Wicked by Design

by Katy Moran

  25

  Two weeks later, almost at the close of his journey into the forested hinterland east of St Petersburg, Kitto left the final staging-inn before reaching Yarkaya Polyana, the great Orlov estate, and he could only thank Christ that the countess herself would not be present. He would rather face an entire detachment of French partisan soldiers armed only with his toothbrush after so comprehensively disgracing himself at her ball. To his shame, he had twice lost his way, wasting the better part of three days, and God help him if MacArthur and Cathcart ever heard of that. It was now almost dusk, but if he left now he would reach Yarkaya Polyana before the household retired to bed. Mounting up, Kitto called goodbye to the innkeeper leaning in the lamplit doorway of the kormcha, leaving behind the rows of bottled vodka and the ever-present cauldron of cabbage soup, and the dish of blini attracting flies. Arkady’s daughter ran out on to the ridged muddy track to wave goodbye, she of the beautiful eyes and silk-straight black hair of her Kalmyk mother, clutching at the skirts of her long red woollen Russian sarafan. Kitto raised one arm above his head in farewell and spurred the fresh, back-stepping gelding into a hard gallop. Would such a pretty maid have smiled so as she poured sweet medovukha knowing that he’d left Petersburg in disgrace, the shadow of his brother’s rumoured treachery following with every step he took? Verst after verst now stretched out between him and the wide European boulevards of Petersburg, leaving all that was known far behind. After riding day after day alongside those seemingly limitless swathes of pine, spruce, fir and cedar shot through with tracts of undulating grassland, Kitto knew he was truly in Russia once more: one never felt quite the same sense of limitless space and distance anywhere else. The maid had said he was now a mere one or two hours’ ride from Yarkaya Polyana, and he would soon see a constellation of lit windows even from the road, the great place built as it was on the higher ground, so that the old count might overlook the land and the people that he owned.

  Not long before Kitto expected to reach the formal borders of the demesne, when open field, grassland and forest would surely give way to orchard, garden and raked carriage drive, he dismounted, unthinkingly gentling the gelding as he did so, running one hand down the muscled roan neck. Standing on the track, he could not have said exactly what had made him know that he must feel the earth beneath his feet just at that moment, only that something was wrong in this darkening landscape. He waited, letting his gaze travel past the spruce and pine on either side of the rutted, puddle-dotted road. No. It was not anything he had seen, no wrong-shaped clot of shadow just at the furthest limit of his vision that might resolve itself into a crouching French soldier. It was something he could hear: or rather, what he could not hear. The gelding shifted, tossing his great head, back-stepping, and Kitto whispered Cornish endearments into his twitching ear until he came to rest. No, on his right-hand side, there was no birdsong, no song of the lapwing or the bubbling dusk-call of the finch, only silence. In that direction, silence was all he could hear: there were no distant careless voices raised in argument or even song that would have accompanied Countess Orlova’s serfs on some errand through the darkening forest. Even an experienced hunter unwittingly made more noise than French partisan troops when they had a mind for waiting, and for killing. Tucking his foot into the stirrup, he mounted up with a quick, silent spring, bearing off into the trees on the left-hand side of the rutted track. Kitto was now riding in the wrong direction, away from Yarkaya Polyana, but his life and the success of this mission, and therefore his own honour, quite depended placing complete trust in his own instinct, praying to cheat with every step the French soldiers he had been waiting to meet for so long.

  *

  Night had long since fallen, and in the chandeliered drawing-room at Yarkaya Polyana, Lieutenant Ilya Rumyantsev of the Semenovsky Guards would willingly have offered his own grandmother’s soul to be anywhere on earth except sitting on a chaise longue opposite Countess Tatyana Orlova, who had unexpectedly arrived from Petersburg only that morning. Warmed by the flames leaping in the great fireplace, she wore a light muslin gown that clung to every slender curve, and her small, pale breasts rose from a confection of gathered lace. Fair curls were gathered in a careless topknot, encircled by a loosely threaded satin ribbon. Everyone said she was the lover of Prince Volkonsky, and at this time of year, Ilya had expected the mistress of the house to be in town. She smiled and he looked away, tongue-tied. Women couldn’t be trusted not to betray him. But he mustn’t think about that – about Nadezhda Kurakina: all that blood, and all that unearthly screaming. No, the Kurakina girl would never be seen again, Ilya had made sure of that. It would be perfectly all right: no one would ever know what had happened, and what he had done. He must only pay heed instead to the job at hand.

