Page 22
Eli said a few healing spells over me, and I’d been whispering them every time I’d been awake. By the next morning, though I wasn’t completely fixed, I was better enough to resume my duties with Felicia.
I hadn’t seen much of my sister. She was keeping her social schedule and only came up to our room to look me up and down, before bubbling over about dancing with this man or eating lunch or dinner with that one. And then she was gone before I could ask many questions.
Almost like she was withholding something from me.
Alice had kept me company the night before while Eli took my sister to her evening party. When Alice came into our room looking all glowy, I remembered what had been happening in Alice’s life… something much more important to her than Felicia and I almost getting blown up.
“How did the Volkovs’ visit go?” I asked. I’d said exactly the right thing because Alice actually laughed out loud.
“So well,” she said. “His mama was very… She did everything right and impressed my mother so much. My mother, you know, she’s…”
I knew. “I understand,” I said. Veronika wanted every association of her family’s to be aristocratic. So far, she’d been disappointed. Lucy had married a death grigori, Eli had married a gunnie from Texoma, and when Peter had passed away he’d been pretty fixed on Felicia.
Konstantin Volkov probably looked pretty good by comparison. His family was well-to-do and employed on the royal island. Mr. Volkov owned his own business. Though he and his son had to work for a living, it was honorable work and the tsar was his employer.
Konstantin himself was pleasant looking, well educated, and intelligent enough to appreciate Alice.
Yes, he had to look pretty good.
“Not that she doesn’t love you and Felix,” Alice said, falling all over her words in confusion.
“I know how your mother feels.”
Alice was willing to take that at face value. “Anyway,” she said, “Konstantin’s manners were perfect, and he sat by me, and said I would have to come see their house! It’s on the island!”
“Oh, that will be so interesting,” I said, almost at random. I mentally shook myself. I had to do better, for Alice’s sake. “You’ll charm them out of the trees, I know. His mother and father were very friendly.”
Alice’s hands were clenched together in her lap.
That told me how excited she was by the promise of this new connection.
She must have wondered if she would ever marry, because of her father’s traitor status.
Even with the new respectability of being Captain McMurtry’s stepdaughter, Alice hadn’t gotten out much or made many friends.
“It would be wonderful if I…” Alice began, and then stopped. She looked at me with a face I could only describe as embarrassed.
“What?” I asked. I was beginning to feel sleepy.
“Did you know,” she said, very slowly, “that there is going to be a new arrival in the family?”
“Oh, Alice, tell me you’re not pregnant,” I said, all traces of sleep leaving my body.
“I?” Alice stared at me. “How could I be? I’m not married!”
I had nothing to say to that. “Then who?”
“My mother is going to have a baby,” Alice whispered, her cheeks red.
I sat up so fast my back twinged. “Oh, that is big news,” I said, just managing to calm my voice. “She told you?”
“I heard her being sick in the morning. Leah was telling her, ‘That’ll be the way of it, from now on till the baby’s born,’ in this gloomy voice.”
We stared at each other.
“I hope the pregnancy goes well and the baby is healthy. Won’t it be nice to have a little brother or sister?”
“No,” Alice said, with a lot of conviction.
“I’m too old for that. I need to have my own husband and my own babies.
Maybe I’m a little young for marriage, but it would be very nice to be engaged and to know I was getting out of this house before Mother gets all wrapped up in another child.
I want to have my own place. Like Lucy does. ”
“Alice, you amaze me,” I told her honestly. “I won’t say anything to your mother until she decides to tell me.”
“Please don’t.” Alice suddenly sounded about twelve, rather than sixteen.
“I won’t.” I couldn’t imagine bringing it up to Veronika. Mother-in-law, I hear you’ve been having morning sickness. Anything your son should know?
When I’d miscarried, the two weeks after had been the saddest weeks of my life.
After Alice left, I had a stern talk with myself.
I would not be one of those women who begrudged happiness to other women who had babies.
I was in my very early twenties, and Eli was not yet thirty.
We had plenty of time to have a family. Many women had at least one miscarriage and went on to have healthy infants.
It was a talk I’d had with myself a score of times. But I never seemed to believe it.
Veronika was old to be having another baby.
It was dangerous to bring a child into the world when you had to be at least…
forty-four? I shuddered. Childbirth was tough enough when you were young and strong.
