Ivanov looked surprised. “But didn’t Pavel tell you? My dear Damien, there seems to be a most grievous misunderstanding. I never agreed to pay you for the chance to appear at court. Why, it is as much my risk as yours. My patronage alone should be considered a sufficient honor by itself.”
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Damien growled, imitating an outraged Romany as he shot to his feet. “You must present us at court within a week, or I will take April and leave.”
“You dare dictate to me?” The count’s angry gaze pierced him. “I do not usually make a habit of entertaining gypsies in my home, and do not intend to start now.”
“Then why did you agree to sponsor us?” Damien demanded, his heart sinking as he already suspected the reply.
Ivanov looked at him directly. “April.”
“My wife,
gajo
? What has she to do with anything?”
“Everything, I’m afraid. For, you see, she is the only reason I agreed to this.”
“What are you saying?” Damien’s insides contracted sharply as he understood the count’s implication. His fists unconsciously clenched in mute anger.
“I am saying that if you wish to be presented at court, you must agree to leave April here with me. The genteel life will suit her, and I find that she suits me. It could not be clearer, I think. I plan to handsomely compensate you for her loss, of course —”
Damien laughed incredulously. “As you would buy an old nag, Ivanov? Are you mad? I’ve seen no sign of her wanting this sort of life.”
Ivanov chuckled. “Be reasonable, young man. How can you expect any woman to prefer a life camped out under canvas to a fine estate like this? To a girl of gypsy extraction, who would never amount to anything without a kind benefactor, this chance is a dream come true.”
“Or a nightmare.”
Ivanov smiled thinly. “You cannot provoke me, Damien. Stronger men than you have tried.” He drew a thin brown cigar from his jacket, lit it, and blew a stream of smoke at the ornate ceiling. He gazed at the spot where Katya’s portrait had hung for years and admired the elegant seascape which had replaced it.
“I do not expect a gypsy to understand,” he continued in a patronizing tone, “but in court circles, a man is much admired for the company he keeps. And I believe that I am capable of passing April off as gentry here. Think of it this way, Damien; you will be relieved of the burden and responsibility of caring for her, and she will be secured a better life. Both of you will win. You have nothing to lose.”
“Except my wife,” Damien pointed out. Unfortunately, the count’s proposal made perfect sense. It would ease his own worries about how to leave April behind once his mission was complete, and it would elevate her to a life beyond her wildest dreams.
“You may have a few days to think,” Ivanov said, reaching for a velvet pouch which rested on the table beside him. “Here, take this as a small token of my appreciation. I ask only that you leave for a time, in order for me to prepare April for the parting. I think it would be better coming from me.”
So Ivanov could tell April that her husband had abandoned her? Damien knew that was exactly what the Russian count intended, and yet he said nothing. He never despised himself more than when he snatched up the money pouch and left the study, hearing Ivanov’s satisfied chuckle trailing him down the hall.
“D
AMIEN HAS LEFT?”
E
XCLAIMING
in disbelief, April rushed to the window of her room and stared after the sleigh whipping down the lane, churning up clouds of snow. “But where is he going? I don’t understand.”
In the doorway of the Gold Room, Pavel stood beside his employer and shrugged. “He asked to borrow a sleigh, and seeing how your horses were still here, I didn’t see any harm in it.”
Stricken, April looked back at Count Ivanov. Her green eyes begged him to take action.
Ivanov said, “Send someone after him, Pavel. Don’t let him rush off without an explanation like that. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason for Damien’s behavior, but he shouldn’t have left his wife like this.”
With regret, Ivanov saw that April loved her husband well and deeply. She was frantic over Damien’s disappearance, and he saw that it would not be as easy as he’d hoped to tear them apart. But bit by bit, he was sure he could chip away at the trust and devotion until she would at last relinquish herself to his care.
“Don’t worry, my dear. Damien will soon return.”
April nodded, appreciating the count’s understanding. But her voice trembled as she said, “This isn’t like him at all. He has no family but me. He must come back.” She willed it to be so, her hands white on the windowpane where her fingernails sunk into the wooden frame.