  ‘You’re very wicked, Lieutenant,’ Countess Orlova said in her low, musical voice, ‘refusing my servants’ every invitation to come indoors until tonight.’ The drawing-room was vast, walls of a deep ocean blue hung with more portraits and landscapes in heavy frames. Serried ranks of ceiling-height windows were draped with brocade curtains in a delicate shade of cream that made Ilya acutely aware of his filth: he had been sleeping outside for weeks.

  He cleared his throat. Her close proximity sent his nerves jangling. ‘I’m extremely sorry, ma’am; I dared not risk leaving the horses unattended, even once you returned from Petersburg. As you know, we’ve already fallen foul of French troops once – they got away with quite a number of good mares and yearlings, and killed my superior officers and all our Cossacks.’ He flushed as the countess observed his suppressed agitation with naked appreciation. The truth was, Ilya had done better with the horses alone, and had no need of more arrogant officers heavy-handed with whip and spur; the herd hadn’t scattered once since he’d taken sole charge and had backed the herd-mother, a magnificent wild golden Turkoman mare. The other horses followed him on her back because they wanted to, because they felt safe.

  ‘And you alone escaped, Lieutenant.’ The countess smiled at him. ‘And so what became of Nadezhda Kurakina? I understand that part of your mission was to escort the girl to Petersburg with her maid?’

  Ilya pushed away a memory of hot breath, of snow, and appalling silence. ‘In truth, we never found her. There was no sign of anyone at the Kurakin estate. We had to leave without her.’

  The countess watched him for a little too long, so that beads of sweat traced a greasy slick down Ilya’s back beneath his shirt. ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘How strange, and how concerning. I must say, I wish dear Alexander would simply decide once and for all whether to finally ally himself to Napoleon or the British, and then we can get on with this horrible war if it can’t be averted.’ She yawned, and Ilya could only pray that she would mistake his discomfiture for shock at her casual reference to the tsar. It was said that she’d been brought up at court by his mother, the elegant and intimidating Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, and that the tsar himself was like a brother to her. Ignoring Ilya’s hobbledehoy silence, Countess Orlova went on with smooth assurance.

  ‘I’m so glad you managed to receive your letters – and in good time, I trust?’

  Ilya swallowed a burst of nausea. ‘My letters, madame?’

  She leaned forward a little with a confidential air. ‘The deliveries here can be disastrously useless, but Simyon tells me your correspondence was all taken care of by special courier.’ She smiled. ‘No doubt you’re plagued with important military matters even as you’re forced to linger here! Such a burden for one so young.’

  Ilya briefly closed his eyes. If the contents of those letters were ever revealed, he would not live out the summer, he knew. ‘I wouldn’t dream of boring you with the sort of tedious detail my superiors demand from me, madame. It wouldn’t be interesting to a woman.’

  ‘Oh, I dare say. You don’t much favour the Rumyantsevs, my dear. Who were your mother’s family?’

  He battled a sudden, intense thirst, uncomfortably aware of the horses corralled in the countess’
s pastures with only her serfs to watch over them, sullen and unwilling. As long as the Turkoman mare stayed with them, they would remain. One could trust the horses. Unlike people, they were worthy of affection. ‘My mother was a Vashechkin, Countess – her family came from Kazan.’

  Tatyana nodded, watching him with close appraisal. ‘Kazan? That will be why you don’t have that familiar appearance, then, when one knows the family intimately. I must say I don’t know that branch of the Vashechkins particularly well.’

  Ilya swallowed. ‘I expect so, ma’am.’

  The countess sighed, signalling to a silent, watchful indoor serf to refill his glass of claret. ‘How late Captain Helford is. Kuznetsov rode in from Arkady’s tavern this afternoon and said he was quite sure the dear boy would be here before nightfall. You must be eager to complete your mission, Lieutenant Rumyantsev. Perhaps there might be a promotion for you, Ilya – if I may – should you be a success. I must say, the cavalry commissariat will be glad to see you when you reach Petersburg with the horses. General Dubretskoy was telling me only last week that if Napoleon orders Marshal Davout to raise any kind of pitched battle, we’re unable to mount enough cavalry to meet him in the field. A rather terrifying prospect for those of us who remember Moscow burning in 1812, I can assure you.’

