Across the room, Marina shrugged at the daily battle. They’d taken turns coaxing their mother to eat at mealtimes, but Svetlana was never successful. Mama preferred Marina’s administrations, and even then it was hardly more than a nibble or sip. Svetlana could hardly blame her. She wasn’t pleasant enough company for herself these days. Not that it made a difference to her mother. She’d never found her eldest daughter’s company more than tolerable, closing off her affection to shower upon her other children instead. Svetlana had never questioned it, merely accepted it.
Staring down now at the once vibrant woman shriveling to a gaunt shell of herself, Svetlana realized she never really knew her mother beyond the fancy gowns and tittering parlor room laughter—a laugh she claimed to have first caught Dmitri Dalsky’s attention. It was one of the only claims Father had never refuted, so Svetlana knew it must have been true. A rare connection between her parents when she’d witnessed so few.
“Father would not wish to see you like this.”
Mama slowly shifted on the pillow. Her eyes stared with unfocused lucidity as if searching for a ghost on Svetlana’s face. Inch by inch, she raised her head and took a bite of the oatmeal. Eating four more bites, she tapped a brittle nail against the teacup. Svetlana poured the fragrant brew into the cup and held it up to her mother’s lips. Mama took a sip, grimaced, and fell back to the pillow.
“I know it’s not from a samovar, but we must make do.” Wrapping her fingers around the delicate cup, the more obvious problem became clear. “It’s cold. I’ll ring for a fresh pot.”
Marina jumped up from her chair near the fire, the book in her lap clattering to the floor. “I’ll fetch one. My legs could do with a stretch.” She took the tray from Mama’s lap and smiled. Sadness still clung to her eyes, but she was doing her best to put on a brave face. “I’ll see if I can find a few mashed cherries to put in the bottom. I know how much you like those. Makes it feel a bit more Russian.”
As Marina left, Svetlana set about straightening the coverlet across the bed, smoothing the drape pleats, and retying the pink ribbon on Mama’s nightdress after noting one loop on the bow was bigger than the other. Anything to occupy herself, for it was in the listless moments that the unwanted thoughts and feelings found her. The notes of a midnight waltz. The scent of wool and aftershave. The warmth of arms holding her at night. The stab of betrayal and heartache of lies. It all made her feel too much when she preferred the escapism of numbness.
“You’re like him.”
The scratchy voice turned Svetlana from the vanity table where she was aligning a tray of hairpins to find her mother watching her.
Svetlana slid a fingernail between a pin’s blades, the metal cool and rigid like the shining medals pinned across Father’s chest. He’d taught her the name of each one and allowed her the honor of pinning on his Order of Saint Catherine when he was decorated by the tsar.
“Organized, you mean?”
“Coldly efficient.”
After all those years it shouldn’t have stung, but it did. Svetlana nudged the silver pins into straight lines. “A soldier’s trait.”
“Prince Dmitri Nikolaiovich Dalsky, Captain of the Imperial Forces, with his resourceful mind and steadfast demeanor, and me with my wit and charm. The Dowager Empress Maria herself said we would make the perfect match.” A soft smile curved Mama’s pale lips as her thoughts drifted from the room to a happier time. Svetlana had heard the story of the matchmaking dowager more times than she could count, but it had always been told in a manner of boasting, never with this reminiscent fondness. As if an egg had cracked open to reveal its sweet, runny center, kept unspoiled all these years within its shell.
Desperate to assuage the earlier sting, Svetlana cradled the image in its delicacy. One false slip and the rare moment of vulnerability between mother and daughter would shatter. “You always looked smart together.”
Mama toyed with her cross necklace, running her finger over the slanted bottom bar. “There’s nothing more I love than a perfect match of anything. I tried so hard to please him, but I quickly learned there was nothing more he loved than order. I was anything but. No matter how many pretty gowns I wore or opulent dinner parties I threw with all the right attendees, I never pleased him as much as watching his soldiers drill or aligning his army boots in the closet.”
“I assumed most husbands and wives held their own interests independent of one another. Grand Duchess Xenia was often quoted as it being the only way to sustain a peaceful marriage.”
“Because you have been taught to think no differently, as all properly brought-up young ladies are.”
“Yet you wished otherwise, yes?”
“For a time, when I was young and naïve. Each passing year erected a brick around my heart. A growing wall your father never sought to scale. His eye was caught by too many other battles. He was a good man, but he made loving him nearly impossible.”
“You’re like him.” The delicate moment of intimacy crackled apart and in blew the bitter cold wind of truth. “Is that what you think of me? I’m impossible to love?”
Mama’s expression shuttered. She turned her face to the window once more. “Where is your husband?”
The denial of an answer and change in topic was like a slap to the face after having been spat in the eye. Unlovable and unable to love. In the days passing her fallout with Wynn, Svetlana’s bones felt of ice, as if she were no longer a part of her body. She listened for Wynn’s voice constantly but prayed her steps would not lead her to him. Her emotions were too raw to be reliable. Like a cord of beads strung on one after another with no intent of purpose. The lack of control was nearly as debilitating as the crack in her heart.
But this weakness she would never allow her mother to witness, not to be seized upon and brought down to Mama’s level of insecurities. Svetlana tapped the hair pin tray parallel to a silver-handled brush. “His time is occupied of late with matters from the medical board.”
“About that soldier who died under his knife in Paris?”
Svetlana’s attention snapped up. “Lieutenant Harkin did not die under Wynn’s knife. It was some time after the operation. Where are you hearing this information?”
“One of the maids has a brother who worked as an orderly in the London hospital when that sergeant—lieutenant?—was there.” Wrapping the necklace chain around her finger, Mama gave her a pointed look. “I have to get my information from somewhere when my own daughter won’t tell me.”
“That’s because there is nothing to tell. It was tragic that the young man died, but Wynn did his best to save him. As he did—does—with all his patients.” They may have been in the middle of a marital tempest, but no one could falsely accuse Wynn to her face and remain unchecked. He was a good man and a brilliant surgeon and would rather throw himself in front of a firing squad before seeing harm come to another person.
Had he not done just that to protect the woman he claimed to love? Her head pounded. Yes, he had. With a lie.
The sound of metal zippering over a chain filled the stretching silence. Mama’s cross pulling back and forth on its chain. “The maids also tell me they’ve been lighting the fire and making the beds in both of your separate chambers.”
Svetlana crossed the room in an undignified two strides and glared at her mother from the foot of the bed. All pretense of civility vanished at her mother’s gaming attempts to needle her. “The intimate information of my sleeping arrangements is none of your concern.”