Love and Triumph: The Coltrane Saga, Book 8 (24 page)

On November 6, the Bolsheviks had struck.

The cruiser
Aurora
,
flying their red flag, had put down anchor in the River Neva opposite the Winter Palace. Armed Bolshevik squads quickly and methodically took over all public buildings, telephone exchanges, bridges, banks, and railway stations.

Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government, had left the following day by car, accompanied by another car, which flew the American flag. They had moved without incident through streets packed with Bolshevik soldiers, heading south to attempt to get help from the army. But at nine o’clock that night, the
Aurora
had fired a single blank shell, and the women’s battalion within Malachite Hall of the Winter Palace, which had been protecting the remaining ministers of the Provisional Government, surrendered.

Two hours later, shells whistled across the river, hitting the palace and doing slight damage to plaster.

At exactly 2:10 a.m. on the morning of November 8, the ministers surrendered.

“It was almost without incident,” Vladimir told Marilee pensively. “From what our people have related to us, nothing really changed. Restaurants and cinemas and stores on the Nevsky Prospekt stayed open and streetcars continued to run in most of the city. There was even a performance of the ballet at the Mariinsky Theater.” He shook his head incredulously.

“So the danger is not to the Russian people as a whole,” Marilee mused aloud bitterly, “only to those who support the Czar, like you and your followers…and
my
father,” she added grimly.

“True.” He went on to describe how even before the Bolshevik revolution, there were those who were secretly planning to liberate the Imperial family. Both in Moscow and Petrograd, there were strong monarchist organizations with substantial funds that were anxious to attempt a rescue. “But the problem is planning, not money,” he hastened to explain. “The Czar himself is an obstacle, because whenever escape is mentioned to him, he refuses to allow the family to be separated. This, of course, presents a problem. It won’t be easy to successfully free, at one time, a number of women and a sick and handicapped boy. It would require many loyal soldiers, much food, and many horses and carriages.”

Marilee could well understand their predicament. “Then the Whites are in constant contact with the Czar?”

“At first, yes,” he replied. “Right after the Imperial family arrived in Tobolsk, agents were sent to Siberia. Former officers using assumed names got off the train in Tyumen and boarded the river steamers for Tobolsk. Then they mingled with merchants and shopkeepers and asked questions. Servants passed freely in and out of the governor’s house, where the family was being held, with letters and gifts and messages. Then the guards put a stop to it. Contact now is difficult.

“Another problem with rescue,” he added, “is that there are too many groups that are jealous of each other. We’re trying to formulate one solid counterrevolutionary faction.”

“What happens to the Czar and his family if they aren’t rescued now that the Bolsheviks have seized power?”

Vladimir spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Who can say? The truth is, Lenin and the Bolsheviks might be in control, but their position is precarious as long as they don’t have peace. We think they’ll use the Czar as a bargaining tool. How, we can’t be sure. All we are sure of is that we’ve got to free him and his family before it’s too late.”

Marilee could agree with that. She knew it was important, for Nicholas was in a precarious situation.

But so was her father.

And while Vladimir and his group of Whites might be intent on rescuing the Czar and the Imperial family, she had plans of her own—to find her father and help him escape from the Bolsheviks.

How to go about doing that, she was not sure, for it would require much more knowledge of the situation. Once they reached their destination, she would endeavor to learn everything she could about the circumstances of his capture. She also wanted to find Irina.

But for the time being, Marilee could only take solace in the fact that she was now free.

The fact that her heart was still held captive by Cord Brandt was something she would not allow her tortured mind to dwell upon.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Spain

February 1918

Colt Coltrane sat on the sofa before the crackling fire, staring into the flames as he sipped absently from the snifter of brandy he held.

Beside him, Jade reread the letter from the embassy in Zurich, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t believe it.” She shook her head. “It’s a nightmare. It has to be.”

“We’ve known she was missing for over three months. At least now we know the reason,” Colt said.

Jade handed the letter over to Kit and cried, “If only I hadn’t run away like I did, in the middle of the night. I deserted her. I left her in the hands of those…those fanatics!” She burst into tears once more.

Kurt moved to give his mother-in-law a sympathetic hug. “You have no way of knowing all that, Jade. You’ve nothing to feel guilty about. Hell, we all thought Rudolf was in love with her. How were you to know he was a traitor?
A goddman Bolshevik!
”
he could not help cursing angrily.

“I should’ve checked on her before going to London to meet Colt. But I missed him so, and I thought she was in good hands. I even thought she’d be better off if I just got out of her business and let nature take its course.” Jade gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, how stupid I was!”

There was a sound in the doorway, and they all looked up as Valerie pushed Travis’s wheelchair through. Still pale from the leg wound he’d suffered in the war, Travis asked, “Is there further news?”

“I’ve a call in to the embassy,” Colt told him, “but they probably won’t know any more than they did when they wrote this letter.”

Travis shook his head sadly. “I still can’t believe it. They thought they were kidnapping Mother, got Marilee instead, and it took us this long to find out the whole story.”

Kit spoke for the first time. “What I want to know is why she didn’t come back here when she escaped. What happened to her after she ran away from Daniberry?”

Jade sighed. “All we know is what the embassy tells us, that she just disappeared and hasn’t been heard from since. We wouldn’t even know this much if Rudolf’s sister hadn’t confessed everything when they kept interrogating her.”

“And what about Rudolf?” Travis asked, then slammed his fist into his palm. “Oh, I’d love to get my hands on that bastard!”

“We all would, Travis,” Kurt pointed out grimly.