  ‘I’m sure—’ He broke off as the panelled door that led to a small music-room flew open, quite unattended by a servant, the polished walnut bulk of the pianoforte just visible in lamplit gloom beyond. Immediately, Ilya got up and moved to the heavy, carved sideboard where he had left his pistol.

  Countess Orlova got to her feet. ‘What in heaven’s name? Simyon!’

  The indoor serf went pale, moving towards the door, and the intruder had stepped into the room, tall and dark-haired, but no Frenchman: he was clad in a travel-stained scarlet jacket belonging to one of the elite British regiments, surveying the room with an arrogant ease that quite belied the fact he had just gained entry to the house like a base-born thief.

  ‘Captain Helford!’ Countess Orlova cried, getting to her feet. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, coming into my house in such a way? I’m beginning to think you quite lost to civility.’

  ‘Your humble servant, ma’am,’ Captain Helford said quickly, and an extraordinary array of emotions chased one another across his features: shock, followed by high-coloured chagrin, and finally a smile of purest devilry, revealing deep-cut dimples that would have been devastating, Ilya was sure, on a girl. ‘There might be just the smallest difficulty with some French cavalry outside, but please don’t let it trouble you.’

  ‘Just who or what exactly have you brought to Yarkaya Polyana with you, sir?’ Ilya demanded in French, sotto voce, entirely failing to conceal his anger. Could this young fool really have led French troops directly to the house, with all the horses here for the taking?

  ‘Let’s concentrate on the task at hand, no?’ Captain Helford’s own French pronunciation was noticeably English-accented, slightly guttural and husky, with that strange trace of aristocratic French that laced the speech of the English. Making no attempt to explain, Helford gestured at them all to follow him: Ilya, the countess and the serf Simyon. His journey to Yarkaya Polyana from the main road east had, by all appearances, been a mess of quite some magnitude. Staring wildly from one to the other, Countess Orlova edged towards Helford like a frightened rabbit. Last to reach the music-room, Ilya shut the door behind them all, the brass doorknob cool beneath his fingertips, enclosing the countess and the serf with two soldiers in the dark, curtained room, a faint line of moonlight striking off the gilded frame of the countess’s harp.

  Ilya ignored a wave of cold shame. ‘The horses,’ he said quietly. ‘We must reach the horses before the French do.’ He couldn’t fail in his mission, not now. With exposure, everyone would know what he had done. In the dim lamplight, Captain Helford stared at him for one agonising moment. His eyes were a surprising shade of pale grey, his lashes very dark.

  ‘Never mind your fucking horses, Rumyantsev,’ he said, ‘first we must get out of this house alive.’

  26

  Kitto held his pistol with the barrel facing the sky, reassured by the weight of it in his hand. There was a servants’ door in the Orlov music-room camouflaged by the same vine-printed silk that covered the walls. It led into the whitewashed passage he had come in by. Silent, he waved the stoop-shouldered Russian soldier and the countess into the passage, even as the serf turned and fled. Tatyana made no move to call her servant back to safety, as though his life was of no more importance than one of the mastiffs roaming the grounds. Kitto had swiftly mastered the dogs with whispered Cornish nothings and a strip of dried beef from his pack, but those French cavalry officers who had trailed him all the way here would not be so easily appeased. Rumyantsev moved surprisingly fast for such a featherweight; as he ran, he primed a Prussian cavalry pistol that had no back sight with unconscious economy of movement, more competent than first appearances allowed. Behind, the countess sobbed with fear as they sprinted towards a scullery she’d doubtless never set foot in before now. Rumyantsev, though, was silent and paltry in his ill-fitting dark-blue Semenovsky jacket, weak moonlight catching the silver lacing at his shoulders as they passed the copper pans, the small keg of soft-soap, the folded heaps of linen that reminded Kitto of Nansmornow with merciless acuity.

  Turning when they reached the door, Kitto spoke. ‘Wait.’

