“Back when you were a princess?” She startled and he immediately regretted his bluntness, though it was hardly a secret after her mother’s brazen introduction. Surely they were far enough from Russia and its troubles to no longer remain fearful of their identities, but one look at the panic in her eyes told him the fear was rooted in death. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret safe—as long as you don’t let on that I’m a marquis.”
As before, it took a moment for her panic to recede. When it did a new confusion took its place. “What is this marquis?”
“I’m the second son of a duke. Upon my father’s death, my brother, Hugh, became Duke of Kilbride and I the humble Marquis of Tarltan.”
She shrugged, unimpressed. “There are many dukes in Russia.”
“Which makes me the only marquis of your acquaintance.” Wynn stood with the picked comfrey and brushed dirt from his trousers. “Well, that’s something anyway. What is that plant there?”
“A lily. Mrs. Varjensky says the boiled roots can be used in ointments for burns and rashes.” A smile crossed her face. “I used to arrange them in vases once belonging to Empress Ekaterina. They filled our music room in white, pink, and yellow blooms.”
“That sounds calming.”
“Arranging is one of the few activities deemed appropriate for a lady to learn. Not growing them or clipping them, mind you, that was too strenuous. Placing them in decorative vases was the extent of our labor.”
“Would you have liked to grow them yourself?”
Wistfulness whispered across her face, then faded like the petals of a bloom past its day in the sun. “What I would have liked is of no consequence. It was not to be for a princess then, nor for a refugee now.”
A breeze ruffled the nearby elms, filling the air with scents of sweet grass and thick herbs. A pleasant departure from the cloying hospital smell of sterilization. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was home in Scotland enjoying the lazy days of summer and not existing on the brink of trenches and barbed wire. What those frontline lads wouldn’t give for a whiff of a single blade of grass.
“My brother and I got in trouble once for whacking off rose tops with sticks in the Luxembourg Gardens when we were younger. Our parents were asked not to bring us back.”
“The carefree mischief of youth,” she said. “You are close with this brother, Hugh.”
Wynn nodded. “Best of friends growing up, but Hugh’s always had to hold himself apart as the next duke. Me? I’m the second son and can get away with murder. Though I won’t because it would be breaking my Hippocratic oath. Hugh knows all the rules and lives to keep them.”
“My brother, Nikolai, is the same.”
“Is he here in France?”
“He stayed with Papa to defend our homeland.” Her face shuttered, depriving him of her thoughts once more. “I should not be outside.” She stood, favoring her unhurt leg.
Wynn strode through the weeds and captured her hand before she had the chance to take a limping step. “I don’t know what you’re running from in Russia, though I can venture a guess, but you don’t have to be frightened any longer.”
“You do not know. You do not understand what fear is.”
Living the past four years in a war zone gave him every right to understand the meaning of fear, but the look blazing in her eyes spoke of something more, a crippling terror he’d not seen before. Not knowing how to root out the pain, he nodded and looped her arm around his. “I’ll take you inside.”
Her hand was cool against his forearm. Slight callouses rested at the base of her long fingers. Signs of refined hands adjusting to recent hardships. Likely she had never had to pick up an item a day in her life. Until now, when she was clothed in ripped skirts scrounging in a weedy garden. Yet not one ounce of dirt could diminish the regal way with which she held herself.
“Before you say ‘don’t come back,’ know that I will come back. Tomorrow or the next time I’m off shift,” Wynn said.
“You are a difficult man to say no to.”
“Another trait of my profession. We’re hard to refuse when a gangrenous limb hangs in the balance.”
Her brow puckered in confusion, then suddenly smoothed. “Ah. Another joke.”
“Medical humor. If we can’t heal you, we’ll kill you with terrible comedy.”
“Maybe it is better you continue with medicine instead.” A light sparked in her eyes. Was that the verge of a smile?
Wynn’s heart rate bumped up. “Maybe you’re right.”
Across the courtyard, Mrs. Varjensky had pushed aside one of the other women to stir a boiling pot of soup herself. At the sight of them, she bustled over and handed him a jar filled with vegetable broth. “Do svidaniya, golubchik.”
Wynn glanced at her other hand that held the cracked teapot. Familiar green leaves poked out of the spout. Biting back a laugh, he stuffed the newly picked but unneeded comfrey into the teapot.
“Spasibo, babushka.” He grinned at Svetlana. “Getting rather good at this Russian.”
“It is better you continue with medicine.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” He pulled out the lily he had clipped secretly from the garden and handed it to her. “Until next time.”
The corners of her mouth flitted up as she took the flower. It wasn’t quite the smile he’d hoped for, but it wasn’t a frown.
He would take it as a victory.
* * *
“He has made you smile.” Mama’s thin eyebrows raised in accusation as soon as Svetlana, holding the lily, stepped into their shared blanket quadrant.
Svetlana pulled the makeshift curtain tight, cutting off the smell of boiled cabbage that permeated the cellar. The elusive emotion of enjoyment and the sweet scent of the lily that had floated around her a moment earlier deflated.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You are engaged to Sergey.”
“I am not. An informal, unspoken understanding at the most.”
“You are as good as engaged. Sergey is one of our kind—the only kind—and a dear friend to our family for years. Do not forget this.”
How could she, when not for one moment did Mama allow it? Man after man had been paraded before her at every ball and concert, the most successful venues for finding acceptable husbands. Men with all the right titles, family wealth, and political ties, but without a bone of enticement to hold them upright. Perhaps one day a man would fit her credentials.
“I have no intention of falling in love right now. If such a thing is even possible.”
Mama scoffed and batted her small hand in the air as if to chase off Svetlana’s ludicrous notion. “Love has nothing to do with a successful marriage. It is a sentiment best reserved for the nishchebrod. This man, this doctor, is no one, otherwise he would not have a menial job as a physician. Bah. Working class.”
It was doubtful the poor had more claim on matters of the heart than the nobility, but speaking of peasants would only fall on Mama’s deaf ear. A mar on the otherwise glittering world she hoped to return to.
“He’s—” Svetlana cut short her defense of Wynn as she reached for an empty milk jar. He’d asked her not to reveal him as Marquis of Tarltan. While she had no intention of surrendering her trust to him, she still respected a promise when given. Pouring a bit of precious water into the jar, she gently slipped the flower into the glass. How beautiful these would be planted in a garden next to roses, freesia, buttercups, and peonies. Trouble could not touch them in such a peaceful place. “He is dedicated to his profession.”
“As if that concerns us. You are a princess. A blood relation to Tsar Nicholas himself.”
“A third cousin twice removed, I believe.”