“My brother and I used to travel all the time together. Growing up in Scotland, it’s easy to lose your way for a day or two. Of course, we were never lost. We knew every tree and rock by heart on MacCallan land. Got into all sorts of trouble.” Sadness pricked at the bygone days of carefree youth. “That was back before the war.”
A cat scampered by, its ribs poking against its skin. Not one element of life had been spared the hunger of war. It stared at them a moment with ancient eyes, then with a flick of its mangy tail, disappeared down an alleyway.
Svetlana dared a glance at him. “You have been in France long?”
“Ever since the war broke out. I had just finished my second year at Edinburgh Hospital. My brother was the first to sign up, but I felt I was of better use remaining a civilian. Most of my days are spent here at hospital. No military red tape to bother with there. I’ve been swabbing the mud ever since.”
“Your brother is here?”
Wynn turned them off the boulevard and onto Rue Daru, into the neighborhood he was unfamiliar with. And for good reason. In the clear light of day he noted the signs over the doors were written in Cyrillic. Men in thick leather boots and long tunics smoked cigarettes in doorways as hunched old women in faded black scarfs ambled along with baskets tucked over their arms. Russians. A few blocks more and they’d be in front of the mystery church that Svetlana had conveniently found a back door to.
“Hugh’s commanding a battalion somewhere near Verdun. Haven’t seen him in over two years, but we promised to meet up right here the day peace is called.”
“A strange place to meet.”
Wynn thought of their family’s townhouse located in the fashionable 8th Arrondissement and all the times they had spent summer holiday there wandering the Jardin des Tuileries and listening to concerts at the Petit Palais. He and Hugh would always sneak off to search for treasure buried by Napoleon rather than listen to another woodwind quartet.
“You could say it has sentimental value to us.”
“Sentiments are not always practical.”
“True, but the world grows tedious and life hopeless without them.”
“You may keep your hope. I know better.” Her voice held a thousand lives of bitterness, too many for one so young.
At last the church rose into view among the gray and beige sandstone structures, the rising sun glancing off its onion domes in shots of orange and gold. Svetlana stopped cold.
“Where are you leading us?”
She couldn’t outrun him now. “This is where you’re going, isn’t it?”
Chapter 2
Panic rang in Svetlana’s ears, drowning out the pain in her leg. She willed her expression to remain impenetrable as she stared at Alexander Nevsky Cathedral with its golden cupolas shining in the brilliant and indomitable morning sun. How did he know? They’d been so careful to hide here.
“You are mistaken. I do not know this place.”
“Not at all? Mayhap it looks different in daylight.”
She never should have allowed this man to walk with them. “I have no interest in a church.”
“Not even for moonlight strolls?” He leaned closer, the scent of lye soap and cotton heavy on him. “After having a bottle hurled at you by an obnoxious Frenchwoman. A cheap bottle of red wine, I might add.”
With that her mask crashed to the ground. “You are the man.”
Last night rushed back in hideous remembrance. Desperate, she’d gone to seek new sanctuary for her family as their presence grew tedious to the other Russian émigrés taking refuge in the church cellar. Mama’s presence in particular. She complained to all that the conditions were unacceptable for a noblewoman. That horrible Frenchwoman didn’t even allow Svetlana time to offer the diamond brooch in exchange for renting a room before the bottle came at her head. Memories of fleeing Petrograd and all the shouting voices had come flooding back.
Then a voice had called out from the dark. His voice. And she’d fled. “Will you report me for remaining out after curfew?”
“No. I only wanted to make sure you were all right. That was a nasty fall.”
She waited for the trick. Her family had existed within the false sense of safety for months as they escaped the madness choking Russia behind them, but always ready for the trap to spring. Their troubles would not allow them to leave so easily. This doctor may not wear a red armband, but it did not sanctify him from a new sort of traitor that would drag them back to a Petrograd firing squad. And yet she found nothing treasonous in his eyes. Only kindness and, dare she imagine, understanding.
Nothing seemed to slip by him. She’d felt his quiet assessment at the hospital, not in a manner calculating profit and risk. More in a way that peered past the apparent to find the heart of the matter hidden beneath the veneer. He did it again now with that golden-green gaze—colors that reminded her of an autumn sun setting over the Crimean Mountains.
It would be insulting to both of their intelligence to continue the farce.
“Very well.”
Skirting around the main entrance, meant only for believers to enter the holy place, Svetlana circled around to the back of the church where her kind entered through the cellar. The heavy door groaned under protest as she opened it. A draft of cool stone, mold, and compacted bodies drifted up, evoking a loathing visceral enough to make her spit. Here they lived like rats.
With an agility belying her age, Mrs. Varjensky waddled down the creaky steps and disappeared into the dimness. Svetlana counted the steps with hesitation as the pain in her leg throbbed. She’d danced en pointe with a broken toe before. She could manage this. Taking the first step, her injured leg buckled. She grabbed for the handrail. A strong arm anchored around her waist before her fingertips brushed the wood.
Embarrassed at her loss of composure, she stiffened and pulled away. “Thank you.”
“All in a day’s work. Women are always falling for me. I’m quite charming that way.” Wynn grinned to reveal a full show of white teeth.
Svetlana hesitated, considering the meaning of this Englishman’s strangely phrased words. “You are funny again.”
He winced. “Only to myself it seems. Again.”
“You are easily amused.”
“And you are not.”
“Nothing is amusing in Russia. Not anymore.” She limped down the remaining steps, hating the sudden weakness in her trained body. His hand never left the small of her back. By the time she reached the floor, a sheen of sweat dotted her brow and fires of pain danced up her leg. How would she ever perform on stage again if a flight of stairs defeated her?
She pulled away from the doctor’s touch and straightened herself. “Say nothing. They are wary of strangers.”
His brow furrowed. “Who are they?”
With the unavoidable at hand, Svetlana guided him through another door and into the cellar proper stuffed to the brim with Russian émigrés. It was a small space no bigger than her family’s dining room back in their Petrograd home, the Blue Palace. A narrow path wound through the maze of blankets and luggage spread across the cold stone floor. Clothes cleaned as best they could from the two wash buckets were strung over rope anchored from wall to wall. Children dressed in the worn peasant clothing of the countryside huddled close to their mothers and fathers, their Russian dialects spread as wide as the plains to the Altai Mountains. The Reds had covered much ground in displacing their people.