I’d been with Chrissie, my neighbor, for her first two deliveries.
I’d kept her company till the midwife arrived and held her hand as the babies came.
My own mother’s labor had been hard. Mom was thirty-six, and it had taken over a day for her to have Samuel.
I’d done my best to be strong and calm, but inside I’d been cringing with sympathy.
Angry about it, too. Why were women condemned to such pain?
I knew such a question was pointless, but still…
the world would be a better place if every man had to have at least one baby.
Veronika would not welcome sympathy from me, and she had the right to tell her son when she chose.
I was so jangled after all this thinking that when I got up to go to the bathroom, I stayed up.
I put a pillow on a chair and sat with my back against it, chanting the healing spell I’d learned from Eli.
Maybe I was fooling myself, but I did think I felt a little better after a hundred repetitions.
Besides the actual wound, I’d been black and blue all over.
After I got tired of chanting, I got up stiffly to go back into the bathroom. I took a sink bath and washed my hair. I had to rest for a few minutes after that.
Moving very slowly and carefully, I struggled into my undergarments and a robe. I didn’t know tonight’s schedule, so I didn’t know what kind of clothes to put on. Better if I waited until I’d eaten. Fortunately for me, Leah came up to check on me at Veronika’s behest.
Now that I knew Veronika trusted her, I gave Leah a longer look.
Leah’s hair was dark brown, and her eyebrows were ferocious.
I figured she was ten years older than me, and they hadn’t been easy years.
She was strong and sturdy, and her eyes were bright and alert.
Veronika didn’t require Leah to wear a maid’s uniform, but the pinafore that covered the front of her dress was a big clue.
“Do you have time to bring me some food? I’m trying to put off going down the stairs until tonight.”
“You got blown up,” she told me.
“I sure did.”
“Bet that was a surprise.”
“It was.”
“Who done that to you?”
“I don’t know.” I knew who had done it, but I didn’t know why.
She gave a sharp nod. “You find out then and take care of ’em.”
“That’s my plan,” I said.
“You want cheese and crackers, or a sandwich, or some little cakes?”
“All of those, and some water.”
“Coming right up.” Leah left the room. In less than ten minutes she returned with a loaded tray. She put it down on the table by my chair, gave me another sharp nod, and took her leave.
Now that I saw the food, I was really hungry. I tucked my napkin across my robe, picked up a fork, and piled in. I gave a good account of myself before I had to quit eating. Then, still sitting up, I fell asleep, to be awakened by my husband coming in to rouse me for the night’s activities.
The good times just kept on rolling.
A few hours later, I was at a dinner dance at a big hotel on the mainland.
I was wearing an evening gown of Lucy’s this time because it covered my back, which was still bandaged.
It didn’t fit too badly, and I had heard from Alice that Lucy had only worn it once.
It was modest, since Lucy had been only fifteen when she’d gotten it, and it was Nile green, according to Alice.
It had pockets, so I could carry my knives.
So far I hadn’t had to kill anyone this evening, but that hung in the balance. The woman talking to me was fraying my nerves.
She’d led by asking if I’d been at the opening reception. When I’d said I had, she’d asked if I’d seen the man being killed.
“I knew someone died, since I saw them carrying him out,” I said.
“Well, turns out he was a German named Dietrich Gruber,” she said.
She was from Philadelphia, in Britannia, but that was all I could remember. Her name had been swallowed in the noise of the dance band. Her son was at this party, she’d said.
I’d seen Katerina dancing. The girl looked pretty distracted. Irina was nowhere in sight. Nor Paul. Which was good, for them. I wondered where they were. I wondered very much.
“A German,” I repeated.
“Yes, but not Listed this year,” the woman chattered on. “He was a general escort for the German group.” Who was she? Suddenly it seemed more important I should remember.
“I’m sorry, I missed your name,” I said, as politely as I could.
She laughed. “I’m Penny Featherstone. I’m here with my son, Jason.” She pointed at a tall, gawky fellow in his late teens. He was dressed very well, but that didn’t disguise his rounded shoulders and narrow chest.
“It’s his first Wizards’ Ball season?”
“No, his second,” she admitted. That meant he was older than he looked. “Jason is a wonderful, kind son, but he’s a bit shy. Who is your horse in this race?”
That was an honest way to put it. “My sister,” I said. “Felicia Karkarova Dominguez.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22 (Reading here)
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41