“Of course he will,” he soothed her. “But come away from there, April. You don’t want to catch a chill. The winters are brutal here and you are not used to them, being from the sunny south as you are.”
She turned, surprised. “Who told you?”
“Pavel, of course.” He nodded toward the little dwarf, who promptly bowed and took his leave. Ivanov explained, “He told me he saw you dancing in the square, and he was charmed by your grace and beauty.”
Pavel charmed? It sounded unlikely, and April frowned thoughtfully, but as if he knew he had used the wrong word, Ivanov hurried to distract her again.
“I think you need to get out into the fresh air. Though it is cold, it is still appropriate to go out and see the sights. Would you like to do that?”
She hesitated only a moment. Maybe if they went out, she would find Damien sooner. She accepted and let the count advise her on proper attire before they met downstairs again in the hall.
Taking his advice, April selected a heavy gown of plum velvet with full bishop sleeves, which when worn over horsehair petticoats, proved to be very warm. A black mink cape, complete with matching muff and circular hat, was procured at the door for her. She let the count help her into the outerwear as she was still too upset by Damien’s departure to protest.
A sleigh was already waiting in the lane. Carefully guiding her on his arm, Count Ivanov, who was also bundled in dark fur, assisted April into the conveyance. She settled with a shiver and looked closer about the estate in the full morning light.
Set against the gentle swell of snow-flocked hills overlooking Moscow proper, Samarin House’s medieval architecture of high stone towers reached for the ice-blue sky. On either end, slim turrets offered an unprecedented view of the land, and in the center April recognized the tiny single square window peculiar to the Gold Room.
“Do you like the manor?” Ivanov inquired as he wedged in closer beside her, and tossed a fox fur wrap over their legs. “It has been in my family since the reign of Ivan III, over four centuries.”
“It is very grand,” April said, avoiding a direct reply to his query, for although she found the estate impressive, she did not find it beautiful in the least. Rather it seemed an appropriately frigid tribute to this northern city. For some reason, she also felt a cold tingle on her neck seeing the dark windows above them like staring eyes.
“Is most of your family gone?” she asked as the driver closed the door, stepped up in his seat, and made ready to go. They were only waiting on the groom now, who was checking to see that the harness on the set of matched grays was secure.
Ivanov kept his gaze straight ahead. “Yes. I am the sole survivor of many years and wars. I had one cousin, but he too was lost in this latest foolishness in the Crimea.”
“I’m sorry.” April offered her sympathy, and he felt his hard heart soften under her spell. Yes, she was Ekaterina’s twin, and just as beguiling. She could have him eating from her hand.
Ivanov flicked open the window, whistled sharply to the driver, and they were off. The jingle of the harness and the sound of the runners hissing across the snow was a new experience for April, but she quickly warmed to its pleasures. The bitter wind from the open window stung her eyes and cheeks, but she felt immediate exhilaration in escaping the house. They moved swiftly, crossing only occasionally the recent tracks left by Damien’s sleigh.
As she tried to follow the vanishing marks with her eyes, Ivanov cautioned her, “Don’t stare so at the snow. You can go blind when the sun is so bright. There are many things you need to learn about living in the north.”
“We are not staying long,” April said. However, she did as he asked and kept her gaze roving. Within a few miles they were sliding down a boulevard, alongside other briskly moving sleighs. She sat up and looked around with interest.
All of Moscow was designed in a grid of concentric circles, Ivanov explained, and in the center of these rose the Great Kremlin Palace, just completed in 1849. There were also lesser palaces, the Granovitaya and the Terem, either of which she and Damien might be privileged to entertain in, he added.
April strained for a glimpse, but was cut off by other buildings along the Kutuzov Prospect, where they now slowed to a more sedate pace in the sudden glut of traffic.
The inhospitable winter did not slow down business, she saw. There were street vendors and hawkers aplenty, and laundry strung out between buildings, frozen to a crisp. While Ivanov averted his eyes from the common peasants and beggars strung along their route, April stared curiously, searching for a familiar face or a sign that might betray one as Rom.