  The countess broke out in whispered Russian, falling silent as Rumyantsev laid one wiry, quick-fingered hand upon her arm as though settling a panicked child or hound. His face was thin and fine-boned; he emanated a queer, dangerous tension. Swiftly, silently, Kitto slid back the bolt, listening. The yard was quiet, but as soon as he stepped outside a heightened sense of awareness pulsed through him even as his boots hit the cobbles. He breathed in the scent of wet laundry on the line stretching away into the blueish darkness of a Russian night and further away, beyond the yard, wet earth, straw and distant horse-sweat.

  Now Kitto was outside beneath the rising moon there was no illusion: every outhouse or stable-block might conceal the French troops who had followed him. Kitto could now smell grass and damp earth and, making for the fence and wicket gate that opened out into a rolling sweep of long pasture, he took a halting, zigzagging path across the yard, watching and listening every moment for the slimmest oddity of half-heard sound or glimpsed movement that might betray the presence of an ambush: the French would not let them get away so easily, not with so many precious horses.

  Sometimes Kitto moved with slow, agonising precision, or else he was fast, always glancing back to check that Rumyantsev and Countess Orlova were following him, Rumyantsev’s arm unexpectedly cradling her narrow shoulders left naked to the night air by that flimsy muslin gown. Crossing the laundry-yard and reaching the fence, Kitto heard the owl’s call before he saw it making a silent, ghostly pass above the grassland out to the west. He could see the horses now, too, dim shapes in the moonlight. It was a queer thing: when there were many horses all together, he seemed to sense a single mind, a single driving force. Kitto could hear Tatyana’s frightened, panicked breathing, almost sobbing as she picked her way across the cobbles in flimsy satin slippers. It wouldn’t be long before she gave them away entirely. There was no other choice: they would just have to run from the shelter of the fence across the open ground, towards the horses, open to pistol-fire from wherever the French were hiding.

  He paused and turned to Rumyantsev, speaking in a low voice. ‘Will the horses not all panic? They’ll scatter.’

  The Russian shook his head. ‘Let’s pray they don’t.’ He wasn’t much older than Kitto himself, his young, narrow face taut with that suppressed tension, the loaded Prussian-issue pistol held at half-cock. He was bare-headed, dusty close-cropped curls shifting in the breeze that had sprung up, bringing the earth-damp scent of rain: he must have left his cockaded hat in the countess’s drawing-room, which was just as well. ‘Just get us to the horses,
Helford, and I’ll do the rest.’ Rumyantsev glanced at Tatyana as he spoke; she stood silent and still, quite incoherent with terror, and he reached out and took her hand, speaking softly in their own tongue. Please God she wouldn’t freeze just when they really had to run.

  ‘So follow me,’ Kitto said quietly. ‘When I move, move. If I stop, stop.’ Knowing quite well that there was no possible way of being more exposed to the enemy, he placed one foot in front of the other, again and again, crossing the wide open space between the meagre shelter offered by the laundry-yard and the nearest of the horses, waiting for a shot to hiss past him. In a moment or two, he forgot the herd, sensing only their vast, breathing warmth before him, listening to the mingled sounds of chewing and hot breath expelled through whiskered nostrils; his vision grew more acute, it seemed, picking out infinitesimal movements of shifting grass on the horizon. He no longer heard the grass-muffled thudding of hundreds of iron-shod horses pummelling wild pastureland, only dimly aware that the horses themselves had now begun to take flight, cantering around the pasture. Instead, he gathered – piecemeal – sounds from further away: the owl calling again, and the coughing scream of a mating fox. And, then, with Tatyana and Rumyantsev still just paces behind him, Kitto saw a clot of shadow away to his left at the edge of his vision – again, he could not have said anything other than that it didn’t look right, that the density of the shadow was somehow wrong in that landscape. With only his pistol and no rifle, Kitto knew he didn’t have the range to return fire. Instead, he turned and advanced on the enemy, running low to the ground towards the clot of shadow, never stopping, always presenting a moving target. A shot whined so close to his ear that he actually felt the disturbance of air and the darkness resolved itself into two French cavalrymen, using a gentle rise in the land as a firing platform, just yards from the hazel hurdle circling the laundry-yard. They’d got English-issue rifles from somewhere, too – not French Charlesville muskets, which meant they stood half a chance of actually hitting someone.