Wicked by Design

by Katy Moran

  Always, Papa had said nervously, and it wasn’t even true, not by the fairest estimation.

  Shoving birds in a crate at the tsar? Cook had said, once Papa had left the room with the tsar himself. Oh, you’ll be sent to the Solovetsky Monastery! The slaps had rained down on either side of her face: one, two, three, four; and Nadezhda had stood in the kitchen with tears streaming down her stinging cheeks, wondering why the world seemed to have shifted in this queer way.

  And there in the forest, she took Kitto’s warm, dry hands in her own, feeling the strength in his long fingers. ‘My Khristofyor,’ she said, ‘what did your brother tell you?’

  ‘I won’t let him make you go to England just to be used by damned fucking politicians,’ he said. ‘I won’t let him catch up with us. We’ll go wherever you wish, do whatever you wish.’

  ‘We can’t go back to our regiments,’ she said, knowing that this was not the reason he looked so devastated. ‘We could join the Cossacks, or the Circassians – or, I don’t know, anything. I only want to ride with you, forever. But you’re not telling me everything. I know you’re not. Please, I’m not a child. I don’t need to be shielded from the truth, whatever it is he told you.’

  For a moment he only looked at her, as if he couldn’t bear to speak. Finally, he took a long breath, as though he were about to swim beneath the surface of a lake, right down to the bottom. ‘You don’t know them,’ he said, still almost grey with shock beneath the dark growth of stubble. ‘It won’t mean anything to you.’

  She stepped closer. ‘Tell me. Don’t endure this alone.’

  ‘Hester,’ he said at last, ‘Hester and Morwenna. My brother’s wife and his child. They are both dead. They drowned escaping persecution in England. In the country whose army in which I am enlisted, in whose name I’ve killed more men than I can count, Nadezhda. And you may not understand this, but without them Crow is gone as well, because now he’ll only ever be the very worst of himself.’

  She let him turn and walk on ahead then, knowing it was because he couldn’t let anyone witness the shocked and hopeless grief that one only saw when those so dearly loved were mourned. Beyond Kitto’s despair all she could think of was the wider tragedy; of the bustle and clamour of Petersburg, a distant memory from the single visit she had made there as a child, with the calling of the droshky drivers ringing out in every wide boulevard, and all those many hurrying, jostling people riding in gleaming kalashas or selling charred sweet chestnuts, who would surely not escape in time if Napoleon led Marshal Davout’s regiments into an attack on the city. In her mind’s eye, she imagined women and children screaming, running. Even walking, she felt trapped in one place, watching a chain of events that she could do nothing to prevent. By the time Kitto stopped at last, waiting for her in silence, the quality and the angle of sunlight streaming down through the tangle of branches had changed. He turned to look down at her as she came to stand at his side, and she saw that he had wept for a long time.

  ‘Nadia,’ he said, and again the pet form of her name was like a caress, conveying his heartfelt thanks for leaving him alone with his grief, ‘someone’s following us. I’m sure of it.’

  She stopped, became still. Had they endured this state of constant alertness so long that they’d become just like those shambolic old soldiers one saw sitting outside taverns in worn-out uniforms, throwing knives at rats in the corner and twitching every time a door slammed? But in Nadezhda’s heart, she knew that Kitto’s instinct was still true. Wordless, they each reached for the other and stood hand in hand, and she too sensed the presence of another intelligence, close by and observing them. They stood in silence, watching as a pale, shining horse stepped from between the gathered trees, her coat reflecting the light like liquid gold, and now Nadezhda’s eyes filled with sudden and quite uncontrollable tears. Kitto broke into a smile with such a total lack of affectation that for half a moment Nadezhda’s entire awareness encompassed only him, and not the Turkoman mare at all; then came the full force of her relief, and she stepped closer, clicking her tongue as she held out one hand to the mare, seeing only her pale fingers ingrained with mud and filth against the green and russet backdrop of the forest, and the mare watching her.

  ‘Well then, my beauty,’ she said, ‘did you come to find us?’

  The mare backed up, tossing her head a little, and Nadezhda stopped where she stood, glad that Kitto had the sense to do the same. The mare’s narrow ears flattened. She was afraid: it was in her nature to be so, but at the same time she hadn’t fled. She remembered who they were. Standing still, she turned her elegant head to one side – the same rebuke she would have given to a pushy young horse.