But foremost she looked for Damien. She soon recognized the area they had entered near the stables where they had stayed before, and tensed with expectation.
Just as April was about to ask the count to stop, he signaled the driver and they whirled abruptly right, cutting the corner before the stable. She sighed with disappointment and looked over her shoulder, but there was nothing to be seen but a few peasants and children playing ice ball in the street.
Ivanov had been talking all the while of the history of Moscow, pointing out various landmarks as they passed, but April did not come around to listening until she could wrench her thoughts from Damien.
“We call it the city on five seas,” Ivanov said proudly, and ticked them off on his gloved fingers. “The White, the Black, the Baltic, the Caspian and the Sea of Azov are all accessible by means of canals leading to Moscow. You see why the French and English fools do not stand a chance in the war. We can easily ship supplies to our men overnight. In the end it will be their downfall.”
“You sound certain of that,” April said. The topic of war mildly interested her, but men were always so obsessed by it. She was intrigued by the sudden appearance of a mighty tower to the west, peeping above the mighty walls of the Kremlin area.
Ivanov followed her gaze and supplied, “Ah, the Tower of Ivan the Great. You have excellent taste. He is one of my direct ancestors.”
“What of Ivan the Terrible?”
The count’s smile dimmed. “Unfortunately for me, that one is also an ancestor. He was the grandson of Ivan the Great, and remembered now only for his atrocities not his reforms. But both men were shrewd rulers and we owe much to them.”
April was silent a moment, digesting the information. She knew little of history, only what Tzigane had told her in bits and pieces gleaned from bedtime stories, and she felt frustrated by her lack of conversational ability. Suddenly she asked, “Would you teach me about Moscow sometime?”
The count looked down at her with obvious tenderness and pleasure, and said, “I would be honored. It will be an enjoyable way to pass the winter hours.”
“But we are not staying long,” April reminded him again, a little more forcefully this time, wondering why as she spoke she had the distinct feeling that he was not really listening to her.
D
AMIEN WAS SITTING AT
a crude wooden plank table, nursing a hot hard cider, when he picked up on the idle conversation between two peasant men at the nearest tavern window.
“There goes Ivanov and his latest whore,” one of them remarked, and gave a clumsy salute with his slopping mug. The other patrons of the tavern guffawed loudly and stared after the passing couple. Damien rose abruptly but caught only a glimpse of the red sleigh and its occupants, one, a woman buried in black fur, her features indistinguishable.
His gut contracted with fury. It had better not be April, he thought, and took a full swig of the potent brew to calm his nerves. Surely she would not be so foolish as to agree already to appear with Ivanov in public and start wild rumors. Or would she?
As he paid for his drink and left the pub, Damien was bitterly conscious of the cold and his own feelings. He went immediately to one of the street stalls, using some of Ivanov’s money to purchase a fur coat before striking out again. He still had a mission, one which was going to waste with every hour that passed.
After an hour of scouting and eavesdropping shamelessly on local conversation, he decided he had enough information to risk another message to Lord Raglan. By now the field marshal would be wondering what had happened to his inside man. Raglan must be warned of the impending attacks to the allied supply lines, for the Russians still held the only paved road, and they knew it was crucial to cut off their enemies before spring.
Blowing on his reddened hands as he walked along, Damien concentrated on the future. Everything was coming rapidly to a head. Soon he would be inside the Kremlin itself, given Ivanov’s promises, and maybe he could make a difference for his two countries.
He must not think of anything except that now. But there was still something that made Damien tense when he remembered the words he had overheard in the tavern. “
Ivanov and his latest whore
…”
The last thing he needed now was a scandal about a gypsy dancer angling for the wealthy count. It would draw dangerous attention to April, and by association, to Damien as well. But if Moscow was anything like London, to be seen with a man in public was to be as good as sleeping with him.
He hoped April had not been the woman in the sleigh beside Ivanov. For if worse came to worse, and Damien was forced to choose between his mission and his wife, he already knew the choice he must make.