The Jewel of St Petersburg (13 page)

S
PASIBO, BARYSHNYA.
THANK YOU, YOUNG MISTRESS.” THE kitchen maid bobbed a curtsy.

“Merry Christmas,
Shastlivogo Rozhdestva,
Alisa,” Valentina responded.

It was the annual Christmas evening ritual of presenting every servant with a gift from the Ivanov family. There were festive swathes of greenery and a brightly decorated Christmas tree from the fir tree market next to Gostiny Dvor. Valentina stood first in the line, passing out sweets and soap, shaking each hand in turn. Next to her, her mother wore gloves and a fixed smile as she handed out a length of good woolen material to each of the women, and a new razor and a pouch of tobacco for the men. Elizaveta Ivanova insisted that her male employees be clean shaven, even the gardeners. Her father stood with his back to the fire, legs apart, as he toasted his coattails and presented each member of his staff with a small velvet bag of coins. Valentina heard the chink of them as they landed in the outstretched hands and was curious as to how much they contained.

“Shastlivogo Rozhdestva.
Merry Christmas, Miss Valentina.”

“Merry Christmas to you, Arkin.”

This was the first time she’d seen the chauffeur out of uniform. He was wearing a neat jacket and clean white shirt. He looked lean and athletic. A determined face. The forthright way his gaze met hers made her wonder what went on behind those cool gray eyes of his. She placed the absurd sweets and soap in his spotless hand.

“Spasibo,”
he said, but the smile he gave her wasn’t quite a chauffeur’s.

“Arkin, you drove well the other day. When we were caught in the car on Morskaya. Thank you.”

He seemed about to say something but changed his mind and gave her a respectful nod of his head instead.

“Where is Liev Popkov this evening?” she asked. “I don’t see him here.”

His polite smile hardened. “Popkov is otherwise engaged, I believe. In the stables.”

She frowned. “Is a horse sick?”

“You’ll have to ask him, Miss Valentina.”

“I’m asking you.”

His eyes remained on her far too long for politeness. “I don’t believe it’s a horse that is sick.”

“Liev? Is he unwell?”

“Valentina, you are slowing the line, my dear,” her mother said firmly. “Come along, Arkin.”

Immediately he moved onward to accept his next gift. Something about this chauffeur, something carefully hidden under that polite exterior of his, sent a shiver down Valentina’s spine.

L
IEV? LIEV?”

Where the hell was he?

“Liev Popkov!” she shouted again in the stables.

And then she found him. Eyes shut, heavy limbs lifeless. Stretched out on his back on a pile of straw in a vacant stall. Her heart stopped. Not again. First his father, Simeon, and now him. The smell of blood in her nostrils all over again.

She started to scream.

“For fuck’s sake, stop that racket, will you? You’re scaring the bloody horses.”

He had one eye half open, scowling at her while he scratched his armpit.

“You stupid dumb Cossack,” she yelled at him, “you frightened the life out of me. I thought you were dead.”

His scowl faded. He mumbled something unintelligible and lifted a vodka bottle to his lips, spilling trails of clear liquid down his throat and over the straw. The bottle was almost empty.

“Liev, you’re drunk.”

“Of course I’m bloody drunk.”

“I thought I smelled blood.”

“You always did imagine things.”

“I’m not imagining the trouble you’ll be in.”

He grinned at her then, his mouth a dark cave in the shadows, and upended the bottle to his lips.

“Liev! Don’t!” she scolded, but more softly this time.

He tossed the empty bottle toward her at the entrance to the stall, but it fell short. “What are you so frightened of?”

“I don’t want you whipped.”

“Hah!”

She held out the packet of sweets and soap. It felt absurd. “My father has a proper present for you.”

He laughed, a big guttural explosion that burst from his chest. “He’s already given it to me.”

“The pouch of roubles?”

His eyes narrowed into black slits.
“Nyet,
not the roubles.”

“What then? The razor and tobacco?”

In response the big man suddenly sat up, swaying violently, and yanked his black tunic up over his head, revealing a broad chest matted with thick black curls. Valentina couldn’t tear her eyes away. She’d never seen a man half naked before, not this close.

“You’re drunk,” she said again, but the words had lost their sting. “Put your top back on at once before you freeze to death.”

She might as well not have spoken. He threw the tunic aside and rolled over on the straw so that he was lying face down.

“Liev!” This time it came out as a faint gasp. She put a hand over her mouth and stared at his back.

The massive muscles were striped. Red tracks ran diagonally across them, so regular they looked as though they’d been painted on. The paint was still wet and glistening. Slowly she walked into the stall, where she dropped to her knees in the straw beside him. The lash cuts were deep in places, raw edges of flayed flesh laid bare. “Why?” she whispered. There was no need to ask
Who?

