From Governess to Countess Page 7
‘But you do not advocate their use?’
‘No, I do not, and that is part of the problem,’ she said, with a bitter smile. ‘My methods and my remedies are quite different from those prescribed by physicians and apothecaries. I do not claim they are always more successful, I do not claim to have the skills, for example of a surgeon, but I am an excellent healer. Yet despite that, my sex prevents me from being recognised by the exalted Society of Apothecaries, which means I have no legal right to practise. My clients turned a blind eye to that, but society viewed me differently.’ She felt herself colour. ‘My appearance and my vocation—men take me for a woman of—of loose virtue. No, let us be plain. Men assume I’m a harlot. It is but a short leap from herbalist to sorceress, you see, and there is something about me...’
‘There is, most definitely, something about you,’ Aleksei said with a rueful smile. ‘Though I suspect that is something you have heard too many times and have no wish to hear repeated.’
‘What I wish is to be judged on my skills as a herbalist and not my appearance. Such a simple ambition, you might think,’ Allison continued, almost to herself, ‘and so it would be, were I a man. But as a woman, I must not only prove my skills, I must prove myself a paragon of virtue.’
She blinked. Her hand was curled tightly around her champagne glass. ‘I’m sorry. I did not intend the conversation to take such a sombre tone. It is ancient history and has no relevance now. You do realise that we will be the subject of lurid speculation in the servants’ hall?’
‘I don’t give a damn what they are saying about us. Unless you do?’
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘I really don’t. Let them talk.’
* * *
But it was they who talked. Aleksei pulled a chaise longue in front of the fire, and they sat together before the flames, sipping wine and chatting.
‘From Seanmhair—that is, my grandmother,’ she told him with a tender smile, when he asked her how she acquired her knowledge of herbs. ‘Seanmhair is what is known as a fey wife or wise woman in the Highlands of Scotland. It is from her that I inherited my love of herbs and healing, though she always said I derived my ambition from Lady Hunter.’
‘Lady Hunter?’
‘The laird’s wife. She took a shine to me. My grandmother said it was her having no daughter of her own. It was from Lady Hunter I had my English lessons, and learnt to go about in polite society, learnt also to use my skills there with discretion. When Seanmhair died, it was Lady Hunter who encouraged me to seek my fortune in London.’
‘And what of your mother?’
‘She left me in my grandmother’s care when she married. Her husband was not my father, you see. I would have been a great inconvenience to the pair of them.’ Allison was curled up on the chaise longue beside him, her feet tucked under her. ‘You must not be feeling too sorry for me, mind. If she’d taken me with her, I’d never have become a herbalist, and if I were not a herbalist, I would not be here in St Petersburg. What was your own mother like, Aleksei?’
‘Very beautiful. I’ll show you her portrait tomorrow.’
‘And do you look much like her?’
‘Now how am I to take that?’
‘Are you fishing for a compliment now, Polkovnik? Then I will tell you that I’ve not seen a finer figure in uniform. An opinion shared by every other woman I talked to in the Winter Palace the other night, I might add. They would be as green as this dining room with envy if they knew I was sitting here alone with you, round the campfire, so to speak.’
‘I can honestly say that I’ve never sat around a campfire with such a charming companion.’
‘Now how am I to take that, given that my competition consists of gnarled, battle-hardened soldiers?’
‘Soldiers whose penchant for singing folk songs is rarely matched by their musical ability.’
‘Ah, then that is something I must confess to sharing with them. I too love singing Scottish folk songs, but I am, in my grandmother’s words, tone deaf.’
He could not resist testing her. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Allison, to his delight, responded to the challenge by getting to her feet and clearing her throat. There was a gleam in her eye that made him want to laugh, and he bit his lip. ‘This is a wee song in the Gaelic,’ she said, ‘which is my native language. It is about a woman whose sailor husband has been lost at sea. She goes down to the beach every day and sings to the seals in the hope that her husband is a selkie—a drowned man returned in seal form.’