  ‘It’s you, is it, my brave soul? You escaped from Chudovo – you didn’t wish a French cavalry officer for your master?’ Nadezhda spoke quietly, still holding out her hand, knowing she must show reassurance, not fear. It was a risk, but she took another step forwards, softly clicking her tongue behind her teeth, and the mare only flicked her tail, her ears still flattened back. Nadezhda dared not breathe. At last, the mare stepped closer, pushing at Nadezhda’s shoulder with her muzzle as though she were a yearling colt that had to be scolded, but was welcomed back into the herd. Letting out a long breath, Nadezhda leaned her forehead on the muscled, golden expanse of the mare’s flank, breathing in her warm horse-scent. Testing the bond between them, she stepped backwards and the mare followed her; she turned away and the mare came closer still, resting her muzzle on Nadezhda’s shoulder once more so that Nadezhda could feel warm horse-breath tickling her ear even as Kitto watched in silence.

  She turned to look up at him, aware of the distance now gulfing between them even though he stood just an arm’s length away. ‘You ride well enough bareback, if my memory serves me, Captain Helford.’

  Kitto looked at her, filthy and tear-streaked, and unbearably handsome with it, and she wished that she had not had to lie to him for so long. ‘I don’t see that we’ve anything to lose.’

  She turned, walking a few paces away from the mare, testing the bond between them once more. Understanding, the mare went to her, her great hooves stirring up the dark, rotten earth of the forest; the odd fresh beech leaf shone from the grime like so many fallen shards of bright green glass, her pale golden tail was tangled with mud and dead leaves, and Nadezhda walked around her, talking still; and let out a long breath as she went to the mare’s head, holding out her hand once more, and all the while the only sound was the soft crunch of her boots sinking into the mess of dry leaf mould. Then, at last, she went to stand at the mare’s side, and stood for a moment with one hand resting on her neck. The Turkoman’s ears pricked up, and Nadezhda twisted handfuls of coarse mane and swung herself high up on to her back. She looked down to see Kitto reaching out with one hand held towards her.

  ‘Well, Lieutenant Kurakin?’ he said, and mounted himself behind Nadezhda, steadying her as he did so, and she felt the restrained strength in his fingertips resting lightly at her waist, higher now, at the waistband of her breeches. It frightened her – in allowing him to extend her even the smallest protection, she was vulnerable. Breathless, Nadezhda grasped handfuls of the mare’s mane, and Kitto released her for a moment even as she turned to look at him. He wore an expression of apologetic chagrin, and his eyes were dark with unspoken desire, and so, she guessed, were her own.

  Nadezhda cleared her throat. ‘You’d better hold on, Captain Helford, unless you want to find yourself face down in the mud.’ She dug her heels into the mare’s flank, and the breath caught in her chest when she felt the warmth and strength of his arms around her waist as he held on behind her, and together they rode, the three of them, Kitto, Nadezhda and the mare.

  51

  In St Petersburg, Hester gathered the salt-stained cloak around her shoulders with one hand and the wide boulevard spread out before her, lined with the spreading expanse of the River Neva on one side and tall, elegant houses on the other, all painted in pale shades of yellow, blue and green. Ab
ove the rooftops, the domes of a Russian church stood bright against a clear blue sky, alien and extraordinary, a riot of gold and bright stripes of wild colour – green, red and turquoise. She had managed to find her way to the British Embassy from the wharf using only French, finally eliciting a reluctant reply from a well-dressed Russian woman in a fur-lined green cloak who had looked her up and down with a combination of open fascination and disgust. What if she was too late and Crow was already dead, lying with his throat cut down some alley? It was entirely possible that she’d got this far only to learn that she was already a widow, and one now separated from her own child by oceans. Thinking about Morwenna and Catlin even for a moment made her stand still, fighting to breathe, her chest squeezing in panic, but surely it could not have been a mistake to leave them? Surely they were safer and less distinguishable without her? She couldn’t think about that now; only of the danger Crow was in. Hester edged her way through the crowd on the embankment, passing bearded Bokhari traders in long caftans, an American sailor arguing with a tall, fair-haired Swedish midshipman about a gambling debt, and haughty white debutantes flanked by older duennas who stared at Hester with open curiosity and hostility. There were more sailors of every nationality, and wrinkled old women in bright headscarves selling baked sugared chestnuts from glowing braziers that spewed woodsmoke: Hester felt adrift among all this humanity after so long alone at sea with only gulls wheeling overhead as she tacked and sailed into the wind, her face raw with spray.

