Immanuel's Veins (9 page)

“Forgive my friends,” Valerik said. “Simion. Sofia. Please, a little discretion. I realize they are beautiful.” He took a drink of wine and dabbed his lips with the white serviette. “But we are their guests. We're here to honor them.”

What region of Russia encouraged these kinds of social graces I didn't know, but this was no way to conduct oneself in public.

Natasha wasn't put off in the least. “You do honor us,” she said. “I find it perfectly flattering.”

“Then you're flattered by a beast,” Alek said.

“Don't be so jealous, Alek,” she said. “What lonely man wouldn't find the Cantemir twins attractive?”

It was more than I could bear, this toying with words. “Nevertheless, this is too much,” I said, setting my fork down. Lucine removed her hand from mine. I tried not to look into Sofia's eyes. “Please, if you can't show restraint, then perhaps you should leave.”

“Toma!”

I lifted my hand to the lady Kesia. “No, madam. It is my responsibility to see danger.”

“Danger?” Simion interrupted. He laughed softly. “But I see only men and women engaged in fine food and hinting at love. Where is the danger . . . Toma?”

“Second to war, only love kills more men,” I said.

“You mean jealousy, which is a form of hate,” he returned. Then delicately to Lucine, gazing at her intently, he said, “What about you, madam? Do you have any opposition to love? The kind that you can feel like a waterfall over your head?”

“I have a problem with any emotion that shuts down the mind and encourages stupid behavior,” she said calmly.

“Is that what you feel now?”

Natasha looked like she might break apart with delight. “Yes, Sister, what say you to that kind of love?”

“I say it's no love at all.”

“Oh, Lucine, don't be a prude,” Kesia said. “We all long for love. But there are ways to go about it.”

“You're right, my lady,” Valerik said, lifting his white-gloved hand. “And I'm afraid we've overstepped those ways.” He stood. “We came as your guests and have offended you before the boar has been half eaten. We should go. Sofia, Simion, please.”

They made to stand.

“Don't be ridiculous!” Kesia said. “Sit! No one leaves my table without my consent.”

Valerik eased back to his seat. “Then we beg your apology.”

“Oh, stop it.” She took a drink of wine. “And stop doing things that require an apology, for heaven's sake. Let's not waste such a delicious meal and good company. Eat! All of you! Enjoy and talk and be merry.”

We did eat. And we made small talk. The weather in Russia. The progress of the war with the Turks. Moldavian politics. The black plague. But none of it seemed to interest our guests much, particularly not Sofia and Simion, who found it difficult not to stare as they were given to.

My mind quickly returned to Lucine and more directly to the fact that she had reached for my hand. I wanted to lean over and ask her if she was well.

I wanted to whisper in her ear and tell her that I loved her.

I wanted to stand and propose a toast to her beauty.

I wanted to do many foolish things that had no root in logic. The very thought that somewhere out there a man with royalty in his blood might take Lucine's hand in a marriage of convenience or for any reason was infuriating. I tried to imagine who the man might be and thought it must be someone who knew Lucine by reputation or not at all, as these things were often arranged. What Russian royalty lived in these parts?

The table had gone silent again. I looked up and saw that Sofia was gazing at me, and that Simion, wearing a tempting smile, was eyeing Natasha. His tongue slowly traced his lower lip.

“Enough!” Alek blurted. He threw his serviette down and stood. “I won't sit here for this!”

“Should I sew my eyes shut for you?” Simion said.

“Or let me gouge them out!”

“Stop this!” Natasha cried. “Alek, your jealousy is unbecoming. Let him look at me, for goodness' sake. It's harmless and I find it charming.”

“He's undressing you over there! I won't stand by while he rapes you with his eyes.”

“Alek—”

“Stay out of this, Toma!” he snapped.

“You misunderstand,” Simion said. “It's true we love beauty, and the Cantemir women have a reputation for—”

“I don't care. Keep your eyes off this one or you answer to me here and now.”

“Then it's true?”

“No more words!”