“Looking for Rudolf isn’t going to help us find Marilee,” Colt said. “That girl admitted he turned her over to some of those Bolsheviks in Zurich who called themselves the Zurich Zealots, then went with the rest of them into Russia to take part in the November revolution. She swears she hasn’t heard from him since.”

“Oh, I can believe that,” Kurt agreed. “That’s the reason she talked, in my opinion. She was mad because her brother took off and left her to take the blame for everything.”

Jade quickly pointed out, “Don’t forget it says in the letter that she named her former lover as the actual kidnapper. A man, named Cordell Brandt.”

Kit smiled knowingly. “And I’ve got a feeling that Elenore also confessed because she’s bitter over losing her lover to Marilee.”

Colt, Kurt, and Travis laughed together. The women exchanged mutual glances of suspicion.

“Marilee?” Travis hooted. “To think of her as a femme fatale is ludicrous at best. Granted, she’s pretty, but she’s not the type to go around snatching men away from women.”

“You never know.” Kit continued to smile. “Still waters run deep.”

“Enough of this,” Jade said wearily. “I think it’s time we decided what to do about it. We can’t just sit back and do nothing.”

Valerie spoke for the first time. “I think she’s in Russia.”

They all looked at her curiously.

She nodded, her blue eyes shining. “I think she went to look for her father. You might not like my saying this, but the truth is—I don’t think Marilee ever felt like she was a real part of this family.”

“Now, Valerie, that’s a serious thing to say. You haven’t been in the family long enough to sit in judgment like that,” Travis rebuked her gently.

Valerie lifted her chin defiantly. “Oh, yes, I have. I’ve heard all of you talk, teasing her in ways you thought were harmless, but Marilee didn’t take it that way. I’m an outsider, and maybe I see things differently. I just got the feeling Marilee never felt like she belonged.”

“Well, I don’t think—” Jade began.

“I agree with Valerie,” Kurt said. “You don’t realize it, but you never considered her one of you because you never considered her grandmother Travis Coltrane’s legal wife. And you seem to forget that it doesn’t matter that Marilee Barbeau was not
legally
a Coltrane. She gave birth to your patriarch’s daughter, your half sister, Dani.” Kurt nodded respectfully at Colt.

Colt said nothing, keeping his gaze on the fire.

“And,” Kurt went on, “you all, whether you like hearing it or not, made Marilee feel like an outsider.”

“So you’re saying that’s why she chose to go to Russia instead of returning here when she escaped her kidnappers?” Kit asked stiffly.

“Exactly,” he replied. “To Marilee, Drakar is the only family she’s got.”

“I say we go after her,” Travis declared.

“What?” Colt and Kurt cried in unison.

“We go after her,” Travis repeated. “Chances are that Uncle Drakar is dead by now. So what happens to Marilee? I think it’s time we showed her that she
is
a Coltrane and that her home is here, with all of us. The only way to do that is to go after her.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Jade said sharply, pointing to his bandaged leg. “A German bullet has put you out of the war, my son.”

Valerie could not contain her relief, and patted her stomach. “We need you more, Travis. Me and Travis Coltrane the Third.”

“Or Katherine Wright Coltrane.” He smiled and reached for her hand, pressing it to his lips tenderly. Then he looked from his father to his brother-in-law. “There’s nothing stopping you two from going, is there?” he challenged them.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Jade cried. “Travis, are you out of your mind? They can’t just go traipsing off to Russia. It’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“It’s certainly better than sitting back and doing nothing, Mother,” Kit said. “And it’s not as though Dad doesn’t have some political connections and influence.” She looked at him. “Isn’t that so? You can find out where Uncle Drakar’s friends are, can’t you? It seems likely she would’ve found her way to them.”

Colt nodded, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “The embassy did not go into a lot of detail, because they didn’t want to put everything in writing. There’s too much danger of interception. But I can go to Zurich and find out exactly how much they do know. Kit’s right, it is reasonable to assume Marilee would make her way to the Whites.”

He declared wryly, “The Bolsheviks are betraying nearly every political slogan that brought them to power. They promised freedom of the individual and instead censored the press, forbade strikes, and set up a secret police. While they undertook to respect the rights of minority states, they already had an army on the move to crush the independent republic of the Ukraine. They cried for a freely elected Constituent Assembly, and now they’ve had it abolished by force.”

Kurt asked the question burning on everyone’s lips. “So what happens next?”

Based on what he’d been told by the American Embassy on his last visit, Colt said, “There’s only one way the Bolsheviks can redeem themselves and make good their promises. They’ve got to come to terms with the Germans. They can have no hope of their own survival unless they bring the war to an end.”

Jade went to stand beside him, her emerald eyes flashing with anger and resentment. “They screamed ‘Bread and Peace’, but all Russia will get is famine and civil war.”

“Yes,” Colt mused quietly. “That’s right. But they’re also getting something they hadn’t bargained for.”

Everyone looked at him expectantly,

“The Bolsheviks are about to meet an adversary they hadn’t counted on—the Coltranes.”

Jade laughed. “God help them.”

It was resolved.

Colt would use all his political influence to learn as much as possible about where the Whites were headquartered. He would then send out inquiries about Marilee.

Then he and Kurt would proceed to Russia and do their best to bring her home—where, they all agreed, she belonged.

Marilee was a Coltrane, and they would all stand together.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Tobolsk, Russia

February 1918

Marilee had traveled to Tyumen with Vladimir Dubovitsky and the other Whites. When they had arrived in early December, she had made it quite clear she intended to work with them, doing everything possible to rescue her father from his Bolshevik captors.

Marilee and Vladimir were told that recent information indicated that Drakar was being held somewhere in the same vicinity as the Imperial family—a heavily guarded little town called Tobolsk, where the Tobol and Irtysh rivers joined.