  Reaching the embassy at last, Hester trod wide front steps scrubbed gleaming, cold with apprehension, knowing she was entirely dependent on the goodwill of an ambassador who might even be complicit in her husband’s assassination, if it was true what Dorothea Lieven had said about Lord Castlereagh’s intentions for Crow. The footman standing by the front door held out one liveried arm to bar her way, demanding something of her in Russian. Hester had not survived for so long in Crow’s world that she didn’t immediately understand that he was directing her to the servants’ entrance. Steadying herself, she drew the salt-stiffened cloak around her throat and addressed the footman in her rapid aristocratic French.

  ‘You will have received my husband here in the last month. His name is Lord Lamorna. I must see Lord Cathcart immediately.’

  The footman stared at Hester for a moment with an expression she at first found incomprehensible. It was almost pity, and yet followed by an unmistakable smirk, and she felt a flutter of dread, along with a sickening certainty that the bedrock of her entire existence was shaking and about to crumble.

  ‘Lord Lamorna? Certainly he has been here, madame.’ The footman schooled his features back into an expression of rigid professional emotional detachment, and Hester found herself swept into a tiled foyer, handed over to a silent butler and borne by this man up a wide flight of crimson-carpeted stairs. The scent of beeswax polish and stale air wasn’t quite disguised by the bowls of freesias and peonies set out on a marble-topped table in the middle of the hall. The hum of many voices rose up as they drew closer to a large pair of double doors at the end of the hallway, and Hester turned to protest to the Cathcarts’ butler that of course she would wait to see Lord Cathcart if his wife was receiving visitors; it was one thing to demand an immediate audience with the ambassador concerning the official business of finding her husband, but she could not be expected to intrude on a private party.

  ‘Wait—’ she began, on the verge of requesting him to escort her to Lord Cathcart’s quarters, but with a malicious smile the butler had already flung open the double doors into a loud drawing-room crammed with women in long gloves and muslin gowns and men in close-fitting jackets of superfine, boots gleaming with polish. Before Hester even had the chance to protest, the butler had announced her by title, flinging her name like a stone into the sudden, spreading silence even as she stood there in her salt-stained, filthy dress and her torn cloak – the same clothes she had worn to supper at Nansmornow, all that time ago.

  A hush now blanketed the entire drawing-room, and she found herself an object of undisguised curiosity, stared at in complete silence which was eventually broken by a ripple of quickly stifled laughter from a group of young girls gathered at a harp in the corner. Hester was so tired, and the muscles in her arms still screamed with the effort of rowing when there had been no wind, and her face was stiff and raw with salt water. All she wanted to do was to know that Crow was still alive, that she was not too late, and here were all these people, watching her and smirking, as though they were all thoroughly enjoying a joke she wasn’t party to. She wished they would all just go away, and her eyes blurred momentarily with horror-struck tears as the room moved into sharper focus. Her gaze was drawn to a woman standing nearby, somewhat apart from the crowd, as though no one would quite go near her. Slim and fairy-like, this other outcast wore her fair ringlets piled into an elegant arrangement à la grecque, and a gown of palest green silk. She looked so much the very height of fashion that Hester, in the midst of her own disaster, couldn’t help wondering why the poor woman was apparently being shunned by everyone else in the room. She turned to Hester with a courteous smile, as though they had just been introduced, even though they had not; surely she was not about speak, Hester thought, because to do so before an introduction, stared at by all these people, was such a very disarming and strange thing to do.

  ‘Lady Lamorna? But how extraordinary to see you here in Petersburg.’

