The meal over, everyone retired to their rooms to dress for the Governor’s reception, while the servants went to their quarters for their dinner. Gradually the house grew quiet, and Anne, sitting on the edge of her bed, felt her restlessness and anxiety dissipating into simple tiredness. She supposed, wearily, that she ought to dress. Marie would probably come later, when she had finished with her mistress, and offer to dress Anne’s hair, as she usually did for parties or balls. She had better be ready. She got up from the bed, took off her sandals, and then remembered she had left her reticule on the verandah. She would just slip out and get it before she changed.
She opened the door to her room and stepped out into the passage, and at the same instant the Count appeared round the corner of the passage and came face to face with her. He stopped in front of her, blocking her path, and she looked up at him nervously. His mouth was curved into an enigmatic smile, and his bright eyes, more gold than green today, looked directly into hers, dazzling and confusing her.
T was just – just going–’ She waved a foolish hand towards the verandah, the direction from which he had come. With his arms folded across his chest, he seemed to fill the narrow passage completely.
‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ he said.
‘No, sir, of course not,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘Would you please let me past? I want to fetch my reticule.’
‘Not until I have an explanation,’ he said.
‘There’s nothing to explain.’
‘Yes, there is.’ He unfolded his arms, and rested one elbow against the jamb of her open door. ‘What’s the matter, Anna? 1 thought you were my friend – my dear friend. Yet you avoid me, you won’t talk to me – you won’t even look at me.’
She looked up, and it was a mistake. Their eyes met, and she felt her scalp shrink and her stomach clench at what she saw in his face, what she knew was mirrored in hers. ‘No,’ she whispered. She stepped back from him defensively into her own room, and he followed her step for step, closed the door behind them. The small click of the latch sounded too loud in the quiet – accusing, dangerous. He stood against the closed door. She could hear his breathing, too loud, as though he had been running. His lips were parted, his eyes narrowed with some fierce emotion.
No, she had said; but in the end it was she who led them. He made a small movement towards her, and half in terror at her own insane daring she stepped close to him, and her arms went up about his neck. There was no thought but to have what she wanted so much. She put her body against his hungrily, quivering at the forbidden touch of it, alien, and yet already, somehow, known to her.
His response was instant; his hand rose to stroke her cheek; he cupped her face with his hands. ‘Annushka!’ he whispered. His eyes closed, and he kissed her brow, touched her lips with his; her mouth opened hungrily, and then they were kissing like lovers, with the utter abandon of long desire let loose at last. His arms were round her, his hands behind her shoulders pressing her against him.
For once in her life she abandoned herself completely, her inner voices silenced. She leaned against him avidly, revelling in the exotic hardness of his male body, the warm smell of his skin, the touch of his strong hands. Her whole body, every nerve ending, sang with the joy of him. Love welled up in her, and a huge desire that, innocent as she was, she hardly knew what to do with; the knowledge that he wanted her, loved her equally, made a hard knot of passion in her stomach that would not be ignored.
He pulled his mouth away, panting. ‘Annushka! My own, my love.’ He kissed her throat and the upper curves of her breasts. She slid her hands up into his hair, loving the hard curve of his skull that her eyes had so often caressed. His hands were hard about her waist, slipped upwards and spanned her breasts, and she trembled and felt sick with the force of wanting him. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too,’ she whispered. His lips came back to hers, and they kissed again, feeding on each other.
‘Je te veux,’ he said against her mouth, and she quivered with response. He was strong; he lifted her with one arm round her waist, stepped with her away from the door, reached out one-handed for a chair and swung it round and under the door handle, to jam the door closed. It was enough to break the spell.
‘No,’ she said, more urgently this time. ‘We can’t.’
He set her feet to the ground but did not release her; he looked down at her, his face flushed, his eyes bright, his hair ruffled.
‘It’s wrong,’ she said desperately, growing more sober with every breath.
‘I love you,’ he said, but she heard the change in his voice, too.
‘You have a wife.’ She said the deadly words.
‘Yes,’ he said helplessly. Anne, in his arms, knew she should withdraw from him, but could not, not yet. He felt the thought in her mind, and snatched her tighter to him. ‘I can’t reach her. Anna, I have nothing for her, nor she for me. We should never have married. It was a dreadful mistake.’
‘These past few days – I’ve watched you together–’
‘Yes, I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried! But I can’t love her. I don’t know why. Poor woman, she has never done me any harm, but – Anna – she fills me with horror!’
‘No,’ Anne pleaded.
‘It’s true. But you – Oh God, I love you! I’ve loved you since the first moment I met you. You are like me – you are my image, my match, my soul!’ He kissed her again, her brow and her eyes and her lips, and she whimpered, but could not struggle. ‘If you knew how often I’ve wanted to do this! How I’ve stopped myself! Anna, Anna!’
‘Don’t – please–’
‘You feel it too. We’re alike, you and I, we belong together. When I arrived here, and I saw you standing there in the road, it was like – like coming home! I swear to you I felt more as though you were my wife than I have ever felt with Irina.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said. The fever was mounting again. She saw his eyes narrow.
‘I can’t let you go. I must have you. I want to possess you utterly – to fill you up with myself–’
She gave up her mouth to him again, and felt the sweetness flowing between them, and knew how easy it would be to give way to the madness, to have what she wanted, what they wanted, so much. But it would be at too great a cost. If she lost herself, she would lose him too, and the more completely. She sighed as she kissed him, and he felt it, and their lips parted.
‘It’s not possible,’ she said.
He resisted the words, but she pushed him back firmly – not completely away, but enough to stop him kissing her. She looked into his eyes, saw the knowledge of their plight reflected there. He knew as well as she did that this was a moment outside of time, that real life was waiting for them only a shadow away, ready to part them, ready to break their hearts.
‘I love you,’ he said again.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I love you too–’
‘Say my name,’ he begged. ‘Just once, let me hear it on your lips.’
‘Nikolai,’ she said, and the sound of it made her feel shy. ‘Nikolai, Nikolasha.’
He drew her against him as she said it, and cradled her close, the fierce passion gone now, only the tenderness, the dearness between them, binding them together with frail, indestructible ropes. She rested against him, knowing in this one moment of perfect wholeness, that she had found the place where she belonged, the other half of herself for which each person searches all their life. How could this be wrong? How could anything part them? The vitality of life itself flowed between them, unhindered by their separate flesh.
There was a light scratching at the door, and they both grew very still. Marie’s voice came quietly from the passage. ‘Mademoiselle? Puis-je vous coiffer maintenant?’