oleg is beginning to look like me and Fyodor will start to suspect that he isn’t the father.’