“You are afraid. Does a woman love a man who's afraid?”

I expected Vlad van Valerik to settle his man again, but he didn't. He was leaning back in his chair, glass in hand, eyes on Lucine. I had no idea how long he'd been staring, but the look alarmed me once again.

“Afraid of a man like you? Don't you realize that I've killed a hundred men like you?”

“Like Toma killed Stefan? Without a fair fight?”

“Choose your weapon now and let's be done with it!” Alek thundered.

The dining room rang with the challenge. No one moved. Simion looked completely at ease.

Look at me, Toma. I will show you pleasures that you could never know with her
.

Sofia's voice whispered in my head and this time without my looking into her eyes. I was indeed losing my mind.

“That will do, Simion.” Valerik's voice rumbled from the head of the table. “I think we have done things backward here. It isn't right for us to impose our own passions on you in your own home. Forgive me, Lady Cantemir.”

“Nonsense. I should be the one begging your forgiveness. Please, Alek, sit.”

“But now we must leave.” Valerik stood and bowed. “It's been a delightful meal.”

“But—”

“No, madam. We will go.” He glanced at Simion and Sofia, who stood.

Toma . . . beautiful Toma .
. .

I felt my pulse quicken.

Kesia stood, as did we all. “Sir, my apologies. I am mortified.”

“Nonsense. It was perfectly delightful.”

“If there's anything I can do.”

“There is,” he said.

She blinked. “There is?”

“Tomorrow night we shall have a ball. A private affair, but you are welcome. All of you. At sundown.”

“That will be impossible,” I said. And then for Kesia's sake, “But thank you for the invitation.”

“It's a wonderful idea,” Natasha said. “Why not?”

“I am here for your safety, madam,” I said. “I do not consider taking leave of this estate to be wise.”

“But that's . . .”

“Please don't make a scene, Natasha,” Lucine whispered harshly.

Vlad van Valerik took Kesia's hand. Kissed it gently. “I hope you reconsider, my dear. Good evening.”

They left, Vlad first. Simion and Sofia both slowed at the dining room door and twisted their heads for one last stare.

Be careful, my darling .
. .

Then they were gone.

SEVEN

T
he dinner with the Russians haunted Lucine's sleep that night. Not the dinner itself, but the eyes.

More specifically, Vlad van Valerik's eyes, watching her, demanding of her, undressing her.

She'd found the man's gaze so unnerving at one point that she'd reached for Toma's hand. A warm hand that felt strong under her fingers. The same hand, in fact, that hadn't hesitated to draw a weapon and shoot one of the Russians dead only three nights earlier.

Touching Toma had washed away her fears. She had no interest in the master of the Castle Castile or any of his comrades. Though she had to admit, they were alluring—those eyes! Dark with gray circles rimming the black moons at the center. Like a lunar eclipse. It frightened her, and if not for Toma's reassuring hand, she might have left the table.

Lucine spent the night tossing. Images she couldn't later remember ran circles around her sleep. She almost got up in the middle of the night to find Toma because she felt unsafe. But the idea of running to him again, finding him in his room without a shirt, bothered her. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea.

She did like the man. Who wouldn't? But she didn't want to send him mixed signals. He was a stallion. A lion among wolves. Still, he was a warrior who killed men for a living, not a lover who could be a father to her children.

Natasha and Mother both said that he was struck by her, and that might be. Though really, Natasha and Mother saw love in the slightest of movements. It was no wonder the Cantemir women had such a reputation throughout Europe.

So then, all the more reason for caution. She didn't want to encourage Toma or hurt him.

Lucine woke late the next morning. Far too late, well past breakfast, she thought. Natasha had locked her door and didn't respond to any amount of pounding.

She went to fetch Toma, but he was already out, for a ride likely. She hurried to find Alek, still groggy, in his room. When they returned to Natasha's room, they found the door unlocked. The bed had been stripped and her sister was in a bath.

A soapy red bath.

“More blood?”

“Please, Lucine! Stop all the fuss with the blood. I feel positively divine. Would you like to check for cuts? You won't find any.”

