Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate (28 page)
Read Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate Online
Authors: Dinah Dean
‘So?’
‘I love you very much,’ she said. ‘Yes, please. I should like to marry you.’ She still wondered if she might wake up in a minute, but her pricked finger was quite sore, so perhaps she was awake after all.
‘Try to look a little more joyful, then!’ said Andrei. ‘My poor little mouse! Can’t you believe it? Come over to the sofa, then, and I’ll teach you that it’s true, and something else besides!’
Nadya stood up and moved hesitantly to the sofa as he had suggested, looking uncertainly at him, and he got to his feet and followed her, taking her into his arms and smiling down into her apprehensive blue eyes.
‘What will you teach me?’ she asked.
‘How a man kisses the love of his life!’ he replied. ‘Will you be a willing pupil?’
‘Yes.” He was holding her so tightly that her bruised ribs hurt, so it must be true that this was happening.
‘Then let’s begin.’
After a considerable interval, Nadya had proved not only a willing pupil, but also so quick to learn that Andrei interrupted the lesson to enquire, ‘Now who on earth taught you to kiss like that?’
‘Oh, a Captain in the Life Guard Hussar! she replied airily, the joy inside her bubbling up into laughter.
‘Hmmm. Did he! You’ll have to put a stop to that, you know! We can’t have any scandalous goings-on by the wife of an official in the Imperial Cabinet! An Hussar Captain, indeed!’
‘He’s very handsome,’ Nadya said consideringly.
‘Even worse!’ Andrei shook his head reprovingly. ‘Am I to understand that you’ve been in this fellow’s company
unchaperoned
?’
‘Er—not very often,’ Nadya replied. ‘There’s usually been a very fierce tiger to protect me!’
‘Are you referring to the two-kopeck’s worth of fur and pins?’ Andrei enquired, looking at the kitten, which was fast asleep with its tail over its face. ‘I can see that I shall have to take you in hand, my girl!’ Which he did forthwith, and without any protest from either young lady or chaperone.
Some time later, Tatya opened the double doors of the garden-room and advanced three steps into the room, then stopped, her graceful figure poised on the edge of a fourth step. For a few moments she surveyed her two friends locked in close embrace on the sofa and quite oblivious of her entrance, and a pleased smile lit her lovely, serene face. Then she took four steps backwards and silently closed the doors on the peaceful, candlelit scene.
For a second or two she stood thinking, a fingertip tapping her lower lip, then she glided through the vestibule to the great staircase and ascended, back straight and the fingers of one hand barely touching the baluster rail.
When she reached the second floor, she paused for a moment to look out of the landing window, which was in the centre of the front of the house. Her head drooped and her normally serene expression changed to one of wistful melancholy as she thought of the approaching happiness of her brother and her friends, and how it would leave her own life even more like the street below, beyond the gates—coldly beautiful, lit only by a few lamps, and empty.
Even as she looked, a travelling-sledge glided slowing into view, heading away from the city centre. The snow had stopped falling, but a bitter wind blew into the faces of the four horses, which plodded along, heads down, as if they were already tired with their journey barely begun. As the vehicle passed, she caught a glimpse of the passenger—a white blur of a face at the frosty window, apparently looking up at her.
The sledge passed out of sight, and Tatya wondered vaguely who could be setting out on a journey so late on a winter’s day. She was automatically reciting the prayer for one about to go travelling as she turned away from the window and went on up the stairs to the attic to look for her mother’s lace, wondering if there would be enough for two brides, and quite unaware that she had just caught her first glimpse of the man she would one day marry.
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