“This is hardly the time to discuss such matters,” Svetlana said.
Mama stopped twirling and pressed her mouth into a tight line. She never liked being told no when she was excited, and she certainly didn’t enjoy learning from her past debts. Debts Wynn had paid off on her behalf.
“Another time then. I’ll go and set a menu with that maid until a proper cook is hired. Heaven knows she’s in need of a proper mistress. The French aren’t known for hard work like the Russian peasants.” With a sweep of her heavy skirts, pilfered from Wynn’s mother’s Victorian wardrobe, she left.
The room seemed to sigh in relief.
“I’m afraid that along with food rationing, I’ve more bad news,” Wynn said. “I wasn’t able to procure travel tickets. In fact, I wasn’t able to make it to the ticket office at all. The crowds were too great to make it beyond three streets. Took me nearly an hour to walk the way back. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Won’t the ships be needed to take the soldiers home?” Svetlana asked.
“Yes, but it’s going to take weeks, months even for command to start making new orders. Everything will be in chaos for a while. I’ll get you to Scotland. Don’t worry.”
She nodded to keep the worry from surfacing. She had no doubt he would do everything in his power to get them to safety, but every minute spent in Paris was another minute for Sheremetev to track them down. She walked to the window. The gloom had lifted from the streets, cast off as easily as a cold shroud upon the emergence of the heartening sun. Eyes no longer turned to the ground as if weighted by their own misery. Faces no longer tensed in hardship. Every miserable second they had endured for the past four years disappeared in the new day’s celebration of peace. They could begin living again.
Laughter, tears, relief, unmeasurable pain, and disappointment sought footing on this new day. One could live many times over in such torrents of emotion. For some the agony would never end. For some like Svetlana, a war still raged in a distant country that no longer wanted her. She had been cast into the shadow, left searching for where the light might shine.
A face far below in the street stilled among the swarming throng as it looked at her. A face she had not seen in a very long time. A face that yet appeared in her dreams. Svetlana gasped.
Sergey.
She raced down the stairs and out the front door and was immediately swept into the pulsing crowd. Pushed and pulled, she couldn’t control her own feet as the people carried her along. She twisted her head left and right. Where was he? Had she imagined him? She tried to call his name. The crush of bodies hemmed her in until she could hardly breathe. A foot clamped onto the back of her dress and she pitched forward, slamming into a man’s back. She tried to push away, but the wall of bodies pinned her from moving.
Suddenly the bodies peeled back. Wynn’s arm came around her like a shield while he used the other as a ram to shove through the crowd. In a matter of seconds, they were back on the townhouse’s front steps.
“The next time you want to get yourself stampeded, give me warning.” Wynn’s fingers dug into her shoulders. His eyes scanned her face, body, and back up. “Are you all right? What were you thinking running out like that?”
She gasped against the racing of her heart. The faces in the crowd blurred. No Sergey. “I thought I saw someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone, but he’s not there. He looked right at me, but he’s gone.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Sergey. He was right here.”
Wynn scanned the crowd, then slipped his arm around her waist. “Let’s go inside. If it was him, he may have gotten taken away by the crowd. He’ll come back.”
Inside, Svetlana hurried to the sitting room window that overlooked the front street to look for him. Wynn followed her. He stood behind her, his face reflecting in the glass. “Are you certain it was him?”
“No. I saw him only for a moment, but it had to be. He said he would find us in Paris, but then the Bolsheviks took him. How would he find us at this address?” The moment of unexpected joy fractured into pieces of a frightening puzzle. “He would have heard where the Russian émigrés have consolidated and gone there. Someone may have pointed him to Sheremetev. Sheremetev knows everyone and everything. It wouldn’t be that difficult for him to track us here and use Sergey as bait to lure us out.”
Wynn turned her to face him. His hands cupped her cheeks, large and warm and steady. “Don’t even think that. That man is never coming near you—”
Knock. Knock.
Svetlana jumped. She couldn’t help the pathetic reaction. The world, so bright and glorious minutes before, now closed in on her.
Wynn’s thumb stroked her cheek. “It’s only the hospital’s message boy. Gerard must have sent him. Wait here and I’ll be right back.”
He left to answer the door, and Svetlana was abandoned to the swarm of fear. An animal trapped in a cage with no way of escape. She wrung her hands together. The unfamiliarity of her wedding band rubbed against her skin. What would Sergey think of her marriage? There was never a formal engagement between them, yet part of her felt guilty with betrayal. He would have to understand she’d had no choice.
That is, if she were allowed to explain first before being executed.
In that instant, she was done. Fear had reigned as master for far too long. She may not have complete control of her circumstances, but above all she could have control of herself and herself refused to cower any longer. She was a princess marchioness. Not a beaten animal.
She swept from the room into the foyer where Wynn stood. “Tomorrow I’m going with you to the ticket mast—”
A yellow telegram was clenched in his fist. The fear she’d overcome moments ago rippled into action.
“What’s wrong?”
His fist shook, the knuckles stark white against the yellow paper. “My brother was killed.”
Chapter 17
The Calais port was jammed cheek to jowl with Red Cross ships, makeshift hospitals, and ambulances. Wounded soldiers were propped against cargo boxes as they waited to hobble up the gangways while the more serious cases lay on stretchers with nurses dotting among them. The days of armistice celebration had waned to the excruciating task of transporting the weary combatants home.
The ship swayed gently as Wynn stood on the deck with Svetlana after seeing her and her family’s things stowed safely in their room. It was cramped, but it would do to make the voyage from Calais to Portsmouth. Every other available space, including the deck, was taken up by wounded Tommies.
“Will you not come with us? Your mother needs you.” Dressed in a black frock from his mother’s wardrobe, Svetlana stood stark against the white bandages and stained uniforms surrounding them.
“I gave my word to the hospital to remain through the end of the year. I won’t abandon my patients.”
“You would not be abandoning them. You have a duty from your brother now as well.”
“A dukedom I never wanted. My work was never at the estate carrying around those titles. It’s always been in surgery.” He snorted. “Little good that’s done for my brother.”
“There was nothing you could have done for him.”
“That’s because there was no body to repair. That shell obliterated everything. I have nothing to take back to our mother.”