The soap hardly covered her nakedness, and she bathed with no shame as Alek watched from the door. “Come, dear, give me a kiss and tell me we had a blissful night. Because I don't recall a moment of it.”

He came in, leaned over the bath, and kissed her. “It's your loss, then.”

“Was it? Blissful, I mean?”

“You'll never know now, will you?”

She flicked bubbles at him and laughed. “Naughty boy.”

Alek winked. “Naughty, naughty girl. Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“Your proposal last night?”

“For marriage?” She gasped and covered her mouth with a soapy hand. “No!”

“Well, no.” He smiled and winked again. “But that doesn't mean we can't show all the world how to love.”

Lucine rolled her eyes and turned to leave. “Please, before I throw up.”

Alek and Natasha spent most of the day planning for and then taking a picnic on the property's north side. As long as she remained with Alek, no other protection was needed. They were a sight, those two, walking about with as much grace as they could manage, but in reality they were two lovebirds, chasing each other with twirls of laughter.

Lucine's heart ached to watch. To be loved and to love like that—why couldn't she abandon herself to love like Natasha? It did not matter that Natasha would likely be dead in ten years as a result of her extravagant passions; that she would likely never be the proper mother of many children; that she was likely bound for hell itself.

Natasha wrung pleasure from every cord, every fiber, every man, every moment, and if she died in ten years from a broken heart, she would be buried with eyes etched with crow's-feet from all her laughter.

But even all that was nonsense, Lucine thought, the temptations of wickedness. Still, she longed to be loved so.

Toma was gone to the nearest real town, Crysk, to meet with the church—that Russian Orthodox bishop Julian Petrov. The Russian army had an arrangement with the church to provide intelligence when needed, and introductions were overdue. Perhaps Toma wanted to know more about the residents at the Castle Castile.

“But the bishop will know nothing of them,” Lucine explained in the kitchen as Alek and Natasha placed fruits and breads into a small satchel. “The Russians are far too secretive.”

Alek's brow arched. “Which Russians? Toma and me? The priests? Or those hyenas in the Castle Castile?”

“The last. They've been here only a short time. No one seems to know much about them.”

Natasha gazed out the window, to the west. “If Father Petrov knew, he'd be up to burn the witches already. He turns a blind eye to Mother's doings only under threat of reappointment.”

Toma returned and joined them for a lovely dinner, just the five of them, with Mother at the head, Alek and Toma on one side, and the twins on the other. They'd laughed at Natasha's jokes about the boar's head, which Kesia had put on salt and set at the far end.

“There he is, the dead pig who seduces the dead.”

Why it was so funny, Lucine wasn't sure, but they could not stop after that.

It felt good to have Toma back. He'd learned nothing at the church, he said. The man he'd met with was a stuffed turkey. This coming from Toma was also hilarious. It was a perfect evening that would have led to a perfect night if Alek hadn't been such a man.

He burst into her room an hour after she'd retired. “Lucine! She's gone! We have to find her!”

Lucine bolted up, fully awake in body but still dead in her mind. “What?”

“Natasha!” He rushed to the side of her bed. “Have you seen her? I've looked everywhere. Her bed is tossed and the doors to her balcony are open.”

“What?” Lucine threw her covers off and ran from the room, up the hall, into Natasha's bedroom.

The sheets were on the floor with the bed cover. And the doors leading out to the balcony were open to the wind, which lifted the billowing curtains.

“She's gone!”

“You weren't here?”

“No. I left her two hours ago.”

“Then how did you discover that she was gone?”

“I couldn't sleep. What does it matter?” He paced, frantic. “Heaven help us, if she's gone up there . . .”

“What?”

He placed his hand on his forehead. “She said it. She said she would go, but she was drunk and we were laughing and I thought she was only toying.”

“Up where?”

“To the Castle Castile. To that cursed ball!”

Lucine was too shocked to reply. By herself? At night?

“We have to tell Toma!”

“No! This isn't his mess. I'll go.”