‘And is he?’
‘Well, now, he might be, for there is one particular seal with big brown eyes who gazes at her longingly, and she is fairly certain it is her dear one.’
‘But don’t all seals have big brown eyes?’
‘Indeed they do,’ Allison said, nodding sagely. ‘And all Gaelic folk songs have a tragic end. I’m sorry to have to warn you that in this one, our poor widow throws herself into the sea and is drowned.’
‘Not saved by her seal husband?’
‘That is for you to decide. Are you sure you want to hear this tragic tale? I warn you, it is a great deal more tragic when I sing it!’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Aleksei said. ‘Miss Galbraith, the stage is yours.’
She swept him a curtsy that inadvertently gave him a delightful view of her cleavage. She took a deep breath that made her very distracting cleavage quiver, exhaling in a fit of the giggles. Then she clasped her hands, and assumed the mournful, yearning look that all singers of folk songs seem to think de rigueur, and began the lament.
And it was truly lamentable. Though the Gaelic language was likely suited to a breathless wavering voice, Allison’s sounded more like the wind whistling through the sails of a ship in a tempest, or the howl of a wolf across the steppes. Every time he met her eyes, he was almost overset, struggling between appalled disbelief and laughter, but she made it through to the widow’s final shrill wail to her seal husband, before collapsing in a heap beside him on the chaise longue. ‘Oh, dear heavens, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much.’
‘And I can’t remember the last time I heard such a bloody awful racket,’ Aleksei said with feeling.
‘I did warn you.’
‘You did indeed.’ He handed her a glass of lemonade. ‘I think you have earned that.’
She took a deep draught. ‘What I’ve earned is a traditional Russian folk song in response. Don’t be shy now, you can’t possibly be as useless as me.’
‘Give me a moment to think of something suitable.’ He cleared his throat. Emulating her performance, he got to his feet and made a bow. ‘Madame Galbraith, I give you that tragic Cossack ditty: “I lost my leg, my own true love”.’
I lost my leg, my own true love, in a battle far away.
I lost my leg, my own true love, a price I was glad to pay.
When I return, my own true love, you’ll kiss the pain away.
And now you’re back, my own true love, and what am I to say?
I cannot bear to see your pain, to see you maimed this way.
So I’m afraid, my own true love, that you must hop away!
‘You made that up!’ Allison shrieked, in fits of laughter.
‘Believe me, some of the real ones are worse.’
Aleksei sat down beside her, taking her hands in his. She had long abandoned her evening gloves. The fire and the wine had put a soft glow in her cheeks. The songs and their shared laughter, and the flickering candles wrapped them in an intimacy that made a mockery of the very short time they had known each other. Tomorrow he would leave her to begin his search for the missing governess, and who knew how long before he would see her again? Who knew how long after that it would be, before she returned to England? So little time. And he could not recall wanting anything so much as this. This woman in his arms by the firelight. And her kiss.
‘Aleksei,’ she said, in a manner that left him in no doubt.
He slid his arm around her waist, but she needed no urging, leaning into him, her own arm around his neck. It started as the most fragile of kisses. Their lips met. Touched. Hesitated. Then their eyes drifted closed, their mouths softened into each other, opening to each other, and the kiss transformed into a very adult kiss. There was no awkwardness, no clashing or jarring, only a sweet melting sensation, the lightest of friction.
His tongue traced the length of her bottom lip. She sighed, parting her lips in wordless encouragement. He took it, his mouth covering hers, the kiss deepening, kindling a fire low in his belly. His tongue touched hers and he groaned, sliding his hand from her waist to cup her bottom through her skirts, and the smoking coil of desire inside him began to burn more brightly and he closed his eyes and surrendered to the dangerous, delightful taste of her.
