The Jewel of St Petersburg (29 page)

“It’s Liev Popkov,” Valentina laughed.

When it ended with an outburst of laughter and applause, the Cossack bowed politely and departed, the falling snow filling his footprints.

They looked at each other, smiling. Jens could not remember a moment when the rest of the world had seemed so far away. Valentina’s cheeks were flushed and she was laughing, when abruptly the door burst open and Elizaveta Ivanova entered the room.

“Ah,” she said stiffly as her gaze settled on Jens. “I had no idea you were here.”

“Good morning.” He rose to his feet and bowed.

“Jens came to inquire after Valentina’s health,” Katya said quickly.

“I am happy to find her so well,” he smiled. “She has been well cared for.”

Elizaveta Ivanova noted the color in her daughter’s cheeks. “You have a visitor,” she announced.

“Tell whoever it is that I am busy, please, Mama.”

“I will do no such thing. It is Captain Chernov. He is waiting for you in the drawing room.”

Valentina stiffened.

For a second Jens expected her to refuse her mother’s request. She had promised him,
I will have nothing to do with Captain Chernov.
But he saw the fractional moment in her dark eyes when she made the decision to break her promise.

“What an unexpected pleasure,” she said coolly, and walked out of the room. “Thank you for the pineapple.” Five words trailing softly behind her.

Eighteen

D
ARK PARALLEL HARMONIES.

In music. In life. Valentina could sense them. In her fingertips. In the secret cavities of her heart. Vibrating sounds that belong together yet fight each other, pushing apart. She sat upright on the edge of her chair in the drawing room, and her cheeks ached with the effort of smiling.
Yes, Captain. No, Captain. How interesting, Captain. How astonishing. How clever you are.

How unforgivable is your intrusion into my life.

Caught like a hook in her mind was the look on Jens’s face when her mother came into the music room with the name of Captain Chernov on her lips. No harmony there, parallel or otherwise. Just darkness. His broad shoulders pulled back, dragging him away from her as though the sight of her jarred on him, jangled his nerves. A clash of chords. She folded a crease into her skirt, crushing the material beneath her fingers.

“Are you feeling unwell?”

The expression of concern on Captain Chernov’s handsome face did little to dull the edges of her thoughts.

“No, I am much better,
spasibo.”

“I am extremely pleased to hear it. I was disturbed when—”

“I am recovered now.”

“Good.”

He was running out of words. Maybe his head could only hold so many at a time, filled as it was with sabers and rifles and military rules. His uniform was stiff and shiny, a bright scarlet and glittering with braid and brasswork, his boots polished till they shone like mirrors. His white gloves lay like a spare pair of hands on the seat beside him and he kept touching them, twitching them, as if he could provoke them into life. He was nervous of her. His mouth under its blond mustache was hidden and gave no clues.

Small silences. Brittle breaks in the conversation. She could almost snap them with her fingers.

“Captain, tell me this. If there is something you want, really want, how do you set about getting it for yourself?”

“That’s easy. I just put my mind to it and go for it the way I would ride a saber charge. No distractions. Single-minded. Go for the kill.”

“I can imagine that.”

He twitched at a glove. “I didn’t mean ...”

She smiled. “I understand what you mean.”

He flushed and looked like a schoolboy instead of a twenty-three-year-old officer in Tsar Nicholas’s great Russian army.

“And women. Should they do the same?”

He slapped his thigh with a laugh. “No, if a woman really wants something, she should ask a man.”

Valentina lowered her eyes and stared at her hands.

“Is there something,” Chernov asked with an eager voice, “that you would like me to do for you? I’d be honored to.”

“No.” She made herself look at him. “Several weeks ago I saw the factory strikers marching up Morskaya.”

“Troublemakers, the lot of them. We’ve received new orders for a harsher response. We’ll ride them down next time they try it. Don’t let them upset you; they’re just ignorant peasants.”

She waited for him to finish. “Among the marchers were quite a number of women.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Women who were single-minded. No distractions. Going for the kill to get what they want.” She spoke mildly and eased herself back into her chair, interested in him at last.

“They do what their men tell them to do. Don’t you concern yourself with them. They won’t be bothering you anymore. We cannot allow anarchy to threaten the stability of our nation. How much more are these strikers going to demand? They’ve been granted their own Duma, and that should be enough for them. But instead it turns out, as my father prophesied, that the more you give these people, the more they want.”

“Thank you for explaining that to me, Captain. So when you ride them down next time they march, will you take your saber and rifle to the women as well?”

His face suddenly grew somber. “I don’t think this is a suitable discussion for me to be having with you. A young lady should not have to listen to talk of such things.” His fingers stopped fiddling. “A young lady should have other pleasanter occupations on her mind. I came today to invite you to supper.”