Liev rolled away, seized his tunic, and pulled it over his head. She couldn’t understand how he could even move with a back like that.

“Why did he do such a thing?” She felt shame for her father, sour in her stomach.

Popkov ferreted out another bottle from under the straw. This one was full. “Yesterday,” he said, “I went to your sister’s room when the nurse wasn’t there.”

“Oh, Liev. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged and poured more of the alcohol down his throat. “I wanted to give her a small gift for Christmas, that’s all.”

“But it’s her bedroom.”

“I’ve been in there many times to lift her in and out of her wheelchair.”

“But never without Nurse Sonya present.”

He snorted. “
Nyet.
Your father walked in when I was sitting on the end of the bed talking with her. So he whipped me.”

Suddenly Valentina was hitting him in a fury. Her fists hammered down on his chest, pummeling its granite muscles.

“You stupid dumb oaf,” she shouted, “you brainless Cossack, you’re crazy. You deserve to be whipped.”

He just laughed, then seized one of her wrists and pressed the neck of the vodka bottle into her hand.

“Here, have some.”

She stared at the innocent-looking drink, gave a deep bone-shaking shudder, and raised the bottle to her lips.

V
ALENTINA FELT VERY WARM. SHE COULD HEAR THE NIGHT wind scratching at the wooden stable walls. Something pleasant was floating around in her head, something with wings like a butterfly or a moth. Her lips no longer seemed to belong to her and kept curling up into vacant smiles. She was seated on the floor, leaning back against the side of the stall with a pile of straw tucked around her legs. How did all that heat get inside her stomach? Whenever she shut her eyes a whirring sound set off inside her skull and she found herself tipping sideways.

“Valentina, you’ve had enough. Go to bed.” Popkov kicked her, but gently. He slid his boot over the straw and prodded her thigh as though she were a pig. “Get out of here,” he growled.

“What did you give her?”

“Give who?”

“Tell me.”

He paused, staring down at the straw. “A horseshoe. I polished it and”—she could tell he was embarrassed—“and wove ivy and berries through it.”

Valentina thought it the most beautiful gift she could imagine. “Nothing for me?” she asked.

He raised his black eyes to hers. “You’ve got my vodka. What more do you want?”

She laughed then, and felt the world drifting in confusion out of her reach. “Mama and Papa are making me go to a Christmas ball,” she said, and closed her eyes. The darkness started to spin alarmingly, so she forced them open again. The wretched creature was watching her with amusement.

“You’re drunk,” Popkov said.

“Go away,” she muttered, the words slow and slurred.

The next moment she was floating in the air, her hands and feet weightless. When she squeezed her eyes open a crack she saw darkness whirling around her like dust.

“Liev, put me down.”

But he ignored her.

Dimly she was conscious of being carried into the dark house through the servants’ entrance, but her eyes slid shut and opened only when she was plonked on her own bed with no attempt at courtesy.

“Liev,” she murmured, struggling to keep the ceiling from somersaulting on top of her, “I don’t think—”

“Sleep,” he growled.

“Spasibo,
Liev,” she said softly. “Thank you.” But he had already left the room.

P
LAY FOR ME.”

Katya was in her wheelchair and they were alone in the music room. Valentina’s head still throbbed at the base of her skull but at least she could turn it now without it falling off. Vodka, she vowed, would never touch her lips again in this lifetime. She’d cursed Popkov. Cursed his uncorked bottle. Cursed the way he had led out the horses the next day, whistling a jaunty folk song with no hint of a brain pickled in alcohol.

“Please,” Katya said, “play something for me.”

“I won’t be good today,” Valentina muttered as she lifted the lid of the piano. Just the sight of the keys, lined up and quietly waiting for her, loosened the tension within her.

Katya laughed. “You’re always good, Valentina. Even when you say you’re bad, you’re good.”

Valentina was unaware of what she would play until her fingers found the keys. From under them came the opening bars of Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat, the piece she had played for the Viking. Instantly she forgot there was a world outside. Aching head or no, her music professor would be proud of her as she balanced the melodic line perfectly against the left-hand chords, producing a pure cantabile legato in the right hand, feeling the music flow with each beat of her heart. Through her lungs. Across her shoulders. Down to her wrists and fingers.

“Valentina.” It was her mother. When had she walked into the room?

“Valentina,” Elizaveta Ivanova said again, “it’s time to start getting dressed for the ball tonight. You agreed to go, remember?”

Valentina’s hands froze above the keys.

Number 5
on her list:
Obey Mama.

Her hands sank down onto the keys in a harsh jarring chord. “Yes, Mama, I agreed.”

Carefully she closed the piano lid and walked over to a small silver box on the table beside Katya’s chair. She removed a brass key from the box, returned to the piano, and locked it, then walked over to the window. She opened it a crack and tossed the key out into the snow. Without a word, she walked out of the room.