Kisses. He had forgotten what it was like, to lose himself in kisses. Or perhaps he had not been so lost before. He trailed kisses down her neck, over the soft swell of her breasts, into the tantalising valley between them. And then he kissed her mouth again, and their tongues tangled, and he felt such a jolt of desire as the blood rushed to his groin, that it shocked him. Forcing himself to slow down, to ease himself free, he saw his shock and his desire reflected in her face, in the lambent light in her eyes, the flush of her cheeks.
‘I have wanted to do that from the moment you walked into the palace,’ Aleksei said, his voice rough with passion.
‘I have wondered what it would be like,’ Allison replied, her voice as husky as his. ‘And now I know.’
‘I can say it won’t happen again, but I don’t want to.’
‘Then don’t say it. And please,’ she said, catching his hand, ‘don’t warn me that it can mean nothing, for I am perfectly well aware—our paths have crossed only very temporarily.’ Her face fell. ‘And for a very specific reason. I did not expect to be—Aleksei, you know that I would never be so foolish as to compromise what it is you brought me here to do. This...’
‘Is an unexpected bonus, as far as I am concerned.’ He kissed her hand. ‘I have been counting the days till your arrival. Nothing is more important to me than uncovering the truth, whatever the hell it is.’
‘Then we should get some rest. It is very late, and we both have a long day ahead of us.’
‘You are right.’ He got to his feet, helping her up. ‘I wish it were otherwise, but you are correct. Tomorrow, Miss Galbraith, Count Derevenko will meet you after breakfast for a formal tour of the house and gardens, after which I will introduce you to your charges. But tonight...’
He pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply. ‘For now, Aleksei bids the delectable Allison goodnight.’
* * *
The next day, Allison was not feeling in the least delectable, but rather a completely confused Miss Galbraith by the time they had finished the tour of the palace. Her head was reeling with the magnitude of the task she faced, and she had no difficulty whatsoever in forgetting all about the previous night.
‘Have you seen enough?’ Aleksei asked as they re-entered the huge central rotunda on the second floor which she thought, but could not be certain, had been their starting point.
‘Enough to conclude that it’s highly unlikely any poison—if there was poison—was contained in food from the kitchens,’ she said, relieved to be able to make even this basic deduction. ‘All the food that is sent to the dining room is delivered in communal platters, and the leftovers are returned to the kitchens, where they are given to the servants. Since they are all still hale and hearty then it seems reasonable to conclude—well, a different method must have been used. The poison may have been mixed with a drink. Or it may have been administered directly on to the skin.’
She bit her lip, desperate to reassure Aleksei before he departed, but unwilling to create a false sense of hope. ‘That implies a level of physical proximity. Poisoning is often an intimate crime. If it was a servant, then it must have been a trusted one—butler, valet, that kind of person.’
Alexei frowned. ‘But we come back to the fact that my brother was a duke. If he was murdered, then it must have been for a very good reason. And if you did commit such a murder, whatever the reason, you’d flee the scene of the crime, wouldn’t you? And since all of Michael’s personal servants are still here...’
‘Save for Anna Orlova. You don’t think she could be hiding in the palace?’ Allison said, only half-teasing. The rotunda was an immense domed space with two rows of Doric columns marking its circumference, and a highly polished and treacherously slippery wooden marquetry floor. A second row of columns stood sentry around the shallow gallery which ran around the rotunda at the next level, and above that, light coursed down through the central glass skylight. ‘This place is so huge, I’m sure I would get hopelessly lost if left to find my way about alone.’
‘Just don’t wander down any of the back stairs,’ Aleksei joked. ‘It could be months before your skeleton is discovered.’
‘How very reassuring! In England we tend to keep our skeletons safely hidden away in closets.’
‘Is that where yours reside?’
For a split second, Allison wondered if The Procurer had betrayed her, but that was foolish. Aleksei was simply teasing, and a welcome relief it was too. ‘If what you say about St Petersburg is true,’ she retorted, ‘there must be a spacious skeleton closet in every home.’
‘It is de rigueur.’