“Captain,” she said demurely. “I am honored.”

H
E’S NOT HERE.”

“I thought he’d wait.”

“Why would you think that?” Katya asked.

“Because”—Valentina looked around the music room as though Jens might be hiding under a chair—“because I wanted to explain.”

“You should have thought of that before.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He gave me this letter for you.”

Valentina tore it open, read the few lines.

“Good news?” Katya asked.

“Yes. It’s from a doctor friend of his.”

“So he said.”

“I thought it would be from Jens himself.”

She walked over to the chair he had used and sat on it. She closed her eyes.

T
ODAY VALENTINA WAS DETERMINED TO PLEASE HER feather. She sat in front of his desk, which was drowning in a tidal wave of papers and files, and wondered how on earth he could possibly keep track of it all. To one side lay a large envelope with Tsar Nicholas’s gold crest embossed on it.

“You asked to speak to me?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Be quick, please, I’m busy.” He was always busy.

She started cautiously. “Is there anything I can do to help, Papa? I know you have your assistants and secretaries at the ministry, but maybe here at home I can help with this.” She waved her hand toward the paperwork.

He had been scanning a sheet of figures in his hand, but now his focus shifted to her. His fingers pulled absently at the collar of his frock coat, and she felt the familiar tug of affection when she noticed yet again that his nails were like Katya’s, round and pale.

“Spasibo.
Thank you for the thought, but no. So what is it you want to discuss?”

“I thought you might like to know that Captain Chernov has invited me to supper.”

His dark eyes widened with pleasure, and he gave her a broad smile.
“Otlichno!
Excellent!” He let the paper float down to the desk and pressed his hands together in a gesture of prayer. “Thank God,” he muttered, then suddenly grew tense and leaned forward. “You accepted, I hope?”

“I did.”

“Well done. He is an important young man and his father is a powerful influence at court, so don’t make a mess of this, Valentina. I need you to handle it carefully.”

She smiled sweetly and shook her head to set her hair dancing.
Use your weapons,
Davidov had told her. Her reward was to see the crease between her father’s eyes relax, and she knew she had made him happy, if only for a brief moment.

“I won’t disturb you any longer, Papa.” She rose to her feet and started to walk to the door, but halfway there she stopped and looked over her shoulder as though she had just recalled something. “One other thing, Papa.”

He had picked up his pen, his large head already bent over another sheet of paper. “What is it?”

“I am applying for nurse training at St. Isabella’s Hospital.”

The words were out.

“No!” His fist slammed down on the desk so that papers slid from their piles and his pen clattered to the floor. “You will do no such thing.”

“Papa, listen to me. Please.
Pozhalusta.
I want to do this because—”

“Valentina, I’ve already told you, I need you to forget this foolish idea.” There were beads of sweat on his brow.

“I thought,” she said mildly, “that we might come to an arrangement.”

“What kind of arrangement?”

Tread carefully.

“I need your signature on a form because I am under twenty. Please, Papa, sign it for me. In exchange I will dance with your charming and
important
Captain Chernov. I will smile and laugh for him and flutter my eyelashes along with my fan like an empty-headed ninny. I will do exactly what you want.” In the pause that followed she presented her father with a soft compliant smile. “If you sign.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Papa, imagine it. By day I will be quiet and unseen, an unknown nurse in an unknown hospital. But by night I will become the darling of Petersburg society for you, with all the champagne and caviar and dancing you could desire.” She swayed her hips as though swept up in a waltz. “Your name, Minister General Nicholai Ivanov, will be spoken at court, your position envied. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what I want for you, too.” She smiled at him. “It would suit us both. Agreed, Papa?”

He extracted a large white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his face. There was a pause. “Agreed.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

She left before he could change his mind. As soon as she reached her bedroom, she removed the key from her pocket and unlocked the drawer. Lifting out the sheet of ivory paper, she read it through carefully before placing a line through the last point:
Number 11.
The arrangement with Papa was made.

She knew her father would not like her for it, any more than she liked herself for it, but it was the only way she would be allowed to set foot in a hospital. Slowly she unfastened the pearl buttons on her sleeve, peeling back the material to look at her pale skin and to imagine Jens’s fingers on it.

Please, Jens, please understand that I have to see Chernov.

She tried a smile for him, but it faltered on her lips.
I want this job as a nurse. I need it. Please, don’t take it from me, Jens.

D
ID YOU EVER POLISH SHOES LIKE THAT?”

Arkin was surprised by the question. He was driving Elizaveta Ivanova alongside St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and its glorious golden dome immediately brought to mind Father Morozov. Such a bright well-read man, yet condemned to live in a damp shack and to wear homemade boots with holes in them.