  Hester had nothing to say; everyone was watching them standing together with expressions of horror, of amusement, of mortification, and she found herself casting around the vast room, longing to see the tall, louche figure of her husband. ‘I don’t think, ma’am, that I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?’ she managed at last, in a low voice, for perhaps the customs were different here in Russia: if this fashionable woman could address her without being introduced, maybe it was not such a terrible faux pas in Petersburg as it was at home.

  The fair-haired woman smiled; she was so sylph-like that even though she was surely nearing forty, she had retained all the enviable grace of a young girl in the glory of her first season. ‘Oh! Of course. How stupid of me. I am Countess Orlova. But this is almost too unbelievable, to see you here.’ Even as Countess Orlova spoke, Hester realised with a surge of horrified pity that she was drunk, her eyes bright, her speech slightly slurred, just like a gentleman who had taken too much claret at supper, or one of those unfortunate pauper women who drank gin when they could get nothing to eat. Countess Orlova smiled again, her pretty features queerly lopsided, just as another woman swept through the staring crowd towards them. Beneath her elaborate faded-blond coiffure her face was a mask of amiability, yet the look in her eyes was cold and aggressive – she could be none other than the hostess of this salon, Lady Cathcart herself, surely.

  ‘Thank you, Tatyana, dear,’ Lady Cathcart said, and turned her back on the woman, such a savage cut that Hester almost gasped aloud as she became aware of a small, wiry, dark-skinned man approaching, edging with expert grace through the crowd. With a shock of light curls just like her own, and blue-grey eyes, he was clearly of African ancestry, but no one seemed to stare at him as they did at Hester herself.

  ‘Tatyana?’ he said to Countess Orlova, with a quick smile and a bow to Hester. ‘Perhaps it’s best you come away, my diamond.’

  ‘Oh no, Alexei, darling, I wouldn’t miss this for all the world – it’s just perfection.’ Countess Orlova turned to Hester again. ‘So new to Petersburg, Lady Lamorna, I trust you haven’t met Alexander Pushkin – our most promising young poet, I can assure you. And so well beloved of all our women, who long to witness a display of one of his famous African rages. Do you have those, too, darling?’

  ‘I think you’ve said enough, my angel,’ Pushkin said, and in that moment his gaze held Hester’s in a moment of shared and weary understanding, even as he steered the poor woman away.

  Lady Cathcart reluctantly held out one hand, so obviously unwilling that Hester had to fight
off a wave of furious nausea. ‘My dear Lady Lamorna.’ Lady Cathcart turned to the bald, imposing man who approached with an expression of well-practised calm, as though he were poised to begin negotiations at the Congress of Vienna, and to him she spoke in English, with false lightness of tone. ‘My lord, Lady Lamorna has been so good as to visit us. Dear, this is such a surprise – we all thought you had sailed on the Curlew.’ Abruptly switching to French, she went on to address her husband, ‘And, my love, what we must tell her about Jack’s indiscretions with Tatyana, or the drownings? Does she even know that the ship went down weeks ago? How very like Lamorna to leave one with such an appalling mess on one’s hands.’

  Morwenna. Catlin. The room spun about Hester in a whirl of light, of gilding and bright colour, and she saw Catlin passing her a handful of shells on the town beach on Bryher twenty years ago, long red hair whipping around her face as she smiled into the easterly wind, and she saw Crow holding their linen-wrapped newborn daughter in the Azores sunlight, tears streaming down his face. My God, I’m sorry, he had said, in half-laughing, rueful amazement at his own tears. Hester found that her legs would not support her, and the young poet Alexei Pushkin stepped forwards again, steadying her, cupping her elbow in one hand, murmuring something soothing but indistinguishable. An indiscretion? Crow had been having an affair with that fair-haired Countess Tatyana Orlova, who now stood but a few paces away with that strained, desperate look on her face, her eyes too bright?

  ‘My child—’ Hester said; unable to breathe, her sight darkened. She had left Morwenna behind. She had walked away from her own child on the quay at Hugh-town, leaving her with Catlin, condemning them both to death, to drown. ‘Where is my child?’

  ‘Find her somewhere to sit down – somewhere quiet,’ Pushkin was saying, and Hester heard him toss an angry remark over his shoulder at Lady Cathcart, who stood still, both hands pressed to her mouth: ‘Good God, whatever made you suppose she could not understand French?’