‘Are yours behind this set of doors? I don’t think that we’ve been inside, though I could not swear to it.’
‘You’re right. Not a skeleton closet alas, but in fact the largest room in the palace.’
‘Then it must be vast. No one could ever accuse this place of having a homely feel.’
‘Certainly not. This is the Derevenko Palace, the residence of one of the richest families in Russia, and this room is designed to ensure that anyone who enters it is left in no doubt of that.’ Aleksei threw open the double doors with a flourish, bowing low before her. ‘Pazvol’tye mnye predstavit, Miss Galbraith,’ he said, with a theatrical bow. ‘Which means, may I present to you, Miss Galbraith, the Gala Reception Room.’
The chamber was quite empty, which made it seem even more immense. The marquetry floor was worked in a complex pattern which seemed to lead the eye to the line of tall windows at the far end of the chamber, looking out on to a huge formal garden which, Allison deduced, must be at the rear of the palace. Arched windows alternated with matching arched doorways, adding to the sense of symmetry and grandeur, with Corinthian pillars of dark-red marble set in between. The doors were worked in gilt—or what might well be gold leaf. And above, the frieze depicted a series of scenes from...
‘Homer’s Iliad,’ Aleksei told her, his gaze following hers. ‘What do you think?’
Overblown and slightly preposterous, if truth be told. ‘I think if the objective is to overwhelm the visitor then it succeeds admirably.’
Something of her distaste came through in her tone, but rather than take umbrage, Aleksei burst out laughing. ‘You don’t feel inclined to fall to your knees in obeisance, I take it.’
‘Is this what it’s used for? Is there a throne?’
‘Actually, there is, though it’s not always here, because mostly this room is used for receptions and balls. My mother had all those mirrors hung. She liked to see her reflection, she was as vain as she was beautiful.’
‘And you do resemble her,’ Allison said, recalling the portrait, ‘though I don’t think anyone would ever call you beautiful.’
‘Spaseba,’ Aleksei said. ‘I think. Shall we go?’
‘I’m sorry. It hadn’t occurred to me that this might be painful for you.’
‘Every room redolent with memories?’ Aleksei’s
smile was twisted. ‘My mother died ten years ago, and my father five years before that. As an adult, I’ve spent very little time in St Petersburg and of late, thanks to Napoleon, none.’
‘But this was your childhood home. You must have some happy memories of the palace.’
‘I remember Michael and I used to ride our wooden horses here in the winter. You have to understand, Allison, over the years, we spent very little time in one another’s company. By the time I was sent off to military school at the age of six, Michael, at ten, was already spending most of his day taking lessons in our family history, in etiquette and the traditions and rules of the court, in the running of the estates and many palaces he would one day inherit.’
‘An unfair burden on one so young.’
‘My thoughts exactly. You can have no idea,’ Aleksei said wryly, ‘how relieved I was when Elizaveta finally gave birth to a son.’
‘And will your nephew receive the same upbringing as his father?’
‘He is the Duke, it is how things are done here.’
‘Poor little Nikki.’ Allison grimaced. ‘I confess, I never thought I’d feel sorry for a duke.’
‘The boy knows no different. Most people would think him very fortunate indeed, though not I.’ He gazed around the vast space of the Gala Reception Room. When he spoke he made no attempt to disguise the sneer in his voice. ‘St Petersburg was built on vanity, and it thrives on it to this day. They say that tens of thousands of serfs and Swedish prisoners of war died building the city. Or rather whisper it behind their hands and their fans, as they do when they gossip and speculate endlessly.’
‘You really don’t approve of polite society, do you?’
‘No more than you, from what you told me last night.’
Last night. The atmosphere between them changed in an instant. Or was it her imagination? The air between them wasn’t really crackling. There was no actual cord pulling her towards him. She could easily brush away his hand as his fingers trailed lightly over her cheek. His touch was cool, that was why she shivered in response. When she reached up to mirror his action, to touch his cheek, it was a reflex, that was all.